What God Is Doing And Why
God is first and foremost "Father" and "Teacher". All His efforts are goal directed toward raising His Family and culturing into them approved modes of conduct and behavior for interpersonal and group relationships. Everything that is, and has been, and shall be is directly connected to the accomplishment of that goal.
In the beginning there was only God... and nothing else. There was no earth, no stars, no galaxies, and no space as we know it. There was only God... ALONE! As human beings we know how terrible, frightened, and anxious we sometimes feel when we are lost and alone. We know of depression from loneliness when we grow old and friends and family fail to write, call, or visit. Just for a moment, put yourself in God 's place. There you are... alone and forlorn wandering about in the unthinkable and incomprehensible in great distress. All around you is indescribably dark nothingness. All you do is move back and forth in a directionless void having no up or down. There is no place to rest as we know it... nothing that we comprehend today as solid ground. If the time that you spend wandering could be measured, such a number of years would be too long to write. What would you do in such a horrible unseemly state of being? While you are attempting to think of a solution, you will wander in that unfathomable void back and forth, and here and there... for billions and billions of years. God's past history does not seem pleasant because it was very unpleasant. You are dumbfounded and amazed that such a state was the price on (PRIS ON )-being the only existing entity. This is God's appalling and horrifying past history- HIS STORY. Yes! God was first to have a price on His head! GOD WAS THE FIRST PRISONER! He was locked in that indescribable dark void of the incomprehensible ... alone to wander without the luxury of what we call rest. That was a morbid state of being worse than hell, and uncountable years of wandering everywhere nowhere... is the ultimate state of torment. All who can imagine themselves in God's place can only feel pity, grief, and sorrow at our Father's plight. For it is now understood that HE WAS THE FIRST TO SUFFER! Oh how l -o -n -g He had to endure it! I felt greatly humbled and sympathized immensely with God when I learned this. HIS STORY is incredibly true. Now here is God's own account of His past as He revealed it to Enoch: "Before all things were visible, I alone used to go about in the invisible things, like the sun from east to west, and from west to east. But even the sun has peace in itself, while I found no peace", Secrets of Enoch XXIV:4,5. (LBB). God had no intention of staying miserable. Here is what He did: "I conceived the thought of placing foundations and of creating visible creation", Secrets XXIV:5 (LBB). "That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord and there is none else, Isaiah 45:6. "At the beginning of the circle of the earth, before the portals of the world were in place, and before the assembled winds blew, and before the rumblings of the thunder sounded, and before the flashes of lightening shone, and before the foundations of Paradise were laid, and before the beautiful flowers were seen, and before the powers of movement were established, and beforen the inumerable hosts of angels were gathered together, and before the heights of the air were lifted up and before the measurements of the firmaments were named, and before the footstool of Zion was established, and before the present years were reckoned, and before the imaginations of those who now sin were estranged, and before those who store up treasures of faith were sealed... THEN I PLANNED THESE THINGS," 2 Esdras 6:1-6. Conceiving the PLAN began God's release from prison, suffering, torment, and loneliness. Every facet of what was, and is, and is to come was well thought out to the most minute detail before beginning to create. If you will, the whole script was written prior to the play. GOD'S WILL IS THAT ALL HIS CHILDREN SHALL HAVE A BEGINNING LIKE HIS. To be like Him, all men come down to an earth prison with a price on their heads. Here they suffer in various degrees of dark ignorance and torments for a "past life" analogous to God's past history. Thus every man has his own cross to bear out of necessity for our processing in becoming like Him.
