God tends to name things what they are so today that is what we are going to endeavor to do. We are going to call a spade a spade and name things what they are. The title of today's lesson is “Clearing God's Name”.
There are many examples in the scriptures of God calling people, places and things by their characteristics. For example Jacob's original name means supplanter. So Jacob was by characteristics a person who would trick or supplant, which is exactly what he did in his life. God was very accurate. He tricked Esau out of his birthright. He was a shady character sometimes. But when he was willing to accept God for what He was and his character began to change, God changed his name. He changed his name to Israel. Israel means “he and his descendants shall rule” which is interesting because that is obviously what the scriptures point out throughout the Bible. It states that spiritual Israel will rule and some day will bring peace to the earth with Jesus Christ. God changed his name to reflect the character growth.
Abraham means “patriarch of a multitude” which is exactly what he is referred to in the New Testament. He is called the father of the faithful.
When God created Lucifer He gave him a beautiful name. He gave him the name “light bringer”, “morning star”. That is a bringer of the truth or a bringer of knowledge and true light to the earth. That is the kind of being Lucifer was when he was created. He was absolutely gorgeous.
When God thinks of something gorgeous, of course, He would make things beautiful in their appearance, but He is mostly concerned with character. Lucifer had a sterling character. Turn, if you would, to Ezekiel 28. Because we have looked at this issue before, we understand Satan has worked through individuals in the Bible. For instance, the king of Babylon would be an example. Here he is referred to as the king of Tyre. As we go to the second part of verse 12 and on through 13 you will see the king of Tyre is just a personification of Lucifer. We can have the physical comparison to the spiritual so we as human beings can see.
Ezekiel 28, starting in verse 12: “'Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, “Thus says the Lord God: 'You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God.'”'” We can see that obviously the king of Tyre could not have lived for several thousand years as a human being to be from Eden to this existence in the Old Testament here in Ezekiel's time. Obviously we are talking about a spirit being.
Continuing in verse 13: “'You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: the sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created. You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked back and forth in the midst of the fiery stones.'” Obviously this is talking about Lucifer, a very high-ranking angel in God's kingdom and His government.
Continuing in verse 15: “'You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you. By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within, and you sinned; therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God; and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones.'” He says “destroyed” and that refers to destroying his position because Satan still exists.
As you just heard me say his name was changed to Satan. It was no longer Lucifer. When he thought too much of himself and he turned from a lightbringer, a beautiful being in character, he became an ugly thing. He became an adversary and that is exactly what Satan means. If you were to look up Satan in the Strong's Concordance for your Old Testament, you would find that his name means adversary, opponent, arch enemy, accuser, devil, false accuser and slanderer. You would find in the New Testament he is called Abaddon or Apollyon. This is another name for Satan which means to devastate, to waste, violence, ravage, desolation, destruction and oppression.
These are the descriptions of Satan's character. When his character changed from one of beauty and perfection and a light bringer, a truth bringer, to a wicked, evil, violent being and an oppressor of those underneath him, God changed his name. God was not going to leave his name light bringer and morning star when his character reflected all of this evil.
If we were to go through the scriptures and start looking at names, we would find out many things. We would gain a lot of information. This is why I often say in order to study the Bible, one needs a very good concordance. We recommend Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. It is a book that is practically 180 years in the making and very comprehensive. It goes into the depths of the meanings of the words so you can see what the words mean in the ancient Hebrew, the Aramaic and the Greek. Because even though the translators did the best they could, many times their own feelings on an issue show through. Their own limitations and understandings show through and they cannot quite get it right.
On top of that, there is no language that can really do justice translating word for word. Sometimes in order to take a language and translate a word properly into another language, it takes many words to capture the nuances, the feelings, the emotions, the actual depths of meaning behind it. It takes more words than you could write in the Bible. The Bible would be many times thicker if all the meanings and feelings of a word went into the written English language of your Bible. Therefore, they do the best they can, but it is very helpful to go back into the original written language and read all of those nuances, variations, different shades and meanings and gain that knowledge.
If you were to study names and you picked the subject of God, you would find out in the Bible God has many names for Himself as well. But I assure you that none of Satan's names and characteristics apply to God. They have nothing in common anymore, absolutely nothing in common. When Satan turned from light bringer and truth bringer to an evil, violent oppressor, God and Satan no longer had anything in common. Therefore, we have to be very careful not to put any of the attributes of Satan on to God. What we are going to see today is that is exactly what has been done very successfully by Satan for the last six thousand years. He has actually put his name on to God and has tried to take God's characteristics in a tricky way on to himself so that people would worship him. We will see this as we go through this study today, and it will help clear the issue up and actually clear God's name. That is what we are attempting to do today: clear God's name.
As it has become tainted by Satan, God's name has become very confusing for people because people view God as we should be viewing Satan! Throughout the world God is often considered very hard, very cruel, very tough, an unyielding opponent. You never want to get on God's bad side. He is an unyielding opponent. He is a dispenser of harsh justice. This is how many people view their god and I have been told that directly by some people. They say God is a hard God, an unyielding God, an unforgiving God in actual fact.
