16 Nov 1998
Mystery of the Beast
Do you friends realize that you have come closer to solving the mystery of the Beast in a few hours than the religious world has in two thousand years?
And most of you are not even Bible thumpers!
You have all made some great observations. I wish I could comment on every post, but that is of course impossible.
Garrett made a statement in the direction we are seeking:
The positive use of authority would allow free will. The people could make their own decisions. (freedom)
The negative use of authority would not allow free will. Those in authority would want (demand?) to make all decisions for the people. (control)
Actually negative authority often takes a person away from his power of decision by deception rather than force, but sometimes force is involved.
Samu also hit the nail on the head:
Seems to me that the worst kind of self-deception and negative use of authority would be to give away the authority from Self to something outside, be it beast or whatever.
Most of the sects see the beast as a great world antichrist dictator that will arrive on the scene just before the end of the world. They have been expecting him to show up any moment for many years. Some thought it was Hitler, but he wasn’t quite awesome enough.
If they had read the writings of John they would have not been so deceived.
I John 4:3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
To fully understand this scripture you must realize that in ancient times if you acknowledged Jesus as your authority rather than Caesar you were put to death. John here was acknowledging that this terrible misuse of authority made it clear that the antichrist or beast was already in the world.
If the antichrist or beast was already in the world 2000 years ago then why are the religious still waiting for him to surface?
Answer: They are deceived by the beast itself. They have followed authorities who have misled them instead of looking at the source.
Notice how the authority of Jesus is described:
And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Matt 7:28-29
The scribes were the ones the people looked to as authorities in scripture, yet there was something about the authority of Jesus that was different. What was it?
Here Jesus spoke boldly against the negative use of authority:
But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Matt 23:13
How does a similar use of authority keep people from entering the Kingdom of Heaven today??
Copyright by J J Dewey
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