The first command God gave to mankind concerned dominion over every living creature on earth, in the water and in the air. Man was created to rule all of God’s earthbound creation, including the weather as Christ’s stilling of the storm on the Sea of Galilee reveals (Mk. 4:37-41). Note that He scolded the disciples for not controlling the sea and the wind themselves and depending on Him to do it. The Scriptural fact that God promises modern day saints control over the earth, the forces of “nature” and the Serpent who has usurped that control has been hidden from God’s people since the Garden of Eden. The Lord’s awarding of control of the earth to man and Satan’s blinding of man to this Biblical Truth will be the subject of a future presentation.

The second command God gave to mankind involved “touching,” another subject that the devil has prevented mankind from understanding. Lack of knowledge of this massively destructive weapon has rendered man, including churchman, powerless against him. As a result, churchman has reversed God’s Truth found in 1 John 4:4. Here the Lord tells us through the apostle: “You are of God …. for greater is He (the Holy Spirit) that is in you than he (Satan) that is in the world.” Professing Christendom’s god (Satan) has deceived her into believing that John’s message is the exact opposite of the truth. Because she has embraced the devil’s gospel, the church believes and professes that Satan is greater than God. Her parishioners profess loudly and often that they are incapable of resisting the force of Adam’s sin gene and therefore must submit to it. Due to the devil’s superior power within them, and due to their being saved by God’s grace, they are nothing more than “sinners saved by grace.” In other words, Satan is greater than God, which has created a power imbalance in favor of Satan. Church people have no choice but to obey the greater power–they must sin. These “truths” have produced the following church theological “facts”: Jesus, knowing that church people must sin, died so that they would not need to resist sin (Satan). Because it would be fruitless to do so, Jesus resists him for them. His dying statement that “It is finished” means that their sins are no longer noticed by Him. The Father’s grace makes them all go away. Churchman’s only responsibility relative to sin is to repent following each one. Sin, billions of churchites believe and proclaim, is irrelevant. Faith makes them disappear. Jesus stands at the ready, grace at hand to forgive as quickly as they can sin and repent. “Only believe” saves the day. I have penned a couple of ditties that express this theology: “Sin and grin my friend, for in the end you still win.” “Pie in the sky, sin till you die, for in the sweet by and by, you’ll still get to fly.” Professing Christendom believes this, which brings a smile to Satan’s face.

One of the ways the devil keeps parishioners in his Catholic/Protestant Church system involves “touching.” God’s touch command was issued to Adam and Eve not long after their creation. However, as one third of God’s angels had done before them, God’s first church fell prey to the devil’s wiles. In the remainder of this series we will see how the church’s scheming, crafty god has blinded her eyes to the sin of “touching.” In his letter to the Hebrew Christians the Apostle Paul warned about “the sin that so easily besets (sneaks up on) us.” This sin involves “touching” which religious man rarely, if ever, considers in that it seems unimportant relative to the more acknowledged sins God warns about. But as we will see, He has much to say about man’s “besetting” failures. Let us not forget that the wages of (all) sin is death. In the eyes of God, SIN IS SIN. Stealing a penny is as bad as stealing a car. And as we will see, thinking about stealing either one is as much a sin as performing the deed. Indeed, there is much more to “touching” than meets the eye. In future postings we will find out how much more. L.J.