The Misunderstood Beast Power

A brief and unorthodox look at the prophetic Beast. 

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America has had a mid-term election and, as usual, party control has switched. Some people are very happy while others are very sad. Somehow, the "I love heads" team and the "I love tails" team manage to keep believing their side of the coin is somehow fundamentally different than the other side of that very same coin. We've flipped that coin several times in the past. How's that goin' for ya?

These are the times when Armstrongist "Ministers" tend to bark about prophetic fulfillment and the Great Tribulation. Fear is a great way to raise funds. Make no mistake, it's all about the funds.

I very much dislike prophecy. I used to love it. Practically obsessed with it. It's the main thing that got me into Armstrongism in the first place. Not. Any. More. But I'm jaded with the world once again, I am reminded this is not my home, and my heart yearns for that Kingdom were created to inhabit, and my heart sighs and cries for all the confusion in the world, and so I thought I might explore prophecy just a teensy bit. Today I talk prophecy stuff.

I want to point something out that you rarely if ever hear in an Armstrongist church. If you've read this blog for any length of time then you know I love to throw a good curveball. I try to look at things from different directions.

I am not promising you anything specific, other than a different perspective. I do not claim to have any solid answers in this game. I remind you, dear reader, that all prophetic interpretation is speculation.

Here's your curveball stated plainly:
The Beast isn't completely bad. You might even like it.

"What!?! xHWA, now I know you've gone mental." No, no. Hear me out. I'm not advocating for the Beast power; I'm trying to warn you.

THE BENEVOLENT BEAST

You all know the prophecies. I'm not going to belabor the point. Daniel 2. Statue. Head of gold, etc etc. Daniel 7. Four beasts - Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome.

These were real kingdoms in history. Sermons and articles on these things concentrate on the negative aspects of these kingdoms. They're scary. They're dangerous. It makes for better story telling that way (and better fundraising). But have you ever considered the good aspects of these kingdoms? Don't tell me there were no good aspects, because you know there were.

Have you ever read Daniel 4:34-37? I bet you have. It's in the book of Daniel, but it wasn't written by Daniel. Those verses were written by none other than King Nebuchadnezzar II ... king of the head of gold and the first beast. The very first great king of the very first portion of the Beast wrote some of the most beautiful words praising God that you will find in the entire Bible. There were miracles. Some of the greatest names in the Bible held top positions. Yet this kingdom did not stop being the first beast of Daniel.

Have you ever read II Chronicles 36:22-23, or the book of Ezra? It was none other than Cyrus, king of the chest and arms of silver and the second beast, who returned Israel from exile to its homeland and facilitated the rebuilding of the Temple of God in Jerusalem. The beast did that. The second beast returned the golden items looted by Nebuchadnezzar II from the Temple of God, for the worship of God. But it wasn't just Cyrus, it was God acting through Cyrus. The Almighty God acted through the beast. Later, when the Gentile people whom the Assyrians brought into the land of Israel tried to stop the building of the Temple, King Darius ordered them to leave the effort alone and even ordered them to help fund it. In Ezra 6, three kings of the second beast are credited with helping the effort to rebuild the Temple: Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes. Have you ever looked at it that way before?

Alexander the Great, the belly and thighs of bronze and greatest king of the third beast, arguably the greatest single king of them all, didn't do amazing things for Israel, but he did some very good things and he was quite tolerant of them. He allowed the Temple services to remain, he never defiled the Temple, he raised the standard of living in the region, and he exempted Israel from taxes every seventh year for the sabbatical year. The people liked him so much that it even became a tradition for a while in Israel to name their firstborn sons Alexander.
And then Antiochus IV Epiphanes happened.

Until that whole business with the destruction of the Temple and the Bar Kokhba Revolt, Rome actually did some very good things for Israel. I will quote a Monty Python skit from the highly irreverent comedy "Life of Brian" where a Jewish nationalist front group inadvertently creates a list of good things Rome did for them:

"All right, but apart from the sanitation, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Brought peace.
Oh, peace? Shut up!"

Truth is, Rome actually did some of these things.

Why did Rome conquer Israel in the first place? Judas Maccabee led a revolt that eventually resulted in an independent Jewish kingdom, established under his brother Simon. For a brief period, Israel ruled itself. What did it do with that opportunity? A series of internal power struggles and civil wars. Two warring rulers of Judaea appealed to Pompey of Rome for support against each other. Pompey ordered them to stop fighting while he came to a decision. They would not. So, Pompey marched in, eventually bringing Judea under Roman domination. In time, Rome installed Herod the Great as king. How did that go? You know the story. When Herod died, Rome divided his kingdom among his sons. A few years later, Rome took direct control of Judea. Why did they take direct control? Because Archelaus was such a terrible ruler that a delegation of Jewish leaders traveled to Rome and appealed to Augustus. They accused Archelaus of cruelty and tyranny and asked that he be removed. In 6 AD, Augustus accommodated the request. So, you see, the Beast was actually, in its own way, trying to bring peace and order to a land that repeatedly refused it. That is not to say Rome was friendly. It was cruel. The taxation was bitter, the laws harsh, and the rulers oppressive. In 66 AD, after nearly a century of putting up with Rome, the Jews finally revolted ...and the Temple was destroyed; not one stone left upon another. 

You can respond to me with all the horrid things each of these kingdoms did in the region, and you would be absolutely correct. They were each terrible in many ways. But none of that erases from history these positive things each of those kingdoms did. My point is not to paint them as wonderful. They weren't. My point is simply to say they each did good things as well as bad. Each were loved as well as hated.

MOVING FORWARD

It seems there might be another iteration of this Beast Power to emerge towards the end of this age. Revelation. Seven heads; ten horns. You know the one. If the Beast Power that you have in your mind is all evil and oppressive all the time, so obvious in its machinations that you'll see it coming from miles away - rising from the sea and stamping its terrible feet and gnashing its terrible teeth - then chances are good it already has you fooled.

