Issued: 09/09/22

PLEASE NOTE:  All bracketed material may be authorial comments, attempts at proper syntax, or minimal rewordings of Scripture for the sake of clarity and continuity.  These emendations will not be italicized.  The “/” will be used to signify “and/or.”

   In differentiating between Yahweh of hosts [later Jesus] and Yahweh the Most High God, lower case letters have been used when discussing the former; upper case letters are reserved for the One and Only Highest God.  Since Jesus was at pains to differentiate himself from God the Father, we have followed his lead here.

   The term neo-Christians will be used to differentiate between false Christians and Jesus’ true followers.

   In here we expand on issues raised in Messages for End-Times to identify actors and their roles in the destruction of our world.

The title Grave-Due World is the opposite of the “brave, new” one in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.  One can understand Miranda’s effusiveness given her innocence and lack of perspective on the grim realities of human nature; but we, with our blood-drenched history behind us, should know better.  Irrespective of the horrors attributable to past generations and on-going ones in our times, we nonetheless boast of our instinctive goodness, resilience, and never-quit attitudes in the process of reinventing/celebrating ourselves.  To spin another English poet and thinker, Alexander Pope, trope stings infernal in the human breast. 

   By now some readers may ask what place literature has in the preaching of Scripture?  Following Paul’s lead, it is legit to peruse everything and use whatever aids Christian preaching (1Corinthians 9:22; 1Thessalonians 5:21).  In Acts 17:28 Paul alluded to the work of Greek poets in order to strengthen his arguments before Epicurean and Stoic philosophers (:18), the suggestion being that he was familiar with such works.  In his warning that men should resist being buffeted to and fro by “every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:14), Paul was implying familiarity with their proponents’ dogmas, which had their genesis in Satan (2Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 6:16).  It is not above Satan to use every expression of the human intellect to lead men astray, especially when erroneous viewpoints are propounded by respected figures like Dostoevsky, who in The Brothers Karamazov displayed an abysmal grasp of Scripture.  Or at the other side of the spectrum, powers that be whose claims, however false and destructive to society’s interests, are uncritically believed, digested, and championed by people of “faith.” 

   So why Grave-Due World?  Because our world was not made to last:  It had a beginning and a prophesied end.  We live in time; God’s Kingdom is eternal; so in order for the ‘forever and evers’ of Scripture to become the norm, time has to stop.  Scriptures like Isaiah 24:1-23 and 45:18 speak of a removable world built on a pre-existent foundation (Genesis 1:2; Psalms 18:15; Revelation 16:20); and if we can extrapolate from Macbeth, the natural order is the stage set on which men play their parts in God’s redemption plan.  Nothing on it is lasting or even ‘real’:  first the mortal, then the spiritual (1Corinthians 15:47); first “the removal of what is shaken [unprecedented earthquake of Isaiah 13:13↔Revelation 16:18]—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain” (Hebrews 12:27); first our mind-boggling cosmos providing temporary lighting effects, then eternal heavens, new sun and new moon (Isaiah 30:26, 34:4, 66:22; Matthew 24:35; 2Peter 3:10,12-13; Revelation 6:13-14).

   While mankind envisions uninterrupted continuity, Scripture set out early to delimit such unwarranted expectations.  Jude tells us that Enoch, seventh from Adam, preached the second coming of Christ (Jude 1:14-15), which as Jesus told us would take place once God had pulled the plug on the heavenly cyclorama (Matthew 24:29-30).  Jesus was only quoting prophecy (Isaiah 13:10; Amos 8:9), but as he unequivocally stated, earth and heavens would certainly pass away (Matthew 24:35).  And then there are those prophecies about the Last Judgment; and Armageddon after the lull of the Millennium in Heaven (Revelation 20:7-10); all fulfilling Old Testament prophecies like Ezekiel 38:8-23 and Daniel 7:10.  Having discussed these in other series, there is no need to belabor them here.

