CHURCHES FOR SALE WHERE HAVE THE CHRISTIANS GONE? A Choir Boy’s Perspective
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Where is Satan? It is convenient to blame Satan or the Devil for all the evil on Earth. What does Satan or the Devil look like and where is he? If Satan will be bound for 1,000 years, between now and then where is he? If we don’t know where Satan lives, we can never solve our social problems. When Satan was “cast down,” where did he go? If Satan were an entity challenging God Almighty for thousands of years, why should he not have been destroyed? The God who created the world by the word of His mouth can destroy it or Satan by the word of his mouth. The Almighty destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for less than what Satan is said to be doing since Adam and Eve walked on this planet. God Almighty cannot be getting along with Satan. In the Garden of Eden, the Devil was represented by the talking snake as the agent of temptation to arouse the spirit of disobedience. Is the snake in the bush crawling on its belly still the Devil? When Jesus Christ was tempted, the Devil was not the snake. Also, when Peter who later became the head of the Church rebuked Jesus, He said to Peter:” Get behind Me Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men” (Matthew 16 :23). Was Peter, the Satan? Satan has been shown as a dragon. The people in ancient cultures spoke in metaphors and allegory. The Devil or Satan is neither in heaven nor in the ether. The Devil is the spirit of disobedience or the embodiment of the disobedience of God. Satan or the Devil is synonymous with the disobedience of God just as Quisling is synonymous with a traitor. Being the first to do what they did became a symbol. The Devil, Satan, the spirit of disobedience or the evil spirit is the default mode in man. Adam and Eve sinned. They did not steal, commit adultery or murder. They ate the forbidden fruit and disobeyed God. That is sin. That propensity to disobey God is in every human being created with a free will rather than a robotic mind. The free will has two sides - obedience and disobedience. The Holy Spirit is a prompter of what is right or wrong. The evil spirit or human nature is a prompter of a perversion of what is right or wrong. To fail to accept the offer of the Holy Spirit and obey the Commandments but blame Satan for every wrong in society is disingenuous. Can anybody name a wrong done to him or her by Satan rather than a human being? If there are no humans on Mars, will Satan be there? Since there is good and evil in everyone, there is good and evil in the world. Submission to divine authority mitigates that propensity to do wrong. In the distant past, the church attempted to exorcise the evil spirit from man. It was not successful. Satan cannot cast out Satan. The Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit alone can replace the evil spirit. Replacing the evil spirit must be the desire of a willing host. Jesus Christ said: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” (Luke 11:13). Before blaming Satan for the next evil deed, our Clerics should follow the Great Commission and teach their flock to ask God Almighty to download the Holy Spirit and pre-empt the next evil deed. The Holy Spirit turns the human animal into” a living soul.” A living soul lives by the Golden Rule that separates man from beast. Nations have a government and the opposition to the government. Satan has been overrated as the head of the opposition to God’s sovereignty. The Almighty God has no opposition but disobedient people. Jesus said: “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ and not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). To claim that Jesus died for our sins and ignore His message - the Golden Rule, the Great Commandment and the New Commandment - is self-deceit. For humans, any policy that is not based on God’s Golden Rule is not inspired by the Holy Spirit. Imagine a world where everybody and all Americans live by the Golden Rule – “Treat others the same way that you want them to treat you.” Will there be wars, racism, misogyny, cybercrimes, family violence and more? What is preventing that world? It is man’s spirit of disobedience otherwise known as Satan. Man is the enemy of his own soul. The world will get better the sooner we stopped blaming Satan and took responsibility for what we do or fail to do under the influence of the Holy Spirit or the spirit of disobedience. Satan lives in us, not in the sky. When God Almighty revokes man’s free will, that is the end of Satan. Satan is us.
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About the Book
Actions have consequences. Since the 1960s many churches have been deconsecrated, sold and turned into commercial use. Did the post - apostolic church follow the easy Broadway or the narrow and difficult way that leads to life? That Jesus died for our past, present and future sins is not the narrow and difficult way but the easy way that leads to moral decline. The United States has produced great preachers. There was Billy Sunday, Dwight L Moody, Evelyn Wyatt, Rex Humbard, Oral Roberts, Robert Schuler and Billy Graham. They did their best but the world was better when they started preaching than when they passed away. The same will be said about the current batch of preachers. This is not prophecy; it is ongoing reality. The moral decline will continue because the Imperial Church did not fully implement the Great Commission. Consequently, in 2,000 years, the church has done what the Mother Church of Jews and Gentiles would not have done. Because of the dissonance between the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the practice thereof, disaffected Christians leave and their churches are sold. The moral decline can be controlled or reversed. Learn about: Who opened the Pandora’s box. The church Establishment: Regent or Executor? A Moratorium on the Epistles. The Deer in the Jungle. A Tale of two faith Traditions. Christianity for Dummies. Prayers for what? The case for cultural Populism. Capitalism, Culture and Empty Pews. War and Peace. When Pastors Retire. This is a must read before leaving this world.
About the Author
S.N. Duru attended one of ten Christian boarding schools in Southeast Nigeria. As a prefect, he learned that education includes discipline and responsibility. He taught Junior High School, ran a Red Cross feeding center for starving children before joining the Biafra Army. He attended Bible College and University in Saskatchewan, Canada. He is the author of “When Culture Overrules God and Reason.”