Mission: Victory over the Devil

Are you confused about why God created the Universe, and why He created you, and what God wants from you?

Well there's good news. Christ gives a pretty clear answer, repeated several times at the end of the Holy Bible.

The point of this place is that you either overcome the Devil, and can be trusted by God, or the Devil overcomes you.

See "God's Wonderful Announcement" for a brief explanation.

How Almighty God's Word strengthens marriage

"And it was said, 'Whoever would untie from the wife of his, he must grant her divorce!' Yet I say to you that anyone who is untying from the wife of his except on account of fornication causes adultery to be committed against her, and whoever would marry a woman who has been untied, commits adultery." (Matthew 5:31-32, Christ Family Bible)

"Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from [her] husband committeth adultery." (Luke 16:18, AKJV)

Comments:

Notice that one cannot free oneself from an unhappy marriage by driving one's spouse to leave. That strategy both causes the leaving spouse to commit adultery by leaving and makes re-marriage an act of adultery for the new spouse (and logically for the remarrying spouse too).

Both spouses have tremendous reason to make their marriage work. If you don't make your marriage work, your spouse might give up: by that action, your spouse commits adultery (a carnal work that leads to Hell), and you cannot remarry at all without committing adultery, even if your spouse has committed fornication.

The precise words of Christ as recorded in Greek are important also because of the terms used:
1. "Untie" (apolúo), not "divorce", is the key term that describes the abandonment of a marriage. Consider that for much of history, spouses could not hope for a legal document in their country, that would legally end their marriage. So what the abandoning spouse has in mind is abandoning, untying, leaving permanently.
2. The word "divorce" describes the legal document: apostásion.
3. Christ's words and terms direct our focus away from pieces of paper from a court, to look at the reality as Almighty God decides: only death and fornication (a carnal work that leads to Hell) can actually end a marriage, though Paul rather inexplicably adds his own rule that if an unbelieving spouse asks a Christ-believing spouse for divorce, the Christ-believing spouse is then "free", implying potentially free to remarry.

What happens when God's people stray?

The condition of the churches today is so bad, that it is difficult even to have any hope for missions to unreached ethnic groups: what will happen when a church that doesn't keep the New Covenant, brings its false message and even badly mistranslated Bibles to a new society?

The condition of many churches (but hopefully not all churches) is to the point of their being incompetent. Now, the Holy Bible addresses this type of condition:

- The Lord Christ Jesus describes moral degradation to the point where "...many will be entrapped [into sin] and will hand each other over and hate each other. And there will be many false prophets and they will deceive many. And due to the increasing of the lawlessness, the love of many will be made cold." (Matthew 24:10-12, CFB)

- Similarly, the prophet Ezekiel is sent with this message to God's people of that time: "...‘You are a land that is not cleansed or rained on in the day of indignation.’ The conspiracy of her prophets in her midst is like a roaring lion tearing the prey; they have devoured people; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made many widows in her midst. Her priests have violated My law and profaned My holy things; they have not distinguished between the holy and unholy, nor have they made known the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them. Her princes in her midst are like wolves tearing the prey, to shed blood, to destroy people, and to get dishonest gain. Her prophets plastered them with untempered mortar, seeing false visions, and divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord God,’ when the Lord had not spoken. The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the stranger." (Ezekiel 22:24-29, NKJV)

One of the key messages here is that when God's people have fallen into immorality, God sends catastrophes: to judge, to chastise, to purify a remnant, and to show that there is an ultimate judge to respect, Almighty God.

- "Because of this, among you are many weak and sickly and a considerable number sleep. Now, if were judging ourselves, we would not judge! Being judged, however, by the Lord, we are chastised, so that we not be condemned with the world." (1 Corinthians 11:30-32, CFB)

- "....the children of her I will kill with death, and all the churches will know that I am the searcher of kidneys* and of hearts, and I will give to you each according to the works of yours." (Revelation 2:23, CFB)

- "All flesh shall see that I, the Lord, have kindled it...." (Ezekiel 20:48, NKJV)

- "You shall defile yourself in the sight of the nations: then you shall know that I am the Lord." (Ezekiel 22:16, NKJV)

These catastrophes can never come through the actions of Christians, of course: Christians are commanded to love all people, to hate no one, and to put away all anger (Matthew 5:22, 43-48; Ephesians 4:31; Colossians 3:8).



Notes:
* Valuable discussions of what "kidneys" could signify (e.g. metaphorically) are provided by Brown Driver Briggs, Thayer's Greek Lexicon, and Liddell Scott Jones.

CFB: Scripture quoted from the Christ Family Bible. Copyright © 2019 by J.J. Thomas. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

NKJV: Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

If Christ's disciples moved "off grid" and cared for Nature...