   Bottom line:  There is no future for mankind as is, not as long as Satan pied-pipes men towards annihilation.  Let us not needlessly count our strays; suffice it to say the Bible speaks of the purging of this world the way we tent homes to get rid of vermin.  As Isaiah 5:1-7 and Matthew 21:33-46, there is nothing at all God has failed do to get us on the straight and narrow.  Though All-knowing, He knew from the beginning the original script would not play out as intended—hence predictions about worldwide apostasy (2Thessalonians 2:3); human rejection of Him and Jesus (Psalms 2:1-3, 74:8; Revelation 17:14-17); and comeuppance at Armageddon (Revelation 20:7-10).  God’s Kingdom will not come until Satan’s realm, which is this world, is burnt away.¹

God’s Role

   Since Scripture begins with God (Genesis 1:1), so must we.  Jesus told us that not a sparrow falls dead without His Father’s knowledge (Matthew 10:29).  The entire roadmap of good and evil was foreknown in the Father’s mind before Creation unfolded (Isaiah 37:26), which is the reason why Jesus’ crucifixion was a done deal even before Adam drew breath (1Peter 1:19-21); why Paul said that God’s work was finished before the foundation of the world (Hebrews 4:3); and why all who would be saved—and damned—had their names written down in books to be consulted on Judgment Day (Exodus 32:32; Psalms 69:28; Daniel 12:1; Malachi 3:16; Luke 10:20; Philippians 4:3; Hebrews 12:23; Revelation3:5, 13:8, 20:15).

    If we take Psalms 139:16 at face value, the entire life of every human being since Adam was foreknown prior to birth; which should not lead us astray as it did John Calvin with his predestination nonsense.  Predestination means no free will, and free will is needed to make individual choices between good and evil; otherwise the objective behind preaching would be preempted (Deuteronomy 30:19; Ezekiel 3:17-21; John 15:22; Romans 4:15).  When Paul spoke about “predestination” in terms of who would or would not be saved (Romans 9:22-24), he did not mean God ‘eenie, meenie, miny, moed’ amongst mankind to populate His Kingdom, but that God foreknew who in the course of history would adhere to His citizenship requirements and who would not.  The writing down of anyone’s name did not compel any person to commit good or evil:²  It was strictly a matter of record to be presented as evidence on Judgment Day (Revelation 20:12).

   In the beginning there were only God and the Holy Spirit (Genesis 1:1-2), no Trinity but definitely a Dyad.  Jesus was created on Day One, introduced symbolically as “Light,” firstborn of God’s Creation (John 3:19, 8:12; Colossians 1:15; Revelation 3:14); only that his name then was not Jesus but Yahweh, the name he shared with this Father (Exodus 23:20-21), a distinction borne out by Isaiah 44:6: “This is what Yahweh, the King of Israel [the un-worshipped Father because neo-Christians believe Jesus to be Him↔Hosea 11:7], and His Redeemer, Yahweh of hosts [the Son who denounces whoever claims him to be the Father he never claimed to be↔Hosea 7:13; John 14:28; Revelation 3:12], says: ‘I am the first, and I am the last; and besides Me there is no God.’”

   Let us not overlook the times Jesus identified himself as “I am,” which were accentuated with displays of power (Matthew 14:27-33; John 18:5-6).   These in turn provide the link to those other times when he appeared and spoke to human beings as the Angel God (Exodus 3:2,14; Judges 13:9-22), something the Most High God has never done (John 1:18, 5:37; 1Timothy 6:16).  Judges 13:18 links us further to Isaiah 9:6, where the adjective “wonderful” is used to reference the Messiah.  Though the name Yahweh embodies the Most High’s attributes as One and Only Creator God, Yahweh of hosts/Jesus use of it is not a usurpation of those attributes:  As the Most High’s appointed proxy Creator/God, Yahweh of hosts/Jesus channeled and shared them.  Also as the Most High’s spokesperson, Yahweh of hosts/Jesus relayed his God’s (Revelation 3:14) messages to men using a first person point of view.³ 

   Now, Yahweh of hosts/Jesus was created within the context of time (Genesis 1:5; Psalms 2:7), therefore not eternal like the Father (1Timothy 6:16; Revelation 10:6); which is the reason why Jesus could die and had to be resurrected by the Father (Psalms 16:10; Acts 13:30; Romans 8:11; Revelation 1:18).  Which tells us what?  That if the Father had not resurrected him, Jesus would be dead to this day; but as he had to be first-born in everything, he was the first creature transmuted from perishable flesh to immortal one (Psalms 17:15; 1Corinthians 15:51-55; Colossians 1:18; 1Thessalonians 4:13-17; 1John 3:2).  We will elaborate further when we discuss the role that religious leaders play in our spiritual demise.

