JOHN LENNON'S 'IMAGINE' AND SECULAR HUMANISM : PART 2
Copyright 1994 - 2008 Endtime Prophecy Org
Last Updated : July 23, 2006
God Is Slow To Anger, Chastisement In This Life, Snare Of
Pagan Gods And Idolatry, Iconoclasts Secular Humanism,
Wicked Human Heart, Sin Of Worldliness And Materialism, One
Of Two Masters, False Doctrine Of Abundant Life, Temporal Or
Eternal Rewards?, God Of This World, No Other Gods, Satan
The Deceiver, Don't Glory In Your Flesh, The Creative And
Destructive Power of Words, The Invisible Spiritual War
The Scriptures clearly point out to us that under normal
circumstances, the Lord is very patient, and very merciful,
and slow to anger with His wayward children. Consider the
following set of verses, all found within the Old Testament:
"And refused to obey, neither were mindful of thy wonders
that thou didst among them; but hardened their necks, and in
their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their
bondage: but thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and
merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and
forsookest them not." (Nehemiah 9:17)
"The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and
plenteous in mercy." (Psalms 103:8)
"The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to
anger, and of great mercy." (Psalms 145:8)
"And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto
the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to
anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the
evil." (Joel 2:13)
"And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD,
was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country?
Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou
art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of
great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil."
(Jonah 4:2)
"The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not
at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the
whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of
his feet." (Nahum 1:3)
There are two things we can learn from these verses. While
the Lord is slow to anger and full of mercy, if it does come
time for Him to chastise His children, it must mean that we
have really pushed Him to the limit with our rebelliousness.
This is clearly evident by the story of vain King Herod. The
time came when Herod's evil heart was so lifted up against
the Lord, that God finally felt obligated to mete out His
swift judgments. Herod had more than filled up his cup of
iniquity; and thus the righteous judgments of the Lord fell
upon him. This also teaches us that Divine Punishment is not
always reserved for the afterlife as many people have been
led to believe; that is, at the Great White Throne Judgment.
If certain people are evil enough, God will deal with them
here and now; and sometimes quite severely. Please keep this
point in mind, as I will be discussing it again towards the
end of this series. I am reminded of the following verse
found in Peter's first Epistle:
"For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house
of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be
of them that obey not the gospel of God?"
(1 Peter 4:17)
Of course, in most cases, when the Bible discusses idolatry,
it isn't normally referring to actual people, but rather to
wooden, stone or metal images created in the likeness of the
false gods of the heathen. As I've explained in my in-depth
series 'The Fruits Of Disobedience', it was this very same
pagan idolatry which became a snare for the Israelites, and
caused them to fall into deep sin against the Lord time and
time again. The Lord specifically warned them of what would
happen if they didn't obey His Voice and destroy the heathen
in Canaan, but they stubbornly refused to obey; and this
ultimately resulted in His fierce judgments falling upon
them, either through plagues, or else through the hands of
their heathen enemies. Consider the following verses:
"And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the
sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river:
for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your
hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee. Thou shalt
make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall
not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me:
for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto
thee." (Exodus 23:31-33)
"And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy
God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon
them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be
a snare unto thee." (Deuteronomy 7:16)
"And an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and
said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you
unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I
will never break my covenant with you. And ye shall make no
league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw
down their altars: but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have
ye done this? Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them
out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your
sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you."
(Judges 2:1-3)
Rather than go into great detail concerning the idolatry of
ancient Israel, I encourage you to read the aforementioned
series, as it is quite a thorough treatise on the subject.
In the New Testament, the word 'idol' is transliterated from
the Greek 'eidolon'. Similar to this word is the Greek word
'eikon'; which is transliterated into English as 'icon', or
'ikon'. An icon is any type of sacred image. It is from this
word that we derive our word 'iconoclast'; which is a person
who destroys false idols, or icons, of any kind. Some good
examples of iconoclasts would be the God-fearing kings of
ancient Israel who removed the idol worship and the child
sacrifices from the land; such as David, Hezekiah, Josiah,
etc. Consider the following example:
"Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he
reigned in Jerusalem one and thirty years. And he did that
which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the
ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right
hand, nor to the left. For in the eighth year of his reign,
while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of
David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge
Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves,
and the carved images, and the molten images. And they brake
down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images,
that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves,
and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in
pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the
graves of them that had sacrificed unto them. And he burnt
the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed
Judah and Jerusalem. And so did he in the cities of
Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with
their mattocks round about. And when he had broken down the
altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into
powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land
of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem."
(2 Chronicles 34:1-7)
The common denominator between all of the various forms of
idolatry that I have described for you, is that they all
center around the worship of man and human achievement, with
little, or absolutely no regard for, the God of the Bible.
