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Jesus is the mighty god, but not the Almighty God, says the Watchtower Society or Jehovah’s Witnesses
According to the Watchtower Society or “Jehovah’s Witnesses,” “Jesus is the mighty god, but not the Almighty God!” This is their explanation for Isaiah 9:6:
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
There is a severe problem with their explanation of this passage–namely, that every other text with the Hebrew translated as “mighty God” (Hebrew ‘el gibbor) says that Jehovah is the Mighty God. The complete list of texts in Hebrew where “the mighty God” is found are as follows:
Deut. 10:17 For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:
Is. 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Is. 10:21 The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God.
Jer. 32:18 Thou shewest lovingkindness unto thousands, and recompensest the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them: the Great, the Mighty God, the LORD of hosts, is his name,
Neh. 9:32 Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble seem little before thee, that hath come upon us, on our kings, on our princes, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all thy people, since the time of the kings of Assyria unto this day.
So in Deuteronomy Jehovah is ‘el gibbor, “the mighty God.” In Isaiah 10:21–just one chapter after Isaiah 9:6–Jehovah is the Mighty God. In Jeremiah 32:18 Jehovah of hosts is the mighty God. In Nehemiah 9:32 Jehovah is the mighty God.
So is the mighty God in Isaiah 9:6 some sort of quasi-deity, a less-than Jehovah true god, as the Watchtower teaches, advocating a hierarchical form of polytheism? Or is ‘el gibbor a title for Jehovah–the Mighty God? The answer is obvious, but people in the Watchtower do not know it, because they do not know how to study the Bible. Even their leaders who give “talks” can have never done a word study in their lives. “Bible study” for them is reading the Bible in light of the Watchtower magazine and their website, not actually studying the Bible on its own terms.
Should we be surprised that the Watchtower admits that people who start studying the Bible on their own reject their cult and become Trinitarians?
“From time to time, there have arisen from among the ranks of Jehovah’s people those, who, like the original Satan, have adopted an independent, faultfinding attitude. … They say that it is sufficient to read the Bible exclusively, either alone or in small groups at home. But, strangely, through such ‘Bible reading,’ they have reverted right back to the apostate doctrines that commentaries by Christendom’s clergy were teaching 100 years ago[.]” (The Watchtower, Aug. 15, 1981, pgs. 28-29)
Learn more by reading Are You Worshipping Jehovah? here.
–TR
Free Psalm Singing Resources
In the section on ecclesiology on my website, I have a number of resources discussing psalm-singing. I hope you are in a church that obeys the command to “sing psalms” (James 5:13; Ephesians 5:18ff.) and that you also obey this command in your personal life and in your family worship. If you are in a position of church leadership, and you are not obeying God’s command to sing to Him the inspired psalms, why not start–now?
Crown and Covenant publishes conservative psalm-singing recordings. The large majority (but not all) of them are Biblically acceptable in their musical style. You can now stream the large majority of their music for free–for example, you can listen to them on YouTube here. It is a blessing to have these high-quality audio productions available for free.
Being glad for their psalm-singing is not an endorsement of their unscriptural Presbyterian theology.
–TR
“Q,” the Son of Man, and Christ’s Deity
The alleged document “Q,” according to critical or anti-supernaturalist scholars, underlies the New Testament Gospels. As explained in my study on the New Testament and archaeology, there is no reason to believe that “Q” ever existed. However, even if one granted, for the sake of argument, that “Q” did exist, it still provides evidence that Christ is Divine, for the Lord Jesus clearly identifies Himself as the Son of Man.In Daniel 7:13-14; the “service” the Son of Man receives is that which pertains only to Jehovah [see the other Biblical references to the Aramaic word pᵉlaḥ in: Daniel 3:12, 14, 17–18, 28; 6:16, 20; 7:14, 27; Ezra 7:24; the word means to “pay reverence to, serve (deity),” (Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs, Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977]) and is translated in the LXX as latreuo, the word for the service/worship of God]). Thus, when Christ claims to be the Son of Man, He is claiming a Divine title.According to the skeptical, anti-supernaturalist criteria for evaluating the authenticity of Christ’s sayings about Himself known as the principle of dissimilarity, sayings of Jesus are recognized by skeptical scholars as authentic when they disagree with what early Christianity taught and what the Judaism of the time taught. In other words, the Christians were not making up sayings of Jesus and putting them into His mouth if they themselves did not employ them. This is a foolish skeptical criterion, for the likelihood that the Christians would teach what Christ had taught them and so there would be tremendous overlap is only natural. However, if one accepts this criterion as true for the sake of argument, the “Son of Man” sayings by the Lord Jesus pass it. Skeptical scholars recognize that Jesus’ “Son of Man” sayings are attested to by multiple sources. As Gary Habermas points out, even though “Son of Man” is Jesus’ favorite self‐designation in the Gospels, none of the New Testament epistles attribute this title to Jesus even a single time. So skeptical scholars, using their own critera, should accept the legitimacy of the Son of Man sayings in the Gospels.The real Jesus of history is a supernatural one who claims He is God in the flesh, the Divine-human Son of Man predicted by Daniel the prophet. A “Jesus” who was just a good teacher is entirely absent from the pages of history. Thus, my question in my debate with Shabir Ally on the accuracy of the New Testament picture of Jesus (on YouTube here):If, for the sake of argument, I granted that “Q” existed, does not the fact that “Q” still specifies a Jesus who has the attributes of God (Q 10:22 cf. Matthew 11:27; Luke 10:22), gives the Holy Spirit Divine status (Q 12:10; cf. Matthew 12:31; Mark 3:28-29; Luke 12:10), and who is the Divine Son of Man who shares Jehovah’s throne, glory, and worship[1] (Q 6:22-23; 7:34; 9:58; 11:30; 12:8-10; 17:22-23; cf. Matthew 8:20; 9:6; 10:23; 11:19; 12:8, 32, 40; 13:37, 41; 16:13, 27–28; 17:9, 12, 22; 18:11; 19:28; 20:18, 28; 24:27, 30, 37, 39, 44; 25:13, 31; 26:2, 24, 45, 64; Mark 2:10, 28; 8:31, 38; 9:9, 12, 31; 10:33, 45; 13:26, 34; 14:21, 41, 62; Luke 5:24; 6:5; 7:34; 9:22, 26, 44, 56, 58; 11:30; 12:8, 10, 40; 17:22, 24, 26, 30; 18:8, 31; 19:10; 21:27, 36; 22:22, 48, 69; 24:7; John 1:51; 3:13–14; 5:27; 6:27, 53, 62; 8:28; 12:23, 34; 13:31; Acts 7:56; Hebrews 2:6; Revelation 1:13; 14:14) show how impossible it is to reduce the Lord Jesus to the mere prophet or teacher affirmed in Islam and secular humanism, since even in the anti-supernaturalist myth “Q” Christ still is the God-Man?–TR
Four Thousand Praised the LORD with the Instruments Which I Made
In the midst of a variated list, 1 Chronicles 23:5 reads:
Moreover four thousand were porters; and four thousand praised the LORD with the instruments which I made, said David, to praise therewith.
