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Church of God Message
WHICH HOLY BOOK IS THE WORD OF GOD
INTRODUCTION
Humanity has tried to develop codes of conduct for what it means to be good. In fact, there are whole religions based on human reasoning alone without taking into consideration whether God exists or not. Examples include atheism, atheistic communism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Taoism, Confucianism and the like. These religions do not claim that a God revealed the code of conduct to the founder of the religion. The founder developed the code of conduct after enlightenment or deep reasoning of his own.
Since these religions are the philosophies of men, they do not address the question: What is salvation for human beings? They do not address the question of life after death in any comprehensive way.
On the other hand, major religions of the world claim that God exists, and He gave the laws for human conduct. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Judaism fall into this category. Sikhism claims that a supreme God exists but does not claim direct revelation from Him to their gurus. These religions that claim that God exists, and gave them the basic tenets of their religion, also address the question of life after death in some detail. In other words, they describe what salvation is. Though the Sikh gurus do not claim direct revelation from the supreme God, they do describe what salvation is. Salvation in Sikhism is similar to salvation according to Hinduism.
Life’s Ultimate Question
Since there is no agreement on the laws humanity should live by between all the non-religious, the religions based on human reasoning alone, and religions which claim revelation for their beliefs from a supreme Creator God, we are forced to first ask life’s ultimate question: Does God exist?
If the answer to life’s ultimate question is “Yes!”, then that changes everything. If a Supreme Creator God exists, and He has created everything, including mankind, then the ideas of the non-religious and those of the religions based on human reasoning alone, meaning mere philosophies of men, can be discarded as non-authoritative, unless the Creator created mankind and left it alone to develop its own ideas on how to live.
On the other hand, if a Creator God exists, created mankind, and also revealed the laws mankind should live by, then our task in search for the truth is much simplified. A Creator God ought to know how His product, mankind, can be best maintained. If we can find that correct instruction manual for mankind from the true Creator God, then we can reject all others and use only that correct instruction manual to live our lives.
For most efficient search for the right ‘religion’ or ‘way of life’ we must begin by asking the ultimate question: Does God Exist?
We have very good news in this regard. We have plenty of proof that one supreme Creator God does indeed exist. I was recently involved in a discussion on my WhatsApp group consisting of engineering school (Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India) fellow graduates. I was asked to provide the kind of proof that I sought that convinced me that God exists. Here is how I answered that and related questions.
Some in the group said that they will believe God exists if they see Him. If God appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, why then does He not appear to you and me now?
The answer is that if we were to see God in His true spirit form, we would perish. That should be easy to understand. We can barely look at the sun at such a long distance. Any closer to the sun, we would not survive. God who created the sun surely is brighter than that and we would not be able to survive in His presence.
He can come in human form. But if He came in human form, we would still not believe He is God, even if He did numerous miracles. He would be miserable in seeing humans violating His laws and reaping pain, suffering and misery as a result, and would tell humanity how to conduct themselves and not violate His laws, which would arouse the ire of most. They would tell Him to get lost and probably attack Him. The fact is that He did come in human form as Jesus Christ and did numerous miracles. Jews and Gentiles alike murdered Him because He rebuked them for their sins and did not believe that He was the God of the Old Testament of the Bible Who had created all the angelic world, the material universe, humanity and all creatures on earth. If He came to earth in human form today, humanity will laugh Him to scorn and hound Him out of their neighborhoods.
Before coming to earth as Jesus Christ, He did come in human form earlier as the High Priest Melchizedek of Salem mentioned in the Bible. But He could not continue among humans because of their sins. Abraham was aware of Him and interacted with Him.
God interacted with Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job and Moses because they were obedient to Him. When He interacted with them, they did not question Him or mock Him, but obeyed Him without question in whatever He required of them. That’s why He interacted with them and does not show Himself to us.
However, He is coming again and will show Himself and interact with humans shortly, most probably within our own lifetimes, but not in the way we imagine. This time He is not coming as a weak human being, but like the God of the Old Testament, to take over the kingdoms of the world and set up God’s Kingdom.
To understand how that will happen in outline form, you can read my 15-page post titled “Summary of Sequence of End-Time Events” at my website www.ChurchofGodMessage.com.
To further understand why God does not show Himself, we have to go back to what happened in the Garden of Eden.
