What Has Religion Done For Mankind?

CHAPTER XI

Compromise with Demonism a Snare

APOSTATE religion has always resulted from a compromise with false religion. It has always worked out disastrously and has never had divine approval and blessing. Why does Christendom today stand at the brink of disaster? It is because she is dominated by apostate religion. Had she heeded the warning example furnished by the apostate organization of natural Israel, it would have been otherwise.

² Because the Israelites lacked faith in the God who had freed them from bondage in Egypt, they were condemned to wander forty years in the wilderness before being permitted to enter into the promised "land flowing with milk and honey". When the twelve spies were sent ahead to investigate the land, ten of them returned with a bad report. They thought that the giants they saw among the Canaanite inhabitants were the offspring of fresh unions between materialized angels and the daughters of Canaan. So these faithless spies frightened most of the Israelites, saying:

"All the people we saw there were men of huge size. We saw the Nephilim there (the giant clans belong to the Nephilim); they made us feel like grasshoppers, and grasshoppers we were to them." These supposed Nephilim, however, were simply Anakim or sons of Anak, the "long-necked". (Numbers 13:28, 32, 33, Mo; AT; AS) Two spies, Joshua and Caleb, brought back an inviting report and expressed faith in Jehovah's power to brush aside the barriers and give them the land promised.

³ For this, Joshua and Caleb were the ones that were at last permitted to enter the Promised Land. There they engaged in battle with those supposed Nephilim and proved them to be only mortal human giants and destroyed them. (Joshua 11:21, 22; 15:13,14) As for the people who believed the bad report and wanted to go back to Egypt, God sentenced them to die in the wilderness, and not enter the Promised Land. "Wherefore," says Jehovah, "I sware in my wrath, that they should not enter into my rest." (Numbers 14:28-35; Psalm 95:10,11, AS) Thus, more than twenty-five hundred years after he created man and woman, Jehovah showed that he was still enjoying his sabbath rest, the great seventh day in which he desists from earthly creation. The faithless Israelites were not to enjoy rest with him in the land of milk and honey. Without faith in him it is impossible to enter into his rest. (Hebrews 3:7 to

4:11) It takes faith not to compromise with the enemy.

⁴ At the end of the forty years the Israelites that had survived encamped on the plains of Moab across the Jordan river from the land of Canaan. They had been taught the theocratic worship of the true God, but now they were to come in contact with the accursed Canaanites who worshiped false gods, demons, and idolized images of such gods. With these demon worshipers and their religion Jehovah's chosen people were not to compromise. They must keep the first and second of the Ten Commandments. So now, before bringing them across the Jordan, Jehovah brought the Israelites into another covenant, by which they solemnly agreed to be faithful to him in the Promised Land. It prohibited all compromise with demonism. —Deuteronomy 29:1-18.

⁵ Jehovah named the Canaanite nations and said to his people: "When Jehovah thy God shall deliver them up before thee, and thou shalt smite them; then thou shalt utterly destroy them: thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them; neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For he will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of Jehovah be kindled

against you, and he will destroy thee quickly. But thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down their Asherim [sacred poles], and burn their graven images with fire." —Deuteronomy 7:1-5, AS; AT; Mo.

⁶ But was this not the rankest kind of religious intolerance as well as genocide? Is this not the kind of intolerance that is practiced in lands today under totalitarian and dictatorial rule? Not at all! This was the divine command and it was in favor of keeping the pure religion alive in the land God gave. The pure and the false could not exist side by side without hurt to his people and danger to their opportunity for eternal life in the new world. They had agreed to worship only Jehovah as God, and he was giving them the Promised Land to possess. Hence he had the sovereign right to determine what should be done to demon religion in the land. It was for their protection. He told them why he gave them these strict orders: "For thou art a holy people unto Jehovah thy God: Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples that are upon the face of the earth. And thou shalt consume all the peoples that Jehovah thy God shall deliver unto thee; thine eye shall not pity them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee. The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it unto

thee, lest thou be snared therein; for it is an abomination to Jehovah thy God. And thou shalt not bring an abomination into thy house, and become a devoted [or, doomed] thing like unto it: thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a devoted [doomed] thing." —Deuteronomy 7:6,16, 25, 26, AS.

