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GOD'S PURPOSE FOR MARRIAGE
Chapter 3
Satan Uses ‘Rationalism’ to Destroy Marriage
After conquest by the Assyrians, the northern House of Israel was completely removed from their land in 722 BCE. The southern House of Judah (or the Jews) were conquered by the Babylonians and removed from their land in 587 BCE. The Israelites continued in the sins introduced by Jeroboam and paganism they picked up from their Baal and Ashtoreth (Nimrod and Semiramis deified) worshipping neighbors. After they were removed from their land, they lost their identity as the House of Israel. The Jews as a people however maintained their identity as God’s people as they kept the Sabbath and were keepers of the Holy Scriptures.
In captivity and freedom after that, Satan was unable to affect the institution of marriage among the Israelites. Life was toil and hard work and the marriage institution is the best means to cope with it. The rationale was provided by Prof. Eli Finkel as quoted earlier, “…the prevalence of individual farming households meant that the main requirements [people] had for their marriage revolved around things like food production, shelter and protection from violence. To be sure, [people] were pleased if they experienced an emotional connection with their spouse, but such affinities were perquisites of a well-functioning marriage rather than its central purpose.”
Though Satan was unable to affect the marriage institution among the nations that grew from the tribes of the House of Israel, he developed a strategy to try and destroy the marriage institution among the Jews who came back to the holy land. He could not corrupt the scriptures, the Old Testament of the Bible because with God’s guidance the Jews maintained the integrity of their scriptures, but he attacked by corrupting the interpretation of the scriptures, particularly the laws concerning divorce and marriage. That story will be told later.
By and large the marriage institution remained intact around the world. In the Christian world, the Roman Catholic Church interpreted marriage and divorce laws because the scriptures were unavailable to the general public. But invention of the printing press by Gutenberg around 1440 A.D. began a gradual process of questioning the interpretation of the scriptures by the Roman Church. Over the following centuries, the Bible and parts of it became more accessible to the common man and many more people could read the scriptures for themselves. Satan then began developing a strategy to attack the divine inspiration of the scriptures.
Germans have been Satan’s model nation which has obeyed Satan much better than the Israelites have obeyed the God of the Bible. The Germans have done so since the time of their ancestor Asshur, the grandson of Noah.
Satan in a diabolical strategy began using the Germans under the guise of ‘German rationalism’ in the mid-18th century to attack the scriptures.
Brief History of Rationalism
The Greeks were the first Rationalists who in their philosophies had rejected the true God but had adopted the Egyptian and Babylonian mythical gods by giving them Greek names. They probably adopted them because they were so human in their characteristics and foibles. They could choose gods to worship that they liked or create them to their own liking, such as in some cases even creating different gods from one god based on different attributes of the god, or a god based on just one attribute. That way they could pray to the particular god depending on what boon or benefit they sought from him. Thus, many gods were created from the original Nimrod or Baal, each based on just one attribute and worshipped as such. They did not want to retain the true God in their knowledge because He holds humans accountable for their conduct.
Nimrod was worshipped under different names by different peoples, and as different gods based on his many attributes. For example, he was worshipped as the sun-god Baal [which means ‘lord’] by the Canaanites and Phoenicians, as Tammuz by the Babylonians and Sumerians, as Osiris in Egypt, as Jupiter in Rome, as Adonis by the Greeks. He was worshipped as Chemosh by the Moabites and Molech by the Ammonites. He was also worshipped as Saturn.
Nimrod was also a mighty hunter. Wolves were one of the animals he hunted. For this attribute he was worshipped as the god Lupercus, the hunter of wolves. He was also worshipped as the Greek god Pan, the god of light. He was a great reveler and as such was worshipped as the god Bacchus, the god of wine. He was also a mighty man and a womanizer, and as such he was worshipped as Valentine. The word Valentine comes from the Latin Valentinus, which derives from valens - “to be strong, powerful, mighty.” Genesis 10:8-9 describes Nimrod with these words: “And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord” (Gen. 10:8-9). Thus, worship of most of the gods and goddesses is really worship of Nimrod and his mother Semiramis.
