Fruits of the Holy Spirit(3): Continence (II)

We have just learned what the first fruit of Continence is, by studying two people who totally lacked it, Adam and Eve. This is called learning by "negative example," where you first learn the definition of something by studying something that lacks that quality. In that way you see the consequences of not having it. Now we will look at the one person who had total, perfect Continence, the anti-Adam of Continence, and that would be Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the model of what perfect Continence (which no person can ever achieve) looks like. Jesus Christ alone has the perfect gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit because he was conceived of the Holy Spirit, and thus he has not only the perfected nature of the Holy Spirit but also the Holy Spirit's indwelling. Here is the scripture where he demonstrates perfect Continence.

Before we start, let me point out two things that now that your eyes are open, you will notice anyway. One is how this event was just like the Garden of Eden, except Jesus is now demonstrating how Adam and Eve should have behaved in that situation. The other point is to answer what some ask, which is how Jesus, being perfect, could be tempted? He was not tempted in the sense of ever considering anything anyone says that takes him from his perfect will to God, of course. The Holy Spirit took him to the desert so that generations after him can study what Adam and Eve should have done. In other words, the devil is doing the tempting, but simply because Jesus is being "tempted by the devil," this is not an open ended tempting whereby Jesus ever would consider doing what the devil suggests. Jesus did all this in order to "rewrite" history, in a sense, as the Redeemer, Jesus demonstrated what Adam and Eve should have done.

Matthew 4:1-11

Then Jesus was led into the desert by the [Holy] Spirit, to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, "If thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread." But he answered and said, "It is written, Not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God."

Then the devil took him into the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, "If thou art the Son of God, throw thyself down; for it is written, He will give his angels charge concerning thee; and upon their hands they shall bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." Jesus said to him, "It is written further, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. And he said to him, "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." Then Jesus said to him, "Begone, Satan! for it is written, The Lord thy God shalt thou worship and him only shalt thou serve." Then the devil left him; and behold, angels came and ministered to him.

We need not discuss here all the vast richness of this event in the life of Jesus for all its teachings and meanings, since they are well covered by preachers and in previous postings. Just look at the amazing and perfected example of the fruit of the Holy Spirit of Continence, demonstrated by Jesus.

1. Adam and Eve already had food aplenty, with no effort, the company of God, the servitude of animals and the promise of dominion of the world, and yet they so lacked self control that they accepted the offer of the devil for something they did not even understand (they wanted to know evil without even knowing what it was! Duh!)

2. Jesus had fasted for forty days and forty nights (try that out sometime, most humans would be dead of course), Jesus was alone as he had not yet chosen his Apostles and, further, he did not take angels along to minister to him, and Jesus had no earthly prestige at all yet, even though his was the actual King to come of all the earth and beyond, of course. So lacking at the time everything that Adam and Eve actually had surrounding them, Jesus demonstrates perfect Continence on the opposite side of the spectrum from Adam and Eve. In his extreme privation and isolation Jesus never once considered anything that the devil (or anyone else) seriously or even jokingly as a diversion from his ministry to come.

No one can be like Jesus, of course, but the reason the Holy Spirit led Jesus to the fasting and encounter in the desert is so that believers in the world can see and marvel what the perfected fruit of the Holy Spirit of Continence looks like. Jesus had total self control and containment of both his needs and his desires and thus demonstrated perfect Continence.

Continence thus also needs to be understood as an appreciation of timing, and also of trust in God. Adam and Eve failed in both respects, as they believed Satan equally as they believed God and thus gave Satan's temptation serious thought and merit, but they also, incredibly, had no patience, even though they had everything in front of them already. Patience is another fruit of the Holy Spirit, and we will discuss it in due turn. My point is that Continence is a friendly partner with Patience, because people are able to be more self restrained and thus Continent when they are willing to not only deny themselves something whose time has not yet come or is not good for them, but also to wait for what God genuinely intends for them.

Adam and Eve do not have the excuse that they did not know what God intended for them because they were already living it. The only thing that had not yet occurred was them having children and them inheriting the earthly Garden of Eden. It would be far more understandable if Jesus had been impatient, as he had fasted alone for forty days and nights, and had not yet surrounding himself with his followers, yet of course it was Jesus' timing as much as God's. Jesus and God had, of course, perfect agreement in timing and the order of things, always with eternity in mind. No, Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit to have the dueling scriptures with Satan in the desert so that people who have now, of course, well known through the scriptures the history of the failure of Continence (and obedience) by Adam and Eve could now see "how it should have gone." This is one reason that some have given the title to Jesus of the "New Adam." Not because there is any comparison, of course, but because Jesus role models how Adam, on his much smaller scale, should have behaved.

Thus Jesus demonstrated how the perfected ripened fruit of Continence looks, having been grown on the perfected tree of the Holy Spirit.

Understand real Satan not cartoon Satan

Satan is a very real risk to all humans, both believers who risk their faith being disturbed, and non-believers who risk never opening their hearts enough to believe and be saved. So I am always glad when I hear a preacher remind their listeners that Satan is a continual reality that cannot be ignored.

However, it is, like all topics related to faith, important that one protects one's self by understanding the real threat, and not a misrepresentation or cartoon of the threat and as always one has to rely on God's word in the scriptures, and the actual events depicted within.

We know that Satan is the leader of the group of angels who, after being created by God, when given the choice of free will (a gift God gives to all whom he loves, both angels and humans), chose not to serve God. Because of this they were cast out of heaven. Satan is allowed to roam the earth at will and has great influence over human world events (which is why he is scripturally refered to as ruling on earth... he's not THE ruler of earth, but he receives that title because by not serving God he can only serve and thus influence things of the world. In other words he is both in the world and "of" the world. Christians in contrast are taught by Jesus to be "in the world" but not ruled by the world, hence they are not "of the world." Their priority, unlike Satan's, is heavenly directed in service to God even while alive on earth and not in heaven).

So there are two aspects of Satan that sound alarming and powerful on the surface, especially the non-scriptural depictions, but are not all that difficult to refute and to have some peace of mind about. One is that Satan is obviously not THE ruler of all earth since he obviously, both in scriptural and in secular earth history, does not run around undoing God's creation. Satan does not blow up mountains, destroy cities, poison the water, kill baby animals as they are born, uproot trees, change the weather, etc. God is still in control of his creation, which he has declared "good" upon the making of each component, and Satan has never had any power, authority or ability to use godly powers to harm life or the natural processes and features of earth. If Satan had that power then there would be nothing left of earth a long time ago, as he would have caused havoc everywhere. But the scripture reports that Satan just wanders around the earth, tempting people to sin against God and each other at every obvious opportunity. Thus it is totally wrong and alarming for no reason to have any concern at all that Satan has some sort of like running amok, evil destroyer, invading alien, anti-life, kicker of sand in the faces of baby dinosaurs type of ability or impulse. Satan's sole interest is to tempt human beings.

And that is the second reality check that people need to keep in mind. As I've pointed out before in my blogging, and I've heard more preachers allude to it recently, Satan by no means denies the existence of God. That is a weird misconception that is pretty recent and is refuted by any even casual reading of the Bible. Satan, actually, is by his obvious existence and interaction with God (the Book of Job detailing a far from hostile conversation between God and Satan) is kind of the ultimate witness to God's reality! People who want to get into witchcraft and so forth or believe strange things have recently thought of the impossibility that Satan is like an "alternative possibility" to believing in God. That's obviously ridiculous since the scriptures show that Satan continues to not only acknowledge God's reality, but interact with him, including promptly showing up to test and tempt Jesus Christ at the beginning of his ministry. Further, Satan obeys God when God establishes limits on how much Satan can afflict Job. Demons and so forth who serve Satan are the first to recognize Jesus, before Jesus even speaks to them, and they rapidly proclaim their belief, their alarm and their subservience to Jesus' authority to cast them out. So people who think that maybe there's a real powerful Satan but no God are totally delusional on two basic points. Satan has very little power and controls none of the infrastructure of earth or the life upon it AND Satan himself is the first on most scenes to acknowledge God's reality and his movement in human matters.

So, if Satan does not deny God AND Satan has no actual power except to tempt, how is he so persuasive, so effective and so dangerous? This can best be understood and thus defeated by thinking of the common saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." This old saying means that many humans end up going to hell because they did something evil, wrong and sinful because they "meant well." In a way, Satan is very much like the humans who go to hell because they do wrong things but self justify that their "intentions were good." Don't get me wrong because I'm not using the word "good" with "Satan," but I'm preparing you for the analogy. Satan's basic error is that he cannot grasp God's All Knowingness; he just doesn't get within the core of his being that God already knows all that there is to know. Satan's a bit condescending to God, thinking that he knows better than God, particularly when it comes to human weaknesses.

Realistically, can anyone of even weak faith think that God knows less than Satan in any scenario? But that is the Achilles heel of both Satan and human beings, which is why they are such a potent mixture. Satan thinks he knows better than God and thus is even somewhat "protective" and condescending toward God. We see this in the Book of Job, where Satan is debating with God whether Job is really truly faithful to God and if he would stay faithful if God's protection were removed from him. Um, duh, Satan thinks that God doesn't already know every "what-if" scenario already? I've blogged before how one must realize God's All Knowingness by using analogies humans can grasp, such as how God knows every subatomic particle that ever existed or will exist in the universe and all the places each particle was and will be. So God doesn't know what Job will do when hardships befall him? God knows everything already because he is God and he is the only All Knowing.

