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Dark Freedom
The Rise of Western Lawlessness
by C.W. Steinle
Copyright 2015 by C.W. Steinle
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Saturday, February 27, 2016

Dark Freedom: The Rise of Western Lawlessness - Chapter Nine

Dark Freedom: The Rise of Western Lawlessness - Chapter Nine

by C.W. Steinle
Copyright 2015 by C.W. Steinle

Copyrighted material.  All rights reserved.  No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise - without written permission from the publisher.  This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to purchase this book or share with another person, please purchase a copy for each reader from any online bookseller.  Visit Dark-Freedom.com for purchase details or: http://darkfreedombook.com/

Part III - The Everlasting Kingdom
By My Name - "The Lord"

Lawlessness not only disregards the law, it also opposes the Lawgiver.  Christians confess that Jesus is Lord.  But the practice of lordship is far removed from the life-experience of most western believers.  One reason for the waywardness of the Western Church is this obscure understanding of the meaning of "Lord."  People can't be expected to obey the Lord's laws without the fear of the Lord.  They must understand whom they are fearing, or else they will meet the same failure as the Gnostics - who knew nothing but a theoretical god.  "And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?" – Rom. 10:14
The God of the Bible is more than the Neo-Platonists' First Cause.  God not only created all things through His Son, He also controls all things through His Son.  The incarnation of God in Christ bore the image of the invisible God.  All authority in the heaven and on the earth has been given to the Son.  But sadly, we must even define what is meant by "authority," because authority brings to mind that politically incorrect word, "submission."  Therefore we must proceed with caution to consider that God is both; good, and Lord.
We are told in Genesis that once the fellowship between God and Adam was broken, several generations went by before men even began to call on the Lord.  Man's estrangement from his Maker made fellowship with Him impossible.  Were it not for the love of God which compelled Him to reach out to man, the relationship would be broken forever.  God revealed Himself to man only partially at first.  Hebrews One states that God, "at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets."  God revealed Himself in creation as "The Almighty."  In the flood God showed that He was the Judge of the earth; and also that He was the God who made a way of salvation for Noah.  God made Himself known to Abraham as the God of blessing, and as the God of the promised inheritance.  But God revealed Himself to Moses in a different way.
"And God spoke to Moses and said to him: ‘I am the Lord.  I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name Lord I was not known to them.  I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers.  And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant.  Therefore say to the children of Israel: 'I am the Lord; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.  I will take you as My people, and I will be your God.  Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.  And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage: I am the Lord.'" – Exodus 6:2-8
"I am the Lord."  Because Moses wrote the Pentateuch after the time of this revelation, he often referred to God as the "Lord God".  In His address to Moses above, God proclaimed that He was more than a Deliverer-God who was able to free His people from their bondage to Egypt.  God was also the Governor-God; the Lord God.  After God delivered the Israelites from bondage, Moses presented God's laws to the people and asked them to make a commitment to honor the Lord's terms of government.  Mt. Sinai was the place where God enrolled Moses in His campaign of deliverance, and Sinai was also the place where God unveiled His government to the Children of Israel.
"So Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments. And all the people answered with one voice and said, ‘All the words which the Lord has said we will do.’  And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. And he rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel.  Then he sent young men of the children of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord.  And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar.  Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the people. And they said, ‘All that the Lord has said we will do, and be obedient.’  And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, ‘This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words.’" - Exodus 24:3-8
Jesus is Lord.  The Christians in Jesus' day (especially the Hellenic Jews and the Gentiles) used the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament.  The Greek word for Lord, "Kurie", in the Old Testament is the same word used in the New Testament when stating that Jesus is "Lord", or in calling Him "Lord" Jesus.  When first century Christians made their confession that Jesus is Lord, they were acknowledging their confidence that Jesus was both; the Christ, and that same Lord (Kurie) of the Old Testament.  Thus Peter's words, "For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself: 'The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.'  Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." - Acts 2:34-36
Those heretics who believe that the God of the Old Testament is not the same as the God of the New Testament have not known God at all.  There is only one Lord.  "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." - Eph. 4:4-6 
David was a man after God's own heart.  David's psalms abound with praises for God's law.  The Psalms of David are also filled with prophecies about Christ.  David's God, and Christ's Father, are one and the same Deity.  It is an error to believe that Christians should have a different heart for the law than King David had.  The law was begotten of God, and should be cherished by His children.  "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.  And His commandments are not burdensome.  For whatever is born of God overcomes the world." -  I John 5:3-4 When David wrote in his First Psalm that a man would be blessed by meditating on the law, he didn't intend that only men of the Old Testament should be blessed.
"Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.
The ungodly are not so,
But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the ungodly shall perish."
Jesus, the son of David, was also a man who loved the law.  Hebrews 1:8-9 reads, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness . . ."
Jesus was not only a lover of the law, He was also the Lawgiver - the Governor God; the Lord.  The same prophetic verse which announced His incarnation also declared His endless government.
"For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this." - Isaiah 9:6-7
This brings us to our next observation about God's government - it is a kingdom.  A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.  Jesus is the Lord of a kingdom.  The kingdom form of government has been summarily rejected as inherently evil by today's westerners.  The behavior of the United Nations and the United States implies that all kingdoms need to be abolished, and all kings deposed.  Telling American Christians that Jesus is the king of a kingdom is like telling Luke Skywalker that Darth Vader is his father.  "That's Impossible!"  It just doesn't fit in with everything else they've been taught about the evils of monarchy.  The Church Deceived says, "Yes Lord, yes," to God's great salvation; but, "Surely not," and "May it never be," to "Thy kingdom come."
In fact, the western concept of heaven is an ethereal free-for-all where souls are set free to do whatever they want, whenever they want; very much like Plato's dreaded democracy.  Westerners imagine a "Have it your way" heaven.  They are prepared for the reign of the Burger King, but ill prepared for Christ the King.  Because of this perverted and egocentric impression of heaven, the pervasion of lawlessness might easily be seen as the fulfillment of the prayer, "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."  How can the new generation possibly embrace the vision of a model kingdom in heaven when the last thing they want is a kingdom on earth?
Faith in God's Lordship is also undermined in proportion to man's faith in the soundness of human reasoning.  The God of the Bible has been painted by western philosophy into a corner of the mind, where He is limited to the confines of predetermined parameters.  Who God is and what He can do is evermore distorted because of the incessant presence of Platonism and Gnosticism unwittingly absorbed by the Church.  The Lord God of the Bible is the Jehovah God; the God of love, grace, mercy, compassion - who cares, who heals, who rescues, who helps, who even understands our weaknesses - and yes, the God who also chastens and judges.  But the Platonic altruistic god of goodness is too good to judge and too idyllic to care; thus eliminating the need for redemption.  And the greater part of western culture has put their faith in this imaginary god.  The growing lawless majority assumes the living God is like their lifeless god.
Sufficient knowledge of man's philosophies concerning theology and politics has been introduced in previous chapters so that we may proceed to explore the heartthrob of lawlessness.  Immorality.  Immorality is the violation of God's moral code.  The basis of the American moral code shifted abruptly in the mid-twentieth century from the Bible to common law; which now has become little more than case law established by human tradition.  Most conservative Christians were not aware that the very foundation of Biblical morality had been removed from the courtroom long before the Ten Commandments were removed from the courthouse.  In 2010 the United States Department of Justice came out of the closet and shocked the Judeo-Christian community with the official banner below.  Almost as profound as the statement itself is the spiritual reverence assigned to the words Mankind, Life, and People; which were enlarged and ornamented to elevate these principalities of the earthly sphere to their presumed deific status.
Figure 10 - Dept. of Justice website banner from 2010 – 2014104
"The common law is the will of Mankind issuing from the Life of the People."  WND.com posted the following research regarding the source of this slogan.
According to U.S. House documentation, the quote is one of the multitude of statements engraved outside the Justice building in Washington. The full phrase is, "The common law is the will of mankind issuing from the life of the people, framed through mutual confidence, sanctioned by the light of reason."  According to The American Spectator, which has documented the controversy, some attorneys believed the quote was pulled or adapted from the writing of the 18th–century British jurist Sir William Blackstone, who "influenced not only British law, but also the American constitutional and legal system."
