What's that? Oh, sorry, it's Lord of Hosts. Eh, whatever. According to this book, he's been letting his wrath build up for a long, LONG time, and when he cuts loose...WATCH OUT! Nobody is safe when God goes on the rampage!
WARNING! REVELATION IS ABOUT TO BE FULFILLED!
That's the title of a book by some guy named Larry W. Wilson, director and founder of "Wake Up, America" seminars--whatever those are. I found the book on a park bench on my way home from the bank one day and grabbed it because I figured it would be good for a laugh. Naturally, I was right, as I always am about such things.
Also, the cover art is kinda cool--here, take a look:
You know, Jesus, with those robes, you really oughta be riding sidesaddle.
Anyway, because YOU, the viewers, forgot you demanded it, I am pleased to present a review of this fine little book. Right off the bat, Chapter 1 ("An Overwhelming Surprise") starts with this disclaimer: "If separated from the larger context of this book, this chapter could make God appear to be very cruel and unfairly harsh--so please read subsequent chapters as soon as possible!"
Uh-oh. That doesn't sound good. How can the God of Love, Peace, and All That Is Good, possibly be made to seem cruel and harsh?? That's like someone saying that Santa Claus loaded his sleigh with bombs and flew it into an orphanage because the kids were being bad. Should we skip this chapter? Nah, sometimes we have to take the bad news with the good.
It goes on to say that just because God punishes evildoers in really nasty, horrible, cruel, and sickening ways, doesn't mean he doesn't love us. He's just responding to our stubborn ways with exactly the kind of retribution we deserve! So, I guess we ought to be glad we're still breathing at all, huh?
According to Mr. Wilson, some prophecies are in the process of fulfillment, while others are only just beginning. Quite a lot of the first chapter has to do with the Seven Strumpets....oh, sorry, that's Trumpets...and how each one announces a different terrifying doom to be brought upon humans because not all of us worship God like we ought. Having a couple billion worshippers is not enough for God, he wants EVERYONE to worship him. This is very important to his sense of well-being, so he sends earthquakes, meteorites, and other unpleasantness to get our attention. I don't know why he couldn't simply rearrange the stars to form the words, "Hi! I'm God and I want you to worship me!" across the night time sky, but I guess that's why he's God and I'm not.
On page 13, we read this: "Because God's judgments will be overwhemingly destructive, world leaders will immediately declare the obvious: "These horrific events are acts of God." Because earthquakes, floods, fires, and meteorites can't possibly have natural causes, especially when they occur all at once. Nope, must be God. But WHICH God?? All the religions of the world form a coaltion to try and deal with the God Problem, but they can't agree on which God they're trying to please, so they get all confused about what to do and that makes God even more angry. Jeez, you just can't please this guy, can you!
There's some stuff about big numbers--1,260; 144,000--and more stuff about judgment and testing and why God gets so darned angry all the time, but I won't bore you with it. Suffice to say that this is the kind of stuff they make disaster movies out of, only I don't think they've ever made one where several different kinds of disaster happen all at once. Like, if they crossed "Towering Inferno" with "Deep Impact," "Volcano," "The Poseidon Adventure," and "Aftershock," that would be a pretty fair idea of what God is going to do to mankind. Except, there won't be Pierce Brosnan or Bruce Willis to lead everyone to safety.
Chapter 2: Pour me a Brewski
Chapter 2 of Larry Wilson's book brings us another disclaimer: "The Bible declares that God is love, but God's love is poorly understood today. (1 John 4:7,8) The meaning of love is so distorted by sin that many people do not understand what love is!" He then goes on to say, essentially, that just because God sends judgments on the Earth that result in war, misery, starvation, natural disasters, and the deaths of millions, including innocent little babies, doesn't mean he doesn't love us, it just means he's trying to strike that perfect balance between love and justice, and sometimes God has to be cruel to be kind and use "tough love" to get people's attention so they will worship him. Being worshipped is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVAR for God, or so I gather from this book. Mr. Wilson fails to explain why God has this overwhelming desire to force everyone to worship him, even to the extent of using terrorism to do it, but I guess that's one of those Mysteries of Life that we aren't meant to solve.