1 Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power. 2 Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness. 3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp. 4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs. 5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. 6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.
Psalm 33:2, Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings.Psalm 92:3, Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound.Psalm 98:6, With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the LORD, the King.Psalm 144:9, I will sing a new song unto thee, O God: upon a psaltery and an instrument of ten strings will I sing praises unto thee.
For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?
And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.
And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps.
How Does Natural Law Work in and for Evangelism of the Lost?
Romans 1:18-21 read:
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
I’m assuming a lot of you readers know these verses. According to them though, based on what people know, they will be judged rightly by God, because what they know means that they are without excuse. At the same time, people are not going to experience the wrath of God’s judgment because of ignoring information, but because of ignoring law. When they knew God, they didn’t glorify Him as God and were not thankful unto Him. Glorifying God as God is represented by various prescriptions, which are laws. This knowledge isn’t a mere bunch of facts. Bare acknowledgement of God’s existence isn’t sufficient to avoid the wrath of God. The judgment and wrath of God is justice for disobeying natural law.
Natural law relates to the theological terminology, general revelation. “General” is general in audience, that is, everyone knows it, so everyone is responsible for these laws. Knowing God and glorifying Him as God in Romans 1 means knowing these laws to the extent that someone is responsible for obeying them. They relate to the revelation of God, so according to His nature. No one has an excuse for not knowing these. They’re natural to know. All men are responsible for them.
In my assessment, the natural laws are those most denied, and against which men are most rebellious. On the other hand, men like what they consider to be their natural rights, like what Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence mentions at the beginning:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
He uses the language, “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” “truths to be self-evident,” and “endowed by their Creator.” Natural laws are self-evident truths.
Men know natural laws. They’re natural to them, so to deny them, they are at their most rebellious. The Apostle Paul talks about some of them later in chapter 1. They rebel against God’s natural order, because it clashes with what they want. It’s natural that the woman is the weaker vessel, and women very often don’t want to hear that. The natural order of two parents and children obeying their parents is repulsive to children.
When people think of the Declaration, they especially think, “all men are created equal.” They focus on the word, “equal.” Most often, however, I’ve noticed that they ignore the first four words, “all men are created.” It is self-evident that “all men are created.” Equal, yes, but it is self-evident that man is created by God. To Jefferson, creation of man carried with it more than sheer existence. With God as Creator, He s also Lawgiver and then Judge.
I’ve found when evangelizing lost people that they will still act like they don’t know certain things. Since Romans 1 says they really do know, I assume they do. This is presuppositionalism. I presuppose people know what is natural to know. Many of those things people say they don’t know, they rely on for enjoying their lives, which is why Jefferson uses “Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness.” People like those things and yet they act as though they’ve somehow received them by accident. This is the part in Romans 1:19, “who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” As many of you know, it means they suppress the truth. The way I put it is that the problem is not intellectual, but volitional.
Romans 1:18-22 assure what is already known by everyone. I’m saying, you know that everyone knows what Romans 1:18-22 say because those verses say they do. People can act like they don’t know, but you know that they do, so that you don’t believe that they don’t know. God says they do know, so they do know.
If someone is suppressing the truth, that means he knows and he is rebelling against what he knows. In evangelism, you expose the lost on his rebellion. How do you do that?
When I encounter someone who says he is a scientist, a professing atheist, too uncertain, or just not sure because he says he’s not gotten enough proof, I rely on natural law. I refer to a number of different examples. “When you look out there at the vast and intricate world, does that look like it all came about by accident?”
I haven’t found anyone who likes to be characterized as thinking or believing that everything came about by accident, but if this world isn’t an accident, then it is design. People know this is design. Scripture says, according to the way I like to put it, that they don’t want to have a boss. The Designer would be their Boss. They like having their own way, which you can read in the rest of Romans 1 and in 2 Peter. 2 Peter 3 says these scoffers are walking after their own lust.
I continue. “Everything out there is so complex. So many occurrences have to be going right at one time, that it is mathematically impossible to be an accident. It looks like design. Four or five hundred different circumstances need to be going right for us to even survive. If just one of those hundreds does not go exactly right, we couldn’t survive. This can’t be an accident. The human body itself is so complicated, the human eye, speech, the operation of the brain, the circulatory system, our heart beat, so many that have to be functioning in just a certain way at one time. And that’s just to survive.”
