ALternatives to the Lord God

The spirit world

Pharaoh the king of Egypt was the servant of the gods and the magicians and sorcerers of Egypt were the mouthpiece of the gods. The magicians and sorcerers delivered the messages of the gods and the onus was on Pharaoh the king to carry out the orders of the gods. There existed a mutual understanding Pharaoh the King and the magicians and sorcerers in Egypt. The magicians and sorcerers existed at the whims of Pharaoh the king while at the same time Pharaoh the king knew that the magicians and sorcerers had the power to turn the people against him by citing misfortunes and calamities as the displeasure of the gods. The gods of Egypt were the most powerful gods on the earth and by virtue of this Egypt was the superpower of the day and the power of Egypt was ascribed to the gods of Egypt.

Moses and Aaron appeared before Pharaoh the king of Egypt in dramatic fashion with demands from YHWH the God of the Hebrews. The demand of YHWH the God of the Hebrews was to allow the people of Israel to travel into the unoccupied territories to do sacrifice and to worship. Pharaoh the king of Egypt had never heard of YHWH the God of the Hebrews and he made it clear that he had no regard for YHWH the God of the Hebrews and he would not accede to the demands of YHWH the God of the Hebrews.

Pharaoh the king of Egypt had the power to command the magicians and sorcerers of Egypt but he could not perform the feats that the magicians and sorcerers could do. Pharaoh assumed that the same thing was applicable to Moses because Moses gave commands to Aaron. In Moses then was a rival leader, in YHWH a rival god to the gods of Egypt and in Aaron was a rival to the magicians and sorcerers of Egypt.

Pharaoh the king of Egypt got the opportunity to see displayed the supernatural powers with which the gods empowered their servants as the magicians and sorcerers of Egypt and Aaron the spokesman for Moses went head to head in a battle of wonders and miracles. When Moses later entered the battle then neither Pharaoh the king of Egypt nor the magicians and sorcerers of Egypt had any response and so the gods of Egypt were defeated and put to shame.

It was not long after this that the Lord God through Moses forbid the people of Israel to consult witches, wizards, necromancers, persons with familiar spirits, enchanters etc. The command was for persons with familiar spirits was to be executed. The persons with familiar spirits were those persons who made claims that they knew how to contact the dead and so were open for consultations. The familiar spirits were spirit beings who were familiar with the voice, habits, attitudes, character, etc. of individuals and these spirits would imitate the dead and sometimes the living. The witches, wizards, enchanters, necromancers made claims to be able to contact the world of the dead, the unseen, predict the future etc.

Today the world of the unseen is denied and ignored because we live in a world that demands scientific proof and tangible evidence. It is a world that seek to abandon religion and the belief in the existence of God. It is also a world that declares that life is short and comes with no guarantee so whatever you desires to do, don’t wait but do it now.

The Bible indicates that the Lord God desires to set up a kingdom of priest and kings that is holy and to manifest his goodness to the world. It is the desire of the Spirit of the Lord God to have the bodies of man as the temple out of which he operates. The Bible is also clear that there are intelligent spirit beings that also desire to occupy and control the mind and bodies of man. These intelligent spirit beings offers an alternative to the Spirit of God. The deeds and actions of these intelligent spirit beings are counter to and opposite the deed of the Spirit of God.

The Bible does not explicitly state how these spirit being came to be without bodies or how they exist but these spirit beings exhibit intelligence and personality. They can and occupy the mind and body of man and in some instances enter and leave at will or sometimes take up permanent residence.

There were and are gods in many forms and shapes and the demands of the various gods differ. There were some gods that demanded that humans be sacrificed. The ancient people of Israel were not immune to this and got caught up in this practice. This was never the intention or demand of the Lord God of Israel.

In the psalms it was declared that this practice of human sacrifice was really sacrificing to devils and this made the powers at work behind idol worship demonic.

The goal of these spirit beings is to provide an alternative god to the Lord God and to direct worship that belonged to the Lord God to someone these gods. In a similar way to the Spirit of God occupying the body of man and controlling the mind of man these spirits seek to imitate the Spirit of God but in doing the opposite.