After rejecting the true God and creating gods according to their own thinking, the Greeks did not rely on revealed knowledge from the true God but relied on their own ‘rational’ thinking and reasoning.
The Roman Catholic Church was then responsible for injecting such Greek rationalism into Christianity. Greek was the lingua franca of that time and works of Greek philosophers were widely available in countries around and near the Mediterranean. Clement of Alexandria writes on how the early Catholic fathers viewed Greek philosophy (This information can be accessed at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/clement.html):
Book 2, Chapter 5: “…before the advent of the Lord, philosophy was necessary to the Greeks for righteousness. And now it becomes conducive to piety; being a kind of preparatory training to those who attain to faith through demonstration… philosophy was given to the Greeks directly and primarily, till the Lord should call the Greeks. For this was a schoolmaster to bring "the Hellenic mind," as the law, [brought] the Hebrews, "to Christ." Philosophy, therefore, was a preparation, paving the way for him who is perfected in Christ.”
Then in Book 2 Chapter 7 he writes: “The Greek preparatory culture, therefore, with philosophy itself, is shown to have come down from God to men, not with a definite direction but in the way in which showers fall down on the good land, and on the dunghill, and on the houses. And similarly, both the grass and the wheat sprout; and the figs and any other reckless trees grow on sepulchers. And things that grow, appear as a type of truths. For they enjoy the same influence of the rain. But they have not the same grace as those which spring up in rich soil, in as much as they are withered or plucked up. And here we are aided by the parable of the sower, which the Lord interpreted [meaning the seed falling on different kinds of soil].
“And philosophy-I do not mean the Stoic, or the Platonic, or the Epicurean, or the Aristotelian - but whatever has been well said by each of those sects, which teach righteousness along with a science pervaded by piety - this eclectic whole I call philosophy. But such conclusions of human reasoning, as men have cut away and falsified, I would never call divine…”
What Clement is saying is that the eclectic mind has to separate out the truth that leads to righteousness and piety, from the false in Greek philosophy. That is a recipe for disagreement and debate because different ‘eclectic’ minds will reach different conclusions. That is what human ‘rationalism’ or ‘logical’ human reasoning leads to.
He further writes:
“They [the Stromata, which are Clement’s collections of miscellaneous speculative notes on the true philosophy] consist of the speculations of Greek philosophers, of heretics, and of those who cultivated the true Christian gnosis, and of quotations from sacred Scripture. The latter he affirms to be the source from which the higher Christian knowledge is to be drawn; as it was that from which the germs of truth in Plato and the Hellenic philosophy were derived. He describes philosophy as a divinely ordered preparation of the Greeks for faith in Christ, as the law was for the Hebrews; and shows the necessity and value of literature and philosophic culture for the attainment of true Christian knowledge, in opposition to the numerous body among Christians who regarded learning as useless and dangerous. He proclaims himself an eclectic, believing in the existence of fragments of truth in all systems, which may be separated from error; but declaring that the truth can be found in unity and completeness only in Christ, as it was from Him that all its scattered germs originally proceeded. The Stromata are written carelessly, and even confusedly; but the work is one of prodigious learning, and supplies materials of the greatest value for understanding the various conflicting systems which Christianity had to combat.”
After Greek rationalism was injected and woven into the fabric of Christianity by the Catholic Church, the errors that crept in could not be corrected because the Roman Church prohibited Bible translations in native languages. And laymen were forbidden to read the Bible. Only Catholic priests were allowed to interpret it for the masses. The priests were not free to interpret the Bible for themselves either and merely taught what the pope and his minions required them to teach the laity. Thus, Satan used the Roman Church to suppress the truth of the Bible throughout the middle ages (from about 500 A.D. till 1,500 A.D.).