This chapter is called "The Full Cup Principle," which basically means that God sees every person and nation as a cup, which he allows to fill with sin until it gets full, at which point he unleashes horrible violence and destruction in a fit of rage. Never mind that God didn't do anything at all to prevent the "cup" from filling in the first place; it's that tough love thing again, I guess. He's kind of like a parent who, instead of teaching their child to respect other people's property, lets the kid destroy the house and then beats him half to death for doing what he was never taught not to do.
Wilson gives the example of the people in Noah's time, who got so darned evil that God just couldn't stand it anymore and killed them all. Apparently, God made no attempt at talking to people and explaining what he wanted from them--certainly no mention is made of it in Genesis--so how would they have known they were doing anything wrong? What, exactly, were they doing that made them evil? Why did God kill thousands of innocent children and infants who couldn't possibly have committed any sin?
He also lists how the Amorites and the Israelites similarly "filled their cups" with sin and God punished them. He avoids mentioning the Midianites from Numbers chapter 30, however. I guess that even for him, brutally killing the men, women, and boys while keeping the virgin girls as wives and concubines--all because the Midianites were enemies of God's chosen people--was too much. Well, since Mr. Wilson couldn't bring himself to do it, I guess I have to. You are welcome.
Then there's a lot of nonsense about how it's okay for God to kill people by the hundreds and thousands, because it's all in the name of righteousness. God can be patient for only so long, then he has NO CHOICE but lose his temper and fly into a destructive, hellfire-and-brimstone-throwing rage. How strange, that the God of all creation, who is supposed to be able to do anything, gives himself no options when it comes to dealing with humanity.
God requires atonement, Wilson says, and blood is the only way to make atonement because the life of a creature is in its blood. I don't understand the connection. An animal dies if you cut off its head, too, so I could say that the life of a creature is in its brain, but nowhere are brain sacrifices required. The word "brain" isn't even in the Bible. Did the Hebrews know what it was for? The same can be said of the lungs, the heart, the liver...there are many organs without which you WILL die if they are removed. Why are they not considered necessary for atonement?
Chapter 3--The First Four Strumpets!
The beginning of this chapter tells us that "...many of the survivors will refuse to understand God's actions because they have hearts like Pharaoh. (Remember the hardness of Pharaoh's heart? Even after God sent ten plagues upon Egypt, Pharaoh refused to submit to God's authority.)" Let's look at what the Bible says about this:
Exodus 9:12
But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said to Moses.
Notice that it is GOD who hardens Pharoah's heart! God makes people not want to obey him, then punishes them for not obeying him. Are you people SURE there isn't some nicer god you could worship? I could recommend a few....
I'll skip the rest of the introduction and get on with the various dooms God is inflicting upon humanity. To get everyone warmed up, he first causes an earthquake accompanied by noises from the earth and lightning. Pardon me for being unimpressed, but both phenomena have been observed during earthquakes. Oh, right, this one is supposed to be worldwide, which I guess might be possible if all the tectonic plates suddenly started banging against each other all at the same time. For all I know, there might actually be some natural phenomenon that could cause this to happen--and that's the problem, for if it can be explained by natural causes, then who is going to know it's from God?
The first trumpet brings "hail and fire mixed with blood," which Mr. Wilson interprets as meteors. He seems to think the Perseids, Leonids, Geminids, and Lyrids (meteor showers named for their apparent points of origin in the sky) will have something to do with it, proving that he knows pretty much nothing of astronomy.
The second and third trumpets brings a couple of burning mountains crashing to Earth, which Mr. Wilson assumes are gigantic asteroids. Great balls o' fire! While I have no doubt such a thing will probably happen in the future, as it has in the past, there are natural explanations for it. I suppose the idea is that all of these disasters striking at once couldn't possibly be natural. But then, people have been predicting the end of the world in horrible ways for millennia, so why should we believe that this is anything other than just another ho-hum doomsday prophecy?
