How Child Protective Services Opposes the Gospel

[[[ Part 1 of the series on How Child Protective Services opposes the Teachings of Christ ]]]

From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Matthew 4:17

When I first opened my red-letter Bible to begin this study, I was struck by the order of Jesus’ words. Never before had I tried reading only the “red words.”  I saw that as one begins reading through the New Testament, Jesus first has to tell John the Immerser that his baptizing Jesus was a “fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” (Matthew 3:15) The point: Even John, (of whom Jesus says in Matthew 11:11, “Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist!”) had to adjust his view of what he considered right. As I have done in my previous investigations, I will let the scripture speak for itself, but hold this thought for the end of today’s article.

The next recorded words that Jesus spoke were three quotations from the Old Testament. This occurred during the time that He was being harassed and baited by the devil. Keeping up harassment when confronted with truth is a character trait of CPS.

The first real teaching that we have a record of in this Gospel is, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” CPS does not follow this teaching. Unlike John the Immerser who was quick to change his attitude to permit righteousness as soon as Jesus explained it to him, CPS does not behave that way. When they do not find what they were first looking for, they do not ask forgiveness for believing slander.  They will look for something else. This is the behavior pattern of the devil.

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Whom to Fear

[[[ Continuing the series on What Jesus Says About Hell ]]]

But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!
Luke 12:5

The hell in this verse is from the Greek Gehenna, the place of punishment for those who were too foolish to fear God. Jesus is giving a most explicit warning about how severe the consequences of not taking God seriously really are.

A loving God will not let Satan roam loose forever. He provided a place to confine the devil. The devil has no option on this. A human soul, before he/she has been killed, still does. The point of giving a warning implies that the people who heard Jesus were capable of heeding a warning.

At this point, Jesus is talking to friends and disciples. That is a significant point in the context because the intent can be seen as a sobering warning, not an offensively threatening one.

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A History Lesson on Lying and Deceit

¹ Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, `You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” <sup>2</sup> The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; <sup>3</sup> but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, `You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’ ” ⁴ The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!”
Genesis 3:1-4

Within these few sentences is the first recorded lie. We see a pattern that is familiar to anyone who has learned how to have a conversation. The serpent introduces doubt by questioning the woman’s beliefs. It is difficult to sort out why the woman included the “or touch it.” (She had not been named ‘Eve’ at this point.)

Before He formed the woman, God had given Adam this instruction: “from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”  Nothing about not touching the fruit is in the original instructions. But somebody added the not touching part and there are only two choices: Adam or Eve.

Adding to God’s law leads to disaster. I have seen cops, child protective service employees, and school and university officials try to add to state law and assume authority that they do not legally have. They do great harm.

In the case of the original sin, adding the “do not touch” enabled the disastrous fall. The one law was ‘Do not eat.’ If Adam added the ‘Do not touch,’ and if the woman thought that was part of God’s word, then after picking the fruit, but before eating it, there was a middle stage where she could touch and surely wasn’t dead. If she could touch and nothing happened, then that would reinforce doubt about the eating part too.

In either case, the accusation had been made that maybe God was not telling the truth. This is one of the most distinctive characteristics of Satanic operation: a false accusation.

Much of the time, the false accuser is guilty of the thing for which they are falsely accusing the other person. Satan accused God of not telling the people the truth, and then Satan does it.

John 8:44 tells us that the devil does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. People who have a habit of lying are speaking from their own nature too. They are following after the devil, not God.

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False Accusations

The Book of Job (jōb) opens with a conversation between God and the devil. Satan is telling Job that the only reason people follow God is because He blesses them. The devil goes so far as to say that if God stopped blessing people, they would begin cursing Him. Their attention turns to Job and the gauntlet is thrown down, the challenge is set: God will stop blessing Job for a season and the devil can “have at.” It is basically a no-holes-barred challenge with the one exception being that the devil cannot murder or otherwise cause Job’s death. If you have read the book, you know that calamity strikes hard and fast. (That was probably a tactical error on the side of the devil, but it’s off-topic for now, and so that debate must be left for another day.)

Job was really rich and he had a lot of grown children. He was also quite the worry wart and so he made regular sacrifices “just in case” his kids had sinned. As a result of The Great Accusation in the heavens, there came a single day when Job lost 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, very many servants, seven sons and three daughters. The oxen, donkeys, and animal handlers were attacked by the Sabeans. The sheep and the servants shepherding them were lost by firefall, possibly fire set by lightning or perhaps a volcano. The camels were raided by three bands of armed Chaldeans. His children were killed by a windstorm. In all this, Job did not blame God. Job was clueless about God’s challenge to the devil, but he was convinced that it wasn’t God who sent the disasters. He was right.

Job had some good friends, and they were desperate to make sense of all this. His friends were aware of the principle retribution in kind. Working logic backwards, they decided that Job must have committed some horribly atrocious sin. Their idea of helping Job was to get him to repent.

In chapter 34, Elihu, one of Job’s friends, is telling him that,

¹⁰ “Therefore, listen to me, you men of understanding.

Far be it from God to do wickedness,

And from the Almighty to do wrong.

¹¹ “For He pays a man according to his work,

And makes him find it according to his way.

¹² “Surely, God will not act wickedly,

And the Almighty will not pervert justice.”

If Job had sinned, Elihu would have been right. Elihu stated the principle accurately. The only thing wrong with this explanation is that he falsely accused Job of doing something horrid when Job was completely innocent. At the end of the book, God is pretty ticked off at Job’s friends for making things worse by accusing Job like that. As the King James Version puts it, “My wrath is kindled against thee.” ^42:11 He tells them they have to take seven bulls and seven rams and go to Job with this sacrificial apology.

Look at the way God handles the false accusers. He demands that they make an atonement for what they did, but then as a final step, He gives Job all the power to accept the sacrifice, or not. The false accusers could not get absolution by praying to God only. They had to ask Job to pray for them. That was the only way.

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