Regardless of whether we are discussing the idolatry of our
modern day, or of idolatry from thousands of years ago, all
of these things are the product of man's pride and vanity,
which are born of the evilness of his own heart. They are
all proud attempts by sinful man to elevate himself above
his Creator. This worldly attitude in which evil men seek to
become the center of their own existence, instead of living
God-centered lives is today referred to as secular humanism.
While some people proudly resist admitting their own evil
condition, as I point out in many other articles, the Lord,
through the Prophet Jeremiah, clearly exposed the wickedness
of the human heart when He said the following:
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)
What the Lord is basically saying here, is that our heart is
so evil, that we can't even begin to fathom the depth of its
wickedness! Working in conjunction with our brain, our heart
protects itself by feeding us all kinds of lies to keep us
living in a state of delusion. Our heart will tell us how
good we are, and how great we are, and that there is really
nothing wrong with us; so why do we even need a God? This is
the same old satanic lie disguised in the modern wrapper of
'I'm okay; you're okay; everyone is okay; there is no such
thing as sin'. Of course, as Christians, we know that is in
direct contrast to the words spoken by our Lord in the New
Testament where He also exposed our sinful nature:
"But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth
from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the
heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,
fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are
the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen
hands defileth not a man." (Matthew 15:18-20)
The main point I wish for you to consider here, is that all
of these different forms of idolatry, whether they be the
worship of man, or the worship of things created by man, are
a manifestation of our own wicked hearts. As I have stated
before, the physical world is simply a manifestation of the
spiritual; and if we use that as a barometer to measure our
spiritual condition, the vast majority of humankind is doing
very poorly. The Bible clearly indicates that the artificial
world in which we now live, is clearly inspired by Satan,
and is most certainly not of God. In his first Epistle, the
Apostle John wrote the following revealing lines:
"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the
world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is
not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the
flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is
not of the Father, but is of the world."
(1 John 2:15-16)
The above verses should really shock any Christian who finds
himself trapped in the world and enjoying it. John clearly
tells us that if we love this present world, the love of the
Father is not in us, because these desires are not of Him.
In other words, we don't really love God; we love the world
and all of the things that it has to offer. Jesus Himself
told us that we cannot possibly love both. We must make a
choice between our Heavenly Father, and the materialistic
world of mammon around us. In the sixth chapter of the
Gospel of Matthew, our Lord said:
"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the
one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one,
and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
(Matthew 6:24)
It is so sad, because there are many people in the world
today, including many Christians, who honestly think that
they can serve both, in total contradiction to our Lord's
own words. They preach this modern lie called the 'abundant
life'. They have been deceived into believing that God, our
Heavenly Father, has blessed them with their wealth and
lavish material lifestyles; even though Jesus Christ and His
own Apostles did not live this way; nor any of the Disciples
who followed in their footsteps. This lie of materialistic
worship was introduced to Christianity several hundred years
later after the compromise had occurred between the rulers
of Rome, and the Disciples who had never known Jesus Christ
nor the First and Second Generation Christians. These were
the formative years of what is today known as the Roman
Catholic Church.
While John tells us that these things are of the world, and
while Christ tells us that we cannot serve God and mammon,
the Apostle Paul goes a step further by telling us exactly
who has blinded us to the Truth of God's Word, and who we
are serving, when we love this present world, and all of the
things which pertain to it. As the following verses reveal,
he tells us that we are serving the god of this world, the
prince of the power of the air; that is, Satan himself:
"In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of
them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto
them." (2 Corinthians 4:4)
"Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of
this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now worketh in the children of
disobedience:" (Ephesians 2:2)
When we walk 'according to the course of this world', not
only are we contradicting the words of Jesus Christ who told
us that we His followers are not of this world; not only are
we contradicting the words of the Apostle Paul who told us
to not conform to this world, but we are in fact making
ourselves the very enemies of God; because we have set up
another god before Him! These ideas are clearly supported by
verses such as the following:
"If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but
because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out
of the world, therefore the world hateth you."
(John 15:19)
"I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them,
because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the
world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the
world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They
are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."
(John 17:14-16)
"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed
by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that
good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."