When the fourth trumpet sounds, the sun, moon, and stars go dark, presumably from dust and ash kicked up by the asteroids. Wilson points out that the fraction 1/3 is used 12 times in the 7 Trumpets prophecies--1/3 of Earth is burned up, 1/3 of sea animals die, 1/3 of the light is blackened, etc. Am I to believe that God is so precise that everything is destroyed EXACTLY in thirds? Apparently so, because Wilson says this is indicative of God's mercy. You see, while he slaughters one-third of everyone and everything, he still leaves two-thirds alive! Isn't that generous of him? Don't you feel better about the millions of Jews, Polish, and others who were murdered by Hitler? I mean, the guy left plenty more alive than what he killed, so cut him some slack!
Chapter 4: The Human Response
This chapter is nothing special. It is quite short and simply outlines how Mr. Wilson imagines the nations will react to all the misery and scary weirdness going on around them. He appears to draw from a number of sources, not least of which are Armageddon and Dante's Peak, perhaps with a bit of Aftershock thrown in. So, if you've seen those movies, and can visualize them all thrown together in a blender turned to "puree," and then imagine every nation and culture in the world fighting over the correct way to worship God and none of them getting it right and God getting more cranky than he usually is, then you already know what the chapter is about.
Chapter 5, Part 1--Misunderstandings about Isaiah 4
I am breaking up chapter 5 into two parts because of Mr. Wilson's blatant ignorance regarding a simple prophecy. He goes to Isaiah 14 to assure us that Satan at one time was Lucifer, who fell from heaven to become the devil. Allow me to show everyone how this is utterly false.
First, it is necessary to put Isaiah 14 in the context of other chapters. Verse 1 of chapter 13 tells us that this is "An oracle concerning Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw." So, we know that anything that follows--unless we are told otherwise--refers to Babylon. You must realize that the Israelites at that time had been taken into captivity numerous times and this was a prophecy concerning those who tormented and enslaved them. God pronounces various terrible things that will happen to Babylon because they dared to lay hands on his Chosen Ones, the Israelites. By chapter 14--and remember, there were no chapter or verse numbers in the original texts, so it would have read as one continuous story--God is still going strong on the doom and destruction schtick. He says that he will have compassion on Israel, grant them victory and peace, and make them the head over all other nations. Christians are fond of saying that unbelievers like me are always taking verses out of context, and that is why we supposedly see errors where none exist. Well, I have just provided for them the context against which the following verses must be applied in order to make sense.
Chapter 14, v. 3 says: "On the day the LORD gives you relief from suffering and turmoil and cruel bondage, 4 you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon:" Did you see that? THE KING OF BABYLON! NOT Satan, but the king of Babylon! Every verse thereafter, up to and including verse 23, refers to this king. Satan is NOT mentioned. This is important to remember, because the verses that supposedly refer to Satan are these:
12 How you have fallen from heaven,
O morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
13 You said in your heart,
"I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. [c]
14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High."
The words that I put in bold are the troublesome ones. The phrase "morning star" has been translated into the Latin word, "Lucifer" in the KJV. But Lucifer is a LATIN word, not a Hebrew proper name. You will not find "lucifer" in the Hebrew text. The original reading was "light bearer" or "morning star," and was a poetic reference to the planet Venus. It is very bright and highly visible in the morning sky and thus was regarded as very important to ancient people, who regarded it as the herald of dawn, the morning star, the bringer of the sun's light. Once this is understood, the rest of that text makes much more sense. The king exalted himself as though he were Venus, itself--not quite the sun, but almost as important--and God has figuratively cast him back down to Earth, removed his shining splendor, etc. It is not a literal description of some angel falling from the sky, but a poetic description of a king brought low by the power of God. Verse 3 assures us that this is about the king, and there is nothing in the rest of the text suggesting that the focus is changed. Verses 22 and 23 again remind us that this is all about Babylon:
I will rise up against them,"
declares the LORD Almighty.
"I will cut off from Babylon her name and survivors,
her offspring and descendants,"
declares the LORD.