They view God as a being about to wreak enormous havoc upon the earth. I have heard people try to quantify the suffering and the destruction of the end time. A common figure that I hear is that 90 percent of the world and its people will be destroyed. I have heard calculations that go as high as 95 percent. They say 95 percent of all alive will be destroyed on earth!
I would have to say that if that occurred on the earth, the earth would be ruined. The earth as we see it out there would be ruined, and God's creation would be devastated. It would be destroyed! Now I ask you, Satan's name means destruction and destroyer, and God is the true light of the universe. Does it make sense to say that God is going to destroy the creation that He said He loved when He made it? He said it was beautiful and good. It makes no sense at all. So we have put on to God the characteristics of Satan.
We have to realize that God is the friend of mankind, as mankind is made in His image and likeness. God is not going to start again with a few battered survivors, with an earth that is a nuclear wasteland, disease ridden with virtually all the plant life destroyed by fire. I have heard people say there will be earthquakes everywhere and stars and comets will be slamming into the earth in the last days. This is not what God is going to do or to allow.
Where did this concept come from? It does not square with scripture when we properly study God's word. What does it say in John 3:16? Turn there. It is the most quoted scripture in the Bible. It is the one that you will hear often times on different programs, in sermons and written constantly. John 3, verse 16: “'For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.'”
God loves the world and not just a few people on it. He does not love 5 percent of the world or 10 percent of the world. He loves the world and He sent His Son to die for the world while they were yet in their sins. But don't we realize that in Revelation 12:9 the world is deceived. That is the kicker. That is the bottom line. The world does not understand God and it is high time we do! It is high time we clear God's name so that we can see His character, we can see His attributes and start gaining confidence in the Being who created mankind and this beautiful earth.
Where did this concept come from? Obviously it came from Satan. He is God's arch enemy and mankind's arch enemy. As his name implies, he is a false accuser. He is a slanderer. His character makes him bent on violence, on devastation, on deception and on destruction. He wants to take God's position. Satan has an enormous ego. He wants to be number one. He has always desired that from the time his countenance changed. From the time violence and sin was found in him and he got these desires to ascend above God, from that time forward he became God's adversary. Since man is created in the image and likeness of God, he, of course, hates mankind as well. He wants to destroy us. He is bent on destruction.
He has been given six thousand years to rule the earth, but his time will be cut short. When that is over, it's over! The devastation, the destruction, the waste and the deceit is going to come to an end. God will bring peace. This is His promise, as we will see.
Let us always remember, God is a builder and a creator. Satan is a deceiver and a destroyer. They are opposites. God is full of love. Satan is full of hate. God's character and His thoughts are beautiful. Satan's character and his thoughts are ugly. They are opposites. They are 180 degrees different. We must never apply Satan's characteristics and his name to our God.
How did God get His name twisted by Satan? How did Satan do this in man's mind? How did he get us to believe that God is like him? He accomplished this in a number of ways. It was a very heinous deception and something that he has been working on for a long time. He is an incredibly smart being. He is incredibly smart. He has many tools in his arsenal, but I want to focus on one today. It is possibly the most devastating tool in his arsenal for turning mankind away from God and confusing mankind's image of God (that is, our thinking regarding God and what He is like).
This tool of his is that he is a tremendous wheeler-dealer. He is constantly making agreements, so to speak, with humankind that pull us away from God. He tricks us to think we are dealing with God when we are making the deals. I do not want to dwell on this too much because it is depressing. He has been very, very successful, and his treachery is awful. But we need to look at it briefly in order to see how he has tricked mankind into viewing God in terms of Satan's name and characteristics and getting mankind to actually worship him and deal with him.
The first explanation is that when we study the concept of a wheeler-dealer we find that it is universal, literally on the entire earth! Whatever nation, country, race, people or religion we talk about, they have a different arrangement. I do not care whether you are talking about mainstream Christianity, whether you are talking about the established churches (such as Catholicism) or we are talking about pagan religions. It is time that we all need to stand up and say we have been tricked. We are not putting anyone down. We all have been tricked. Revelation 12:9 does not make any exceptions. He deceived the whole world. As an arch deceiver his intent was to fight God and, of course, to fight man.
What is this concept that he has made, this deal that he has made with all of these different groups, nations and religions? It is easily explained in this way. Each group thinks they are special. Each group, each nation, each race, each religion thinks that in God's eyes they are special. They are worthy of preferential treatment. They are so special that God is literally going to destroy everyone else but not their little group, not their race, not their religion. Just all the other people will be destroyed. Their group is just fine. He gets us believing that our group is so special, whatever group it happens to be (whatever race, whatever nationality, whatever religion). He won't punish my group, my religion, my church, my race. God wants to punish everyone else!
People have this deal with Sheol, as we will see, with Satan that goes something like this: God is not angry with my group, therefore He is not angry with me. He is angry with everyone else. What He is going to do for me and my group is he is going to protect us. When all of the devastation comes upon the earth, I am going to be safe. My family will be safe. My religion will be safe.