But you can see that Satan honestly thinks something like this: "Wow, that God is naive. Sure Job loves and worships God now, since he's blessed by God and has a great life and many possessions due to God's protection. I've got to show God that he can't trust Job to stay faithful to him once things start going bad for him." Satan simply does not grasp that God already knows everything, absolutely everything. We know this because Satan recognizes who Jesus is, and promptly shows up to tempt him, and Satan thinks, what, that God didn't know that Satan is going to tempt Jesus? And that Jesus, as the Son of God, would be temptable? It's like Satan thinks that maybe God didn't prepare Jesus enough, or send him with enough power, and thus there is some actual chance of tempting Jesus to disobedience to God!

So the crux of understanding Satan and his enormous power over many human beings is to realize that Satan just does not grasp and ultimately does not have faith in the All Knowingness of God. Satan has plenty of faith that God exists because more than anyone he's been there around God "from the beginning" and so obviously God's reality is Satan's continual focus. But what Satan just does not understand is God's greater plan, which is, of course, the culmination of God's All Knowingness.

And that pride, since that is indeed what we are describing, a condescending pride of Satan's, is exactly the same prevalent flaw in many human beings. Can you think of many humans who do not at some point think they know "better" than God does? Or that God "needs their help?" Brothers and sisters, you know exactly what I mean.

While few people would confess to actually thinking that God needs their "help" or that they "know better than God," they do it all the time when they cherry pick what part of God's word they choose to believe. When they discard or ignore large parts of scripture, (or even just small parts that prohibit one's favorite sin), that is more than being someone of weak faith, or maybe a hypocrite. Secretly, subconsciously, that person is thinking that he or she knows "what God really meant" and that he or she can thus figure that "God would agree with me that this part of the Bible is out of date, and that part doesn't apply to me, but that I can go along with that other stuff because those sinners out there (not me) don't do enough of the good things and God needs my help" and so on and so forth. That is music to Satan's ears and fertile ground for him to sow weeds.

This is why some people are such willing and easy dupes and tools of Satan, while others seem to have a Teflon coating and barely notice Satan's existence. Satan works best with humans who do not believe in, have faith in, or trust God's All Knowingness. The people who diminish God's power in their minds but magnify and glorify their own potential roles in both earthly and, imagine that, heavenly matters are natural allies and pawns of Satan, since they have the same weakness and "philosophy." People who lack fear of God but magnify their own spirituality, resourcefulness and role in life are the most prone to be influenced at alarming speed and depth by Satan. People who fear God (in the way I've explained in previous posts on this subject) and who are humble about their role in the major matters of divinity tend not to be tempted by or hear Satan at all. Satan totally gives a pass by to those who are shielded by their sincere fear of God and their sincere humility.

Now, some of the most devout saints suffered from great torments by Satan. I'm about to say something that is not meant to be unkind or unloving, since these were indeed genuine Christian saints of great sanctity. However, even some saints have insufficient fear of God and humility to render themselves safe from any attacks (or imagined attacks) from Satan. Some very revered Christian saints who were indeed sanctified and worthy of God had the all too human flaw of being sucked into thinking that they are linchpins in some sort of huge "good versus evil" striving. I mean, how scriptural is that? Not at all. What do I mean? Here is what I would have said to some medieval saint in the making who is afflicted by torments he or she feels is sent by Satan:

Read the scripture about the Last Supper and the betrayal of Christ by Judas. Judas, the most ripest, the biggest target of all who ever existed for temptation, was only entered by Satan at the moment he left the table to betray Jesus. Satan spent only a matter of minutes, until the betrayal was done, in Judas. Why in the world do you think Satan is having supposedly hours, days, months or years of battle within YOU?

Sometimes you have to be a tough spiritual director, even with the most sanctified of people.

Humans all are in constant grave danger of the "road to hell is paved with good intentions" weakness and pride. Saints are no exception except in one matter: their suffering (even if self induced or exaggerated) never destroys their faith in God or takes them from their sanctity of service. But I explain this problem with certains saints in order to point out to you the scriptural basis for what I am saying: Satan does not occupy or vie with human beings. Satan only strews temptations that those who fear God and are genuinely humble never even notice, while those who do not fear God and who are prone to pridefulness catch themselves up in the temptations all of the time. Satan's temptations are like lint or dust on furniture: you don't even notice it unless you think it is your job to clean it up. That's the danger of not believing completely in God's All Knowingness and over exaggerating your role in "helping" God. You start thinking that you are the one who has to dust all the furniture, and thus those hundreds and thousands of tiny nearly invisible temptations to sin, like dust motes, gather together as you focus your attention on them. The rest of us live with dusty furniture ha ha. (Just some levity for a serious subject... please excuse the humor, I so rarely get to demonstrate it!)

Do you see what I mean? This is why an analogy is so powerful. Satan is constantly scattering tiny harmless temptations, most centered around insufficient faith in God and excess pride in one's own judgment and supposed "goodness." People who are not vulnerable to temptations of hubris, pride or vanity, and who are firm in their fear of God and trust in his All Knowingness, never even notice the tiny dust motes of temptation. But those who are prone to scrutinizing the dust particles start to pick them up in quickly growing clumps that stick to them and they are now accepting of and subjugated to Satan's temptations with alarming weight and rapidity.

Taking upon one's self a perception that you personally are "battling Satan" is a grave and not-scripturally based error. Remember, Judas himself did not "battle" Satan, nor was he owned by Satan or possessed by Satan. Rather, Judas picked up a lot of "dust particles" of pride which estranged him from his basic trust in God's providence, and then Satan only had to enter him for a few minutes to actually perform that greatest betrayal. If you think that you are in combat with some supposed spiritual forces, you have deviated from the truth of what is in the Bible (no one in the Bible is combating Satan etc on a personal basis). What they are doing is resisting Satan's temptations. There is a huge difference between the two.

This is why Paul said that Christians must be "dead to sin." When one is dead one is inert and like a chemical that just won't react with anything. Being in a hypersensitive and combative stance toward anything is not being "dead to sin." Rather, like collecting the dust motes, it is a problem of insufficient protection (study of scripture, faith in God's power, cultivating fear of God and humility) while completely over exaggerating one's own interaction with temptations. People, like that class of afflicted saints, who think they are in some sort of numinous and supernatural "combat" against "evil forces, such as Satan" are driving themselves nuts by collecting every dust mote of temptation that Satan has laid out there for them. Who in the Bible is actually "combating" Satan? Jesus did not even waste an hour of his earthly time doing so. Moses didn't. David didn't. Isaiah didn't. Joseph and Mary didn't. John the Baptist didn't. All the prophets and holy people of the Bible were focused on two things 1) teaching God's will based on righteousness to the people and 2) strengthening their faith so they resist all temptations, both the worldly everyday ones and the opportunistic ones by Satan himself.

Here's another analogy, with pop culture. Remember how in "Lord of the Rings" Gandolf is going crazy trying to open the door that is secured by a magic spell? He is reading the sign that says "Speak friend and enter." He thinks that if you are a real friend you will be able to guess the secret magic password phrase, but all his guesses are wrong. After a painfully long time he realizes that the password IS to speak "friend."

Satan and his temptations are exactly that obvious. There is no secret profound "battle" between humans and Satan or other "evil forces," one where humans must "help out" the obviously hapless God who is just not handling things without the supposed wisdom and combativeness of humans. You just don't pick up the temptations of Satan; it really IS AS SIMPLE AS THAT. Thinking you are battling him personally and that God is just kind of hanging around waiting to see what happens IS one of Satan's most effective temptations: "Guaranteed to work on saints and sinners alike."

I hope that you have found this thought provoking and helpful. Read the Bible (or Qur'an, of course, for my Muslim friends). It really is that simple. Fear of God and humility regarding the puniness of humans compared to the All Knowing of God is the best protection from temptation, such that those who attain it barely notice temptation even if there was a ton of it piled in front of them because, like those particles of dust, the truly faithful and humble just don't even notice worldly or Satan provided temptations.

More about demons, sin and temptation

Following up on previously discussed material with a bit more detail of "how it works" using analogies, of course.

When thinking about demons and devils, remember two things. They are not fallen angels, who are confined to hell (only Satan can wander, not the other fallen angels). Also, they are not life forms created by Satan. Only God can create life in any form, including life forms we may consider "bad." But God did not create demons, although he allows them to exist as the consequence of human's continual accumulation of sin.

There's an old country saying "Hell's a popping." What that means is that hell is so active that it is exploding in a spewing type of way, like popcorn exploding from a heated container to escape. Another analogy is when a volcano erupts lava spews out of it, both flowing but also viscous globs of it fly through the air, landing with burning force on whatever it hits.