"I will turn her into a place for owls
and into swampland;
I will sweep her with the broom of destruction,"
declares the LORD Almighty.
Afterward, there are prophecies against Assyria and the Philistines.
Anyone can see that there is no way these verses can apply to Satan! Nor could v. 19, "But you are cast out of your tomb like a rejected branch;" or verse 8, "Even the pine trees and the cedars of Lebanon exult over you and say, 'Now that you have been laid low, no woodsman comes to cut us down;'" or verse 11, "All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you and worms cover you." Why would part of this prophecy refer to Satan and the rest to the king of Babylon? Does that make sense to anyone? Would it make sense to God, who is not the author of confusion?
I know somebody is bound to bring up the issue of "dual prophecy," the notion that prophecies can have more than one meaning. Such an idea is nowhere mentioned in the Bible, and it is utterly ridiculous to imagine that one can take any prophecy one wishes and apply as many meanings as one wants to it, so as to turn it into a prophecy about modern times. This is exactly what Wilson and every other Christian does. Isaiah 14 does NOT refer to Satan. If God had meant Satan, I am sure he would have taken the time and effort to say so, unless he is too stupid to say what he means.
Chapter 5, part 2: The Devil Appears in Person
Let's give him a big round of applause, folks! He appears in the sky, all bright and shiny, fooling everyone into thinking he's God! First, there's a warm-up act in the form of the Antichrist. This guy is a fallen angel, too, but disguises himself as a really swell guy with all the answers to Life, the Universe, and Everything. Mr. Wilson diverges briefly to explain how Satan got kicked out of heaven and why God didn't just destroy him right off the bat. As you probably suspect by now, it is because God wuvs us vewy much. Killing Lucifer/Satan and his minions would have sent the message that God is just a big ol' cosmic bully who kills people for no good reason--which of course is NOT how God is at all! No, he just lets Satan live, thereby condemning planet Earth to thousands of years of misery, and then tosses people into everlasting burning torture if they don't worship Sweet Jesus. I know that LOOKS like he's being a big bully, but he's not. What Wilson doesn't address is, why should HUMANS be punished for what Satan did? If God had to banish Satan from heaven, why banish him to Earth instead of, say, one of Saturn's moons or Venus or another galaxy--any place that wasn't inhabited?
Anyway, in Rev. 9, the fifth trumpet sounds, accompanied by Keith Richards on guitar, and an angel opens up the Abyss, from which a swarm of freaky-ass locusts emerges. Wilson insists these aren't REALLY locusts, but merely fallen angels whose numbers are so great that they look like a swarm of bugs. How does he know this? What if they really are intended to be locusts? Whatever. These 'shroom-induced visions of John's are already so damn weird that they could be flying pink unicorns for all I care.
It is interesting that Wilson makes this comment: "The imagery and language used in Revelation 9:1-11 is similar to language used five hundred years earlier in Joel 2:1-ll where the prophet describes the appearing of the Lord and His angels as a great swarm of locusts prepared for battle." There is a particular writing formula called midrash, which simply means that the author takes a familiar story from scripture and changes some of the details to make a new story. We see this in the story of Herod supposedly killing all baby boys of Jerusalem so that Jesus' parents have to flee for their lives. This is a midrash of the story of baby Moses being sought by the Pharoah, who orders all baby boys of the kingdom killed in an attempt to rid himself of this danger to his authority. Moses escapes and becomes the savior of the Hebrews; Jesus escapes and becomes the savior of mankind. There are many examples of this in the Bible, and Rev. 9, I suspect, is one of them. The author obviously borrowed heavily from Joel, Ezekiel, and other prophetic books that were already familiar to him, and possibly to his audience, as well. If God were handing out visions, wouldn't you think he'd be more original?