I don't care whether you talk to a different group and you call it a place of safety, a rapture, going to heaven or they call it sitting in the sky and watching the devastation below almost like on a movie (a surreal experience). There is some variation of that no matter where you go on earth! No matter who you talk to, Christian or Islamic. I do not care what religion, pagan or God fearing. They feel the same. They are special.
Wouldn't it take some extraordinary wheeler-dealer to pull that off around the world? Do you know there are over two hundred countries in the world? How many religions? How many ethnicities? How many different backgrounds and different races? Each are thinking they are special and that they have a deal with God that makes them special. God does not play favorites that way. God loved the whole world didn't it say? He gave His begotten Son for the whole world. It does not matter your color. It does not matter your race. It does not matter your nationality or your religion. God loves you.
There are certain things we have to do. We have to respond to that love, and we have to take on His character. As long as Satan can keep us confused and keep us taking on his character and believing God is harsh and cruel and a dispenser of harsh justice, he can keep us away from God. As long as Satan can get us thinking in those terms, he can keep us oppressed. He keeps us captive, and he keeps us hating one another. As he made this deal didn't he say to the different church groups, religions and ethnicities that it is okay for you to kill those people over there? They do not have the same color of skin you do. You can kill them. They are less.
In Ireland one religion kills another religion. Why? We are special and they are not. They are bad people. Our god says we can kill them. The Islamic extremists fly airplanes into other people's buildings. Why? They are Americans. They are bad. They are the great Satan. It is okay to kill them. It is so okay to kill them that we can take our little children and our women and put bombs around their midsections underneath their turbans and tunics and send them in amongst their children and blow them up! It is okay! That is all right because they are bad and we are okay.
You go to Yugoslavia and it is okay for one group to ethnically cleanse the other group. Why? They are a different religion. It is okay. God is not angry with us for doing that. He is angry at them. You can go to Africa and one tribe butchers another tribe. You see this all the time in the papers. Why? They are a different tribe. They have the same color of skin we do, but they are a different tribe so it is okay. We can wipe them out! No problem.
You go around the world and everybody is tricked! Mankind is all created in the image and likeness of God, everybody. When we turn in hatred to destroy anybody, we take on Satan's name don't we? And that is destroyer, killer, adversary, slanderer. But when we say God says it is okay, we have given Him the name of Satan! We have said our god made it okay for us to do this, therefore, our god has taken on the name of Satan and indeed is god. He is their god. Whenever we fall for that line of reasoning and we go along with that plan, we are worshipping the wrong god, which is exactly what Satan wants. He has the world deceived into thinking you are honoring the right god! There are actually people who will come along and kill other Christian groups and they are a Christian group!
Can you imagine in World War I and World War II Lutheran killing Lutheran, Catholic killing Catholic. The priest or minister blessing one group to go ahead and shoot the people on the other side of that line. Do you see that line over there? Anybody on the other side of that line you can kill! Didn't we stop to ask the question, aren't they of the same faith as me? Why would I want to kill my Catholic brother, my Lutheran brother, my Methodist brother? Why would I want to do that if we all serve the same God? Because we have taken on the characteristics of the false god. He is an accuser, he is a killer, he is a destroyer.
If we want to worship the right God, we need to take on God's characteristics so we reflect His character. Some day our name can be changed into something good and not the image and likeness of Satan. I think a lot of us fail to realize we were created in the image and likeness of God, but we have taken on the image and likeness of Satan. The world acts like Satan. It is hard to come out of that. People who rise above it, stand out, and they are hated.
Abraham Lincoln, my favorite hero, really was a decent man. Of course, he had problems. Every human being does. But it did not take long when the Civil War ended for him to get killed. Who do you think was behind that? Every time a peace maker rises up in the Middle East like Yitzhak Rabin, what happens? He gets killed. Over and over again the peace makers get killed. Why? Satan hates peace. He literally hates peace. When you promote peace, you become his enemy. When you promote discord, he loves you. Then it becomes hard for good to rise up above evil and throw off the oppression. Therefore, we have wars constantly to try to throw off oppressors who have followed Satan's dictates and have taken on the characteristics of Satan.
It does not matter whether you talk about Jew or Christian. Abraham Lincoln was a Protestant Christian although he affiliated with no group. Yitzhak Rabin was Jewish. There was also the President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat. As soon as Anwar Sadat said these wars that we are doing here between the Jews and us is crazy, and we must stop this, how long did he live? Not very long. We have to realize, though, that the only way good is going to overcome evil is if enough of us take on the characteristics of God and of Jesus Christ and we help promote light. We need to get back to the source of light and get rid of the darkness that covers this earth.
We find that this agreement is universal. Because Satan is the accuser, he wants to conquer us in every way and destroy us. So he breeds hatred, he breeds jealousy, he breeds self-righteousness. He is the harsh and unforgiving one, not God. Satan is the god of this world at this time.
Turn, if you would, to II Corinthians chapter 4, verse 3: “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.” Notice carefully the first mention of god referring to Satan, the god of this age, is a little “g”. When it refers to Jesus Christ and the image of the true God, it is a big “G”. But the god of this world, Satan, wants to be the big God. He never was satisfied. Once violence was found in him, he was no longer satisfied to be just a high-ranking angel. He wanted to be the very God in charge of everything. It made him God's adversary.