However, the report cites "other Department of Justice employees" who say the quote comes from British lawyer D. Wilfred Jenks, author of "The Common Law of Mankind" essays in the 1950s.105
These laws "sanctioned by the light of reason" have displaced the laws of God which were sanctified among men by the sprinkling of blood.  But replacing God's laws with the rules of men is not a recent problem.  And neither is man's inclination to raise up the god of human reason; and to set it up as an idol in the courts of the Lord.  It is time for us to look into the sanctuary and expose a sacred cow which was exalted by the Eastern and Western Churches.  Religious patriotism and individualism were the stepchildren of the Reformation.  But a far stranger fowl flew into the Church during her formative years.  It is a destructive principality; a shifty bird, which has been nesting in the tree of the Church since the second century.
The Reformers sought to expel it but were only partially successful.  It masqueraded as an angel of light resting innocently among the true teachings of Christ and His Apostles.  By God's grace, let the eyes of the reader be opened by Him to judge whether this bird is of God or of man.  And may those who have been injured by its talons find healing in Christ and His Word which is, "living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." -  Heb. 4:12
The seeming self-denial of the ascetic dualists appeared to Early Church Christians as a way to achieve the spiritual life they were striving for.  Rather than depending solely on prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit, they turned to the aid of Neo-Platonism.   But even though dualism attempts to overcome materialism, its assumptions oppose God's Word and twist the attitudes of the heart in destructive ways.  Our previous discussion of dualism pointed out that both the Platonic and Gnostic philosophies condemn matter.  They both condemn the Creator Himself, or else distance Him from creation by enough intermediaries to allow Him to retain His goodness.  The wickedness invoked by deeming matter to be evil has proven to be one of the foremost forces of wickedness.
Once man had transgressed his proper domain by forcing God to conform to human reasoning, the next step was to override God's directive of multiplying through sexual reproduction.  According to dualistic thinking, because matter is evil, man's strongest desire in the material realm must be the most despicable.  This demented reasoning makes the sexual urge the most wicked desire, and the sexual act the most heinous sin.  Not a few Church leaders spoke out-rightly (or strongly insinuated) that sexual intercourse between Adam and Eve was man's original sin.  So the Early Church fell to dualistic asceticism, teaching that righteousness could be attained by suppressing sexual desire and practicing celibacy.  This dualistic thinking segregated the supposedly righteous Christians from the moderate Christians on the basis of ascetic living.  The good Christians were celibate, and qualified for upper ministry.  But the inferior Christians, who were too materialistic, were expected to fulfill God's commission to be fruitful and multiply.  We have already alluded to the first tragedy of dualism - the fact that such vows of celibacy were seldom kept without some secret sexual outlet.
Many who have tried to live the ascetic life have ended up asking their Maker, "Why have you made me this way?" when, in fact, He didn't design man for abstinence.  Paul recommended celibacy to those who had been given this gift because of the turmoil faced by the first century Church.  But Christian dualism has kept countless men from the ministry over the last two thousand years; impeding the work of the kingdom, and putting the ministry into the hands of men who have actually unwittingly been compromised by worldly wisdom.  The secondary consequence of dualism which was demonstrated by the Libertarians of the previous chapter is one of the leading contributors to lawlessness today.
Dualistic logic which condemns matter and material pleasures cannot make a distinction between wedded and unwedded intercourse, since both acts involve the same flesh and the same desire.  This is why keeping the biblical laws against fornication and adultery has no philosophical benefit.  Only complete separation from the supposedly evil act of sexual intercourse can satisfy the technical requirements of "spirituality" according to the logic of the dualistic system.  Under this perverted doctrine of purity the very act of marriage becomes prima facie evidence that both partners have fallen short of the mark established by the sterile and heartless god of First Principles.  Therefore, even Church-ordained wedlock cannot remove the stigma that sexual intercourse has disqualified both husband and wife from meeting the dualistic standard of spiritual perfection.
The self-righteous and power hungry Roman church was happy to canonize the ascetic standard because it elevated the spirituality of the clergy and demoralized the laity.  Thus the common people, once reduced to this Nicolaitan status, could not help but see themselves as second class citizens of the kingdom of God.  Furthermore, both the drive and the act of intercourse carried the connotation of "dirtiness", in keeping with the Platonic notion that all material realities are flawed and only dim expressions of the perfect spiritual Forms.  As a result, even marriage could not alleviate a subconscious sense of guilt for not being able to overcome the sexual urge; even though it is perfectly natural and God ordained.  This twisted dualistic philosophy is retained even by many Protestant leaders.  Only by adhering steadfastly to God's government and rejecting the wisdom of man can the Church be delivered from this schizophrenic disorder. 
