Discerning Good and Evil Servants

2000-1-5 11:07:00

Chapter Six - Discerning Good and Evil Servants

One of the reasons the powers of darkness can gain a foothold on the earth is because of the ignorance of other people concerning good and evil. Isaiah recognized this problem when he said: "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" Isaiah 5:20

Jesus also dealt with this: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." Matthew 23:27-28.

Why is it that the majority of people call good evil and evil good whenever a teacher appears to help humanity? Why was it that the people thought that Jesus was "mad" and possessed of a "devil" and worked his miracles by the power of the devil, whereas they thought their religious leaders were truly righteous men? Jesus gave the answer: "Ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men". [Matthew 23:28?] A worker of darkness and ignorance ALWAYS makes an effort to appear outwardly righteous and pure. The worker in the light does not make such an effort. He is more concerned with helping his brother progress and elevating mankind than in appearances. In fact he will sometimes go out of his way to not give a strong appearance of piousness for he wants the people to pay attention to the message and not the man. Thus he will often be mistaken as "mad" and influenced by the devil as Jesus was. He will sometimes be called an unprincipled man of talent, irreverent, and even self seeking. Those on the left hand path, on the other hand, are experts in controlling their image, and thus it takes one who looks deeper than the image to see the "dead men's bones" underneath.

All forces, powers, and energies are neither good nor evil in themselves. They are completely neutral, but only become good or evil when they are intelligently directed. An energy which is directed to restrict life and imprison it, or take away its freedom of expression in any way becomes evil, but an energy which is directed to free life and give greater room for expression and expansion and joy is good. For instance, atomic energy can be used to power cities or space vehicles and give a greater freedom of expression and movement. The energy released within a car can either be directed toward a collision that will cause death, or to the grocery store for essential food.

This type of good and evil is easy to recognize, but the evil of the brother of darkness is not. The ultimate criteria for defining good and evil in the affairs of man is the final outcome of the directions taken. Jesus recognized this when he said: "Beware of false prophets, men who come to you dressed up as sheep while underneath they are savage wolves. You will recognize them by the fruits they bear. Can grapes be picked from briars, or figs from thistles? In the same way a good tree always yields good fruit, and the poor tree bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, or a poor tree good fruit. And when a tree does not yield good fruit it is cut down and burnt. That is why I say you will recognize them by their fruits." Matthew 7:15-20 New English [Matthew 7:15 KJV]

The end result, or the fruit, must always be analyzed and a determination must be made as to whether greater light and love for ALL mankind affected will be the consequence, or will there be a greater restriction of life in the end? "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free," [John 8:32] said Jesus. The true knowledge of good and evil is that which makes man free.

The problem is that a "false prophet" often appears as a harmless sheep, for both those on the Right and Left hand Path work with similar energies and forces, but direct them to different ends. The Dark Brother has great skill in making evil appear good through deceit. He always presents concepts of peace, brotherhood, dignity, national pride, but his fruit is always bitter even though his words sound sweet. His words often echo concepts presented by the brothers of light. This is why Jesus said that even the elect were in danger of being deceived.

Let us suppose that Hitler was living in the United States today and he was seeking for power. Would it be obvious that he wanted to kill all the Jews? No. He would talk of "respect for human life". Would it be obvious that he was seeking total control over our lives? No. He would speak of "freedom". Would it be obvious that he would create a war ending in the destruction of millions of lives? No. He would speak of peace.

What else would Hitler say if he lived among us and wanted to win over the American people? He would speak of national pride and remind us of our great heritage and the glories of the past. We should make America great again and not let other countries push us around. We should win the armaments race. We can only have peace through strength. He would speak of families and the importance of the family structure and the virtues of motherhood. He would talk about economic problems and share ideas as to how to give the small businessman a break and put people back to work. He would very sharply criticize the current economic efforts in such a way to make them look utterly ridiculous. Above all he would appeal to the national pride and speak of the greatness of America and our world destiny. One may be assured that many a flag waver's breasts would swell with pride after listening to him.

