In the realm of reality in which human beings live, there is a cause for everything that happens. This principle is called “Cause and Effect,” meaning that for every effect (happening) there is a cause (reason). In the spiritual realm in which human beings live, which includes those who do not know that a spiritual realm exists, there is a spiritual cause behind every effect. Relative to God’s most prized creation, there are no accidents. The problem is that only a minutely few people know why things happen in life.

Life is filled with questions: Why am I sick? Why do individuals and nations fight each other? Why is one area of the world burning while another area is being swept away by water? Why are some areas of the world suffering earthquakes while other areas suffer outbreaks of disease? Why are some people affected by a virus (flu/Covid/black plague) while others, even in the same family, are not? These are real life effects which have a real-life cause. THE CAUSE IS THE SAME IN EVERY INSTANCE IN WHICH DEATH, DESTRUCTION AND SUFFERING IS ATTRIBUTED TO “NATURE.” GOD TELLS US TIME AND AGAIN THAT THE CAUSE IS ALWAYS THE SAME: SIN–REBELLION AGAINST HIS LAW, HIS TRUTH, HIS LIGHT, HIS WILL AS IS MADE CLEAR IN HIS HOLY BIBLE. A major problem for the people of the world, including the church world, is that only a tiny minority know the cause behind the various effects mankind suffers. The Holy Scriptures call these effects the “voices” of God. Read the series in which this Truth is explained using the Holy Bible. Key Word–Voices.

An even bigger problem than not knowing the cause (sin) of an effect (God’s “voice”) is exhibited when the cause of the effect is made known–it is summarily rejected 99% of the time, even by those who own God’s Holy Bible in which He tells us everything there is to know about His Cause and Effect Law. That this Law holds true in the spiritual realm is proven beyond question in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 found in the Lord’s Guide Book. No scientific explanation can explain the what’s and why’s of human life better than these two question-answering books written by the Prophet Moses as dictated by the Almighty. On a personal level, I have never suffered a curse from God that I have not traced back to a sin cause. He has always answered my cause questions because He knows I want to know the answer.

Throughout the Bible, specifically in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, God tells us that there are two paths for man to choose from and two outcomes man can expect depending on his path choice. In the first 13 and 14 verses of the respective references He tells us that OBEYING HIS WORDS WILL RESULT IN BLESSINGS. Contrariwise, the remaining verses of the referenced chapters tell us that DISOBEYING HIS WORDS WILL RESULT IN CURSES.

Both blessings and curses come directly from Him. Nothing happens in the universe that He does not either cause to happen or allow to happen. GOD IS IN CHARGE. Keep this in mind when you see on a screen or read in print the world and her people being physically “shaken” by upheavals of all kings. This world-wide shaking does not surprise God’s true saints because they know and believe Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, as well as numerous other Scriptural passages. For example, He warns us in the second chapter of Isaiah that He will “SHAKE TERRIBLY” the heavens and the earth. Why? SIN–THE TRANSGRESSION OF HIS LAW (1 JN. 3:4). Man’s sins prove that man despises both God and Christ. This rule holds true regardless of how religious man appears to be, or believes himself to be (Lk. 10:16/ Mat. 7:21-23; 15:8,9).

The modern-day apostasy (falling away from God) of the Institutional Catholic/Protestant Religious System is the “effect” of a powerful “cause” that began in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve (God’s first church) rejected His Lordship over them by disobeying His command relative to the fruit of the forbidden tree. In that instance it was Satan himself (the Serpent–also identified as “the dragon” in Revelation 20:2) who orchestrated man’s original fall. That He is still in the church-destroying business can be proven by noting how he has divided the church into hundreds of different units. The success of his “divide and conquer” system can be quantified by consulting any telephone book, looking under CHURCHES, and counting. God declares that there is only one church (Eph. 4:4-6). Satan has convinced his disciples that there are as many churches, faiths, denominations, etc. as there are plans of salvation (paths to God). In this sense, Christianity is no different from the other religions known to man. In Eden Satan himself directly caused the division in the church–the separation between God and his parishioners. Due to the multiplying of mankind, He had to have help in fulfilling his mission. Church division was one of the ploys he instituted in order to destroy what God had created. But let it be known that without man’s desire for self-rule there would have been no division anciently nor today. Man insists on making his own decisions based on his individual mind-set. Different people have different minds. Satan wants man to have what man desires. True Truth-seekers want only one mind-set–the “mind of Christ” (1 Cor.; 2:16/ Phil. 2:5), of which there is only one.

