Part 2: FROM APOSTATES TO APOSTLES
As the reformation flood gates of the early 1600’s began to swing wide, the great surge of change, once started, could not be stopped. Like the stone “cut without hands” foretold in Daniel 2: 34-35,44-45, it rolled down the mountain breaking all the kingdoms before it.
Yet from among all the clattering and eager voices of the protestant reformers, why do we not hear uttered those familiar and reassuring words which always accompanied the pronouncements of ancient Prophets and Apostles: “Thus sayeth the Lord”?
Or how about “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you,” as recorded by Moses? (Exodus 3: 14)
These men, these great, courageous reformers who stood up against the power of the Catholic Church, did so at the peril of their lives. Many paid the ultimate price. They were dedicated, faithful and sincere. Any one of them could have claimed to have received revelation by the direct voice or personal appearance of God, even if it had come through his Son Jesus Christ. But none did because none of them had actually witnessed such thing. Their mandate was, as far as they understood, to reform the Catholic Church, not to replace it.
The early Church philosophers of course did not accept such a thing as literal “revelation” either. Without such revelation, they had stumbled and strayed from the teaching of Christ. They thought they could discover the mysteries and knowledge of God entirely on the strength of their own intellect and sought for consensus through debate. The speculation that followed, the disharmony, the savage and brutality of the wars, the sub-sequence errors and terrors that were imposed upon the children of God that ensued in the name of the Church, proved they had been terribly wrong.
Now the reformers faced the challenging task of sorting errors and truths from The Bible. But no one could be sure which interpretation and which writings were 100% the pure word of God. Without that knowledge how would they know the will of God, and the very purpose of man?
Neither nations nor civilizations can survive without purpose. History has shown that their citizens must have a clear understanding of that purpose or they will begin to behave in a competitive and destructive manner. That invariably brings about their destruction and down fall. We are witnessing this very occurrence in our highly scientific world today. To understand our purpose, we must have the answers to the three basic questions.
1/ Where do
I come from?
2/ Why am I here?
3/ Where do I go after death?
John, an Apostle of Jesus Christ declared, “And this is life eternal that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hath sent.” (John 17: 3)
This is not a cliché. It is the key stone of all our education. We rise to our glorious potentials or fall to our utter ruin based on our understanding of John’s challenging statement.
Without the sure knowledge there is a God, we assume we have only to be answerable to ourselves. We can readily see the destructive evidence of such belief – this lack of accountability to God – throughout all history. Even today it is being acted out in the streets and governments of our own society.
The greater part of the world stands confused and confounded by the thousands of Churches that professes to have all the answers. Only a pitiful few have the courage to confess they have mostly none of them. Our collective behaviour is a litmus test that appears to be indicative of gross failure.
1/ Am I made from nothing and return to nothing? (Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.)
2/ Am I free to choose my own future or has God predetermined whether I am either inherently good or incurably evil?
3/ If God created me good, why do I have temptations to do evil?
4/ If God created me evil why does he punish me when I behave accordingly?
5/ How evil can I behave and still inherit a place in heaven?
6/ Will God forgive me in my sins or from my sins?
7/ Do little children who die before baptism not merit Heaven?
8/ Why do so many evil people end up rich while good and honest people always seem to be poor?
Because the reformers had only a few scriptures and their own intellect to work with, they left these may such questions unanswered.
Since God had ceased to reveal himself or his will to man after Christ had been crucified and all the Apostles killed off, the Church of Jesus Christ, for all intents and purposes, had ceased to exist. With the destruction of the temple and the corruption of early Church teachings, all knowledge about the following topics were lost as well:
1/ Revelation from God.
2/ The role, structure and administration of his priesthood.
3/ The knowledge of the nature of God and the individual roles of the members of the Godhead.
4/ God’s relationship to us as our Father in Heaven (as Christ taught when instructing us to pray in Matthew 6: 9-13).
5/ The purpose of Earth life.
6/ The atonement of Jesus Christ.
7/ The role of the Holy Ghost.
8/ The purpose and plan of salvation for mankind.
9/ Continuation of revelation and scriptures.
10/ The critical role of temple worship.
11/ Salvation for those who died without the knowledge of Christ.
12/ Ordinances for salvation.
13/ The knowledge of kingdoms in God’s glory.
14/ God’s and man’s co-eternal nature.
15/ God’s cosmic creations and their relationship to us.
16/ Man’s per-mortal existence.
Why do we not have answers to these questions?
God cannot reveal himself to man until such time as man is willing to soften his heart to accept Him.
So, it was not God who needed to change and grant this knowledge. Rather it was mankind who needed to change his thinking about God and prepare to receive this information.
Our thinking determines our behaviour. Without revelation, men have no motivation or means by which they may understand the will of God or to know what changes God has in mind for him.
Even as the age of reformation dawned, mankind still had much to do and a long way to go before he would be ready to hear from God again.