There will be no Sunday Law. There will be no 'all evil all the time'. No. It will come so much more subtly than that. Satan comes as an angel of light. The Beast will not just appear all of a sudden at the end of the age and immediately get down to the business of oppressing the faithful. I gave you the examples I did above to demonstrate that the Beast can do good things, too. In theory, some of those who have looked for it their whole lives might end up on Team Beast, not realizing it.

There is a second character, pictured as a woman.

What is the main accusation against Babylon the Great? Luxury. Luxury from successful commerce. A life so good that the people forget God. Luxury and excess is not the kind of oppression most people anticipate. Who would ever cry out, "Oh no! Not a system where I can live greater than the dreams of most kings!" ??  (I am not suggesting luxury is inherently bad. I am saying if you forget God in the good times, then you're in danger.)

I wrote an article years ago that shows the many parallels between this woman and Israel. That was not to say Israel is this woman, but there are remarkable parallels which prove you can be God's own elect nation and yet be practically indistinguishable from something like this.

At first, the luxurious woman rides the Beast. At first, the Beast goes along with luxury and excess. There are good times for all. She knows it's a Beast, but thinks she can control it forever. It knows she's a harlot, but it tolerates her. Inevitably, there must be a clash. It turns on her. She loses.

One system that delivers luxury from international commerce vs another system which uses that commerce but in its heart opposes it. Both anti-God at their cores. Both capable of horrible evils, but yet good things as well. Neither are all evil all the time. God's people live in both, and hopefully understand both systems oppose God. Neither of those two options are the right choice.

Any system that is opposed to Jesus, which sells itself as opposed to wealth (except for the leadership, of course), which promises a better way to meet all your needs, and which allies itself with a false religion, probably ought to be be suspect #1 in your mind.
Not the only suspect, but the prime suspect.

Anything that claims it can solve your problems through wealth and trade, apart from the God who gives blessings and increase, probably ought to be suspect in your mind.

CONCLUSION

I am not predicting anything specific. I am not identifying anything specific. I am setting zero dates. Predictions and identifications and dates are above my pay grade. I am no prophet. I am not the end-time [insert title here] for to come. No angel named Zamboni, or Boloney, or whatever, came to give me a message for you. I do not want your tithes and offerings.
What I am saying here in this post is simply that, just like when Jesus came the first time, things might not be as people expect. We may have misunderstood the Beast. We may have a certain picture in our minds of how things will be but those systems do not match our picture, and so we fail to recognize the danger. Or, what we look for finally comes, but we realize it so late that we are already in the path of the tidal wave before we grasp what's going on.

It is well within reason to assume the description of the Beast which Herbert Armstrong preached was just as wrong as his hundreds of other failed prophecies and predictions, made "by the AUTHORITY of JESUS CHRIST, the living HEAD of the TRUE CHURCH OF GOD!" (his words, not mine). In the If you are still following that pattern, you might want to reconsider.

"Hitler is the 'Beast' of Revelation.... There, Bible prophecy does indicate that Hitler must be the victor in his present Russian invasion."
-Herbert W. Armstrong, The Plain Truth, October 1941, p. 7.

Yeahhhh. So... 

Seeing as all this is completely out of our power no matter how it happens, I recommend doing precisely what the Bible recommends: be alert, keep your eyes open to every possibility, and above all stay faithful. God didn't spare Ezekiel and Daniel from captivity. What did they do while in captivity? They remained faithful and praised God, who was still in control and whose will was being worked out here below.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Sin is What?

Despite what you were told about God’s judgment, He does not judge according to the law; He judges according to the heart, where an evil heart is condemned by the law. For an evil heart is a sinful heart, and the law condemns sins because they are evil. This is the point being made in 1John 3:4, obscured by the early English translation that slipped into interpretation based on common misconception.

Sin ALSO transgresses the law. This is what is established to begin with in 1John 3:4, then clarification follows: … for sin is “anomia” that being the Greek word translated and understood in English as “evil” and/or “iniquity” as well as transliterated as “against law” in Greek as evil and iniquitous acts are “against law” in a generic sense, and not the specific sense regarding the Hebrew old covenant Decalogue.

Sin, being evil and iniquity, transgresses the law, producing the wrath of the law and the guilt derived by and through the law.

Any evil; any iniquity, is sin that in turn transgresses the law, resulting in the condemnation of the law. The flawed translation in the KJV results in a rendering that eliminates evil and iniquitous things unless specifically addressed by the old covenant law. And when some Sabbatarians such as Adventists further define and restrict the law to mean just the Decalogue, many evils and iniquities are ignored, swept under a theological rug, so that an evil and iniquitous heart is not condemned by ‘the law’.

It is a subtle alteration of the Scriptures, worthy of a deceitful heart desperately trying to hide behind a modified understanding of sin that exempts wicked hearts.

A deceitful and desperately wicked heart will attempt denial in this regard, which is interesting, for it is like trying to convince yourself God has no interest in a wicked heart, as long as those with wicked hearts keep the law, as did the Pharisees whom Jesus stated were destined for hell.

(Matthew 23:33) Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

They kept the Decalogue. They kept the Sabbath. And, they neglected the weightier matters of the law; “judgment” [justice] mercy, and faith.

Make special note of that. The weightier matters of the law; the important things; the essential things in the law ARE NOT LOCATED IN THE DECALOGUE found in those specific commandments.

So why do Sabbatarian Adventists single them out and isolate them from the rest of the law? They claim is it due to those specific commandments being “moral” in nature, as contrasted to the balance of the law, deemed ceremonial. In this division of law, where do you find justice, mercy, and faith? They are actually further obscured, especially with the Sabbath command that even those same Pharisees condemned Christ Jesus, mercilessly.

Judgment, tempered by mercy and faith, is nowhere to be found in a religion restricted to the Decalogue and a definition of sin that is based on any transgression of those commandments. It is an automatic declaration of sin and condemnation without any mercy or faith applied. It is ruthless judgment and condemnation for having violated those commandments, especially the Sabbath. Work on the Sabbath and you are guilty of sin, because to work on the Sabbath is to break the Sabbath, and breaking is transgressing, and that is sin, period. You hear and read this response on a near daily basis.

