Rock Island

by Bill Etem

everyone knows Christ taught via parables, and parables are little fictions, little stories which teach spiritual truths. Whether or not every last human being and every last land animal that was outside of Noah’s ark once perished in a huge flood which inundated the earth is a parable, or whether it is literal history, is of no importance to the essential trustworthiness of the Bible. I mean, if God was never angry with humanity, then the Biblical account of Noah and the ark and the symbolic meaning of the rainbow are untrustworthy. But if God was angry with humanity, and if He wished to express His anger via a parable about an ark and a huge flood, or, for that matter, if He wished to express His anger via a literal ark and a huge literal flood, then, either way, the Bible is trustworthy in its account about Noah. It is trustworthy in its central message: God was very angry with humanity because of the evils humanity was perpetrating. Similarly, whether or not the account given in the Bible about Adam and Eve is a parable or whether it is literal history, is irrelevant in assessing the trustworthiness of the Bible. If God was never trying to teach the lesson that bad things will happen to you if you rebel against God, then the account of Adam and Eve in the Bible is untrustworthy. But if God wanted to teach humanity a lesson via a parable – recall a parable is a little fictional story which teaches spiritual truth – if God want to teach humanity a lesson via a parable involving Adam and Eve and a talking serpent, a vicious little viper named Satan, a parable about eviction from paradise because Adam and Eve rebelled against God by eating the Forbidden Fruit, the fruit which God order them not to eat, or whether there was a literal Adam and a literal Eve and a literal talking serpent named Satan and a literal eviction from paradise and a literal condemnation of future generations of women to suffer pain in childbirth because Eve, deceived by the Devil, led Adam into rebellion against God - regardless if the account of the Fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis is a parable, or if it is literal and factual history - either way, the Bible is still trustworthy in reporting to us a central message: frightful penalties will be inflicted upon one if one follows satan and rebels against God…So, if we assume the Bible is trustworthy, and since one of the lessons of Genesis is that everyone on earth is descended from Adam and Eve, from one set of great great, great, great…great grandparents, all people are more or less like brothers and sisters, or at least like distant cousins, hence no race is superior to any other race…’

  Moderator - ‘Are you going to just talk and talk forever? We get your last point about how it is interesting that the Bible is sometimes pals with Political Correctness, but we need to move on and get to our next speaker, eventually, you know?’

  Me - ‘I’m almost done…So, to review, we might start with Christ’s words at the Last Supper - Matthew 26. 28, Mark 14. 24, Luke 22. 20 - “This cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for the remission of sins of many.” This new covenant is also known as the True Faith, aka the Gospel of Jesus Christ, aka the New Law, aka the Divine Law. 2 Thessalonians 2 mentions a man of sin / son of perdition – presumably this is the Antichrist mentioned in 1 John 2. 18 – who is presumably this beast mentioned in Revelation 19. 19 – and 2 Thess 2 also mentions a falling away which precedes the Second Coming of Christ. What sort of falling away is it? Perhaps it is a falling away from the True Faith. 2 Thess 2 is a little ambiguous on the matter. But 2 Thess 1. 8 is clear enough: hellfire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 2 Thess 1. 8 is similar to John 15. 6, Luke 13. 3, Matthew 5, Matthew 25. 31-46 etc., etc. Jeremiah 31. 31-34 tells us that God will write His new covenant on the hearts of His people, and then God’s people will all know Him. Revelation 14. 6-11 deals with 3 angels who impart various messages to the inhabitants of the earth. Perhaps God will use these three angels as His agents, as His instruments by which He will write His Divine Law on the hearts of His people. Christians are supposed to already know what God’s Law is. People who have fallen away from the True Faith will need some help from these 3 angels, but people who have not fallen away from the True Faith don’t require any angelic assistance. As we’ve seen Christ mentioned this new covenant / Divine Law / Gospel of Jesus Christ at the Last Supper. If you have the Divine Law inscribed on your heart then you will know God. Getting back to the importance of knowing God, there’s 2 Thess 1. 8 and also recall Revelation 2. 9 – where Jesus says: ‘…I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews, and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.’ Now to evaluate this assertion we observe that everything depends of the question of whether or not Jesus is a false Messiah or the True Messiah. Pay no attention to those lost souls who say the Catholic Church invented the doctrine that Jesus is God, the Second Person in a Divine Trinity. The concept that the Jewish Messiah is God, that is, God the Son, as opposed to God the Father or God the Holy Spirit, is clearly depicted in the Jewish scriptures, and both the Old and New Testaments are Jewish productions not Gentile or Catholic productions. Matthew 1. 23 – God with us – and scriptures such as John 1. 1-14, Colossians 2. 8-10 and 1 Timothy 3. 16, are all perfectly clear in telling us that Jesus is God. Psalm 2 tells us the Father begot the Son, therefore, since the Father is Divine, since the Father is God, then so is the begotten Son. Isaiah 9. 6 plainly tells us that the Son is called the Prince of Peace, Almighty God. Isaiah was a Jewish man, not a Gentile. OK, got it? The doctrine that the Son is God was not invented by Gentiles, it was not invented by the Catholics….So, when Jesus says He knows the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews but are a synagogue of Satan, then this assertion makes perfect sense, provided Jesus is God. If God was crucified with the support of the Jews, if the Jews continue to insist God is a false god, then it is pretty obvious the Jews are a synagogue of satan, though they claim to worship the True God. Of course, if Jesus isn’t God - if Jesus isn’t the begotten Son of Psalm 2 and Isaiah 9. 6 - if Matthew 1. 23 and John 1. 1-14 and Colossians 2. 8-10 and 1 Timothy 3. 16 are falsehoods and delusions - if Jesus is a false prophet - then this changes things. I mean, I suppose, even in the scenario where Jesus is a false prophet, he might still be right in saying that the Jews are a synagogue of satan. But in the scenario where Jesus is God, then, absolutely, 100%, no doubt about it, Revelation 2. 9 is accurate.