⁷ False religion is a trap of Satan the Serpent, and his seed practice it. By not compromising with it we save ourselves from the snare. It is for the protection of our eternal interests that we uncompromisingly worship the only true God Jehovah according to his commandments, for he is the one Source of life and preservation. False religion leads to death, as it did Adam and Eve, for it is disobedience. What it does to a nation and people it showed with the Canaanites whom it degraded to the lowest immoral level. For instance, God said: "Thou shalt not give any of thy seed to make them pass through the fire to Molech; neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am Jehovah. Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. And thou shalt not lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith; neither shall any woman stand before a beast, to lie down thereto: it is confusion. Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for

in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out from before you; and the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land vomiteth out her inhabitants." (Leviticus 18:21-28, AS) To avoid themselves being vomited out of the land for defiling it the Israelites must not compromise with demonism.

⁸ Hence the extermination of the demon worshipers in the Promised Land was no case of religious intolerance. It was not an authorizing of them to go outside the God-given land and invade the outside worldly nations and destroy their idols and wipe out their false religion and all those who practiced it. Neither is this any Scriptural basis for the Roman Catholic religion to torture and kill so-called "heretics" in lands where it dominates and to forbid other religious sects to carry on there. In doing so Catholics are not copying the Israelites' example. History shows that in the lands they have invaded they have not obeyed God's commands to the Israelites to smash the idolatrous images there and to destroy the demon worshipers. To the contrary, they have let these remain and have compromised with the practicers of demonism, so that the natives can still carry on with the things of demonism just so they are Roman Catholics in name. This accounts for it today that, for example, a native in Haiti can be

a Roman Catholic and at the same time practice Voodooism. The ones whom the Vatican's clergy try to exterminate by means of boycott, inquisition, torture, mob violence, persecution and the "sword of the state" are, not these demon worshipers, but those who profess to be Christians and who differ with the Hierarchy on the teachings of the Bible.

⁹ Furthermore, in exterminating the degraded demon worshipers in the Promised Land, the Israelites were acting as executioners for Jehovah God. They were carrying on theocratic warfare against the accursed Canaanites, for they were fighting at God's command. He backed them up in it by working miracles to help them against superior foes, so that it was rightly said concerning the subjugating of the Canaanites: "And all these kings and their land did Joshua take at one time, because Jehovah, the God of Israel, fought for Israel." He had promised: "Jehovah your God who goeth before you, he will fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness." (Joshua 10:14,42 and Deuteronomy 1:30,31, AS) But neither Roman or Greek Catholics nor Protestants of Christendom are natural Jews under the Law covenant and neither are they being given a Promised Land in this world and so commanded to take such action against religious organizations of this world. In carrying on crusades, religious wars, etc., with death-dealing weapons and physical vio-

lence, they are not carrying on theocratic warfare, even if their clergy do bless the weapons and the fighters and call it a "holy war".

¹⁰ When Christ, whom they claim to follow, sent out his missionaries, he did not tell them to go armed with sword and incendiary torch and compel people to abandon false religion. He told them: "All authority has been given me in heaven and on the earth. Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you." (Matthew 28:18-20, NW) His apostle Paul said: "Though we walk in the flesh, we do not wage warfare according to what we are in the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful by God for overturning strongly entrenched things. For we are overturning reasonings and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are bringing every thought into captivity to make it obedient to the Christ." But, speaking against all compromise with devil religion, he said: "Put on the complete suit of armor from God that you may be able to stand firm against the machinations of the Devil; because we have a fight, not against blood and flesh, but against the [spiritual] governments, against the authorities, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the wicked spirit forces [the demons] in the heavenly places."

—Ephesians 6:11,12 and 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, NW.