Romans 1:21 says, “Neither were thankful.” “So we breathe God’s air, eat the food that comes from a seed growing from the ground, enjoy all of the good things all around on this earth, use all of that, and then just ignore Him.” This is when you can turn to scripture to point rebellion out. “Romans 1 says that everyone already knows all this and rather than worship and serve the Creator, they serve the creature. It describes this as not being thankful, being unwilling to give the credit to God, because that acknowledgement would carry with it responsibility. Next chapter, Romans 2, says the goodness of God leads us to repentance.”
The statement of what people know, natural law, aligns with what is written by God in men’s hearts as a default position (Romans 2:15). Pointing out natural law strikes a cord in men’s hearts, their conscience then also bearing witness (v. 15). They feel guilty because of their ungratefulness.
Then I may say, “What we see occurring out in the world also aligns with the Bible. The history of the world reflects what we see there. There is a God, we are here because of Him, He has put us here for a particular purpose, we are responsible to Him, and we are going to meet Him someday. This is what the gospel is about. God is just, but He also loves us, and the good news is that He wants us to save us. However, we really do need to be saved.”
Since the problem is not an intellectual one, the solution is supernatural. The volition, the will of a person, must be dealt with scripture. The Bible is powerful (Hebrews 4:12) and a spiritual weapon to pull down the strongholds in people’s minds (2 Corinthians 10:4).
The approach I’m giving you is biblical. It’s what the Apostle Paul did in Acts 17. It doesn’t mean that it will result in your audience either listening or being converted, but it gives people an opportunity, which is what you want. It might be too late for most. You don’t know. More than ever, we’re living in an age in which natural law is a necessity in an evangelism approach.
Questioning Christianity Because Of What One Sees Occurring In the World or From People Who Call Themselves Christians
My Christianity isn’t tethered to what other people are doing or have done. Christianity is the truth. If I were one of eight remaining believers on earth, it would still be true. I don’t doubt it when people don’t live it. I feel sorry for them, but they haven’t affected what I think about Christianity itself. My Christianity is tethered to the Bible, God’s Word.
I’m writing about this, because of an article in Newsweek that came out on Tuesday this week, written by Issac Bailey, “I’m Struggling with My Christianity After Trump.” Something with that title in a major publication would be a head scratcher, except that most “Christianity” today and probably for most of history isn’t and hasn’t been actual Christianity. No one should be surprised about counterfeit Christianity. Bailey says he got his doubts about Christianity itself from the reality that professing Christians voted for Trump. I’ve heard other people say this.
According to scripture, anyone who leaves actual Christianity was never saved in the first place. Nowhere says a true Christian can lose his salvation. He can’t leave it, because he’s kept by the power of God (1 Peter 1:5). A believer cooperates with what God does in saving him, but it is God who keeps him saved. Scripture is clear on this. Many passages teach the eternal security of a believer, but two verses are definitive on the point that, if a professing believer defects, he was never saved in the first place: first, 1 John 2:19.
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
Second, 1 John 3:6.
Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.
Read both verses. The first one says that when someone does not continue, he never had salvation in the first place, that is, he was “not of us,” said twice in the verse. If he was “of us,” he would “no doubt have continued with us.” No doubt. The second verse says that a person who sins as a lifestyle, as seen in the present tense, “sinneth,” “hath not seen him, neither known him,” that is, a person who takes on a lifestyle of sin never saw or knew Christ in the first place. A true Christian can’t walk away from Christ. As Jesus said in John 10:28-29, no man, including himself, can pluck a true believer out of either Jesus’ or His Father’s hand.
If you read the Bailey article, you can see he doesn’t have biblical Christianity. I’m not saying that to be unnecessarily offensive or condemnatory. People call themselves Christians, who are not, because there are many various forms of popular “Christianity” in the world. That could be a whole separate article, all the different types, that aren’t Christianity. They are fraudulent perversions of the real thing. There is more false Christianity by far than there is true Christianity.
Most Christian denominations don’t even preach a true gospel. You should know that. They are preaching a false gospel. Most professing Christians to whom I talk don’t even know the gospel. I repeat, they don’t know it. Churches are not clear on the gospel. Even the ones who might believe a true gospel are more concerned about having a bigger congregation and so they do more to pander to people than tell them what they need to hear. There has been a cumulative and comprehensive erosion of the gospel in the United States for awhile and for a number of reasons.
In the first paragraph, Bailey says his “faith is in tatters.” Before I provide an assessment of what he says in his article, I have an opinion about what he’s doing. I don’t think he’s going to leave his spurious version of Christianity. He’s threatening to leave it like a child threatens to hold his breath until he dies if his parents don’t give him what he wants. True Christians are concerned that their testimony could result in defections from the faith. Jesus said at the beginning of Matthew 18 that it would be better to put a millstone around your neck and jump into deep water than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.
Bailey is saying that Christians are sending him into apostasy because of their vote for Trump. This is meant to strike fear into Christians, so that they at the least become non-political or disengaged from political action. Bailey will keep supporting actual murderers greater than any holocaust in the history of the world, the same people who booed God at their party convention, but a vote for Trump will send him off the deep end. He’s already off the deep end. His party is the party against divine design of the family, which is the most rudimentary and rebellious form of opposition to God in existence.
The people Bailey addresses specifically are the pro-life supporting Christians, implying that there are non-pro-life Christians. You can be a Christian, a true one, and not be pro-life. There is only pro-life Christianity. Everything else is an impostor. Sure, it might take a new Christian some time to get up to speed on this point, but he will get there, because he is indwelt by God the Holy Spirit, if he is really saved.