Note that God doesn't merely allow all this dreadful stuff to happen, he actually encourages it. He lets Satan out of his hidey-hole so that he can deceive even more people and cause even more confusion, chaos, destruction, and misery. Does this seem even remotely loving to anyone? What kind of lesson would we teach our children if, instead of locking up child molesters, we deliberately gave them jobs as teachers and daycare workers? It's bad enough when it happens by accident, but to intentionally let them loose among vulnerable children would be the height of immoral and hateful behavior (Catholic Church, and a lot of Protestant ones, I'm pointin' my finger at you). Yet, this is exactly the sort of thing God is depicted as doing. Instead of locking away the offenders on some faraway planet, or putting them to death so they can no longer harm anyone, he deliberately lets them loose among humans who have no way of defending themselves from the terrifying powers of supernatural beings. Supposedly, this is meant to teach us some kind of lesson about how we should love God. Who can love a being that does such things? Could you love the government that would put rapists in charge of orphanages? Would you love the parent who throws a child into a lion's den and then blames the child for getting mauled? So far, through five chapters of this book, I haven't been able to tell the difference between Satan and God.
Chapter 6: Worship the Beast or Die!
Hmmm, let's see...worship or die, worship or die.....I'll take "worship" for $400, Alex. Hey, I don't wanna die, and if that means being pals with Satan, what's the big deal? Throughout the Bible, it is GOD, not Satan, who brings evil upon the world, kills children, slaughters the infidels, causes disasters. How could Satan be any worse? He never did any of those things.
Mr. Wilson has this to say on the subject of worshiping God: "When Abel offered the required lamb, he worshiped God. When Cain offered fruit to God, he did not worship God--he offended God because he did not do what God commanded." Okay, I wanna know why God likes bloodshed so much. Why does he prefer the suffering and bleeding of innocent animals over an offering of fruit and grain? Cain is the one who should have been rewarded for being more humane! There ARE commands, elsewhere in the Bible, for the Hebrews to offer up a tenth of the grain of their land, and in most cases, poor people can substitute fine flour for a cow, sheep, or goat; so what was so bad about Cain's offering? Contrary to what Mr. Wilson thinks, the Bible never gives us an explanation. Go ahead, look for one, it isn't there.
Oh, yeah, let's not forget the Mark of the Beast. You know the story, it's been done in books and movies a zillion times--we get the usual spiel that anyone who worships the Beast gets a mark on their foreheads and hands and God will be extra-super-duper mad at them. Yawn. Does this mean he's even madder than when he killed children and pregnant women in the flood, or when he burned people to death in Sodom and Gomorrah?
Then Wilson mentions something about a third angel turning all the water into blood. Didn't we cover that part earlier? I forget. It sounds suspiciously like the author of Revelation stole this imagery straight from the story of Moses and the ten plagues, when all the rivers turned to blood so that nobody could drink the water. Apparently, God likes to recycle his curses. At this time, the 144,000 Chosen Ones go around preaching that God is pissed off because nobody likes him. You know, there are better ways of expressing one's anger than killing people and making them drink blood. Meanwhile, what has Satan done that is so terrible? The worst he has done, so far, is to make people bow down to him. He hasn't sent plagues, hasn't turned water to blood, hasn't rained fire from heaven or thrown meteors at the Earth or killed 1/3 of the world's population. It is GOD who has done all those things, not Satan, so which one of them is more evil? Maybe God just needs to light some candles, relax in a tub full of bubbles, put on a Yanni album, and CHILL THE HELL OUT. Seriously, the guy is a head case.
After that, we get a list of the first four commandments--which Christians never obey--and are told that this is how God wants to be worshiped. It is never explained WHY God wants to be worshiped. He is supposed to be the Creator of All That Is, why would he need or want the adoration of humans? Needs and wants imply a lack of something, and since God lacks nothing, he shouldn't desire anything. Is it just an ego thing? Maybe he just likes being told, a million times a day, what a great guy he is, and if people don't do this, he flies into a rage like a spoiled little child who can't have a toy.
We are told that the Sabbath--the 7th-day one, not Sunday--is made for man. Now, GOD is the one who needed a rest, so how can the Sabbath be for us? Some of us have to WORK for a living. If God wants to take a regular day off, great, but he shouldn't expect the rest of us to pass up an opportunity to pay bills, buy groceries, or go out for a night of fun.