¹¹ We today can profit not only from the principle set forth in God's command but also from the warning example of the Israelites. After he had miraculously brought them through the Jordan river into Canaan land, they pushed a campaign of ridding the land of its accursed inhabitants and their demonism, and after six years of this the land was apportioned out among the tribes and the component families. Joshua had succeeded Moses, and during all his days and the days of the spiritually mature men who were joined with him the Israelites faithfully served and worshiped the Most High God. In his final address to the tribes Joshua showed them the right decision to make for their happiness and blessing. "Now therefore," said he, "fear Jehovah, and serve him in sincerity and in truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River [Euphrates], and in Egypt; and serve ye Jehovah. And if it seem evil unto you to serve Jehovah, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River [where Babylon was located], or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah." —Joshua 24:14,15, AS.

¹² The Israelites bore witness against themselves

that they would do as Joshua encouraged them to do. In the course of time they weakened in their resolution, became tolerant toward demonized worshipers and compromised with them and became trapped. They did not keep their covenant. Then Jehovah, by his angel, told them they would have to suffer the consequences: "I have brought you up out of Egypt, and have brought you into the land which I promised on oath to your fathers, when I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you, but you on your part must make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you must tear down their altars.' But you have not heeded my injunction: what a way for you to behave! So now I add, 'I will not drive them out of your way; but they shall become your adversaries, and their gods shall become a trap for you.'" (Judges 2:1-3, AT) So ever after that they had these demon worshipers to contend with. Frequently they were brought into subjection to them for abandoning the pure revealed worship of God. When they realized the cause of their defeat and turned with repentant hearts to Him for deliverance, he raised up judges for their deliverance. Jehovah God was with the judges and fought miraculously for their victory. Therefore we cannot belittle the pure religion: it has to do with our real liberty and happiness. As with the Israelites, so with us: our being in touch with false religions in this world tests the integrity of our hearts toward Jehovah God.

¹³ After a period of judges until Samuel the

prophet the Israelites made a serious compromise on the matter of form of government. Till then they had no visible human king. At the end of the book of Judges we read: "In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes." (Judges 21:25) Why did they need any? In his Law covenant Jehovah made no provision for a human king, in imitation of the Babylonish practice set up by Nimrod. Jehovah was their invisible King. Their God was their Ruler and Lawgiver. It was a theocracy over them, and all the tribal officials and the priesthood enforced the laws of his covenant. Yet all the nations and peoples around Israel had their human kings in addition to their idol gods whom they called Molech, Milcom, and Malcam, meaning "king", or Baal, meaning "lord; master". It was now about the year 1117 B.C., hundreds of years before Rome was founded. The elderly representatives of Israel came to Samuel and surprised him with asking: "Make us a king to judge us like all the nations." Theocratic Samuel felt hurt and prayed to God about it; he was not going to shove Jehovah aside as King just to please them. What was the will of Israel's invisible King Jehovah?

¹⁴ "And Jehovah said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee; for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not be king over them." (1 Samuel 8:1-7; 12:12, AS) Jehovah had

foreseen such a move. Over 350 years before this he had said through Moses: "When thou art come unto the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are round about me; thou shalt surely set him king over thee, whom Jehovah thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee; thou mayest not put a foreigner over thee, who is not thy brother." Among other things this king must do, he must have a personal copy of the inspired Holy Scriptures and must carefully study it and follow it. So Israel's king was to be no foreigner, no usurper of the throne, no selectee of the people by democratic process, but was to be God's choice. —Deuteronomy 17:14-20, AS.

¹⁵ The people were made to realize they had done wrong in this matter. So they asked Samuel: "Pray for thy servants unto Jehovah thy God, that we die not; for we have added unto all our sins this evil, to ask us a king." Samuel assured them of his prayers, but warned them: "If ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king." (1 Samuel 12:19-25, AS) A human king was a danger. If he turned to false religion, he could enforce it upon the nation and swing the whole nation into demonism. How often their future history was to prove this!