Many of the Trump voters, who claim to be Christians, are not. They do have a different Jesus. That includes some, if not all, of the people in the picture posted in Bailey’s article. As a matter of religious or theological comparison though, these pseudo Christians have a lot in common with the type of Christianity Bailey represents. They both have a novel fabrication or improvisation of Christianity, that is very loose with scripture. They put more authority in their own experience than the Bible, relying more on allegorization than exegesis.
For all of Trump’s many flaws, in a political way he represented to a lot of Americans and most true Christians, a last opportunity to save the federal government from a trajectory of progressive, oligarchical totalitarianism and globalism. Of course, that’s just a conspiracy theory, wink wink. There is no new world order planned for the future of the United States with no borders and the eradication of Americanism. Christians would like to keep their freedoms, freedom of religion and of speech. They would like to stop the present course of the elimination the nuclear family, something basic like a father and mother of opposite sex with the authority to raise their own children. The support of vouchers for education is about the freedom to educate their children in Christian values away from the humanistic, pseudo-science of gender fluidity.
It is not accident that today you hear the left use words like “cult” and “worship” as it relates to Trump. I’m sure they’re seen as effective propaganda. No Christian wants to be seen or known for being in a cult or worshiping a man. Bailey among many others uses this terminology. I don’t know anyone who follows Trump, let alone worships him. I understood why Christians would attend the rally on January 6. I know some people who were there and none of them knew anything about breaking into the capitol building to stop the counting of the electoral votes. I’ve explained this in previous posts, but they see both their voice and their vote being taken away. It’s obvious to them that a two tiered justice system already exists, where a true Christian can be prosecuted for not baking a cake for a same sex wedding and yet left wing anarchists can take over a large area of an American city without opposition. The mainstream of the media applauds it, likes it, has no problem with a Trump voter bleeding in the street.
Much of what Bailey wrote just isn’t true and other parts are misrepresentations, slanted in a dishonest way. He might just be deceived, but I believe he knows what he’s doing.
- True Christians don’t pray to Jesus. They pray to God the Father like Jesus taught.
- The group filmed “praying” in the front of the Senate chamber, it’s obvious, don’t represent biblical Christianity.
- True Christianity isn’t white or black, as in “white church” or “black church,” as Bailey represents it.
- All the things that Franklin Graham said about Trump are true. Graham doesn’t represent biblical Christianity, but I understand why a Christian would appreciate the list of accomplishments he mentions.
Look at the Trump years, 2017-2020, compared to the previous ones. This belies what Bailey writes, his assuming, it seems, that no one would fact check him, if it even mattered. Despite Bailey’s twisting of the meaning of pro-life, nevertheless, more civilians were killed in Iraq in 2014 during the Obama presidency than during the entire four years of the Trump presidency.
- Bailey blames Trump for the murders at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. No president has been more pro-Israel than Trump. Israel says this. There were fourteen mass shootings during the Obama years. It’s sheer political opportunism to blame mass shootings on a president. Was Trump also to blame for the 2017 Las Vegas shooting at a country western concert? Those were mainly Trump deplorables getting gunned down.
- Another argument Bailey makes is that abortion rates go down during Democratic presidencies, because of government programs. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were higher unintended pregnancies when Democrats are president, because of greater support for contraception, most of which is abortifacient. Those aren’t called murders, but they are. Since 1965 over 11 million have been murdered by abortifacients, that don’t show up as abortions. That would be a good explanation for lower abortion rates too.
Pro-life people, of course, want to end all abortion, so the rate would decrease to nothing if they had their way. Instead, with the support of Bailey, almost 70 million have been murdered in the United States, which would be enough to cause a Christian to defect, except that’s impossible for a true Christian. True Christians are happy about slowing down the abortion rate. They don’t, however, support contraception as a way of getting there. A true Christian opposes fornication and all sexual sin that results in an unintended pregnancy. For a biblical Christian, an unintended pregnancy is by definition one outside of marriage. If Bailey is a Christian, he should support the biblical position, which is abstinence. That would also end the AIDS epidemic.
- Insurrection occurred all summer with BLM and Antifa, doing far more damage and causing far more death than the capitol “riot.” Is that justified to Bailey, because he agrees with socialism and actual fascism? When you see the picture of unarmed crazies in costumes, a truly thinking person doesn’t see the comparison. One of the five “killed,” used as a statistic by the left, was an unarmed woman, who threatened no one with violence. Where is the outcry? Three Trump supporters died of natural causes. The one police death has hardly been covered. What happened there? Why isn’t there more coverage of his death? Not his funeral, not the way he’s been used politically, but what actually happened to him?
Bailey says that 60% of white Catholic voters voted for Trump, implying that Catholics are Christian. He lumps them with evangelicals who supported Trump. This is the most tell-tale evidence that he doesn’t understand biblical Christianity. He is pro-abortion. He is against the death penalty for murder. If you are a Christian, you support what God supports. You believe the Bible. Bailey does not.
The crucial aspect for a lasting faith, which is actually a saving faith, is the object of that faith. My faith doesn’t stand in men. The object of faith is Jesus Christ Himself, and He never fails. I believe the Bible. My faith comes by the Word of God. 1 John 5:4-5 say:
4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. 5 Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
My faith has found a resting place,Not in device nor creed;I trust the Ever-living One,His wounds for me shall plead.I need no other argument,I need no other plea;It is enough that Jesus died,And that He died for me.Enough for me that Jesus saves,This ends my fear and doubt;A sinful soul I come to Him,He’ll never cast me out.My heart is leaning on the Word,The written Word of God,Salvation by my Savior’s name,Salvation through His blood.My great Physician heals the sick,The lost He came to save;For me His precious blood He shed,For me His life He gave.