   Moving on…Are there two Gods, then, or One?  Let us answer with a comparison:  In the running of ancient Egypt, were there two Pharaohs or one, Joseph or the unnamed, true Pharaoh?  Only the latter:  Joseph had been empowered by him to supervise his domains, but in matters of sovereignty, Pharaoh lord it over Joseph (Genesis 41:40,55).  The same premise is at work in Jesus’ relationship with the Father:  What Jesus preaches is the Father’s doctrine (John 12:49, 14:24); what he is able to do is done by the Father through him (John 14:10); the wisdom he imparts is channeled through him via His Father’s Spirit (John 15:26, 16:13); so that for all practical purposes, there is no acting Jesus but a complier Jesus, who has subsumed his will to God’s in such a way that he and the Father are one in mind and will (John 10:30)—never in the Trinitarian sense.

   In similar fashion Yahweh the Most High deputized His Angel Son to complete Creation from “Darkness” until man (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16-17); and though the Son is the Yahweh who personally interacted with the Israelites throughout the Old Testament, he was only following His Father’s—and his God’s—instructions by speaking in His name (John 5:19, 12:49; 1Corinthians 15:23-28; Revelation 3:12).  And showing that the Most High is atop the divine hierarchy, even His Holy Spirit, apparently an independent, co-substantial Mind (Romans 8:26-27), only speaks what the Most High has told Him to reveal (John 16:13; 1Corinthians 2:10)—a Being, by the way, ranking more reverence than Jesus (Matthew 12:31-32).

   Now this is where we must dot every “i” and cross every “t.”  If God is love, as we are told (1John 4:8), and abhors evil in all its forms, He cannot be the initiator and enforcer of human suffering.  Following this line of reason, were it not for Satan mowing down the Lord’s pastures, God could not personally inflict suffering.  The misconception that He does comes from the [intentional?] mishmash between Yahwehs in the Old Testament, which is overcome by simply remembering that the Most High, like the Genesis Pharaoh or any human royalty for that matter, is never personally present or involved in the day to day governance of His domains:  His Son, Yahweh of hosts, is.  The fact that the Most High personally assumes responsibility for all good and evil that transpires (Isaiah 45:7) only means that whatever happens does so because He allows His subordinates—be it Yahweh of hosts or Satan—to act after having been told what is expected of them.

   Bottom Line:  The Most High is in control of everything, which is nothing new (Psalms 33:10; Daniel 4:17,26,35, 5:21); and unlike our revered leaders who never accept responsibility for the consequences of their actions, the Most High owns up to His—proof that His ways and men’s do not jibe (Isaiah 55:8).

   What has always been God’s ultimate objective?  “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says Yahweh, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 19:11), an objective not programmed for this order of things but the next (Isaiah 2:4, 11:6-9; Micah 4:3; Revelation 21:4).  This world is slated for the bonfire; so why all the intervening obstacles?   First because Lucifer would throw a monkey wrench into God’s unfolding plan the split nanosecond he became evil—by choice, not design (Ezekiel 28:15)—and decided the time had come for regime change (Isaiah 14:13-14; Ezekiel 28:16-18);⁴ more about him later.  Secondly because with men as unwelcomed tenants in His domains (Leviticus 25:23; Job 41:11; Psalms 24:1), leases in the form of covenants had to be drawn up between Him and them, ensuring rewards for obedience and exacting penalties for failures to comply.

Failed Mosaic Lease

   Primarily, the Mosaic Covenant focused on concerns of the flesh:  ablutions, dietary laws, a compendium of “do-this-don’t-do-that” injunctions that scored no spiritual brownie points unless observed in toto (Leviticus 18:5; 1Samuel 3:19;  Romans 10:5; Galatians 3:12).  If one failed in one point, one failed in all (James 2:10).  Apologizing for the prosaic comparison that follows, Mosaic demands were like training wheels aiding to mastering bicycle riding, a device to inculcate a modicum of reverence and obedience in people profiled as pigheaded (Deuteronomy 9:4-6) and hooked on idolatrous pursuits like good living (Exodus 16:3) and worshipping false gods (Exodus 32:1-4; Ezekiel 20:8,13,21).  This was not only true of early Israelites but of latter Jews throughout the Old Testament (Isaiah 22:13; Ezekiel 8:3-18; Malachi 2:2,11).