However, the truth of the Bible did not completely die down. God’s true Church has always existed since its beginnings in 31 A.D. though it has been a ‘small flock’ heavily persecuted by the Roman Church. True Church was known by various names such as the Waldensians, Albigensians, Paulicians, Petrobusians etc. They always had access to the Bible and opposed the Catholic beliefs and were severely persecuted for it.
Criticism of the Roman Church’s doctrines began with John Wycliffe (1330 – 1384), who relied on the Scriptures as the highest authority for doctrine. He was most likely a member of God’s true Church as he was a Sabbath keeper. His followers known as Lollards began to preach his criticisms of the doctrines of the Roman Church. When his message began to spread, the Roman Church was so incensed that it dug up Wycliffe’s body, burned it and threw his ashes into the Swift river.
Wycliffe’s message continued to spread. The Roman Church then began a vicious persecution of ‘heretics.’ John Huss, a Czech who had been influenced by Wycliffe’s writings and had criticized the selling of indulgences by the Church to raise funds and considered the authority of Scripture to be higher than the pope’s authority was martyred. Then Martin Luther influenced by John Huss’s writings also began writing against the Roman Church. Luther was condemned by the Church as a heretic, but by this time, the rulers who coveted the Church’s riches and the properties began to support the dissenters.
Meanwhile in England, Tyndale began his work on the English translation of the Bible. He was persecuted, fled England and completed his translation of the New Testament copies of which were smuggled into England. He was betrayed to the authorities and was tried, declared a heretic and finally strangled and burned at the stake. But he had completed his translation before he was put to death.
In the meantime, King Henry the VIII broke up with the Roman Church because of the pope’s refusal to grant annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so that he could remarry and father a male heir. In retaliation, Henry confiscated the Roman’s Church’s wealth and properties and disbanded the monasteries. He became the head of the Church of England. The Protestant Reformation initiated by Wycliffe, paid for with his life by John Huss, catalyzed by Martin Luther under the protection of the rulers was now in full swing in England with the backing of Henry VIII and other European rulers.
It was also the age of exploration and discovery ushered in by men like Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Magellan, Drake and others. The Renaissance (meaning ‘rebirth’) reignited classical learning of the Greeks and Romans which had been suppressed by the Roman Church during the Middle Ages. The Renaissance also led to scientific discoveries, innovations and inventions such as those in paper, printing, the mariner’s compass, gunpowder; the work of Copernicus and Keppler in astronomy, Galileo with the telescope, Pascal and Boyle’s experiments with air pressure and Newton’s development of calculus.
These scientific discoveries disproved some of the Roman Church’s beliefs such as geocentricism at the trial of Galileo. This was a blow to the credibility of the Church.
Because of the invention of the printing press, as the Bible and parts of it became more accessible to the common man in his or her own language, many more people could read the scriptures for themselves. They began to question the beliefs of the Roman Church, and many determined that they were heretical. More and more people were beginning to be convinced in Europe that the Bible was the true word of God.
Thus, the Roman Church was successfully challenged on many fronts, loosening and then breaking its iron grip on the minds of the people and the rulers in Europe. Most people were still relatively poor. Through all this, the marriage institution remained largely intact.
German Rationalism
But worldwide commerce was growing by leaps and bounds. A kind of globalization was taking place. With explosion of scientific knowledge, new inventions and growth of commerce, great amount of wealth was being created in Europe and America. The industrial revolution started in Britain because God’s 2,520 year-long punishment of Israelite nations was coming to a close and God inspired the scientific discoveries and inventions. God was now going to confer great material blessings promised to Abraham unconditionally.
The Bible was being read by the masses in Britain and America. Though the nations had continued in the sins of Jeroboam the first king of the northern kingdom of the House of Israel after the split from the House of Judah - idolatry in the form of images and statues in the Churches, breaking the Sabbath and not keeping God’s commanded holy days, but instead keeping holidays of pagan origin such as Christmas, Easter, New Year’s Day and the like – the people generally kept the remaining eight of the ten commandments, and were by and large a moral people.