He is the god of this age, and we have to remember that. When we take on any characteristic of violence and hatred, animosity of any sort, greed or jealousy or self-righteousness, we are reflecting the image of the wrong god. I do not care what religion or race you are or I am, if we reflect violence and hatred, we worship the wrong god. We all have to get this straight. Around this world nearly seven billion people have to get this straight. God will force us to get it straight. He is going to force us with the overwhelming power of love. Not with violence and hatred. He is not going to use that. That is Satan's tactic. He is going to overcome hatred with love, evil with good. He is going to do it in a marvelous way.
Those who just absolutely refuse after God has tried to make it possible for us to learn His ways will be dealt with. There will be a very few who will be like Satan and say I like this character. I like promoting hatred. I like promoting jealousy. I like killing other people. Obviously, for their benefit, God cannot allow them to live.
God is going to free us from this oppressor, and He is going to do it very soon. He has to undo some agreements doesn't he? He has to get rid of some wheeling and dealing. He is going to do that. Turn to Isaiah chapter 28. God does not like the wheeling and dealing with the wrong side. He is going to give us time to repent of it and get out of it. If we do not, He will have no choice but to cancel those deals and do a little changing around.
Isaiah 28, verse 7: “But they also have erred through wine, and through intoxicating drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through intoxicating drink, they are swallowed up by wine, they are out of the way through intoxicating drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment. For all tables are full of vomit and filth; no place is clean.” What is God saying here?
If you were to look up that word, “prophet” in your Strong's Concordance, it is number 5030 which means an “inspired man” and it is related to number 5012 which is to speak by inspiration or simple discourse. An inspired teacher for number 5016. So a prophet does not have to be just somebody who writes prophecies. It is anybody who puts themselves in a priestly role or a prophet's role as a teacher. We are told here that eventually anyone who has prophesied or taught the wrong information (and anyone down through time) is out of the way. They are not helping get rid of the problems of the earth. They are helping to cause the problems. They are working for the wrong side. So what they have done is they have stepped out of Satan's way in effect and got in God's way! They are not doing the job they were supposed to do. What do they do it with? Intoxicating drink.
If you were to study that issue you would find out false doctrines and false teaching make us drunk in God's eyes. We are drunk. We look around the world and we see prophets and priests of practically every religion around the world espousing hatred towards some other religion. One nation hating another nation. Where does this come from? It comes from Satan. When we do that, we are working for the wrong side. God is very upset with this.
Continuing in verse 9 of Isaiah 28: “'Whom will he teach knowledge? And whom will he make to understand the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just drawn from the breasts? For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little. For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people, to whom He said, “This is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest,” and, “This is the refreshing”; yet they would not hear.'”
God has been trying to show people the way to the rest (the way to the Millennium, the way to the refreshing) especially since Jesus Christ and the proliferation of God's word, the Bible. But people would not hear. In God's Bible, in His word, are His thoughts. When we put precept upon precept and line upon line, we understand what God is like. When we understand what God is like, we see He is full of love. He wants us to reflect that love for our fellowman and not be part of the problem but part of the solution.
Continuing in verse 14: “Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scornful men, who rule this people who are in Jerusalem, because you have said, 'We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we are in agreement. When the overflowing scourge passes through, it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood we have hidden ourselves.'”
God uses the term Jerusalem. This will be the capital of the earth soon. Jerusalem stands for the people who say they are of God. Anytime we see people who say they are of God but they hate their fellowman, they are scornful men teaching the wrong thing. I do not care what religion it is. They are scornful men teaching the wrong thing.
God said you have made a deal with Sheol when you say in the end time that when the world gets smashed to bits, we are going to be okay. Our group is going to be okay. If you are of this religion, this faith, you are going to be all right. It is everybody else who is going to die. God hates that message. That is not from Him. It is not from God.
Continuing in verse 18 of Isaiah 28: “'Your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overflowing scourge passes through, then you will be trampled down by it. As often as it goes out it will take you; for morning by morning it will pass over, and by day and by night; it will be a terror just to understand the report.'”
Anybody who claims to be speaking for God but is actually putting Satan's attributes on God and claims that their group or their religion is special or their race is special and everyone else is condemned to death, they are going to have that deal with Sheol (Satan). It will be annulled and in essence flipped over on them! It will not be a comfortable place to be. And I say men, but there are women too. We cover all mankind with that.
When we stand up and we say we speak for God, we had better speak for God. When we say we represent God, we had better represent love, truth and righteousness; and we had better have no shred of hatred, no shred of violence, deceit, self-righteousness in us whatsoever. Because if we do, we are honoring the false god. We are bearing the image of the wrong god. We need to bear the image of the true God. The sooner we learn this, the less suffering there will be on this earth and the quicker things are going to get better.
You would see there is a flood that is spoken of here if you were to turn to the end of the Bible to Revelation chapter 12. Revelation 12, verse 13: “Now when the dragon…” (that is Satan the devil) “…saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child.” That is the Church that gave birth to Jesus Christ (His called-out ones). When Satan saw that Christ had come and He did love the whole world and He was going to make it so that our sins could be forgiven, of course, Satan hated that.