   Still the Mosaic Covenant was devised to fail:  “So I gave them statutes that weren’t good and ordinances by which they could not live” (Ezekiel 20:25).  How so?  Because it was a yoke scarcely anyone had been able to carry (Acts 15:10). Mind you, the speaker here was Peter who, though consensually agreeing not to burden Gentiles with Mosaic prohibitions concerning the flesh (Acts 15:24-29),⁵ was later called to task by Paul for doing exactly that (Galatians 2:11-14).  This illustrates for us the perennial impasse inherent in the Jewish mindset:  The adamancy to abandon traditions (2Corinthians 3:14-16) that can no longer reconcile Jews with God.  Why?  Because under the terms of the Mosaic Covenant, the Jerusalem Temple is no longer there to perform the blood sacrifices needed for the remission of their sins (Deuteronomy 12:5-14; Hebrews 9:22).

Failed Christian Lease

   Now, we of the Christian faith have done no better than Jews.  We are asked to live in the world as if dead to its trappings (Isaiah 22:13-14; Romans 6:11; Colossians 3:3; James 4:4; 1 Peter 4:3); but like the Jews we too love partying in the here and now until the angelic shuttles come to relocate us.  We worship on Sun-days (Ezekiel 8:16); though Jesus instituted, observed, left us an example to imitate, and is Lord of Sabbath of the Commandment (Exodus 20:8-11; Mark 2:27-28; Luke 6:1-5; John 13:15), TGIF [i.e., forget Isaiah 58:13-14] and let us head to the beach after Sunday service.  We definitely hanker after Mammon, which is the reason why we pay obeisance to the wealthy and are hooked on their shenanigans.  And if not complicit in literally crucifying Jesus, we figuratively flog him with our transgressions and keep in on the cross as a subject of ridicule and scorn.

Contractual Terms

   Paul asked us to consider both the “goodness and severity of God—on those indeed who fell, severity; and on you, goodness, if you may remain in the goodness, otherwise, you also will be cut off” (Romans 11:22); a goodness that is predicated on obedience to a contractual arrangement:  You do these things for me, I will take care of your needs (Deuteronomy 28:1-14).  You agree to my Father’s terms and mine and we are in business (John 14:23).

   The Mosaic Covenant was certified by circumcision of the flesh (Genesis 17:4-11).  Since women do not have prepuces, the contractual arrangement was with males:  Only they were to fight God’s wars (Numbers 1:2-3), minister His sanctuary (Numbers 8:17), and preach to His people (Malachi 2:7).  Women had no place in the preaching of God’s word, which is the reason why Jesus chose male Apostles and Paul forbade women teaching in churches (1Corinthians 14:34-37; 1Timothy 2:11-14).  Let us not forget that men and women are viewed as a single entity, flesh of each other’s flesh (Genesis 2:23, 5:2), just as Jesus and his uncountable spiritual progeny constitute one body, the true Church (Ephesians 5:23,31-32). 

   With Christians, certification came with circumcision of the heart (Deuteronomy 10:16; Jeremiah 4:4; Romans 2:29).  We know that Moses foreshadows Jesus (Deuteronomy 18:15; 2Corinthians 3:14-16); and if not in terms of rituals, the former’s covenant incorporates a lot of Christian teachings.  Most importantly, the human heart has no prepuce; so that as used here, “heart” is the conceptual seat of both soul and mind.  What then is the message?  Cast off trappings of the flesh so that Jesus can fill mind and soul (Romans 7:24-25).

   Now women have “hearts,” so that “circumcision of the heart” applies to them in terms of their individual choices to abide or not by the terms of said covenant.  Women are advised to submit to men but their will is free to act as their conscience dictates unfettered by male whims.  In olden times Roman Catholicism yoked women to the cruelty of their husbands, even when Paul had taught that such bondage was contrary to God’s wish that men and women should live in peace (1Corinthians 7:15).  Though certainly God got the bad rap, He was not responsible for human choices made out of ignorance and fear of repercussions; consequently, needless suffering ensued.

   The contemporary belief that God stands behind female preachers is another sign of the end-times apostasy prophesied by Paul (2Thessalonians 2:3).  Unless women can produce Scripture legitimizing their ministries, we are told differently by God’s claim that He never changes His mind, or that what is written reflects His uncompromising stance (Numbers 23:19; Malachi 3:6).  But like Eve, women are seduced by the desire to meddle in divine matters outside their purview.  If Isaiah 3:16-26, 4:1 is a window into the future, the gender-blurring championed in our days will exact a costly price among women sooner or later—which begs the question, God’s fault or women’s?