Jesus’ response to a charge of sin leveled on Him for working on the Sabbath was that good works are lawful on the Sabbath which fell on deaf ears, attached to deceitful and desperately wicked hearts that has no interest in just judgment, mercy, and faith, and where Adventism has effectively eliminated this aspect of the law from their interpretation of the law, being solely the Decalogue.

Neglecting the weightier matters of the law; judgment, mercy, and faith necessary for righteous judgment and justice… is that a sin? Or is this excluded by a “belief” that insists only those transgressions of the law; the Decalogue are sin?

It’s all about excluding and ignoring evil, iniquitous hearts.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Fruits of the Spirit; Works of the law

Jesus referred to the people as evil. He referred to the Pharisees as evil children of the Devil, doing the will of their father the devil.

They called Jesus a servant of the Devil, performing miracles by the power of the Devil.

If you were there; one of the people Jesus spoke to, and heard Him refer to you as evil, how would you respond within yourself? Wouldn’t you naturally conclude He was mistaken; that you are not evil, like so many other people about you? It begs the question as to whether you would consider something God said through the psalms:

(Psalms 53:3) Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

The Pharisees believed themselves to be good, relying on the law. They kept the law. They taught the law. For Jesus to declare them evil children of the Devil, doing the will of their father the Devil, would have been seen as just the ravings of an itinerant preacher who was seeking a personal following, and when miracles started popping up performed by Him, they concluded He was more than just another unlearned self-proclaimed prophet; that He was a real threat with the backing of the Devil behind Him… all the more reason to stop Him.

At this juncture, you have a requirement to evaluate the situation. If you believe Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, then you must accept what He said, and He called the Pharisees and Sanhedrin evil children of the Devil doing the will of their father the Devil, and that they taught the law and administered it. Jesus even called them out on their practice of traversing land and sea to make a proselyte, resulting in those people becoming twice the children of hell than they were… quite an indictment.

To the Pharisees and man on the street, Jesus flaunted the law… the “law of God”. To Jesus, He was flaunting their feigned obeisance to the law. They used the law as cover; a cloak to disguise their evil hearts and deeds.

(Mark 7:6) He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

They went through the religious motions, for the sake of appearance, putting on a good show of being dedicated to keeping the law, while the God who gave them that law stood before them.

What then can we learn from all this? That evil people will put on a show of piety using the law as part of their costume. Evil people have deceptive hearts, and they innately see the potential to use the law as the means of best concealing it. A truly good person, led by the Holy Spirit, has no need for such a facade. Their actual good works, wrought in and through the Holy Spirit, speak for themselves. It is actions that follow conscience of the good hearted. Contrast this to those whose evil hearts are cloaked by the law, where they do the works of the law, and conclude those are the evidence of their goodness and acceptance by God.

Those who follow Christ; those who are now His, keep His commandments that revolve around love, faith, and the Spirit; not the works of the law.

(Galatians 2:16) Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

Those led by the flesh and not the Spirit have no option but to attempt and use the works of the law to appear justified, for they cannot produce the actual fruits of the Spirit.

Sabbatarians emphasize the Sabbath for this sole purpose. They see it as fruit of the Spirit as well as a work of the law, with the added benefit of having an outlet for their evil through accusations of sin and evil against others who recognize the Sabbath as an impediment to actual fruits of the Spirit - literally violating the very law they claim to cherish and obey by bearing the most egregious false witness against their neighbor - where Paul specifically stated there is no law against the fruits or works of the Spirit, and that includes the Sabbath law.

Good works were declared lawful on the Sabbath by the Lord of the Sabbath. And by the dissolution of the old covenant, and the establishment of the new for those led by the Holy Spirit, the Sabbath day was done away with, even as God foretold through the prophets.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Halloween III - Thanksgiving

Think you know where Halloween came from? Maybe you do. Or maybe you've just heard the same story repeated often enough that it sounds like history. Here are some quick facts and observations to separate the historical record from the Halloween mythology.

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In the previous post, we went over Samhain and we found it bears little resemblance to the story widely told about it. Today, we look at those modern Halloween traditions we love to hate: trick-or-treating and jack-o'-lanterns. You may be surprised at what the real history actually holds. Some people are absolutely convinced Halloween is pagan because of the errors they believe about Samhain, which we addressed in the previous post. Others are convinced Halloween is pagan because of errors they believe about the traditions. Well, that is what I hope to clear up now. Today, in the last post of the series, we will go over trick-or-treating and jack-o'-lanterns.

Please take this quote from the History.com as our introduction:

"Halloween has its roots in the ancient, pre-Christian Celtic festival of Samhain, which was celebrated on the night of October 31. The Celts, who lived 3,000 years ago in Central and Western Europe, believed that the dead returned to earth on Samhain. On that sacred night, people gathered to light bonfires, offer sacrifices and pay homage to the dead.
During some Celtic celebrations of Samhain, villagers disguised themselves in costumes made of animal skins to drive away phantom visitors; banquet tables were prepared and food was left out to placate unwelcome spirits."
-"How Trick-or-Treating Became a Halloween Tradition", History.com, October 23, 2026.

This quote is simply abysmal. But you, my esteemed reader, have been educating yourself in this series, and I am confident that you see glaring errors in it.

It's approaching Thanksgiving now, and you might be wondering why we are still posting about Halloween. There is a method to my madness. I've said in many articles that the traditions we usually find at Halloween were once ubiquitous throughout Fall. Let us see a prime example of that.

TRICKS OR TREATS

Can trick-or-treating be traced back to pagan Druids? Hardly. This custom does not come from any one thing, but none of those things can be traced to ancient Druids, let alone Irish ones at Samhain in particular.
This is not to say that pagans never wore costumes or traipsed around, but commonality is not causality. (We have to prove that something is pagan beyond just saying the traditions look similar.) I cannot find such proof in any primary or reliable secondary sources. The evidence I have shows the history of our modern traditions is quite Christian.