Various writers alluded to this phase of God's plan, that it is a pre- written play. Enoch wrote: "I swear to you, yea, yea that ALREADY BEFORE, EVEN TO EACH IS A PLACE PREPARED FOR THE REPOSE OF THAT SOUL, AND A MEASURE FIXED HOW MUCH IT IS INTENDED THAT A MAN SHOULD BE TRIED IN THIS WORLD," Secrets XLIX: 4,(LBB). "And Pravuil told me: All the things that I have told thee, we have written. Sit and write all the souls of mankind, however many of them are born, and the places prepared for them to eternity: for ALL SOULS ARE PREPARED TO ETERNITY, BEFORE THE FORMATION OF THE WORLD," Secrets of Enoch XXIII:2. "For man and his portion lie before thee in the balance; he cannot add to, so as to enlarge WHAT HAS BEEN PRESCRIBED BY THEE," Psalm of Solomon V:6(4),(LBB). Also the angel in the Book of Jubilees told Moses, "on The first day He created the heavens which are above, and the Waters, and all the spirits which serve before him--the angels of the presence, and the angels of sanctification, and the angels (of the spirit of fire and the angels) of the spirit of winds, and the angels of the spirit of the clouds, and of darkness, and of snow, and of hail, and of hoarfrost, and the angels of the voices of the thunder, and of lightening, and the angels of the spirits of cold, and of heat, and of winter, and of spring, and of autumn, and of summer, and of ALL THE SPIRITS OF HIS CREATURES WHICH ARE IN THE HEAVENS AND ON THE EARTH, He created the abysses, and the darkness, eventide <and night>, and the light, dawn and day, which HE HATH PREPARED IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIS OWN HEART." Jubilees 2:2. Thus God's heart or mind became His "book" in which He conceived and wrote a play. Every man's life and role is in it. Each man's script unfolds as the days go by, so that all men may act out in this life their portion of suffering, loneliness, and torment for their first phase of existence. We must be like Him in that respect. Commenting on the bitter herbs he had eaten, Solomon wrote, "I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all the things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of men to be exercised in it", Ecclesiastes 1:13. Moses observed: "All our days are passed away in wrath: WE SPEND OUR DAYS AS A TALE THAT IS TOLD," Psalm 90:9. "For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope," Romans 8:20.
For our part, almost all men seek to avoid suffering. We seek religions, talismans, and incantations in an effort to obtain some magical release from it. We hate it so much that many have castigated God and cursed His name, because God put us here and refuses to take away the maladies of this life inspite of our prayers. They do not know God 's PLAN and His determination to make us just like Him, to experience a terrible beginning! We have been advised that this earth is Satan's prison, and he as torture master will make us suffer: "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, Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea, for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth he hath but a short time," Revelation 12:9,12. Just as God conceived thought to relieve His suffering and loneliness, then removed it by activating His PLAN, man too, is removed from this realm of suffering as the generations come and go, Ecclesiastes 3:18, 12:7; Isaiah 41:4; Acts 10:9-16. The apportionment of suffering for each man is fixed to his role. An angel told Ezra this in a parable: "He said to me, There is a sea set in a wide expanse so that it is vast and broad, but it has an entrance set in a narrow place, so that it is like a river. If anyone, then, wishes to reach the sea, to look at it, or to navigate it, how can he come to the broad part unless he passes through the narrow part? Another example: There is a city built and set on a plain, and it is full of all good things; but the entrance to it is narrow and set in a precipitous place, so that there is fire on the right hand and deep water on the left; and there is only one path lying between them, that is, between the fire and water, so that only one man can walk upon that path. If now that city is given to a man for an inheritance, how will the heir receive his inheritance unless he passes through the danger set before him? Therefore UNLESS THE LIVING PASS THROUGH THE DIFFICULT AND VAIN EXPERIENCES, THEY CAN NEVER RECEIVE THOSE THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN RESERVED FOR THEM", 2 Esdras 7:3-9,14. Another way of explaining our suffering was given to Baruch, "If a man be prospered in his beginning and shamefully treated in his old age, he forgets all the prosperity that he had. And again, if a man is shamefully entreated in his beginnings, and at his end is prospered, he remembereth not again his evil entreatment", 2 Baruch 19:6,7. "If we suffer with Him, we shall reign with him",.
Since the Father is raising a Family, everything in His PLAN is geared toward educating and culturing His children in the ways He determined to be best for personal and group relationships and for our relationship to Him. In preselecting behavioral qualities, God thought of all the possible modes of conduct that pleased Him and all those that displeased Him. It is His purpose as Teacher of "good" TO EDUCATE HIS CHILDREN BY COMPARISON AND CONTRAST. Paramount to God's PLAN is not to make automatons or robots. He is determined to create INDIVIDUALS WHO WILL HAVE SIMILAR THOUGHT EXPERIENCES LIKE HIS, who by reasoning and testing will conclude, too, that the ways of behavior that we call righteousness are best for us. To teach us, it is part of the PLAN TO SET TWO CONTRASTING WAYS BEFORE US for our consideration. To do this, all those modes of behavior contrary to His personality which were eliminated had to be seen and experienced. Those behaviors that were detestible and loathesome and found to be unacceptable for His children, God gave form and made into a body. SATAN WAS CREATED TO BE A NEGATIVE FORCE, AN OPPOSITE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD, FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF PROVIDING CONTRAST IN GOD'S EDUCATION PLAN, THAT THE GOOD MIGHT RECEIVE GREATER EMPHASIS. So Satan is nothing but evil thoughts with a head, hands, and feet.