Reason for So-Called “Genocide,” God’s Commanding Israel to Utterly Destroy Canaanites: Separation unto Godliness
In a short debate I posted a few days ago, the late Christopher Hitchens attacks God, the Old Testament, and Christianity by saying, “There is no commandment saying that parents are to be nice to their children. Why is this? Because in the next chapter, the so-called children of this terrifying God, who exacts compulsory love, are going to be ordered to commit genocide against the Amalekites and the Midianites and the Moabites.”
A few errors stuck out in Hitchens’s statement. I’m going to skip his part about being nice to children, because that’s not the point of my post, so, one, God did not order this judgment in the very next chapter after the ten commandments, either Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5. Two, He didn’t order the annihilation of any of those three groups in either Exodus or Deuteronomy, where He gives the ten commandments. God ordered the protection of the Moabites, who were not in the land of Canaan. In Deuteronomy 2:9, God said, “Distress not the Moabites, neither contend with them in battle.” Hitchens was doing what might be called, blowing smoke. That can be seen in a lot of what he says that doesn’t correspond to the Bible. He’s making it up and then counting on people not knowing what scripture says.
Genocide is a loaded word. Men came along to originate the word and the concept. There is an ethnic or racial component in the invention of the word. The idea is that a particular race deserved annihilation, complete eradication, as when the Nazis committed genocide against the Jews, just because they were Jews. Genocide necessitates a racial or ethnic component. Hitchens applies this man-made word to God to position God under the judgment of man, as if God is a criminal under the trial of utterly sinful men such as Hitchens. While Hitchens breathes God’s air and eats His food and exists only by God’s power, He uses those gifts to insult and blaspheme God. He’s not the only one. Billions do the same every day.
If you read the Old Testament, the reasoning behind the destruction of the Canaanites was not because of their race. God doesn’t have a problem with any race. Race isn’t even a thing in scripture. God saved and blessed Rahab. He saved and blessed Ruth. He exalted the Queen of Sheba. God ordered Jonah to Nineveh to preach repentance to the Assyrians, because He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11).
God’s destruction was because of unrepentant behavior. God also has unique knowledge. He knows whether a particular people are even redeemable, even as seen in His own destruction of everyone on earth between Genesis 6 and 9 with a worldwide flood.
Everyone is going to die, based upon the righteous judgment of God. When people die can relate to what they believe and practice. They may die earlier. If they are not going to stop believing and practicing a certain way, based on God’s purpose, He will penalize them with the death earlier than what they could have died. This all relates to the purpose of God’s creation. He is God. God didn’t have to create men in the first place. He gives men an opportunity for eternal life and blessing, despite man’s rebellion against God. Hitchens wouldn’t do the same, if he were God.
The purpose of the eradication of certain groups by God, different than their punishment, according to God is because of their influence on His people. He wants His people committed to the same belief and practice He is committed to, and this is seen in Israel’s participation in the destruction of those people. God’s people should associate with Him in judgment.
God will destroy people to fulfill His purpose. We live in a society today that tolerates what God is against, and what’s worse to almost all of them, especially the young people, is when someone is rejected or punished for believing and doing something different than what God says. It’s the worst sort of self-righteousness, exalting itself above God. It’s what Paul says in Romans 10:1-3, when he says they establish their own righteousness and do not submit themselves to the righteousness of God.
Consider God’s reasoning in Deuteronomy 7:2-4:
2 And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: 3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. 4 For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.
Then read how God puts it later in Deuteronomy 20:16-18:
16 But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: 17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee: 18 That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God.
It’s worth it for God to have these people killed so that they will not be a bad influence on His people. It is the ultimate in separation. That is how serious God is about His people doing what He has taught them to do.
God is so serious about separation, that we know that one reason He killed everyone on earth with a flood was to separate them from Noah and his family. That was what Peter meant by “saved by water” (1 Peter 3:20). Noah and his family were saved from the world. Eternal life itself is being saved from this present world, a world of sin. Jesus expressed the same in His upper room discourse in John 14-16 and then in His high priestly prayer to His Father in John 17. If any one loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him (1 John 2:15-17).
People are not as serious at staying away from the influences of this world as God is. People are more serious about adding 30-50 years to this earthly life, years spent walking after lust and serving themselves. They think God should be fine with that, because everything is poured into their little lives, their little kingdoms. They think they’re so important. They can’t leave their lives of lust early, so God would be wrong to cut them short. They judge God to be wrong in this. He must let them live. So.
Let’s say that God allows people to live out their lives in a seemingly ordinary way. People die at various ages of different maladies or crimes or diseases. They reach an average age of 70 to 80. They worship idols. They take on devout atheism. Some give themselves to a religion of their choice, not the truth. Now they die when they would have died of mostly natural causes. Would this satisfy Christopher Hitchens and those who agree with him? Their god would still need to knuckle under their demands from them under their judgment. It wouldn’t change anything, because actual God won’t. He shouldn’t. He is one hundred percent just.
God sees a separating death from a different perspective. His desire is holiness. He created man in His image. His purpose was a life characterized according to Him, which is a better life and the life God intends for man.
Still today, it doesn’t surprise me that an entire nation or group of people could have alienated themselves from God without exception. Their coexistence with the offspring of the righteous does and will ruin many, and after several generations turn them into the unrighteous. Scripture and history evinces this. God’s Word warns about it. It is so sure that it is axiomatic. It is of the quality of a natural law, it is so self-evident.
Separation is required to keep a people holy and in the will of God. Everyone should assume that without the intervention of God’s grace, the human race would eliminate itself. Only God’s grace keeps men from such evil that they would kill themselves off without the aid of God’s commandment of His people to cooperate with Him in doing it.