The practice of dressing up in costume was called "masking" in medieval England. Putting on costume and then going around to entertain or to ask for a handout or collect charity (called 'ritualized begging') went by many names; "guising" and "mumming" for example. Most other cultures in Europe had similar traditions. For convenience, I will lump them all under the term mumming.

Mumming was surprisingly popular. It was done at many holidays throughout the year. It was a convenient way to raise money for church or charity. Sometimes the practice was called after the holiday on which it was done: "clementing" on the Feast of St. Clement (Nov. 23), "catterning" on the Feast of St. Catherine (Nov. 25), and "souling" on All Souls' Day. Souling could happen at any time during All Hallowtide, but it was particularly focused on All Souls' Day. It was not particularly focused on Halloween. The opposite, in fact. I can find no record of a medieval mumming tradition that was specific to October 31, as 'catterning' was for the St. Catherine's Day. So, how did mumming (trick-or-treat) become specific to Halloween?

Surprises are expected in October, and modern trick-or-treat has a surprise twist. Mumming on Halloween did not come from Europe to America directly, since there were no Halloween-specific mumming traditions. Instead, it came first to another popular holiday. All Souls' Day? No. America was primarily Protestant and didn't favor All Souls' Day. Instead, it came through ... Thanksgiving.

Starting in the mid-1800s and lasting through the early-1900s, there were several mumming traditions on or near Thanksgiving Day in America. I have said many times over the years that certain Halloween and Christmas traditions were done throughout the Autumn, and only later coalesced onto these days. This is now my favorite example.

Thanksgiving Ragamuffins

I learned about this when I happened across the article "Masking and Mumming for the Holidays, Thanksgiving Style!" by Stephen Winick on Library of Congress Blogs. In it, he makes a concrete case that mumming on Thanksgiving predated Halloween trick-or-treating by several decades. It begins with these words:

"Happy Thanksgiving! In this post, we’ll take a look at a set of interesting photos from the Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Division. They depict a custom most people nowadays don’t know much about: Thanksgiving masking. Thanksgiving maskers, like trick-or-treaters on contemporary Halloween, used to go door to door, begging for handouts."
-Stephen Winick, "Masking and Mumming for the Holidays, Thanksgiving Style!", blogs.loc.gov, November 25, 2020.

Did you know about that? Likely not. But I bet you "knew" that trick-or-treat comes straight from the Druids (as History.com claims), even though it didn't.

Winick goes on to say something quite revealing:

"To discuss a more specific anachronism, [Linton Weeks, of NPR] claimed that by dressing up at Thanksgiving and going door to door looking for treats, the people in these photos 'effectively created a mash-up of Halloween and Turkey Day.' This idea could only occur to someone looking back at these pictures from a later time, for the simple reason that Thanksgiving masking predates trick-or-treating in the United States. When these pictures were taken, kids did play in the streets and play tricks on Halloween night, and adults held masquerade balls, but trick-or-treating as we know it did not exist, and children didn’t dress in raggedy costumes or go from house to house on Halloween. These might look like Halloween pictures to us, but they didn’t look anything like Halloween in 1910."
-Stephen Winick, "Masking and Mumming for the Holidays, Thanksgiving Style!", blogs.loc.gov, November 25, 2020.

And there you have it. That article has links to several sources and terms which should help you on your way to learning more about this if you are interested, and I will post links at the end of this article.

Most of the Thanksgiving mumming traditions were specifically found in New York City. Mumming was so popular on Thanksgiving that New Yorkers nicknamed the day "Ragamuffin Day". However, when I dug through old newspaper records, I began to find the same activities had spread to other areas around the country. I have found several references to an 1897 Los Angeles Times article stating Thanksgiving was one of the busiest times of the year for manufacturers of false faces and masks. That Masking and Mumming article cites this same, but from Chicago. That means the article was probably syndicated and printed in several papers across the country.

Thanksgiving mumming does not come from any single people group or tradition. America is the Great Melting Pot after all, and the Old World brought many autumn customs to the New World. In the 1860s-70s, they came together at Thanksgiving, apparently starting in New York. It wouldn't be until the 1920s that they began to migrate to Halloween.

Yes, that's right, your ancient Druidic Halloween trick-or-treat custom really comes from the 1930s.

"In the important article 'Trick or Treat: Pre-Texts and Contexts,' which appeared in this edited volume by Jack Santino, folklorist Tad Tuleja dates American trick-or-treating to the 1930s, and points out that even in the 1940s articles about Halloween traditions do not mention it, suggesting it did not become truly widespread until later"
-Stephen Winick, "Masking and Mumming for the Holidays, Thanksgiving Style!", blogs.loc.gov, November 25, 2020.

All this talk about Druids and costumes to scare away demons is rather pointless after that.

And you should know the phrase "trick-or-treat" is credited to Canada, from the early-1900s. The earliest known documented evidence of this phrase is from the November 1, 1917 edition of the Sault Daily Star (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada), which reported that children were calling out “tricks or treats.” I thought "tricks or treats" was just an oddity found in the "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" Halloween Special. Apparently not. By 1927, the now familiar "trick or treat" appears in the historical record, also in Canada.

Our modern Halloween trick-or-treating tradition is an American phenomenon from the 1930s. We know that Halloween activities in the 1800s included adults going to masquerade balls, but that says nothing about children. As the popular story goes, kids caused trouble on Halloween, and somebody got the bright idea to dress them up and send them trick-or-treating to keep them out of trouble. Is that how it really went? I don't know. It is supported and makes sense. But skip a few years, and children are still doing the same thing to this day.

That is your true history of trick-or-treating. Do you recall the quote from The Sun which opened this series? Here is a refresher: "Trick or treating may seem like a modern event, but it can actually be traced back to Celtic Britain and Ireland in the 9th century." Now how do you feel about that?