Demons and devils are like the hunks of spiritual evil, like lava, that is spewed from hell. So they are "globs" of hell evil combined with the accumulation of unrepentant and unforgiven sinners in hell, plus all of the sins that have ever been committed, which are also consigned to hell. Remember there is no sin in heaven. While God forgives sin through Jesus Christ as if it never happened, that means the soul is restored pure; it does not mean that the sin itself or its harm to others never happened, of course. God does not erase time or the consequences. So when he purifies a soul before it goes to heaven all sin is shed and dropped into hell.

This is why hell emits three things: demons (devils), temptation, and sin.

But one cannot blame hell's emissions for making one be tempted or sin. Think of the volcano analogy. If the blob of burning lava flies through the air and hits water, it steams but is harmless and cools to rock. If the blob hits rock or other inert ground it also cools and turns to rock. But if it hits the roof of a house it might burn the house down, and if it hits a person, it could burn and kill the person from either impact or being on fire.

That is how it is with sin and temptation. If it hits something "inert" there is no impact. But if it hits something (someone) who is predisposed to be weak to sin, it impacts and "takes hold" of that person. This is what Paul meant by being "dead to sin," which we discussed previously. Someone who is dead to sin is also dead to temptation. When hell spews sin or temptation it does not take hold of such a person, as that person is like the glob of lava hitting the bare ground or the water. The temptation and sin "lava" blob does not stick, does not adhere, and instead is rendered harmless by turning into rock. But someone weak to temptation or sin is like a house with a flammable roof, or the person who stands unprotected outside during an eruption, waiting to get hit.

So the spew from hell is all of the same substance but has as you can see increasing impacts, just as if the glob is small, medium, or large. Small globs are temptations. They can be felt but resisted. Sins are medium blobs, where the person does not resist the temptation but commits sins, both minor or grave. The quantity and degree of sin can be thought of as the damage done to the house or the person due to burning. Then the worst of all is the impact of hell spew that becomes a resident demon. As I cited previously in Bible study this is very rare and because it is rare the Gospel authors made great note of Jesus' cure of those with demons, singling them out for specific recording.

People tend to exaggerate the number of demons abroad in the world (very few) and minimize their own receptivity to the small and medium spew of hell, which is temptation and actual sin. Much of what people attribute to demons or "devils" is actually their listening to and being receptive to temptation and sin that is of hell but not demonic in nature.

Think of hell as the giant library and storage facility for all of the sins that have ever been committed. That should scare you straight if nothing else does, as no one would want to be doomed to live in torment eternally within the inventory of every single sin that has ever been committed. I explain this so that you realize that everyone's sin harms everyone else as it simply builds not only a living culture of sin on earth that promotes temptation and sin, but also continually "adds" to the inventory of every sin ever committed in hell. While hell is sealed off from heaven, of course, and also does not have free access to earth, it does emit its malevolence back to earth from which much of it came. Satan moves about trailing behind him a train of potential sins and temptations. People who are pure of mind and deed tend to not even notice. Others stop to "look" and "listen" at what temptation and sin "wares" that Satan has on display for them. Thus a culture that specializes in a particular type of sin adds many examples of that sin to hell, and then finds that in a feedback loop, Satan is more than happy to drag along behind him as he travels earth some examples for further consideration. This is why it is a vicious cycle. Humans, sadly, seem to only become less holy, not more and, further, they add to the repository of sins all that time, that then echo back into the current time.

I want to address two New Age obsessions as if any of you are still prone to believing them, they will be easier to refute and discard if you think about what I said. One is that many New Agers think there is some sort of celestial "book" of wisdom in the sky, and that "adepts" can access it. That is wrong because there is no matter, energy, time or other temporal knowledge in heaven as God is all knowledge and heaven exists through his continual emitting of his core being. There is no need nor is there the physics of having a place of "reference material" in heaven. However, here is the problem. One of the greatest temptations for false prophets (and well meaning followers) is the classic "having a secret source of arcane knowledge access" temptation and it is all of those past believers that they have some "secret lore" that resides in, yes, hell, that people tap. In other words, all of the sins of occult and other inappropriate study and the temptation to do it are all residing in hell. Each generation raises up people who are certain that they are the ones who "really, really, really" "access" all of this supposedly celestial knowledge, but they are just, like children playing dress up, dragging out of the trunks of hell the discarded clothes of temptation and sin to believe in having "secret," "spiritual" access to the "books" and "records of what had been and will be" etc. etc.

This is why when you first heard that type of idea (maybe while smoking pot), you thought, "Wow, a book in heaven with everything recorded there. That makes sense." It "makes sense" because it is a generation after generation temptation of hubris and pride with a huge repository of those sins ready for you to be tempted by and emulate from hell. That sense of familiarity and that this notion could possibly be logical thus, through temptation, overrides real common sense which would tell you that God and the angels have no need for any books or records at all.

The second New Age idea that you can better understand and refute is the idea that so called "aliens" have anything to do with human beings. They do not. Again, when people theorize and even state as a fact that aliens have a karma, reincarnation or spiritual relationship with humans, that is because that person is responding to the "something is out there" instinct, but that "out there" is, well, no nice way to put it, hell. People who believe that aliens have an influence on humans are those who have the biggest ears toward hell and that particular line of temptation. It's related to the first temptation of having "access to heaven's books" but different because it's more a temptation of "it's not my fault that bad things happen; it's the bad aliens" and those sins, while the first is more the sin of false prophecy, pride and hubris. (Trying to reduce the grandeur and all knowing of God as if he would have a book with spiritual lore laying around for those really special people to access). As we all know the book of God is those who are saved, who are written in it for saving. That does not mean it is a literal book anyone can read any more than when Jesus says that some people are wheat and some chaff that if you had a DNA test you are either the grain or the leaf. I mean, duh.

Here is another way to better detox from the alien myth. Notice that humans are tempted by the same old sins relating to being human. I mean, have you noticed that humans are never tempted to act like a "bad wolverine" would act, or tempted to commit some sort of interspecies fraud? I mean, people do not in general run around being tempted to construct robotic birds to disrupt mating seasons and survival of a particular bird species. People may be tempted by gluttony (shoot all the birds for food until none left), but people are not tempted to act the way a "sinful parakeet" might act if animals were capable of sinning. Likewise no humans feel "alien" temptations. If aliens exist (and God has wisely made a vast universe that, science fiction aside, no one need worry about every encountering any aliens at all.... in fact I seriously doubt that humans will every leave the solar system in space flight before the End of Days, actually) they have their own biology, mentality and sin profile. If humans had even the smallest amount of spiritual so called contact with aliens they would know what their sin profile is more surely and more quickly than knowing how to say "hello" in their language. Why? Humans sure pick up sin faster than anything else. So this is a way to logic through genuine science and philosophy, forget even being religious, to reason through that if aliens had been "spiritually" among humans there would be a very strange eruption of mental illness that is totally incomprehensible since humans would be feeling alien temptations and sins that are totally outside the realm of human understanding.

I've explained this before regarding reincarnation that, with all respect of the traditional faiths who believe in it, if you only think about the problem of animal and human instincts one would realize that reincarnation would never have evolved because it is antithesis to survival, not beneficial to survival. Butterflies, bees, bats, salamanders, dogs, cats, whatever the animal, they survive as a species because they have the genetics, parental learning and instincts that their species needs. If a butterfly had residual "reincarnation" "memory" of eating dog food that would sure be a problem. So through sheer science and logic one can rapidly and totally refute any notion of interspecies "reincarnation." That belief was simply the way those cultures had where wise men taught the young that if they lived bad lives they would come back in a reduced state as punishment, and that is what they envisioned. Not knowing science and evolutionary realities, of course, they had no way to realize that blackbirds could not exist if they subliminally had a "reincarnation" "memory" of eating pasta with spaghetti sauce, and thus stopped looking for their natural food. You must combine kindness, in understanding that people of different cultures tried to reason their way through a "survival and subsistence" level worldview before they even knew of the existence of simple things like germs, genetics, and the evolution of complex life from simple life over millions of years: facts we all know now (or at least should, assuming you have stopped with the pot and cutting school) with being truthful, even if the truth hurts.

So to recap what we have discussed, recognize these points:

1. Satan and hell cannot create; only God can create life.
2. God allows humans to suffer the consequences of their own temptations and sin.
3. Even when God forgives sin and washes the soul clean as if the sin never happened, that means the soul is clean as if it never happened; the sin, of course, did happen and continues to resonate in the consequences in life and also in the repository of hell.
4. Only Satan is free to roam among humans from hell, the other fallen angels reside in hell at all times. Demons are eruptions of tempting, sinful and chaotic energy from hell, fueled by human's own patterns of sin, since hell is where all stain is discarded, either attached to the damned who are unforgiven who go to hell, or shed from those whom the Lamb has washed clean and who are saved.
5. Eruptions from hell are not even felt by those who are, as Paul puts it, "dead to sin." Temptations do not even enter the mind of such people, even when placed directly before them. That is what people need to strive toward.
6. Those who are, like the vast majority of humans, unable to be completely dead to sin feel the occasional temptations put their way as eruptions from hell that they can either ignore or allow to stick and thus sin. Thus those who live in a society that pushes one or more particular forms of sin have the double challenge of not only being pressured by that society to sin likewise but also more sensitively feel the temptation of that societal sin by all who have gone before them and who have discarded that still active form of sin in hell, which can and does erupt.