My wife and I visited historic Williamsburg, the capital of colonial Virginia. Next to the jail was a hill with a gallows for execution of thieves, adulterers, and murderers. The point of such a public showing was to deter these practices. More people overall would live and with a better life for all if such activities were threatened. It also eliminated bad influences. Criminals produce more criminals. Toleration of ungodly behavior will result in more of it. Toleration supports the bad behavior.
In the age in which we live, God still requires separation. Every New Testament book teaches it. To preserve a godly group or culture, it must separate from the ungodly.
Leviticus 10:8-11 and Its Conformity to the Two Wine View
It’s obvious in scripture that some wine is permissible to drink and other is not. This relates to alcohol. Scripture prohibits alcohol (Proverbs 23:29-35). However, all wine and strong drink is prohibited to the priesthood in the performance of their duties. I’m reading through the Bible twice this year and moving through it the first time, I arrived at Leviticus 10:8-11 earlier this week:
8 And the LORD spake unto Aaron, saying, 9 Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations: 10 And that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean; 11 And that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the LORD hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses.
It was so important for Aaron and his sons not to be under the influence of alcohol that they were to take extra precautions by refraining from any wine or strong drink. What does drinking any alcohol do? If they were to be drinking alcohol of any amount, it would threaten their ability to do their job as a priest.
The drinking of alcohol could result in the execution of the priest by God like Nadab and Abihu were killed by God earlier in the chapter. God commands Aaron and his sons not to drink wine or strong drink, so that they would not be punished with death by God Himself. Leon Hyatt writes in his commentary on Leviticus:
Obeying this command would assure that they would not die for performing their duties incorrectly, but that assurance definitely implies that they would die if they disobeyed the command. The same stern penalty would result from disobedience to this command as from any other deviation from the instructions of Jehovah to the priests.
Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness!
Nothing has more power to blur the sharpness of moral and religious insight than even a small amount of alcohol. God must be worshipped with clear brain and naturally beating heart. Not the fumes of wine, in which there lurks almost necessarily the tendency to ‘excess,’ but the being ‘filled with the Spirit’ supplies the only legitimate stimulus to devotion. Besides the personal reason for abstinence, there was another,-namely, that only so could the priests teach the people ‘the statutes’ of Jehovah. Lips stained from the wine-cup would not be fit to speak holy words. Words spoken by such would carry no power. God’s servants can never impress on the sluggish conscience of society their solemn messages from God, unless they are conspicuously free from self-indulgence, and show by their example the gulf, wide as between heaven and hell, which parts cleanness from uncleanness. Our lives must witness to the eternal distinction between good and evil, if we are to draw men to ‘abhor that which is evil, and cleave to that which is good.’
Tremendous Questions from God for Every Millennial to Read in Genesis 4 and the Example of Cain
Both Cain and Abel were religious people. We can read in Genesis 4 that they both even worshiped the same God. Cain was a monotheist. I think I can safely speculate in saying that Adam and Eve talked and talked and talked ad infinitum, ad nauseum, about sin and the fall, warning after warning after warning, so that they would be given thorough, sufficient knowledge of God, Who He was and His expectations for them.
Cain could and probably would put on his instagram feed, “God follower.” Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:21-23, the now familiar words:
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
“I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” 1 John 3 says that the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest by whether they do the righteousness of God, and in 1 John 3, Cain did not love his brother. He killed him, why? Verse 12, “Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” It’s not him that saith, Lord, Lord. Cain could say, Lord, Lord, as well as almost anyone, but he did not do the will of Jesus’ Father. Someone, who isn’t following Christ, isn’t a “Christ follower,” when He doesn’t do the will of the Father. Jesus did the will of the Father in every single instance, so if someone is following Christ, He is also following the Father.
Cain and Abel both brought offerings for God. However, God judged both of them and their offerings and He rejected one and received the other. God doesn’t accept all worship or every worshiper. Hebrews 11:4 comments: “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts.”
Abel’s sacrifice was more excellent than Cain’s. Righteous people give God as a lifestyle what He wants. The “gifts” of Abel were these sacrifices that He gave God, according to what God said.
What was wrong with Cain’s? Many would say that Cain’s was the religion of human achievement, a salvation by works. No passage specifically says that, even though I wouldn’t argue with it. It makes sense. However, we have enough by just saying what the text says.
Abel brought the firstlings of his flock, and or even the fat, meaning that it was the first and the best of what he had. That’s what it says. Cain also brought God the fruits of the ground “in process of time” (Gen 4:3). Easily one could contrast “firstlings” with “process of time.” It took time before Cain came with his offering for the crops to be finished with the process. God waited on Cain rather than Cain waiting on God. Verse 4 says “the LORD had respect unto Abel and his offering.” The LORD respected both the worshiper and his offering. Then in verse 5, “unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.”
There is no doubt that God was for both Cain and Abel. The problem was that Cain was not for God. God wasn’t a hostage for Cain, but bear with me, because like with many apostates, and Cain represents all apostates, he attempted to hold God hostage. I’m not saying anyone can hold God hostage, but they try to, like children do so with their parents. Cain was going to believe and act like he wanted, and God was expected to accept his belief and behavior. When God did not, Cain was angry with Him, not with himself, and then pouting over it (verse 5). People are self-deceived into thinking that if they behave down in the dumps or crest-fallen, they can get what they want.
