Basic HTML Version
wife relationship, designating them
as His nation and giving them His
government?
Natural carnal MAN, with only the
" human spirit" to impart material–
istic intellect, has been-even with–
out contact with and help from
Goo--able to accomplish wonders in
the physical realm. This is
not
testi–
mony to the goodness of MAN, but to
the wonderful creative ability of
man's Maker!
At the tower of Babel God said:
" ... this they
begin
to do: and now
nothing will be restrained from them,
which they have imagined to do"
(Genesis 11 :6). Invention and pro–
duction of the modern computer and
sending men to the moon and safely
back are two modero examples.
Cut off from Goo--having only
the one "human spirit" that empow–
ers intellect-MAN has developed a
scholarship that says, "Given suffi–
cient KNOWLEDGE, we can salve
every problem." The modero univer–
sity is a KNOWLEDGE PROOUCTlON
factory.
Yet, 1 have said the most highly
educated are the
most ignorant- be–
cause their development of knowl–
edge has been LJMITEo--confined to
the physical and material. Without
the Holy Spirit of God, they are, in
the vernacular, "not all there"!
God says of this
"intellec~ual"
hu–
man mind, that it is "deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked"
(Jeremiah 17:9); and, " ... the carnal
mind is enmity [hostile] against God:
for it is not subjcct to the law of God,
neither indeed can be" (Romans 8:7).
God had shut man off from God's
revealed knowledge.
Why Carnal Israel
One reason God raised up ancient
Israel was
to eventually prove
to all
humanity, the vast majority of whom
do not yet realize it, that the carnal
mind wi th all its intellectual accom–
plishments simply
wi/1 not
accept
and live by the revealed knowledge of
Goo--even though God should re–
vea) it to them (Romaos 1:20-21 ).
Other nations were cut off com–
pletely from God's revealed knowl–
edge. But, as stated previously, God
retained the prerogative of calling
out of man's world a certain few in
The
PLAIN TRUTH April 1979
preparation for His Kingdom. So
God deliberately called a NATION,
and t hrough Mases revealed to them
the knowledge of H1s LAw, His WILL,
His WAY OF LIFE, which is outftowing
LOVE!
God DIO NOT give them His Holy
Spirit. He gave that only to Mases
and the prophets-all specially
called.
But Goo did give them His spiri–
tual LAw. As a
substitute
for the
shed blood of Christ, He gave them
animal sacrifices, which could not
remit sins-they were only a re–
minder of sin. He gave them also, as
a temporary
substitute
for the Holy
Spi ri t, a law of physical rituals, meat
and drink offerings and carnal ardí–
nances. These instilled the
habit
of
obedience. Then, of course, He gave
them, as a civil nation, His GOVERN–
MENT, with its basic spi rituallaw and
its statutes and judgments. He gave
them H1s SYSTEM of government–
authority from the TOP oowN. God
Himself was their congress, parlia–
ment, knesset and diet. He, through
Mases, was their Lawgiver.
Under God was "the Word"–
Yahweh- who
was to become Christ.
Under Him was Mases. Under
Mases were captains over thousands,
captains over hundreds, over fifties.
When Mases' brother Aaron and
their sister Miriam wanted equal au–
thority in the government with
Mases, -God punished! When Korah
and his group wanted equal say-so
and authority, God destroyed them.
1t
was Goo- not the people- who
chose and put Mases in authority.
There was no democracy.
How Did Carnal Israel
Respond?
But how did carnal-minded Israel
respond to God's great generosity,
love and blessings?
Let God answer!
He says: " Hear, O heavens, and
give ear, O earth: for the Eterna!
hath spoken, 1 have nourished and
brought up children, and they have
rebelled against me. The ox knoweth
his owner, and the ass his master's
crib: but Israel doth not know, my
people doth not consider. Ah sinful
nation, a people ladeo with iniquity, a
seed of evildoers, children that are
corrupters: they have forsaken the
Eterna!, they have provoked the Holy
Oneof Israel unto anger, they are gone
away backward" (Isaiah l :2-4).
After Moses
After Moses, the Israelites were led
into the promised land by Joshua.
Israel served God-to a degree-un–
til Joshua died at age 11
O.
Then, true to human experience,
when that gene ration died ,
" ... there a rose another generation
after them, which knew not the Eter–
na!. . . . And the children of Israel
did evil in the sight of the Eterna!,
and served Baalim [a pagan god of
the Canaanites]" (Judges 2:10-11).
Repeated ly they would forsake
God, turn to idolatry of neighbor na–
tions, go into captivity, and cry out to
God fo r deliverance. Then God
would raise up judges (heroes, lead–
ers) by whom He freed them, but
then, after a degree of peace, idol
worship was resumed, and when the
judge died, God allowed them to be
taken into captivity again.
This continued for sorne few gen–
erations.
Then Israel was ruled by the priest
Eli. Eli had two sons, also in the
priestly service. These sons were tak–
ing un1awful gain from the people,
misleading the people, having im–
moral relations with the women who
assembled at the door of the tab–
ernacle. Now Eli was very old-near
90- and said to his sons, " ... Why
do ye such things? ... Notwithstand–
ing they hearkened not unto the voice
of their father ... "
(I
Samuel 2:22-
25). The sons continued the evils, and
the priest Eli did not put them out of
the priesthood.
When Sons Go Wrong
God said to Eli, "Wherefore ... hon–
ourest thy sons above me?" (1 Samu–
el 2:29) and decreed they should die.
When news carne to Eli that bis sons
had been killed and the ark of God
taken in battle, Eli fell backward,
broke his neck and died!
Perhaps another evidence of the
Worldwide Church of God being the
one or iginal Church of God is that its
apostle did remove his son, who was
secularizing God's Church and col-
(Continued on page 40)
3