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THE MAN THAT WILL NOT SEE HIS HEART AS GOD DOES WILL NOT SEE GOD!

My own personal recollection of how I came to see myself, my heart as God does, that rare discovery.

“Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, AND FEW THERE BE THAT FIND IT.” Matt. 7:14

Our nature is that which makes us distinctly human. Our nature is distinct from that of the animals and the rest of creation in that we can think and feel. One of the chief distinctions between human beings and the rest of creation is our ability to reason. No other creature has this ability, and there’s no question that this is a unique gift bestowed by God. Our “reason” enables us to reflect on our own nature and the nature of God and to derive knowledge of God's will for His creation. No other part of God’s creation has a nature capable of reason. The Bible teaches that God created human beings in His image. This means that He enables us to have some understanding of Him and of His vast and complex design. Our human nature reflects some of God’s attributes, although in a limited way. We love because we are made in the image of God who is love 1 John 4:16. Because we are created in His image, we can be like Him, compassionate, faithful, truthful, kind, patient, and just. In us, these attributes have been and are distorted by SIN, which also resides in our nature. Originally, human nature was perfect by virtue of having been created so by God. The Bible teaches that human beings were created “very good” by a loving God Genesis 1:31, but that goodness was marred by the sin of Adam and Eve.

Subsequently, the entire human race fell and became victim to the sin nature. The sin of human nature and its sinfulness is a rare discovery. Men simply will not believe God? The greatest discovery is that the Bible is true and I am guilty of not believing it’s every WORD.

I’ve discovered a lot of things in my lifetime and this message is about the greatest finding I’ve ever made. Every day new breakthroughs are possible but this one finding hast to do with me and it has to do with my nature. But very few ever make this discovery. There is one “find” that very few ever make during their lifetimes and failure to do so is the difference between Heaven and Hell. How rare it is in the church today to find a person who has come to a genuine reality of the truth about himself. The biblical recognition and the realization of the truth about man’s nature is such a deadly blow to the individual that the heart of men being what it is refuses to accept God’s estimation of man’s real condition. We will not see ourselves as God sees us, refusing to admit to our lost, sinful condition and we who have been saved are just as guilty thinking we are something when we are really “nothing” but filthy rags or should I say all our righteousness is nothing but “filthy rags.” before the eyes of ONE who is the Holy God. Nothing worthy, we are, of the least of God’s favor. Should it be shouted and known throughout all eternity, Hell should have been our eternal abode except for the ONE who came and stood in our place at Calvary. It’s all because of Jesus that we are not burning in Hell right now. Who am I? Who is man to plead his own righteousness, his excuse before a Holy God who has clothed Himself with the Universe and made the earth His footstool? To plead his case before a God who speaks and the stars and moons go whirling through His ever-increasing habitat? What a God! And what a God He is to penitent sinners. Hell surely must be continually enlarging itself to make room for all those souls that are living and dying in delusions never acknowledging that God is righteous in decrying “there is none good no not one.” None good! But God! Rare indeed is it to see true repentance anymore in our churches from the individual who from his heart falls on his face before a perfect God dressed in blazing, flaming, fiery white-hot holiness hotter than any ten thousand suns and admitting “I’m wrong and you’re right,” You’ve always been right God and I’ve always been wrong. Such “Shekinah Glory,” such love, such holiness for sinners such as us? Who am I, that the God of this Universe would love even me? What a God! “No man ever spoke like this man!” Jesus only said what was given to Him by the Father to say. Do you hear?

“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Matt. 7:13-14

THE ULTIMATE REALITY:

It is not always obvious how sinful man is? Or how lost man really is? This is by reason of the “cavern” of depravity that is in his own heart and because of the depth of sin that has sunken his very nature. For a man to see himself as God sees him must be by believing the very WORDS of God. This is also true of other men seeing how low sin has befallen each of us. If we could only see how deep the depth of depravity has taken each of us we would only be horrified. The traumatic experience would only have us falling on our faces before His Holiness. Our eyes have been blinded, our ears deafen, our minds corrupted, our tongues set on fire and our feet swift to shed blood. Hatred is at the very root and core of our hearts. From our heads to our feet iniquity dominates every inch of our being and that goes for every one of us. And we refuse to own it! That does not make it any easier to determine how sinful man is, because there is, in every one of us and in this world of men wont to believe that there is a “spec of good” in each of us, a sort of common goodness. When God says, “there is none good,” we are religious folks, morally, good people who will tell anyone we believe God and help our neighbors; we’ll join fraternal organizations, volunteer in our communities, give large sums of money and help the needy, the poor. All of which are good and gratifying. We appear on the surface, to be holy and to be righteous; we are certainly religious. We appear to love and obey God, and to keep His laws, and to uphold His Word. And there are times when we think we are the most religious people in the world, as far as the world is concerned, and no one really knows how utterly vile and sinful we are, because of the masquerade of religion, which we carry on so well. But when we come face-to-face with Jesus Christ there goes the facade.

When Jesus came the first time, they were confronted with Him, He exposed their charade immediately and their rejection of the Son of God was seen, no matter what else they pretended to be, it was clear how sinful they were. So the Lord calls them, "Whited sepulchers, a brood of snakes, evil, vile, perverted, wicked men with black hearts and poisoned mouths." He curses them again and again, as recorded in Matthew 23. The real evil of those hearts would never have come to the surface if Jesus hadn't come, but by their rejecting Him, turning on Him, hating Him, and ultimately taking His life, they manifested the true nature and character of their evil hearts. Are we any different today? No! Ten thousand times no! Human nature has not changed in the least. But still, we go on flaunting our self-righteousness our nature thinking we are better than we are, committing the same sin as they did. What deception, what depths of sin has the heart of men fallen? Ultimately, our sinfulness is never admitted.

The one sure way to know how sinful a person is is to compare him with Perfect Righteousness, with Jesus Christ. Right here it becomes apparent and explicit. The sinfulness of man is clearly seen when a person comes face-to-face with Jesus Christ; at this point, there can be no hiding it. No matter what life is like, it is unmasked for its sinful reality in confrontation with his Creator. The sin issue becomes clear when a person is forced to face Jesus Christ. That is the crux of the revelation of man's sinfulness in the Bible. And even then men still choose to live in darkness, unrepentant refusing to believe they are as bad as God’s Word says we are. Sin is the driving force to rid the world of the Bible. It is the power that drives the self-destruction of nature and the nature of man himself. Jesus plainly stated, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.” Jesus said in John 15,

“If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.” John 15:22

It truly is a rare discovery for man to acknowledge his sinfulness. If we Baptist preachers could only help people to see themselves as half as sinful as we are ourselves America could be saved. We would not be in the condition we are in today as a nation and hell’s coffers would cease to overflow.

A rare discovery indeed

For the sake of sounding redundant let me quote from one of my previous writings “The Truth about Human Nature”: It would do us well to consider and ponder what God wants to reveal to us about our own condition, our own heart!

WHAT IS THE HEART, WHAT IS MEANT BY THE WORD “HEART” BEING USED IN THE BIBLE?

First, I’ll state the obvious: this article is not about the heart as a vital organ, a muscle that pumps blood throughout the body. Neither is this article concerned with romantic, philosophical, or literary definitions. Instead, I’ll focus on what the Bible has to say about the heart. The Bible mentions the human heart almost 300 times. In essence, this is what it says: the heart is that spiritual part of us where our emotions and desires dwell. In the Bible, the heart is the term used for the “center of man’s thinking”, emotions and will. Man “thinks” in his heart, Gen. 6:5, Prov. 23:7. Man “understands” with his heart, Prov. 2:2. He “deviseth his way” with his heart, Prov. 16:9. He “meditates” with his heart, Ps. 19:14. He “considers” Deut. 4:39, “purposes” Dan. 1:8, “reasons” Luke 5:22, “desires” Rom. 10:1 has “intents” Heb. 4:12. From the heart proceed all the actions and motivations of man, Prov. 4:23, Matt. 15:18-20, Mark 7:21-23.

Before we look at the human heart, we’ll mention that, since God has emotions and desires, He, too, can be said to have a “heart.” We have a heart because God does. David was a man “after God’s own heart” Acts 13:22. And God blesses His people with leaders who know and follow His heart 1 Samuel 2:35; Jeremiah 3:15.

The human heart, also called our nature in the Bible, in its natural condition, is evil, treacherous and deceitful. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” In other words, the “fall” has affected us at the deepest level; our mind, emotions, and desires have been corrupted by sin, and we are blind to just how all-encompassing that sin is, how comprehensive the problem, the total ruin of man. The deceitful heart! Even in believers “there is none good, no not one” we all still carry around the sinful nature, the old man, that dirty heart that has been corrupted by the fall. The only difference between the natural man and the saved man is the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit who has moved in and desires complete control; He is the Preacher, the Soul-winner the very life essence Himself. We may not understand our own hearts, but God does. He “knows the secrets of the heart” Psalm 44:21; see also 1 Corinthians 14:25. Jesus “knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man” John 2:24-25. Based on His knowledge of the heart, God can judge righteously: “I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” Jeremiah 17:10.

“But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7

Jesus pointed out the fallen condition of our hearts in Mark 7:21-23: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.” Our biggest problem is not external but internal; all of us have a heart problem. It’s been said that we all were born wrong! In order for a person to be saved, then, the heart must be changed. This only happens by the power of God in response to faith. “With the heart, one believes unto righteousness” Romans 10:10. In His grace, God can create a new heart within us Psalm 51:10; Ezekiel 36:26. He promises to “revive the heart of the contrite ones” Isaiah 57:15. God’s work of creating a new heart within us involves testing our hearts Psalm 17:3; Deuteronomy 8:2 and filling our hearts with new ideas, new wisdom, and new desires Nehemiah 7:5; 1 Kings 10:24; 2 Corinthians 8:16. The heart is the core of our being, and the Bible sets high importance on keeping our hearts pure:

“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” Proverbs 4:23

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. In every one of us, there is someone inside of us looking out at the world around them, looking out by way of the eyes of our body, the eyes of the soul.“The eye is the entrance to the soul”, by which that someone sees the world around them and that someone is the real you, the heart. Actually, no one has really seen Del Wray they see the body in which he lives. You’ve never seen me a day in your life! No, you haven’t! I’m inside my body looking out at you. Let me put it this way scripturally:

“No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”John 1:18

“If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.”John 14: 7-10

It may seem contradictory but it’s not when understood as a trichotomy. The soul and the spirit are the two primary immaterial aspects that Scripture ascribes to humanity. It can be confusing to attempt to discern the precise differences between the two. The word “spirit” refers only to the immaterial facet of humanity. Human beings have a spirit, but we are not spirits. However, in Scripture, only believers are said to be spiritually alive 1 Corinthians 2:11; Hebrews 4:12; James 2:26, while unbelievers are spiritually dead Ephesians 2:1-5; Colossians 2:13. In Paul's writing, the spiritual was pivotal to the life of the believer 1Corinthians 2:14; 3:1; Ephesians 1:3; 5:19; Colossians 1:9; 3:16. The spirit is the element in humanity which gives us the ability to have an intimate relationship with God. Whenever the word “spirit” is used, it refers to the immaterial part of humanity that “connects” with God, who Himself is Spirit John 4:24. The word “soul” can refer to both the immaterial and material aspects of humanity. Unlike human beings having a spirit, human beings are souls. In its most basic sense, the word “soul” means “life.” However, beyond this essential meaning, the Bible speaks of the soul in many contexts. One of these is humanity’s eagerness to sin Luke 12:26.

Humanity is naturally evil, and our souls are tainted as a result. The life principle of the soul is removed at the time of physical death Genesis 35:18; Jeremiah 15:2. The soul, as with the spirit, is the center of many spiritual and emotional experiences Job 30:25; Psalm 43:5; Jeremiah 13:17. Whenever the word “soul” is used, it can refer to the whole person, whether alive or in the afterlife. The soul and the spirit are connected, but separable Hebrews 4:12. The soul is the essence of humanity’s being; it is who we are. The spirit is the aspect of humanity that connects with God. The soul and the heart may be considered as one and the same, vile, corrupt and evil apart from Jesus Christ! The real you! Visiting a missionary friend of mine several years ago in Virginia, she was in her late nineties, on her death bed in the living room of her sister’s home, after having spent her entire adult life on the mission field in Africa. This dear woman had granted her library to me and we went by to thank her. We, my wife and I talked with her for hours, her mind and speech was clear as any fifty year old. She told us something that I’ll never forget as she described the heart of man. She said, “In every one of us there is a serpent that’s out to kill us and that serpent is the heart.”

She knew human nature very well. And the crux of this article is just this: We do not know our own hearts! Human nature! We who are believers do not know the depths to which SIN has taken and befallen the Human Race. Our hearts deceive us! We deceive ourselves! The human race is its own worst enemy! And if I’ve learned anything during the last seventy-two years it’s to hate myself. I don’t even trust myself...

“The fool trusteth in his own heart.” Prov. 28:26

“The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.” Psalms 14:1

My own heart has deceived me so gravely and dangerously. Ninety-eight percent 98% of sin in this sin-cursed world and in the individual life comes from the heart of man. Only two percent comes from being tempted by the world, flesh and the devil. Only a fool will not believe what I’m writing here! Let me give you a perfect example and I do not wish to be callas as I write of the most recent death of Robin Williams the Hollywood comedian, who was found dead having hung himself, committing suicide. Robin Williams, they say took his own life because of depression. He had everything a man could want, money, fame, popularity, lived in a mansion with a wonderful family. Still, he committed suicide; his heart got the best of him. Nothing could fill the void in his life even after all he had acquired.

People, only Jesus Christ can fill the void and empty longing in a man’s heart. Speaking for myself, I’m afraid to act, to speak without the power of God on me and certainly, it has to be within the confines of God’s precious Holy Word! Knowing one day I will give an account to Him! I take it very seriously! Let me quote William Tyndall:

"I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus Christ to give a reckoning of our doings that I never altered one syllable of God's Word against my conscience."

Until we who make up His visible, local church come to grips with this matter of the depravity of heart, human nature, we only bring derision and scorn upon ourselves and His church.

“Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high minded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not Thee.” Rom. 11: 20-21

America is in the condition that it’s in right now because believers won’t believe God when it comes to the condition of the human heart. The poison from the serpent, “hatred in the human heart” has affected us all. It is this reason that God chose to write the Bible and to speak to humankind on planet earth in His revelation through His Written Word that all men are lost and need to be saved! In a nutshell, Jesus summed it up this way,

“All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Rom. 3:23.

THE ULTIMATE REALITY is that all men by their very nature are lost and need to be saved. Have you made that discovery?

You may ask “WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?” Let’s let Paul answer that for you as found in Acts 16,

“…Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” Acts 16:31

THE BATTLE OF TWO NATURES

The Battle of Two Natures is going on in the heart of every believer, from the second birth until death.

“When you get saved, it is like putting a refined, civilized man in the same cage with a savage barbarian or a wild beast.”

I believe that I was conceived in sin, and brought forth in iniquity and that ever since, I have been continually conceiving mischief, and bringing forth vanity.

This article of my faith I must of necessity believe, whether I will or no; for if I could not believe it to be true, I should, therefore, have the more cause to believe it to be so; because, unless my heart was naturally very sinful and corrupt, it would be impossible for me not to believe that which I have so much cause continually to bewail; or if I do not bewail it, I have still the more cause to believe it: and therefore am so much the more persuaded of it, by how much the less I find myself affected with it. For certainly I must be a hard-hearted wretch indeed, steeped in sin and fraught with corruption to the highest, if I know myself so oft to have incensed the wrath of the Most High God against me as I do, and yet not be sensible of my natural corruption, nor acknowledge myself to be by nature a child of wrath, as well as others. For I verily believe, that the want of such a due sense of myself argues as much original corruption as murder and whoredom do actual pollution. And I shall ever suspect those to be the most under the power of that corruption, that labor most, by arguments, to divest it of its power. And therefore, for my own part, I am resolved, by the grace of God, never to go about to confute that by willful arguments, which I find so true by woeful experience. If there be not a bitter root in my heart, whence proceeds so much bitter fruit in my life and conversation? Alas! I can neither set my head nor heart about anything, but I still show myself to be the sinful offspring of sinful parents, by being the sinful parent of a sinful offspring: nay, I do not only betray the inbred venom of my heart, by poisoning my common actions but even my most religious performances also, with sin. I cannot pray but I sin, I cannot hear or preach a sermon but I sin, I cannot give an alms or receive the Scripture but I sin; nay, I cannot so much as confess my sins, but my very confessions are still aggravations of them; my repentance needs to be repented of, my tears want washing, and the very washing of my tears needs still to be washed over again with the blood of my Redeemer. Please hear this, the plea of my soul and don’t be of the many that never come to ULTIMATE REALITY AND THAT RARE DISCOVERY!

Thus, not only the worst of my sins but even the best of my duties, speak me a child of Adam. Insomuch, that whensoever I reflect upon my past actions, methinks I cannot but look upon my whole life, from the time of my conception to this very moment, to be but as one continued act of sin. And whence can such a continued stream of corruption flow but from the corrupt cistern of my heart? And whence can that corrupt cistern of my heart be filled, but from the corrupt fountain of my nature? Cease, therefore, O my soul, to gainsay the power of original sin within thee, and labor now to subdue it under thee. But why do I speak of my subduing this sin myself? Surely this would be both an argument of it, and an addition to it. It is to Thee, O my God, Who art both the Searcher and Cleanser of hearts that I desire to make my moan. It is to Thee I cry out in the bitterness of my soul, "O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Rom. 7:24. Who shall? Oh, who can do it but THYSELF? Arise thou, therefore, O my God, and shew Thyself as infinitely merciful in the pardoning, as Thou art infinitely powerful in the purging away, my sins. Rarely is these truths DISCOVERED or become that ULTIMATE REALITY as so they should. Marking the difference between Heaven and Hell! I’m guilty is my cry! Here we see the battle of two natures going on in the life of every believer.

Within every Christian, there are two natures: One is the old Adamic nature with which he is born, and the other is a new nature created by the Holy Spirit at the New Birth. Paul wrote about that old nature.

“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” Rom. 7:18-21

“For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” Gal. 5:17

This is the conflict between the old nature and the new. Two natures are proof that a person is saved, for only a man who has been born twice has two natures. So then sin is innate in all of mankind, all mankind is instinctively evil.

“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked…” Jeremiah 17:9

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THE TOTAL CORRUPTION OF HUMAN NATURE

LEPROSY, GOD PICTURES MAN’S SIN NATURE

It is Man's Nature that Condemns him not his evil practices. Good or Bad Deeds never Damned a Single Soul.

Think about the job of the Old Testament priest. As if he didn't have enough to do he had to do the occasional skin inspection. We read about it in Leviticus 13. The first thing that the priest had to do was figure out what he was dealing with, had the hair on the skin turned white and how deep was the infection. It sounds like fun. However, the fun was just starting. If the priest was unable to determine these things the person was quarantined for seven days and then re-examined. If the leprous spot appeared to have spread, the person was pronounced unclean.

The second test is a bit more graphic. It had to do with raw flesh resulting from the leprous condition. This person is obviously unclean. The third case had to do with boils. The fourth case had to do with burns, which followed the same pattern as the boil. The fifth case involved a sore on the head or chin. The sixth case involved a skin rash, which if dull-white was taken seriously. And the seventh case had to do with a skin disease on the scalp resulting in baldness. Baldness resulting from reddish white sores rendered a person unclean.

Now, these are the cases. But the obvious question has to do with relevance. How did this OT form of leprosy have any relevance to their spiritual wellbeing? And for that matter, what does OT leprosy have to do with us? Some scholars understand the snow-like nature of this leprosy to come from the scales and flakes of the skin disease. This particular effect of the disease indicates that the flesh is wearing away. It is eroding.

Now, go to Numbers 12. Here we find the story of Miriam and Aaron’s rebellion. You’ll remember that the anger of the Lord burned against them. And when God’s cloud departed from the tent of meeting Miriam was leprous. Her skin was eroding. It was flaking away like snow. Look at v. 12, “Oh, do not let her be like one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes from his mother’s womb.” Miriam stood like one dead. This type of leprosy was a picture of death. To have leprosy was to bear in the body the curse of God. And the people who had this leprosy were visible reminders of what is true for all men and women and boys and girls. All are under the curse of death. These people were reminders of our original corruption stemming from Adam's original sin. A parent seeing a leprous person pass by shouting, "Unclean, unclean!" should have taken the opportunity to teach their child about the total pervasiveness of sin. It was a teaching moment.