The heresy of the dualistic doctrine has struck to the heart of the Christian life and has never been banished.  Meanwhile, the Church has haggled over every other philosophical issue and never resolved what is surely one of the most significant doctrines in the everyday life of believers.  Disillusioned and demoralized, Christians inevitably come to question the abundance of life in this world promised by Christ.  But what does the Bible say?  "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge." – Heb. 13:4 "Undefiled" means undefiled!  Marriage is in no wise dishonorable.  Few dualistic Christians other than Origen have actually comprehended what Jesus said in his response to the question of divorce.
"The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?’
And He answered and said to them, ‘Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?  So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.’
They said to Him, ‘Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?’
He said to them, ‘Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.  And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.’
His disciples said to Him, ‘If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.’
But He said to them, ‘All cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given:  For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it.’" – Matt. 19:3-12
Why did Jesus answer this question by offering the drastic alternative of castration?  Because man has been wired by his Creator for marriage.  Jesus was telling His disciples that if they wanted to live a life of celibacy they would need to disconnect the wiring in order to stop the sexual urges.  After all, to look at woman lustfully is a sin in itself.  Jesus was saying that if a man wanted to annul God's plan to be fruitful and multiply then that man would need to undo part of God's physical creation in order to live a life free from his God-given sexual instinct.  Granted, God is able to impart a special gift of celibacy to a few individuals – "All things shall be possible with God." – Mark 10:27 But celibacy without castration was not the practical alternative offered by Christ.  We need not go back to the behavior of the popes during the Middle Ages or the Libertines of the sixteenth century to understand why Jesus gave castration as the practical alternative to marriage.  The pedophilia of contemporary "celibate" clergymen speaks for itself. 
And still the bishops have been unwilling to relinquish their claims of super-spirituality and release the laity from marital condemnation; simply because it would dissolve their Pharisaical apartheid system.  When will the Church wake up and return to God's Word?  While the Church perpetuates this philosophical crime against humanity, the world has gained the upper hand by offering a lawless, but more rational, solution.  As the "light of reason" has been "sanctioned" over the last 60 years, and the laws of God have been abandoned, the Platonic thinking of the Church is being answered by its historical antithesis, Epicureanism.  "If it feels good, do it."  But we must make one more observation about the hidden dangers of Platonism.
When the dualistic system is carried one step further, the gates of Hell are opened.  If the natural and sanctified intercourse of Adam and Eve brought condemnation on all men for all ages, then all other sexual acts could not bear any greater condemnation.  If the desire for natural intercourse firmly grounds man to the material realm, why would any other sexual perversion lower him further?  In fact, perhaps all other perversions are actually more spiritual than intercourse; so that they might present more preferable alternatives then the natural intercourse which is expressly condemned by the dualistic Church.  Once again the deviant behavior of the so-called celibate Catholic priests attests to the wickedness unleashed by ascetic dualism.  The Catholic Church has done little to curtail its perversion because the priests have learned to prefer strange flesh over natural intercourse.
When marital intercourse is treated as a disqualifying weakness by the ascetic dualists, the command to be fruitful also becomes an enigma.  How could God's purposes be fulfilled through an act which is tainted by materiality?  This is the same predicament that the Docetists attempted to solve by their assertion that a spiritual Christ could not be incarnate in a material body.  By this same reasoning, God's command to be fruitful and multiply would seem to contradict His desire for man's spirituality.  Thus, in the mind of the dualist the fruit of the womb is spoiled before it is ever conceived.
The Bible says that man was conceived in sin because both parents are carriers of the disease of sin passed down from the time of Adam's fall.  It DOES NOT mean that the act which males and females were designed to do, and commissioned to perform, is an evil responsible for the generational dissemination of the fallen nature.  Dualism's tainting of the reproduction process also taints the unborn child who is the product of what is presumably a tainted act.  Even before Adam's commission to tend the garden, even before God began to fellowship with Adam in the cool of the day,  the very first word ever to spoken by God to the male and female of His creation was the command to, "Be fruitful and multiply."- Gen. 1:28
Christian youths should grow up looking forward to the day of their marriage when they can bless the heart of God through sexual reproduction and the fulfillment of God's plan for fruitfulness.  But because the Church Deceived has defiled the bed and made a disgrace of man's first commission, the youth are left to anticipate only the pleasure of the sexual act, and are for the most part oblivious to the sacred honor of bearing children unto their God.  Through this evil diversion, dualism's devaluation of what God hath joined together has also devalued the unborn child.  Sex has become the obsession; and the children are only an undesirable byproduct.  The abortion which the Roman Church officially opposes is actually further perpetuated by its stubborn refusal to recognize the heresy of dualistic asceticism.
