Leading and being led astray

People who are false prophets and lead others astray from the one true God and his Word are responsible for not only their own actions, but the actions of those who follow their lead. If you publish a book that taints what is contained in the Bible with your own falsehoods, additions, or admixture with other faiths, you are responsible for what everyone who reads that book does subsequently. This is not “unfair” because if you only think of Hitler, he was guilty millions of individual murders conducted under his philosophical belief, whether he pulled the trigger or not. So it is not the act of writing the book alone that is the grave mortal sin against God but also the individual souls that are led astray, each and every one, that God will take an accounting of from you. This is why when you read historical accounts and prayers many people were so frosted at Martin Luther and speculated about him and his followers in hell (and I’m not saying that is true, but I am explaining the correct logic). Pious people rightfully fear leading others astray even more than their own salvation, because leading someone else astray for sure dooms one’s own salvation. If you murder someone you can sincerely repent and atone and God will know if that is sincere or not and accept or reject it accordingly. But if you put material out there that lives on its own to infect the salvation of others, you can atone for the sin of writing the book of heretical and unbelieving material, but as a human you can never “take back” or “undo” the effect on the salvation of those exposed to your material. Judgment by God will be most severe because of the “to the many” and “unto the third and fourth generations” effects of what you have wrought.

Now, having said this, I need to address those who have been led astray by the works of others. Remember that Adam did not get off the hook by blaming Eve for giving him the apple. Adam still took the apple against God’s word and ate. Adam could have said, and should have said, “Whoa, hold on Eve. You ate from that apple from the tree that God forbid us to eat from? I’m not going to eat it, but I am going to call on the Lord to forgive us and help us to fix this problem.” God was walking in the garden, in communion with Adam, and Adam could have taken the apple away from Eve to protect her from further harm, not eaten it himself, and taken it to God. All Adam had to do was not follow Eve’s sin on his own part, and not take the bait, but rather, turn to the Lord for his help and counsel.

So those of you who might have been abused as a child, raised in an atheistic or satanic household, have not been exposed to the true faith as a child or youngster, fallen into the wrong crowd as a youth, and all the other excuses of childhood and youth, I do understand. And so will God, of course. But what about when you are an adult and emancipated from the limitations of being under age? You literally cannot go anywhere without finding a Bible. It is the wealthiest and most information saturated age of man that ever existed. Once you are out of the control of your adult keepers you cannot say, “Lord, I did not know.” The Bible has been translated into virtually every language still spoken by man, and it is available at low cost or free. (Just tell an Evangelical you need a Bible and you will have a room full in no time). The Bible and the true Word of the one God is everywhere. And even if you are a rebel at heart and reject traditional Christianity there is always the Qur’an who teaches again how to know and believe in the will of the one true God of Abraham and his descendents. There is literally no excuse to pass on heresy and tainted belief once you are an emancipated adult. Parents who bring up their children without God because they were brought up without God cannot point back to their parents when God judges them. If you are old enough to have sex and a baby you are old enough to turn to the Bible along with Dr. Spock. I don’t care if you engaged in the worst satanic activities as a helpless child, but what is your excuse once you are emancipated? You will be judged by God accordingly.

And if that sounds unfair remember this. When St. Paul preached he found a pagan people who worshipped many gods, since they were raised that way and the Gospel had not yet reached them. Yet there was a shrine of a stone marking worship to the “Unknown God.” These people, pagans living at the time of Jesus Christ and his Apostles, had enough insight and piety to assume that they did not have the entire picture, and that there was a God they did not know about. And they took the effort to honor him, since they had no way at the time to discover this unknown God. God heard their piety and St. Paul came to them, pointing to the stone of the Unknown God and preaching Jesus Christ the Savior and Messiah to them. So if two thousand years ago when Jesus had just been crucified and resurrected people who were pagans could understand the limits of their own knowledge and await enlightenment, what is your excuse as an emancipated adult in a society saturated with access to the Bible and the Word of God?


Just to show you how quickly the true Word of God is accessible, I went to an online Bible and typed in "unknown God" in order to copy here the passage that I referred to in this blog posting.


http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=51&chapter=17&version=31&context=chapter

16While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." 21(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

22Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.