But there is another teaching moment. In the first chapter of Mark's gospel, a man with leprosy stopped Jesus. The man said, "If you are willing, you can make me clean." Think of what Jesus did. Mark tells us that Jesus moved with compassion, reached out and touched him. Do you understand the significance of that touch? Not only would that touch have made him unclean but far worse it would have exposed him to the disease. But Jesus touched him. And in touching him the leper was made well.

Do you understand what Jesus is doing here? He is showing us the truth of what Paul would write in 2 Cor. 5:21. It's a beautiful verse. In fact, it is the heart of the gospel. It says, “For our sake, he [God] made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” My friend that is the gospel we need today. Our world enslaved to sin needs some good news and quite frankly, this is it. The question is what will you do with it?

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SIN’S DOMINANCE OF THE WHOLE MAN

MAN’S WILL IS WHOLLY IN BONDAGE TO SIN AND FREE ONLY IN RESPECT TO CHOOSE ONLY TO SIN.

The man that believes he can accept Jesus Christ of his own free will apart from the drawing influence of the Holy Spirit is blind, lacking understanding and deceived in heart. Such deception destroys the grace of God and damns the soul.

“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6:44

Man’s will is free but only in the sense that it can choose to sin.

No man can say that he came to Christ without Christ coming to him first.

“…Anyone who believes that man’s will is entirely free and that he can be saved by it does not believe the fall…”

But I tell you what will be the best proof of that; it is the great fact that you never did meet a Christian in your life whoever said he came to Christ without Christ coming to him. You have heard a great many Armenian sermons, I dare say, but you never heard an Armenian prayer – for the saints in prayer appear as one in word, and deed and mind. An Armenian on his knees would pray desperately like a Calvinist. He cannot pray about free-will: there is no room for it. Fancy him praying,

“Lord, I thank thee I am not like those poor presumptuous Calvinists Lord, I was born with a glorious free-will; I was born with power by which I can turn to thee of myself; I have improved my grace. If everybody had done the same with their grace that I have, they might all have been saved. Lord, I know thou dost not make us willing if we are not willing ourselves. Thou givest grace to everybody; some do not improve it, but I do. There are many that will go to hell as much bought with the blood of Christ as I was; they had as much of the Holy Ghost given to them; they had as good a chance, and were as much blessed as I am. It was not thy grace that made us differ; I know it did a great deal, still, I turned the point; I made use of what was given me, and others did not-that is the difference between me and them.”

That is a prayer for the devil, for nobody else would offer such a prayer as that. Ah! When they are preaching and talking very slowly, there may be wrong doctrine; but when they come to pray, the true thing slips out; they cannot help it. If a man talks very slowly, he may speak in a fine manner; but when he comes to talk fast, the old brogue of his country, where he was born, slips out. I ask you again, did you ever meet a Christian man who said, “I came to Christ without the power of the Spirit?” If you ever did meet such a man, you need have no hesitation in saying, “My dear sir, I quite believe it and I believe you went away again without the power of the Spirit and that you know nothing about the matter, and are in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.” Do I hear one Christian man saying, “I sought Jesus before he sought me; I went to the Spirit, and the Spirit did not come to me”? No, beloved; we are obliged, each one of us, to put our hands to our hearts and say-

“Grace taught my soul to pray,

And made my eyes to overflow;

‘Twas grace that kept me to this day,

And will not let me go.”

Consider the following prayer which is a summary of Spurgeon’s “prayer of the synergist” above:

“Thank you, Lord, that I am not like other men who don’t have faith… I made better use of your grace than did others. Some did not improve on it, but I did”

This is the boastful prayer of the Pharisee, but its theology is consistent with what many believe. If Christians simply believe we can reach out and accept grace or reject it, without being first transformed, quickened by grace, then it reveals that there is still self-righteousness left in many of us. What is the cure? It is the belief in the sovereignty of God in our salvation. That alone keeps grace as grace. It is only the grace of God alone which makes us different from others. God not treating us as our sins deserve.

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THE DEPTH TO WHICH SIN HAS BEFALLEN THE HUMAN RACE

THE DEPTH OF HUMAN DEPRAVITY

This treaty is an analogy of human depravity and to the depth in which sin has befallen the human race.

In discussing what is commonly called total depravity theologians usually, concentrate on two aspects. The first is the totality of sin’s influence. Sin affects and controls not only all men but all parts of every man. The second is the bondage of the will. Fallen man is morally unable to do anything pleasing to God. He is unable to obey, believe or repent. He is both unable and unwilling.

There is a third aspect that is not discussed as often. It is what may be termed the depth of depravity. The Bible describes sinners as far more evil than they realize. Just as Calvinism portrays a higher view of the sovereignty of God than other theologies, so it presents a far lower view of the sinful state of fallen mankind. In sum, fallen man is corrupt through and through, rotten to the core, and in desperate need of salvation.

The Depth of Depravity

The Bible speaks of some sins and sinners as worse than others John 19:11; 1 Timothy 3:13.) But the “best” sinner is far worse than what we think the “worst” sinner is. He is not only totally sinful in all his thoughts all the time Genesis 6:5, but nobody can plumb the depth of his depravity Jeremiah 17:9. It is only because of God’s restraints in common grace that we do not murder each other. When God removes the restraints, we sin Romans 1:24–28. That itself is a punishment. Sin is a punishment for sin.

We are all born with original sin. We are all natural-born sinners. This is the root of all thoughts and acts of sin. When a person becomes a Christian, he is forgiven all sin both original and actual. But the root is still there, even though it is counteracted by the indwelling Holy Spirit. This is why Christians still sin, sometimes committing even worse sins than before their conversion. It is only by the grace of the Spirit within us that we do not constantly sin as we used to do.

Spiritual Death

Pelagianism says man is alive and well. Arminianism says man is sick. Calvinism says man is dead. The first two of these have more in common with each other than either has with the third, for a good man and a sick man are both still alive. Scripture repeatedly says that fallen man is spiritually dead Eph. 2:2; 5:14; Colossians 2:13; 1 Tim. 5:6; Rom. 6:13; Rev. 3:1. Our bodies are still alive but our souls are dead. Jonathan Edwards preached a powerful sermon on Matt. 23:37 with the thesis: “Wicked men’s bodies are as it were the sepulchers of their souls.” Abraham Kuyper compared fallen man to a mummy wrapped in self-righteousness concealing an ugly corpse. Romans 3:13 says our mouths are like an open grave.

Christ raised people from the dead to show that lost sinners are spiritually dead and in need of spiritual resurrection. We are spiritual zombies parading to hell, as it were Ephesians 2:1–3. A dead body can do nothing but rot and stink John 11:39, so with a dead soul. Worms and maggots devour a cadaver in the grave Job 19:26; 21:26; 24:20, so sin eats away at all parts of a lost soul.

Fallen men are dead trees Jude 12 that deserve to be cut down and thrown into the fire Matt. 3:10; 7:19. They are useful only as firewood for hell. The lifeless stump of a fallen man is rotten Job 13:28. Christopher Love the English Puritan said, “Man’s heart by nature is a slaughterhouse to holy motions.” Man is not drowning, but already drowned dead and his skeleton has been picked clean by sharks, said Edwin Palmer. Man is dead.

The sinner is spiritually stillborn and unable to give birth to any good. Spurgeon once said, “You will remember while the sinner is dead in sin, he is alive so far as any opposition to God may be concerned.” Conversely, the Christian is alive to righteousness and should reckon himself dead to sin Romans 6:4–13.

Depravity and Death

We sin because we are sinners. “Wickedness flows from the wicked” 1 Samuel 24:13. Original sin is the polluted fountain from which all individual sins flow. Since sin brings forth death (James 1:15), we are born with spiritually dead souls and physically dying bodies. We are on a death march from the womb to the tomb.

Lost sinners dread death for unrighteous reasons. For one, they do not want an end to their life of sin. By contrast, Christians long to be free from “this body of death” Romans 7:24. They long to be free from sin at last. Too many Christians, however, prefer to stay on earth and are only grudgingly willing to go to heaven, contrary to Paul’s attitude in Philippians 1:21–23. We should desire to be free of sin, not just of death, pain and tears Revelation 21:4.

In His wisdom, God does not free His children immediately from physical death or the presence of sin inside or around them. We must pray for godly patience to wait and to strive for holiness.

Death is the product of sin Rom. 6:23. For the unbeliever, death is the punishment he has earned. But for the Christian, while death is still “the last enemy” 1 Cor. 15:26, it has been transformed. On his deathbed, Thomas Goodwin the Puritan said, “Ah, is this dying? How I have dreaded as an enemy this smiling friend?” Death becomes the friend to escort us to God and a sinless eternity.

Some Earthy Illustrations

The Bible employs some earthy analogies to describe the depth of human depravity. Man is like snake venom Job 20:14; Rom. 3:13, putrefying sores oozing pus Isa. 1:5–6; Lev. 15:2; 1 Kings 8:38, gangrene 2 Tim. 2:17, a menstrual cloth Isaiah 3:22; 64:6; Lam. 1:17, mud and dog’s vomit 2 Pet 2:22, and scum and filthiness in a boiling pot Ezekiel 29:11–12.

Fallen man is a maggot that feeds on filth and dead bodies Job 25:6. Even David confessed that he was a worm Psalm 22:6. John Calvin said fallen man is a “five-foot worm.” Liberals and even naïve evangelicals have sometimes substituted sinner  for a worm in Isaac Watts’ famous hymn, “Would He devote that sacred head For such a worm as I?” Men are worms whose hunger is never satisfied, as Jonathan Edwards said, “They are like a filthy worm that never feeds so sweetly as when feeding on carrion or never has its nature so suited as when crawling in the most abominable filth.”

Philippians 3:8 uses the Greek word skubalon to describe the best, not the worst, of man’s pretended righteousness. It means refuse, garbage, something is that thrown out. It sometimes means excrement. Thomas Watson the Puritan observed, “Some think sin is an ornament; it is rather an excrement.” Calvin often said we are “dung and stench.” Man is not a beautiful angel but a filthy and disgusting sinner.

Worse Than Animals

God created man lower than the angels (Psalm 8:5) and higher than the animals Genesis 1:28; Lev. 24:21. But because of sin, man is worse than any beast. Animals do not sin; we do. Isaiah 1:2–3 says oxen and donkeys are better than we are, for they know where to be fed by their masters but man does not. Chicks run to their mother hen, but sinners run from God Matt. 23:37.

The Bible often compares man with hogs, 2 Pet. 2:22. Thomas Watson said, “The sinner is a swine with a man’s head,” a kind of half-man half-beast like a centaur. George Whitefield popularized the analogy of man as half-beast and half-devil. Spurgeon said that analogy is an insult to beasts and devils. We are worse than both.

Scripture also compares sinners with dogs, 2 Pet. 2:22; Philippians 3:2. This does not refer to cute puppies, but as Calvin said, “mean mangy dogs.” Sinners are mad dogs foaming at the mouth with spiritual rabies. They are ravenous wolves, Matt. 7:15; John 10:12 and wild dogs, bulls, and lions Psalm 22:12–16. Worse still, we are like disgusting vermin. Calvin said we are worse than “worms, flies, lice, and vermin. For there is more worth in the entire world’s vermin than there is in man.” The worst, vilest animal is an angel compared with the best man.

Thomas Watson said man is worse than animals, for animals fear fire but sinners do not fear hellfire. Unless we are transformed into Christ’s lambs, lost sinners are dogs that will be excluded from heaven Rev. 22:15.

Children of the Devil

What is more, sinners are called snakes, Matt. 12:34; 24:33, for they are sons and daughters of Satan the great Serpent. They are a “brood of vipers” Matt. 3:7. Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do” John 8:44. Spurgeon aptly said that the pure image of God has been defaced and sinners now resemble Satan more than God. If you want to know what Satan looks like, look in the mirror. Examine your heart. There is enough sin in even the best sinner to reproduce another Devil.

Not all sinners are demon-possessed as such, but all are possessed by Satan as his willing slaves. Thomas Watson said we are “devils in the shape of men” and “devils covered over with flesh.” Calvin said, “To hear us tell it, we are angels, but if someone looks closely, he will find we are worse than devils.” Religion alone does not help, as Watson said: “A moralized man is but a tame devil.”

Because we pass original sin on to our children, we beget further children of the Devil. This does not mean that Christians ought not to have children. But it serves as a wake-up call to Christian parents to pray for the salvation of their little ones and not assume they are Christians because their parents are. Parents should realize their children are born sinners and need to be born again as Christians.

Lovers of Sin, Haters of God

Since the fall, mankind has things upside down and backward. Instead of loving God Matt. 22:37 and hating sin Rom. 12:9, sinners love sin and hate God. They delight in abominations Isa, 66:3 drink sin like water Job 15:16 and love pleasure rather than God 1 Tim. 3:4. Psalm 52:3 says, “You love evil more than good.” John 3:19 says, “Men loved darkness rather than light.”

Conversely, sinners hate God, precisely because God is God. They are “haters of God” Psalm 81:15; Rom. 1:30. Men would kill God if they could, but their arrows do not reach God’s heart. Their nails hit Him at Calvary. The great Robert Murray M’Cheyne commented: “If the heart of God were within the reach of men, it would be stabbed a million times in one moment.” Men hate God with as obsessive a compulsion to murder Him as Captain Ahab had to kill Moby Dick.

Man is the inveterate enemy of God. Calvin once said that even if God broke the arms of rebellious sinners, they would still kick against Him with their legs. Sinful man deserves divine wrath. Jonathan Edwards preached that there is a “mutual loathing” between God and man. Calvin said we deserve to have the angels spit on us. Sinners make God nauseous. Christ will vomit lukewarm hypocrites out of His mouth Rev. 3:16. Man is bad, very bad. And God is mad, very mad.

Further Analysis

In spite of God’s sober warnings and loving invitations, sinners refuse to repent, for that is an abomination to them Prov. 13:19. Thomas Watson said that sinners dare God to punish them and they sin so greedily as if they were afraid that hell’s gates would be shut before they got there.

Ultra-environmentalists sometimes say that mankind is a disease on Mother Earth. They are more right than they realize. God cursed the cosmos because of Adam’s sin Gen. 3:17; Rom. 8:20. Earth does not sin; we do. Our sin moves creation to want to vomit us out Lev. 18:25, 28; 20:22.

Yet sinners delude themselves into thinking, “I’m not that bad.” This is because, as Jer. 13:23 says, they are accustomed to their sins. Calvin said sinners do not detect their sin “just as a pig does not smell its own stink.” Pelagians and Armenians would do well to heed Anselm’s response to Boso: “You have not yet considered the exceeding gravity of sin.”

If God removed the restraints, there is no end of the sin that even the best saint would commit. Remember David, Moses, and Peter. Spurgeon wisely warned: “No man knoweth what villainy he is capable of; he only needs to be placed under certain circumstances and he will develop into a very fiend.”

Conclusion

The Bible is a mirror that shows how evil we really are by nature James 1:23–25. We must hold it up to lost sinners so they will be convinced and convicted. Believers also need to examine themselves. We dare not say, “I’m sinful, but there are some sins I would never do.” Self-deception is a symptom of sin. Yet God is merciful in not letting us see the full depth of our depravity. We couldn’t stand it.

Indwelling sin remains in all Christians. Scripture disproves the Wesleyan-Nazarene error of the second work of grace that removes the root of original sin and produces entire sanctification and sinless perfection 1 John 1:8; Philippians 3:12. The only experience that leads to sinless perfection is death Heb. 12:23.

We must humbly beseech God to protect us from ourselves Gen. 20:6, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil Matt. 6:13.

The good news is that the Holy Spirit produces good fruit in us and one day will remove the root of original sin in us. One of the glories of heaven will not only be holiness but impeccability, like the elect angels and our Lord Jesus Christ.

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WHY DO MEN DIE?

WHY DEATH?

Why do men die?

Humankind Lays In Entire Ruin and there’s nothing man can do about it.

Sin holds sway over every one of us over our minds and will, heart and conscience, soul and body, overall one’s capacities and powers.” And there’s nothing we can do about it.

Back in the 1930s, the poet and dramatist T.S. Eliot wrote a play called The Family Reunion. In it, he tried to describe the depth and extent of human sin.

Sin is portrayed as an old house afflicted by an all-permeating stench that no one can seem to get rid of. Sin is an inconsolable sobbing in the chimney, bumps in the cellar, a rattling of the windows, evil in a dark closet. It is a private, discomfiting puzzle, deeper than cancer.

As Eliot knew this tireless “evil from within” affects every part of our human nature. We’re in a state that the Scottish pastor Thomas Boston described as “entire depravity.” The eighteenth-century theologian Jonathan Edwards says the same thing when he writes, “All mankind are by nature in a state of total ruin.” What they’re describing is what theologians have called total depravity.

Now, that’s not to say that every part of our nature is as bad as it could possibly be. No; thankfully, by God’s grace, that’s not the case. What the term total depravity describes is the fact that no part of our nature escapes the defilement of sin.

And the reason for that is because sin isn’t some kind of virus that lurks outside us; it’s not contamination we can somehow isolate or avoid by doing certain things or not doing certain other things—which is the view of every religion apart from Christianity. Sin is already “inside the gates”; it’s inside each one of us.

That’s what Jesus says in Mark chapter 7: “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him. . . . For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within [says Jesus] and they [are what] defile a person.”

And this defilement of the heart taints everything. Like the poisoned source of a river, every drop of water that flows from it, every stream and rivulet, is inevitably poisoned too.

As a result, even our so-called virtues are really vices. Isaiah chapter 64 verse 6 says, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.“ To give one brief example, think of when we take to social media to protest at some injustice. On the surface, it seems virtuous, but isn’t there also something darker at work underneath? It’s been observed that the victims we show the most interest in are the ones who allow us to attack the people we most dislike. So is it really a pure and untainted concern for the victim? Or is it actually a delicious way of putting down those we disagree with while self-righteously promoting ourselves? As one writer has put it, “Our virtues are often no more than vices in disguise.”

Our depravity extends more widely than we imagine. Theologian Herman Bavinck writes, “It holds sway . . . over mind and will, heart and conscience, soul and body, overall one’s capacities and powers.”

And there’s nothing you can do about it.

Perhaps the supreme indication of the deadly seriousness of our depravity is the deadly seriousness of God’s solution. The way that He uses death to defeat death, and not just any death, but the agonizing death of His only beloved Son, the eternal Christ of God, nailed to a Roman cross. If that is the cure for sin, then sin must be is unimaginably serious.

Of course, we don’t think we’re that bad. Maybe the voice in your heart is saying exactly that, even now. But those nagging protestations of our own innocence or at least our relative innocence are perhaps the most damning proof of the heart’s depravity.

And the fact that God doesn’t leave us to that delusion, the greatest proof of His love.

[delwray-blog]

THE WICKEDNESS OF ALL MEN’S HEARTS

My Orders from God is to drive home the wickedness of Men’s Hearts.

It is my job as a Bible Believing Baptist Preacher to drive home the wickedness of men's hearts and if today's Baptist preachers don't like that they find themselves in error and rebellious against the God of the Bible.

Dear Saints, if only that you would search the Scripture for yourselves on this matter of the hearts wickedness! I am not writing here my own doctrine; I am telling you the plain, humbling truth which the Holy Spirit endeavors in every possible way to drive home into our hearts, in that blessed volume which was written for our warning. The King James Bible for English speaking believers.

This failure of preachers to expose the corruption in the human heart of men destroys the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ as God designed revealed in Holy Scripture.

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WHY SO MANY ARE DYING IN THEIR SIN AND GOING TO HELL?

WHY SO MANY ARE DYING IN THEIR SIN AND GOING TO HELL?

MAN’S FALSE AND FATAL ATTEMPTS TO SAVE HIMSELF

In His, Word God has taught one truth which is beyond all contradiction. It is that sin has created an awful chasm between Himself and man. Man may ignore or condone sin, he may treat it very lightly, he may even be so foolish as to deny its reality, but that does not alter the unalterable fact that sin exists and that it separates from God. God does not treat sin lightly. God hates it, God condemns it. "Sin unatoned for must be an insuperable barrier between the sinner and God."