By the second half of the 18th century, the power of the Roman Church had been broken. It could no longer keep the people away from reading their bibles in their own languages. Research and knowledge of the Bible was spreading. The British and American people were thus being prepared to receive the unconditionally promised material blessings. To prevent them from fully enjoying their blessings and steal part of the blessings, Satan had to develop a new strategy.
Satan developed a two-pronged strategy to keep Israelite Americans and the British from enjoying their blessings to the fullest extent, and the strategy involved getting them away from God and the Bible, and then get them to sin, which without fail produces anguish, pain and suffering. The first prong of the attack was to question the existence of God Himself and the divine inspiration of the Bible. The second prong of the attack was to use the many German masqueraders (persons of German origin who have been living in America, the British Commonwealth nations and northwestern European nations) to induce them into sexual immorality, attack the marriage institution, and ridicule morality and replace it with ‘anything goes.’ The vehicle used to accomplish this was German Rationalism.
Hahn, a German Rationalist, defined Rationalism as "that manner of thought by which human reason is considered to be the only source and the only judge of all kinds of knowledge" (Hahn, De Rationalism, 1827). This simply means that ‘right’ is whatever seems reasonable to you!
The rationalist denies divine revelation and rejects the idea that the scriptures of any religion are the true inspired word of God. According to the rationalist, human reason alone is sufficient for answering all of life’s questions and deciding how to live. Gradually, the German rationalists had become bolder and bolder in their blasphemies. Nietzsche said, “God is dead!” They were professors of Theology in leading German Universities. Conrad Philip Henke, the Professor of Theology at the University of Helmstedt (1752-1809), taught his ministerial students that the inspiration of the Bible was superstition (Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, p. 377).
Germans actually try to portray to the world that they are atheists and rationalists and do not believe in God. But do not be fooled. They do believe in ‘god’ and their god is Satan the devil. Like Satan, the father of lies, they are liars and diabolical deceivers.
German Rationalism is nothing new. It’s as old as the Garden of Eden where Satan told Eve the first lie in Genesis 3:4-5 (NIV), “4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it [the forbidden fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Satan in effect told Eve that she should be rational and decide for herself what is good and right, what is evil and wrong.
German rationalists in a diabolical plot began to teach that the Bible is old Jewish folk lore; the main characters in the Bible and some of the kingdoms mentioned never existed. Hence, they said it is ignorance and foolishness to believe in the Bible. Then a German masquerader named Charles Darwin questioned the very existence of God with Satan-inspired Theory of Evolution. A handful of German masqueraders strategically placed in different countries of Europe added to Darwin’s theories and it began to appear that the evolution theory was accepted as a fact by most of the scientific community. Those who really looked at the evidence and saw that evolution simply could not be proved were labeled as ‘ignorant, foolish, irrational, believers of superstitions.’ Anyone who could provide evidence to the contrary was effectively silenced with such labeling. I myself had become ashamed to admit that I was religious for fear of being labeled as ‘ignorant’ or ‘a superstitious fool.’
The natural result of denying the existence of God and believing that humanity evolved rather than being created by an intelligent God was that ‘life has no meaning.’
Romans 8:7 says, “7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.”
Carnal humanity does not like to be subject to the law of God. Therefore, many accepted the rationalists’ arguments that the Bible is old Jewish tales and not to be believed. So, they did not have to obey the Ten Commandments and other statutes and judgments in the Bible. Preachers of all hues were swept in by the arguments of the ‘rationalist’ preachers (many of the leading ones being German masqueraders) and pounded the pulpits saying because of Jesus’ sacrifice, humanity no longer had to keep the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Law. Further, they said they could commit any sins and they would be forgiven due to the shed blood Jesus Christ. Carnal Christianity was swept away with their reasoning.