Many modern Evangelical Christians have modified trick-or-treating into "trunk-or-treat", where children do not go door-to-door but car-to-car. At first, it was popularized as a way to push back against the accusations of paganism surrounding Halloween, most of which we now know are false. Trunk-or-treat is still a much safer and more controlled environment, however, and that's a perfectly good reason to keep doing it.

That Halloween costumes have recently become increasingly dark and grotesque does not in any way mean they always were, much less that they must be. Fallen things happen in a fallen world. As for me, I feel our challenge is not to declare defeat and scurry away, but to oppose this darker direction. There are plenty of harmless and even wholesome alternatives to the morbid.

And now, about those pumpkins...

JACK-O'-LANTERNS

The term "jack-o'-lantern" and similar phrases did not originally refer to a carved vegetable. By the mid-1600s, several related expressions were being used both for night watchmen carrying lanterns and for mysterious wandering lights in marshes and bogs, also called will-o'-the-wisps or fool's fire.

As for the tradition of vegetable-carving, the oldest extant written record of the custom is also from the mid-1600s. That is considerably later than the pagan Irish Druid origins you have heard about. A 1640 letter by English writer James Howell describes a turnip carved like a death's head with a candle inside, used to frighten people. That is the earliest reference we have. But the term jack-o-lantern was not yet applied to carved vegetables.

The earliest reference we have of carved vegetables being called jack-o-lanterns comes from the mid-1800s. In 1837, the Limerick Chronicle (County Limerick, Ireland) reported a carved-gourd competition, awarding a prize for the “best crown of Jack McLantern.” It was after this, in the 1840s, that the term jack-o'-lantern and the tradition of carved pumpkins were brought together.

Now we have carved vegetables, lights, and the term jack-o'-lantern all in the same place. But you might not have noticed that we are still missing one final ingredient: Halloween.
By the late-1800s, reports appear which explicitly connect illuminated carved pumpkins with Halloween in North America. Definitely not during the time of the Druids.

But that makes me curious about what happened before the late-1800s? Would you believe ... Thanksgiving again?

Jack-o'-lanterns were not exclusively a Halloween custom. Ronald Hutton, in "Stations of the Sun", mentions carved vegetables at Christmas time. Also, take the following quote from the New York Times November 24, 1895 edition, titled "The Day We Celebrate; Thanksgiving Treated Gastronomically and Socially". The article is about how to host a good Thanksgiving. In a section about how to entertain the children, it suggests a scavenger hunt for nuts, then it says:

"A 'booby' prize, that never fails to please the children, is an old-fashioned jack o' lantern, made from a small pumpkin, and brought in lighted, on a salver, to be presented to the luckless nut hunter."

Carved vegetables happened throughout the Autumn. Only later did the custom migrate to become exclusively a Halloween custom, as we see it today.

So, jack-o'-lanterns are relatively recent and were used throughout the Fall holidays, therefore they cannot be evidence that Halloween came from paganism any more than Thanksgiving did.

CONCLUSION

In the first post, we learned about how Halloween is misunderstood. In the second post, we learned how Samhain is misunderstood. Today, we've learned how Halloween traditions are misunderstood. And now you know why I am still putting up these posts after Halloween ... because Halloween history is Thanksgiving history. (The 'once pagan always pagan' crowd might want to rethink Thanksgiving now.)

It is simple to think jack-o-lanterns are a Halloween custom, and Halloween is close to Samhain, therefore jack-o-lanterns must be a Samhain carry-over, but that is not how it went. The case that Halloween and its customs come specifically from ancient, pagan Samhain is quite overstated. Believe it or not, Christians have imaginations, too.

So, for all those people who cry rivers over the pagan origins of Halloween customs, you can rest comfortably knowing the Thanksgiving you celebrate once had trick-or-treat and jack-o'-lantern customs well before Halloween did. Those old, tired excuses of "it's pagan" or "it imitates what Druids did" etc etc are simply false.

My objective in this series is truth. It is not to convince anyone to celebrate Halloween. If you don't want to, then don't. It's not required. But at least be honest with yourself about why you've chosen as you have. Someone might say to me, "You've cleared up a few things, but I still cannot see how this day honors God," and you know what, that's fine. I think the better question than "does it glorify God" is "can it glorify God", and I believe the answer to that is yes, if you make it so. The choice before us is to either insist on making it honor God as we are able, as we do for all the other perfectly acceptable days in our lives, or to surrender and concede it to the modern culture. Take your pick. This is the exact same choice you must make whether you spend some time in a costume in late October or not. To the Lord you do it, or to the Lord you do not do it. As for me, personally, I don't agree that we honor God by doing nothing (or by going to the grocery store, like I used to do when I was an Armstrongist on Halloween night). I say bring a little light into it. Since it started as a day to honor the faithful departed, perhaps we should consider returning it to that. But the least effective way to honor God would be to persist in accusing the day of being pagan despite all the evidence we've seen. That sounds too much to me like bearing false witness.

Other posts in this series:
Halloween I, Halloween II

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Here is a bullet point summary covering the highlights of what we learned in this series which you can share with your family and friends and former church mates (because once you share this, surely you will be disfellowshipped):