In today’s world Satan–the “angel of light”–uses his “ministers of righteousness” (false prophets) to orchestrate the beliefs and activities of those involved in so-called “Christianity” (2 Cor. 11:13-15). Satan controls his ministers, along with those who obey their teachings, through his demonic spirits which the Apostle Paul identifies as “principalities, powers and rulers of the darkness of this world.” These fallen angels create “wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). He calls Satan “the prince of the powers of the air” (Eph. 2:2). Satan directly controls the thoughts, beliefs, faiths, words and actions of his religious workers known in professing Christendom as pastors, evangelists, Sunday School teachers, missionaries, etc.

His other religions have their own beliefs, customs, etc. that fulfill the desires of the people involved in them. Satan, through his demon spirits and their human workers, have 99.99% of the world’s population firmly under their control. Which brings us to the subject of this series–why the church has drifted so far from the God Whose name she carries, whose Word she possesses and Whose will she rejects. Satan’s primary, in-house source of false truth are his human workers. Due to many generations of serial deception, each generation of ministers carries out his directives through his fallen angels–Biblically known as “devils.” These spirit beings teach their hosts the Bible “truths” that will lure them away from God by providing a more self-pleasing interpretation of God’s Word. This is brought forth in First Timothy 4:1 where Paul calls their various interpretations “doctrines of devils.” The fact that it is a sin to interpret the Scriptures (2 Pet. 1:20,21) is considered irrelevant, if the sin it acknowledged at all. Bible interpretation is what prompted men to divide themselves from God and from each other. Those interpretations are proclaimed by Satan’s human messengers. Those of the same mind-set gravitate to them. The declare themselves a church and go about spreading their unique brand of so-called Christianity. As a result they match the definition of a cult.

The primary problem with the devil’s human messengers is that THEY ARE DECEIVED. A common characteristic relative to deceived people is that they do not know that they are deceived. An additional problem lies in the fact that those who deceived them did not know that they themselves were deceived. This cyclical deception process has been taking place in the church world for almost 2000 years.

Having been deceived, church leaders–Biblically known as “wolves”–believe that they are God’s hand-chosen, called, appointed and anointed shepherds of His sheep–His church. Like real wolves, they do not know that they are evil, that what they teach is not merely wrong, but dead wrong. Wolves do not perceive themselves as bad. To them, what they do is natural and therefore normal, even when they are devouring a fellow animal or a human being. Human wolves (church leaders), like the animals God compares them to, simply “do what comes naturally” as they lead their prey into the arms of Satan. That they are spiritually destroying their fellow human beings never enters their minds. What God calls “destroying” they call “saving,” totally unaware that the god they are leading people to is “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4) on whose sabbath they happily enter his citadel of sin where they unknowingly pay homage to the god many heathen honored on that day–the sun.

Church leaders do not view what they do as evil because they “know” that what they have always “known” is what God wants them to “know” and is therefore righteous. Having been taught by those they trust (parents, grandparents, teachers, pastors, etc.), they have no reason to question what they are being taught as they grow up in the religious atmosphere of “the church.” “Knowing” is not always what it is cracked up to be. For example, at one time everyone on earth “knew” that the world was flat. It was flat for one reason: BECAUSE EVERYONE “KNEW” THAT IT WAS FLAT. This “fact” was so powerfully embedded in the minds of the people that believing that the earth was round could literally get a “heretic” killed. A flat earth? How ridiculous! How could they have ignored all of the evidence? But the church must not laugh. She believes in and practices things that are condemned by the very Book she claims was written by the very God Who has saved her–the same God Whose Book she refuses to obey. This gives new meaning to the word “irony.” And when the Bible Truth is brought to their attention …. You know the outcome.

Man’s religious leaders are their leaders because they have chosen them to be their leaders. However, nowhere does God tell us to choose those who will lead us. That is His job. Why? Because church people will choose those to lead them who agree with them and will tell them what they want to hear. For this reason man’s church leaders are called “hirelings” in John 10:12. Relative to man’s church leaders, the Lord tells us in Jeremiah 14:14,15; 23:21,32: “I HAVE NOT SENT THEM.”

God’s true saints know the real and the counterfeit because THEY KNOW AND BELIEVE GOD’S WORD. They know and believe His Word because THEY HAVE THE MIND OF JESUS OF NAZARETH, and like Him, ARE LED BY GOD’S HOLY SPIRIT (Rom. 8:14). The power to obey God and the will to do so are what separates Biblically-defined Christians from church-defined Christians. The former walk in the light of God’s Words while the latter walk in the darkness of Satan’s words about God’s Words.

In closing I will remind you of the Apostle Paul’s admonition to the church at Rome concerning those who would divide God’s people from Him and from each other. In chapter 16 verses 17,18 he tells them to identify and avoid those who cause division by preaching doctrines that the church had not heard from the apostles. Such men serve themselves and in so doing, deceive those who do not know any better than to follow them. L..J.