"Satan has effectively led the human race to diminish the importance of the Ten Commandments," sez Larry. Ten? Which ten? There are three different versions of them--Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish--and they don't match up. Moses received 613 commands on the magic mountain, so why attach so much importance to just those ten? Are the others just afterthoughts? God sent Israel into exile again and again for not obeying ALL of his commands, so they must be pretty darn important. I guess Christians are more afraid of the wrath of PETA than the wrath of God, if they start doing animal sacrifices.
Larry also insists that Jesus is God, yet oddly enough he can't seem to find any verses where Jesus actually says, "I am God." He says that he and the Father are one, and you see him you see the Father, but this is not the same thing. It is more likely to mean that he simply saw himself as a representative of God. After all, he PRAYED to God, he called God "my Father" and "my God." Does God worship himself? Does he pray to himself? Did he sacrifice himself to himself to save everyone from his own wrath?
The rest of the chapter is just more blah-blah-blah about how you must show your love for God by obeying him (except, of course, for the 603 that Christians have decided are not important), and if you don't, God will torture and kill you--and that's BEFORE he sends you to hell for some more torture. Satan never sends anybody to hell, it is only God who does this. Yet Satan is supposed to be the bad guy?? I think Christians have got it completely backwards and they are worshiping the wrong deity. They might be better off not worshiping any deity until they find a nicer one.
One more chapter to go!
Chapter 7: A Dramatic Rescue by Jesus (who is not exactly Johnny-on-the-Spot)
Well, there's not much to say about Chapter 7. It's a lot like the previous 6 chapters, emphasizing, for the millionth time, that God gets very, very angry when he doesn't get his way. He may hold back his vengeance for a long time, but when he finally cuts loose, he REALLY cuts loose, smiting one and all with a mighty smote that smiteth mightily. It doesn't seem to matter that the innocent get caught up in his rage along with the guilty. Babies, children, pregnant women, the elderly, the mentally ill, puppies and kittens, it won't matter to God--if they can't run fast enough to escape his Cosmic Fist of Doom, then that's just too bad. There's something about a war, the mark of the Beast, seven bowls, more of God's wrath, and just when all seems lost, Jesus arrives on the scene to send Satan packing and show the world who's really in charge around here. To tell you the truth, I lost interest in this steaming pile of religious offal quite some time ago. My attitude has changed from when I was a Christian and the Book of Revelation was my favorite in the Bible.
You see, there was a time when I would have agreed wholeheartedly with everything in that book. Now, I can scarcely stomach the notion of a higher power that would sweep away everything in its path in a fit of temper, like a child knocking down someone else's blocks. I just don't get why anyone would want to worship and adore someone so obviously out of control. Some of it has to be fear, in the same way kids are afraid of the playground bully and will give him their lunch money or toys to avoid being punched in the face. Or perhaps a dictatorship is a more apt analogy--if your illustrious leader, who has the power to put you in a dungeon or in front of a firing squad, tells you to obey him, you do it. The difference is that the fascist dictator actually exists; you can see him and talk to him (if you're unlucky); but there is no proof for the existence of this BibleGod personage. Why are people afraid of what they can't even prove exists?
Most Christians will say that they don't really fear God, they simply respect him very deeply. This is a God who, it is said, will one day pour out his rage upon an unsuspecting humanity, for no other reason than that they didn't worship him, or else they went about it the wrong way. Rather than find some way of explaining what it is he wants, why he wants it, and how everybody can provide it for him, in a way that everyone will understand and accept--being omnimax, he could do that, you know--God will choose, instead, to rain plagues, fire, war, and misery upon the old and the young, men and women, adults, children, infants, and the unborn, and even upon the animals, trees, and rivers. What, exactly, in that list is designed to make me say, "Hey, this is a really great guy! I respect him for that."? Respect is something you earn, not force upon others who are weaker than you--and that's something you'll never read in any book about BibleGod.
0 comments:
Post a Comment