  Me Continuing - ‘As you Rock Islanders know perfectly well, my nonfiction pushes the concept that every church under the sign of the cross has been subverted by Satan: every church under the sign of the cross leads people away from heaven and drags them down to perdition, and therefore every church under the sign of the cross is essentially satanic. Somewhat like how those retarded men not far from here in Atalissa Iowa were held in bondage, enslaved etc., etc., so too are the people under the sign of the cross: enslaved. Revelation 2. 9 is a good place to begin a defense of this position, in trying to explain how people can be slaves of satan and on a road that leads straight to perdition, though they claim to be in God’s True Church, though they claim, in their delusion, to be in the fast lane heading right towards heaven. Christians respect Revelation 2. 9, and that scripture gives us an example of religious people who are sincere when they claim to worship God, and yet they are sincerely deluded, and are under the power of satan.

  ‘To define some terms, Christians are people who believe Jesus is God. Unitarians are not Christians, neither is anyone who denies the Divinity of Jesus. We Christians believe Jesus is the Second Person in a Divine Trinity. John 14. 23-26 says that those who love Christ keep His words. So, if one loves Christ one will trust the words that Christ spoke, such as in Matthew 16. 13-19. If you reject Matthew 16. 13-19 – which tells us that Christ founded His Church on a rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against this Church - then, you are also rejecting Christianity. You’re certainly not paying much respect to that scripture, and you’re not giving much respect to John 14. 23-26! Of course I try to build a case in my books against the Cafeteria Catholics in particular and against Roman Catholicism in general. I try to build a case saying the Cafeteria Catholics are cra
zy. I mean, if the Roman Catholic Church is God’s True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome upholds the True Faith, if Rome leads people to heaven, then the Cafeteria Catholics are wrong to rebel against Rome. Remaining in the Roman Catholic Church, but rebelling against Rome, such as by rejecting one or more of Rome’s official doctrines, is what makes one a Cafeteria Catholic. You can’t lose, you see. You can’t be thrown into hell. You will never suffer the torments of the damned, for all eternity, you will in fact attain eternal life in heaven, you see, if you could just have enough sense to understand that it is crazy to ever rebel against the Roman Catholic Church, assuming of course that the Roman Catholic Church is God’s True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock. There’s nothing difficult to understand here! Now, of course, on the other hand, if the Roman Catholic Church is not God’s True Church, if Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a