A murderous spirit has already overtaken the United States, and much of the world.  As I present the proof for what I have just stated, please be assured that if you have sinned in this area and believed in the Lamb of God for forgiveness, you are indeed forgiven.  And if you have sinned in this area in ignorance, the Lord Jesus stands ready to forgive and to heal.  The sin that I am referring to is the abortion of the unborn.
A major contributing factor to the abortion rate has been the effect of humanism and Darwinism that is taught in the schools.  Students are not taught about the varying stages of a baby as it grows in the womb; when the color of the child’s eyes are determined, when the child’s nerves are developed enough to feel pain, etc.  Instead they are taught that a "developing embryo," not an "unborn baby," looks like a tadpole.  Teachers explain this is perfectly natural since we are all just complicated "accidents" from evolutionary processes.  So it's only expected that all life forms would look similar to tadpoles.  This line of reasoning leads a woman to believe that aborting a baby in the womb is essentially no different than destroying a laboratory experiment in a Petri dish.
The Humanists do not classify this choice as "the taking of a life."  In which case, please consider the maternal affection described by the ancient Hebrew word for compassion.  "Rachum" is the word commonly used in the Old Testament to mean compassion.  This word's origin stems from a similar Hebrew word - "Rechem", which means "womb."  During the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, the people reached the point of starvation.  Jeremiah used this word for compassion to magnify the people’s desperation.  "The hands of the compassionate women have cooked their own children; They became food for them in the destruction of the daughter of my people." – Lamentations 4:10
This Hebrew word for compassion was based upon the natural affection that a mother would feel as she caressed her stomach during pregnancy.  The point that Jeremiah is making is that the very same women, who had once cherished the children within their wombs, were now forced by the madness of starvation to kill and eat them.  This example is given by Jeremiah as the most grievous violation of conscience conceivable in order to point out the severity of Jerusalem's punishment.  Where is this compassion in the twenty-first century?
America's conscience has been slowly seared to the point where many of her women have switched off this natural compassion.  Today, situations of desperation are seldom the reason for aborting one's baby.  Pregnancy is merely seen as untimely, unplanned, or inconvenient.  Why is there no love lost, no compassion, as babies are removed and discarded?  Can you imagine what Jeremiah's reaction would be today?  The biblical standards of family, sexual purity, and the worship of our Creator have all been rejected.  The fear of the Lord, which is the gatekeeper of the Christian conscience, has been trampled under the feet of today's heartless society.
The Christian Church now walks among a people who cannot distinguish good from evil.  There is nothing holding them back from expressing their hostility toward Christians.  Anger toward Christ's Church already fills their hearts, but the notion of tolerance has kept them at bay.  Until now.  Now their anger is beginning to spill through the cracks in the dike.  Their violence has overcome their own ability to resist it.  Once the persecution of Christians has been set in motion, there is nothing to stop it.  The same society who freely terminates the lives of their own children will have no qualms about exterminating the Church.106
The Bible clearly links the sins of Manasseh to the desolation of Judah"And the Lord sent against him raiding bands of Chaldeans, bands of Syrians, bands of Moabites, and bands of the people of Ammon; He sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord which He had spoken by His servants the prophets. Surely at the commandment of the Lord this came upon Judah, to remove them from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also because of the innocent blood that he had shed; for he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the Lord would not pardon."-2nd Kings 24:1-4 (emphasis added)
Not only did Manasseh kill his own newborn son, he also encouraged his countrymen to engage in this practice.  This was the "innocent blood" that brought desolation to Judah.  The Hinnom Valley, on the south side of Jerusalem, was the central location in Judah where parents would put their children to death.  The Hebrew words for "Valley of Hinnom" are "Ge Hinnom".  We are familiar with the Greek translation of this place as "Gehenna."  Gehenna was the city dump.  Because this place was so vile from the continuous burning of foul rubbish, and from the wickedness perpetrated there, Gehenna became synonymous with Hell itself.  And it was certainly Hell for the babies who were burned to death there in the arms of red-hot iron cradles.