After an attack on the credibility of the Bible and belief in the existence of God was well under way, an assault was begun on the front of sexual purity and sex only within marriage. Thomas Henry Huxley, a biologist and contemporary of Charles Darwin was known as “Darwin’s bulldog” because he championed Darwin’s theory of evolution. I believe both men were German masqueraders. Among his descendants were physiologists, biologists and men of letters such as Aldous Huxley, intellectually distinguished men of their respective generations. These men declared their motives for championing their causes in their writings
Julian Huxley bluntly declared: “The sense of spiritual relief which comes from rejecting the idea of God as a superhuman being is enormous” (Essays of a Humanist, 1966, p. 223).
Julian’s brother Aldous Huxley wrote: “I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently I assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption…Those who detect no meaning in the world generally do so because, for one reason or another, it suits their [purpose] that the world should be meaningless” (Ends and Means, 1946, p. 273).
Huxley further explained: “For myself, as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom…There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and at the same time justifying ourselves in our political and erotic revolt: We could deny that the world had any meaning whatsoever” (p. 270).
Aldous Huxley admitted that they wanted to feel free of any moral standards as they desired sexual freedom. So, he and his contemporaries who thought likewise, devised their own ‘rational’ justifications for refuting any moral standards. Since God was the source of moral standards, they denied the existence of God and attacked the credibility of His inspired word, the Bible, which contained the moral standards.
Another assault on sexual purity and ‘sex within marriage only’ was made through literature. After the first world war, novels and short stories began to appear describing infidelity and other explicit sex scenes outside of marriage. One example was Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence in 1928 which was immediately banned in the U.K., but copies were available in other countries of Europe. Short stories by W. Somerset Maugham and others also depicted sex outside of marriage. Thus, Satan drove a wedge into fidelity within marriage.
Satan continued to drive the wedge deeper and deeper over the following decades till the sexual revolution of the 1960s, when the flood gates were opened. That was made possible by Germany developing the technology to electronically deliver threats to individuals and offering it to German masqueraders in America and Britain. Then the German masqueraders swung into full action to destroy marriage and families within Israelite countries. Smut began to pour out in torrents from the publishing industry in the form of viler and viler pornographic novels and magazines such as Playboy and Hustler. Then assault began in Hollywood in the film and TV industries. Marriage became the butt of endless jokes on film and TV. Gradually but relentlessly, programs and shows depicting wholesome marriages and families of the 1950s, 1960s and the early 1970s such as the Cleavers in Leave it to Beaver, the Nelsons in Ozzie and Harriet, and Little House on the Prairie were replaced by All in the Family (Archie Bunker), Roseanne, The Simpsons, Everybody Loves Raymond, Married with Children, That 70s Show and many others. Most of these shows made fun of the father as the head of the family, portraying him as dumb, a buffoon, crude and as a laughingstock of the family.
Fornication, adultery, cohabitation, homosexuality and every other form of deviant sex and “alternative lifestyle” they could imagine, including same-sex “marriage,” have been portrayed tens of thousands of times in all types of media. All such programs and publications made all this immorality look fascinating, thrilling and mysterious. Just as the Satan-led propaganda by a few strategically placed masquerader proponents of the theory of evolution had made it look as if the entire scientific community believed in it, similar propaganda made deviant sex and ‘alternative lifestyles’ appear as the norm. Succeeding younger generations were sucked into believing that ‘everybody was doing it’ and followed the ‘herd.’
Minds thus infected in Israelite countries became open to listening to alternative ways of living in addition to the norm of a married family. The masqueraders were not content only with propaganda. Their diabolical plot to destroy marriages and families in America and British Commonwealth nations was followed up with action. They pioneered the alternative lifestyles which drew in the gullible Israelite young into the sexual revolution of the 1960s. The Hippie movement was Satan inspired and orchestrated by masqueraders. Masqueraders were the leading participants in it. Then they married Israelite men and women and deliberately divorced them, leaving them with children and condemning many young mothers with young children to fend for themselves. As divorce multiplied, society generally came to accept such lifestyles as the norm.