Continuing in verse 14: “But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.” God can offer us the truth away from the face of the serpent, away from false teaching. But we have to let Him teach us.
Verse 15: “So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
We see a flood here spoken of. What would this flood be? Is it literally water that is going to cover the earth again? No! This flood is false teaching and false doctrine! Flood represents water, and water represents one of two things. Fresh water in the Bible represents God's Holy Spirit and truth. Salt water (the sea) represents Satan's attitudes, false doctrines and lies. So what Satan does at the end time, as he did all throughout time, (but he does it with a huge flood at the end) is he just floods the world with lies. He wants to stir the world up to destroy itself before Christ can come back at His second coming. That is his goal. But God is not going to allow that. That would make a mockery of God's plan. He will not allow that.
He is testing all upon the earth to see if we are going to fall for it. Once we have the truth spoken to us, which way are we going to land? This is called the great tribulation in essence when we have to force out the thinking of Satan from our mind. We will deal with that in another study, but suffice it to say, God is going to win. His truth will prevail throughout the earth.
We are facing a flood right now. It is a flood of false teaching and a flood of false teachers who are scaring people to death with lies, with deceit. It is stirring up mankind to hate one another. Indeed to hate everyone not of their ilk, not of their stripe, not of their faith, not of their religion, not of their nationality. Satan wants to destroy this earth in a big way right now, and God is not going to allow it.
Turn to Ezekiel chapter 13. It talks about this in very stark terms. God hates that doctrine. God hates futility. He hates vanity. I do not mean vanity in the terms that we think of it but “in vain.” He hates waste. He has created the earth to be fruitful and productive and not to be a waste place.
Ezekiel 13, verse 1: “And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to those who prophesy out of their own heart, “Hear the word of the Lord!”'” Here God is talking specifically to the prophets or the teachers of Israel which were the keepers of the oracles, the Bible that we have and eventually the New Testament as well.
There are people who crept into positions within the Church who believe in Christ and teach the wrong things, but this scripture is actually suitable for the entire earth. Anybody who says they speak for God but speak in these terms is wrong. God focuses here on Israel because the Bible basically focuses on Israel, but it has hope for the entire world. But it was written by one people for a special reason. We will not get into that right now.
Continuing on in verse 3 and please read to verse 6. If you are of a different persuasion and you are not reading the Bible you may say, “Thus says Allah” or “Thus says Buddha” or whatever. Whatever religion you happen to be, if the shoe fits, wear it. Because if you wear it, you admit it. You can change. If we do not wear it and do not admit it, we do not change. We find ourselves on the wrong side of the fence.
So they want their word confirmed and they are teaching futility and false divination. Verse 7: “'Have you not seen a futile vision, and have you not spoken false divination? You say, “The Lord says,” but I have not spoken.'” How many clairvoyants are there out there? How many soothsayers, tarot readers, whatever are out there? They say they have a vision for you. They will tell you what God has in store for you and your life. Everybody is going to have to repent. We have all been deceived and we have to admit it.
Verse 8 of Ezekiel 13: “Therefore thus says the Lord God: 'Because you have spoken nonsense and envisioned lies, therefore I am indeed against you,' says the Lord God.” So God is against anybody who teaches false divination and vanity. In verse 6 it says “vanity” in the King James or “futility” in the New King James Version.
What is futility and what is vanity? It is the Hebrew word “shav” which is number 7723 in your Strong's Concordance. It stands for devastation and destruction. Anybody who preaches devastation and destruction is preaching vanity and futility. God hates it. He hates it with a passion, because He came to create and build. He came to give hope.
Shav is an interesting word itself. If you were to take the derivitives of it, shav comes from shoah, which means as a storm or a rising flood. So this futility, this speaking in God's name is the flood that covers the earth. It is a flood of futile thinking that the world will be destroyed and that God cannot save us. May be He can save a little bit, a few of us. I am sure glad it is my group. I am sure glad it is my race or my nation. Too bad for everybody else. God hates that line of thinking. If you or I think like that, we are going to have to repent of it and repent of it soon.
God did not create the earth to be a vain thing, to be a wasted thing. Turn, if you would, to Isaiah chapter 45, and we will start reading in verse 18. This is a very interesting scripture here. “For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth and made it, who has established it, who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited: 'I am the Lord, and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth; I did not say to the seed of Jacob, “Seek Me in vain;” I, the Lord, speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.'” He told Jacob I am changing your name to Israel so that you will rule. You and your descendants will rule, and you are not going to rule a devastated place, a nuclear wasteland.
People who follow the truth and the light are going to rule a productive earth that is beautiful. I did not create the earth to be a vain thing. That term “vain” is the number in your Strong's Concordance 8414 which means waste and desolation of the surface. God did not create the earth to have the surface of it destroyed.