• In 609 AD Pope Boniface IV created a memorial to all martyrs on May 13 for the diocese of Rome.
• In 731-741 AD Pope Gregory III created a memorial to all departed saints in Heaven on November 1, again for the diocese of Rome, apparently as part of his dispute with the Byzantine Emperor.
• In 835 AD Pope Gregory IV expanded the all saints memorial to the whole church.
• At some point in the 800s AD, the first mention of Samhain appears in Irish literature.
• The claim that Samhain was so popular that the Pope moved All Saints’ Day to co-opt it is unsupported by the historical evidence.
• There was no single Celtic culture. Samhain is distinctly Irish, and evidence from Ireland cannot automatically be applied to peoples outside Ireland and Scotland.
• Samhain may have originated as a seasonal marker associated with the end of the harvest, the beginning of winter, and the annual cycle of farming and community life.
• The earliest Irish sources date Samhain to the beginning of November, but they were written in the Christian era.
• In 800 AD (about when the earliest mentions of Samhain appear) the Julian Calendar was used. November 1, 800 AD, would be November 5 on our Gregorian calendar today.
• The earliest sources do not tell us how or when Samhain first became associated with November 1, nor do they prove that the date was observed by Druids. Druids likely used a lunar calendar.
• The medieval Irish legends were written by Christian monks centuries after the Druids disappear from the historical record. They cannot be treated as eyewitness accounts of ancient pagan practices.
• The Otherworld in the Irish legends was not a realm of the dead. It was a fairy world, and was often portrayed as an alluring, beautiful world, quite unlike the frightening land of ghosts and demons described in modern Halloween-origin stories.
• Beginning in the 1500s, writers increasingly romanticized the Druids and invented a Celtic past that went well beyond the available evidence.
• The modern claim that Samhain was the Celtic New Year and a great festival of the dead was heavily influenced by nineteenth-century writers, particularly John Rhys and James Frazer.
• Modern Wicca helped popularize Samhain as a major pagan festival, but creating new customs and calling them ancient does not make them actual ancient practices.
• Nothing establishes a direct historical connection between the Druids and the Halloween customs commonly attributed to them.
• Many Halloween traditions, including costumes, going door to door for treats, and carved vegetable lanterns, have documented parallels in Christian-era customs. These traditions were often practiced throughout the autumn holidays, and some have particularly interesting connections to Thanksgiving.
• There is no reliable evidence that any modern Halloween tradition originated as an ancient Druidic or Samhain custom.
• Just because two customs look alike doesn't mean one came from the other. Commonality does not prove causality.
• Modern historical research is chipping away at claims about Samhain, the Druids, and Halloween that people once repeated as established fact.

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Some interesting sources to help you dig further into the link between Halloween and Thanksgiving:

"Masking and Mumming for the Holidays, Thanksgiving Style!" on Library of Congress Blogs.
https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2020/11/masking-and-mumming-for-the-holidays-thanksgiving-style/

"Unmasking a Thanksgiving Tradition Through Photos and Newspapers" on Library of Congress Blogs.
https://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2015/11/unmasking-a-thanksgiving-tradition-through-photos-and-newspapers/

"The Ancient Irish Get Far Too Much Credit for Halloween" on USC Dornsife.
https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/ancient-irish-get-too-much-credit-for-halloween/

"Trick or Treat" on Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles 3rd Edition
https://dchp.arts.ubc.ca/entries/trick%20or%20treat

"The Jack-o-Lantern Story: Uncut and Uncensored" on lesleybannatyne.com.
https://lesleybannatyne.com/JOL.html

Link to historical newspapers about Thanksgiving "fantasticals".
https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/?q=thanksgiving+fantasticals

Link to historical newspapers about Thanksgiving "ragamuffins".
https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/?q=thanksgiving+ragamuffin

Jack Santo, "Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life", 1994. On Internet Archive.
https://archive.org/details/halloweenotherfe0000unse/mode/2up

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Revealing Sabbatarian Conditioning

The problem with the title of this article is that the same conditioning Sabbatarian and legalistic churches inflict upon their members makes it highly unlikely what I write will be revealed to those same people, whereas those who have transitioned out and embraced the true Gospel can readily see what the others are blinded from seeing. For their exists another aspect of this, a truth of God, that is also not believed by them and that is, there are those who God has blinded from seeing truth, having earlier rejected truth.

(John 9:39) And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.

I begin this journey of exposure with this:

(Jeremiah 32:30) For the children of Israel and the children of Judah have only done evil before me from their youth: for the children of Israel have only provoked me to anger with the work of their hands, saith the LORD.

A simple question for those reading this… Was God telling the truth, or was He lying? In other words, do you believe God? Or, does your mind look for reasons this might not be true? You might conclude that even an evil person can do a good thing, but what needs to be considered is motive. Evil people may well do what is perceived as good, while the motive for doing so was evil.

(1 Samuel 16:7) But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

Two truths of God revealed: 1) How He judges, according to the heart, and 2) How man judges, according to appearance.

Jesus elaborated on this here:

(John 7:24) Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

How God judges is righteous judgment, and how man judges, according to appearance, is not. And if it is not righteous judgment, there is only one other kind of judgment that it can be, and that is unrighteous judgment.

Now lets take what God declared through Jeremiah about all the works of the Hebrews from their youth were only evil in the sight of God.

They were given the Sabbath. The Sabbath commandment decrees that no one was to do any work on the Sabbath. Given what God said through Jeremiah, what would you conclude, logically? The only works they could rest from were evil works, for that was all they were doing, according to a God who judges mankind based on their hearts, and not according to appearance; righteous judgment as opposed to unrighteous judgment. Their rest from work was a rest from evil works, only.

Now, were a typical Sabbatarian to agree that all their works; the work of their hands, were evil, what happens when confronted with a scenario that Sabbatarianism disagrees with, fundamentally?

You see back-peddling. You see rationalizations so as to maintain the cognitive dissonance inherent in Sabbatarian theology. You see the redefinition of words, terms, and concepts so that “any” work doesn’t mean “any” and works performed with one’s hands are not necessarily evil, seeing as some works were still done, or could be done on the Sabbath like rescuing an animal from a pit or turning one’s livestock out to pasture; works where no charge of sin resulted. And if you are working from a position where sin is the result of transgressing the law (read: Decalogue), then you can’t be claiming all their works were evil, where evil is a sin, and where sin ALSO transgresses the law as stated in the first half of 1John 3:4 that disrupts the Sabbatarian belief and insistence that sin only occurs and is chargeable upon transgression of the law.