King Saul may have been stung by the rebuke of the Prophet Samuel when the Prophet Samuel told him that disobedience was a sin comparable to witchcraft because later we are told that he killed all the witches and those possessed by familiar spirits. However, King Saul was to later find a witch that had a familiar spirit for consultation because he stopped hearing from the Lord God. This is listed as one of the reasons for King Saul’s death.

There are a number of passages in the Old Testament where it is recorded that the prophets of the Lord God were challenged by kings and other prophets. The claims of these prophets were that they spoke on behalf of the Lord God. There were also the instances where Baal was declared to be god and the prophets of the Lord God threw down the gauntlet. Prophetic competition to prove which god was the real God. The loser sometimes faced death and the possibility of being labeled as working in conjunction with devils.

The prophets Elijah, Miciah and Jeremiah faced these challenges and there were times when there were the contests of the prophets to see which prophecy would come true. There were also two notable case when Elijah the prophet rebuked King Ahazariah for consulting Baalzebub the god of Ekron instead of consulting the Lord God of Israel. The prophet Isaiah also rebuked the people of Israel for consulting witches and mediums (Those who mutter and peep) instead of consulting the living God. At this time the people of Israel were seeking advice from the dead.

In the New Testament demon (evil) spirits recognized and readily submitted to Jesus. These spirits were responsible for causing various ailments and illnesses and Jesus was involved in exorcising demon spirits. In the Old Testament the command was to execute persons working in conjunction with spirits but in the New Testament Jesus has empowered believers to drive out and exercise authority over demon (evil) spirits.  

Christianity - The secret to living

It is very easy when reading the Bible to ignore the time factor. It is also very easy to forget these facts

1. Genesis 1:3 – Revelations 22:21 covers a period of approximately four thousand years.

2. The Bible was written over a period of fourteen hundred years

3. The Bible was written by more than forty authors from varying backgrounds.

Some of the difficulties that are associated with interpreting the Bible originate with the theologians. Theologians does not teach the Bible based on dogma and so when questioned in the right settings these theologians readily confess to not being sure of what they believe or they admit that they are unsure how to interpret the Bible.

It is within reason to believe that there was a time span between Genesis 1:26 when the Lord God created man and Genesis 2:7 when the Lord God fitted man with a body. This time span would allow for the trees of the garden of Eden to grow and for Adam to learn to be responsible before Eve is fitted with her body and she is introduced to Adam.

The Bible indicates that the Lord God caused the plants to grow from out of the earth. The question become whether the Lord God created mature fruit trees that were producing fruit or did the Lord God follow the process a seed germinating then growing through the process of years as happens now. If this happened then it would allow for Adam to have spent much time alone with the Lord God.

The crowning piece of God’s creation was man (Adam and Eve). Man was created to look like the Lord God, to behave like the Lord God and man breathed the breath of the Lord God. The breath of the Lord God subjected man to inspiration and enabled man to have fellowship with the Lord God. Man also enjoyed the exalted position of the Lord God coming to the earth to have fellowship.

The Lord God condescended to come down to fellowship with man and man was tricked into believing that he could rise to being on an equal status to the Lord God and this led to man rebelling against the Lord God. Since that time man continue to rebel by believing that he can live without the Lord God on the one hand while others seek to find ways to once more enter into a right relationship with the lord God.

One man that discovered the secret of fellowship with the Lord God was Enoch because after walking in close fellowship with the Lord God for three hundred year the Lord God took him and did not allow him to see death.

The story of the people of Israel and their deliverance from slavery in Egypt until they finally entered the promised land after more than forty years highlights several things.

1. The pillar of cloud protected from direct exposure to the sun during the day

2. The pillar of fire gave light and heat during the night

3. Each morning for six days each week the people collected their daily supply of food for more than forty years

The people of Israel was to soon learn that the Lord God had a special role for them. They were to become a nation of kings and priests and to be uniquely distinct from other nations because their lives were to be governed by the principles and laws of the Lord God. The Lord God had demonstrated through Moses and Aaron that he was mightier and more powerful than all the gods of Egypt and now the Lord God was going to living among them. The people of Israel at the time were living in tents and the Lord God directed that a tent (tabernacle) be constructed so that he may live among his people.