Healing Qualities of Punishment

   Why not a simpler way of doing things?  God knew from the start that His plan would not pan out—hence predictions about apostasy (Psalms 2:1-3, 74:8; 2Thessalonians 2:3; Revelation 17:14-17) and Armageddon (Revelation 20:7-10) presented as done deals.  As attested in Isaiah 5:1-7 and Matthew 21:33-46, there is nothing He has failed do to get us on the straight and narrow, yet it all failed.

So if His Kingdom cannot manifest itself until Satan’s realm—our world (Luke 4:6; 2Corinthians 4:4)—is burnt away, why bother putting up with it? Because He has bonded with us; like all beings who truly love, God wants to be loved for who He is, what He embodies, what He stands for, rather than for what He can give in exchange for gushing displays of affection—the very things we expect from our loved ones.  There would be a long time to wait for His love to be requited; yet in the interim He would purify souls (Isaiah 48:10; Daniel 11:35; Zechariah 13:9; 1Peter 1:6-7) and strengthen standards of holiness conforming to His own (Hebrews 12:5-10), so that the broken off pieces from His failed conception could be integrated back into the whole of a grander, brand-new vision (Ezekiel 36:26-28; Ephesians 1:10, 4:4-6).  Through human suffering, men would regain their senses and achieve their dreams (Psalms 39:11; Jeremiah 29:11).

   Thus God created Jesus; and Jesus in turn created everything else in heaven and on earth—including Satan (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16).⁶  With Satan in the picture, everything would go to pot in due time; still God would use Satan, the saboteur, to steer things towards His desired end.  Yes, Satan would inflict untold suffering, but for a God Who can restore life, and an immortal one at that, a moment of suffering paled against an eternity of happiness where previous suffering would no longer be remembered (Ecclesiastes 1:11; Isaiah 65:17).  Which was Jesus’ take on things, “the Author and Perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” exalted with honors (Hebrews 12:2; Revelation 5:5-13).

   But let us not forget that it was the Father who allowed Satan to put Jesus through the wringer (Isaiah 53:6,10; Luke 22:3; John 6:70, 18:11, 19:11)—as He will with every single one of us (Proverbs 3:11-12; Luke 22:31; 2Timothy 3:12; 1Peter 1:6-7, 2:21, 3:17, 4:16-17).  Like global warming, this is another inconvenient truth for men of “faith” whose idea of God is a genie catering to their whims and straight-jacketed by irrational love.

The Uncompromising Deity

   But He cannot be like this, can He?  If He were to deal with us like parents do with their children, would there ever be a solution to mankind’s ills?  Parental failures, whether loving or brutal, produce the spiritually bankrupt generations that empower Satan to make mincemeat out of us and our world the dog-eat-dog place it is.  God is love (1John 4:7-9), but He is no hostage to it nor a amoral intellect endlessly spinning TLC; which is the reason for the advice parents refuse to implement:  “Those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent to discipline them” (Proverbs 13:24); and, “train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).  God did not cut Jesus any slack; and if He allowed His blameless Son to endure the unthinkable, He has the moral stature to demand the same of every sinner.

   Even Jesus, loving and obedient Son that he was (Matthew 3:17), hinted God was someone not to run afoul of (Matthew 10:28), though here he was echoing Scriptural teachings (Job 40:2; Daniel 4:35).  In point of fact, post-resurrection as re-appointed God over all of creation, Jesus, ever in sync with the Father, was someone better not messed around with (Acts 26:14; Revelation 2:27).  What does Proverb 1:7 say?  “The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; but the foolish despise wisdom and instruction.”  And this fear is not the cowering type, but the realization that God will follow through with whatever He has determined—no matter where the chips might fall or which way heads would roll (Numbers 23:19; Job 23:13; Isaiah 46:10; Lamentations 3:37).

   Let us review His stipulations in the Second Commandment:  “I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the iniquity of the parents to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me” (Exodus 20:5), either by rejecting Him (1Samuel 2:30; Ezra 8:22) or disobeying Him (1Samuel 15:23).  Sounds unfair and contradictory, does it not, since “the person who sins shall die.  A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent, nor will a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child.  The righteousness of the righteous shall be his own and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own” (Ezekiel 18:20).  But what Exodus 20:5 is driving at is that the sins of past generations will lead to future consequences; and if not fully expiated in their times, the bill becomes due upon descendants at a later date.  The overarching reality is one and the same:  Sometime, somehow, the evil that men do will reverberate through the ages and punished many times over (Jeremiah 46:28) until God says “enough” (Isaiah 49:8; Ezekiel 21:25-27; Micah 3:4; Zephaniah 2:2; Revelation 22:11).