For example, with point number 6, here is how to understand what I am saying. Suppose someone lived among a political system that uses genocide. There is the temptation to preserve one's life and also to gain power by joining in with that genocidal mindset. That is practical, earthbound temptation. At the same time, however, such a person might be sensitive to all those who have performed a genocidal accommodating sin before him or her and who are now either in hell for their sins or are forgiven, in heaven, but their stain and sins are shed into hell. So some people are tempted both by the realities of their day to day existence, but also feel the temptation of spew from hell of those who "solved the problems" using the same sin that one is tempted by in the current timeframe. This is the cumulative and corrosive effect of sin, both on earth as societies structure themselves to accommodate more and more sin, and as hellish spew, as more and more people and instances of sin fill hell to bursting with historical pressure and temptation legacy. Satan, even without trying, drags such samples from the warehouse behind him as he roams the earth: past models of sin and temptations for people to follow once again in the current time, rather than shun, as one considers what happens in consequence.

7. When those in occult or other New Ages or marginal beliefs "feel" the "rightness" of their "worldview," often they are "feeling" the weight of "truth" alright, but it is the truth of what has happened in a bad place in the wrong way, which is the patterns of past sin. Because they "feel" the "rightness" of their "adept" "readings" they confuse correctness as in, yes, people have had these same thoughts and beliefs before and acted upon them, with being correct in their perceived spirituality, which they are not. Just because one thousand people before you believed in the planet named Dingbat made out of marshmallows, and you "correctly" "pick up" that one thousand people believe in the marshmallow planet Dingbat, does not mean that the planet exists.

I hope this helps, though I feel like a broken record.

A faith disability that many have

Many people have faith in God, but a serious disability that is difficult and often impossible to overcome. The first step is to recognize the disability since many people do not realize that they have it.

Let us look at the skill of Captain "Sully" who landed the plane that had lost its engines on the Hudson River. He and the rest of the crew credit their training and experience. Captain Sully in particular had that extensive glider experience in his background. When one is totally trained and repeatedly practices, one has made one's reflexes nearly automatic in such situations.

The same is true of individual athletes and great teams in sports. Those who have consistency tend to have the winning records. Golfers in particular understand that it is consistency, the ability to deliver with dependability your best, that puts you ahead of even more talented but inconsistent competitors.

These are examples of "first reaction," "reflex" and automatic response that through inclination and practice is your first spontaneous response to a situation or in your job or recreation.

Many people have faith in God to some degree, but there is a dividing line that is very important because one side is very prone to temptation to sin despite their faith, while the other side is more protected from sin.

That dividing line is whether your first reflex, your automatic reflex, is to trust God.

Many faithful have as their first instinct, no matter what the situation, to trust God, even if they do not understand their situation. This, by the way, is one of the great traits of many Muslims that I know. But many Christians also are blessed by this first response.

It is like if you do that reflex test, where the physician taps your kneecap while you are sitting, your leg, if it is healthy, reflexively swings forward.

The faithful who are the most protected against sin are those whose first reflex when tapped, and when they go through their day, is trust in God. I don't mean a specific trust about expectations of an action by God, but that steady trust that God is always present, always good, always ultimately in control, and always desiring that all will come to know and love him.

When one has that constancy of trust in God one is less prone to sin, to be tempted to sin, or, frankly, to even notice temptations when they occur!

On the other side of the line are those who have faith in God, but their first reflex is not to trust him. These are the ones most prone to sins of hubris, to manipulation of other people and situations for their own benefit, and to the many temptations of life. Their first reflex day to day is not a constancy of trust in God. They are the type of people who will pray to God, but practice some occult activities "just in case."

Let me give you a personal example of the most helpful mindset. My father died suddenly of a heart attack when I was only eight years old. I was terribly sad and grieved so much that even though I have, as I've blogged before, nearly perfect memory of even when I was an infant, I remember very little-almost nothing-of the two weeks after my father died. I don't even remember my grandmother and great aunts who were there to mourn and comfort. I loved my father deeply and miss him steadily, although it has never hampered my emotional or day to day life. And you see, that is the difference. I have an unshakable trust in and knowledge of God.

No matter what evil humans do to each other, including to me, and what sadness of life that all humans encounter, my first reflex is the constancy of my trust in God. In other words, I do not have a fickle relationship with God that blows in the wind and changes according to what happens in life. Too many modern people are fickle, allowing the day to day activities of life to actually filter and change their view of God, as if God's own true nature changes according to whether a traffic accident occurs or someone gets cancer.

Too many people change their perception of God as if they are blowing in the wind, thinking that with every little thing that happens in life that this tells them something "new" or "different" or "limiting" about God. It is like if you as a baby changed your mind about your mother if she fastens your diaper on the left side first or the right side first that day.

This does not mean, of course, that people cannot wonder and ask God "why" something happens. The problem is that one really does not have a right to ask that question if one has a mindset that does not have a platform of faith and constancy of trust in God as your first reflex. In my case I never questioned "why" my father died, because it is obvious that life is short, unpredictable, and many men of his generation smoked (3 packs of Camels a day in his case), ate poorly in terms of fats, proper and rapid medical response was lacking, and there was a "type A" tendency back then when the life span on average was only 65 years. So as a child I would never think either "why" to God, nor would I worry about "where" my dad "is," since I trust God and know that a God fearing man like him is in eternal bliss in heaven.

Those who believe in God but do not have a first reflex of trust in God will use things like my father's death to explore oppressive and manipulative actions and theories, and therefore are prone to temptation to the occult, and also to the false idols of money, power and "the best" of everything, including health care and artificial beauty.

Think again to the changing the diaper example. What if when a mother changes the baby's diaper in a slightly different way each time that the baby then assumes that mother is "bad" and "not to be trusted," and maybe motherhood as a whole is subject to suspicion. A "real mother" would, like a robot, change the diaper in precisely the same order of motion, at the exact same time intervals (even if the baby is not obligingly pooping at the right times) and so forth. It is that irrational thought process and lack of trust in the day to day variability of life that results in, our analogy, lack of trust of the loving and good mother as she properly changes the diaper but with natural day to day variability and, therefore, to my point, a reflexive lack of trust in God.

The actions of human beings, and the risks of ordinary life, are things that have absolutely no impact on God's nature (except he grieves along with people) and they provide no insight into God. God was God even before the universe existed. He does not change.

For one's own spiritual health and ultimately one's own goodness and sanity, one must, if one claims to believe in God, have an unshakable first instinct of trust in God. Trust in God must be your background and foundational first reflex.

Ask Captain "Sully." Did he, as he was in crisis of piloting the plane, think, "Hmm. I wonder if gliding really works. Gliding just doesn't make sense. I mean, isn't a plane heavy and air light, so the plane ought to drop like a stone?" Um, no, precisely because being trained in gliding and being a glider pilot for years, in addition to his other training, Captain Sully doesn't suddenly wonder if gliding "exists" and "works;" his first reflex is to trust in what he has learned and what he knows works and just do it.

Likewise humans cannot live, cannot be saved, and cannot be charitable to others if they "have faith" and "believe" in God, but their first reflex throughout life is not to trust him, or to "trust" him but then "revisit" that trust as a "result" of each and every event. Like being a glider pilot that trust is not handed to you on a silver platter. You must be aware of your need for that first reflex of response of trust in God and work on it.

However, I will say that for many people (often those who do not have self inflated narcissism about their intellect) such a trust in God is a natural reflex. However, those who are late to come to believe in God (such as being raised in low faith, cult or atheistic households) are at a natural disadvantage, and they should be humble about it, not questioning of God and arrogant. Like the baby who understands that mother changing his or her diaper is not a robot, a child who is raised to love and trust in God makes that understanding their first reflex.

I am very dismayed at the many people who think they will be saved because they "believe" in God, and "have faith," yet they do very disturbing things in parallel, actions that are indicative of not trusting God and worse, manipulating innocent people around them as part of what they seem to think is their "power sharing" agenda "with God." It makes me shudder and destroys my heart to see this.

Case study: falling away from the faith

While visiting a Catholic site I've not read for a while, I noticed a comment by someone who wonders why some of the most angry and atheist apologists and attackers of Christianity and the Church are "former evangelicals." The answer to this is somewhat straightforward, so I'll make it a quick case study.

Even when one is a Christian, the farther away that you are in your faith from making God the center of it all, the more you are at risk of losing your perspective, and then your faith. So if you think of faith as being a series of concentric circles, the innermost circle being God himself, if you are in a faith that is in a close circle to God, where your focus is always kept on him, it tends to be a good indicator of future stability of mind. This is true, obviously, if one is Christian, Muslim or Jewish. The more that you view your faith as "being all about God" and not yourself, the better you yourself will actually grow in spirit and in love of human life.

Now, say what you will about the problems of the "hierarchy" of those big bad institutional churches, but there is an advantage to enforced humility. Humans tend to puff themselves up pretty big and fast when they are on their own. This is one reason it is not such a bad thing to belong to a large institutional faith, such as being Catholic, and I also include the highly humble and egalitarian faith of Islam (witness three million people on Haj even as we speak, side by side, rich and poor, all men wearing two white cloths as their clothing). Many hajis (people who have gone on haj) say that remembering that it is all about God and his mercy, and all being equal in his eyes, is the highlight personal illumination of haj. The Catholic Mass is, likewise, a liturgy that is focused entirely on God, as revealed through Jesus Christ, and in the prophets and forefathers and mothers.

