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The word
"disobedience" means obstinate rebellion. How futile then is the
effort of the "Children of Disobedience" to make the earth a more comfortable
habitation for man, and bring in a Millennium by a Federation of all Religious
Bodies, when the bulk of mankind is in OBSTINATE REBELLION against God,
and will not have His Son to reign over them, but are spending every energy to
produce a "Godless Civilization" and make way for Satan's
"MASTERPIECE," the "MAN OF SIN."
Satan is the "DECEIVER OF THE WORLD." Rev. 12:9. He raises
"false hopes." and deludes by the - "DECEITFULNESS OF RICHES" (Matt.
13:22), the "DECEITFULNESS OF SIN" (Heb. 3:13), and the "DECEITFULNESS
OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS." 2 Thess. 2:9-11. He causes the "exercise of
the imagination," and by "strong delusions," and "seducing
spirits," he tries to make men believe that his plans for the world's
betterment are right. His advocates point to the great increase in
scientific knowledge and invention, the great advance in methods of world-wide
communication by land, sea, and air, and the various inventions that lighten
labor and add to domestic comfort, and claim that the world is growing better,
not only because of these, but because of the great philanthropies of men that
have founded colleges, libraries, hospitals and great charitable institutions,
forgetting that these things only tend to the physical helpfulness of man and
have little to do with his moral character, and overlooking the fact that, in
spite of all this advancement of civilization, the world today sits on the mouth
of a volcano, whose interior is a "foaming cauldron" of social unrest and
commercial rottenness.
When the "God of this Age" discovered that he could not stamp out the Church by
PERSECUTION, he changed his tactics and now seeks to neutralize her efforts
by SEDUCTION. His method is to divert her efforts for the
evangelization of the world, to methods of "Social Betterment," and thus make
the world a better place to live in, forgetting that as the natural man cannot
be spiritually saved by CULTURE, neither can the world, therefore all
efforts to save the world by "Social Betterment" are futile. And when the
Church lends her aid to such methods she confesses that Christ's method of
saving the world IS INSUFFICIENT, and thus discounts the power of the
Gospel. Christian men give vast sums of money for the "Social,
Intellectual, and Physical Betterment of the world," rather than for the
evangelization of the world. They even go farther and form societies for
the investigation of "adverse social conditions," such as poverty, vice,
ignorance, etc., and appoint specialists at high salaries to investigate and see
if they can discover the cause of all the sin, misery and wretchedness there is
in the world, forgetting that in so doing they are wasting their money, for the
Bible told us centuries ago that the cause was SIN. If the proper
thing to do is to remedy a thing at its source, let the Church apply the remedy
of the Gospel and save the individual, and by thus doing save society.
The common opinion is, that all the "ills of society" are in men's surroundings,
or environment, whereas they are in MAN HIMSELF. Hence all human
schemes for the "Betterment of Society" must begin in the man himself.
This is, man must first be REGENERATED by the Holy Spirit. All the
schemes of men to make this world a better place to "live in" seem to be
to make the world a better place to "SIN IN," because they increase the
facilities for sin.
The "God of this Age" knows that if the Church was to give herself exclusively
to the work of "World Evangelization" he would lose her service in building his
great "Civilization Structure," so he is just as anxious to keep her in his
power, and postpone the time of her "Exodus," (1 Thess. 4:15-18), as Pharaoh was
to keep Israel in Egypt at work on his stone cities Rameses and Pithom. To
this end he keeps her busy "making bricks without straw," and thus blinds her
eyes to the light of the "Glorious Gospel of Christ," (the doctrine of the
Pre-Millennial Coming of the Lord), knowing that once she gets a vision of that
she will refuse to any longer work for his "World Betterment" schemes.
The unification of the nations of the earth is a scheme to reverse the judgment
of God on Babel and resume the building of "THE TOWER" that is to exalt
the name of man. Gen. 11: 1-9
There are two "Distinct Bodies" in this "Present Evil Age" in the process of
formation.
1. The "BODY OF CHRIST" - THE CHURCH.
2. The "BODY OF ANTICHRIST."
The first is being gathered by the "SPIRIT OF GOD" (Holy Spirit,) 1 Cor.
12: 3, 13, and the second by the "SPIRIT OF EVIL," that now worketh
(energizes) in the "Children of Disobedience." Eph. 2: 1-2. The
difference between the "Body" the Holy Spirit is forming, and the
"Body" the "Spirit of Evil" is forming, is, that the former is united to a
"LIVING HEAD," (Christ - Eph. 1:20-23), while the latter has no living
head for it is simply an "Organization," while the "Body of Christ" is an
"ORGANISM." Since the "Fall" and death of Adam the human race has
been headless, but when the "Body," or "Organization," that the "Spirit
of Evil" (Satan) is forming is complete, he (Satan) will produce its "HEAD,"
who will be the ANTICHRIST, thus reversing the Divine order of first the
"HEAD" (Christ) and then the "BODY" - the Church.
We are told that the Lord at his "Second Coming" will depose and punish two
distinct governing bodies. Isa. 24:21.
1. "The 'HIGH ONES' that are on high."
That is Satan and the "Evil Powers of the Air." Eph. 6:12.
2. "The 'KINGS OF THE EARTH' upon the earth."
That is the Anti-Christian World Powers represented by the "Ten Federated Kings"
under the control of Antichrist. Rev. 19:17-21.
The heavens will then be cleansed of all the "Powers of Evil," and their place
will be taken and occupied by Christ and the Saints who constitute the Church,
and they will reign during the Millennium from the heavens over the earth, as
Satan and his hosts do now. Rev.20:4
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