Mystery Jerusalem Rising Ch 3 - Abraham - the Pre-Gospel preached

While God communicated with people on an individual basis since Adam, it is with Abraham that the history begins in earnest. When God called Abraham, he called him not only as an individual but as the father of the people of God. Consider the call of Abraham:

“Get out of your country,From your family And from your father’s house,To a land that I will show you.I will make you a great nation;I will bless you And make your name great;And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

- Genesis 12:1-3

God sought to both bless Abraham and make him a blessing. Abraham was to be a blessing to all of the families of the earth. There are two lessons often missed by those who study this passage. These are lessons which will be revisited throughout the remainder of this book. The first is that Jews missed the purpose of the Abrahamic covenant and turned it into a self-absorbed obsession. The second is that Abraham does indeed become a blessing to all of the families of the earth. He does this through his descendant, Jesus Christ, who “…redeemed us to God by Your bloodout of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth.” (Rev 5:9-10)

Eph 2:8-9 reveals two administrations of God: grace and faith. This passage tells us that salvation is “by grace through faith – and that [faith] not of yourselves.” What this text is saying is that God’s grace is the foundation of salvation and faith is the means that God ordained that man is to receive grace. Both of these administrations are manifested in the life of Abraham. While Abraham was not given specifically bio-graphical information about Jesus Christ, he was taught the core elements of the gospel almost two thousand years before it was revealed in the New Testament. Christ Himself is witness to the fact that Abraham received the gospel in advance when He said “Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad (John 8:56)”

Abraham saw that God’s grace, His provision, was the basis of salvation. God once tested Abraham by telling him to sacrifice Isaac. When Isaac asked Abraham “where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham replied “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” Abraham understood that salvation is by grace while his contemporaries were pursuing salvation by works and useless rituals.

“Then He said, ‘Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you…’

“So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and the two of them went together. But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, ‘My father!’And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’Then he said, ‘Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’And Abraham said, ‘My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.’So the two of them went together.

 “Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

“But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’So he said, ‘Here I am.’ And He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.’ Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, ‘In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided.’ ”

- Genesis 22:2,6-14

The immediate provision for Abraham was a ram, but Abraham believed for a lamb. This foreshadows the coming of Christ as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Abraham became the prototype for salvation by faith. Gen 15 records God commencing his covenant with Abraham. God gave Abraham a promise “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them…So shall your descendants be.”(Gen 15:5) In verse 6, it is written “he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.”  God counted Abraham’s faith as righteousness. Abraham is the prototype for everyone to follow. Faith was established by God as the foundational method for people to attain righteousness.

In verse 6, it is written that Abraham (Abram) “believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.”  God counts one’s faith as righteousness. This is called in the New Testament Justification by faith. What does the Bible mean when it says that we are justified by faith? What happens in the Court of God. The Reformers taught that justification was merely a legal process (positional righteousness) without any connection to actual righteousness, but there are difficulties with that view. The Biblical teaching is that justification by faith follows similar principles to those involved in buying a house. Why?  God is buying back his creatures that were lost in sin.

There is a transaction that takes place when God justifies us. Faith is the pledge of ourselves to God. Through faith we pledge that we will follow Him and God gives us an earnest deposit-The Holy Spirit. Just as the buyer of a house pays earnest money to hold the property until the deal can be finalized God gives us the Holy Spirit to seal the deal on what He is buying-US

“Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.”

-2 Corinthians 1:22 KJV

“Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.”

- 2 Corinthians 5:5 KJV

“To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.  In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;  Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;  Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:  That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:  That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.  In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,  Which is the  earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.”

-Ephesians 1:6-14 KJV

When a buyer gives earnest money, the seller commits to hold or reserve the property for the buyer until the deal is final. What does this mean for justification by faith? Since we must come to God by faith, faith is our pledge in the transaction. When the buyer-in this case God-pays the earnest -We must pledge our lives to God as His property. God then plants into us the Holy Spirit, who works in us so that faith becomes outwardly expressed as works of righteousness

Justification by Faith Prelude to Righteous Living
The Protestant Reformers taught that Justification by Faith was merely legal or declared righteousness without any connection to righteous living. This is false but there is a kernel of Truth: God counts us as righteous before we do any works. However, the Justice of God bars God from declaring one righteous if there no corresponding righteousness. Even by human standards a judge would be viewed as corrupt or treasonous if he were to grant amnesty to someone who was a habitual criminal who then continued to commit crimes after he was pardoned.