You know where else you can find that word used? Turn back to the very beginning of your Bible, Genesis chapter 1. You will find that word used right in the very beginning of your Bible. It is a very famous scripture. Genesis 1, verse 1. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”
What waters are referred to there in verse 2? That is Satan's waters. It is Satan's devastation and destruction, because what does the word “form” here mean? It is number 8414. The same word: waste and desolation of the surface. So when God's spirit moved across the waters, what did He see? Satan's hatred, Satan's jealousy, Satan's anger, Satan's viciousness and ugliness was all over the earth. God said We cannot have this.
The earth was without form and void. I hate it this way. I did not create it to be this way, not thirteen billion years ago and not now. So He brought light to one spot on the earth. He started teaching mankind the right way. Satan hated it and quickly co-opted God's people, made in His image and likeness.
God said that is not the end of the story. That is the story of the beginning, because I am going to free these people. I am going to free them from you, Satan. First, we are going to have people throughout the first six thousand years who will do My will and they will form a government for Me someday when I send My Son a second time.
I will send My Son once to bring light to the earth and die for all mankind, because I love this whole earth so much. I love all the people who dwell on it so much that I am going to send My Son to redeem them, to wipe away their sins, to make them clean. Eventually the whole world will get rid of your deception. But I have to do things in order. I have to do things in an organized fashion. You have six thousand years minus a few, but I have eternity! I will win. This is God speaking right in your Bible. This is what the Bible is all about. God will win. He will destroy the destroyer and his government.
He did not just mean physical water. He meant any type of water that destroys. The worse destruction is lies and deceit, hatred and violence. That is the character of Satan. God said I am not going to allow that, and I am not going to allow a physical flood or physical devastation either. Because I love the surface of this earth that I created, and I created it to be inhabited.
Turn to Genesis chapter 8, verse 20. It is the story of Noah. This is after the flood. “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, 'I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.'”
That is a promise from the Great God, and He is not going to go back on it! Satan wants this promise to be foiled, but God is not going to go back on His word. We have to believe it, and He said it at the beginning of the Bible. Therefore, when we hear that the world is going to get destroyed, we are not hearing the truth!
God has lifted a curse off the earth. Some day we will explain that whole subject and how that curse was lifted. I promise you, it is lifted. All scripture substantiates what we are saying here that God will win and defeat Satan. We will have a beautiful Millennium, and it is just up ahead for mankind. It will be a wonderful time to be alive. Most of you hearing this message, are going to be there! Have hope and understand that this is the way it is because the Great God said it will be.
It is Satan who wants to destroy, and right now he has us where he wants us because he has mankind reflecting his character. It is a character of violence and ugliness, hatred and viciousness. His policy is a scorched earth policy. If he ever determines he is going to lose, and I know at this point in time he can see the writing on the wall, then he is going to turn on mankind with a vicious hatred. He will try to destroy all who speak the truth and destroy mankind with a scorched earth policy because he wants to turn over to Jesus Christ as little as possible. Anybody who teaches that a few will be saved and a few will survive, is following the dictates of Satan, the adversary of God. God wants the earth to go into the Millennium as a beautiful place where mankind will have hope, peace, love and true justice.
The Millennium will start on Christ's terms and not on Satan's terms. I do not care if Satan does have a scorched earth policy, he will be defeated. It takes us bearing the image and likeness of God and Jesus Christ, bearing the image of love and truth to help defeat Satan. God will do it with us or without us. Wouldn't it be nice if He had us helping Him? He is going to. I think most of mankind wants to do the right thing.
When the deception is lifted from their eyes, most people want to do what is right. Most people love their children. Most people want to love their neighbor. Most people really do not want to take up a gun and kill the man on the other side of that line. They do it because they have been taught to, and their parents did it and their parents before that did it. Our nation has always hated that nation, our religion has always hated that religion and we have always hated that color of people, but that is going to change. It is going to change very soon.
This destruction that has been prophesied and that is everywhere is false. Is that flood everywhere? I am going to show you how it is everywhere. There is everything from books, to movies, to religious tracts convincing the world that the world is about to get destroyed. God is going to wreak havoc on everyone.
There is a series of books out there that is selling millions and millions of copies preaching that only a few will make it. The rest will be left to die. The rest will be left behind. They will be left behind to die horrible deaths. Religions preach it from the pulpit. Authors write it in books. Movies project it on the movie screen and on your television screen that we are about to have a super cataclysm and the earth is going to suffer and perish. It will almost totally get extinguished!
I will tell you something about that line. When you make a deal with Satan and you want to preach that line, do you know what you are going to find? It is very profitable! People are making big bucks preaching that stuff, putting that in books and putting it in movies. We fall for it when we go and we support it by buying those books, by watching those movies or supporting churches who put out religious tracts espousing that view. We just saw in God's word He hates that view, and He did not send that message.
It is time that mankind around the world throws off the shackles of Satan, stops believing the lie and stops hating their fellowman. It is the “family of man” that you are killing out there. It is the family of man that you are dooming to destruction, and you are following the dictates of God's arch enemy, Satan, whenever you espoused that way of thinking. We follow Satan whenever we act upon the dictates of evil men who are in the pockets of Satan. He has his little puppets on the earth, and his puppets espouse hatred. Whenever we follow them and pick up a gun, write a tract that lambastes another group or hate our fellowman, we are following the puppeteer. It is high time we stop following the puppeteer.