(Romans 12:2)
"Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the
friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever
therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of
God." (James 4:4)
You, my friend, are the enemy of God if you think that you
can be a part of the world, and a part of God's Kingdom. Do
you understand that? When you say that you can have one foot
in the world, and one foot in the Kingdom of God, you are
denying the Truth of every Scripture I have just presented
to you. You are calling Jesus Christ, His Disciples, and God
the Father liars. That is how serious it is; and this is why
I detest all of those false preachers and teachers who push
the false doctrine of the abundant life. Instead of waiting
patiently for their rewards in Heaven as Jesus instructed us
to do, they want it all now in this world. They want worldly
recognition; they want worldly wealth; they want a late
model automobile; they want people to praise their name on
radio and television. They want their picture plastered on
book covers, or across the Internet, and wherever else they
can get it. They want their name on everyone's lips. They
want the praise, and they want the glory; and they want it
now; but what did Jesus say?:
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth
and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and
steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where
neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not
break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there
will your heart be also." (Matthew 6:19-21)
Well, do you now what? God will give them exactly what they
want; He will give them their reward in this life; afterall,
He did the very same thing with the spiritual leaders of
Israel several thousand years ago. While they too were
convinced that their material abundance was a blessing from
God, Jesus Himself told us quite plainly that they were
bowing to another master. Consider the following verses:
"Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen
of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is
in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not
sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the
synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of
men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when
thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right
hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father
which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. And
when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are:
for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the
corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily
I say unto you, They have their reward." (Matthew 6:1-5)
"Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad
countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may
appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have
their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine
head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to
fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy
Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly."
(Matthew 6:16-18)
"Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on
him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him,
lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved
the praise of men more than the praise of God."
(John 12:42-43)
The worldly reward that these people received, came not from
the God of Heaven, but rather from the god of this world;
from the father of lies; Satan himself; their true master;
into whose hand this power has been given for a time. As I
point out in other articles, Satan boasted of this very fact
when he tempted our Lord just before the commencement of His
Earthly Ministry. Consider the following verses:
"And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give
thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me;
and to whomsoever I will I give it." (Luke 4:6)
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your
father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and
abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.
When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a
liar, and the father of it." (John 8:44)
Not only did Jesus clearly expose those materialistic and
pharisaical Jews as being of their father the devil, but He
also informs us that Satan has been a liar since Day One. As
most of us know, since the beginning of Creation, Satan,
disguised in one form or another, has sought to cause man to
fall into sin; that is, to transgress the Laws of God; for
as John tells us, sin is the transgression of the Law. In
the Book of Exodus, we discover that one of God's primary
laws is that we will have no other gods before Him. Consider
the following verses:
"Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for
sin is the transgression of the law." (1 John 3:4)
"And God spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy
God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out
of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods
before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,
or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or
that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under
the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor
serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto
the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;"
(Exodus 20:1-5)
Despite this very explicit commandment from the Lord, for
literally thousands of years now, mankind has done the exact
opposite. Not only has he worshipped many false gods, but as
we have clearly seen, man has worshipped himself; he has
worshipped the works of his own hands; instead of the one
true Creator; who alone deserves all of the praise, and all
of the glory. Since the days of Adam and Eve, that vile
serpent Satan has convinced man that he can be his own god;
and that he doesn't need a far away invisible God in Heaven.
Allow me to remind you again of that subtle deceiver's first
words to foolish Eve:
"For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your
eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good
and evil." (Genesis 3:5)
'You can be your own gods Eve! Just eat the fruit, Eve! You
can be the master of your own fate! You don't need the Big
Guy in the sky! Here; give some to Adam so he can share in
your glory!'; and thus began the awful downward spiral of
humankind, which has continued to this very day. It began
with the murder of righteous Abel; and it will end with a
One World Goverment under the Beast and the False Prophet,
who will likewise persecute the Saints of the Most High God.
From the Tower of Babel where man tried to make a name for
himself, only to be brought down by Divine Confusion, to the
final confusion of worldwide Babylon the Great found in the
Book of Revelation, the whole story has already been written
since thousands of years ago. This then is the ultimate form
of idolatry; man worshipping man, and the creations of his
own hands; trying to create his own utopian world without
any room for, and without any help from, the one true God of
the Heavenlies; El Shaddai.
While King David was dearly loved by the Lord, as we all
know, he was only human, and had problems with yielding
himself to the desires of his flesh. We are all familiar
with the story of David and Bathsheba. While the Lord viewed
this as a great sin, it upsets Him even more when we strive
to glory in our own strength and wisdom; instead of giving
Him the credit for everything. Our God is indeed a jealous
God, and whenever we place anything before Him, including
worshipping our own power and achievements, He becomes very
angry. In the article 'Nephilim: The Giants Of Genesis', I
mention how, against the better judgment of his peers, King
David decided to take a census of Israel. In his vanity, he
wanted to measure the size and power of Israel. He wanted to
feel a little glory in the flesh. As a result of this grave
sin, the Lord sent a plague into the land; and we are told
that seventy thousand people died because of it. You can
read the whole story in 2 Samuel chapter twenty-four, and in
the first Book of the Chronicles chapter twenty-one.
