I spoke about Cain in part 4. I will initiate the core of my blog with him. People think of Cain as the first murderer, the evil that stayed or simply, a misunderstood man. Here is Cain's story in the Bible:
Genesis 4:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.
4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
There are MANY speculations about what made God (the LORD) accept Abel's offering and not Cain's. In absolutely NO version do we have a reason for this denial. We only have ONE hint with this passage in verse 7 "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door". Some videos or movies about this scene show Cain holding back some of his crops before giving his offering to God. In absolutely NO place is it mentionned that way. From this moment, many have speculated about the nature of God's refusal. SO, WHY did God refuse Cain's offering? The answer is in THIS section of the passage "If thou doest well".
We, humans have a very big tendency to show something to people when our hearts are totally NOT there. Our intentions seem good, but in the end, it hides something else. What do you expect from a Creator? A Creator that created the heart and all of it's possible outcomes, what do you expect? To properly hide what you truly feel? There is only ONE single possibility to why Cain was bad in what he was doing. No matter what he did, the true bad thing here was that he wanted his offering to be good, and shall I speculate too, he wanted it to be BETTER than his brother.
We have been introduced to 2 sins in the Bible up to now, but one of these is burried in a place than too little have looked upon. The first one comes from Eve and the famous fruit she ate:
Genesis 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
THAT is the first sin. People preach that the first sin was to disobey God by eating what was forbidden. That's totally untrue. Actually, this very way of talking brings control and makes people act by fear. AND, that is how religions have been created. If you disobey God, you sin and are punished or simply not answered in your prayers until you ask for forgiveness. Many religions will THEN add a set of rules saying that if we disobey those rules from whatever book they consider as their Bible and the word of the Creator, then you sin and are not worthy. THE real sin of mankind is wisdom. THAT is our sin and what makes us fall. The wiser we get, the more power we seek from that wisdom.
When we look at elder people, we see wisdom. But wisdom has changed since then. Or has it? What IS wisdom? I wanted to bring the definition from dictionary.com again. But I will pass right now because I believe that this word is not right. We are again limited by our own words and language.
Many people tend to believe that God was harsh and unfairly punished Cain for what he did. And many more instances in the Bible this also happens where nations were killed by God's order. And then, we have christians sharing the good news of love. They share that the good news of the Bible is that we are doomed for ever in an everlasting lava pit eaten out by worms that cannot be harmed by fire and heat, in other words, Hell as described by many. The Bible mentions hell, or the everlasting death sentence as this.
Revelation 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
MANY christians describe Hell as this lake of fire. BUT, may I bring your attention to THIS section of verse 14? "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire". SOooo, if I read right, hell will be cast in the lake of fire making hell NOT a lake of fire.
Matthew 18:9 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.
Another part that makes us wonder about the senses of what has been written. So is the fire of the lake different than the fire of hell? Is the fire of the lake more powerfull than that of hell? After hearing many preachings on hell, I have over heard so many times this sentence of people that prefer being in hell "I prefer to be in hell with my friends than alone in heavens.". For all the people to whome I spoke about God, hell and everything else related, I heard this said only ONCE. So having pastors talk about people saying this diminishes a lot the credibility of who this pastor actually spoke to OR limits the number of people he spoke to because many people simply do NOT believe in hell or simply don't really take time to think about it. People tend to have different perspectives of hell and the Bible does not descibe precisely what hell is. Some even say that earth itself is hell. THAT makes me laugh because I do not think that the rich family, living happily and joyfully in wealth and helth would state the same thing.
What IS evil? Let's have a small dictionary.com perspective on bad words AND also a little help from our famous Wikipedia friend.
Evil
1. adj. morally wrong or bad
2. noun. the force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin.
**dictionary.com**
"the opposite or absence of good. It can be an extremely broad concept, although in everyday usage is often used more narrowly to talk about profound wickedness."
**wikipedia.com**
Satan
noun. the chief evil spirit; the great adversary of humanity; the devil.