   Dostoevsky envisioned a God mindlessly loving creatures perennially at odds with Him; but as we should realize by now, He is Deity and we are creatures who can give Him nothing material for all the bounties sustaining our very existence (Job 41:11).  So having defaulted on His terms, where do men come off expecting benefits they neither merit nor have earned?  No matter:  Men prefer alienating Him in order to remain tethered to the human herd.

   What befalls us, we bring upon our heads.  Hence Scripture jumps from Mosaic-defaulting Jews to equally defaulting faith-Christians, the only difference being that the Jewish covenant has been superseded by a covenant not predicated on ritual observance and animal sacrifices (Hebrews 9:9-10).  Which is not to say that God has washed His hands off Jews:  For love of the Patriarchs, those deserving redemption will be saved along with Christians and integrated into a single family of faith (Ezekiel 37:19; Romans 11:25-29; Ephesians 2:14-15).  It is a measure of God’s “Israelization” of Jews and Gentiles—though not in its contemporary socio/political usage—that the 144,000 first-fruits are identified by the names of Jewish tribes (Revelation 7:4-8).  Given the exacting credentials (Revelation 14:4-5), not all can be ethnic Jews, can they?

Answers to the Big Question

   When people ask, “If God is love, why must He destroy the world?,” anwers are:

1)  Because He has made a promise He cannot go back on to Jesus through Abraham (Genesis 12:7, 15:5; Numbers 23:19; Psalms 2:8-9; John 6:39; Hebrews 6:13-18).

2)  Because He owes everyone taking His word on faith and paying dearly to prove it (Psalms 50:5; Hebrews 11:6).  While unbelievers are committed to fun and games (1Peter 1:13-18; 2Peter 2:10-13), people of faith forfeit their lives—and even those of loved ones—for the sake of providing Jesus with a spiritual progeny in order to secure eternal life for self and kin (Genesis 38:8; Deuteronomy 25:5-6; Luke 9:23-24; John 12:25; Galatians 4:19; Hebrews 11:25,35-39).

3)  Because His ears are deaf to the pleas of the disobedient (Proverbs 28:9; John 9:31); and will pay tit for tat to whoever rejects Him (Proverbs 8:17) and refuses to honor Him (1Samuel 2:30).

4)  And lastly, according to their preferences, He remands evildoers to their surrogate father (Ezra 8:22; John 8:44; Revelation 9:1-11), who will be more than happy to grind them into bloody mush.

   Now let us ask:  How do we know God will keep His promises when no one knows for certain He exists?  Ah, by the conviction which faith instills in us.  Ultimately what is at stake?  Loyalty to a chosen leader; and if it is true that God has yet to be proven true or false, we know with 100% certainty that no matter what human leaders promise us, they will not deliver.  They cannot.  It is not within their power to do so.  They are taking us for a ride.  And if our mindless allegiance to them is the cause of our suffering, let us grin and bear it.  We got what we bargained for in spades—figuratively and literally with which dig our graves.

   From one end to the other, the Bible makes clear that men are zooming towards disaster.  In times of prosperity that notion does not resonate much, as it will not with those living at end-times who will be as busy with worldly ways as Noah’s generation was (Luke 17:26-27).  Jesus also depicted the populations of Sodom and Gomorrah as being hooked on material pursuits (Luke 17:28), populations so spiritually bankrupt that not even ten righteous could be found among them (Genesis 18:20,32).  It is the destruction of the latter, by the way, which serves as the standard by which our world is compared, judged, and zapped (2Peter 2:6).

   So is God responsible for human suffering?  The buck does stop with Him:  He allows it; but He does not nor has ever prescribed what form, extent or degree any punishment will take.  While accepting responsibility for opening the cage to a predator like Satan—the reason why He owns up to the suffering that befalls mankind, what horrors men should expect for defaulting His covenants are warnings about what He knows Satan will unleash until reined in again.  Yahweh of hosts did not tell Satan how to torment Job:  Forbidden to kill Job, Satan reveled in sadism (Job 1:6-21, 2:1-7).

   There is no mystery in any of this.  Men are harvested by the leaders they choose and deserve, leaders in turn marching to the beat of their infernal scammer.  And since God respects the free exercise of human will, He lets them reap what they choose to sow.