This is one of the key lessons that the Lord has been trying
to teach humankind since the beginning of Creation; to trust
only in Him; to look only to Him; and to not dare take any
credit to ourselves; to not glory in our flesh, for we most
certainly are not any kind of gods as Satan would have us to
believe. Perhaps it was after the previous bitter experience
that King David wrote the following wise line found in the
Book of Psalms:
"Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will
remember the name of the LORD our God." (Psalms 20:7)
As I have shared many times before, we must never look to
ourselves for the answers; we must never look to our own
strength or wisdom for the answers; we must only look to the
Lord. This is precisely the message that the Angel gave to
the Prophet Zechariah to deliver to Zerubbabel, who was
responsible for building the Second Temple following the
return from Babylon. Consider the following verses:
"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto
thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him,
and he shall direct thy paths." (Proverbs 3:5-6)
"Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the
word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor
by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts."
(Zechariah 4:6)
Exactly what was the weapon that Satan used to bring about
the original downfall of humankind? As I have pointed out
before, it was three simple words which he stated in the
form of a doubt; 'hath God said'. Those three words were
enough to 'upset the applecart' so-to-speak. Remember' the
devil is a copycat; he is a usurper. He doesn't have an
original 'bone' in his body as we say in American slang. All
Satan knows how to do is to take God's Word, and to twist it
and to pervert. We know for a fact that God was the first
one to use the power of the spoken word, for as we are told
in the Scriptures:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with
God. All things were made by him; and without him was not
any thing made that was made." (John 1:1-3)
"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by
the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made
of things which do appear. (Hebrews 11:3)
"Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days
scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where
is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell
asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning
of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of,
that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the
earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby
the world that then was, being overflowed with water,
perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by
the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against
the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."
(2 Peter 3:3-7)
Thus we can see that while God normally uses His word, or
Word, meaning Jesus, to create, Satan also uses words to try
to destroy the very same work of God. This is also why he is
sometimes referred to as the destroyer in the Bible. I have
mentioned in some of my Endtime articles that the two Hebrew
and Greek names Abaddon and Apollyon mentioned in the Book
of Revelation, both mean 'destroyer' or 'destruction'. This
is the name of the angel of the Bottomless Pit; and this is
also where we are told that Satan will be cast during the
Millennium:
"And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the
bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon,
but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon."
(Revelation 9:11)
"And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of
the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he
laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the
Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast
him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal
upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till
the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he
must be loosed a little season." (Revelation 20:1-3)
Just as God's Word creates, and Satan's words destroy, in
like manner, God's written Word gives faith, while Satan's
words produce doubts. They are two forces as oppositve as
night and day. I'll be sharing a very clear example of this
with you in just a moment. Sadly, through the inspiration of
Satan, ungodly men have also learned to harness the awesome
power of words. The right words can be world shakers and
psychological manipulators. He who controls the flow of
words in the world, controls the world; and the invisible
behind-the-scenes powers who control the mass media of the
world know this full well. Through the crafty manipulation
of words, public opinion is shaped; and one is praised as a
hero, while another is condemned as a villain. Bombs leave
an ugly mess to clean up afterwards, but words are an
invisible clean killer. History is not necessarily what is
true, but rather what is written by the victor, whether he
be good or evil.
The reason our words are so powerful, is because they are
spiritual things. The thoughts we think, and the words we
speak are influenced by spiritual forces. Our words either
reflect our yieldedness to God, or else our submission to
Satan. These ideas should not seem foreign to you; afterall,
in the New Testament, we find verses such as the following:
"It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth
nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit,
and they are life." (John 6:63)
"For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper
than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow,
and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the
heart." (Hebrews 4:12)
"...he [the devil] was a murderer from the beginning, and
abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.
When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a
liar, and the father of it." (John 8:44b)
"While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the
servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of
the same is he brought in bondage." (2 Peter 2:19)
It should be clear then that there is a great war currently
in progress; and the invisible weapons being used are words.
On one side of this great Endtime Battle are the emissaries
of God who are submitted to His Will and who speak the true
Gospel of Jesus Christ, while on the other are the political
and religious false prophets of the world who speak the
deceitful lies of Satan and promise peace, peace when there
shall be no peace; just as occurred during the days of the
Prophet Jeremiah:
"For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people
slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace."
(Jeremiah 8:11)
To find out what will be the final outcome of this great
warfare of words, I encourage you to continue reading this
series. In part three, we will be taking a look at some of
the subtle tactics which are currently being used to prepare
the world for the arrival of the master of dark sayings, and
his deceptive propaganda agent. Foremost in our discussion
will be an expose on the music from hell, which will include
a look at the philosophy of John Lennon, as expressed in his
world renown song 'Imagine'. I trust that you will join me.
[ Click Me ] Go To Part Three . . .