If the natural man is to be brought into favor and fellowship with God, it is evident that something must be done with sin. Man's first step in returning to God must be a consciousness that deepens into a conviction of sin. So the question which comes to every person who awakens to his condition through sin and its consequences, is the same as that which came to the Philippian jailor, "What must I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30).

THE NATURE OF SALVATION

Let us analyze the jailor's question. First, "What must I do to be saved?" Who is the "I"? A lost man enslaved by sin, self and Satan; a blind man, whose mind has been darkened by the god of this world and whose eyes are closed to the beauty and glory of God; a dead man alienated from the life of God.

Second, "What must I do to be saved?" He does not ask what he must do to be reformed or repaired or repolished but to be saved. The question he asks is, "How can I, an enslaved man, have deliverance; a blind man have sight; a dead man has life?"

Third, "What must I do to be saved?" What can a bond slave do to free himself? Or what can a blind man do to gain sight? Or what can a dead man do to make himself alive?

Let us answer the jailor's question by defining the kind of salvation which will fully meet the sinner's need. It must be a salvation God can accept as wholly sufficient and satisfactory. God is the One who has been offended and most wounded by sin. By his sin, Adam forfeited all right to a relationship with God and it is God alone who can say by what means and in what manner the relationship with sinful men can be restored. Man has no ground upon which he can approach God. If God ever receives the natural man it must be upon some ground where he confesses himself a helpless, hopeless, sinner.

"Between him and God is the impassable gulf of moral inability. Between him and God is the barrier of penal judgment." God alone can determine how this chasm shall be bridged and this barrier removed.

It must be a salvation that deals effectually with sin and all its consequences. This salvation must put away sin and give man a new nature, without which there would be no basis for establishing a relationship with God. This salvation must blot out man's sins and their attendant guilt. Sins committed cannot be undone merely by an expression of sorrow or by a promise of an amendment through a New Year resolution or by the turning over of a new leaf.

 It must be a salvation that carries out the sentence of death upon the sinner. God's law is holy and it cannot be trifled with. God's judgments are righteous and they must be fulfilled. God has said, "The soul that sinneth it shall die." The penalty must be paid; the judgment must be executed. Any salvation that saves must take into account the payment of this penalty and the execution of this judgment.

It must be a salvation that accomplishes the defeat, dethronement, and destruction of Satan. God's judgment upon Satan who brought sin into the universe must be executed as truly as God's judgment upon the sinner. God has said that the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent.

This is one half of the original promise of salvation. Christ's final victory necessitates Satan's full defeat. Such must be the nature of any salvation that fully saves.

MAN'S FALSE AND FATAL ATTEMPTS TO SAVE HIMSELF

But there are those who, refusing to accept God's estimate of the natural man, deny the necessity of any such radical and revolutionary change in him. They delight in the exaltation of the flesh and they deny the self-evident fact that human nature is in utter ruin though they are compelled to admit that it is greatly in need of repair. They believe and teach that human nature is imperfect because it is in the process of formation. But given a proper environment, liberal education and the chance to make the best of what he already possesses, a man by his own natural development ultimately will achieve Godlikeness and attain a place in the Kingdom of God. In other words, salvation is not by grace but by growth; it depends upon an evolution of life from within rather than upon an impartation of life from without.

There are those even in the pulpit and in the theological seminary who teaches that the natural man is not dead but diseased; not wicked but weak; not fallen but fainting, and they attempt resuscitation through ethical culture, social reform, and mass education while ridiculing the necessity of redemption through the atoning work of the crucified Saviour and regeneration through the power of the indwelling Spirit.

Their kind of preaching is well summed up in the word of a prominent preacher who said, "Do your part and God will surely do His. To deny that a man is forgiven when he turns away from wrong and asks forgiveness would be to deny the moral character of God." In such teaching, man is made his own savior, and salvation is nothing more than a feeble sense of regret resulting in slight changes in conduct to which God is asked to affix His seal of forgiveness.

This kind of thinking and teaching leads men to seek out ways of salvation which are futile and to rest upon hopes which are false. If the meaning of salvation is what we have indicated in these pages then the means of its accomplishment must be supernatural. But man is ever prone to put his trust in the purely natural, in himself.

When the eyes of Adam and Eve were opened to evil and they came into a realization of their sin and shame instead of seeking God, confessing their sin, and acknowledging their undone condition, they made themselves

aprons of fig leave to cover their nakedness (Genesis 3:7). From that day to this the natural man has been at the same foolish, futile task of trying to cover his sin and guilt with some garment of his own making which he trusts will be acceptable to God.

But no dress which the natural man provides for the flesh will ever please God. No matter what material it is made or how beautiful, fitting and durable it may seem to be to the world, it will wither into nothingness, even as Adam's and Eve's aprons of fig leaves, before the righteousness and holiness of God.

No garment of salvation except the one He Himself provides will be acceptable to God.

Genesis 3:21, "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." By this act, God acknowledged that the shame of Adam and Eve were not groundless, and that they did need a covering; but He also showed the utter inadequacy of the one they had provided for themselves, their lack of apprehension of the enormity and heinousness of their sin against Him, and of the nature of the salvation required to restore them to His fellowship.

God had said, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." They had eaten. "The wages of sin is death." If they did not die someone acceptable to God must die in their stead. This is the meaning of salvation.

But God had already given the promise of a Saviour-Substitute. The seed of the serpent would bruise the heel of the woman's seed. The garments of skin with which the Lord God clothed Adam and Eve were procured through the slaying of animals, through the shedding of blood. By this gracious act of God, the means of salvation was symbolized; the death of His own well-beloved Son was shadowed forth. God Himself furnished the skins, God made the coats, God clothed them in acceptable garments.

Now let us look at some of the aprons of fig leaves with which the natural man is trying to make himself acceptable to God and fit for Heaven.

Salvation through Character

"Character — homebrew" is the sign over the door of the self-righteous man's life. He has to admit weakness and failure but he does not call sin nor does he grant that he has any great need. There is nothing in him so wrong that he cannot remedy it himself if given time, a proper environment and enlarged opportunities. The self-righteous man thinks that he starts with something already very good, something even with the very essence of the divine in it. His business is to make this good thing gradually better.

In this process of self-cultivation, the self-righteous man measures himself with himself and he is very pleased; he measures himself also with other men and, like the self-righteous Pharisee of Luke 18:9-14, he is more than pleased. He congratulates himself on himself and even commends his virtues to God. But there is one measurement that he has forgotten to take. He has never placed his self-righteous life alongside the spotless, stainless, sinless, life of the Son of Man to see how infinitely far short he falls of righteousness which God accepts. He ignores the fact that the absolute righteousness of God demands nothing less than absolute righteousness in all who are acceptable to Him, which is a demand no human being in himself ever can meet.

Someday when this man stands before the Lord Jesus Christ, once a proffered but a rejected Saviour, now his Judge, he will expect Him to approve this manmade production of righteousness, to pronounce it as good as anything the Lord could have done, and to let him pass into Heaven to abide forever in the presence of an absolutely righteous God.

I was talking once with a friend concerning his need for a Saviour. He was a man of splendid ideals, high standards, and excellent principles. He was cultured, kind, moral, and from a human standpoint, lived what the world would commend as a highly respectable life. When I pressed the necessity of accepting Jesus Christ as his Saviour, he said, "Why do I need anyone to die for me? I do not want any one's bloodshed for me!" The root of that reply was self-righteousness. That young man was trusting to be saved through character. God looks down upon all such "which trusted in themselves that they were righteous" and says Romans 3:10, 12, "There is none righteous, no, not one. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable: there is none that doeth good, no, not one."

And of the righteousness which has been so carefully cultivated He gives His estimate through the mouth of His prophet, Isaiah 64:6, "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."

To rely upon self-righteousness as the ground of salvation is utterly futile. God declares plainly that His wrath against it will be revealed.

Romans 1O:3, "For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God."

Romans 1:18, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness."

How very different is the self-righteous, a self-made man from the one who has had a glimpse of the Holy One and His righteousness!

Isaiah 6:5, "Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."

Job 42:5-6, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

1 Timothy 1:15, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners: of whom I am chief."

The last quotation is from the lips of a man who, if anyone could have rested upon his own righteousness as a sufficient ground of acceptance with God. With perfect sincerity, he said of himself that "touching the righteousness which is of the law" he was "blameless." Yet after seeing the Lord of glory he was convinced of the foolishness and futility of such confidence in the flesh. From that time he had but one consuming desire, "that he might win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith" (Phil. 3:6, 9). The only righteousness that makes any man acceptable with God is the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ.

Romans 3:22-23, "Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."

No one whose eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts, and who has contrasted his own sinfulness with His holiness will have a shred of hope of acceptance with God through his own character. The man who relies upon any righteousness in himself as his ground of salvation and who refuses Christ's imputed righteousness as God's free gift only proves the Word of God that the god of this world has blinded his mind so that the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine into his heart.

Salvation through Education

Another bridge which men attempt to erect over the yawning sin-made chasm between God and man is that of education. Ignorance due to lack of opportunity is deemed the cause of much of the sorrow, suffering, and strife, in the world. The cry is, "Give everyone an education and so elevate standards, raise ideals and change environment. By thus creating a desire for better conditions of life a better life itself will eventuate." There are intelligent men and women today who are proclaiming that the one thing needed for the salvation of individuals and of nations is mass education.

Knowledge is made the cure for sin.

Such an argument is an absolute fallacy. For to know is but a fragment of man's responsibility in the matter of living and is by far the easier part of the task. Life challenges us to do, above all to be. Knowledge is of no value whatsoever until it has been transmuted into character and conduct. In fact, the Bible tells us in one of its most solemn words that unless it is so transmuted knowledge becomes positive sin. "To him, that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin" (James 4:17).

Education has sometimes even led to a deterioration of character and conduct. It has opened new avenue sin to Sin and taught men greater cleverness in the ways of evil. It has not only made men more selfish, more proud, more grasping, but has placed them in positions where their selfishness, ambition, and greed could have full right-of-way against others less favored.

We hear much in certain circles today about religious education and many people believe this to be the sufficient remedy for the need of the world. If religious education means teaching the Word of God itself under the direction and operation of the divine Teacher, the Holy Spirit, with the purpose of securing man's regeneration and renewal, then it is indeed one of the world's greatest and deepest needs. But, if it means urging the natural man to study Christ's teachings and to learn His principles of life for men as individuals and as members of society in order that through obedience to His teaching, through the application of His principles, and through imitation of His example, there may be a reconstruction of human society and amelioration of social wrongs, then it is an absolutely foolish and futile thing.

The natural man could know the content of the teachings of God from Genesis to Revelation and still have no power, and more, no desire to obey them. He might be thoroughly conversant with every Christian principle for the government of man in his personal, social and civic relationships and yet fail to apply them in his own life.

I heard of a group of students who talked loud and long about the selfishness and greed of officials in high places in the government of their country. They took part in patriotic movements to remove these men from office. Yet they themselves were found guilty of taking a "squeeze" from their fellow-students who had entrusted to them the task of buying food under a self-government scheme in operation in the college. In their smaller sphere of activity, they had done exactly what the officials had done in their larger sphere. Any system of religious education which merely unfolds to the natural man the teachings and principles of Jesus Christ and tells how to apply them in the life of the other fellow is utterly inadequate. The Bible is the only textbook given man on salvation from sin and from cover to cover there is not a ray of hope held out of salvation through education or through anything that aims merely at the improvement of the natural man. In fact, God plainly tells us in the first and second chapters of 1 Corinthians that it is "the wisdom" of the natural man that keeps him from accepting the only way of salvation, Christ crucified. Education, if it is truly Christian, maybe one of the agents used by God to create the desire for salvation but it can never furnish the dynamic which makes salvation possible.

Salvation through Works

One man looks for salvation through character or what he is; another trusts in education or what he knows; while a third seeks it in service or what he does. He believes he can be saved through good works. He comes to God with self-confidence and says, "What shall I do that I might work the works of God?"

God answers his question by asking one which teaches that the natural man can do no good work that will accomplish his salvation.

Jeremiah 13:23, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil."

Please note God does not say, "Can the Ethiopian powder or rouge his skin?"That has been done. The question is "Can the Ethiopian change his skin?"The natural inference is that it would be changed from its natural color to another. Can that be done?

Suppose a girl from Ethiopia comes for the first time into the presence of a group of fair-skinned girls. Never before has she seen any color of skin but black. She wishes her skin to be fair and determines to do something to make it so. Procuring water and soap she proceeds to lather her face and rubs it vigorously. The process ended she goes triumphantly to the mirror expecting to see a great change. Instead, she confronts the same black skin only a bit more highly polished. She decides that she did not do enough, that she failed to use sufficient water or soap or muscle, so she repeats the process increasing the use of soap, water, and strength. But the second attempt ends in the same bitter disappointment. To change her skin is beyond her power.

"Can the Ethiopian change his skin?" We are compelled to answer God's question for His answer to ours depends upon it. If the Ethiopian can change his skin then the natural man will be able to do something to change his sinful heart, he will be able to do good who has always been accustomed to do evil. But, if the Ethiopian cannot change his skin then what must we infer regarding the power of the natural man to change his evil heart? God's Word gives a conclusive answer.

Jeremiah 2:22, "For though thou wash thee with niter, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God." Through self-cultivation, self-discipline and self-effort many men and women have been able to accomplish certain reforms within themselves which have made them more acceptable to themselves and to the world but no living person has ever been able to make himself righteous, and without righteousness no man is acceptable to God.

Another way in which the natural man attempts his own salvation is to do something for God which will be acceptable.

This was Cain's mistake, yea, it was more, it was Cain's sin. Why was Abel's offering accepted and Cain's accepted not? (Genesis 4:4, 5). Because Abel realized that he was a sinner and that the offering he brought to God must confess that fact and be an acknowledgment of his need of another to cleanse him. Cain, on the contrary, brought an offering which revealed no sense of sin but rather of complete self-sufficiency. He offered his best, the work of his hands, the fruitage of his toil. He needed not the help of anyone. And he expected God to accept his gift, the offering of a sinner still in his sins, and to call the account against him squared. Cain did not come to God "by faith" (Heb. 11:4) but "by works."

There is no phase of modern teaching more ancient or pagan than the doctrine proclaimed so generally throughout the world today that we can be made acceptable to God by good works, that we are saved through service. It is indeed true that, if we are saved, we will serve, but it is altogether untrue that we are saved because we serve.

Jews in our Lord's time who were unwilling to acknowledge Him as their Messiah and to accept Him as their Saviour came to Him with the question, "What shall we do that we might work the works of God?" The reply of the Lord Jesus is very significant. "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." But this "good work" they stubbornly refused "to do."

What God required was not that they should do something for Him but that they should accept what He had done for them. The foundation stone of salvation is not what man gives to God but what God gives to man; it is not what man offers to God but what he receives from God.

Romans 4:4-5, "Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."

2 Timothy 1:9, "Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."

The Pharisees considered themselves the prophets of religion. They fasted and prayed; they paid tithes and "built the tombs of the prophets and garnished the sepulchers of the righteous." They did countless good works yet Jesus called them "hypocrites" and the apostle Paul prayed that they might be "saved." So in this twentieth century many are deceived into thinking they are saved because they serve tables at a church supper; make garments for the poor or band-ages for the sick; act as chairman of the finance committee to put over a big drive; or contrive schemes for the physical and social betterment of mankind.

Salvation through good works either for God or man is pure paganism. I have a friend in China whose dear old grandmother was an ardent Buddhist. At seventy-six years of age, she rose every morning at four o'clock and spent the hours until noon without food in performing the rites of her heathen worship. She walked long distances to the temple, she burned her bundles of incense and lighted her candles, she gave of her money. Her days were largely spent in religious works but at seventy- six she was still an ignorant, superstitious, idolatrous, unsaved woman. But not one whit more unsaved than the man or woman, even though dressed in cap and gown, who offers to the Saviour who died upon the Cross to redeem him "the stone" of philanthropy, good works, and social service, for "the bread" of faith, adoration, and worship.

Salvation through Religion

Someone has said, "Man is incurably religious." Another has beautifully written, "God created man a deep and everlasting void. The soul in its highest sense is a vast capacity for God but emptiness without God." It is most assuredly true that man was made for God and his heart never can be fully satisfied until it is satisfied in Him. It is equally true that God made man not only in His likeness but also with the capacity for fellowship with Him, yes, even for sonship. Therefore God's heart can never be fully satisfied except as this relationship with man is realized and enjoyed.

The natural man can neither satisfy nor please God (Romans 8:7). Therefore God could never enjoy his presence even were it possible for him to stay in the presence of a holy God. Something must be done by God to make man acceptable to Him.

From the day sin entered into the human race, God has been working to win men and women, one by one, back to Himself. He has sent His messengers, prophets and apostles to open the eyes of sinners and "to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God." At the same time, the devil has been equally busy blinding the minds of men "lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the image of God, should shine unto them" (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Satan's path is not altogether smooth. Two forces are working against him. One is the religious instinct in man. He cries out for something he knows he needs. He senses his insufficiency in seasons of trial, suffering, and sorrow; often his heart reaches out for the help and comfort of one stronger than himself. He cannot let loved ones pass out of sight and touch without an insistent longing to know where they have gone and if all is well. That unsatisfied something in man's soul that cries out to an unknown God is very much against Satan.

The second hindrance to the devil is the Holy Spirit. It is His business to convict of sin, to reveal the love of God in Christ, and to draw the heart of the sinner out in faith and love to God.

Just here the devil reveals himself at his worst. He will lay siege to that unquenchable thing in man's nature which craves an object of worship and hold it for himself. He will delude men into thinking they can be saved by systems of religion which he inspires them to make.

Contrary to the salvation of which Jesus Christ is the source Satan's system is not one and the same for all men alike irrespective of family, race, education, privilege or environment. These man-made, Satan-inspired religions have various names and manifold methods each suited to the type and temperament of the man who believes them. There is one kind for the ignorant and illiterate; another for the educated and erudite; one for the simple and superstitious; another for the wise and cultured; one for the poor; another for the prosperous.

There is a system of religion for the idolater. Satan is an arch-deceiver and his practice of deception is seen in its most cruel and malicious form in idol worship. Even in this twentieth century Satan still holds in his power millions upon millions of men who are worshippers of gods of their own making. They have been led to believe a lie and so have been plunged into dense darkness.

There is a system of religion for the ritualist. In carrying out His eternal purpose in Christ, God called forth a people from among the nations through whom the seed of the woman would come. The Jews were set apart as the people of God by the rite of circumcision. To this God added the covenants and the law so that the worship and service of the Jew was based on a God-appointed, God-honoring, ritualism. Through the manifold ordinances and sacrifices of the Jewish ritualism God made the Jew familiar with the idea of redemption. Then God raised up prophets who foretold the coming of a Messiah who would be their Redeemer. In the fullness of time, the Saviour was born. The need for sacrifices was passed for the one Sacrifice had offered Himself.

But the expounders of the law, the most ardent religionists of Jesus' day instead of receiving Him rejected Him. And why? Because they permitted religious ordinances to take a larger place in their lives than God's redemptive order. They exalted ritualism above righteousness and substituted prayer for penitence, tithing for trust and fasting for faith. There are other great religious systems in the world today in which the real Christ of the Bible, the Redeemer of the Gospels, is veiled through ordinances and ceremonies in which there is no saving power, yet through which countless thousands are deceived into thinking they are made acceptable to God.

There is a system of religion for the rationalist. The pronouncement of the curse upon Satan and the promise of salvation through Christ following the fall precipitated a conflict as we have seen. The conflict begun then has never ceased; it is being waged more fiercely today than ever before. To prevent the execution of the curse and the fulfillment of the promise Satan tried in every conceivable way to destroy the seed of the woman. At the Cross of Calvary he thought himself triumphant. But the very place of his supposed victory was the place of his judgment and the forerunner of his final doom. Christ arose, the Victim became the Victor. Christ Jesus returned to the glory from whence He came. He went beyond the devil's reach. There is no way in which Satan again can touch or tempt the person of the adorable Lord. How then would he continue the conflict? Now that he could not focus the venom of his hate upon the incarnate Word upon what would he focus it?

The revelation of this conflict is unfolded in a Book. The incarnate Word has gone home to His Father but the written Word is still on earth. In it, the defeat of the devil and the victory of the Christ is recorded in large type. The way of salvation through the atoning death and the triumphant resurrection of the Lord of glory is written in red letters from Genesis to Revelation. This is the Gospel. This Gospel the devil hates with all the hatred of which the father of hate is capable. So against it, he will now direct his attack. Around the Gospel of Christ the conflict will center henceforth.

