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PERSONAL
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hate- ..but the SEVENTH day is the
sabbath
of the Lord thy God:
in it
thou shalt not do any work" (Deut.
5: 13-14). Six thousand-year days
have been permitted Satan for his
labor of DECEPTION. Even then his
dominion has been limited to the
power of influenc.e and suggestion.
Never has God permitted even
Satan a rbitrarily to force men
against their wills.
And so for 6,000 years men have
been left free to accept the self–
seeking competitive philosophy of
Satan, or to follow the Golden Rule
of God. And for 6,000 years Satan
has labored. And mankind has fall–
en for his delusion!
Satan's philosophy is the philoso–
phy of the world today. On it our
present civilization has been built.
A civilization men !ove and chei'ish,
and for which they patriotically
sacrifice their lives! A civilization
developed on desire for self-gain,
competition, strife! In it success is
determined by HOW MUCH a man
has been able to GET, not on how
well he has served.
God has never left men in igno–
rance of the TRUE way of life.
Always he has made known the
true values- the way of bis spiri–
tual law of !ove! Continually God
has pleaded, with patience and in
love. He set up a nation of his own
on earth, pledged to follow his laws,
dedicated voluntarily to God's ways
of life. But ancient Israel turned
from God's ways, and persecuted
and killed God's prophets!
God sent his only begotten Son
to point men back to the true paths.
And him, too, men rejected and
killed!
During these 6,000 years since
Adam , men continually have
spurned God's !ove, rejected his law,
turned a deaf ear to his prophets and
his true ministers. They have built a
world after the false philosophy of
Satan, replete with its pagan cus–
toms, traditions and beliefs. Today
people are hopelessly engulfed in
the se false ways , but, being
deceived, realize it not at all!
Satan is revealed as the "Goo of
this world"
(11
Cor. 4:4). The origi–
nal
inspired
Greek should properly
be translated, "the god of
this
AGE."
May 1984
And this worldly civilization wor–
ships its Goo. The appalling fact
unrealized by the world is that
Satan, not the Eterna!, is its god! The
Creator God " is
not
the author of
confusion," we read in 1 Corinthians
14:33. Its real author is Satan, the
world's god! And so he has his many
denominations and sects, all striving
in a babylon of confusion!
There is just one thing, it seems,
that
al/
Satan's ministers can agree
upon. "God's LAW," they chorus in
unison, " is DONE A
w
AY!" Yes, they
have to tell that in arder to draw
their salaries! Today the people of
organized religion refuse to HEAR
the law of the Lord (lsa. 30:8-11).
They demand that their ministers
preach the soft and smooth things–
the deceits! They have turned away
from the TRUTH, and are accepting
and believing FABLES (11 Tim. 4:2-
4). They are BITTER against God's
law, and against the few who have
courage today to proclaim the PLAIN
TRUTH of God's Word!
Yes, Satan has
organized
reli–
gion. He himself appears, not as a
devil with horns and a tail bearing a
pitchfork, but "is transformed into
AN ANGEL OF LIGHT"
(JI
Cor.
11:14). His ministers are trans–
formed
as
the ministers of righ–
teousness, appearing AS the apostles
of Christ (verses 13, 15) . But they
a re preaching
"another
Jesus"
(verse 4), in the power of
"another
spirit," and deceiving men with
"another
gospel" than the true gos–
pel of the kingdom that Christ
brought and Paul and all the apos–
tles preached (Gal. 1:6-7).
Satan's congregations go in for
mucb FORM. "Having a FORM of
godliness, but denying the POWER
thereof:
from sueh turn away,"
plainly warns God's Word (11 Tim.
3:5). The present worldly order–
its competitive principies, its cus–
toms and traditions, its política!
systems-is upheld by Satan's reli–
gions within every land! Truly, ALL
nations are deceived (Rev. 12:9,
17:2, 18:3).
Jesus Christ appeared 1,900
years ago as a messenger bearing a
message from God. He brought to
an unhappy world steeped in false
ways the "GOOD NEWS of the KING–
DOM OF Goo." A kingdom now,
soon, to replace these crumbling
governments of earth!
That kingdom today is near at
hand-even at the doors
(Luke
21:31) .
Thank God, we are near the END
of the six working days allotted to
Satan's dominion. God's thousand–
year sabbath day is just about to
dawn!
There is a saying that it is dark–
est just befare the dawn. Now we
see on every hand the final fruitage
of men's ways. Written in ineras–
able blood , in human misery,
anguish and despair, is the 6,000-
year record of EXPERIENCE!
Even now men will not heed this
horrible lesson-not until they are
FORCED to see it!
But, as Satan's sixth "working
day" closes, God is about to step in
and supernaturally to interfere!
The coming seventh millennium
shall see Satan restrained. Christ
will return to rule the earth with all
the power of God. God's new arder
for the next thousand years will
restare peace, happiness and joy.
Then men may look back over
this present world and COMPARE!
Never
will God FORCE a single
human being, against his own will ,
into salvation and eterna! life.
But, with the 7,000-year record
of EXPERIENCE set plainly before
seeing eyes, do you think anyone
will
want
to return to these ways
we seem now to love? Not many,
you may be sure of that! Yet sorne,
even then, will rebel.
Finally the world shall acknowl–
edge, of its own free volition, that
God's ways are right. Christ, says
the scripture, "learned . .. obe–
dience by the things which he suf–
fered" (Heb. 5:8). Even he who
never did wrong! "And
being
MADE
perfect "- through
experience–
"he became the author of eterna!
salvation unto all them that obey
him" (verse 9) .
Sorne day we shall look upon
God's plan with breathtaking admi–
ration and awe! The suffering of this
present time shall have faded com–
pletely from mind. The lessons of
experience we shall have with us for
eternity! Finally humanity shall
accept God's ways of life, KNOWING
that they are right ways. The happi–
ness and joy we shall then experience
cannot be conceived by our minds
today! None will look back and say,
"God isn' t fair" . o
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