If the idea of a human judge declaring one just without regard to the law or the fact is outrageous then it is blasphemy to attribute that to God. Justification by faith must uphold God's Law and correspond to actual facts. Something must count as righteousness in order for a just God to declare one righteous. If a man is not justified by works, then what counts as righteousness?

“And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

- Genesis 15:6

It is faith that counts as righteousness. Part of God’s grace is that He has given everyone a measure of faith. Faith is the seed of righteousness. When God sees that righteousness in seed form in one’s faith, He counts it as the mature righteousness that will emerge from it. We are justified by faith alone before we do any works, but the seed of those works are embedded in that faith are the works God has called us to do. This seed is the Holy Spirit given as earnest payment for us. The Holy Spirit “works in you [the believer] both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).”  This is why Jesus said that faith is the work God requires:

“ ‘Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.’ Then they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.’ ”

-John 6:27-29

 If faith is the work God requires, then the nature of living faith is the cause of works. Living faith is a pipeline through which the Holy Spirit works. James describes how faith works.

“ What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?  If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?  Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

“But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.  You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!  But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?  Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?  Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?  And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.

25 Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

- James 2:14-26

James makes an analogy between faith without works and a dead body. According to this analogy, works is the spirit of living faith. The works that are the spirit of living faith are not the mature, outward works but righteousness in seed form. This is the Holy Spirit given as earnest to empower that faith to accomplish the works God has prepared (Eph 2:9). James describes this action as faith working together with works, meaning seed-form righteousness, to accomplish outward works. This process fulfills the implications of justification by faith. This is why James says of Abraham “And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ ”

Compare Gen 15:6 which says

“And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

With Gen 26:2-5 which says

“Then the Lord appeared to him and said: ‘Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land of which I shall tell you. 3 Dwell in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father.  And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed;  because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.’ ”

Gen 15:6 describes the beginning of faith. God’s declaration that the believer is righteous, apart from any works requires that God “works in you [the believer] both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).”  God’s declaration that Abraham was righteous resulted in God’s intervention in a chain of events that resulted in Abraham’s obedience, obedience that confirmed the covenant.

Abraham father of those who believe
One of the mistakes that the Jews, and many modern Christians, make is the thinking that the covenants are automatically extended to whatever group they reckon as the children of Abraham. The Jews, in particular, believed that they automatically inherited the promises given to Abraham. This was based upon the promise that the covenant with Abraham was with both Abraham and his descendants. God, however, has a different idea. Let’s consider this passage in Genesis. 

“Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall beher name.  And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her.’

“Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, ‘Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ And Abraham said to God, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!”

“Then God said: ‘No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year.’ Then He finished talking with him, and God went up from Abraham.” 

-Genesis  17:15-22

When God said that Abraham’s covenant would apply to his descendants, He was not altering his genetic to pass on a biological trait to his children. We see clearly from this passage that mere paternity match was not enough. Ishmael was Abraham’s biological son, but he was flat rejected from inheriting the covenant. Isaac was to be the heir to the Abrahamic covenant.

Even with Isaac, it was not an automatic path put into his DNA that assured that he would actually receive this blessing. The Lord promised Abraham that “My covenant I will establish with Isaac.” God will establish the Abrahamic covenant with Isaac as His covenant with Isaac. The words ‘I will’ is also future tense. The Abrahamic covenant has not yet been confirmed in Isaac’s life. Isaac must embrace the Abrahamic covenant as his own covenant with God. As Abraham embraced his covenant with God through faith, so Isaac must also through faith embrace covenant with God. 

While Isaac was Abraham’s biological son, in terms of the covenant Isaac became the son of Abraham through faith. Because faith is the path to legally recognized relationship to Abraham in terms of the covenant, we can also come to Abraham through faith. I have more on this in chapter 10. In the next chapter, I will show that Abraham’s faith was just the beginning of God’s dealings with his people. Abraham’s obedience was not perfect, and it became necessary for God to bring about the next phase of His plan.