While Satan was in heaven with his angels, they gave God's older children a negative experience which taught them the efficacy of God's chosen ways personally and directly. Their unpleasant tenure with the devil was fraught with confrontation, accusation, argument, and culminated in a fight. Satan lost. They learned the "goodness" of peace, love, kindness, and joy, because Satan's conflict with them and his removal had stressed and emphasized the goodness of God's approved modes of conduct. Having educated these older sons, God cast Satan and his angels down to the earth. Thus the stage was set for the educational experiences of the billions of children to come. SATAN AND HIS ANGELS, GOD'S MOST DETESTED THOUGHTS GIVEN SHAPES AND INVISIBLE BODIES, ARE PLANNED OBSTACLES, ROBOT EVIL SPIRITS, which have made the earth by their presence the most fantastic obstacle course for all the generations of mankind. They are planned entities for assuring our suffering phase and our "past history". They are an integral part of our learning by contrast and comparison.
Several writers observed the polarity and the mingling of good and evil experiences that men are exercised in while running on earth's obstacle course. From the Testament of Asher 1:3-5 are these words: "Two ways hath God given to the sons of men, and two inclinations, and two kinds of action, and two modes of action and two issues. Therefore all things are by twos, one over against the other. For there are two ways of good and of evil, and with these are two inclinations in our breasts discriminating them". God also declared to Israel through Moses: "See I have set before thee life and good and death and evil," Deuteronomy 30:15. From the Ode of Solomon 16:15-17, "The treasure chamber of light is the sun, and the treasury of darkness is the night. And He made the sun for the day that it might be bright, but night brings darkness over the face of the land; and their alternations one to the other speak the beauty of God".
These things first began on earth in the Garden of Eden, where Adam was confronted by two trees, parables for God and Satan. Thus Adam and Eve were the first actors and the first runners to be exercised on God's obstacle course, where Satan and his angels have proven to be most formidable and astounding moving obstacles. For since the beginning men have suffered bondage, torture, and oppression at their hands. They have served well God's purpose of providing contrast for our educational experiences.
Now let us sum up what God is doing and why:
A. God's past is a history of imprisonment, suffering, loneliness, and distress, and making a family relieved it and gives Him pleasure.
B. God is determined that all His children shall be like Him, not robots, but intelligent beings who reason. God also wants rational beings, not clones.
C. Man therefore must undergo two things:
1. He must suffer an analogous "past history" of loneliness, imprisonment, and torment.
2. He must by deductive reasoning and a process of elimination conclude that good behavior is best for him, and he must hate and eliminate the evil ways.
D. A robot spirit and his opposite nature was created to supply a contrasting educational experience.
1. He and his forces accentuate and emphasize the essence of the good by the loathsomeness of their opposing ways. Angel and man have opportunity to assess and evaluate two natures and determine which mode of conduct is best by actual experience, and by vicarious experience through observing men on earth.
2. As a prison master, source of darkness and ignorance, and torturer, Satan and his forces make the earth an excellent obstacle course for our training. They also insure that each man will get his portion of past history analogous to God's suffering.
E. By apportioning and varying our good and evil experiences, God has made individuals with different personalities, but no clones, and no robots.
F. All men must endure this first phase of torment. It is fixed that MAN SHALL BE LIKE
GOD. We cannot avoid suffering, even He could not get out of suffering and "prison" until the
Plan was first conceived and then activated. But raising each generation through each man's day
of release is assured as is the rising of the SUN, SON, SN! Blessed are all sons, both prodigal
and faithful, whose innumerable multitudes have caused God's joy they now enjoy, Luke 20:37-38. All that the actors did not learn on earth, they must learn vicariously above as the
Watchers of heaven, Malachi 3:17-18; Hebrews 12:1,22-24. Each man is a sun making his circuit.
First he comes down from heaven and suffers on the earth in his first life; then he rises to
enter God's joy. And this circuit is fixed for all men for all must have His likeness, Genesis 1:26,31; John 17:21-23.