With an understanding and belief that all their works, no matter what they were, were evil in the sight of God, the Sabbatarian definition of sin falls apart and crumbles into proverbial dust. Too much of Sabbatarianism rides on, and is dependent on the belief that sin results when someone transgresses the law, which, by the way, reinforces unrighteous judgment based on appearance, which Jesus also addressed in the context of working on the Sabbath.

(John 7:22-24) Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision; (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers;) and ye on the sabbath day circumcise a man. °If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath day? °Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

Righteous judgment looks to the heart and intent of the heart, where those with evil hearts God judges where evil hearted people only do evil in His sight. Conversely, good people do good in His sight, which begs the logical question, who has a good heart if all the Hebrew’s works were deemed evil due to having what God described again through Jeremiah:

(Jeremiah 17:9) The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

What God spoke through Jeremiah is not believed; not accepted as presented. It is modified to conform to the conditioning received routinely, on a weekly basis. The Sabbath law is also modified, despite Jeremiah and what God said, for the alternatives are unacceptable. For those accepted and exempted works were not evil and sin… somehow… the reality being elusive to Sabbatarians where everything is black and white thinking. With God however, justice is tempered with mercy, else justice is simply tyranny.

An animal rescued from a ditch on the Sabbath alleviates the suffering of the animal, which if left unattended until after the Sabbath was cruelty to the animal, and the Sabbath was not about inflicting cruelty. It also set the stage for later events performed by Jesus; God Incarnate.

(Luke 13:10-16) And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. °And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. °And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. °And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. °And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the sabbath day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day. °The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? °And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?

What were the Hebrews told to remember on the Sabbath day when they were resting from their works? The Sabbath itself, like Sabbatarians conclude? They were to remember how they were slaves in Egypt, where there was no rest from the bonds of slavery. And now, here was the God who told them what to remember on the Sabbath having to remind them of what they forgot on the Sabbath.

They were told to keep the Sabbath holy, by doing what? Not working. How then does not doing anything equate with keeping the day holy? The sacrifices were holy, but first the animals had to be sacrificed, by working to do so in a manner specifically commanded by God who also told them not to do any work on the Sabbath. The Sabbath command did not apply to works that were in compliance with the will of God.

Now, another question which Sabbatarians prefer not to answer… Is it God’s will that we do good works, or evil works? It seems like a silly question up front; a ‘no-brainer’ if you will. In this context, I remind the reader that Jesus said good works were lawful on the Sabbath as contrasted by Him with evil works.

Jesus identified the will of the Father for us today by reading in the narratives of what all He said and taught:

For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. °And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. °And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. — John 6:38-40

(Ephesians 2:10) What happens to those who believe Him and believe IN Him? They are given the Holy Spirit, also referred to as a “new heart” that replaces the evil one all mankind starts out with; a GOOD heart. A heart that produces good fruits; good works, and not evil works. The believer is called to good works.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Do Christians then suspend their good works on the Sabbath, or do they emulate Christ who worked on the Sabbath, doing good works?

Now, here’s where it gets truly interesting… What do Sabbatarians conclude when others who are actual Christians, with new hearts from God, where all their works are now good fruits, work on the (their) Sabbath? They sin. Their works are a transgression of the Sabbath commandment, resulting in a charge of sin.

Who then calls good, evil? Those with good hearts, or evil hearts? Who judges another to be a sinner for having transgressed the Sabbath command, based on judging according to appearance, where they SEE another working on the Sabbath?

I don’t know how to make all of this any plainer or easier to understand. Christians, with a new heart imparted to them by God, are now categorized by God as good trees that can only produce good fruits, regardless of what day it is. Sabbatarians will read this, and still conclude, due to their deceitful and desperately wicked hearts, that some works, such as works of employment and for gain, are still sin if done on the (their) Sabbath, which, when you pay attention to what Jesus said and taught, makes works of employment evil works to begin with!

I remind the reader what God said through Jeremiah, that the works of their hands were only evil in His sight, and that Sabbatarians insist the works of Jesus were in a spiritual category; works of healing, supernatural in nature, so I present this:

And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. °And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? °Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. °I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. °As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. °When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, °And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

(John 9:1-14) °The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? °Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he. °Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened? °He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight. °Then said they unto him, Where is he? He said, I know not.

°°They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind. °And it was the sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes.

The significance of making this clay is easily overlooked. It was Jesus working with His hands as part of this miracle.

Witness then what Paul referred to as the “severity of God” (Romans 11:22). Those with the evil hearts of unbelief, who demonstrate no love of truth, receive what is translated in 2Thessalonians as a “strong delusion” that they are given that they do believe in, which is a lie, that ultimately condemns them. They had “pleasure in unrighteousness” by judging others with unrighteous judgment, according to appearance.

Sabbatarians demonstrate on a daily basis on social media the pleasure they derive by accusing others of sin based on unrighteous judgment according to appearance when it comes to the Sabbath as well as charging those same people with another sin for worshiping God on a “Sunday” they associate with sun worship; again all according to appearance; the fruit/works of an evil heart of unbelief.

What happened on the first day of Creation Week? Light came forth from darkness.

What happened on the day following the Sabbath when Christ Jesus was resurrected from the dead? The light of the world came forth from the darkness of death.

How then is Christ pictured by the prophet Malachi?

The “Sun” of righteousness. Christians are worshiping the “Sun” of righteousness on the first day of the week when the “Sun” of righteousness met the typology of the first day of Creation Week, with a new beginning now; a new “work” now, where Christians are the work of Jesus; a new creation that is truly made in His image.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Banking on the Law and False Profits...

All too many people see religion as an investment. They expect a ‘return’ on their investment, that being an eternity in a paradise they were convinced to invest in. They are, for the most part, ‘banking’ on the wrong banks and bankers.

Scripture calls them wolves in sheep’s clothing. They appear to be sheep, even the lamb of God, yet they devour flocks, financially. They use them to feed their own bellies at the expense of others they convinced to bank their future on them. They are the religious ‘middle-men’ who have placed themselves between God and others. They are the religious gurus who interpret the Scriptures for those not willing to invest the time to read and interpret the Scriptures for themselves. They bought into the wolf’s advertising that instilled fearful responses of what happens to those who refuse to commit.

