God, Ignoring

John Ritenbaugh, explaining that an individual's worldview is shaped by his past experiences, family values, and the culture into which he were born, warns us that a person's worldview influences every decision he makes. If we do not give God the prominent position in our worldview, we will make self-destructive choices, as did our original parents, Adam and Eve. Our worldview is volatile, subject to change as we are drawn away by the enticements of Satan, the world, and our powerful carnal nature. If God's people do not nourish God's gift of His Holy Spirit by meditating on His Word and responding to its prompts to morality and character, Satan will come to control our worldview through his tools of mainstream media, pop culture, and humanistic education—all of which are now the basic determinants of the worldview of the godless. God admonishes His called-out ones to nourish and augment the "God factor" in our worldview, lest we be drawn away to spiritual death.

John Ritenbaugh, reiterating that the reality of God is not a mathematical formula beyond the reach of garden-variety human reason and observation, warns us that God's reality is not the root of the human problem. Rather, the powerful pulls of our carnal nature, innately hostile to God's law, prevents us from believing Him or obeying Him. The deadliest enemy to our spiritual well-being is within us. God calls the weak and base of the world to put the intellectual and strong to shame. To provide a counterweight to the destructive carnal nature, God provided His Holy Spirit—as well as spiritual gifts—in order to enable His called-out ones to put to death their carnal natures, as they refocus their attention to things above, bringing about a life-giving fellowship with the Creator. God does not create character by fiat, but has ordained that His true children exercise their power of choice to build an intimate relationship with Him, a task not impossible, but not easy. God has providentially given us trials to build character, proving beyond a doubt that we believe Him and have a burning desire to be at one with Him. We exercise these spiritual gifts in order to kill our carnal nature, not to win salvation. Unlike the first Adam, who yielded to his carnal lusts, choosing to please himself, we must follow the second Adam, Jesus Christ, who always submitted to the will of the Father. All people are without excuse when it comes accepting God's existence. Refusal to believe or obey God puts blinders of foolishness on the ungodly, preventing them from knowing God. When one observes the consistently law-governed Creation, it is foolish to embrace atheism.

Martin Collins assures us that we are not alone in our faith, but we have an overwhelming cloud of witnesses, both from the physical and spiritual realm. Christ's trial and crucifixion were not historical accidents, Rather, God prophesied both events in minute detail in Old Testament Scriptures. In the incident of Barabbas, the Scriptures amplify the message in quadraphonic sound. Barabbas, whose name means "the son of a man," likely represents all of us who have experienced redemption from death because of Christ. Pilate, who realized that Jesus was innocent, gave the mob the opportunity to request freedom for Jesus as one of his stratagems to free Him. However, the angry mob instead asked for the freedom of Barabbas, an insurrectionist, thief and murderer, a representative of every sinner who has ever lived. Barabbas must have considered himself "lucky" or perhaps was profoundly grateful to the man who died in his place. Like Barabbas, we also deserved to die, but do we consider ourselves lucky or are we profoundly grateful? Herod, Pilate , Pilate's wife, the thief in the cross, and the centurion knew that Christ was innocent, but the angry mob, filled with carnal nature could not countenance the gap between its lack of righteousness and the absolute sinlessness of the real Son of God. The Pharisees fabricated a half dozen false charges against Jesus to pull a bait- and switch con on Pilate, who ultimately submitted to the mob's demand that Jesus be crucified for 'blasphemy,' having declared Himself to be the Son of God, a claim corroborated as the truth by His own Father, His own testimony, angelic beings, shepherds in the fields, the four Gospels and many human witnesses who boldly risked their lives for their testimony—truly a great cloud of witnesses which we should seek to join

John Ritenbaugh, acknowledging that sometimes the pace of the Feast of Tabernacles can be wearying, reminds us that God has commanded His people to rejoice and to develop a beneficial fear and respect for Him. Enjoying the feast to the hilt physically does not necessarily mean we had a good feast. If we do nothing to make a fine feast for someone else, we probably will not have a good feast. God commanded the Israelites to offer more sacrifices at the Feast of Tabernacles than at all the other Holy Days combined. We attain spiritual regeneration by participation. After the Babylonian captivity, people felt more inclined to serve than before, having cultivated a new appreciation for what they had lost—namely, God's precious law. Just because we are keeping God's festivals does not necessarily mean we are in sync with God's Law or His purpose for our lives. God commissioned Amos to write a powerful, stirring message to the ten northern tribes, warning them to prepare to meet their God and to change the attitudes which were polluting God's feasts. Israel, in the time of Amos, had drifted into the same moral cesspool as the modern Israelitish nations have today, laden down with corruption and bloodshed, just as America's Supreme Court has made sodomy and murder the law of the land. Amos warned against exalting symbolism over substance, clinging to Bethel as a religious shrine, while neglecting the fact that Bethel was the location where God renamed Jacob to Israel. God wants each of us individually to go through the same transformation as our father Jacob—from conniving schemer to a totally converted and submissive servant.

