The Machiavellian Mind of the Deceiver

I have listened to your recent tape cassettes. It is truly very disturbing and disgusting to discover that the kinds of crud, vanity and deception we thought we left behind when we left the WCG is still trying to get at us and cause us problems! I am beginning to realize that there must be certain people in this world who are out to try to discredit you. Why is it that human nature causes a person to equate the discrediting of a person as equal to discrediting the truthful knowledge he possesses and teaches? But, deceivers know and understand how to use the human nature within the general population to achieve their evil goals. The Medieval Catholic Church perfected the techniques for manipulating human nature, and much of their knowledge about psychological manipulation was inherited by Protestant Christendom, and has become deeply embedded within the various factions of the Churches of God.

All of the various forms of Church-based envy, jealousy, and competition among ministers are some of the major reasons WHY I am totally unable to have my attention fixed on worshipping YEHOVAH God while attending their church services on the Sabbath. They do not understand or practice "pure religion" as defined in James 1:26-27 -- they have not kept themselves "unspotted from the world," but are rather guilty of the same kinds of envyings, strifes, and contentions which are so popularly in vogue among the unregenerate and unconverted who know not YEHOVAH God! I have personally experienced many times feeling farther away from YEHOVAH upon coming from a Sabbath service than when I first entered the building before the service began! The worldly "spots" or "blemishes" interfered with the ability to be attuned to YEHOVAH God in mental worship during the services. Presently, I am much happier worshiping YEHOVAH at home where I can truly be in communion with Him instead of trying to desperately cope with a debilitating atmosphere which I fully know the ministers aren't going to rectify to help those who truly seek to worship YEHOVAH God in spirit!

WHY is it that so many men appear to want to get people to follow them? Don't such men realize that people who follow a man are called "disciples," and that we are all to follow the Messiah instead of a man? We have only one Master (Rabbi), and he is in Heaven! We are to acknowledge the pre-eminence of YEHOVAH God and the Messiah only -- not the importance of a mortal man! We are to have our affection and attention set on the Things Above which are eternal where YEHOVAH God dwells! We are not to have our minds fixed on earthly things -- and certainly we are not to have our minds fixed in an idolatrous manner on ministers and other human beings who possess the same human nature we all suffer in common! Most people never stop to realize that Yeshua the Messiah was never worshiped as Deity while he was "in the days of his flesh" having to cope with human nature! It was only after being Resurrected and relieved from human nature that the disciples' minds were opened to begin worshipping him!!! Human men as ministers are not Deity as though they should be worshipped instead of YEHOVAH God! This needs to be clearly understood!!!

In addition, most ministers in our American culture today don't even know what a "master" is as the meaning was understood anciently when James wrote his oft-quoted passage: "My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation (heavier judgment)" (James 3:1). Anciently, a "master" was a "rabbi" (the word "rabbi" literally translates as "my master" with "rab" meaning "master"). The function of a "rabbi" was that of a "teacher" (didaskalos ) with the specific meaning of one who is "skilled in teaching" (didaktikos). Anciently, "teaching" consisted of the oral instruction and knowledge the teacher gave to his disciples coupled with the teacher actually doing everything he taught to show his disciples exactly how he wanted them to do and practice what he taught. A "master" was like a piano teacher who plays a difficult passage of music to show the student how to position his hands and what the correct fingering is to use in the passage of music. A "master" was much similar to a Chinese martial arts instructor showing his students exactly how to perform maneuvers in techniques of kung fu or karate. Disciples look to every action and every nuance of meaning they can derive from their "master." Yeshua is our "Master" in explaining and showing us how to serve and worship YEHOVAH God! But, a human minister because of his own human nature who must make the disclaimer, "Do what I say, but don't follow my mistakes," cannot qualify to fulfill the Scriptural definition of a "master." We have only one "Master," and he is in Heaven.

Yeshua taught that if anyone wanted to be truly great, he must be the servant of all. To be a "servant" (doulos ) means to be a "bond-slave" to the people being served. To the contrary, false ministers are those who seek to have philoproteuo which literally means "loving to be first," and is rendered "preeminence" in regard to Diotrephes in III John 9. This Greek word philoproteuo is constructed from the two Greek words phila ("love, friendship") and proto ("first, greatest, foremost"). For a minister to seek to be "number one" over and above YEHOVAH God and the Bible is the meaning of philoproteuo. For a minister to require that people must enter the kingdom of YEHOVAH God through him rather than the One Door (Yeshua) into the kingdom, is another meaning related to philoproteuo.

For any minister to exalt himself above the Law and think he is exempt from the Commandment against "deception," and to think he can get away with being dishonest and untruthful with his congregation, is another meaning related to philoproteuo. There are many various forms of philoproteuo -- humanly sought preeminence -- within all the various Churches of God at this present time in history!!!

It appears everything can be summed up in two simple words in regard to unconverted men seeking ministerial positions: ambition and money! As prophesied by the apostle Peter in II Peter 2:3, the true believers in Yeshua as the Messiah have become an emporeusovtai, meaning a "marketplace" or "commercial emporium" to be exploited by unbelieving unconverted ministers. If we coin the meaning of emporeusovtai ("merchandise" -- KJV) into our modern 20th-Century idiom, we can render it as "an international commercial world trade center" -- an apt description of the "bottom line" for which the Bible and the Christian religion is used in today's carnal world!!!

I fully sympathize with your feelings of outrage and inner hurt from the wrongs you are suffering at the hands of other people. We can remember that YEHOVAH God Himself portrays the unconverted non-Jewish Gentile people of this world with the symbols of "all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air" in describing the evils and problems within the Gentile human nature (Acts 10:12). YEHOVAH God told Peter that he was going to encounter Gentile people with characteristics in their human nature like cattle, wild animals, creeping things like dangerous snakes, and fowls of the air like dangerous birds of prey and vultures. We live in such a world and culture today -- and among people having these very characteristics described by YEHOVAH to Peter in vision!

In Matthew 18:7, Yeshua foretold us: "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" The Greek word here for "offence" is skandalon which is the Greek word from which we derive our English word "scandal" (Strong's Concordance, Greek Dict. #4625). It also means "cause of displeasure" and is used of a "trap-stick" as a "snare" for entrapment. These meanings describe the ways in which this world's unconverted tend to unexpectedly get at us from time to time and cause us problems! We both can remember many problems of these kinds in our past experiences in the WCG!

Will close for now. But please take courage and realize that there are others with you -- relatively few they may be -- who experience the same kind of hurt and outrage produced by the uncontrolled human nature in other people who possess little or none of the true holy spirit from our Father in Heaven. Far too many people are having only an academic level Christian religion -- but they are not having the Biblically described emotionally profound conversion experiences which occurred in the FIRST CENTURY A.D.!