Likewise, the institutional churches of the children of the Reformation, such as the various sects, called denominations, of Protestantism, Methodists, Baptists and so forth, also retain this focus on God. Their communal worship within an institutional church helps remind them that it is not all about themselves, but it's all about God, and Jesus Christ, the Savior.

However, when a number of Protestants began to self identify as "Evangelicals," a subtle form of temptation crept in. So long as they remained in the mainstream of the institutionalized denominations, that temptation to increase one's own individual importance, and diminish one's focus on God, is usually kept in check. This is one reason I am a great admirer of Baptists.

But the problem is that many take a worthy objective, to "evangelize" and have done two things. One is that they give themselves a title, merited or not. Suddenly they think of themselves as being "evangelicals," with all due honors and privileges, if you know what I mean. Second, many break away from their denominations and "create their own churches." What exactly is one's "own church?" Whenever a few in the congregation get angry, off they go and "create their own church." Where's God in all this, and God's equal expectations from everyone?

Thus, ironically, when an "evangelical" loses faith for some reason or another, it is not at all surprising that they tumble far and hard, with great anger, often going to the extreme of virulent denial of God himself The reason it is not surprising is that with each step one takes in faith, no matter which faith or denomination you are in, away from God and toward self focus and meeting "your own needs" for "your own church," you are already having one foot in a sticky pit of temptation without even knowing it.

Many people, as an aside, are baffled by the grandeur of the interior of Catholic churches. But one important reason for that is to continue to keep people looking upward toward God, and not mistake that the worship is all about themselves and their "message" "on behalf of God, Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit." Catholic churches are deliberately designed to appear as two things 1) the sacrificial altar and 2) a glimpse into the sanctuary, which is the gateway to heaven. That sure keeps it focused on God.

When an "evangelical" (or anyone else) starts to subconsciously and then consciously focus on whether or not "his or her church" is "meeting" "his or her needs," you've got a big potential problem of temptation of hubris and the falling away of faith. One has, at that point, already taken a big step away from God, by lowering God in one's own mind and raising one's self up as being the "one who really understands what it is all about." When that evangelical has inch by inch step by step moved farther from God being the center of it all, one day they wake up and feel there is nothing there, and then they lose their faith, they deny, they get angry, and they attack the very people, the remaining faithful, who the evangelical him or herself had "left behind" as being "indoctrinated" or "stupid." It's like running away from home and then denying that a home ever existed. It's exactly like that.

Sometimes you can better understand this drift if you compare it with groups where the drift does not happen, for the most part. Look at Orthodox Jews, for example. You just don't tend to see an Orthodox Jew shake his head and say, "You know, this worship thing really doesn't meet my needs or work for me. I know what God really wants, so I'm going to 'plant' my own synagogue, and we will do in it whatever 'meets our needs.'" Um, you just don't see that. Likewise, look at Muslims. The Sunni and the Shi'a have sometimes bitter disagreement about the spiritual successors to the Prophet (PBUH). But I do not know a single Muslim who would go up the the Grand Mufti and say, "You know, this haj schedule really doesn't work for me and my friends. We are going to start our own haj, but it's going to take place in some month that is not haj." LOL, imagine that. You just would not see it, because all Muslims are proud of the five pillars of their faith, not trying to "edit" them and become "non denominational" in order to "better meet their needs." I also don't know Muslims who run around saying, "You know, parts of the Qur'an really don't work for me, so let's remove those chapters." Sometimes individuals err in the direction of deeply believing but not understanding their own faith, and that is something mainstream Islam is trying to address. But none of them take their eyes off of God above all to "create their own mosque" that "meets their own worship needs."

With every step that one takes from keeping God himself at the very center of one's spiritual and secular life, one is taking one's self farther into an area where one is tempted to think that faith exists in order to "meet your needs" because it is "all about you." That is the shadow, to use a psychological term, of "evangelicals." They feel a great love and vigor of faith, but their unnoticed shadow is that they feel they are interior and individual custodians of the "truth" of their faith, and that is a dangerous slope of inflation and ultimately disappointment, anger, disenfranchising and disbelief.

This, again, is the reason that some are baffled that the Methodist church has an empty cross, with a red cloth draped to signify that Christ has risen, while Catholics have the crucifixion cross, with the corpus of Christ. The people who are baffled think that Catholics are "stuck" on the gory figure of Christ, and not focused on his having resurrected and "left the cross." But to quote St. Paul it is about him, Christ and him crucified. Catholics, even the weak ones, never forget that it is about God through Jesus Christ, and that one must always keep one's gaze on God and on the Savior he sent, that the Savior was crucified and that all must carry one's cross.

Sometimes I worry that my friends the Methodists have a psychology that the Cross is a "completed project." That is one step away from being totally God centric. I'm not bashing, I'm analyzing. Trust me, I grew up among many Methodists and they think they have it figured out, while the Catholic Church has the wrong orientation. Nope. One is never wrong if one is totally focused on God, and Jesus Christ crucified. When one is not "comfortable" with that focus on God and Jesus Christ, crucified, one has to ask, why is it about your "comfort" level, your faith? Again, I'm not criticizing, but I am critiquing, since, after all, I've endured silently decades of being critiqued unjustly, and now I reply.

Again, if one need to understand faith, look at Orthodox Jews. Have they edited their faith in order to be "more comfortable," to eliminate the suffering and anguish in faith history and replace it only with "spreading the good word," and have they people who break away when they quarrel and set up their own "non denominational" "place of worship?" No, because as I've said before, no one comprehends God better than Orthodox scholarly Jews, and it is on God that they keep their focus, where they keep their eyes and ears, and their hearts. People often wonder why God did not charter the Israelites to be "evangelicals," to convert and spread the word. This is exactly why. God understands humans more than you can ever imagine, and he knows that it is hard enough to keep humans faithful and focused on him through the centuries, even, as the Bible demonstrates, a small group of people such were the Israelites. That is part of the miracle, and proof, of the Savior, of Jesus Christ, that humans had reached a point where they can evangelize and still stay focused on God, and not inflate their own personal attributes as "representatives" of God. But see, over time, there is that temptation, and it started in the Reformation.

So that, my anonymous friends and readers, is why we see some who seemed so in love with Jesus Christ that they called themselves "evangelicals," fall so far that they become bitter atheists who are not only against God and denying him, but hating upon the faithful who stay in the fold. Any evangelical or any faithful for that matter who starts to think that spreading God's message as they understand it personally, rather than staying in the institutional church and providing personal witness, is the course that "meets their needs" is already putting their feet on a path that, God forbid, could bring them to crashing into total lack of faith. The Bible explains that if you put your trust in yourself or your fellow human, you will fail. If you put your trust in God, and remain focused on only God, you will not fail. It's as simple as that, really.

Prayer by a saint who had all 7 gifts

Before posting the Bible citations regarding the gift of the Holy Spirit Understanding, and before moving on to discuss the gift of the Holy Spirit that rests on all the previous gifts, Wisdom, here is a prayer that is written by a holy man who not only had great fullness of all seven gifts, but also demonstrates the gifts in this prayer that he wrote. This is by the great St. Augustine, who was born and lived in Africa 354-430. It is quite an understanding of the reality of the temptations and realities of human nature. Only a man so thoroughly receptive of the gifts of Fear of the Lord, Piety, Knowledge, Fortitude, Counsel, Understanding and Wisdom could comprehend humans and God so well, and write this.


Prayer of St. Augustine


Before Thine eyes, O Lord, we bring our sins, and we compare them with the stripes we have received.

If we examine the evil we have wrought, what we suffer is little, what we deserve is great.

What we have committed is very grievous, what we have suffered is very slight.

We feel the punishment of sin, yet withdraw not from the obstinacy of sinning.

Under Thy lash our inconstancy is visited, but our sinfulness is not changed.

Our suffering soul is tormented, but our neck is not bent.

Our life groans under sorrow, yet amends not in deed.

If Thou spare us, we correct not our ways: if Thou punish, we cannot endure it.

In time of correction we confess our wrongdoing: after Thy visitation we forget that we have wept.

If Thou stretchest forth Thy hand, we promise amendment; if Thou withholdest the sword, we keep not our promise.

If Thou strikest, we cry out for mercy: if Thou sparest, we again provoke Thee to strike.

Here we are before Thee, O Lord, confessedly guilty; we know that unless Thou pardon we shall deservedly perish.

Grant then, O almighty Father, without our deserving it, the pardon we ask; Thou who madest out of nothing those who ask Thee. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

V. Deal not with us, O Lord, according to our sins.
R. Neither reward us according to our iniquities.

Let us pray.-O God, who by sin art offended and by penance pacified, mercifully regard the prayers of Thy suppliant people, and turn away the scourges of Thy wrath, which we deserve for our sins. Through Christ our Lord. R. Amen.