The Gospel is in the Bible and the Bible is in the world. It has been printed in hundreds of languages and has gone to the far corners of the earth. More millions of copies of it are being sold annually than of any other book. Men everywhere are reading the Bible and are believing the Gospel. Being saved through it they are taken from Satan's dominion and removed out of his kingdom. What can he do to stop its progress and its power? Destroy it? He has tried that and failed. The Bible is not printed on paper only but it has been graven on human hearts by the Spirit of God so that if every copy of the printed Bible in the world today were destroyed a new copy could be made from its truth stored in human hearts.

Perhaps, then, Satan could ridicule the Bible and hinder its progress and power through scoffing. He has tried that also and failed. He has used some of the world's most brilliant men as his preachers of infidelity and atheism. Today they are in their graves and their words are forgotten while the Bible lives on more powerful than ever.

But is there not a more effectual way of denying the Gospel and of keeping sinners from the benefit and blessing of the salvation it offers? There is and Satan is making use of it in these days in ever-increasing measure. God tells us that the devil's most subtle maneuver in the conflict is to turn the preacher and with the Bible as his textbook to concoct out of it a gospel of his own. When Satan found that attacking the written Word from without failed then he began attacking it from within. As Christ uses men to preach His Gospel so Satan would find men who would consent to become "his ministers." 2 Corinthians 11:13-15, "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for even Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of light. It is no great thing therefore if his ministers also fashion themselves as ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their work."

What would Satan's gospel be and where would it begin? God's Gospel is a Gospel of grace and begins with Genesis, chapters 1-3. But how could Satan accept these three chapters as they stand fresh from the heart and hand of God containing as they do the revelation of God's perfect work in the creation of the universe and man; the invasion of an enemy, he being that enemy; the injection of sin into God's perfect work; the awful consequence in the fall of Adam and Eve; the terrible curse of God upon himself, upon man and upon the earth; the precious promise of a Saviour and the glorious prophecy of his own defeat through the death upon the Cross? Of course, he could not accept these chapters for in them is the germ of the whole Gospel of man's salvation.

He would defeat his own purpose if he did so bold and blatant a thing as deliberately to cut these chapters out of the Bible. But the arch-deceiver is quite equal to the emergency. He will preach a gospel that reserves the right of interpretation of the Word of God according to the dictates of reason. He will insist upon a faith that is rational.

It is always difficult for reason to accept anything beyond its own range. God thinks and works on the plane of uncreated, divine, unlimited, supernatural life. Man thinks and works on the plane of created, human, limited, natural life. The rationalist refuses to recognize any such dividing line between himself and his Creator. Consequently, he refuses to accept anything, even from God, that goes beyond his reason. So whatever the rationalist believes, his religion must be on his own plane of life — the natural.

So a system of religion is framed to suit him. A gospel is manufactured "which is another gospel" (Galatians. 1:6), a clever, malicious counterfeit. Satan knows that he must inspire man to make a religion which does away altogether with God's revelation of the creation and the fall of man, otherwise how can he dispose of the promise of a Saviour and the prophecy of his own ultimate defeat through Christ's glorious victory on Calvary and His triumphant return as King?

Consequently the basic tenet of the rationalist's system of religion is evolution. Man did not come direct from God's hands — a perfect work which God Himself pronounced "very good." God's first man was not created in the image of One infinitely higher than himself but was evolved from something infinitely lower than himself. This something had evolved through various stages by natural processes until man was produced. So that God's part in the production of man was not so much that of a Creator as of a semi-divine supervisor or foreman " of resident natural forces." In other words, the supernatural in man's creation was eliminated through evolution. So much for man's creation in this man-made, Satan-inspired gospel.

How does this gospel of the rationalist deal with sin? Sin is in the world. Sin is in man. How does the rationalist account for its origin and what does he say of its end? He evades the issue altogether by calmly denying the necessity of anyone having such knowledge.

I read recently a chapter on "Sin and its Forgiveness" from the pen of a noted preacher in which he said, "Whence did sin come? What was its origin?

How did it get into God's universe? That is a question to which no satisfactory answer has ever yet been given. . . Jesus is disappointing in His treatment of human sin. The origin of evil He never touched. He left that problem as opaque as it was before He came. He seemed to take it for granted that the origin of evil is a problem to be thought about and worked out in some other world than this. . . It is not necessary for us to know either the beginning of evil or the end of it; it is enough to know that sin is a burden to the heart of God, and that God has provided a way for our deliverance." Such deliberate evasion is equivalent to out-and-out denial. For any honest man, whose mind has not been blinded by the god of this world, could not but believe from the reading of Genesis three and Romans five that sin came into this world through Adam who yielded to the will of Satan. Therefore sin must have had its origin in the devil. Jesus, far from leaving this opaque, threw a flood of light upon it when He said that the devil was "a murderer from the beginning. . . he is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44). But not only is sin in the world but Christ is also in the world. And He is in the world primarily as a Saviour. He became a Saviour by going to the Cross. His work in this world as Saviour is to draw sinners unto Him for salvation. "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." His power of attraction is mighty and permeates the world of humanity today. When once the Lord Jesus Christ is accepted by one as Saviour, yielded to as Lord, and appropriated as Life, then the devil's power over that life is broken. The devil knows this full well. So what will he do with Christ in the system of religion he inspires men to make, and in the gospel, he inspires them to preach?

Satan cannot do away with Christ altogether for even the most simple would see that any system of religion which claims to be based on the Bible and calls itself Christianity must give Christ someplace. It is a galling thing to do but the devil is compelled for policy's sake to preach Christ in his "gospel, which is another gospel." But will he allow "his ministers of righteousness" to preach Jesus Christ as the Saviour from the guilt, penalty, and power of sin through His substitutionary death upon the Cross and His bodily resurrection and His ascension into Heaven as the God-man, the interceding High Priest? Never! To do so would be allowing his own funeral sermon to be preached, fulfilling Genesis 3:15. But he will preach Jesus as the world's greatest teacher, its purest example, it's most ethical leader, it's most powerful reformer. He will appeal to the natural man still in his sin and hostility, still under condemnation and the sentence of death, to obey Christ's teaching, emulate His example, follow His leadership and submit to His reforms. Such a caricature of the real Christ as this is found in the rationalist's system of religion.

True Christianity is grounded upon the supernatural. Two supernatural facts are its foundation. The first is the supernatural creation of man by the divine Creator whose perfect work was ruined by an enemy through the injection of sin. The second is the supernatural regeneration of man accomplished by God's grace through the supernatural birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and exaltation of His Son.

Rationalism, liberalism, modernism or whatever one wishes to call it, is grounded upon the natural. Two fallacies are its foundation. The first is the fashioning of man through evolution by which natural process he will continue to grow from the imperfect to the perfect. The second is the natural reformation of man accomplished through self-development by the help of a human Jesus, whose earthly life furnishes an example to be imitated, whose teachings provide a rule for right living, and whose principles constitute a guide for the overcoming of evil and the gradual betterment of individual and corporate life.

There is, then, a system of religion made by man but inspired by Satan. It is a religion which eliminates the supernatural. I am speaking now of the system not of the man who accepts it: of modernism not of the modernist. There are varying degrees and grades of faith and of unbelief in those who subscribe to this false system of religion. Some who call themselves modernists were brought up and nourished on the fundamental truths of evangelical Christianity and there is now in their belief a strange mixture of the false and the true. Our purpose in writing this is not to budge any man but to warn any who may be putting confidence for salvation in this manmade, Satan-inspired system of religion.

There is a gospel of Satan and a Gospel of Christ; the one is the exact antithesis of the other. Satan's gospel has no place for the grace of God. Satan's gospel reverses God's estimate of the natural man. It does not admit that in himself he is hopelessly incurable and incorrigible, even though it does have to say that he is still imperfect. The basic tenet of his gospel is man's natural worthiness which can be increased and for which man will take to himself the glory. Satan's gospel admits the natural man's need for spiritual garments, but it teaches men that these garments can be made by themselves and urges them to borrow the pattern from the earthly life of Jesus and then make the garments to fit themselves. In Satan's gospel, the sinner does not penitently beseech God to save him but he politely requests God to help him save himself and then endorse what he has done.

The Gospel of Christ has a place for nothing but the grace of God by which salvation is provided that the sinner accepts by faith as a gift. God's Gospel declares that the natural man is a sinner, a rebel and an outlaw and that he is separated from God and condemned by God. In God's Gospel the sinner admits that this is his standing and his state before God and that he is absolutely helpless to change it and therefore hopeless. He comes to God in true penitence and cries to God for salvation. The basic tenet of God's Gospel is the infinite worth of His Son and the worthiness of his finished work of redemption. God's Gospel declares the spiritual nakedness of the natural man and his inability to stand in the presence of God unless clothed in the garment of His Son's righteousness which He will graciously bestow upon all who will accept Him by faith.

Which Gospel are you believing? There is but one Gospel that is the power of God unto salvation. Anything which departs an iota from the truth of that Gospel is "another gospel," even the gospel of Satan.

Romans 1:16, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone that believeth."

Galatians 1:6-9, " I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another: but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than ye have received, let him be accursed."

We have been facing the question, "What must I do to be saved?" and endeavouring to answer it. I trust it has been made clear that salvation does not consist in anything that man makes of himself or that education and environment make of him. Nor does it consist in anything that he does either for God or for man. Neither is salvation a mere matter of a changed manner of living. It does not mean the elevation of the life of the natural man to a better state of living still on the natural plane. As long as he remains on the plane of the natural he is unsaved, no matter how cultured, educated, moral or even religious he is.

 Salvation is not man's work for God but God's work for man. Salvation calls us to put our faith not in what man is or does but in what Christ is and has done. Salvation's first concern is not what kind of a life a man lives but what is his relationship to God. So its first dealing is not with the good in man but with the bad. Salvation does not try to improve the standing and state of the natural man through reformation but it transfers him into a totally new sphere of life through regeneration.

Every attempt to save the natural man through character, education, good works or religion will prove utterly futile because it has failed to deal effectually with that trinity of evil, sin, self, and Satan. Anything that leaves a man "in Adam," "in the flesh," and under "the power of Satan" is not salvation and is not acceptable to God. Dear reader, which way are you going to take?

Will, you proudly and arrogantly try to save yourself or will you humbly and penitently accept the salvation provided for you in Another? Will you go the way of Cain, who presented to God as a sacrifice the finest fruit of his garden and the best product of his toil, or will you go the way of Abel who acknowledged his need of a Saviour and accepted by faith God's sacrifice? Will you attempt to secure access to and acceptability with God on the ground of good works or will you rest on the finished work of God's Son? Will you try to improve the old sinful nature which is your inheritance in Adam or will you partake by faith of that new divine nature which God bestows in Christ? Will you try to conform your character and conduct to the standards of Satan's worldly system or will you yield yourself to Christ to be transformed into His image through the infilling of the Holy Spirit?

Will you follow Satan's way or God's? Upon your answer to this question your present happiness and your eternal destiny depend.

[delwray-blog]

THE TRUTH ABOUT HUMAN NATURE

It will do you well to read this lengthy exergy!

My own personal recollection of how I came to that RARE DISCOVERY And THE ULTIMATE REALITY.

“Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, AND FEW THERE BE THAT FIND IT.” Matt. 7:14

Our nature is that which makes us distinctly human. Our nature is distinct from that of the animals and the rest of creation in that we can think and feel. One of the chief distinctions between human beings and the rest of creation is our ability to reason. No other creature has this ability, and there’s no question that this is a unique gift bestowed by God. Our “reason” enables us to reflect on our own nature and the nature of God and to derive knowledge of God's will for His creation. No other part of God’s creation has a nature capable of reason. The Bible teaches that God created human beings in His image. This means that He enables us to have some understanding of Him and of His vast and complex design. Our human nature reflects some of God’s attributes, although in a limited way. We love because we are made in the image of God who is love 1 John 4:16. Because we are created in His image, we can be like Him, compassionate, faithful, truthful, kind, patient, and just. In us, these attributes have been and are distorted by SIN, which also resides in our nature. Originally, human nature was perfect by virtue of having been created so by God. The Bible teaches that human beings were created “very good” by a loving God Genesis 1:31, but that goodness was marred by the sin of Adam and Eve.

Subsequently, the entire human race fell and became victim to the sin nature. The sin of human nature and its sinfulness is a rare discovery. Men simple will not believe God? The greatest discovery is that the Bible is true and I am guilty of not believing it’s every WORD.

I’ve discovered a lot of things in my lifetime and this message is about the greatest finding I’ve ever made. Every day new breakthroughs are possible but this one finding hast to do with me and it has to do with my nature. But very few ever make this discovery. There is one “find” that very few ever make during their lifetimes and failure to do so is the difference between Heaven and Hell. How rare it is in the church today to find a person who has come to a genuine reality of the truth about himself. The biblical recognition and the realization of the truth about man’s nature is such a deadly blow to the individual that the heart of men being what it is, refuses to accept God’s estimation of man’s real condition. We will not see ourselves as God sees us, refusing to admit to our lost, sinful condition and we who have been saved are just as guilty thinking we are something when we are really “nothing” but filthy rags or should I say all our righteousness is nothing but “filthy rags.” before the eyes of ONE who is the Holy God. Nothing worthy, we are, of the least of God’s favor. Should it be shouted and known throughout all eternity! Hell should have been our eternal abode except for the ONE who came and stood in our place at Calvary. It’s all because of Jesus that we are not burning in Hell right now. Who am I? Who is man to plead his own righteousness, his excuse before a Holy God who has clothed Himself with the Universe and made the earth His footstool? To plead his case before a God who speaks and the stars and moons go whirling through His ever-increasing habitat? What a God! And what a God He is to penitent sinners. Hell surely must be continually enlarging itself to make room for all those souls that are living and dying in delusions never acknowledging that God is righteous in decrying “there is none good no not one.” None good! But God! Rare indeed is it to see true repentance anymore in our churches from the individual who from his heart falls on his face before a perfect God dressed in blazing, flaming, fiery white-hot holiness hotter than any ten thousand suns and admitting “I’m wrong and you’re right,” You’ve always been right God and I’ve always been wrong. Such “Shekinah Glory,” such love, such holiness for sinners such as us? Who am I, that the God of this Universe would love even me? What a God! “No man ever spoke like this man!” Jesus only said what was given to Him by the Father to say. Do you hear?

“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at. Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Matt. 7:13-14

THE ULTIMATE REALITY:

It is not always obvious how sinful man is? Or how lost man really is? This is by reason of the “cavern” of depravity that is in his own heart and because of the depth of sin that has sunken his very nature. For a man to see himself as God sees him must be by believing the very WORDS of God. This is also true of other men seeing how low sin has befallen each of us. If we could only see how deep the depth of depravity has taken each of us we would only be horrified. The traumatic experience would only have us falling on our faces before His Holiness. Our eyes have been blinded, our ears deafen, our minds corrupted, our tongues set on fire and our feet swift to shed blood. Hatred is at the very root and core of our hearts. From our heads to our feet iniquity dominates every inch of our being and that goes for every one of us. And we refuse to own it! That does not make it any easier to determine how sinful man is, because there is, in every one of us and in this world of men a wont to believe that there is a “spec of good” in each of us, a sort of common goodness. When God says, “there is none good,” we are religious folks, morally, good people who will tell anyone we believe God and help our neighbors; we’ll join fraternal organizations, volunteer in our communities, give large sums of money and help the needy, the poor. All of which are good and gratifying. We appear on the surface, to be holy and to be righteous; we are certainly religious. We appear to love and obey God, and to keep His laws, and to uphold His Word. And there are times when we think we are the most religious people in the world, as far as the world is concerned, and no one really knows how utterly vile and sinful we are, because of the masquerade of religion, which we carry on so well. But when we come face-to-face with Jesus Christ there goes the facade.

When Jesus came the first time, they were confronted with Him, He exposed their charade immediately and their rejection of the Son of God was seen, no matter what else they pretended to be, it was clear how sinful they were. So the Lord calls them,

"Whited sepulchers, a brood of snakes, evil, vile, perverted, wicked men with black hearts and poisoned mouths."

He curses them again and again, as recorded in Matthew 23.

The real evil of those hearts would never have come to the surface if Jesus hadn't come, but by their rejecting Him, turning on Him, hating Him, and ultimately taking His life, they manifested the true nature and character of their evil hearts. Are we any different today? No! Ten thousand times no! Human nature has not changed in the least. But still, we go on flaunting our self-righteousness our nature thinking we are better than we are, committing the same sin as they did. What deception, what depths of sin has the heart of men fallen? Ultimately, our sinfulness is never admitted.

The one sure way to know how sinful a person is is to compare him with Perfect Righteousness, with Jesus Christ. Right here it becomes apparent and explicit. The sinfulness of man is clearly seen when a person comes face-to-face with Jesus Christ; at this point, there can be no hiding it. No matter what the life is like, it is unmasked for its sinful reality in confrontation with his Creator. The sin issue becomes clear when a person is forced to face Jesus Christ. That is the crux of the revelation of man's sinfulness in the Bible. And even then men still choose to live in darkness, unrepentant refusing to believe they are as bad as God’s Word says we are. Sin is the driving force to rid the world of the Bible. It is the power that drives the self-destruction of nature and the nature of man himself. Jesus plainly stated, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.” Jesus said in John 15,

“If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.” John 15:22

It truly is a rare discovery for man to acknowledge his sinfulness. If we Baptist preachers could only help people to see themselves as half as sinful as we are ourselves America could be saved. We would not be in the condition we are in today as a nation and hell’s coffers would cease to overflow.

A RARE DISCOVERY indeed!

For the sake of sounding redundant let me quote from one of my previous writings “The Truth about Human Nature”: It would do us well to consider and ponder what God wants to reveal to us about our own condition, our own heart!

WHAT IS THE HEART, WHAT IS MEANT BY THE WORD “HEART” BEING USED IN THE BIBLE?

First, I’ll state the obvious: this article is not about the heart as a vital organ, a muscle that pumps blood throughout the body. Neither is this article concerned with romantic, philosophical, or literary definitions. Instead, I’ll focus on what the Bible has to say about the heart. The Bible mentions the human heart almost 300 times. In essence, this is what it says: the heart is that spiritual part of us where our emotions and desires dwell. In the Bible, the heart is the term used for the “center of man’s thinking”, emotions and will. Man “thinks” in his heart, Gen. 6:5, Prov. 23:7. Man “understands” with his heart, Prov. 2:2. He “deviseth his way” with his heart, Prov. 16:9. He “meditates” with his heart, Ps. 19:14. He “considers” Deut. 4:39, “purposes” Dan. 1:8, “reasons” Luke 5:22, “desires” Rom. 10:1 has “intents” Heb. 4:12. From the heart proceed all the actions and motivations of man, Prov. 4:23, Matt. 15:18-20, Mark 7:21-23.

Before we look at the human heart, we’ll mention that, since God has emotions and desires, He, too, can be said to have a “heart.” We have a heart because God does. David was a man “after God’s own heart” Acts 13:22. And God blesses His people with leaders who know and follow His heart 1 Samuel 2:35; Jeremiah 3:15.

The human heart, also called our nature in the Bible, in its natural condition, is evil, treacherous and deceitful. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” In other words, the “fall” has affected us at the deepest level; our mind, emotions, and desires have been corrupted by sin, and we are blind to just how all-encompassing that sin is, how comprehensive the problem, the total ruin of man. The deceitful heart! Even in believers “there is none good, no not one” we all still carry around the sinful nature, the old man, that dirty heart that has been corrupted by the fall. The only difference between the natural man and the saved man is the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit who has moved in and desires complete control; He is the Preacher, the Soul-winner the very life essence Himself. We may not understand our own hearts, but God does. He “knows the secrets of the heart” Psalm 44:21; see also 1 Corinthians 14:25. Jesus “knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man” John 2:24-25. Based on His knowledge of the heart, God can judge righteously: “I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” Jeremiah 17:10.

“But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7

Jesus pointed out the fallen condition of our hearts in Mark 7:21-23: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.”

Our biggest problem is not external but internal; all of us have a heart problem. It’s been said that we all were born wrong! In order for a person to be saved, then, the heart must be changed. This only happens by the power of God in response to faith.

