Don’t Get Stuck in the Afterbirth

Last night I got somewhat depressed. Various things got me thinking about the predicament the earth is in.

This world is ruined. We manage to enjoy it a good part of the time, because human beings can get used to anything. I’m sure there were moments of happiness in the Nazi death camps, because there is almost no limit to what the human mind can learn to tune out. We aren’t always miserable, but that doesn’t change the truth. This place is so full of innocent blood, it might as well be a temple. The world is cursed.

Try and imagine the suffering which is going on right now. As I type this, children and old women are being raped. People are being murdered in front of their families. Billions and billions of animals are tearing each other apart. Crops are failing. Careers are ending. People are dying young. Babies are being born without arms. There is no way for a human mind to comprehend the pain that exists in the world.

None of this was supposed to happen.

We chose to rebel. God gave us free will, because he wanted real love and obedience, and we wasted no time in misusing it. As far as we know, Adam knew God personally and could speak to him face to face whenever he had a problem, and God was always with him, so whatever he did prospered. He did not lack knowledge or help. But he threw it away because he thought his way was better than God’s way, and as a result, succeeding generations knew less and less about God, and Satan’s ability to torment and control us increased, just like the population of the crop-killing weeds that followed the curse.

We used to have plenty. We used to have peace. Now we have cancer, the black plague, venereal disease, birth defects, war, poverty, perversion, natural disasters…we fail when we should succeed, and the evil succeed when they should fail. And the strange thing is that no matter what God does to help, we decline in knowledge, wisdom, and virtue.

God came to Moses and told him how people should live, if they wanted success. God didn’t owe this to us. Running the world is our job, not his. But he did it anyway. And God couldn’t even get half of the Hebrews to listen. Most of them died in Egypt. Then they rebelled on the way out, and God threatened to kill everyone except the family of Moses. God had to kill 3,000 Hebrews before their journey really got started. And when he appeared to them as a cloud and a pillar of fire, to lead them to the Promised Land, they refused to trust him, and a whole generation died in the desert.

God sent Jesus, who took the extraordinary measure of sacrificing his body so that we could receive the Holy Spirit and become like him. He allowed himself to be tortured to death in front of his jeering enemies. He died on Passover and sent the Holy Spirit to his followers on the same date on which God sent the Torah; could anything be more obvious? Is there anything more God could have done to convince people he was there for them? Nonetheless, within a few centuries, the church had abandoned the Holy Spirit, and they had adopted a doctrine of increasing God’s kingdom through human strength and effort. It was as if they preferred striving under the law to having things given to them under grace.

Around a hundred years ago, God practically forced the Holy Spirit on us again, descending in places like Azusa Street. We could have listened. We could have prayed in the Spirit, fasted, studied the word, and tried to serve God, using the incredible power he had given us. But Spirit-filled churches turned into televised whorehouses where oily men and women in gaudy clothes wheedled worthless cash offerings out of us. They’re still at it. We hear about “seed gifts” all the time, but only rarely is charity mentioned. We hear about positive thinking, which is utterly worthless, but we hear very little about sin, repentance, or the need to put God first.

Look where America stands now. Our young people are so enamored of the appearance of evil, they actually try to look like prison inmates. The shaved heads, bad tattoos, and chin beards we see today are the fashion statements of yesterday’s born losers. Thirty years ago, you had to go to a penitentiary to see that kind of thing. And of course, modern sex is coming to resemble prison sex.

We now celebrate homosexuality. Women are especially guilty. They adore homosexual men. They can’t believe God could disapprove of their cute, witty little friends. We promote abortion–murdering the unborn within their mothers’ bodies–as a necessary tool to assure the success of young women. We teach arrogance as though it were a virtue. Our entertainment is filthy. We love possessions and pleasures. We call people who stand up for God “haters.” We even teach that Jesus–an Orthodox rabbi–was a pervert. We project our goat-like values back on him, and we claim he was essentially the gay Jewish Buddha. One of many enlightened saviors. I don’t want to get sidetracked, but as the Dalai Lama says, Buddha was against homosexuality and sexual excess. Even Buddha has been watered down. No god is lenient enough for today’s spoiled Americans.