The investment seems reasonable up front. Seeing though they were among those unwilling to invest the time and effort to ‘decipher’ Scripture, they are unlikely to read the fine-print of what they are getting involved in, where the investment will cost them dearly in the end.

Jesus came among His own, who, for the most part, rejected Him. They were already vested in the law, where the Rabbis were there; the Pharisees and others, interpreting Scripture for them. They were perceived as legitimate ‘investment counselors’ so that, when Jesus referred to them as evil children of the devil, doing the will of their father the devil, Jesus’ testimony was rejected. The Pharisees were already well established as the religious elite and teachers, instructing them in the way they should walk within the framework of the law.

With the law, and the interpretation of the Pharisees, they could see where deceivers and false prophets would arise to test them, and here was a prophet, right on queue, as they were taught, who went about flaunting the law; specifically the sign of that covenant between God and themselves. Here was now an opportunity to demonstrate their dedication; their obedience to the law and the prophets. Condemn this impostor, like so many others that preceded Him. He broke the law, the Sabbath, and gave a ‘lame’ excuse about good works being lawful on the Sabbath, when all could plainly read the Sabbath law forbade all work; any work. The law was the final arbiter, and not this itinerant self-appointed and proclaimed Rabbi with no schooling in the law from the Rabbinical teachers of the law.

There was a lot for any of them to overcome in order to recognize Him as the actual Messiah. Messiah was to restore Israel to its dominance among the nations, they were told. This man appeared to only be interested in gathering a following to Himself for who knows what purpose.

The Pharisees had an easy method for testing Him, and that was that the real Messiah to come surely would validate them as the guardians of the law; that the real Messiah would not allow Himself to be put to death by them or the Roman occupation. So all they had to do to prove or disprove Him was to charge Him with sin, condemn Him according to the law, and see what happens. If He dies, they were right. If He didn’t, they could always claim they were following the law to the letter. He broke the law; He sinned, and they acted accordingly, as they were commanded in the law.

Consider this carefully. It was their interpretation of the law that was the final arbiter of their decision process; not God who performed miraculous healing through the Holy Spirit that only could be attributed to God. They attributed those things to the devil anyway, even raising the dead.

The law was their de facto god… their graven images of stone that they never questioned as actually being treated by them as another god they obeyed in the hope of being blessed as a result. Appease the law and receive blessings. Ignore the law and the law would curse them.

Today’s Pharisees take this even further, openly assigning the attributes of God to that same law, engraved in stones. Eternal. Unchanging. A transcript of God’s Character.

To “change” the Sabbath commandment so as to permit “good works” would open the floodgates on the Sabbath command where everyone would deem their works good and not evil, seeing as that was the contrast Jesus presented. That God said He judges according to the heart didn’t come into the equation of the law, especially the Decalogue.

It was God Himself who called out from Mt. Sinai none of them were to do any work on the Sabbath, where many years later God also, through the prophet Jeremiah, informed those descendants of those Hebrews that in God’s eyes, ALL the works of their hands were only evil in His sight. They would have concluded this was rhetorical and not actually literal, as they believed they could do good and did do good, despite God also declaring their hearts were deceitful and desperately wicked through the same prophet.

What desperately wicked people do as a result is not to conclude the true purpose and function of the law really was: To regulate an evil people in order to minimize the damage they cause.

All the signs were there, that they being evil, could not perceive; the constant sacrifices for sin at the temple where the place was a literal blood bath. They were a constant reminder of sin.

Contrast this with the prophesied New Covenant to come, said by God NOT to be like the old covenant with the constant reminder of sin through the constant sacrifices. With the new, there would be no remembrance of sin. (Jeremiah 31:34)

What is the emphasis with today’s modern Sabbatarians, such as Adventism? There is a constant, incessant reminder of sin through the declaration that it is the law; the Decalogue that defines sin. Break this law, especially the Sabbath, and you sin. You stand condemned before God who said through the prophet He would remember our sins no more. God is no longer condemning sin and sinners through that law, replaced by the new that is of such a nature, there is no remembrance of sin on the part of God regarding those called of God who have responded.

Adventism thrives on sin; the sins of others who refuse to be dragged back to the old covenant ministration of condemnation and death.

In the New Covenant, our sins have been forgiven and forgotten. The true believers are given a new heart by God, where the fruits of the Spirit are such that the apostle Paul wrote that against such there is no law. Those led by the Holy Spirit cannot be charged with sin by a God who said He judges according to the heart. It is ludicrous in the extreme to conclude God would judge and condemn a person led now by the Holy Spirit in them with their “new” heart and “law” of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made us free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2)

Those with a carnal heart; an evil heart, have the attributes that are the diametrically opposite of the fruits of the Spirit. Instead of humility, there is arrogance that leads them to believe they can keep the law and not sin. They overestimate themselves, so that the very law they opt for still condemns them in the end, where they avidly embrace it. Their own pulls of the flesh end up condemning them with the very thing they rely upon to prove otherwise.

The next time, it won’t be the Pharisees; keepers of the law and Sabbath, standing there condemning Christ. It will be Christ standing there, allowing the law they embraced to do the condemning of them. They believe in the law. They have faith in the law that it will not condemn them because they “keep” the law. They will realize then that the law they used to condemn others condemns themselves, but ultimately, what truly condemns them before God is their faithlessness; their unbelief regarding Him who they already rejected. (John 16:7-9)

The Hebrews believed the same thing, and it is expressed in Psalms 44. They claimed to be keeping the law and bewildered why they were being punished as though they were not.

What was the condition of their collective hearts?

Deceitful. Desperately wicked. Stony. Evil hearts of unbelief when it came to God.

Don’t be banking on the law. The law can’t save you. The law cannot hear you. The law can only take your sins and condemn you with them, and all have sinned.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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