“With the heart, one believes unto righteousness” Romans 10:10. In His grace, God can create a new heart within us Psalm 51:10; Ezekiel 36:26. He promises to “revive the heart of the contrite ones” Isaiah 57:15. God’s work of creating a new heart within us involves testing our hearts Psalm 17:3; Deuteronomy 8:2 and filling our hearts with new ideas, new wisdom, and new desires Nehemiah 7:5; 1 Kings 10:24; 2 Corinthians 8:16. The heart is the core of our being, and the Bible sets high importance on keeping our hearts pure:

“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” Proverbs 4:23

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. In every one of us, there is someone inside of us looking out at the world around them, looking out by way of the eyes of our body, the eyes of the soul.“The eye is the entrance to the soul”, by which that someone sees the world around them and that someone is the real you, the heart. Actually, no one has really seen Del Wray they see the body in which he lives. You’ve never seen me a day in your life! No, you haven’t! I’m inside my body looking out at you. Let me put it this way scripturally:

“No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”John 1:18

“If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.”John 14: 7-10

It may seem contradictory but it’s not when understood as a trichotomy. The soul and the spirit are the two primary immaterial aspects that Scripture ascribes to humanity. It can be confusing to attempt to discern the precise differences between the two. The word “spirit” refers only to the immaterial facet of humanity. Human beings have a spirit, but we are not spirits. However, in Scripture, only believers are said to be spiritually alive 1 Corinthians 2:11; Hebrews 4:12; James 2:26, while unbelievers are spiritually dead Ephesians 2:1-5; Colossians 2:13. In Paul's writing, the spiritual was pivotal to the life of the believer 1Corinthians 2:14; 3:1; Ephesians 1:3; 5:19; Colossians 1:9; 3:16. The spirit is the element in humanity which gives us the ability to have an intimate relationship with God. Whenever the word “spirit” is used, it refers to the immaterial part of humanity that “connects” with God, who Himself is Spirit John 4:24. The word “soul” can refer to both the immaterial and material aspects of humanity. Unlike human beings having a spirit, human beings are souls. In its most basic sense, the word “soul” means “life.” However, beyond this essential meaning, the Bible speaks of the soul in many contexts. One of these is humanity’s eagerness to sin Luke 12:26.

Humanity is naturally evil, and our souls are tainted as a result. The life principle of the soul is removed at the time of physical death Genesis 35:18; Jeremiah 15:2. The soul, as with the spirit, is the center of many spiritual and emotional experiences Job 30:25; Psalm 43:5; Jeremiah 13:17. Whenever the word “soul” is used, it can refer to the whole person, whether alive or in the afterlife. The soul and the spirit are connected, but separable Hebrews 4:12. The soul is the essence of humanity’s being; it is who we are. The spirit is the aspect of humanity that connects with God. The soul and the heart may be considered as one and the same, vile, corrupt and evil apart from Jesus Christ! The real you!

While visiting a missionary friend of mine several years ago in Virginia, she was in her late nineties, on her death bed in the living room of her sister’s home, after having spent her entire adult life on the mission field in Africa. This dear woman had granted her library to me and we went by to thank her. We, my wife and I talked with her for hours, her mind and speech was clear as any fifty years old. She told us something that I’ll never forget as she described the heart of man. She said,

“In every one of us there is a serpent that’s out to kill us and that serpent is the heart.”

She knew human nature very well. And the crux of this article is just this: We do not know our own hearts! Human nature! We who are believers do not know the depths to which SIN has taken and befallen the Human Race. Our hearts deceive us! We deceive ourselves! The human race is its own worst enemy! And if I’ve learned anything during the last seventy-six years of my life - it’s to hate myself. I don’t even trust myself.

“The fool trusteth in his own heart.” Prov. 28:26

“The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.” Psalms 14:1

My own heart has deceived me so gravely and dangerously. Ninety-eight percent 98% of sin in this sin-cursed world and in the individual life comes from the heart of man. Only two percent comes from being tempted by the world, flesh and the devil.

Only a fool will not believe what I’m writing here! Let me give you a perfect example and I do not wish to be callas as I write of the most recent death of Robin Williams the Hollywood comedian, who was found dead having hung himself, committing suicide. Robin Williams, they say took his own life because of depression. He had everything a man could want, money, fame, popularity, lived in a mansion with a wonderful family. Still, he committed suicide; his heart got the best of him. Nothing could fill the void in his life even after all he had acquired it all.

People, only Jesus Christ can fill the void and empty longing in a man’s heart. Speaking for myself, I’m afraid to act, to speak without the power of God on me and certainly it has to be within the confines of God’s precious Holy Word! Knowing one day I will give an account to Him! I take it very seriously! Let me quote William Tyndall:

"I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus Christ to give a reckoning of our doings that I never altered one syllable of God's Word against my conscience."

Until we who make up His visible, local church come to grips with this matter of the depravity of our hearts, our own human nature, we only bring derision and scorn upon ourselves and His church.

“Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high minded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spares not Thee.” Rom. 11: 20-21

America is in the condition that it’s in right now because believers won’t believe God when it comes to the condition of the human heart. The poison from the serpent, “hatred in the human heart” has affected us all. It is this reason that God chose to write the Bible and to speak to humankind on planet earth in His revelation through His Written Word that all men are lost and need to be saved! In a nutshell, Jesus summed it up this way,

“All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Rom. 3:23.

THE ULTIMATE REALITY is that all men by their very nature are lost and need to be saved. Have you made that discovery?

You may ask “WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?” Let’s let Paul answer that for you as found in Acts 16,

“…Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” Acts 16:31

THE BATTLE OF TWO NATURES

The Battle of Two Natures is going on in the heart of every believer, from the second birth until death.

“When you get saved, it is like putting a refined, civilized man in the same cage with a savage barbarian or a wild beast.”

I believe that I was conceived in sin, and brought forth in iniquity and that ever since, I have been continually conceiving mischief, and bringing forth vanity.

This article of my faith I must of necessity believe, whether I will or no; for if I could not believe it to be true, I should, therefore, have the more cause to believe it to be so; because, unless my heart was naturally very sinful and corrupt, it would be impossible for me not to believe that which I have so much cause continually to bewail; or if I do not bewail it, I have still the more cause to believe it: and therefore am so much the more persuaded of it, by how much the less I find myself affected with it. For certainly I must be a hard-hearted wretch indeed, steeped in sin and fraught with corruption to the highest, if I know myself so oft to have incensed the wrath of the Most High God against me as I do, and yet not be sensible of my natural corruption, nor acknowledge myself to be by nature a child of wrath, as well as others. For I verily believe, that the want of such a due sense of myself argues as much original corruption as murder and whoredom do actual pollution. And I shall ever suspect those to be the most under the power of that corruption, that labor most, by arguments, to divest it of its power. And therefore, for my own part, I am resolved, by the grace of God, never to go about to confute that by willful arguments, which I find so true by woeful experience. If there be not a bitter root in my heart, whence proceeds so much bitter fruit in my life and conversation? Alas! I can neither set my head nor heart about anything, but I still show myself to be the sinful offspring of sinful parents, by being the sinful parent of a sinful offspring: nay, I do not only betray the inbred venom of my heart, by poisoning my common actions but even my most religious performances also, with sin. I cannot pray but I sin, I cannot hear or preach a sermon but I sin, I cannot give an alms or receive the Scripture but I sin; nay, I cannot so much as confess my sins, but my very confessions are still aggravations of them; my repentance needs to be repented of, my tears want washing, and the very washing of my tears needs still to be washed over again with the blood of my Redeemer.

Please hear this, the plea of my soul and don’t be of the many that never come to the ULTIMATE REALITY AND THAT RARE DISCOVERY!

Thus, not only the worst of my sins but even the best of my duties, speak me a child of Adam. Insomuch, that whensoever I reflect upon my past actions, I think I cannot but look upon my whole life, from the time of my conception to this very moment, to be but as one continued act of sin. And whence can such a continued stream of corruption flow but from the corrupt cistern of my heart? And whence can that corrupt cistern of my heart be filled, but from the corrupt fountain of my nature? Cease, therefore, O my soul, to gainsay the power of original sin within me, and labor now to subdue it under thee. But why do I speak of my subduing this sin myself? Surely this would be both an argument of it, and an addition to it. It is to Thee, O my God, Who art both the Searcher and Cleanser of hearts that I desire to make my moan. It is to Thee I cry out in the bitterness of my soul, "O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Rom. 7:24. Who shall? Oh, who can do it but THYSELF? Arise thou, therefore, O my God, and shew Thyself as infinitely merciful in the pardoning, as Thou art infinitely powerful in the purging away, my sins.

Rarely is these truths DISCOVERED or become that ULTIMATE REALITY as so they should. Marking the difference between Heaven and Hell! I’m guilty is my cry! Here we see the battle of two natures going on in the life of every believer.

Within every Christian, there are two natures: One is the old Adamic nature with which he is born, and the other is a new nature created by the Holy Spirit at the New Birth. Paul wrote about that old nature.

“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” Rom. 7:18-21

“For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” Gal. 5:17

This is the conflict between the old nature and the new. Two natures are proof that a person is saved, for only a man who has been born twice has two natures. So then sin is innate in all of mankind, all mankind is instinctively evil.

“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked…” Jeremiah 17:9

HAVE YOU MADE THAT RARE DISCOVERY, THE TRUTH ABOUT HUMAN NATURE? - THE ULTIMATE REALITY

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DAVID HOROWITZ’S “THE DARK AGENDA”

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THE “POWERS OF DARKNESS”

“Christianity today is Anti-Christianity to that which existed in the 1st Century”

Scream as loud as you please but you’re going to read the truth in this document – Read and instant fear should enrage you!

THE “POWERS OF DARKNESS”

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Eph. 6:12.

Just who are these “Powers of Darkness”?

Just who are these leaders of darkness? Jesus called them, “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH” Rev. 17:5; “…The Synagogue of Satan” Rev. 2:9, Rev. 3:9; “The Powers of Darkness” Eph. 6:12; and the “Mystery of Iniquity” 2 Thess. 2:7.

This treaty is penned to show who these are: the “rulers of the darkness of this world”,” the spiritual wickedness in high places”. It is my purpose to make known that the Pharisees of yesterday are the Leaders of Jewry today!

Hitler and the Nazi’s may have murdered 6,000,000 Jews in 1945, while in 1917 during the Bolshevik Revolution the Jews in Red Russia slaughtered more than 20,000,000 Christians, promising to do the same here in America. Under Stalin, married to a Jewish and his gulags, Lenin, Trotsky and Engels, all Jews, murdered more than 100,000,000, “million” I say, of their own people. Khruschev came over here and said, “They, the Communist Jews were going to bury America”.

Hillary Clinton who just ran on the Democratic ticket for President comes from a long line of Jewish ancestors and promised if elected she would do away with Christianity in America. Her husband Bill Clinton during his presidency his entire cabinet was all Jews. The Jews are running this country and our current President Donald Trump is under attack from the news media owned by the Jews.

I am NOT an Anti-Semitic I am an Anti-PHARISEE and an Anti-Talmudic Jew Christ hater. You can scream as loud as you please but you’re going to read the truth here.

The Conspiracy that turned Russia into the World Center of Atheism and is doing the same in America!

The Jewish Hatred for Christ and Christianity:

"And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. And they were more than forty which had made this conspiracy." Acts 23:12-13. The same forces which crucified Jesus Christ two-thousand years ago are today out to destroy Christianity in America and kill every single Christian living here. They’re out to crucify His body, the Church. Many Christian leaders have not yet realized it, but Christianity is in the grip of a life and death struggle at the present time. International Jewish Communism, which has already undermined all nations, firmly expects to exterminate all Christians. What the Cause of Christ has endured in Russia the past many years surpasses its suffering at the hands of bloody Nero. This exposition is to show that the present-day Jewish Pharisees are the greatest enemy facing the United States today.

The Jewish Assault on Christianity Christianity is passing through a crisis the like of which it has never faced before. Whether or not it possesses sufficient moral and spiritual resistance to survive remains to be seen. Paul said the Christian's instruments of battle were not physical: "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds." The same thought is emphasized in the supernaturally inspired words to Zerubbabel: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." The strength of the Church is in its ability to influence the hearts and lives of men by the demonstration and proclamation of divine truth. Questions like the following constantly haunt this writer: "Will the Church be able to demonstrate sufficient power to triumph over its foes in the present crisis? Or has it become so weakened by apostasy and pernicious teachings that it will have to be drenched in its own blood before it can be brought to its senses?" Persecution has always had a purifying effect upon the Church. Like the individual saints of which it is composed, its "strength is made perfect in weakness." Unless the Christian forces of the western nations come under a new baptism of old-time spiritual power, the Church will go down and Soviet Atheism will come up. The Russian Empire was destroyed by the Red hordes, many years ago, because it did not possess sufficient spiritual vitality to resist the onslaught.

The Greek Orthodox Church, which governed the religious life and thought of Russia, was a cold, dead, pagan institution. It lacked life, emotion, and creative energy. Consequently, it yielded to the first attack of organized Atheism. It’s gorgeous temples have been turned into museums, brothels, and centers of entertainment and vice. Its wealth has been confiscated. Its priests and other leaders have been put to death. Its members have been slaughtered by the millions. Church life is a memory of the past. Now let us turn our attention toward Germany. Next, to the British, the German people are the most religious people in Europe. Protestantism was cradled there. Out of a sixty-seven million population, sixty million Germans are today identified with some kind of a Christian Church. For several years, the Moscow conspirators focused their attacks upon Germany. It looked for a time as if the Country was doomed. But by degrees, the Church began to assert its moral and spiritual strength. Finally, the deep, underlying principles of Christian truth manifested on the surface with the result, that by a single stroke, Communism was destroyed. Vibrant soul-sustaining evangelism is the only dependable antidote for Soviet Atheism. The same underground organization which produced the French Revolution is responsible for the present wave of international Communism. The latter part of the eighteenth century witnessed the destruction of France and brought about the “Great Ejection”. The same sinister agencies were at work across the English Channel in Great Britain. It is a matter of historical record, admitted by the best historians, that the revival of John Wesley saved England from the fate of France. If the Church of America continues to lose its spiritual moorings, it requires no prophet to determine what the future will bring forth. An old philosopher once said, to know a thing well one must understand its first cause. It is unpleasant to realize that a certain element of apostate Jewry is behind the turmoil of this dark hour and the present Soviet persecution through which the Church of Jesus Christ is passing.

The Jews and the Church In the dialect of the street, the Jew is sometimes called a "Christ hater." The spirit of Judaism is one of direct antagonism to the principles of Christianity. It is not difficult to understand why an apostate people, who have rejected their Messiah, should continue in spiritual darkness and despise everything that bears His name. No sooner had the tomb of Christ been sealed than the tormenters set out to destroy His followers. This assault has continued straight through the centuries until now it has come into fruition in the form of international Jewish Communism. In the first twelve chapters of the book of Acts, five specific persecutions, sponsored by Jews against the infant Christian Church, are recorded. Failing to blot the new religious conception from the face of the earth by putting its Leader to death, they invented every conceivable scheme for torturing and murdering those who pledged allegiance to His plan for redeeming the world from the curse of sin. The Jews regarded Christianity as being an illegitimate child of Judaism. Therefore, in their hatred, they believed it to be their solemn duty to stamp it out. After the divine visitation at Pentecost, so many thousands of Jews were converted that the leaders became alarmed. One thing stood in their way, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Had His body remained in the tomb, they would have found it easy to combat the new Faith which had suddenly sprung into existence. But with the resurrection being discussed on every side, they found themselves confronted with an insurmountable difficulty. When first faced with the fact of the empty tomb they did not hesitate to resort to deliberate falsehoods.

"And when they were assembled with the elders and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, saying say His disciples came by night and stole him away while we slept. And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day." The first few months of the Church's history witnessed five distinct persecutions. What the Cause of Christ has endured at the hands of Jews, through the centuries, far surpasses anything the Jewish people have suffered from Christians. The attitude of the Jews toward the early Church reminds us that there would be no Christianity in the world today had Paul and others not taken the Gospel message to the Gentiles. First persecution: Acts 4:1-22. A pitiful beggar, a man born a cripple, was placed near the gates of the Jerusalem temple every day to beg for alms. On a certain occasion, as Peter and John were about to enter, the poor, helpless creature stretched forth a dirty, bony arm and pleaded for a coin. "Silver and gold have I none," said Peter, "but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk." Instantly the resurrection life of Christ smote the recipient of divine mercy and he jumped to his feet "walking, and leaping, and praising God." The man was more than forty years of age and had therefore been a familiar object on the streets of Jerusalem for years. This miracle caused a great stir throughout the city. Large crowds of curious people gathered around the apostles and the healed beggar. Peter was quick to take advantage of the opportunity and turned the occasion into a sermon. "Why marvel ye at this?" he asked, and then explained that a far more wonderful miracle had occurred a short time before in Jerusalem, namely the resurrection of Christ from the grave. When the report of this healing reached the treacherous Jews, their minds got busier than ever. They began devising new plans for putting an end to everything that was being done in the name of Christ. Their first thought was to deny that the miracle had been performed. Then they realized that this was useless because the man was so well known. At that moment he was rejoicing, praising God, testifying to his deliverance and telling everybody what had happened. "And we cannot deny it," mourned the Jews who would have lied to discredit the story if it would have advanced their selfish purposes. The members of the Sanhedrin came together and the little band of Christians was forced to appear before them. A torrent of abuse was turned loose upon the trembling group until finally Peter, "filled with the Holy Ghost," became bold. As spokesman for the group, he made it clear that the Christians proposed to obey God rather than man. Had it not been that the mobs were at that time favorable toward the apostles because of the miracle which had been performed, the Jewish leaders would have no doubt put the entire body of believers to death. Second persecution: Acts 5:17-42. "Many signs and wonders" were wrought among the people by the apostles. All manner of diseases were healed. But the Jews could see no good in any of this relief of human suffering because it did not come through the narrow, selfish channels of their bigoted nationalism. The leaders agreed to the use of physical weapons in their attempt to destroy spiritual power, the same as Communists are doing today in trying to exterminate Christianity by killing Christians. Repeated acts of supernatural intervention preserved the early Church. Without divine assistance, it would have perished. These early miracles confirmed the words of the Founder that the gates of hell would not be able to prevail against the Church.