The modern counterfeit alternative to the truth of God’s disrespecting an offering is that God, contradicting Genesis 4, instead accepts offerings as a matter of His grace. He “redeems” the offering. He takes the offering the false worshiper wants to bring and He turns it by His grace into an acceptable offering. There is no biblical basis for this view of redemption. It is a lie. It is deception in the category of Satan telling Eve, “Ye shall not surely die” (Gen 3:4). What God does when He really redeems is turn a repentant false worshiper into a true one, who then brings God what God wants, not what he wants anymore.
God doesn’t receive worship with this above corrupted view of redemption. People may be saying God is being worshiped, but He isn’t getting what He wants. With this perverted notion, it doesn’t even matter if He gets what He wants, because anything He doesn’t want will be said to be accepted, because He redeemed it. The point of worship is lost, just so the unredeemed Cain figure can be respected like he wants, even though that’s not even true either.
In Genesis 4:6-7, “the LORD” asked Cain:
Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?
Three questions. All three are rhetorical.
The first two questions would require a longer answer, but they are rhetorical, because the answer is obvious. The last question has the answer of a simple, “Yes.”
God uses questions a lot in the Bible. Jesus used them much, as recorded in the gospels. They are powerful, but to the wrong person, they can also be infuriating. In the next verse (v. 8), Cain murders his brother, Abel.
Cain was angry. Then God asked those three questions and Cain was even more angry.
Cain wasn’t being respected by God. He wanted acceptance from God and he wasn’t getting that. God was willing to respect Cain. He was willing to accept him. If he had only done well. He didn’t.
God did right in not respecting or accepting Cain. It wasn’t God’s fault that Cain was angry or his countenance was fallen. When someone doesn’t do well, or how we would say it today, when he hasn’t done good or he has done something bad, he shouldn’t be respected or accepted for that. These are basics in life still.
If behavior is rewarded it will recur. Bad behavior if respected or accepted will recur. Cain should have answered in his head, “I’m wroth because I’m not being accepted or respected for doing something bad or not doing something good.” Then, “My countenance is fallen (I’m moping) because I’m not being accepted or respected for doing something bad or not doing something good.” And then last, “Yes, I would have been accepted if I had done well or not done bad, by bringing an acceptable or respectable offering.”
Much of the anger in the streets is over a lack of respect or acceptance. In between the anger is discouragement or depression accompanied by alcohol and other “self-medication.” Young people are seeking for respect and acceptance and they’re not getting what they want, what they think they deserve, so in various ways they damage, afflict, hurt, strike, and destroy.
What young people need to know is that they have the respect and acceptance of God if they do well. That starts by believing like Abel did. Abel got respect by faith. He was accepted by faith. Cain wanted to do what he wanted and also be respected and accepted, but it really doesn’t work that way, at least not with God. It really shouldn’t work that way either, because it is bad for an individual and for all of society when it does.
God’s Son, Jesus Christ, got acceptance from the Father. He gave Him a name which was above every name. He said, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased.
Someone can get angry and down and depressed until he gets the respect and acceptance he thinks he deserves. Maybe he or she will get it. It won’t be good if he or she does. It will just result in more bad behavior. God wants to accept you. He wants to receive you. He wants to respect you. God is good.
What Cain deserved for killing his brother was death. God was merciful to Cain, but still, Cain said (verse 13): “My punishment is greater than I can bear.” Still thinking about himself. Cain’s focus was on himself. His respect. His acceptance. It should have been, am I doing what God wants me to do? That’s the way to true acceptance and true respect.
God’s three questions continue to be three really good questions to ask.
The Ugliness That Is The New Beauty and In Stark Contrast to the True Beauty of the Throne Room of God
One could call the throne room of God the operations center for all the universe. It is also a model or paradigm for man for beauty, truth, and goodness. Hebrews calls it the “true tabernacle” (Hebrews 8:2), an example for the earthly one (Hebrews 8:2). Just like man was made in the image of God or in His likeness, the earthly tabernacle mimicked the heavenly tabernacle as seen in Hebrews 8-9.
The throne room of God is visited or mentioned several times in the Bible and it is where the special presence of God is. Since beauty is the glory of God or the beauty of His holiness, then the throne room of God is a template for an understanding of beauty.
The beauty is the coherent wholeness of the throne room, the composition or symphony of all of the parts, but also the individual aspects making up that whole. God is beautiful, which is to say that His holiness, majesty, and glory are beautiful. However, as beauty relates to the aesthetic of God’s holiness, it is the order, symmetry, proportion, brilliance, harmony, arrangement, splendor, accuracy, and completeness of it. These qualities are beautiful and then beauty is found in the imitation of these qualities.
Objective beauty is that the object is beautiful in itself. It isn’t based upon the perspective of the subject either seeing, hearing, or experiencing the qualities of it. It doesn’t matter what you feel. It is beautiful if you never existed. God’s throne room existed before man existed. Beauty existed before man could have a perspective, a like or a dislike.
When the taste of the subject determines beauty, it elevates the subject. Value comes down to what someone thinks or feels. The subject becomes the measurement. The true beauty starts with God. All beauty is judged based upon God. Taste should conform to God. If not, then the subject becomes the basis of value and in the way the creature is worshiped, not the Creator.
To rebel against God is to rebel against the nature of God, which is beautiful. Ugliness is both rebellion and a symptom of a rebellious heart. It violates the nature of God. It is a characteristic of this world.
Someone whose taste clashes with the beauty of God wants something different than God, therefore, a different god. He may conform his god to what he likes or wants, but it isn’t God. He’s not worshiping God. His rebellion against the nature of God manifests itself in his taste. He doesn’t like what God likes. This will not be hidden. It will be seen.
If your taste doesn’t fit into the throne room of God, it’s not going to be there in the future either. You don’t live a life congruent with the ugliness of this earth and have any kind of yearning for the actual throne room of God. You won’t bring anything you like there. If you don’t like the taste of heaven, then you should consider whether you are going to be there. Why would you want to be there?