Having laid extensive groundwork for the Bible's covenants, John Ritenbaugh begins to explore the first of these, the Edenic Covenant. Universal in scope, this covenant introduces God to mankind as his Creator and establishes the rules by which human beings are to relate to Him and to the earth and its human and non-human inhabitants. It is simultaneously a covenant of blessing and responsibility.

Richard Ritenbaugh, asking us whether we trust the current Federal government, points out that, according to recent polls, confidence in government has eroded to an all-time historical low, with only 13% of the citizenry believing government does right most of the time, 10% believing government never does anything right, while the vast majority, 75%, feel the government gets it right only part of the time. The Federal government has become a total disaster, with the rogue, criminal executive orders, systematically removing our freedoms, coming from the executive branch, destroying constitutional checks and balances. When we compare the mercurial instability of man's government to God, we witness a stark contrast. God does not change, His benefits are beyond measure, and compared to the confiscatory tribute demanded by government, God commands only a fractional proportion. God forgives our sins, gives us a Savior, gives us a down-payment on eternal life, provides food, and heals our diseases, all without a price tag. Like David running from Saul in the Judean wilderness, we find it far more profitable to trust in God rather than princes, knowing that God will never allow us to endure more than we can handle, and will provide a way of escape. David reminds us in the acrostic Psalm 37 that we should not be concerned about the wicked, whose destiny is to perish, and that the righteous are infinitely better off. We are warned not to nurse burning, vindictive anger, realizing that the temporary 'success' of the wicked will eventually turn into a bitter harvest. Instead of wasting our energy in resentment, we need to put our emotion into positively doing good, cultivating our faith, and committing our ways to the Lord, putting our loyalty to the covenant in sync with God's. In our commitment to God, we must relinquish control, allowing God to take the lead. God delights when we allow Him to guide us, inscribing His laws on our hearts.

John Ritenbaugh expresses alarm that within one generation tolerance for homosexuality and same-sex marriage has gained national approval. Behavior such as exhibited in our current culture is identical to the shameless, greedy culture described by the prophets Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. After the 1960's, the sense of shame in America rapidly eroded as the Hippie Movement emerged. President Clinton's re-election was a clear referendum for sin. Today, President Obama lies continually about political policies, aided by a willing liberal media. End-time modern Israel is following the same trajectory as ancient Judah and Israel. We are destined to be conquered and scattered because of a hopeless lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6) demonstrated by modern "Churchianity's" tolerance for sin and compromise, deliberately ignoring the righteousness of God, even though the Bible is readily available. The mega-churches grow on smooth talk, glitz, and show-biz, while disobeying God's laws, mimicking the pagans. The fear of God does not come naturally; it must be learned by purposeful effort and meditation. Modern Israel has a form of religion, denying God's power and doing its own thing. Consequently, God feels compelled to severely punish modern Israel as He was compelled to 'blow apart' and 'scatter' the dysfunctional Worldwide Church of God. God is sovereign; He has Satan on a tight leash. We must develop our faith by assimilating the Word of God, making it a part of our lives. Since God is sovereign over His creation, we need to be careful about reviling someone in authority, even someone who may have been appointed to bring evil. We must learn to implicitly and explicitly trust God's decisions, yielding unconditionally to God's sovereignty.

John Ritenbaugh, reflecting on the propensity of people to break the Sabbath, explains that the carnal mind is enmity against God. Human nature is hopelessly perverse. In a book review of Steven Miller's book The Peculiar Life of Sundays, appearing in the Charlotte Observer, the reviewer suggests that even the worldly 'Sunday keeping" has become a virtual joke. To human nature, following Christ or keeping the Sabbath is such a big obstacle that all kinds of twisted reasoning to avoid keeping God's commands. We have to battle the perversity of human nature the same as those not yet called, but are held to a much higher standard.

John Ritenbaugh asserts that to someone who has been called, there is a unique difference in the understanding and thinking processes not available to most of mankind. Without revelation from Almighty God, the heart becomes calloused and insensitive, having an enmity to the truth of God. Our responsibility is to freely choose to follow the revelation He has given us, overcoming the baggage and the doubtful resistance we have absorbed from the world's cultures. Until God removes the blinders from our eyes, we cannot use our free moral agency to develop the character, resisting the flood of deception spewed out by the deceiver.