Spiritual direction: comprehending Satan

Regular readers know that I write frequently about the true nature of angels, debunking sentimentalized views of them, but also increasing people’s faith in their existence as a sign of God’s promise and the goodness of life. I also occasionally address the topic of what Satan is “really like.” I think this is very important because my experience at the hands of even “Christian” cultists shows that humans inflate their own sense of self importance regarding supposed encounters with Satan and their supposed understanding of his nature and ways. So, it is time for a little more spiritual direction regarding Satan.

First of all, observe how in both the Bible and the Qur’an no one has a direct “conversation” with Satan except God (see the Book of Job) and Jesus Christ (the temptation in the desert). St. Jude alludes to an encounter between Satan and Michael the Archangel regarding the body of Moses. But no human has dialogue or conversations with “Satan,” far less understand his ways. Let’s help you understand it by putting it in terms of pride. Satan is “used to” speaking to only the powers on top, i.e. God, Jesus and the incident with St. Michael the Archangel. Satan would never stoop so low as to speak directly with or interact with a human. Notice the wording of the Bible relating the betrayal of Jesus by Judas.

John 13:27-30
Then after [he had taken] the bit of food, Satan entered into and took possession of [Judas]. Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do more swiftly than you seem to intend and make quick work of it.” But nobody reclining at the table knew why He spoke to him or what He meant by telling him this. Some thought that, since Judas had the money box (the purse), Jesus was telling him, Buy what we need for the Festival, or that he should give something to the poor. So after receiving the bit of bread, he went out immediately. And it was night. (Amplified Bible).

I use the Amplified Bible, which extracts fullness of meaning from the Greek and Hebrew, so that you can read what is actually happening most easily. Notice that Satan takes possession of Judas and Jesus knows the moment it happens, as Jesus knew in advance that it would happen. This is how Satan works. Satan’s only tool with humans is temptation. So clearly Satan has been at work within Judas prior to the Last Supper, but not in dialogue or “conversation,” but by means of inserting tempting scenarios of betrayal to Judas. Jesus is stating that he is aware that Judas was undergoing temptation for a while prior to that night because Jesus says “What you are going to do, do more swiftly than you seem to intend and make quick work of it.” So Jesus has known all along that Judas was listening to the temptations of Satan and was half hearted in his faith as a result. By stating that he is aware of Judas’ temptation by Satan Jesus forces Judas to make a decision once and for all on the spot. Judas decides to yield to Satan and thus Satan enters into Judas and Judas makes the “decision” to betray Jesus immediately, that very night.

So you can see that Satan does not have conversations or dialogue with humans. Satan is present only in the sense that Satan is like a constant flow of potential temptation to sin. Satan is thus very easy to defeat and many people are “Satan proof” in a sense because they simply do not respond to temptation. Satan tends to flow away from people that just don’t respond to temptations. Now by temptations you know I mean temptations to commit grave sin and to defy God, or disbelieve in God. I do not mean the very human temptations to try to get away with something that one really ought not to do, but is just an example of the less glorious side of human nature! Make no mistake; Satan is not trivial. That is why the old joke “The devil made me do it” is truly funny. It is used to describe human nature incidents that Satan would never bother to get involved in, and thus it is humorous to blame Satan for eating too many doughnuts or doing something else “bad.”

You see, Satan has contempt for those who fall for his temptations and tricks. And thus Satan (despite literature such as Faust) would never actually speak to a human or communicate with him other than to offer him temptations. If the temptations do not work then Satan “moves on.” How do we know that Satan has contempt for humans he solicits as followers? Well, Satan torments his followers in hell. I mean, think about it. If Satan was gratified and valued humans who follow him, then he would be able to provide them with a “comfortable” “reward” in hell. But hell is the place of total horror and torment, and Satan himself heaps it onto the people who are so stupid and contemptible, in his eyes, as to follow him there to hell! That is why I wonder about the intelligence of Satanists who advocate that they are just following the contrarian freedom loving agenda of Satan and are not really bad people. It is true that many people are duped into what seems like a very nature and/or rebellious oriented “philosophy” that admires and follows Satan, and those that are not actually performing profane ritual are misguided and dumb rather than evil. But you have to understand that the result is the same. If you are “evil” or if you are just misguided, if you follow Satan on earth then you end up in his realm, where only torment at his very hands awaits you for all eternity. Satan believes that people who are so incredibly stupid as to opt for him and hell deserve his total contempt in return. Satan is often astonished at what suckers humans are, and we know that because he attempts to explore the boundaries of how far a good man, Job, will go, if given “reasons” to hate God. Satan already knows how far stupid and mean people will go, but Satan is not omniscient. Therefore the Bible records an actual event where Satan tests his ability to tempt and fool a pious and virtuous man named Job by sending him (with God’s permission) afflictions. This is also why Satan has been known to attack certain saints. Again, Satan already knows how mendacious and stupid most of his followers are, but Satan explores the boundaries of what is genuinely unknown to him, which is how much he can corrupt the good.

Thus I have to remind people of several basic truths that numbskull new age cultist secular “spiritual” “thought” has diluted to the peril of the conditions on earth and the resulting judgment of individual souls on death as to whether they merit heaven or hell. The first is that Satan is real and his tool is temptation. Satan is powerless without temptation. If you are a person who is resistant and better yet oblivious to temptation, Satan has no contact with you whatsoever. Satan is entirely temptation-prone human oriented. Thus, even certain saints, being human, have chinks in their temptation armor, and thus Satan worked at them. Temptation is not just a matter of faith. Temptation is also a character and temperament problem, and can also be exacerbated by environmental and familial conditions, including other factors such as drug and alcohol abuse. Thus it should not be a surprise that even some very blessed saints had severe results of temptation by Satan, as that was their human temperament. They became saints because they resisted the weakness of their temptation, not because they never had temptation. Other saints and the vast majority of good average human people do not even feel the temptations of Satan and have total equanimity of spirit, even if imperfect as human beings.

Certain conditions promote opportunities for temptation by Satan: inflated ego with pride, power, and fortune (money). People who rise up in prominence and power also increase their vulnerability to Satan’s temptations. Power and money fuel Satan’s ability to bend a person toward idolatry and oppression of the less fortunate, while ego fuels Satan’s ability to tempt you into thinking you are a wise man or woman and a prophet. Thus, you can think of it as increasing the areas of target within you when you become rich, famous, powerful or narcissistic. Satan has “less to work with” among the poor and humble. This is why Job was an attractive target and why Satan was curious. Satan correctly viewed the prosperity of Job as an expanded area of target over the average poor pious man or woman. Satan theorized that threatening Job’s wealth, depriving him of it, and eventually of everything he had, including his health and family would be a prime temptation opportunity. Thus humility is a powerful weapon against Satan. If you are powerful and wealthy, but you are truly and consistently humble before God, then even those potential openings to temptation to turn against God and toward Satan are closed. Humility closes many of the doors between Satan and a human. Pride and narcissism opens doors to Satan. Genuine humility is one of the most powerful shields against Satan that you can imagine. The “hotter” and more prideful and arrogant that you are, the more likely you are to allow Satan to show you what eternal agonizing “hot” without God is really like. A genuinely humble man or woman almost never has to worry about anything that Satan does, for Satan ignores humans who have so effectively closed the door of temptation to him.

The other thing to remember is that Satan is not a “person,” a “soul” or a “spirit” that is part of the universe “life cycle.” You know what I mean. Yes, there are people stupid enough to think that Satan aka Lucifer is a “reincarnated” presence on earth. Anyone with a brain who reads the Qur’an or the Bible sees that Satan is not attached to humans, their lives, their bodies, their souls, their sense of time, or anything about them except as continuing targets for temptation recruitment. I am so tired of just plain bad and evil people who think they have “Lucifer” in their “lineage,” in any way shape or form. It’s just another excuse for self inflation, believing that you are or a relative have the ultimate “bad boy” in your “genealogy.” Trust me when I repeat the point I’ve made in prior blog postings; Satan hates “identity theft.” Just as the Lord God will smite and punish false prophets who dared to speak in his name, Satan, who always seeks to imitate, will punish terribly his “followers” once they are in his realm of hell, if they claimed to be him in any way, shape or form. Reread how Satan worked with his most famous “win,” Judas. Satan tempted him for a period, entered into him to make the decision, and then abandoned him like yesterday’s news once Judas made his betrayal (which he quickly regretted but committed suicide before seeking repentance). And obviously Satan was not “tied up” with only Judas; you can be sure that Satan was busy all over the earth even as he was doing the deed with Judas. So it is totally lame and stupid to believe that Satan has any attachment in time or space with any human, body or soul, and he certainly does not tie himself to some imaginary cycle of “alien reincarnation or whatever.” That’s why there is a Bible and a Qur’an to refer to, so that when you’ve had too much pot to smoke and when equally addicted narcissistic parents or “gurus” tell you otherwise, you can refer back to what really happened and observe the truth.