In scripture Jesus Christ is in the throne room of God in many instances. He’s the one on the throne for Isaiah in Isaiah 6. He’s in the throne room at the Father’s right hand in Psalm 110. He’s in the throne room, of course, in Revelation 4-5. Jesus is in that throne room right now as you read this. You can say that you follow Him, but when your life wouldn’t and so doesn’t like Who He is, His beauty, because you choose the ugliness of this sin-cursed world, then you aren’t following Him. You can attack me about that, as the messenger, but that won’t change it either. Even though Jesus isn’t in His heavenly throne room in Revelation 1, John describes what He would be like there.
12 And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; 13 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. 14 His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; 15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. 16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. 17 And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: 18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.
Beauty is to be beheld, but what makes it beautiful is not based upon the response of the one seeing or hearing it. What is beautiful is beautiful no matter what the acknowledgement, but the response is informative. In verse 17 John says that when he saw Jesus, He fell at His feet as dead. John fell prostrate before the Lord in great fear. Jesus’ “countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength” (v. 16). He looks into the eyes of the Judge of the entire earth, which were like “a flame of fire” (v. 14). Awe and reverence are the appropriate responses to the beauty of Jesus Christ. He was in the presence of the glory of Jesus, and his penetrating judgment, the beauty of his purity, justice, and truth.
I included back to verse 12 in this description because Jesus is in the midst of His assemblies, His churches, which are the seven golden candlesticks. A Christ follower doesn’t arbitrarily follow Jesus on the earth, but in one of His churches. You aren’t following Jesus outside of a true church, which today is His earthly temple (1 Cor 3:16-17), symbolized by a golden candlestick, one of the pieces of the temple in the Old Testament to imitate the shining light of God in the heavenly temple. A true church shines with the doctrinal and moral light of Christ.
At no time does He or would He ever appear like anyone either attending or performing at a popular music concert, and at no time would any true believer treat Him like that. It is not appropriate. Jesus can and does condescend to us, but our responsibility to Him is reverence as God. The coarsening of the imagination of beauty has been a major cause for the profaning of Jesus Christ, treating Him in a common or casual fashion, which is not how John treats Him and partly because of how Jesus appears in His glory. In Isaiah 6, totally holy angels cover their faces and feet in reverence of His holiness. Jesus Himself is dressed in a garment down to His feet, much like ones God fashioned for Adam and Eve, and immodesty of any kind is not compatible with His holiness.
I understand that the throne room of God is unlike any place on earth. It is the most beautiful place anywhere, more beautiful than anything or anyone, but one we can only attempt to imagine by reading what scripture says about it. Still, however, it is a model for imitation for the earthly temple, something that Solomon understood when he built his temple in Jerusalem, but also what God designed into the tabernacle in the wilderness. Much was put into the beauty of the entire structure and its parts.
One can also read the beauty of the text of the songs sung to God the Father and the Son throughout scripture, but including in the throne room of God in Revelation 4-5. George Frederick Handel used that text for the lyrics of his oratorio, the Messiah. It too is a model to imitate for beauty, since beauty is imitative.
The effervescent light at the throne of God is the red jasper stone, the translucent white sardine stone, and an emerald light rainbow round about it. Men in pure white robes and crowns of gold sit at every one of twenty four of their own thrones encircling the throne. There are seven lamps burning before the throne and lightnings and thunder proceeding from it. Before the throne is a sea of crystal like glass from which would bounce reflections of all the other colors and hues. Four awesome beasts are too before and behind the throne in the likeness of four different creatures with six wings apiece, flying and chanting or singing, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.”
In this description of God’s throne room are many varied aspects of the beauty of God at their most resplendent in a symphony of color, light, creatures, and sound, all of which speak of the majesty of a holy God. Many chapters are given to the building of the tabernacle and then the temple of the Old Testament to imitate this scene. This is the nature of beauty. A departure from that is the on ramp to the broad road to destruction and the fastest lane from any way back to the narrow road that leads to life eternal. Anyone reading this should be warned about the fascination and allurement of this world’s ugliness, drawing them forever astray from the presence of God.
The ugliness of a sin-cursed world and cooperative false religion stands in stark contrast to the overall beauty and the beautiful aspects of the throne room of God and then its imitation on earth by those truly God’s people. In my second post, I compared true beauty on earth, mimesis, imitation, with poiesis, the expression of self, but also with diegesis, in which so-called beauty is revealed through the perspective of the narrator or storyteller. Men love themselves. What else occurs though is men who love themselves conflating their desires or taste into what God wants. What makes something beautiful to them in their own imaginations is their taste, what they like.
The center of the universe isn’t in the belly of a man (read here and here), but in the throne room of God. Beauty doesn’t start with a perspective ruined by sin or even from the experience of a professing believer. Man’s heart is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). At best, he sees through a glass darkly (1 Corinthians 13:12). He should doubt his own perspective. Imitation is a matter of faith, which pleases God (Hebrews 11:6).
Millennial, who ghosts his parents, because your own taste supersedes all other, consider that you perhaps will continue to ghost them right into eternity. The boundaries you set up to protect your own lifestyle will still be a boundary, much like the one between the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. You want a great gulf and a great gulf you will get. Hell is the ultimate in ugly, but it will be for everyone who prefers his taste above God’s.
The world is not intended by God to mirror the imaginations of men’s hearts. It should look like the throne room of God and then a Paradise regained. With that in mind, the church turns the world upside down, not the world turning the church upside down. Churches have capitulated to the world, using its allures to conform to the belly of man, bringing the uglification of the church. It not only is not acceptable to God, but it is the further downfall of man.
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