The Lord God would now be easily accessible to his special people and everything that they experienced as a people the Lord their God would experience also.

This tent (tabernacle) lasted for about five hundred years. The time came when the people of Israel built permanent residences and King David felt really bad because he lived in a house of wood and stone but the place where the Lord God lived was a tent. King David desired to construct a temple to be the place where the Lord God permanently lived among his people but it was his son Solomon that the Lord God permitted to build the temple.

The tabernacle and later the temple served as the place where the Lord God lived among his people and also as the place where those who sought reconciliation with the Lord God through sacrifice and atonement could do so.

The animals that were sacrificed in the tabernacle and later the temple to atone for sins and bring reconciliation to the Lord God could not adequately deal with the sin problem and had to be constantly repeated. The Lord God through his prophets had promised a redeemer that would restore the lost fellowship with the Lord God.

Jesus of Nazareth came on the scene teaching, preaching and doing miracles. The religious experts of the day examined the works of Jesus of Nazareth and refused to certify it as the works of the Lord God but instead credited the works of Jesus of Nazareth to Beelzebub the prince of demons. The rejection of Jesus of Nazareth by the leaders of the nation of Israel was regarded as a national rejection of Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God and their Messiah.

Jesus of Nazareth was eventually arrested, tried and sentenced to death for his claims to being the Son of God and Israel’s long expected messiah. Jesus of Nazareth was found guilty of being the King of the Jews and was executed and buried.

During the time that he went about teaching and preaching Jesus of Nazareth had trained twelve disciples. A few days after the execution of Jesus of Nazareth rumors circulated that Jesus of Nazareth had risen from the dead and that he was very much alive. Six weeks after the execution of Jesus of Nazareth the religious leaders in the nation of Israel had to deal with the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth because the message that Jesus of Nazareth preached continued and the disciples were also performing miracles.

The message of the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth went further because the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God, the Lord God had raised him from the dead and Jesus of Nazareth was now the way to righteousness with the Lord God. This message in effect declared that the religious leaders were of no effect and Jesus of Nazareth was now the one to respect.

Jesus of Nazareth during the time that he taught and preached knew that the people of Israel looked for a king to set up a political kingdom on the earth. Jesus indicated to his listeners that he was establishing a kingdom where the Lord God reigned in the hearts and minds as king. Just before his execution Jesus told his disciples that he would be killed and then he would return to heaven but when he returned to heaven he would send another divine person to permanently live with the disciples. This divine person’s presence while not necessarily obvious to the world would live in the believer and make known the works of the Lord God through the believer. The apostle Paul understood this when he asked the believers in the city of Corinth if they were not aware that their bodies were the temple of the Holy Ghost. The Apostle Peter also pointed out in his epistle the exalted position that believers in Jesus now occupy. The body of those who believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God and the Messiah/Christ became the temple out of which the Spirit of the Lord God operates.

The rejection of Jesus of Nazareth did not take the Lord God by surprise neither did it take Jesus himself by surprise. It simply delayed the Lord God’s plans for the nation of Israel. The benefits that the nation of Israel would have received had they accepted Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah has been extended to the whole world. These benefits included among others:

1. Being indwelt by the Spirit of God

2. Being adopted into the family of God

3. Becoming joint heirs with Jesus

4. becoming members of the body of Jesus (the church).

The first man and woman rebelled against the authority of the Lord God because they wanted to be like the Lord God. Man continue in rebellion today because he does not desire to submit to the authority of the Lord God.

The Holy Spirit uses the body of the believer in Jesus Christ as the temple out of which he operates. This enables man to do the very deeds the Lord God would do if he had been living on the earth as a man. The Lord God through his Holy Spirit continues to do marvelous deeds but just like how the religious authorities of Jesus’ day refused to acknowledge that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the Son of God and their Messiah so now the works of the Lord God is ridiculed and the world fail to acknowledge the Lord God at work in the lives of Christians.