The Jews "laid hands on the apostles and put them in the common prison. But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth." Next morning when the Jewish senate convened and messengers were sent to bring the apostles for trial, it was discovered that unknown to the jailors, they had escaped and were at that very hour preaching in the area of the temple. Jerusalem was in turmoil by this time. Had the officials dared, they would have killed the Christians without a legal trial. When the saints appeared before the tribunal they were told that they had been previously warned not to teach in the name of Jesus. "Ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us," said the high priest. From this, it is evident that the apostles had been denouncing the Jews and charging them with the responsibility for Christ's death. Here we find the leaders complaining about His blood being upon them, forgetting apparently their previous utterance: "His blood be on us, and on our children." It is to the credit of our spiritual ancestors that they were able to fill a whole city with the doctrines of Christianity in the face of such defiant opposition. Peter finally dared to shout: "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree." Next, he called upon his persecutors to repent of their sins. We read that this "cut them to the heart." Who was this upstart that he should have the audacity to rebuke them! When they were almost ready to demand the lives of the apostles, Gamaliel, a tolerant member of the Sanhedrin, lifted a warning voice. If the new cult was not of God, he declared that it would come to naught and fall by its own weight. "But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God." At length, this line of common sense reasoning prevailed, and the passions of the leaders cooled a bit. The result was, instead of killing the apostles they were given another warning and a severe flogging. This form of punishment was cruel, brutal, cowardly and unjust. But even though bitter and painful to the flesh, it caused rejoicing to the spirits of the faithful few. As the wounds healed they "rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name." The only way the Jews had of striking at the Christ Whom they hated was to injure His followers; they availed themselves of this opportunity. Boldly and properly disregarding their illegal judges, the Christians kept on preaching Christ and reminding the Jews of their crimes against the government of God. Third persecution: Acts 7:54-60. The blood of martyrs began flowing in the same year that the Lord ascended into heaven. The Jews' first victim after Christ was a man named Stephen, whose primary crime was a belief in the deity of the Son of God. This was regarded as blasphemy. The story of the murder of Stephen is one of the saddest in all the history of the Church. It is significant that a Hellenist, rather than an apostle, should have become the first Christian martyr. Stephen was accused of three things: blaspheming God, setting aside the Old Testament, and belittling the Temple. Each of these charges was untrue. Even while lying witnesses were being introduced against him, the members of the Jewish council saw his countenance light up with a spiritual glow like "the face of an angel." After listening to the charges, the priests asked their helpless victim: "Are these things so?" But instead of devoting himself to an answer of questions which everyone knew to be based upon falsehoods, Stephen entered into a discussion of Israelites’ history and closed by rebuking his judges for their hypocrisy. He declared that their devotion to God, the Law, and the Temple, was hypocritical. Here are his words: "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your father’s persecuted? And they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers." Thus Stephen laid bare the full measure of their guilt. The blood of the Son of God was upon their heads; they had ignored the miracles which testified of His deity; they had rejected the Pentecostal program of the new Church; they had also spurned the wooing of the Holy Spirit. Before God, they stood condemned, and judgment was sure to overtake them! Taking no thought of his own safety, Stephen shot his words of truth, like barbed arrows, into the hard hearts of his merciless tormentors. As he spoke, the Jewish leaders yelled and screamed to drown his words. They stopped their ears with their fingers to avoid hearing the truth about themselves. Like serpents, they hissed their poison at the courageous Christian. They rushed upon him with one accord. In their madness they dragged him outside the city, removing their outer garments as they ran. With stones, they pelted the body of the first Christian martyr until his life ebbed away. This execution was illegal because the matter was not submitted to the Roman Governor. Emulating the blessed Saviour, Stephen cried with a loud voice: "Lord lay not this sin at their charge." "And when he had said this, he fell asleep." Fourth persecution: Acts 8:1-3. The first three persecutions were spontaneous and did not result from deliberate planning. There had been no coordination of effort. Events had transpired so rapidly that there had been no time to sit down and quietly work out a concerted plan of attack. But the spilling of Stephen's blood seemed to whet the Jewish appetite for more Christian suffering. From that hour, nothing but a terrible pogrom could possibly satisfy them. The sight of blood, the appearance of the first deadly wound in the flesh of a believer, seemed to stir all their criminal instincts. They came to the conclusion that an organized effort was imperative if the new Faith was to be put down. Up until that time, their attempts to suppress the truth had proved ineffective. In searching for a persecutor who would be both cunning and brutal they selected a brilliant young rabbi by the name of Saul from the city of Tarsus. It will be recalled that this was the young man who had guarded the coats of those who stoned Stephen. Saul stood grinning at the contortions of the martyr squirming and writhing in death agonies, under the barrage of rocks which were heaped upon him. Jesus told his followers to go everywhere proclaiming the glad tidings. This was done following the Pentecostal harvest feast which brought Jews to Jerusalem from all parts of the civilized world. Those who accepted the Gospel message, on that great occasion, returned to their various communities to kindle spiritual fires. Unwittingly, in the fourth persecution, the Jews contributed to the success of this very plan of evangelizing because when Saul began scattering believers, driving them from their homes, forcing them into exile, "persecuting them from city to city," every such Christian became an evangelist. Until this time, the activities of the Christians had been confined for the most part, to the city of Jerusalem and its immediate environs, although a skeleton of Church organization was set up reaching into other areas, resulting from the embers which blew in all directions after the experience Pentecost. "As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women, committed them to prison. Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word." The very name Saul became a terror to the early Christians because of the heartless methods which he used. He and his helpers were happiest when they could rush into a house and catch a little group of believers in the act of worshipping, they would kill and wound some, banish others, and torture still others in ways too numerous and terrible for words. The irony of this organized attempt on the part of the Jews to blot the cause of Christ out of existence was the fact that their own ringleader got gloriously converted on the road to Damascus and became the greatest missionary and evangelist the world has ever known. But, in later years, Paul never forgave himself, nor was he ever able to erase the memories of his early attacks upon the little Church, which he came to love so dearly and for which he finally sacrificed his life. Fifth persecution: Acts 12:1-19. The next spasm of Jewish terror, mentioned in the early part of the book of Acts, was directed against Peter. This persecution is of particular importance because it introduces a new element in the Jewish plan of destroying Christianity. It reveals the scheme, which was continued for hundreds of years, influencing Gentile rulers to do their dirty work for them. During the first few centuries of Church history, when the pagans slaughtered Christians by the tens of thousands, a careful study will show that time and again the pogroms were precipitated by powerful Jews who were able to maneuver things from behind the scenes. They simply used pagans to carry out their crimes against Christians in the same manner that the player moves chessmen on the board. St. Justin said in the middle of the second century: "The Jews were behind all the persecutions of the Christians. They wandered through the country, everywhere hating and undermining the Christian faith." Tertullian said about the same time: "The Jews formed the breeding ground of all anti-Christian action." A plain example of Jews causing unbelieving Gentiles to destroy Christians is to be seen in this, the fifth persecution. We read that Herod the king has James put to death by the sword because of Jewish influences being brought to bear upon his throne. This ruler was the grandson of Herod the Great who murdered the babes of Bethlehem after the birth of Christ. James was one of the three, with Peter and John, who enjoyed the sweetest possible fellowship with the Lord. No details are given in the Scriptures about the killing of James. And yet underneath the simple statement, deep anguish and sympathy may be felt. Then the next verse shows that the wicked king had planned to make away with Peter in the same way. "And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. And when he apprehended him, he put him in prison ... Peter, therefore, was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him." The Jews desired a public execution of Peter. They wanted his death to be viewed by all because he was one of the principal leaders of the despised Christians. This would give them a chance to gloat over their ability to wrap Gentile monarchs around their fingers. It was quite an achievement, in their estimation, to get a Roman king such as Herod, to do their bidding. But a strange thing happened during the night proceeding the day when Peter was to be put to death. Another miracle occurred. Although execution awaited him, the faithful apostle who spent the night chained between two soldiers, slept as sound as a babe. Suddenly a shaft of light shot into the darkened cell like a bolt of lightning and an angel smote Peter on the side. He dressed quickly and followed the heavenly visitor to the outer court, through the gate, and down the street. Not until then did he realize that his deliverance was real and not merely a dream. Making his way to the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark, Peter found that an all-night prayer meeting was being held in his behalf. He came into the presence of the saints rejoicing "that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the Jews." The angel smote Peter and the result was life and liberty. A short time later the same angel smote Herod and the result was disease, death, and worms devouring his flesh. And this king was not the last to be cursed for allowing himself to come under the domination of Jews. So Herod having consented to an ignominious death for Peter, himself suffered one much more ignominious. Judgment! It is not a safe thing for non-Christians to persecute Christ's saints. God will not permanently excuse or condone such crimes. History is replete with judgments being visited fast and furiously upon individuals and nations who have made this mistake. Torturing Christians is a dangerous pastime. "Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him." "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap" "And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily." "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." The Jewish Bolshevik’s who are today digging a pit for Christianity in Russia are creating a future hell of judgment for themselves, exactly like the Jews of the first century sealed their destruction by torturing the saints at the dawn of this age. The same Romans, whom the vicious, designing and tricky Jews used as tools to destroy the Christian Church, later turned against them and added sorrow upon sorrow until the nation was at last drenched in its own blood.

Jesus said to the Jews: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." This pathetic prophecy was literally fulfilled in the middle of the first century when Titus, the Roman Emperor, brought his iron legions against the city of Jerusalem for one of the most terrible slaughters the world has ever known. Famine, disease, pestilence, and starvation on the inside of the city walls, and the Romans pushing fiercely against them from the outside brought upon the Jews such a wave of judgment and suffering as the human race has never before or since witnessed. A few pertinent snatches from the history of the Jews, written by Josephus, will be sufficient to illustrate this fact: "But the famine was too hard for all other passions, and it is destructive to nothing so much as to modesty; for what was otherwise worthy of reverence was in this case despised; insomuch that children pulled the very morsels that their fathers were eating out of their very mouths, and what was still more to be pitied, so did the mothers do as to their infants; and when those that were most dear were perishing under their hands, they were not ashamed to take from them the very last drops that might preserve their lives: and while they are after this manner, yet were they not concealed in so doing; but the seditious everywhere came upon them immediately, and snatched away from them what they had gotten from others; for when they saw any house shut up, this was to them a signal that the people within had gotten some food; whereupon they broke open the doors, and ran in, and took pieces of what they were eating almost up out of their throats, and this by force: the old men, who held their food fast, were beaten; and if the women hid what they had within their hands, their hair was torn for so doing; nor was there any commiseration shown either to the aged or to the infants, but they lifted up children from the ground as they hung upon the morsels they had gotten, and shook them down upon the floor. "This miserable procedure made Titus greatly to pity them, while they caught every day five hundred Jews; nay, some days they caught more: yet it did not appear to be safe for him to let those that were taken by force go their way, and to set a guard over so many he saw would be to make such as guarded them useless to him. The main reason why he did not forbid that cruelty was this that he hoped the Jews might perhaps yield at that sight, out of fear lest they might themselves afterward be liable to the same cruel treatment. So the soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so great, that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies. "Titus then went round about the enemy with some chosen troops, and fell upon their flanks himself; so the Jews, who had been before assaulted in their faces, wheeled about to Titus, and continued the fight. The armies also were now mixed one among another, and the dust that was raised so far hindered them from seeing one another, and the noise that was made so far hindered them from hearing one another, that neither side could discern an enemy from a friend. However, the Jews did not flinch, though not so much from their real strength, as from their despair of deliverance. The Romans also would not yield, by reason of the regard they had to glory, and to their reputation in war, and because Caesar himself went into the danger before them; insomuch that I cannot but think the Romans would in the seclusion have now taken even the whole multitude of the Jews, so very angry were they at them, had these not prevented the upshot of the battle and retired into the city. "Then did the famine widen its progress, and devoured the people by whole houses and families; the upper rooms were full of women and children that were dying by famine, and the houses of the city were full of the dead bodies of the aged; the children also and the young men wandered about the market-places like shadows, all swelled with the famine, and fell down dead, wheresoever’s their misery seized them. As for burying them, those that were sick themselves were not able to do it; and those that were hearty and well were deterred from doing it by the great multitude of those dead bodies, and by the uncertainty there was how soon they should die themselves; for many died as they were burying others, and many went to their coffins before that fatal hour was come. Nor was there any lamentations made under these calamities, nor were heard any mournful complaints, but the famine confounded all natural passions; for those who were just going to die looked upon those that were gone to rest before them with dry eyes and open mouths. A deep silence also, and a kind of deadly night, had seized upon the city; while yet the robbers were still more terrible than these miseries were themselves; for they break open those houses which were no other than graves of dead bodies, and plundered them of what they had; and carrying off the coverings of their bodies, went out laughing, and tried the points of their swords in their dead bodies; and, in order to prove what metal they were made of, they thrust some of those through that still lay alive upon the ground; but for those that entreated them to lend them their right hand and their sword to dispatch them, they were too proud to grant their requests, and left them to be consumed by the famine. "There was a certain woman that dwelt beyond Jordan, her name was Mary. She was eminent for her family and her wealth, and had fled away to Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude, and was with them besieged therein at this time. It now became impossible for her anyway to find any more food, while the famine pierced through her very bowels and marrow. She then attempted a most unnatural thing; and snatching up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast, she said, 'O thou miserable infant! For whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition? As to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives, we must be slaves. This famine also will destroy us, even before that slavery comes upon us. Yet are these Jewish rogues more terrible than both the other. Come on; be thou my food, and be thou a fury to these seditious varlets, and a byword to the world, which is all that is now wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews.' As soon as she had said this, she slew her son, and then roasted him, and ate the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed. Upon this the Jewish soldiers came in presently and smelling the horrid scent of this food, they threatened her that they would cut her throat immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them, and withal uncovered what was left of her son. Hereupon they were seized with a horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight when she said to them, 'this is mine own son, and what hath been done was mine own doing! Come eat of this food; for I have eaten of it myself! Do not you pretend to be either more tender than a woman, or more compassionate than a mother; but if you be so scrupulous, and do abominate this my sacrifice, as I have eaten the one half, let the rest be reserved for me also'? After which those men went out trembling, being never so much affrighted at anything as they were at this, and with some difficulty, they left the rest of that meat to the mother. "This sad instance was quickly told to the Romans, some of whom could not believe it, and others pitied the distress which the Jews were under; but there were many of them who were thereby induced to a more bitter hatred than ordinary against our nation. But for Caesar, he excused himself before God as to this matter, and said that he had proposed peace and liberty to the Jews, as well as an oblivion of all their former insolent practices; but that they, instead of Concord, had chosen sedition; instead of peace, war; and before satiety and abundance, a famine." Josephus tells how this state of affairs continued for months until finally the Roman soldiers set fire to the gates and literally burned their way into the city. The siege of Titus continued until the sacred Temple was burned and razed to the ground. He continues: "While the holy house was on fire, everything was plundered that came to hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught were slain; nor was there a commiseration of any age or any reverence of gravity, but children, and old men, and profane persons, and priests were all slain in the same manner; so that this war went round all sorts of men and brought them to destruction, and as well those that made supplication for their lives, as those that defended themselves by fighting. The flame was also carried a long way, and made an echo, together with the groans of those that were slain; and because this hill was high, and the works at the temple were very great, one would have thought the whole city had been on fire." Again we are reminded of the Lord's reference to this terrible judgment which was predicted to come upon the Jews, "Your house is left unto you desolate." The Jews and the Prophets.

Even a casual reading of the Old and New Testaments will show that the Jews are a disobedient and rebellious people. Nowhere in Scripture are Christians required to excuse and condone their evil deeds simply because of their nationality. Jesus knew better than anyone else the unspeakable crimes of which these people are capable. It was to them that He addressed the following powerful polemic: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! And say, if we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" In this indictment, Jesus lays the charge of persecuting the prophets at the door of the Jewish people. It is by far the most severe, denunciatory and withering blast of language which fell from His lips during the entire thirty-three years that He was in the flesh. The Jesus of this, the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, is not the quiet, reticent Jesus of modern literature and the fashionable pulpit. The Jesus, whose righteous indignation is here asserted, is a man of words and action, a man in the act of pronouncing eight woes upon the Jewish leaders and finally condemning them to the damnation of hell. In the next breath, Jesus affirms His Godhead and says that He will soon send other messengers of God to them. He then predicts that they will treat His coming servants exactly like their fathers treated the prophets. "Behold I send (or 'I am about to send') unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city; That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar." True to the Lord's promise, after His departure He sent the first group of messengers forth on the day of Pentecost. Others followed later. The book of Acts records the persecutions and deaths they suffered at the hands of the very Jews who declared they would not have been guilty of the similar conduct of their fathers. It is particularly significant to notice that Jesus blamed the Jews for the murder of Abel. But how could this have been in view of the fact Abel was a son of Adam and Eve, whereas the Jews date their origin from Abraham about nineteen hundred years before the birth of Christ? By way of parenthesis, it should be remarked that the name Jew did not originate until a few hundred years after Abraham. It was first used in the book of second Kings as a reference to the patriarch Judah in distinction from the other ten tribes of Israel. Later the term became the appellation of the whole nation. When Jesus accused them of killing Abel, He was seeing beyond their particular nationality. He was seeing beyond the garb of flesh which they were wearing. He was looking deep into their souls. He was seeing the demonic poison which was stored up in their lifestream. He knew that the same satanic hatred for the program of God which took the life of Abel was to reach its climax in the murder of the Messiah and His apostles. Hence the judgment which He pronounced upon them: "How can ye escape the damnation of hell?" To grasp the full meaning of the above reference to Abel, one needs to understand that from Eden to Bethlehem's manger there runs a perfect avenue of divine heredity. This path of the ages, carved straight through the human family, may be likened to the Gulf Stream which plows its way across the ocean. The conflict of the centuries is the fact that Satan tried repeatedly to break the royal line so the Redeemer of the world could not be born. Early in Genesis, after the fall of man, it was announced that the "seed of the woman" would bruise the serpent's head. This is the first reference in Scripture to the virgin birth of Christ. Eve was given to understand that a male child, a descendant of hers, would break Satan's power in the world. When Cain, the first child was born, it is evident that Eve thought he was the one who would destroy the serpent, then and there, because she said: "I have gotten a man from the Lord." This was a mistake for the reason that a study of Cain's life shows him to have been full of hereditary poison. He was guilty of six specific sins: he worshiped in self-will, was angry with God, refused to bring a sin-offering, lied to God, would not repent, and murdered his brother. Abel, the second son, was in the blood-line between Eden and the manger. It was for this reason that Satan inspired the killing of Abel so the line would be broken. Seth was born later to repair the damage. After that, the two lines ran in parallel until the deluge, the Sethites, and the Canaanites. Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and many others, were in the royal line from which the promised Redeemer was finally born. Now, in the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, we find Christ charging the Jews with the same sin which was laid against Cain, namely, that they had become the instruments of Satan for the destruction of the plan of human redemption. The poison of the serpent had been handed down until that hour; it was flowing in their veins; the blood of the righteous Abel was upon them; they were cooperating with Satan; they had permitted themselves to become a party to the same crime of which Cain was guilty; they were trying to destroy the Saviour of the world even as Cain tried to destroy the line from which the Redeemer was to be born. When these facts are understood, this chapter becomes truly pathetic. There Jesus stands in the temple dedicated to the worship of the true God. He is confronted by a crowd of blind and impure hypocrites. Sinless anger burns on His face as His eyes melt into anguish and misery. From the hill on which the temple is situated, he looks down upon the city spread before and beneath Him. He cries out: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killed the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Then once more addressing the Jews, He cried: "Behold your house is left unto you desolate." As Jesus walked down the steps that day, the people only saw a simple man leaving the temple, but the angels saw the God of Heaven forsaking it. As an example of how the Jews treated the prophets, Jesus cited the circumstance of Zacharias being slain between the temple and the altar. This takes us back to the twenty-fourth chapter of second Chronicles. Baal worship had invaded Israel. Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel, exalted herself to the throne of David. She caused all the male members of the royal family to be put to death except Joash, the six-year-old son of King Asaziah, who was hidden away secretly by the good priest Johoiada. In this revolution which overtook his nation, Johoiada showed great tact and ability. He waited until public sentiment became ripe for a change, then on a certain day when a large crowd was assembled in the temple court he displayed the child and drove Athaliah from the throne. Soldiers had been previously concealed in the temple and were armed with weapons. At the proper moment, Johoiada released his private army from hiding and stationed warriors at the various places of entrance so no one could leave or enter the court. The power of idol worship was thus broken, with a single stroke, in Israel. Athaliah with Mattan, her chief prophet of Baal, were put to death. Johoiada died at the age of one hundred and thirty. As a signal honor, he was buried "in the city of David among the kings." Zechariah was the son of Johoiada and succeeded his father as the leading priest of Israel.

Because Zechariah dared to rebuke the Jewish leaders for their apostasy, King Joash had him put to death. "And the spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, “Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord that ye cannot prosper? Because ye have forsaken the Lord, he hath also forsaken you.” And they conspired against him and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the Lord. Thus Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada, his father, had done to him, but slew his son. And when he died, he said, The Lord look upon it, and require it." In less than a year from the time that Zachariah was killed, the Syrian armies overran Jerusalem and massacred the people. Joash was later put to death. On the eventful day, when Jesus stood before the Jews who thirsted for His blood, He reviewed this bit of Israelites’ history by reminding them of their crimes against the prophets of old. The Jews and the Christ Speaking to the sect known as the Pharisees, Jesus said: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh his own: for he is a liar and the father of it." The Pharisees wielded a satanic influence over their nation. They represented a system of occultism mingled with Jewish doctrines and beliefs. They poured a constant stream of poison into the thinking of Jewry which twisted and perverted the minds of the rank and file of people. Although the Sadducean high priests were the head of the Sanhedrin, the decisive influence upon public affairs was in the hands of the Pharisees. The People's Bible Encyclopedia says: "They had the greatest influence upon the congregations, so that all acts of public worship, prayers, and sacrifices were performed according to their injunctions. Their sway over the masses was so absolute that they could obtain a hearing even when they said anything against the king or the high priest. Hence the Sadducees, in their official acts, adhered to the demands of the Pharisees, because otherwise, the multitude would not have tolerated them." As a Jew avoided as far as possible all contact with a Gentile, lest he should thereby be defiled, so did the Pharisee avoid, as far as possible, contact with the non-Pharisee, because the latter was to him unclean even though a Jew. The egotism of the sect is at once evident. There is no way of calculating the demoralizing influence that this group of men had upon the people who looked to them for leadership. In tracing the origin of this organization we find that it began back in the occult demonism of the Chaldean soothsayers. General A. Netchvolodow says: "The Chaldean science acquired by many of the Jewish priests, during the captivity of Babylon, gave birth to the sect of the Pharisees whose name only appears in the Holy Scriptures and in the writings of the Jewish historians after the captivity (606 B.C.). The works of the celebrated scientist Monk leave no doubt on the point that the sect appeared during the period of the captivity.