<<Chapter 2 | Table of contents | Chapter 4>>

Mystery Jersalem Rising Ch 2 - How God works in history – the Elijah Principle

The god of Mystery Babylon is portrayed as marching through the mainstream current of history. The Judeo-Christian God, while exercising sovereign supervision over all of history, focuses His plan into a counter-cultural current. God moves “against the grain.” God utilizes what I call the Elijah Principle with those He loves as His program for sustaining them and exalting them in due time. In 1 Kings 18 Elijah has a contest with the false prophets at Mt Carmel. Elijah would call upon God and the false prophets would call upon Baal. The God who answers by fire is the true God of Israel.

The deck is horrendously stacked against Elijah.  He is outnumbered 850 to 1. The false prophets are given most of the day to do their thing. When it is Elijah’s turn, God tells Elijah to further stack the deck against his own self.  Elijah drowns the sacrifice with water. There is no possible way for Elijah to win this contest unless his God is God. God then answers powerfully.

What happened to Elijah is the pattern for the saints. There is an initial call to faith. After a ‘honeymoon’ season, the Lord will stack the deck against His own people for a season, so that He may be glorified through the victory of the saints. God uses the suffering and triumph of the saints to prove His mighty power to an unbelieving world. If you feel like the deck is royally stacked against you, then it may be that God is bestowing upon you the same love He has given the great saints of old.

We must through perseverance and tribulations enter the Kingdom of God. Enduring trials produces hope. Our assurance that hope is justified is that God loves us and has put His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Because God loves and has enabled us to love, we can hope for God to manifest deliverance with an expectation that God will come through for us.

“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance, character; and character, hope.  Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”  

 - Romans 5:1-5

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.  But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” 

- James 1:2-4

The reason that tribulations produce hope is that God pours His love into our hearts. Our assurance that God has poured His love into our heart is that He is treating us like the great saints. When one studies the lives of the saints in the scriptures, a clear pattern commonly emerges as they walk towards victory. There are three stages as they fight the good fight of faith. There is the initial move of faith followed by a season of trials in the wilderness. At the end of this season the child of God reaches the turning point where God brings the victory.

The Initial Call to the walk of faith begins when God reveals his vision to His child. Sometimes this call goes out in the midst of pre-existing trials. Other times it is immediately followed by trials. Usually there is a ‘honeymoon ‘ period where there are initial steps of faith towards the goal before the storm hits.

The initial call is followed by trials, tribulations, opposition, and Satanic attacks. Sometimes this can last for years. Much of the history of the saints involves God’s people waiting while enduring tribulations. These tribulations serve both a corrective purpose as well as the context through which God’s power is demonstrated.

After the season of tribulation, there comes a turning point where God brings the victory. Below are several saints whose lives followed this pattern. There are several examples of these three stages in both the Scripture and in subsequent church history.

Joseph

Initial Call: God gave Joseph a dream that he would rule over his brothers.

Tribulation: Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery and for 13 years became slave and prisoner in Egypt. His leadership experiences as a slave and prisoner prepared him to become Prime Minister of Egypt.

Victory: Joseph became Prime Minister when he both interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams and gave wise counsel to pharaoh.

Moses

Initial Call: Moses saved from death in order to be Israel’s deliverer. When Moses was a baby, his parents hid him for three months. When they could no longer hide him, they placed him in a basket. He grew up in Pharaoh’s house.

Tribulation: After killing one of the Pharaoh’s taskmasters, Moses fled into the wilderness and lived as a shepherd for 40 years.

Victory: God called him back to Egypt to deliver the Israelites. Through great signs and wonders performed by Moses, God delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage.

Ruth

Initial Call: Determined to follow Naomi, Ruth makes profession of faith in the God of Naomi. “ For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people,  And your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, And there will I be buried.  The LORD do so to me, and more also, If anything but death parts you and me.” was Ruth’s good confession.

Tribulation: Ruth left her home land and heritage to live as a beggar in a strange land. Naomi and Ruth arrive back in Israel at the end of a famine. The famine devastated the house of Naomi. She lost her husband and both her sons. The only thing Naomi had not lost  was her daughter-in-law Ruth and her own life. Ruth took care of Naomi by gleaning wheat in the fields of Boaz. 

Victory: She married Boaz and become mother to both the Royal House of David and the Messiah.

David

Initial Call: David was anointed as God’s choice for king. He began his career by killing Goliath and performed exemplary duty as a warrior. God gave David such great success as a warrior that the Israelites were saying ‘Saul has killed his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.” (1 Sam 18:6-8)

Tribulation: Because Saul was jealous of David, he pursued and sought to kill him. David lived for a number of years as a fugitive. During this time he softened his enemies and acquired skills that would benefit him as king.