The first humans God created, Adam and Eve, disobeyed His instructions to not eat of the fruit of the tree of good and evil, but listened to Satan instead. So God drove them out of the Garden of Eden to prevent them from eating of the tree of life, living forever, continuing to listen to Satan and sinning, and reaping misery for eternity. After that God has been working on a 7,000-year plan to bring humanity to Himself and build a relationship with Him. He has allotted the first 6,000 years to man to do as he pleases. In effect, after Adam and Eve disobeyed God, He said to mankind [this is excerpted from Volume 1 of my ancient history book “Satan vs God: From the Beginning to the Flood”:
In driving man out of the Garden of Eden, God effectively told him: “Adam and Eve, by taking of the fruit of the tree of good and evil, you have made a decision for yourself, and all your descendants, to rebel against My commands, My government and My way of life characterized by love, giving and sharing. You have rejected Me as the source of knowledge of how to live. You have chosen to decide for yourself through your own experiences, trial and error and your own human reasoning as influenced by Satan, what is good and evil, right and wrong, rather than be taught by me. By listening to and obeying Satan, you have now opened yourself to be influenced by him.
“I am now sentencing you for 6,000 years to be cut off from Me and access to My Holy Spirit, which you would have received by taking of the fruit of the tree of life. Go out into the world and develop your own society and civilization. Develop your own methods of government, make your own laws, make your own gods and develop your own religions, your own education systems and how you will impart knowledge to your descendants. But in all this you will be influenced and deceived by Satan in his way of self-centeredness, vanity, lust, greed, envy, jealousy, hatred, competition and strife which will lead to violence, wars, bloodshed and death.
“However, I will also ensure that knowledge of My ways will not die out completely in the world. Since you will not have access to My holy spirit, your understanding to know My way will not be opened, and without My holy spirit you will not be able to live that way. But, I will call a few individuals [such as Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, David, Elijah, Elisha and the prophets] for special service during these 6,000 years and give them My holy spirit. I will teach them My ways and they shall live that way with the help of the holy spirit. They will be required to do what you have failed to do. They will have to reject Satan’s way, resist and overcome him, and develop and grow in My holy, righteous character. Those who successfully resist and overcome Satan, and develop My holy, righteous character will qualify to receive eternal life and become my sons, and shall rule with Me as kings and priests in My kingdom over all nations.
“After you and your descendants have written the lesson of Satan’s way and your own ways in 6,000 years [which by the way are coming to a close] of suffering, anguish, want, scarcity, strife, violence, wars, bloodshed and death, and the world will have been brought to the brink of total annihilation, then I will use my supernatural power to intervene to save you from yourselves and Satan. After you have learnt the utter hopelessness of living your way and Satan’s way, I will take back my kingdom and government from you. I will then set up My own kingdom and government over you for 1,000 years. I will then teach all humanity My way and give everyone who repents of his sins and his way of life my holy spirit, which will give them the power to keep My laws and live according to My way of life. I will then demonstrate to all humanity that My way of love produces true happiness, joy, abundance and prosperity, and that your way and Satan’s way produces pain, suffering and death. During that time, I will imprison Satan so that he will no longer be able to influence you. I will give salvation to those who develop holy and righteous character through the power of My holy spirit. They shall receive My gift of eternal life and become My sons.
“During the 6,000 years most of your descendants will not be called and given My holy spirit. But neither will I judge them. But at the end of 1,000 years of My kingdom, I will use My divine power to resurrect them back to life as physical human beings again. I will then offer eternal salvation to all of them. Those who repent of their sins will be given My holy spirit to enable them to keep My laws and live according to My way of life. Satan will not be around to influence them. So they will not have to resist and overcome him. They will have to overcome only their own natures and the pulls of society. Those who develop My holy and righteous character will be granted the gift of eternal life and become my immortal sons. Those who fail to do so, will be destroyed in the Lake of Fire and their lives extinguished forever.”
The good news is that almost all of humanity will accept God’s way as taught and lived during 1,000 years of God’s Kingdom, after they contrast it with the 6,000 years that humanity lived in its own way as influenced by Satan. Of course, all of humanity will be able to see God in His kingdom. After that, all of humans made immortal as God’s literal sons and daughters will live with Him for eternity. They will have learnt to obey and trust God completely.
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