"From then dates the Cabala or Tradition of the Pharisees: For a long time their precepts were only transmitted orally but later they formed the Talmud and received their final form in the book called the Sepher ha Zohar." When the leaders of Israel contacted the occultism of the Chaldeans they brought a satanic element into Jewry which was in a great measure responsible for all of the subsequent crimes of the nation. The Pharisees carried on constant subversive activities against the Gentile peoples around them. They were, in a sense, the Communists of their day. To them, a Gentile was no better than a dog. Josephus, the great Jewish historian, explains: "For there was a certain sect of men that were Jews, who valued themselves highly upon the exact skill they had in the law of their fathers and made men believe they were highly favored by God. These are those that are called the sect of the Pharisees, who were in a capacity of greatly opposing kings. A cunning sect they were, and soon elevated to a pitch of open fighting and doing mischief. Accordingly, when all the people of the Jews gave assurance of their good-will to Caesar, and to the king's government, these very men did not swear, being above six thousand; and when the king imposed a fine upon them, Pheroras's wife paid their fine for them. In order to requite this kindness of hers, since they were believed to have the foreknowledge of things to come by Divine inspiration, they foretold how God had decreed that Herod's government should cease, and his posterity should be deprived of it; but that the kingdom should come to her and Pheroras, and to their children. These predictions were not concealed from Salome, but were told the king; as also how they had perverted some persons about the palace itself; so the king slew such of the Pharisees as were principally accused, and Bagoas the eunuch, and one Carus, who exceeded all men of that time in comeliness, and one that was his catamite." Josephus also tells how the Pharisees were able to crowd their way into the lives of Gentile rulers to the point of gaining control of whole nations exactly as Jewish financiers and political leaders are doing today. The following historical statement by Josephus, describing ancient Alexander, at the time when Alexandra was ruling, sounds like it might have been written about some modern country:

"These are a certain sect of the Jews that appear more religious than others and seem to interpret the laws more accurately. Now Alexandra hearkened to them to an extraordinary degree, as being herself a woman of great piety towards God. But these Pharisees artfully insinuated themselves into her favor by little and little, and became themselves the real administrators of the public affairs: they banished and reduced whom they pleased; they bound and loosed (men) at their pleasure: and, to say all at once, they had the enjoyment of the royal authority, whilst the expenses and the difficulties of it belonged to Alexandra. She was a sagacious woman in the management of great affairs, and intent always upon gathering soldiers together; so that she increased the army the one half, and procured a great body of foreign troops, till her own nation became not only very powerful at home, but terrible also to foreign potentates, while she governed other people, and the Pharisees governed her." Thus we see how, back there, powerful Jews were able to rule from behind the scenes, pull wires and produce Gentile strife the same as they are doing today through their "Gentile fronts" among the various nations. We must always remember that it is natural for the Jewish people to have only contempt for Gentiles. They are possessed of a natural aversion for Christianity. When they gain control of a country, as in Russia at the present time, they never fail to vent their ill-will upon Christians. From the foregoing, we now understand that the Pharisees represented the secret, sinister organization which existed for the purpose of opposing God and overthrowing all law and order. Out of their evil, occult program, there eventually came two documents known as the Kabbalah and the Talmud. The Kabbalah governs the spiritual life of the Jews, while the Talmud regulates things material. Concerning the writings of the rabbis which were added to the Old Testament Scriptures by these leaders, Josephus says: "What I would now explain is this, that the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the laws of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them, and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers." It is believed by many that the Talmud and other writings of the Jewish leaders were directly responsible for the rejection of Christ. These "traditions" blinded the eyes of the people to a true understanding of the prophecies which related to the coming of the Messiah. They produced the hatred which finally resulted in the assassination of the Son of God. Hence the words of our Lord: "Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?" And again: "Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition."

A few quotations from the Talmud will give an insight into the mental processes of the rabbis of all ages and will show why these inhuman writings were objectionable to Jesus. Gentiles, realizing the sinister contents of these documents have sought at different times to destroy them. All copies were ordered burned by Philip IV, the Fair, King of France, in 1306, but the book survived the flames. The Jewish conception of God was that of a tyrant whose wrath had to be constantly appeased by the most rigid observances. He was confined, they believed, to the four walls of their own bigoted nationalism. Their contempt for other peoples is shown by quotations from the Talmud: "You (the Jews) are human beings, but the nations of the world are not human beings but beasts." "On the house of the Goy (non-Jew), one looks as on the fold of cattle." The following prayer from the Talmud is quoted to the present day: "We beg Thee, O Lord, indict Thy wrath on the nations not believing in Thee, and not calling on Thy name. Let down Thy wrath on them and inflict them with Thy wrath. Drive them away in Thy wrath and crush them to pieces. Take away, O Lord, all bone from them. In a moment indict all disbelievers. Destroy in a moment all foes of Thy nation. Draw out with the root, disperse and ruin unworthy nations. Destroy them! Destroy them immediately, at this very moment!" "It is wicked to protest the words of the rabbis than of Torah (Law of Moses)." "The decisions of the Talmud are words of the living God. Jehovah himself asks the opinion of earthly rabbis when there are difficult affairs in heaven." "Jehovah himself in heaven studies the Talmud, standing: he has such respect for that book." The Talmud teaches that the Jewish nation is the only nation selected by God, while all the remaining ones are contemptible and hateful. That all property of other nations belongs to the Jewish nation, which consequently is entitled to seize upon it without scruples. That an orthodox Jew is not bound to observe principles of morality towards people of other nations, and on the contrary, he even ought to act against morality, if it is profitable for himself or for the interest of Jews in general. Continuing quotations from the Talmud: "A Jew may rob a Goy, he may cheat him over a bill, which should not be perceived by him, otherwise the name of God would become dishonored." "It is permitted to kill a Jewish denunciator everywhere ... it is permitted to kill him before he has denounced ... though it is necessary to warn him and say, 'Do not denounce.' But should he say, 'I will denounce,' he must be killed, and he who accomplishes it first will have the greater merit." "How to interpret the word 'robbery'. A Goy is forbidden to steal, rob, or take women slaves, etc., from a Goy or from a Jew, but he (a Jew) is not forbidden to do all this to a Goy." It would be a mistake to pass lightly over the satanic influence which the Chaldean priests wielded upon the Jewish leaders while they were in Babylon. This association of Jews with pagan magicians perverted the teaching of the Old Testament into murky materialism and brought the people under the despotism of demonism. In Scripture, the Chaldeans are classed with the magicians, astrologers, soothsayers, and sorcerers. Therefore, the inner circle of Jewish leaders in the days of Christ was nothing short of black magicians. Is it reasonable to suppose that this hereditary poison which was handed down in the life-stream of Jewry, from the time of the Old Testament prophets, has ceased to exist? The common-sense answer is No. We have with us today the same kind of human "vipers" that Christ had to contend with nineteen hundred years ago. They constituted the scheming, tricky group which stirred up the mobs that screeched for the destruction of the Son of God. They uttered the most vicious cry that ever fell from human lips: "Crucify him! Crucify him!" "Then Pilate said unto them. Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, crucify him." Had Christ shown hatred toward the Gentiles, started a revolution, organized an army, marched on Rome and promised to give the Jews earthly power, they would have accepted Him as their Messiah and King. But they rejected Him because He said: "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then My servants would fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews." It was a tragic night when our Lord went into the garden of Gethsemane for His final season of prayer before facing Calvary. Three times He prayed: "O my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." Prior to this time, certain Jewish leaders had approached one of the disciples with a financial offer if he would only lead the mob to the place where the Saviour had secluded Himself for the evening. The Jews possess the rare ability for stirring up strife among the Gentiles. They know exactly how to create confusion and unrest. They are experts in arousing human passions by producing mob psychology. They are able to stampede crowds into croaking special phrases like frogs. We see this today in the streets of the large cities of the world where throngs of unemployed men congregate, carrying banners, and repeating slogans. Little do these mobs know that behind their misery there are usually Jewish Capitalists who have deliberately planned the abnormal economic conditions which produced their suffering. Little do these mobs know that at the top of their Communist organizations there are powerful, but diseased, Jewish minds. Judas told the conspirators that the One Whom he should kiss would be Jesus. So, the deceiver drew near, sneaking like a serpent through the undergrowth and shrubbery of the garden. Reaching the Master, he greeted Him with a familiar oriental salutation consisting of a gentle embrace and a kiss on the cheek. In a few minutes, the Lord was entirely at the mercy of the savage pack of Jewish wolves. They were determined to do away with Him. This was the world's blackest night. First, the innocent Victim was taken to the home of Caiaphas, the high priest, then to the Sanhedrin. And finally to Pilate's Court. All three of these trials were illegal. Both Jewish and Roman laws were broken. Meanwhile, Judas had collected the thirty pieces of silver due him for his part in the crime. He hurried quickly away from the mob, into the semi-darkness, down the path, and vanished from sight. At first, he was inclined to congratulate himself on having made some easy money. This was before his conscience began lashing him. Is it too much to suppose that Judas soon discovered that he had blood on his lips? Yes, his mouth was moist. He found his lips were bloody. Only a few minutes ago, he had kissed the cheek of the Son of God. And the sweat which bathed the Lord's face had been great drops of blood. It was true that blood was oozing through the pores of the Lord's body at the time of the fatal kiss. Medical science declares that only one thing can produce a bloody sweat, namely, a broken heart. In the sad hour of the garden prayers, Jesus loved the world so much, so deeply, that the physical organ in His breast could not stand the strain; it actually collapsed. His heart could not stand the outburst of emotion. It was literally, physically ruptured. And this sad experience fulfilled Psalms 69:20: "Reproach hath broken my heart." When the heart collapsed from the deep emotional impact, blood naturally dripped through the pores of His flesh.

Let sinners remember that this was the way Jesus Christ loved them just before He went to Calvary to suffer for the sins of the world. Try to imagine the feelings of Judas when he discovered the blood of the Master on his lips, poor conscience-stricken creature! Back to the Jewish leaders, he ran. "I have sinned", he cried "in that I have betrayed innocent blood." "What is that to us?" The Jews replied scornfully. "See thou to that." Then the cringing betrayer literally threw the thirty pieces of silver on the floor of the temple and fled from the presence of the vicious priests. "I have betrayed innocent blood," he sobbed. Judas was found dead a few hours later, having committed suicide. Special notice should be taken of the word "innocent". The last thing the betrayer did before he died, was to declare that Jesus Christ was guilty of no wrong, that He had committed no sin, that He was living a clean, pure, innocent, sinless life. Had Jesus been guilty of one sin, Judas would have known about it and would have used it to justify his heinous crime in that tragic hour. The perfect life that the Master lived while in the flesh is an unanswerable argument for His perfect commencement and His Godhead. Yes, this innocent, sinless God-Man from heaven was subjected by Jews, to every conceivable indignity, and because of their demands was finally put to a horrible death on a disgraceful cross like a common criminal. The Jews and the Church (Continued) The destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in A.D. 70 was a direct fulfillment of the prophecy made by Jesus in Matthew 24:2, "See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down." Naturally, when Titus plowed down this gorgeous structure, Christians hailed the event as a confirmation of the Lord's ability to read the future. This aroused ever-increasing interest in prophetic subjects among the believers. The destruction of the Temple and the siege at Jerusalem resulted in the dispersion of the Jews. And wherever they went, they carried burning hatred in their hearts for the saints because they were constantly reminded that Christ had predicted their downfall. Now, coming to the middle of the fourth century we find another example of Jewish influence over Gentile rulers, which is equally as remarkable as their control of King Herod.

For three hundred years, powerful Jews dispersed to all parts of the Roman Empire, kindled ill-will against the Christians. Then came Emperor Constantine who reversed everything and made Christianity the official state religion of the nation. This was a rebuff to both the Jews and pagans who had used every conceivable scheme to destroy the Faith. After the departure of Constantine from this life, his three sons ruled the Empire. Meanwhile, the Jews bided their time, waiting for the right opportunity to place a Gentile in power that they could control. Their chance came, following the death of Constantine's last son, when Julian ascended to the throne. Contempt for Christianity filtered through Julian's mind and he resolved, as soon as an occasion might arise, to deal it a final, crushing blow. He swore that when the time was ripe he would throw off the religious cloak of Constantine. It remained for the Jews to produce a situation in which they could assist Julian in venting his spleen against the believers who were then growing strong both in numbers and spiritual strength, due to more than a half-century of religious freedom. Happily, for the Church, this Emperor reigned only two years, but those two years embodied a period of unspeakable agony. Julian gave the Christians the name "Galileans" which, in his day, was a word that carried a slur with it. As if actuated by the spirit of anti-Christ he adopted the curious means of attempting to nullify the Bible prophecies. His contact with the Jews was no doubt responsible for this novel idea. Early training had taught him how to gain favor with Jewish leaders by insulting and tormenting the followers of Christ. Neither, Jews or Christians had forgotten that the destruction of the Temple was a fulfillment of predictions made by the Lord. It was therefore decided that, as a slap at the Christians, Julian should rebuild the edifice in Jerusalem and turn it over to the Jews. From all quarters of the Empire, Jews came to assist in erecting the building and to offer their wealth. Julian personally made the preliminary arrangements and sent one of his chief officers to superintend the work. The Jews who were directing affairs from within the shadows, shaping the official policies of the Empire, saw in this a deadly rebuff which promised to ultimately threaten the very existence of the Christian religion in the world. Stirring scenes were enacted. Women brought their ornaments and jewels by the cartloads. So much precious metal was received that tools were even cast and forged of it. It looked to Jews and pagans as if the prophecies of the Bible relating to Palestine were going to be set aside. But God intervened at the last minute and when the Temple was partway built a violent earthquake and severe electrical storm took place which demolished the whole undertaking. Fear came upon the Jews and the workers so that all activities were suspended. Not only Christian writers but pagans as well, record this strange happening. Julian was mortally wounded on the field of battle with the Persians a few months later. He became known in history as "the Apostate." It has been related that just prior to his death, he cried: "Thou hast conquered, after all, O Galilean." Church leaders, through the age, have been alert to Satan's use of the Jewish people in thwarting the program of Christ in the world. Some Christians have been more outspoken than others, on the subject, but every generation has produced its watchmen who have known the truth and have dared to proclaim it. Among the more bold spokesmen on this question was Martin Luther who prepared a treatise entitled, The Jews and Their Lies. In it we read the following statements which are characteristic of the entire discussion: "How the Jews love the Book of Esther, which is so suitable to their bloodthirsty, revengeful, murderous appetite and hopes! The sun has never shone on such a bloodthirsty and revengeful people, who fancy themselves to be the chosen people so that they can murder and strangle the heathen. "No folk under the sun is greedier than they are than they have been and always will be, as one can see from their accursed usury. They console themselves that when their Messiah comes, he will collect all the gold and silver in the world and divide it amongst them. "The Princes and authorities sit and snore with open mouths and let the Jews take, steal and rob what they want out of their open purses and chests; they let themselves and their subjects be skinned and sucked dry by the Jews' usury, and make themselves, with their own money, beggars in their own State. The Jews have got our money and property, and are therefore our masters in our own land. "It all agrees with the judgment of Christ that they are poisonous, bitter, vindictive, and malicious serpents, assassins, and children of the devils who kill and inflict injuries by stealth because they cannot do so openly. "But if we fear that they may do us harm in body, wife, child, servant, beast, etc., etc. let us reckon up with them what they have taken from us by usury, and so share it amicably, but drive them forever into the fields. "Anyone might think I am saying too much. I am not saying too much, but rather far too little. If we do not want to partake in the Jews' blasphemies we must be separated and they must be driven out of the land. That is the best advice that secures both sides in such a case." The Jews and Communism.

No informed person who is truthful denies the Jewish character of Communism! The writer recently published in one of his magazines, the names and nationalities of every leader in the Moscow dictatorship as it was set up years ago. It was discovered that out of the 545 members of the bureaucracy, 454 were Jews and there were only 23 Russians in the group. In other words, the Russian people are governed by a gang of anti-Christian foreigners, many of whom are said to be unable to speak the language of the people they govern. Some of the principal officials of the Red government are reported to have come from the East Side of New York. It has been said on the floor of the United States Congress, and the charge has not been denied, that a certain Jewish banking concern in Wall Street sponsored Trotsky's mass meetings of rebellion in New York some years ago, sent him across the ocean secretly, and deposited millions of dollars in a Swedish bank to the credit of the destroyers, with which the Russian revolution was financed. In her remarkable book Waters Flowing Eastward, Mrs. L. Fry states that back in 1893 a Jewish secret order here in America appointed Jacob Schiff, a Wall Street Jew, chairman of its committee on Russian revolutionary activities. If this is true, it simply means that Mr. Schiff sat at his desk in New York and directed the destruction of the Czar's government thousands of miles away. It is impossible to separate Jewish Communism from Jewish Capitalism. Laboring men who think they can free themselves from the Money Power by embracing Communism are being betrayed by soap-box oratory. The Moscow leaders are the world's wealthiest Capitalists. They own one-sixth of the earth's surface. They control one hundred and sixty million Gentile slaves. The Russian people are not allowed to vote, own property, exercise free speech, enjoy the freedom of the press, or worship God. The masses are kept in their weakened, helpless condition by the most powerful system of secret police ever invented in the history of the world. The attitude of Communism toward Christianity was explained by Lunatcharski, one of the leading Jewish members of the Moscow dictatorship: "Why should we believe in God? We hate Christianity and Christians. Even the best of them must be regarded as our worst enemies. They preach love of one's neighbor, and pity, which is contrary to our principles. Christian love is a hindrance to the revolution. Down with love of one's neighbor; what we want is hatred. We must know how to hate, for only at this price can we conquer the universe. We have done with the kings of the earth; let us now deal with the kings of the skies. The anti-religious campaign must not be restricted to Soviet Russia: it should be carried on throughout the entire world. The fight should also be developed in the Moslem and Catholic countries, with the same ends in view and by the same means." There is no way of knowing how many millions of Russian Christians have been slain during the last 100 years because of their faith in Jesus Christ. A magazine recently carried an article entitled, "Men of Russia." It was the author's purpose to make a critical examination of the ringleaders of international Communism. He says: "Some of the businessmen are Russians, but most of them are of other blood, and practically all of them have prison records. In considering the men of Russia, it should be remembered that it isn't often that ex-prisoners get a crack at the society which punished them, but they did in Russia." The writer in the article then proceeds to discuss some of Moscow's principal Jewish fiends: "Joseph Stalin is a minor official of the Soviet Government. He is but one of the three hundred or so members of the Central Executive Committee, and yet, nevertheless, he is the first man of Russia. Although serving as secretary of the All-Russian Communist Party, Stalin is not a Russian. His every feature is commensurate with 'Stalin', the Russian word for steel." Parenthetically it should be remarked that Stalin is merely the customary "Gentile Front" for the Moscow Jewish leaders. His Gentile wife died a "mysterious" death recently and he immediately married a Jewess. The article continues: "Lazarus M. Kaganovitch is a member of the Politbureau or arbitrary 'Brain Trust', and chief organizer of the Second Five Year Plan. This Polish Jew is Stalin's Number One Boy, and his logical successor as a dictator. "Maxim Maximovich Litvinov is Commissar of Foreign Affairs. He is the super-traveling salesman of Bolshevism. This shrewd Polish Jew has fought diplomatic battles in every political arena where the gate receipts warranted his appearance. He returns from these victories from time to time to his spacious Moscow office to check up one more Red diplomatic triumph by sticking a new red glass tack in the huge map which covers the wall behind his desk. "Klementy Voroshilov (another Jew) is Commissar of War and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy. He is the dashing yet modest cavalry officer who is charged with preparing the Russian forces for an anticipated war. "Mikhail Kalinin, (an Armenian Jew) is President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Like all big leaders, he served his term in prison, taking an important part in the revolution of 1905 as a member of the Council of Workers' Deputies. "Karl Radek, (another Jew) is Contributing Editor of Izvestia, official government newspaper. Radek has frequently been suppressed by radical organizations for being too radical. "Michael Borodin, Editor of the English-language Moscow Daily News. This Czechoslovakian Jew was educated at Valparaiso University in Indiana; and spent many years agitating for the International Communist Party, in Spain, in Mexico, in America, the British Isles, and China. “Just' Podolsky, master of the Foreign Office Press-Censorship Bureau He may have a first name, but it is doubtful that anyone in Russia, including his wife, knows it. He is a soft-spoken Jew in eight languages, not counting American slang, of which he has a thorough knowledge. Padolsky is a hundred percent Communist. "Jerry Lifschitz, Ex-Vice-Yankee Consul, ex-Second-in-Command of Moscow Amtorg. This Polish Jew had an American jail and prison record for I.W.W. activities; and an added palm for being twice tarred and feathered by irate Midwest American farmers. "Comrade Smirdovitch, (another Jew) is the 'Red Pope'. Smirdovitch, an atheist, is the official restrainer and regulator of religion in the U.S.S.R. He is a member of the important Central Executive Committee. As the official Anti-Christ of the Soviet Republics, he decides how far remaining priests of the church may go toward preaching the Word of God. Kindly, cultured, educated, tolerant in manner, Smirdovitch says religion will die out when divorced from superstitious ritual, pomp, and fear. His job is to help kill it." Toward the close of the article, this writer in the magazine says: "But the men who control Russia are not Russians. Members of the Jewish race from all over the world predominate. Every member of the foreign office press censor bureau is a Jew. Little men of Russia who help in responsible positions, heads of offices, trusts, are mostly Jews." Let Christians remember that the international Jewish Communists and Capitalists expect to eventually destroy all Gentile governments, rule the world, and establish throughout the earth the kind of conditions they have introduced in Soviet Russia. They expect to murder all Christian believers and blot Christianity out of existence. The struggle is between the philosophy of the Jew Karl Marx and the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The manner in which the Moscow Jews have proceeded with their program of destruction is recorded in a quotation taken from the London Times dated November 14, 1919. The quotation is a letter written by a British army officer, who was stationed at the time in southern Russia, to his wife in England. It reads: "The Bolshevists are devils. I hope to send you copies of 64 official photos taken by British officers at Odessa when the town was taken by the Bolshevists.