Victory: When Saul died the House of David became stronger while the House of Saul became weaker. Finally the elders of Israel crowned David King of Israel.

Jesus Christ

Initial Call: Jesus Christ was chosen by God to be Savior of the world.

Tribulation: Jesus left the glory of heaven to be clothed in human flesh. He also suffered fierce opposition as He did mighty works of God. He eventually suffered an agonizing death on the cross.

Victory: His death on the cross conquered sin and Satan’s power. He conquered death by Resurrection from the dead.

Early Church

Initial Call: The Church was chosen to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.

Tribulation: Christians suffered tremendous persecution at the hands of Jews and the Roman government for 300 years. Christianity is unique among the major world religions in that it was the only one to suffer multiple generations of persecution in its developmental stage.

Victory: The growth and triumph of the Church displaced the pagan culture of Rome.

The Church in Reformation

Initial Call: The Church that overcame Rome eventually fell into backsliding in the same manner that Israel had previously done. By the end of the medieval period, there was very little about what came to be called the Roman Catholic Church that bore any resemblance to Christ’s life and teachings. Human conventions had replaced the Scripture and the anointing of the Holy Spirit as the government of the church. It was in this context that God raised up John Wycliffe to call the church back to Scripture. Wycliffe’s followers were called Lollards.

Tribulation: In 1384, Wycliffe was burned at the stake. His followers, the Lollards, were driven out of England. The Lollards went to Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) where they helped John Hus start a reformation in Bohemia. After Hus’ death, the Hussite wars were fought until 1431. The forces of Reformation continued to endure in Bohemia, but the remainder of Europe was still in bondage.

Victory: On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Thesis on the door of the church in Wittenberg. This caused a chain of events that led to a political paradigm shift. Those who revered the Bible as the infallible constitution of the faith and the written revelation of the gospel could now both be salt and light to the culture of the “West,” leading to its ascendancy and a growing capability to support a large, global missionary movement.

End Time Revival

Initial Call: While charismatic empowerment of the Holy Spirit has been manifest throughout church history, at the start of the twentieth century, a large scale awakening began in the church to seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In 1906, God poured out His Spirit in a revival at Azusa Street. This revival jump started the largest move of the supernatural since the book of Acts.

Tribulation: The main issue that has arisen against this move of God is the clash against the very thing that cooled down the first revival: the replacement of the rule of the Word and the Spirit with human institutions. This can take several forms. It can be that of institutional authority rejecting or otherwise desiring to limit the flow of the charismata or the recognition of the apostolic and prophetic offices; it can also be self-appointed prophets who heed neither the correction of Scripture, the witness of the Lord, nor the witness of others who have the witness of God. They are like those lawless relativists, doing “whatever is right in their own eyes”  rather than following the commands of the Lord (Deut 12:8).

Victory: In order for God’s church to shine in all of her glory, much of the existing man-made structures that frame the church must be tossed, and new structures instituted that more accurately mirror the New Testament church. The Lord Jesus instructs us that no one puts new wine into old wineskins or new cloth onto an old garment (Matthew 9:16-17, Mark 2:21-22, Luke 5:36-39). This is because the fermentation produced by the new wine will destroy the old wineskin and shrinkage of the new cloth will tear it from the old. Jesus is not thinking primarily about wine or textiles when He said this. He is saying that the old religious structures cannot contain the new work of God.

The Elijah principle works today

Just as Elijah stacked the deck against himself and put both the Lord and Baal to the test at God’s command, so God will stack the deck against the church. He gives her supernatural power to endure persecution and trial; when the time comes for a showdown between the church and the hostile cultural forces, He gives her the victory. In Jesus’ parable of the two houses, one built on sand and the other built upon the rock, it was the storm that revealed the house that was built upon the rock. A great social, political, and economic storm is coming. In fact, it has already begun. This storm must do its work in demolishing the old man-made structures so that the new wave of God’s work, and the new ministries that it will produce, can emerge.

If the call of God is on your life but you feel marginalized by church as usual. Hang in there. The conditions are ripe; the Lord will soon raise you up, if you do not give up.