So what are demons? Demons do exist, but you have to remember that in Biblical times mental illness was not understood as a medical condition. So there are cases where demonic possession was blamed for schizophrenic or other mental illnesses. However, Jesus makes clear that demons exist and the Bible miracles document how Jesus was able to converse with demons (and they would recognize who he truly was) separate from the human who is afflicted. Again, demons, or jinn as they are called in the Qur’an, are manifestations of Satan. Think of them as individual “hooks” of temptation. A genuine demonic presence is thankfully very rare, but when they occur, you can see that they tend to be a “specialized” form of surrendering to a satanic temptation. Hitler is an example of a human who had a demonic possession. To put it in modern terms, think of genuine demonic possession as Satan’s continually live interface into a person. It is not possession by Satan because as I pointed out, Satan does not reside within a human, for even Judas he only possessed for a matter of moments, an hour at most, at the time of the actual deciding to betray Jesus and the performance of that betrayal. A genuine demonic possession is when Satan has a specific temptation “hook” into a person on a continual basis. That is why someone like Hitler can be so inflated and insane on the one hand, but then act like a normal human being (as much as is possible) in other circumstances. The demon constantly fuels the narcissistic and inflated power in Hitler that challenged God, yet fools oneself into thinking that he “understands” not only God, but destiny, the universe, occult powers and so forth. That is the hook that Satan identified and established permanent connectivity via what humans call a demon. Pol Pot is another example of a person who had a genuine demonic presence.

Humans need to understand that it has become more and more difficult to cast out a genuine demon, not that it was ever easy. This is because in more innocent times the entry into a person for a demon was a temptation, but the body and the mind were flawed yet not destroyed. The demon then destroys what it occupies. Nowadays there is a pressure by modern society on humans from their very birth to have trouble distinguishing reality from unreality. So the person who becomes occupied by a demon is much more “messed up” for lack of a better word in total before the demon even enters. That is why we see so many horrific examples of the amoral collapse in a frenzy of violence of more and more humans who disintegrate and merge into their identity with the demon. When Jesus worked to cast out demons (again, I mean the genuine ones, not the mislabeled mental health victims), it was easier to do so than it is now because demons could not entirely blur the line between reality and unreality. Human brains were very pragmatic and entirely rooted in the reality of being alive or dead, hungry or filled, sheltered or out in the cold or heat. There were none of the technical gimmicks or modern paradigms of today that blur the mind from childhood onward as to what is real and what is not. When Jesus expelled a demon from a sufferer, the core human identity and contact with reality remained intact. Thus you see people immediately become sensible and whole as soon as Jesus cast out the demon. Now in these times, people everywhere are increasingly disconnected as their norm, say nothing of those who are extremely alienated, from reality and unable to discern reality from unreality. Thus a genuine demonic possession today tends to destroy the entirety of the humanity of the person so that even if the demon were removed, nothing would remain of the person. This is another reason why humans are in such a terrible existential crisis and why it is urgent that humans dramatically lessen the blurring of reality and unreality. The blurring of reality and unreality is the increase in open doors to Satan, as I explained previously about narcissism, power and money. The less able a person is to distinguish between a fantasy world and reality the more they are opening doors to Satan and total control and destruction. This is why you are having more and more insane people and demonic possessed people claiming to receive “messages” from God, Satan, “aliens” or whatever. Trust me; what is epidemic now was very rare in Biblical times. Satan has incredibly “easy pickings” with so many people who are programmed from childhood to have trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality.

That is why I have little sympathy for people who commit horrible crimes and acts and who claim that “God” or “Satan” told them to do so. Again, think this through so you realize I am not slamming the genuinely mentally ill. Genuinely mentally ill people tend to be in a continuous state of low impulse control. They can’t stop experiencing their mental symptoms, such as being depressed, or hallucinating, just to give two examples. It is like having a broken arm or a cold. It’s not like you have the broken arm one day, then the next day it is fine, and the third day it is broken again. A mentally ill person is a consistently mentally ill person, even if they have “good days” and “bad days,” just like a cold, their mental illness is a continuing presence. But people who totally flip out and do something incredibly cold and gory while also claiming communication by God, Satan or whoever fall into one of two categories. It is possible that the person is having a total psychotic breakdown, and thus it is a mental illness. But it is also possible that the person has chosen a temptation, namely inflation, of taking onto themselves godlike powers or the claim to being in contact with divine powers, due to a combination of weak ability to distinguish reality from fantasy and accepting a demonic linkage. How can you tell the difference? Here is one rule of thumb. If the person is mentally collected enough that they could have told someone they are in trouble, if they knew what they were doing is wrong and would be punished, and if they plan the “psychotic breakdown” out in advance, I view that as willfully choosing a demonic temptation. This is not to say that a mental illness or stress did not lay the groundwork. But a person who, for examples, kills all her children knowing it is wrong and having the capacity to pick up the phone and get someone to stop her is, in my opinion, a person who chose a demonic option and is not a valid “mental health” defense. I’m getting a little into legal matters but I know it is easier to understand what I am saying if I can provide examples.

Another example is a man who kills his children so that he can “make his wife suffer.” This is a person who has accepted a demonic temptation because he has put himself in the position of thinking that he “knows” what will happen to him (if he suicides) and the children, and that he has the right to “punish” his ex. This is a problem of theology and reality/unreality perception. When one kills one is making an assumption that one “knows” that whatever one thinks of the afterlife, or not, is true. That is godlike inflation in addition to a crime. Thus it is a different and more likely willful demonic acceptance than someone who just annoys the ex by stealing her car. It’s not just the magnitude of the crime but also the certainty of one’s own inflated perception to judge another person’s life and happiness/suffering as if one were God. Therefore I do not, in general, accept “mental illness” in child killing because if you listen to any of these people you will hear that they have become “instant experts” in theology, rationalizing that they (the killer) will be “together with their children” somewhere. Huh? Not so much.

So to wrap up this discussion and bring it into full circle, here is a summary. Satan is not running around getting involved in the details of people’s sin lives, nor is Satan attached in any way to human or universal life cycles. Satan is a continuing presence of temptation for the “big ticket items,” which is destroying faith in God, idolatry, power mongering and so forth. I just thought of an example, abortion, to help you discern. If a woman becomes pregnant and contemplates an abortion, Satan is not tempting her. Where Satan did "his work" is to create in the first place the lack of faith crisis and the narcissism that enabled the overall culture of death where abortion (the death of a baby) is an easily contemplated “option.” So Satan is not pursing the poor woman who is making this dreadful “choice,” even though abortion is a sin. An individual abortion is “small potatoes” to Satan, in contrast to God who values highly each and every life. Satan’s success is in tempting entire communities and societies away from God as a whole, which blurs then belief in God or not, reality or not, morals/virtues and self containment or “anything goes options.” Satan does not bother with individuals and Satan looks down upon and despises those who do follow him (after all, Satan knows full well the reality of God, so think about how stupid he thinks people who do not believe in God are in truth). Satan is easily repelled through a serenity and humility in the face of temptations. Satan is attracted by narcissism, pride, power mongering and wealth. Demons are real, thankfully rare, but are of concern because societal changes have created many more openings for them with fewer cures or restraints. Demons may be thought of as the acceptance of a specific temptation by Satan that develops into a surrendering of some or all self constraint into the specific temptation symptomology. Hitler can be thought of as a person who accepted a demonic temptation and thus was “possessed,” but definitely not “innocent by reason of insanity.” Satan and demons/jinn have no connection to the false beliefs in karma, reincarnation or aliens as they are not connected to human bodies, souls or timeframes in any way, shape or form. All of karma and reincarnation as a spiritual model is totally false, but what I am saying is that one cannot even make an argument for meshing Satan and demons to such “theories” because of the demonstrated nature of Satan and demons as clearly demonstrated in the Bible and the Qur’an. Judas is a valuable case study to understand how Satan operated in his greatest “success story” to understand that temptation is the process and “accepting the deal” is momentary “giving the wheel” to Satan, but not a relationship in any form.

I hope that you all find this useful.

Bible reading and commentary re: prophets

2 Kings 13: 1-32

And behold there came a man of God out of Juda, by the word of the Lord to Bethel, when Jeroboam was standing upon the altar, and burning incense. And he cried out against the altar in the word of the Lord, and said: O Altar, Altar, thus saith the Lord: Behold a child shall be born to the house of David, Josias by name, and he shall immolate upon thee the priests of the high places, who now burn incense upon thee, and he shall burn men’s bones upon thee. And he gave a sign the same day, saying: This shall be the sign, that the Lord hath spoken: Behold the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out.

[What is happening here is that the King of Israel Jeroboam had turned to idolatry, forging golden calves to be worshipped. God raised an unnamed prophet from Juda to come and warn Jeroboam of his wickedness, disobedience and the dire consequences of his idolatry. Here he also prophesies the name of a future King of Israel, Josias. When you read the lineage of Jesus Christ in Matthew 1:1 you will find the name of Josias there, shortly before the captivity in Babylon].

And when the king had heard the word of the man of God, which he had cried out against the altar in Bethel, he stretched forth his hand from the altar, saying: Lay hold on him. And his hand which he stretched forth against him withered: and he was not able to draw it back to him. The altar also was rent, and the ashes were poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given before in the word of the Lord. And the king said to the man of God: Entreat the face of the Lord thy God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored to me. And the man of God besought the face of the Lord, and the king’s hand was restored to him, and it became as it was before. And the king said to the man of God: come home with me to dine, and I will make thee presents. And the man of God answered the king: If thou wouldst give me half thy house I will not go with thee, nor eat bread, nor drink water in this place; for so it was enjoined me by the word of the Lord commanding me: Thou shalt not eat bread nor drink water, nor return by the same way that thou camest. So he departed by another way, and returned not by the way that he came into Bethel.