 ¹ Perhaps to take a stab at the limitations of science, consider God’s Armageddon scenario:

   Zechariah 14:4:  A huge valley is created by dividing the Mount Olives to the east of Jerusalem.

   Jeremiah 7:30-32:  This is now called Valley of the Slaughter, formerly known the Valley or Ben Hinnom or Topheth, Hebrew for “place of burning.”  It was defiled by idols and polluted by sacrifices to Baal and Moloch.  It was there that pious kings threw down the debris of altars smashed in high places; the place where all the filth of Jerusalem poured into.  Eventually it became a place of abhorrence synonymous with hell.

   Joel 3:2,12,14:  Now named Valley of Josaphat, where Yahweh passes judgment on all nations.  The Midrash Tellihim [Jewish commentary, not Scripture] denies its existence; but since 333 CE, it has been argued that this valley is analogous to the Kidron Valley between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.  At least Zechariah’s east orientation holds.

   Revelation 20:7-10:  The Millennium of Satan’s chaining on a dead world while the redeemed looked down on him from Heaven (Isaiah 14:11-17) is over.  Every unrighteous human being since and including Cain partakes of the second resurrection; Satan deceives them; and leads them to destruction in a last bid to prevail against God.  Fire comes down from Heaven and burns them all.

   Consider how many laws of physics have been broken and how the geography of our world has been rearranged to show us how substantive the reality science swears by truly is.

² A popular argument from those believing that what God thinks must inevitably become reality.  Not so.  Satan was conceived perfect in all his ways until he became evil by choice (Ezekiel 28:15).  According to the above argument, if God originally conceived Satan as good, he could never have devolved contrary to God’s will.

³ Scripture differentiates between Yahweh/Most High and Yahweh/Angel in other ways.

   In Genesis 21:17 the Most High hears Ishmael’s cries; whereupon He sends the Angel God to Hagar explaining that Yahweh/Most High has heard the boy’s voice.

   In Judges 13:9 the Most High hears Manoah’s plea; again the Angel God is sent to his wife to confirm the promise made in 13:3-5.  Both Manoah and his wife understand they have been in the presence of God, but not knowing which God, they make the wrong conclusion that they will die for having seen the divine form no mortal can see (13:22).  Let us remember that Jesus pointed out that fact (John 5:37) in order to tell us he was the “I am” who spoke to Manoah and wife.

Which is not true of him as per Exodus 34:5, another instance of Scripture differentiating between Yahweh Father and Yahweh of hosts.  Yahweh of hosts has verbally promised Moses that he will show his glory to the prophet, but that Moses will not be able to see his face (Exodus 33:20,23).  When Yahweh of hosts parades himself before Moses, he is praising a Yahweh other than himself, the Yahweh proclaimed in the First Commandment (Exodus 20:5-6, 34:5-7).

⁴ Lucifer, as he is sometimes called, was not evil upon conception:  He was the seal of beauty, perfection, and wisdom (Ezekiel 28:12).  It was later that he felt he was better suited to replace Yahweh of hosts as the Most High’s proxy God (Isaiah 14:13-14; Ezekiel 28:17); and Scripture gives us an approximate chronology:  “You were blameless in your behavior from the day you were created until wickedness was discovered in you” (Ezekiel 28:15).

  From then on, he canvassed for supporters amongst the angelic crowd (Job 4:18), who like him were enamored of the idea of regime change.  That Ezekiel 28:16-19 mixes angelic and human dealings with prophecies of banishment from Heaven until his destruction in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10,14) shows the extent of Satan’s involvement in human affairs.

⁵ Which would have bound Christian converts to the Mosaic Covenant already voided by Jesus’ crucifixion (Galatians 3:10-15, 5:1-3).

    The Council’s recommendations all involved spiritual and moral concerns, in keeping with Jesus’ teaching that what corrupted men issued from their hearts (Matthew 15:18-19).

⁶ A needless reminder, to be sure, but Satan is not a proper name:  It means adversary or enemy.    Though we know his heavenly ranking upon creation—i.e., guardian cherub (Ezekiel 28:14), Scripture does not identify Satan by name.  Lucifer has been suggested by Isaiah 14:12, but the appellation here refers to his being a creation of the Morning Star, meaning Jesus (Colossians 1:16; Revelation 22:16).  The connection to the planet Venus is spurious.