I suggest you make them widely known. Their horror may make people realize. The victim gets crucified with nails through his elbows. The hands are treated with a solution which shrivels the skin. The skin is cut out with a razor, round the wrist, and peeled off, till it hangs by the fingernails. a human glove. The victim gets terrified and insane. Other photos are of women. Women with their breasts cut off to the bone. Passes issued to Bolshevists by commissaries authorize holders to arrest any girl they fancy for use of the soldiery. Sixty-two girls of all classes were arrested like this and thrown to the Bolshevist troops. Those who struggled were killed. The rest when used were mutilated and thrown dead or dying into the river. Slaughter-houses were choked with corpses. Hundreds of suspects, men, women, and children, were herded in these, doors and windows manned and the struggling mass fired into until most of them were dead or dying. The doors were then locked and they were left with veritable plague spots causing widespread epidemics. The Bible, to them, is a 'counter-revolutionary' book to be stamped out. Churches are used for anything from movie shows to 'slaughterhouses.'" Let no Christian be duped into believing that we are supposed to sit supinely by and permit the Reds to create a reign of terror in America simply because this menace happens to be a "Jewocracy." True, there is a stratum of Jewry that is indeed "Chosen" and has been a blessing to humanity through the centuries, but there is another stratum that is a "curse in all places" as Jeremiah said they would be. Speaking through the lips of the prophet in Ezekiel 38:3, God said: "I am against thee, O Gog" and this is a clear reference to Communism with its seat of government in "Meshech" (Moscow). It is possible that this invisible empire has existed as a self-propagating body ever since the Jewish leaders contacted the Chaldeans while in Babylonia. Persons holding to this view agree that the organization has almost completed its course, that the time for the consummation of the plot is near at hand, that the last great attack is now being launched for the purpose of setting up an international system of Jewish government. The existence of this secret sinister organization in New Testament times is implied in 1 John 4:3, "And this is that spirit of anti-Christ whereof ye have heard that it should come, and even now already is it in the world." The entire cabal (plot) is so large and far-reaching, its motives so hellish, its plan of attack so contrary to Christian thinking, that it simply staggers the mind when it is first exposed to view. But the results of its devastating influence may be seen both in history and among the nations today. It breathes the spirit of the last great Beast-Emperor described in the thirteenth chapter of Revelation. It discloses the perverted Messianic theories of an apostate people. This anti-Christ force has apparently manifested itself from its underground sources in different ways at different periods of history, but never with the boldness and permanency that it has since it came to the surface about one-hundred years ago.

There have always been two kinds of Jews. One racial division represents all that is highest and best in Jewry and regards the Jews primarily as being a system of religion. The other has little inclination toward religion but regards Jewry as a political State, the purpose of which is to conduct world conquest until the nations are brought under one head with themselves in control and all the Gentiles changed into serfs. When the Romans turned against the designing and wicked political leaders of Israel, the Pharisees and Sadducees were driven undercover. With the dispersion that followed, their taint was taken to the ends of the earth and has grown up in every nation. No doubt Jesus had this in mind when he warned to: "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees." In all parts of the world, it appears that this poison "leaven" is "leavening" the whole lump of the nations. What used to be the Russian Empire is now completely "leavened." These are the subversive forces that have moved through the centuries, changing their form from time to time as governments have been made to heave, totter, cave in, and fall, but always with the same object in view, a final culmination when all nations will be leveled and a super-Jewish State set up, presided over by one man, their apostate Messiah. This is the genius behind Socialism and Communism.

The Church in America suffers from blindness, delusions have overwhelmed the Christian mind as has been in every age in every generation when men forsake the God of the Bible and the sin-cursed heart depraved as it is has caused vast numbers of Christians to swallowed the devil’s lie that the Jews are harmless when it is the Jew that leads the assault on Christianity. In the last analysis, there are only two remedies for Jewish Communism: The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and full stomachs. The Red Menace thrives only where there is spiritual apathy and physical hunger.

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REIGN IN THE FEDERAL RESERVE MONEY SYSTEM

RON PAUL – FORGET THE RUSSIANS: IT’S THE FEDERAL RESERVE SEEKING TO MEDDLE IN OUR ELECTIONS

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If we want to enjoy the blessings of Liberty, we must audit and then end the Federal Reserve!

If we want to enjoy the blessings of liberty, we must audit and then end the Federal Reserve! Congressman Ron Paul a real American Statesman & Hero.

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WAKE UP YOU DUMB STUPID AMERICANS - THE FED IS OUT TO ROB AND ENSLAVE YOU.

The Federal Reserve - is your enemy.

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THE FEDERAL RESERVE IS PAYING BANKS NOT TO LEND 1.8 TRILLION DOLLARS TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Did you know that U.S. banks have more than 1.8 trillion dollars parked at the Federal Reserve and that the Fed is actually paying them not to lend that money to us? We were always told that the goal of quantitative easing was to “help the economy”, but the truth is that the vast majority of the money that the Fed has created through quantitative easing has not even gotten into the system. Instead, most of it is sitting at the Fed slowly earning interest for the bankers. Back in October 2008, just as the last financial crisis was starting, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced that the Federal Reserve would start paying interest on the reserves that banks keep at the Fed. This caused an absolute explosion in the size of these reserves. Back in 2008, U.S. banks had less than 2 billion dollars of excess reserves parked at the Fed. Today, they have more than 1.8 trillion. In less than five years, the pile of excess reserves has gotten nearly 1,000 times larger. This is utter insanity, and it will have very serious consequences down the road.

Posted below is a chart that shows the explosive growth of these excess reserves in recent years…

Excess Reserves

This explains why all of the crazy money printing that the Fed has been doing has not caused tremendous inflation yet. Most of the money has not even gotten into the economy. The Fed has been paying banks not to lend it out.

But now that big pile of money is sitting out there, and at some point, it is going to come pouring into the U.S. economy. When that happens, we could very well see an absolutely massive tsunami of inflation.

Posted below is a chart that shows the growth of the M2 money supply over the past several decades. It has been fairly steady, but imagine what would happen if you took the hockey stick from the chart above and suddenly added it to the top of this one…

M2 Money Supply

The longer that the Federal Reserve continues to engage in quantitative easing and continues to pay banks not to lend that money out to the rest of us, the larger that inflationary time bomb is going to become.

In a recent article for the Huffington Post, Professor Robert Auerbach of the University of Texas explained the nightmarish situation that we are facing…

One reason that the excess reserves grew to an extraordinary level is that in October 2008, one month after the financial crisis when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, the Bernanke Fed began paying interest on bank reserves. Although it has been 1/4 of 1 percent interest, this risk-free rate was not low compared to the Fed’s policy of keeping short-term market rates near zero. The interest banks received was and is an incentive to hold the excess reserves rather than lend to consumers and businesses in the risky environment of the major recession and the slow recovery.

The Bernanke Fed is now facing a $1.863 trillion time bomb, they helped to create, of excess reserves in the private banking system. If rates of interest on income-earning assets (including bank loans to consumers and businesses) rise, the Fed will have to pay the banks more interest to hold their excess reserves.

If interest rates move up dramatically (and they are already starting to rise significantly), banks will have an incentive to take that money out of the Fed and start lending it out. Professor Auerbach suggests that this could cause an “avalanche” of money pouring into the economy…

Eighty-five billion a month will seem tiny compared to the avalanche of the $1.863 trillion excess reserves exploding rapidly into the economy. That would devalue the currency, cause more rapid inflation and worry investors about a coming collapse.

So the Fed has kind of painted itself into a corner. If the Fed keeps printing money, they continue to grossly distort our financial system even more and the excess reserves time bomb just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

But even the suggestion that the Fed would begin to start “tapering” quantitative easing caused the financial markets to throw an epic temper tantrum in recent weeks. Interest rates immediately began to skyrocket and Fed officials did their best to try to settle everyone down.

So where do we go from here?

Unfortunately, as Jim Rogers recently explained, this massive experiment in financial manipulation is ultimately going to end in disaster…

I’m afraid that in the end, we’re all going to suffer perhaps, worse than we ever have, with inflation, currency turmoil, and higher interest rates.

The Fed and other global central banks have created the largest bond bubble in the history of the planet. If the Fed ends quantitative easing, the bond market is going to try to revert to normal.

That would be disastrous for the global financial system. The following is what Jim Willie told Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com…

Everything is dependent on Fed support. They know if they take it away, they’re going to create a black hole. The Treasury bond is the greatest asset bubble in history. It’s at least twice as large as the housing and mortgage bubble, maybe three or four times as large.

But even if the central banks keep printing money, they may not be able to maintain control over the bond market. In fact, there are already signs that they are starting to lose control. The following is what billionaire Eric Sprott told King World News the other day…

It’s total orchestration. And it’s orchestration because they might have lost control of the bond market. I find it such a juxtaposition that central banks on a daily basis buy more bonds today than they ever purchased, and interest rates are going up, which is almost perverted. I mean how can that happen?

They’ve lost control of the market in my mind, and that’s why they are so desperately trying to get us all to forget the word ‘taper.’ In fact, we probably won’t even hear the word ‘taper’ anymore because it has such a sickening reaction to people in the bond market, and perhaps even people in the stock market. They will probably do away with the word. But the system is totally out of control. And then we’ve got this quadrillion dollar of derivatives. It just blows-blows my mind to think about what could really be going on behind the scenes.

Sprott made a really good point about derivatives.

The quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble could bring down the global financial system at any time.

And remember, interest rate derivatives make up the biggest chunk of that. Today, there are 441 trillion dollars of interest rate derivatives sitting out there. If interest rates begin skyrocketing at some point, that is going to create some absolutely massive losses in the system. We could potentially be talking about an event that would make the failure of Lehman Brothers look like a Sunday picnic.

We are moving into a time of great financial instability. People are going to be absolutely shocked by what happens.

Our financial system is a house of cards built on a foundation of risk, leverage, and debt. When it all comes tumbling down, it should not be a surprise to any of us.

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IS THE FEDERAL RESERVE ACTUALLY TRYING TO CAUSE A STOCK MARKET CRASH?

It is insanity to raise interest rates when stocks are already crashing, but the Federal Reserve did it anyway

Is The Federal Reserve Actually TRYING To Cause A Stock Market Crash?

The Federal Reserve has decided not to come to the rescue this time.

All of the economic numbers tell us that the economy is slowing down, and on Wednesday Fed Chair Jerome Powell even admitted that economic conditions are “softening”, but the Federal Reserve raised interest rates anyway. As one top economist put it, raising rates as we head into an economic downturn is “economic malpractice”. They know that higher rates will slow down the economy even more, but it isn’t as if the Fed was divided on this move. In fact, it was a unanimous vote to raise rates. They clearly have an agenda, and that agenda is definitely not about helping the American people.

Early on Wednesday, Wall Street seemed to believe that the Federal Reserve would do the right thing, and the Dow was up nearly 400 points. But then the announcement came, and the market began sinking dramatically.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 720 points in just two hours, and the Dow ended the day down a total of 351 points. This is the lowest that the Dow has been all year, 60 percent of the stocks listed on the S&P 500 is in the bear market territory, and at this point, approximately four trillion dollars of stock market wealth has been wiped out.

We haven’t seen anything like this since the last financial crisis. This is officially the worst quarter for the stock market since the fourth quarter of 2008, and it is the worst December that Wall Street has experienced since 1931.

It is insanity to raise interest rates when stocks are already crashing, but the Federal Reserve did it anyway.

They knew what kind of reaction this would cause on Wall Street and in other global markets, but that didn’t stop them. The financial world is in utter turmoil, and this move by the Fed has definitely added fuel to the fire.

Could it be possible that they actually want a stock market crash?

Some are suggesting that the reason why the vote was unanimous was that they wanted to send a “strong signal” to President Trump. He has been extremely critical of the Federal Reserve in recent weeks, and this could be a way for the Fed to show Trump who is really in charge.

They are calling this “the Trump economy”, but that is simply not true. And when Barack Obama was in the White House, it wasn’t “the Obama economy” either. Ultimately, it is the Federal Reserve that is running the economy, and they fiercely guard their independence and their authority.

President Trump knows that the only way that he is going to win in 2020 is if the economy is doing well, and he also understands that higher interest rates will slow the economy down.

So essentially the Federal Reserve has a tremendous amount of political power in their hands.

During the Obama era, the Fed pushed interest rates all the way to the floor and kept them there for many years.

But now the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates seven times since Donald Trump took office, and four of those rate hikes have been under current Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

Needless to say, it certainly doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out how Donald Trump is feeling about Powell at this moment.

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RON PAUL: ENDGAME FOR THE FED?

There is no doubt we are witnessing the last days of not just the Federal Reserve but the entire welfare-warfare system

Ron Paul: Endgame for the Fed?

The Federal Reserve, responding to concerns about the economy and the stock market, and perhaps to criticisms by President Trump, recently changed course on interest rates by cutting its “benchmark” rate from 2.25 percent to two percent. President Trump responded to the cut in already historically-low rates by attacking the Fed for not committing to future rate cuts.

The Fed’s action is an example of a popular definition of insanity: doing the same action over and over again and expecting different results. After the 2008 market meltdown, the Fed launched an unprecedented policy of near-zero interest rates and “quantitative easing.” Both failed to produce real economic growth. The latest rate cut is unlikely to increase growth or avert a major economic crisis.

It is not a coincidence that the Fed’s rate cut came along with Congress passing a two-year budget deal that increases our already 22 trillion dollars national debt and suspends the debt ceiling. The increase in government debt increases the pressure on the Fed to keep interest rates artificially low so the federal government’s interest payments do not increase to unsustainable levels.

President Trump’s tax and regulatory policies have had some positive effects on economic growth and job creation. However, these gains are going to be short-lived because they cannot offset the damage caused by the explosion in deficit spending and the Federal Reserve’s resulting monetization of the debt. President Trump has also endangered the global economy by imposing tariffs on imports from the US’s largest trading partners including China. This has resulted in a trade war that is hurting export-driven industries such as agriculture.

President Trump recently imposed more tariffs on Chinese imports, and China responded to the tariffs by devaluing its currency. The devaluation lowers the price consumers pay for Chinese goods, partly offsetting the effect of the tariffs. The US government responded by labeling China a currency manipulator, a charge dripping with hypocrisy since, thanks to the dollar’s world reserve currency status, the US is history’s greatest currency manipulator. Another irony is that China’s action mirrors President Trump’s continuous calls for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.

While no one can predict when or how the next economic crisis will occur, we do know the crisis is coming unless, as seems unlikely, the Fed stops distorting the economy by manipulating interest rates (which are the price of money), Congress cuts spending and debt, and President Trump declares a ceasefire in the trade war.

The Federal Reserve’s rate cut failed to stop a drastic fall in the stock market. This is actually good news as it shows that even Wall Street is losing faith in the Federal Reserve’s ability to manage the unmanageable — a monetary system based solely on fiat currency. The erosion of trust in and respect for the Fed is also shown by the interest in cryptocurrency and the momentum behind two initiatives spearheaded by my Campaign for Liberty — passing the Audit the Fed bill and passing state laws re-legalizing gold and silver as legal tender. There is no doubt we are witnessing the last days of not just the Federal Reserve but the entire welfare-warfare system. Those who know the truth must do all they can to ensure that the crisis results in a return to a constitutional republic, true free markets, sound money, and a foreign policy of peace and free trade.

This article first appeared at RonPaulInstitute.org.

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FEDERAL RESERVE IS ‘OUT TO GET PRESIDENT TRUMP

CIA WHISTLEBLOWER WARNS: FEDERAL RESERVE IS ‘OUT TO GET PRESIDENT TRUMP’

The Federal Reserve is America’s Enemy

The central bank will ‘manipulate 2020 election and make any recession look like Trump’s fault and not the Fed’s fault,’ says Kevin Shipp.

Jamie White | Infowars.com - AUGUST 19, 2019 111 Comments CIA Whistleblower Warns: Federal Reserve Is ‘Out To Get President Trump’

The Federal Reserve has been using its central bank powers in an attempt to tank the economy to blame President Trump and manipulate the 2020 election outcome, according to CIA whistleblower Kevin Shipp.

��He [Trump] has got the Fed shaking in their boots. When the Fed gags its board of directors and its members, that is not good,” Shipp said on “USA Watchdog” with Greg Hunter on Saturday.

“Something not good is going on. Perhaps they are bringing the interest rates down to zero. Perhaps it’s the fact we are entering into, not only the U.S., but a global recession. So, they have put the lid on any comments coming out, and I think they have done it for a reason that is concerning…”

“Trump is at war with the Fed, and the Fed has put a lid on all its people. It’s a gag order to keep its people from talking about what the Fed plans to do,” he continued.

“I think it is tied to an upcoming global recession, and we may see quantitative easing (money printing) rates go to zero, and they don’t want the President or the public to know what they are about to do,” Shipp added.

The Fed’s attempts to ruin Trump are obvious given how it behaved during Obama’s presidency, such as its excessive money-printing policies and holding interest rates at 0% for most of Obama’s tenure.

“So, it is apparent the Fed waited until Trump was elected to start hammering and pounding on the economy, which apparently they did not want to do under Obama,” Shipp said. “Can you raise the suspicion that the Fed is against Trump or that the Fed is trying to take the credit for the economy away from Trump? I think that appears to be entirely possible…”

“Trump has said it exactly right, it’s a war between Trump and the Federal Reserve, which, of course, is not federal and it has no reserves…

Shipp said that Trump is aware of the Fed’s moves and is correctly planning to shift blame to the Fed for any economic correction or collapse because it is the progenitor of America’s boom/bust cycles.

“In my view, I think that Trump is convinced that the Fed is going to try to destroy the advances in the economy to make 2020 less possible for re-election and actually manipulate the political landscape,” Shipp said.

“I think Trump is clearly and wisely aware of what they are doing…I think Trump thinks the Fed is going to manipulate the 2020 election and make any recession look like Trump’s fault and not the Fed’s fault.”

“God bless Donald Trump because he is the first President to call out the Fed like he is doing,” Shipp added. “Trump has been right all along.”