The practice of infanticide was never approved by God.  Jeremiah 19 speaks of God’s distain for this sin: ". . . and have filled this place with the blood of the innocents they have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or speak, nor did it come into My mind." (emphasis added)   Infanticide was brought into Israel primarily by the worshipers of Baal and Molech.  It was the blood of innocent children which caused God to drive the Jews out from their land.  God Himself determined to make Judah desolate.107
The Church condemned that which God said was good, and it has led to the infanticide which never entered His mind.  The Church Fathers heeded the wisdom of men instead of obeying the Lord their God.  The dualistic god demands that men behave contrary to their God-created nature.  Here is the true perversion which has ultimately twisted the morality of western man.  The dualists have used the simplistic logic of a child to decide the will of God.  Just because God's Word gives guidelines for man's sexuality does not mean that God is against the sexuality of His own design.  For God to condemn that which He has sanctified would make Him either fickle or evil.  But God is good all the time.  He did not intend for people to spend their lives robbed of peace by a battle against that very thing which they were designed to do.
The Church has twisted the Scriptures to support asceticism; even creating fictions about Mary's eternal virginity so that she might stand as a superhuman cheerleader for the cause of celibacy.  God is a God of truth.  How tragic that the Church would fear God so little that it would add to the Scriptures in order to support this heinous dualistic position.  If the glorified Mary could look upon the earth from above, she would not want to be associated with the slaughter of millions of unborn babies which has resulted indirectly from these myths about the blessedness of celibacy.  But as long as the Church clings to its policies on asceticism, celibacy, and the exaltation of the Virgin Mary, all of the failures of dualism covered above will not be resolved.  Judgment must begin in the House of the Lord.
The dualistic system that was so hastily embraced by the Church Fathers, hermits, and monks has in all actuality become the Pied Piper which is leading the whole human race to edge of the lawless abyss.  And the progressive Church has made no improvement upon the traditional Church.  It has merely turned sliding down the slippery slope of human philosophy into an art form.  Isaiah pleaded with Israel to return to the Lord because that nation was no longer responsive to the Lord's chastening.
The Church sings of the Lord's return.  Let us pray she will learn to honor the sacred earthly union so that she might be dressed and ready to honor her union with her beloved Bridegroom.  Paul stated in Ephesians Five that the human union is a picture of the divine union.  "For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.  ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’  This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church." - Eph. 5:30-31 When dualism taints marriage on earth, it also tarnishes our anticipation of our union with Christ.  The Church must be purged of its adulterous worship of the spiritual idol of dualism so that she might obey her true Husband, Christ.  Likewise, let her consider God's dealings with Israel in the days of the judges when everyone did what was right in their own eyes.  Because of Israel's unfaithfulness God took away His hedge of protection and left Israel's borders open to enemy invasions.  By the time of Isaiah, Israel's unfaithfulness prompted God to the call for distant armies to remove her from the Land.
"Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity,
And sin as if with a cart rope;
That say, "Let Him make speed and hasten His work,
That we may see it;
And let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come,
That we may know it."
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
And prudent in their own sight!
Woe to men mighty at drinking wine,
Woe to men valiant for mixing intoxicating drink,
Who justify the wicked for a bribe,
And take away justice from the righteous man!
Therefore, as the fire devours the stubble,
And the flame consumes the chaff,
So their root will be as rottenness,
And their blossom will ascend like dust;
Because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts,
And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
Therefore the anger of the Lord is aroused against His people;
He has stretched out His hand against them
And stricken them,
And the hills trembled.
Their carcasses were as refuse in the midst of the streets.
For all this His anger is not turned away,
But His hand is stretched out still.
He will lift up a banner to the nations from afar,
And will whistle to them from the end of the earth;
Surely they shall come with speed, swiftly.
No one will be weary or stumble among them,
No one will slumber or sleep;
Nor will the belt on their loins be loosed,
Nor the strap of their sandals be broken;
Whose arrows are sharp,
And all their bows bent;
Their horses' hooves will seem like flint,
And their wheels like a whirlwind.
Their roaring will be like a lion,
They will roar like young lions;
Yes, they will roar
And lay hold of the prey;
They will carry it away safely,
And no one will deliver.
In that day they will roar against them
Like the roaring of the sea.
And if one looks to the land,
Behold, darkness and sorrow;
And the light is darkened by the clouds." - Isaiah 5:18-30 (Emphasis added)

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