**dictionary.com**
"also known as the Devil,[b] is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehood. In Christianity and Islam, he is usually seen as either a fallen angel or a genie, who used to possess great piety and beauty, but rebelled against God, who nevertheless allows him temporary power over the fallen world and a host of demons.
...
In Christianity, Satan is known as the Devil and is sometimes also called Lucifer. Although the Book of Genesis does not mention him, he is often identified as the serpent in the Garden of Eden."
**wikipedia.com**
Devil
1. noun. the supreme spirit of evil; Satan.
2. noun. a subordinate evil spirit at enmity with God, and having power to afflict humans both with bodily disease and with spiritual corruption.
**dictionary.com**
"the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force.
...
In mainstream Christianity, the devil is usually referred to as Satan."
**wikipedia.com**
Lucifer
noun. a proud, rebellious archangel, identified with Satan, who fell from heaven.
**dictionary.com**
"Interpretations of a similar term in the Hebrew Bible, translated in the King James Version as the proper name "Lucifer", led to a Christian tradition of applying the name Lucifer, and its associated stories of a fall from heaven, to Satan, but modern scholarship generally translates the term in the relevant Bible passage (Isaiah 14:12) as "morning star" or "shining one" rather than as a proper name, "Lucifer"."
**wikipedia.com**
Demon
an evil spirit; devil or fiend.
**dictionary.com**
"A demon is a supernatural being, typically associated with evil"
**wikipedia.com**
You may wonder. WHY are we defining Evil, Satan, Lucifer and Devil? Well, as you may see, the definitions are widely based off interpretations, mostly for Satan, Devil and Lucifer. MANY, and I repeat, MANY christians will most certainly describe Eve's sin by listening to the serpant by saying the serpant was Lucifer, the Devil, also know as (aka) Satan. I HAD to do a search in the Bible and understand how one person has transcribed the scriptures to iconify Lucifer as the initial serpant. So I did a search on those words in the Bible and here is what I have found.
EVIL
Used in pretty much all of the Bible to depict something bad. We can also see at certain places that even God sent evil spirits to punish humans:
1 Samuel 16:14 But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.
Now, this also makes evil spirits not necessarely bad because they have a specific job assigned from God directly. If we take a candy away from a child or remove the priviledge to play on a phone or tablette, that could be considered bad but knowing that it's a punishement for a bad deed, then this becomes good. So evil now has a new perspective.
DEVIL
(demon)
A very interesting thing here. Devil is only appearing in the NEW testament AND it has 2 occurences with a capitalized "D" in the book of Revelations. I will bring up a verse that caught my attention here:
Matthew 9:32 As they went out, behold, they brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil.
It's interesting to know that devil is used as "A" something and not "THE" entity. This makes devil not actually be one single entity against God. But something else happened to catch my attention when Jesus went to be tempted in the desert:
Matthew 4:1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
...
10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
Although MANY christians will argue that Jesus had the wisdom to recognise who THAT devil was, the inconsistency of how the text was written leads us to believe that Jesus spoke about maybe THINKING that it was Satan but it maybe have just been one devil amongst many others.
Revelation 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Revelation 20:2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
These are the only 2 verses that use a cpitalized version of the word Devil. Here we are told that the great dragon is THAT old serpant who is the same as the Devil and the same as Satan. Interesting thing here is that usually names are given and do not have a leading "the" before. My name is David, not the David. A clear distiction is made when we read immediately after "and Satan". There is no "the " in front of Satan.
Weirdly enough, the Bible has NO occurences of "demon", at least, not in the King James version. BUT, the Darby version has the word demon
Matthew 9:32 But as these were going out, behold, they brought to him a dumb man possessed by a demon.
Darby Bible
This makes "a devil" the same this as "a demon". This is starting to get confusing here. AND, may I also add that the Darby version of the Bible also REMOVES the capitaliztion of the word "devil" in Revelations 20:2.
SATAN
The first appearance of the name Satan in the Bible is in Chronicles. But something VERY interesting happens in the book of Job.
Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
7 And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
9 Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
...
12 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.
This must be one of the most polite discussions I have seen in the Bible!!! Seriously, God even authorized Satan to hinder Job's life. Most christians have some many ways of conjuring Satan out of their lives or speaking with authority thinking that this is the way to go. Speak with disrespect and not consider anything else but hatred towards Satan.
What have humans not understood of the spirit realm? Seriously, who are we to decide to speak in so much disrespect to a Spirit that God HIMSELF speaks to with respect. May I please bring your attention on this portion of verse 8? "Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth". Seriously, in a more modern way of speaking: Have you considered my servant Job? that there is none like him on earth? That's a very nice way to speak to that same entity supposed to be against you in an everlasting battle for the definate thrown of Heavens, the ultimate power!
NOW, here is my biggest concern about all of what christians bring about Satan. BUT, let me first ask you this question:
Would you go at war against a country knowing in advance that you will most definately lose and end up being tortured and tied up in a dungeon until your last breath?
Now, let me ask again another question, now that the context is set:
Why would Satan PURPOSELY go at war against God knowing VERY WELL that he will lose and end up tortured in the lake of Fire forever?
Some may protest saying that Satan has no clue that this is going to happen and still has hope to get the throne for himself. REALLY? You are telling me that Satan, living beside the God of gods, Creator of his own self to whome he has to ask permission to DO something does not know and still thinks he can overthrown God? Really. We call people like that on earth, stupid, knaive, immature! So Satan is stupid, knaive or immature? This portion of the Bible's scriptures makes me go nuts. When 2 people fight against one another, usually, there is something MUCH MORE important that the casualties on the sides of the battle and much more worthy than power. No matter how you will look at it, you DO NOT go against someone you will lose against. Usually, the only reason to battle is if someone else is at stakes and that THAT someone get's to chose with whome to be with after the battle AND that this someone can decide to choose the weak if desired even if that side lost. That's just speculations on my part, but a much more realistic reason for battle than a fight for power.
LUCIFER
Isaiah 14:12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
18 All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house.
19 But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet.
20 Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned.
That is the ONLY place where Lucifer is mentionned in the Bible. The ONLY place. I have put in red a little detail that is noteworthy in this text. First, we are introduced to what Lucifer actually means: Morning star or son of the morning depending on the version you will be looking at. From this vers on, we are talking about...Lucifer and on this section of verse 16, it is mentionned that they will look upon him and say "Is this the man". This means that Lucifer is or will be a man! Does this mean Lucifer, for now, does not exist since this is a prophecy and not happenned yet?
May I also mention that in the book of Revelations, Lucifer is not represented as being directly related to Satan or Devil. The ONLY place that COULD possibly refer to this is the following verse:
Revelation 2:28 And I will give him the morning star.
The popular christian belief is that Lucifer IS Satan and that Lucifer IS the serpant that tempted Eve. But all of this is still christian speculation because it is NOT specified clearly in the Bible. Many christians will take upon themselves and convince that you just need to be logical and see for yourself that all of these verses and chapters and prophecies are inter-connected which leads to the revelation that Lucifer IS indeed Satan. BUT, again, we are limited by our language. Wikipedia clearly states different variations of translations from other languages. AND how other languages depict OR describe what these words mean in their own language, we can EASILY fall into the trap of misinterpretation and controversal meanings.
SO, WHO'S WHO?
If you are a spirit from the spirit world that has solid proof of being from this spiritual world, without a body and with authority to speak to a human with solid proof and undoubtfull evidance that we can believe your very nature, then maybe we can have the answer. But for now, the only thing that can be interpreted is the following:
Satan can be depicted as the king of devils and/or demons.
Devil is not really a name but can be another word to describe a demon.
Evil is the fact of doing something that is not good or out of love.