Let us go to Matthew 24. When written from a Christian perspective, most of these books, movies and what not have as their theme Matthew 24. We are going to look and see exactly what Christ did say in Matthew 24 because people are putting words into Christ's mouth that were never there.
Matthew 24, start reading in verse 3: “Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, 'Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?'” That is a specific and direct question. They wanted to know what the sign of the end of the age would be and of Christ's second coming.
Verse 4: “And Jesus answered and said to them: 'Take heed that no one deceives you.'” What does that tell you right there? There will be many people trying to deceive. If you were to drop down to verse 24 you would see how they deceive. But let us continue in verse 5. “'For many will come in My name, saying, “I am the Christ,” and will deceive many.'” They will admit that Jesus Christ is God, and by what they say they will deceive many. What is it that they will say? Verse 6: “'And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.'”
What is Christ saying here? Do not let any of those things trouble you: diseases, earthquakes, wars, rumors of wars. You have always had these. You will have this until My second coming. Why? Because the god of this world is in charge. Do not listen to people who say these are going to mark My second coming. You have always had these things. My second coming is not marked by this destruction. I am going to bring peace. I am going to bring a Millennium, a thousand year period of beautiful life on earth not in a desert wasteland caused by nuclear war or comets slamming into the earth.
I do not care how many movies and how realistic their high technology can make movies look, it is not going to happen. Do not go to bed at night worried about comets slamming into the earth causing Armageddon. Do not worry about disease epidemics wiping out mankind. Do not worry about famines wiping out mankind.
I keep hearing about the famines and the shortages of food on this earth. One of my hobbies is farming. I get a lot of farm literature. Ask any farmer if there is a famine on the earth. Sure, there are few places here and there that are struggling under a drought or something, but the world is awash with food. That is why farmers are going bankrupt around the world! There is so much food on the planet that it is incredible. We keep finding ways to grow more of it. I do not know why we hide our heads in the sand.
There were people saying that this war in Iraq was going to be the end of the world! It was one of the least destructive wars in terms of wasted human life that there ever was! Now you look at the Middle East and things seem to be settling down and not getting worse. We have to stop hiding our head in the sand. The world was in a bad way. Hitler almost did take over the world, but God helped stop that. Satan almost had his cronies and his puppets take over the world, but God has been stopping it for a long time. He is not about to let it happen now. He is going to do some remarkable things to prevent it, because He did not create the earth in vain, to be a waste and destroyed thing. He did not create the surface to be uninhabitable. Only Satan wants that. God is not going to let Satan win. We have to learn to trust God. He is here to help us and not destroy us.
Turn to Luke chapter 9. Christ had some pretty sharp words for His own disciples when they had the wrong attitude. Start reading in verse 51 and read to verse 54. They were insulted for Christ's sake. Christ was on the way to Jerusalem, and He told the people in the Samaritan village I cannot stay here tonight. I have an important job to do. He knew He was on the way to Jerusalem to be crucified, to die for man's sins. He was very focused at this time. He had to get there for Passover. So He could not delay in this village. They took it as an insult because they, of course, did not understand. Christ knew they did not understand. He did not expect them to understand. But the apostles took it personally.
Continue reading in verse 55 of Luke 9: “But He turned and rebuked them, and said, 'You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.'” He said if you want to destroy them because of their ignorance, you do not know what spirit you are of! Verse 56: “'For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them.' And they went to another village.”
The apostles, even though they were with Jesus Christ and being taught by Him, were still reflecting the image of the god of this world. They had to get that out of their minds, and they did. But they had to learn. You cannot condemn people who do not know any better. What did Christ say when they were putting the nails through His hands? God forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. They do not understand. That is the kind of God we have.
Anybody who tells you it is okay to kill somebody on the other side of that line, or from that region of the earth, or for that religious belief or persuasion, they are working for the other side. They do not know it! They do not understand! God is going to make it here in the last days so that all will understand and have an opportunity to bear the image of the true God. It is going to happen. He is a liberator. God is a liberator.
God is a liberator, but He is not like some liberators on the earth from the past who destroy everything in their path. I want to elaborate a moment on a liberator. When Eisenhower and Churchill were going to liberate Europe from the Nazi tyranny, how would it have been if they dropped millions of leaflets all over France, Denmark, and Italy and said we are coming. We are going to liberate you! Unfortunately, there is a little bit of bad news with this. In order to liberate your countries from this evil oppression, we are going to literally bomb your nation until 90 to 95 percent of you die! But that will defeat these fascists, and whoever remains we are going to try and make a good country for you after that!
How many people would say come on over, we need to be liberated? I think most of them would say wait a minute. Not that many of us are dying under Hitler. We want you to leave us alone. We do not want to be liberated! If Eisenhower and Churchill could understand that, how much more can the Great God understand that? The world does not want to be liberated if the world has to turn into a nuclear wasteland. The world wants to be liberated by a benevolent conqueror who spares as many of the innocent and deceived as possible. Much like how the United States and England handled this war in Iraq.