...they could cause people to give glory to the Father in Heaven, by doing good deeds of great importance:

First: Farming, producing food in ways that help Nature and Humanity rather than harm them

Second: Caring for Nature directly, by protecting Life's species

Third: Innovating more ways to meet basic human needs for energy, medicine, shelter, etc., so that Humanity benefits from a wider selection of solutions whenever changes are needed (e.g. in the face of major changes in weather patterns like long-term drought)

Is your pastor feeding you to demons and Hell?

Update: I believe that I ought to have written more clearly here that Christ insists people must keep His commandments and other words for salvation, which quite certainly refers to the words attributed to Christ and not the other words in the Bible. There is great value in learning the other words of the Bible, I believe, but all the while keeping a distinction between the authority of Christ and the authority of all other words in the Bible.

I also wish to clarify that I no longer believe that Christ permits human hierarchies in churches, given the commandments in Matthew 23 and John 21.

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The first step to safety: Heed Almighty God's Word.

"Amen amen I say to you that the one listening to the Word of Mine and trusting the One who sent Me has eternal life and does not come into judgement but has passed over from the death into the life." (John 5:24, CFB)

If you are heeding God's Word, then a pastor will have a tough time misleading you into sins that invite demons and end in hellfire.

Consider:

Knowing God's Word properly is how Jesus withstood Satan (Luke 4).

Not heeding God's Word is how Eve and Adam fell into slavery to sin, death and the Devil, dragging their family down too (Genesis 3-6).

How can you properly heed God's Word?

Don't make the mistake of confusing the Old Covenants with the New Covenant.

Focus on keeping Christ's words and commandments.

The New Testament is the covenant that Almighty God offers to people who repent from sin. So you need to heed that above all: what the New Testament says about the New Covenant.

The Old Testament is necessary too, but it needs to be interpreted spiritually, not physically:

The necessary circumcision is spiritual not physical (Colossians 2:11)

Human beings need to overcome spiritual dark powers not other people (Ephesians 6:12)

If you are heeding Christ's words and commandments, you will be strongly immune to really bad Bible mistranslations too.

So when a mistranslation tells you that adultery is looking at a person with lust (and therefore almost all people are adulterers), you will be skeptical, because you know that adulterers do not inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

Many of the most damaging mistranslations are highlighted in A Guide to Misleading Bible Quotes. 

Jesus rules and judges all people

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke,† though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts‡; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34, NKJV)

"All authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to Me. Going, therefore, disciple all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I have commanded you...." (Matthew 28:18-20, CFB)

"For the Father judges no one. Instead, He gave all the judgement to the Son, so that all should honour the Son just as they should honour the Father. He not honouring the Son does not honour the Father who sent Him. Amen amen I say to you that him listening to the Word of Mine and trusting Him who sent Me has eternal life and does not come into judgement but has passed over from the death into the life." (John 5:22-24, CFB)

"And it is yet far more evident if, in the likeness of Melchizedek, there arises another priest who has come, not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life. For He testifies*:
'You are a priest forever
According to the order of Melchizedek.'
For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect;** on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God." (Hebrews 7:15-19, NKJV)

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† So with MT, Tg., Vg.; LXX, Syr. and I turned away from them
‡ Literally, "inward parts".
* Nestle-Aland / United Bible Societies prefer the manuscripts that read "it is testified"
** That is to say, "complete".

CFB: Scripture quoted from the Christ Family Bible. Copyright © 2018 by J.J. Thomas. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

NKJV: Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Sins that stop a human from entering God's Kingdom

Update: I wish to clarify that I believe it is necessary to distinguish between the authority of Christ's words and for example Paul's words. Also, on the matter of what is pharmakeia and pharmakoi, I wish to update that there is good evidence that Christ and Paul can have meant, alongside sorcery, also physical poisoning. Please see for example my article "Catastrophic Subtle Sabotage: The Case of Mistranslating Jesus's Words".

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"Or do you not know that unrighteous people will not inherit God's kingdom? Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor cowardly,* nor homosexuals,** nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor abusive, nor rapacious will inherit God's kingdom."—1 Corinthians 6:9-10

"Manifest, however, are the works of the flesh, which are fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery,*** enmity, strife, rivalry, rages, selfish schemes, divisions, heresies, envy, drunkenness, revelries, and the things like these, of which I say beforehand to you, just as I said before, that they practicing the things like these will not inherit God's kingdom."—Galatians 5:19-21

"...anyone a fornicator or unclean or covetous (that is an idolater) has not inheritance in the kingdom of the Christ and God."—Ephesians 5:5

"But to the cowardly and unfaithful and them being loathsome and murderers and fornicators and sorcerers*** and idolaters and all the deceitful is the part of theirs in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the death—the second one."—Revelation 21:8

"Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers*** and the fornicators and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone loving and practicing falsehood."—Revelation 22:15

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* Possibly "effeminate [males]"
** Possibly "men having sex with men"
*** Possibly φάρμακεία (phármakeia) and φάρμακοι (phármakoi) also refer to using spiritually destructive substances

Scripture quoted from The Christ Family Bible. Copyright © 2018 by J.J. Thomas. Used by permission. All rights reserved.