I thought about all this, and I realized how little I liked the world. Strangely, I enjoy life more than I ever did, but I really don’t like this place. I want to live in a world where good succeeds and evil is not rewarded and does not even exist. I don’t want to see sick people any more. I don’t want to see animals suffer. I don’t want to see deformities and diseases. I want to hear an end to the hate-filled lies ignorant people spew about God and his people. It would be so wonderful to be able to look at the TV listings and know I wouldn’t see Bill Maher’s name.

The Bible tells us Christians are not part of the world. We are really missionaries, or, as the Bible calls us, “ambassadors.” The ship is sinking; we are just here to pull willing people into the lifeboats and help them become like God. When I think about the problems this planet has, these truths become more real to me.

I am tempted to say we are not worth saving, but that’s not really right. Many must be worth it, or God would not be working so hard at it. But in the end, it will turn out that the people remaining unsaved are not worth trying to reach by humane means. There will be dregs that have to be filtered harshly. We know that, because God is going to remove the flesh from his people, shaking the dust from his feet, and then he is going to remove his remaining protection from the world, and the Tribulation will follow.

Weak Christians will be here to suffer; many of those who lack the Holy Spirit and deny the gift of tongues will be like Peter, who denied Jesus before the Romans. Those who have filled their lamps with the oil of the Holy Spirit (symbolized by the lamps in the Holy of Holies), and who have managed and cared for the flames, will be gone. Noah and his family were separated from the earth by the earth’s waters. We will be separated by the waters of heaven, which are mentioned in Genesis.

Because America has gotten so filthy, and because we are developing technology which is rapidly giving us power only God should have, I am wondering if the Rapture is closer than I had expected. How much power will God let us have? How much longer will he let his people cast their pearls before increasingly vile and abusive swine?

Our technological boom reminds me of the Tower of Babel. That tower was a religious edifice. It was an observatory dedicated to astrology, which was very powerful in the ancient world. When God saw that man had such power within his reach, he intervened. I think we have seen similar things in the modern era. The people who design computers and software have done things so stupid, they are best explained by supernatural interference. The Apple versus IBM mess. Apple versus Google. Our gadgets would be a lot more dangerous had we made a unified, coordinated effort. I truly suspect that God has slowed things down, and that he will not let us get too strong. He wants to preserve a certain amount of liberty, in order to allow us free will. Technology is reducing our liberty very quickly.

We’ve already lost privacy. The Founding Fathers gave us the Fourth Amendment, but now when you want to travel, you are presumed guilty of terrorism, so you get searched and even molested or photographed naked without probable cause. Unmanned machines can fly over your property without warrants and take photographs at will. Google cars can come to your driveway and photograph your house in the woods, and if you happen to be getting dressed by a window, too bad. The government and creepy private entities run by mischievous punks now have unprecedented power over us. In the near future, things will get even worse. It will be possible to wage conventional war by remote control. When we don’t fear casualties, what will happen to our humanity? People show their true colors when they have no fear.

Part of me wants to avoid looking like a kook holding a “The End is Near” sign, but now that I think about it, Jesus was such a person. He warned us to be ready, and so did Paul. If you don’t know when things are going to get sideways, the rational thing is to live as though it could happen today.

It’s very disconcerting. It makes me sad, knowing that so many of us will never live our earthly dreams. A happy marriage, kids, a nice house, good health, financial abundance, success…these things come unpredictably, to a certain percentage of people. The rest have to be content with the blessings of the afterlife. That makes sense. Each generation is a crop, and in a cursed world, we are subject to blights, droughts, and weeds. It’s natural that many of us should be stunted or barren.

The other day, I realized that chaff is the afterbirth of grain plants. A mammal’s afterbirth is useless flesh that accompanies a birth and then dies and rots. The Bible compares the ungodly to chaff. When the harvest comes, anyone who gets left behind will be like discarded afterbirth.

I am torn between wanting to see it over with and wanting to please God by helping with the harvest.

I was once told that God was displeased with Noah’s weak efforts to reform the wicked people around him. It was good that a few righteous people were saved, but it would have been better had they been able to persuade others to repent. I think Christians should be mindful of this. It’s great to know you’ve got a golden ticket, but we remain on this planet primarily to increase our numbers.

I guess this is a gloomy post, but when this is all behind us, surely the pain we’ve witnessed will no longer distress us.