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Mystery Jerusalem Rising Ch 1 - A Tale of Two Religions

Many people in this age believe that the religious landscape is very diverse. This is one of the chief arguments used to rebuff the authority of Christianity and the Bible. However, I believe that this diversity is rather misleading. While the religious landscape would seem diverse when measured in terms of differing perspectives and interpretations, when seen in terms of basic meta-narratives, there are only two religions: Mystery Babylon and Judeo-Christian meta-narrative

Mystery Babylon

In Mystery Babylon Rising, I wrote that most religions of the world hold to   evolutionary naturalism as their meta-narrative1. This meta-narrative asserts that the godhead is a product evolution, is itself undergoing evolution, and the product of its evolution is the created universe. The evolutionary process is the march of god in history. I also wrote that the logical conclusion of faith in the evolutionary process leads to belief in the emergence of both a global state and a world leader as god on earth.

Materialists are not the only ones who uphold naturalistic religion. Most of the major world religions uphold a naturalistic spirituality: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, NeoPaganism, and Hermeticism/Gnosticism, and various strains of mysticism.

Mysticism appears in almost all religious traditions. Mysticism asserts that we live in a two story universe. The lower story is the domain of facts and reason discernible through the natural senses or the scientific method; these are given generally to people. The upper story is beyond naturalistic reason and given only to an enlightened elite. Wherever Mysticism appears in naturalistic religion, it is always a disguise for Hermeticism or Gnosticism.

Materialism appears to deny the upper story, but there are three reasons to believe that materialist, in actuality, embrace the upper story. The impossibility of living life in a logically consistent manner in just the lower story, the mysticism underlying the materialist’s faith in  science and evolution, and the political convergence between the materialistic interpretations of evolution and that of other naturalistic religions.

It is impossible to live life in a logically consistent manner in just the lower story. Because the lower story consists only of what is scientifically testable, many things in ordinary life are outside of the lower story. There is no scientific method that can confirm whether it is possible for one to be truly in love. Furthermore, there is no scientifically testable way to infer an “ought” from an “is;” ethics cannot be scientifically proven.

Mysticism underlies the materialist’s faith in science and evolution. This is because science cannot be used to prove science is valid. Science is based on inductive reasoning. In 1959, Karl Popper demonstrated the futility of inductive reasoning from a materialist perspective. Popper, in his book The Logic of Scientific Discovery, proceeded to unveil his criterion of falsification. Even then, he qualified his endorsement of falsification by calling it a “convention” rather than strict logic. Materialistic science is based on a blind leap of faith.

Evolution is based on an even blinder leap of faith. Evolution, of the scale and type described by the theory of evolution, has not and cannot be tested by actual observation. Scientists take a blind leap of faith concerning events of the distant past based on an interpretation of current scientific knowledge, with no clue whether that knowledge is representative of the whole.

There is also a political convergence between the materialistic interpretations of evolution and that of other naturalistic religions that exist as a result of the commonality of thought amongst different branches. This convergence will put pressure on materialists to move closer to their pantheist brothers   by mean of a mystic leap of faith.

Materialists are already making gesture to bridge the gap between them and other naturalistic religions. A movement called trans-humanism is seeking to turn humanity into gods through the use of advanced technology.

Mystery Jerusalem: the Judeo-Christian Meta-narrative
The Judeo-Christian meta-narrative begins with the existence of a Self-Existent God who created the universe. God also created man in his image. While we do not have the same essence as God, the state of being created in God's image means that we have the categories of God. These categories are hardwired into us, giving us a minimal amount of hardwired knowledge. The knowledge of the law of non-contradiction leads us to the knowledge of God. In my book, The Logic of God, I describe how man's hard-wired knowledge leads to God

God not only reveals himself to individual consciences, but acts within human history. He reveals Himself both to specific individuals and to groups of people. Because God is perfectly coherent, His actions leave a footprint on history. This book is dedicated to the historical flow of this meta-narrative. History is basically a conflict between the meta-narrative of the  Judeo-Christian God and the god of Mystery Babylon. This battle is getting particularly intense in the age of globalization; the ecumenical movement is drawing together all of the religions that uphold the meta-narrative of Mystery Babylon together. The more the majority of the world’s religions, and people, come together, the further the Judeo-Christian meta-narrative is pushed towards the margins. During this time, as in all other times of persecution, the supernatural presence of God sustains His people until they get the victory.

Chapter 2>>