Lucifer is not Satan according to the Bible and is subject to many interpretations and misinterpretations so it could or could not be the same entity. To understand the context of Lucifer, Isaiah chapter 13 should be read and maybe even before that because this book contains many prophecies which can be interpreted in so many ways. So is Lucifer Satan? Is Lucifer the king of devils or demons? Since ONLY one single place in the Bible mentions this name and that it refers to a moment in time and a specific prophecy AND depicting him as a man, many things can be said about who Lucifer really is.
So, how can one interpret properly? Actually, you cannot. Anyone is bound to the knowledge of the language. We cannot go further than what we can word out. It's like asking a person: "What is Good?". For one person, good is to punish a minor rapist by castration while as another, good means to enclose him in a prison for life because castration is still considered inhumane and leave him unfree until he dies. For another, it's simply death penalty for such a horrible thing. But what IS horrible? Why have we considered minor raping more horrible than over 18 years old rape? Isn't rape still rape? No matter the age? We humans have made borders as to what is good and evil, accepted or not. Seriously, we even made borders on earth to separate countries! Canada and United States are on the same continent and there is a boundary that separates both countries!!! And it's the same land.
This section is also pretty special and important to take into consideration:
1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
Matthew 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
Exodus 23:22 But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.
In french, the "Oservald" version of the Bible states in 1 Peter 5:8 says "the devil, your enemy" but the Darby and "Louis Segond" says adversary. So AGAIN, we are confronted with something VERY special. In english, there seems to be a distinction between adversary and enemy because we clearly see in Exodus that we can be an enemy but not an adversary or an adversary without being an enemy or simply be an adversary AND an enemy. In some french versions of the Bible, we get adversary while as another, it's enemy. So which to believe?
Adversary
noun. a person, group, or force that opposes or attacks; opponent; enemy; foe.
**dictionary.com**
Enemy
noun. a person who feels hatred for, fosters harmful designs against, or engages in antagonistic activities against another; an adversary or opponent.
**dictionary.com**
Opponent states that it's somone on opposite sides. Everything is a question of interpretation. But one thing is sure, Jesus does say this in Matthew 5:44 "Love your enemies". And may I also bring forth the fact that the "L" in love is capitalized after a coma! So all christians who develop a hatred towards Satan, Devil, Lucifer, Evil or Lucifer, are all wrong because none know exactly what they are hating and what they are up against. AND when we see that Jesus himself is saying to Love our enemies and considering that christians consider Satan as their sworn everlasting enemy, then it goes without saying that you should Love Satan. But again, may I also bring unto your attention that "your adversary the devil" is wrtten as devil with a lowercase "d". So are we talking about Satan or simply the depiction of a human leaning towards evil deeds? Does this also mean I must Love the evil deeds as they are part of the enemies because devils are evil deeds? Many questions arise from a simple text! And what about the evil spirit? Are those devils or demons? Because they do fit inside the description of enemy or adversary!
When talking about creation, it's all about creating everything. From the creation of an unexisting thing to something that exists. Love, hatred, sadness, anger, frustration, happiness, peace, all of these were unexisting at the begining. the Creator HAD to create those feelings for us to feel them. Men has been given total control of the earth and what is on it but did the Creator give the power of creating emotions to men? Did humans create emotions? The very first thing introduced in the Bible where evil an good is mentionned was when Eve was tempted to eat from that tree permitting her to be wise and know the distiction between good and evil. Does this mean that Eve had absolutely NO clue that the serpant was actually an adversary or enemy? Because the knowledge of enemy and/or adversary was not yet existing because that was creation. How could Eve know about obediance? How could man have known that God was going to punish if they did something? Did man create the emotion of fear? If fear has been created and that everything was created by God, does this also mean that God has fears? Because it is said that God created man at his image!
In a futur post, I will talk about Love being independant from accepting. You can Love without necessarely accepting a way of living.
So who's who? Basically, everything is something worth Loving. That's who they are. We can love without accepting but still be respectfull because God himself talked to Satan in a very polite maner even if they did not necessarely agree. That's who they are, entities worth Loving without necessarely engaging or accepting their ways of living.
"Love is the only thing that has no enemies!"
David Richard (Qc/Can)
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