[Here is what happened. When the prophet gave his dire message from God to Jeroboam, Jeroboam reached out his hand to indicate that the guards should seize and harm the prophet. At this point God strikes the hand of Jeroboam, destroys the altar and pours the ashes to the floor. (The pouring of the ashes to the floor is a sign of rejection by God of that sacrifice. That is mentioned in the Book of Revelation too). Notice that the sign by God is triggered by the hostile reaction by Jeroboam. If Jeroboam had repented on the spot then the sign would not have happened in theory. But God knows all and knew what Jeroboam’s reaction would be to the prophet of God, hence the prophet of God accurately prophesied the rending of the altar and the ashes being poured out and it happened, due to Jeroboam’s reaction, on the spot. The downfall of the burning of men’s bones remains a prophesy for the future fall of Jeroboam and Israel. Jeroboam is horrified at his withered and seized hand and begs the prophet of God to intercede with God for him, and the prophet of God does pray to God on his behalf regarding the hand of Jeroboam. God grants the prayers of the prophet of God and restores the hand of Jeroboam.

Here Jeroboam now invites the prophet of God to dine with him and receive presents, but the prophet of God refuses, revealing more of what God had previously instructed him. God had told him not to tarry and not to take the same paths when he travels. This is not a magical charm, a superstition, or obsessive compulsive disorder. The reason God gives such instructions is that he does not want the prophet to “engage in dialogue.” The prophet is to deliver his message and LEAVE. He is not to honor anyone he encounters with his company or give them an “opportunity” to “argue” their position with the prophet of God. The prophet of God is not to sit at dinner with this idolater and apostate and “listen” to his “explanations” about why he made the golden calves and ordered their worship. So this is why the Lord told the prophet of God to not stay anywhere but his own home and also to never take the same paths (so he will not encounter the same people a second time, thus given them a “chance” to “argue” or “comment” on what they have been told to do on behalf of God by the prophet of God)].

Now a certain old prophet dwelt in Bethel, and his sons came to him and told him all the works that the man of god had done that day in Bethel; and they told their father the words which he had spoken to the king. And their father said to them: What way went he? His sons showed him the way by which the man of God went, who came out of Juda. And he said to his sons: Saddle me the ass. And when they had saddled him, he got up, and went after the man of God, and found him sitting under a turpentine tree; and he said to him: Art thou the man of God that camest from Juda? He answered: I am. And he said to him: Come home with me, to eat bread. But he said: I cannot return, nor go with thee, neither will I eat bread, nor drink water in this place, because the Lord spoke to me in the word of the Lord, saying: Thou shalt not eat bread, and thou shalt not drink water there, nor return by the way thou wentest. He said to him: I also am a prophet like unto thee, and an angel spoke to me in the word of the Lord, saying: Bring him back with thee into thy house, that he may eat bread, and drink water. He deceived him, and brought him back with him; so he ate bread and drank water in his house.

[Here is what happened. It turns out that another legitimate prophet of God, also unnamed here in the scripture, lived in the town of Bethel. This Bethel prophet’s sons either witnessed or heard about the prophet of God’s encounter with Jeroboam and reported what they had heard to their father. This father gave in to temptation and decided to pursue the prophet of God in order to pump him for information and find out more. He probably meant no harm, especially if he had been forced to witness the abominations of Jeroboam; the Bethel prophet may even have wanted to hear words of support from the prophet of God. But when he hears that the prophet of God cannot return to Bethel to eat or drink, or even by the same path, the Bethel prophet sins and lies that an angel told him that it’s basically “all right now to eat bread, drink water, and return by the same path to Bethel.” The prophet of God foolishly believes the Bethel prophet. I say foolishly because just as he had prayed to restore the hand of Jeroboam, and God answered, the prophet of God could have paused and asked God in prayer for a sign if the Bethel prophet was telling the truth. But instead he believes the Bethel prophet and hence disobeys God].

And so they sat at table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet that brought him back; and he creid out to the man of god who came out of Juda, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Because thou hast not been obedient to the Lord, and hast not kept the commandment which the Lord thy God commanded thee, and hast returned and eaten bread, and drunk water in the place wherein he commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat bread, nor drink water, thy dead body shall not be brought into the sepulcher of thy fathers.

[And so the tragedy of two legitimate prophets who each sin and disobey comes to terrible fruition. The Bethel prophet who lies to the prophet of God in order to pump him for more information now receives validation directly from God the very instructions that the prophet of God had explained to the Bethel prophet. So the Bethel prophet lied to the prophet of God to bring him back to Bethel only to now hear directly from God that the prophet of God will now be punished for disobeying God. Again, it’s not the disobedience per se; it is the second guessing God’s will. God did not want the prophet of God to return and rehash conversations with the sinners in Bethel after delivering his message. But instead of pausing and asking God for clarity, the prophet of God believes the lie of the Bethel prophet. Two legitimate prophets of God now have brought about their downfall and diluted the opportunity for the fullness of the message and works of God in this situation].

And when he had eaten and drunk, he saddled his ass for the prophet, whom he had brought back. And when he was gone, a lion found him in the way, and killed him, and his body was cast in the way. And the ass stood by him, and the lion stood by the dead body. And behold, men passing by saw the dead body cast in the way, and the lion standing by the body. And they came and told it in the city, wherein that old prophet dwelt. And when that prophet, who had brought him back out of the way, heard of it and said: It is the man of God, that was disobedient to the mouth of the Lord, and the Lord that delivered him to the lion, and he hath torn him, and killed him according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke to him. And he said to his sons: Saddle me an ass. And when they had saddled it, and he was gone, he found the dead body cast in the way, and the ass and the lion standing by the carcass: the lion had not eaten of the dead body, nor hurt the ass.

[So immediately upon leaving the meal he should not have had at having disobeyed God by returning to Bethel by the same path, the prophet of God is attacked and slain by a lion. The lion remains by the body of the prophet of God, and does not eat the body nor harm the ass, so that the people will know this is a sign from God and not an accidental death. The travelers realize this and go back to the town to spread word of what they saw, which reaches the ears of the Bethel prophet. He immediately realizes that the validation of the prophecy that he received has come true and that the body that has been cast in the road must be the punished prophet of God. So he goes, as he knows it is his duty, having caused the original temptation to the prophet of God, in order to retrieve the body from the lion’s watch].

And the prophet took up the body of the man of God, and laid it upon the ass, and going back brought it into the city of the old prophet, to mourn for him. And he laid his dead body in his own sepulcher. And they mourned over him, saying: Alas! Alas! My brother! And when they had mourned over him, he said to his sons: When I am dead, bury me in the sepulcher wherein the man of God is buried, lay my bones beside his bones. For assuredly the word shall come to pass which he hath foretold in the word of the Lord against the altar that is in Bethel, and against all the temples of the high places, that are in the cities of Samaria.

[By the way, reading the rest of this chapter you will learn that far from the prophet of God having an impact on Jeroboam, he actually sinned even more grievously, thus bringing about his own and his house’s demise, as per “he shall burn men’s bones upon thee.” The Bethel prophet honors the prophet of God, mourning him and burying him with his own family, realizing that he had through his temptation of the prophet of God cut short the life of this prophet who was now proven to have given great prophecy. The Bethel prophet now knows that all will come to ruin as the prophet of God had warned].

***

I do not know of a stronger episode in the Bible warning against interference in the prophecy of God than this story of the historical occurrence of the events of two legitimate prophets of God who mutually sin through temptation and disobedience. (This is not a parable, for those of you used to only reading the New Testament and paying the most attention to the parables of Jesus. The Old Testament is the record of actual events, just as the Gospel records actual events in the life of Jesus and the Apostles and disciples). Imagine even more so the grave consequences of false prophets who claim to “hear God” and to “know God’s will.” The prophet of God who gave mighty prophecy and restores through his prayer the hand of Jeroboam is fallen the same day because he disobeys God. What is a person thinking who has conducted mighty words and works on God’s behest, and then immediately believes the word of a stranger prophet to now disobey the very God who had channeled through him his prophecy only hours earlier? This is the broken and inflated ego of humans. You can give them everything and they will still sin and disobey. And the prophet of Bethel, all he wanted was to hear good news, but he wanted to hear more than was given to him to receive, and he took it in his own hands to obtain more prophecy and worse, to claim that an angel had appeared to him when one had not. And this is a legitimate prophet who had previously directly received God’s word! How foolish and greedy for their own power are humans. Let this be the strongest cautionary reminder that even those who are legitimately given gifts by God will be punished most severely if they tempt others, sin, or disobey, especially when thinking they can nudge along or manipulate deeds and plans that God is already putting into motion. The consequences for the individuals and for the people whom God is trying to reach and convert are dire, and far from helping they harm their own ability to work with God by serving him without self aggrandizing.