Even less Americans and Britons would have died if we had just used a nuclear bomb! But would that have been right to drop nuclear bombs on Baghdad and Basra? Of course not! I think we have a leadership here in our countries who literally were being somewhat inspired by God to do this as humanely as possible. They were not perfect, but they sure tried to do the right thing. I think there is a wind of change on earth, and it is good. It is going to get more and more powerful as time goes on.
We are going to read the entire chapter of Isaiah 61 because it talks about God as a liberator. Isaiah chapter 61, verse 1: “'The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.'” That is a prophecy of Jesus Christ who came as the anointed of God to bring good tidings, as a liberator to free the captives. He did not say I am sorry we have to destroy the entire earth to free a few of you. He did not say that. He said I am bringing good news. Any people who preach this good news to the world are working for the right God, and they are promoting peace, love, joy and goodness.
Continuing on in verse 2: “'…to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn.'” Vengeance against Satan and his puppets.
Verse 3: “'To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.' And they shall rebuild the old ruins, they shall raise up the former desolations…” The earth has been desolated for six thousand years. “…and they shall repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations.”
Verse 5: “Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the foreigner shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. But you shall be named the priests of the Lord, they shall call you the servants of our God. You shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory you shall boast. Instead of your shame you shall have double honor, and instead of confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess double; everlasting joy shall be theirs.”
God is talking about His government, the government of Zion, under that spiritual Jerusalem coming to the earth with Jesus Christ and bringing peace to the earth. He has been working on this now for six thousand years. That peace is about ready to come.
Continuing in verse 8 of Isaiah 61: “'For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery for burnt offering; I will direct their work in truth, and will make with them an everlasting covenant. Their descendants shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people. All who see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the posterity whom the Lord has blessed.'”
The people who have stuck with the truth all of these years eventually will be resurrected and form a government for Jesus Christ. Jacob will be in it, as we saw earlier. He will rule. He will be of that ruling body. But they will bring peace, justice, love and joy for all mankind.
Verse 10: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its bud, as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before ALL the nations.” So God worked with a few to save the many!
He sent Christ to do away with the sins of many because God the Father loves the entire world. He loves all mankind. This blessing will be for all nations. It will be a wonderful thing, and it is about to come!
In Luke chapter 6 we start to look at the nature of God. This God who is going to bring this about is not going to be a liberator who destroys in order to liberate. He brings mercy, love, compassion, peace and joy. He brings the fruits of the Spirit. Turn to Luke chapter 6. Read from verses 27 to 35. Can you imagine that? He knows they do not understand! That is why Christ was willing to die on the cross. He knows they do not understand, but they are about to!
Verse 36 concludes: “'Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.'” Now that is the image and the character we should be bearing towards all of mankind. That is the family of man who bears the image and likeness of God.
Turn to Matthew chapter 5, verse 7 where it says the merciful will receive mercy. Do we want mercy from God? If we want mercy from God, we need to be merciful.
Turn to Proverbs chapter 3 and read verses 19 to 35. We want to be of the wise, we want to be of the gentle, we want to be of those who reflect God's character for He is with us. We need not fear the terror. The terror here is the same as in Isaiah 28. If we think we have cut a deal with Satan and we are some how special and everyone else deserves to die, we are going to have to be afraid of the terror when God returns. We are going to have to be afraid of the terror of the wicked ones. They end up turning on themselves! You find that over and over again. We need to each acknowledge that we have a God of love, mercy and peace and we need not be in fear.
Turn to Luke chapter 12. Christ wanted us to trust Him and not be scared to death of Him. He was a loving and kind being who healed all those who were brought to Him. In Luke 12, read verses 22 to 34.
When we love our fellowman and we stop worrying about ourselves selfishly, we are storing up treasure with God. That treasure will be our character and eventually our name. Our character should reflect the name we want to have. Do we want to be known as one of the wicked? Do we want a name for example like your name attached to it with wickedness, violence, hatred, deceit, self-righteousness, injustice, harshness and scornfulness? We do not want those attributes attached to us. Those are Satan's attributes. We want to be known as kind, merciful, compassionate, loving and caring. Those are the attributes we want to have attached to our name because this is God's name. God loves mercy, and he loves people who are merciful.
Let us look at a few of God's names. We saw what Satan's names were. Turn, if you would, to Isaiah chapter 9. This speaks of that government that I mentioned briefly earlier, the government of God that will bring peace to the earth. It talks about Jesus Christ's role here. Isaiah 9, verse 6: “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” God is eager to bring the earth a good government headed by a kind God, Jesus Christ, who is called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
If you were to study God's names in the Bible, you would find that He has names like these: Elohim (which is a family for us to become part of), El Shaddai (God Almighty, Almighty Blessed), Father of Lights, Yahweh Raphah (God of Healing), Immanuel (God with us), Our Savior, Logos (The Word), Faithful and True, the Rock, Yahweh (I Am and will continue to be that which I Am). God will always reflect these characteristics. They are His name. It takes many good names to define God because He is all things good. We should reflect those names.
I would like to close with Psalm 23 because I think understanding the kind of God we have will help us appreciate this Psalm much more. Read Psalm 23 in closing, verses 1 through 6 and drink in the depth of the meaning behind these words.