The difficult part as far as recognition goes, is that most of the problems he would present are real problems, and the solutions he presents are acceptable solutions to the general public. Nevertheless, there is always a flaw in the presentation of the Dark Brother. That flaw is in the excess of appeal to pride or sloth. There is nothing wrong with a moderate appeal to pride, but the dark brother will be known by his concentration on it. This is how Hitler won the souls of the German people. About half of his words were directed toward stimulating the pride of the people. He spoke of his people as the Super race with a destiny to lead the world. The Super race philosophy would have to be discarded today. Instead we would have an appeal like "super country", "the superstar of the world" or like ideas. Americans could be "super citizens".

The second flaw of an Antichrist would be revealed in greed which would be camouflaged by pride. He would cut the throats of other countries to satisfy the greed of his own people. If a gain of 5% in employment here resulted in a 20% reduction in Japan he would not hesitate in seizing the gain and basking in the compliments of those whose greed tells them that the Japanese got what they deserved. He would jump at the chance to further the American Image no matter what the cost of human lives would be elsewhere. He knows that as long as greed is satisfied at home, he will receive honor.

An interesting show appeared on television some time ago called THE WAVE. It was the true story of a High School teacher in California in the early sixties who, in an experiment, introduced some of Hitler's tactics and philosophy. Instead of using the swastika he used a wave and even used an altered salute. Within two weeks all but a few students endorsed everything with great enthusiasm. The few who did read between the lines found that they were powerless to influence the new believers. In the end the teacher revealed a large picture of Hitler and explained that this was his philosophy and that they would have made good Nazis. They were stunned by the revelation, just as the Germans were stunned after the wars end. Unfortunately, most of us do not get a trial run like this. The Germans soon found out that they were dealing with the real thing.

Then there is another clue to look for. Those on the Left hand path will give great honor and respect to the glories of the past and often seek to reestablish them. Their highest vision of the Brotherhood of Light will use what is good from the past, but it will not comprise their vision of the future. They always seek to take mankind higher than he's ever gone before.

Another important way to recognize the dark brother is by studying parallels in history to the present situations. Parallels in history should be studied carefully in school to insure the survival of freedom, but they are not. It will be found that evil forces always arise to fill a vacuum and if we find ourselves approaching such a vacuum we need to fill it with light and not darkness. The vacuums are created by injustices, economic instability, threat of war, unemployment and so on.

The final way of exposing the dark brother is to chart his course. Does it lead to good fruit or bitter fruit? By studying everything possible about the man, his writings, his speeches, his decision making process, his thinking process one can logically conclude the type of fruit that will be produced. Fortunately, one man with a feeling for history and human nature did this with Hitler. His name was Winston Churchill. During a visit to Germany in 1932 he became aware of the Nazi party and actually admired Hitler and his party in some aspects as did many others at that time. However, Churchill had an uneasy feeling about it and began to look beneath the surface. He began to chart the course of Hitler and was horror struck when he realized the end product: War and possible loss of freedom. Amazingly, this conclusion was reached before Hitler came to power. From that point, for over half a dozen years, Churchill concentrated all his energies in warning his people, who were on a pacifist excursion, to prepare for the Nazi threat. But Hitler seemed like such a reasonable and peaceful man that they jeered and rejected the future prime minister right up until the invasion of Poland. At that point the scales fell from the eyes of the English and the world. Then Churchill began to look like a prophet sent from God, whose voice went unheeded. Actually, he did not need the prophetic gift. Instead he merely charted the course of Hitler and his party and reached logical conclusions. Hitler was a bad tree who would bring forth bad fruit.

An interesting character trait that generally distinguishes the brother of darkness from the brother of light is a sense of humor. The brother of light is not offended easily and can see humor in things at the darkest hour. The brother of darkness is very serious and is clever, but is not what you call a "fun" type of person. If there is laughter his comrades are laughing with him, never at him, and he never laughs at himself nor makes himself the center of a joke. True humor is the symbol of the freedom of the soul, that's why there is little of it in the totalitarian regimes.