Their impact on marriage has been stunning as borne out by divorce statistics. That’s why 80% of marriages in the U.S. experience adultery, and many men and women admit that they do not trust their mate. U.S. lawmakers passing laws recognizing alternative forms of ‘marriages’ such as ‘same-sex marriages’ have only confounded the situation further. No wonder God indicts the American and British people and the leadership through Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 3:9-12, “9 The look on their countenance [face] witnesses against them, and they declare their sin as Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to their soul! for they have brought evil upon themselves. 10 "Say to the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. 11 Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be given him. 12 As for My people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O My people, those who lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths."
Thus, we see that there is wholesale violation and disregard for God’s purpose for marriage in America and Britain resulting in untold suffering. In my former job in the call-center in the welfare department of the State of Florida in the USA for more than seven years, every day, I heard stories of single women raising families of 2, 3, 4, 5 or more children, some holding jobs and some not, struggling to feed and clothe their children all by themselves. The fathers were nowhere around to help. When I took calls from them, I saw a sense of entitlement as if it’s the government’s responsibility to feed and clothe the children and provide them free housing adequate for the family, with free maintenance, free utilities, and free unlimited medical help. A family of 5 would have to be earning more than $70,000 annually in Florida before taxes to equal the amount that it costs the government to provide them all the free help they receive.
The world seems to be completely missing an understanding of God’s deep purpose for creating the marriage institution. God’s laws are living laws just like the law of gravity. A person who jumps down from a 100-story skyscraper is subject to the law of gravity and will become formless pulp at the bottom. Similarly, those violating any of God’s laws will suffer an automatic penalty in mental and physical pain and anguish. All those who violate God’s laws on marriage suffer the penalties in a lifetime of misery, poverty and insecurity. And such misery is often passed on to succeeding generations.
In our increasingly godless society most have swallowed the satanic lie that man evolved from simplest life forms rather than being created by a creator God. They think the institution of marriage is a human invention for convenience rather than a God-ordained one. Whenever it’s not convenient for them they can dispense with it. Majority of humanity think they are free to do whatever they want with their lives. In their warped thinking they don’t want God’s restrictive laws curbing their freedom.
God’s Laws in the form of the Ten Commandments and other statutes and judgments are restrictive laws. But they help man avoid danger, pain, suffering, anguish and ultimately death. God’s spiritual laws are living laws. If violated, they automatically exact a penalty. God’s seventh commandment states ‘You shall not commit adultery.” The commandment prohibits any sex of any kind outside of marriage between a man and a woman. If this law is violated it exacts automatic penalties of many kinds: poverty, possible disease, pain, suffering for parents, children, extended families, friends, and ultimately decline of nations. We see the results of violating this law all around the world. It illustrates the folly of the evolutionists’ thinking.
Evolutionists think man is merely a higher form of animal on the evolutionary ladder. The creator God of the Bible has a different view of man. Moses was inspired to write in Deuteronomy 4:19, “19 And lest you lift up your eyes unto heaven, and when thou see the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, should be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord your God has divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.”
Effectively God is saying to every human being born or who will ever be born that He has a planet reserved for him in the heavens initially as part of his nation; then later as he gains more experience, expanding to other stars and planets where he will be the god, the sole ruler and creator on that planet. When God told Abraham that He would multiply his descendants as the stars in heaven or as the sand on the seashore for multitude, He was not speaking in hyperbole. Abraham’s descendants along with other peoples will expand God’s creation on other planets.
But this God-planned potential of man means that 15% of people in America who are on welfare because of their choice to shun marriage and have children out of wedlock with multiple partners, and around 50% of those who are engaging in divorce and remarriage and having children out of wedlock, are wasting their opportunity to rule the universe unless they repent and change their way of life. They are not learning responsibility. How can God then give them the responsibility to rule a planet?
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