The Image of God- Sounds of War_2_11_24

The speaker discusses the topic of violence and how it is caused by a lack of love and affection among humans. They argue that the existence of evil in the world raises questions about the purpose of life and the existence of a creator. The speaker believes that God's word aims to transform the hearts and minds of humans. They also explore the Hebrew word for law, Torah, which means to teach, guide, and shoot. They draw parallels between shooting at a target and aiming for the heart of man, emphasizing the need for humans to die to their own thoughts and be renewed. The speaker also talks about the connection between violence and hatred, highlighting the importance of self-control and the dangers of individuals who seek to control others without exercising self-control. They read from the book of James to support their argument that conflicts and quarrels arise from individuals' desires and passions. Overall, the speaker suggests that the sound of war and the destruction of innocent li Hello, this is Philip Black, and it is good to be here once again with the broadcast Voice to Humanity, and today I would like to continue on the topic of, we talked about violence and how Jesus referenced wars and rumors of wars, and what caused them to come about was humans began to wax cold, as they say, the love of other humans began to wane. And that was the root cause of wars, that people, human beings, began to have the natural affection that God had placed in the heart of every being for one another. It began to fade. With that in mind, thinking about our current situation, our time, we always like to try to understand why current events happen in the world, and there are many reasons and many resources that people look to, to try to find an answer, but the one that has made it really clear for me, out of all of the books that I've studied for history and science and psychology, philosophy, all of these books only reflect an observation of human beings, but the Bible, from my understanding, is a reflection from God's perspective on his creation. One of the things that I find interesting when we try to find answers to life, there's a debate that goes on where people say, if there is a God, why does all this evil exist in the world? And I think that question is a legitimate question, but when I think about the things that they say, and I myself, before I began to believe in the scriptures, I had that same thought, but then when I began to search out and try to find the answer to this question, the thing that came to my mind is, if there is no God, then there is no purpose for creation. It makes no sense for anything to exist if there is no God. There's no purpose to life. There's no such thing as right or wrong. Why does a human being have a desire to be treated justly, to be cared for, to be loved, to be understood? Why do these things exist in the heart of man if there is no creator? If there is no God? It makes absolutely no sense. So from that perspective, understanding and trying to know what our purpose is, and as I continue to study and read the scriptures, I think the clear answer is that God is looking for his image in the earth and the beings that he created to be in his image and likeness. So with that being said, in this particular session, I would like to discuss the word law in Hebrew, and the reason for this is to try to lay a foundation, because the root word for law, or the Hebrew word for law, is Torah. And Torah, root word, comes from a word which means to teach, to shoot, to guide, and when I look at those words, because we know sometimes words have multiple meanings, they're applied different ways, it all depends on the circumstances or what's in the mind of a human being when they're trying to explain something, to give us a point of reference. So at this point, what's in my mind, as I read the scriptures, I understand that the word of God really is aimed at the heart of man, and the heart of man in Hebrew is lebed, but that word encompasses not just the physical heart, but also the emotional and intellectual realm where, which we process our thoughts, and where our imagination has an effect on the things that we do. So with that in mind, I'm going to use that word for Torah, which relates to shooting, and shooting involves two areas I'm going to use for this session, and that is that of an archer, because that would be something more relevant to the ancient time. Today would be us talking about doing some actual shooting at a shooting range, shooting at targets. But the thing that is common between both of these are, you're trying to hit the bullseye, and what do I mean by that? The reason hunters practice to hit the bullseye is because they are looking for their next meal, and it's vital, it's vital to be able to bring something home, so the whole purpose is to stop, to stop the animal in its tracks. And so the only way to slow an animal down, to cause it to fall right near the area that you actually injure it, is to aim for the heart. That's right, to aim for the heart is the most important area to bring an animal to a place where it stops. And with that in mind, when we talk about that, the word of God, it said, is aimed at the heart of man. And in order for man to stop what is dangerous to other humans, to injure other humans, is that the word of God has to bring a man to his end. And when a man is brought to his end, and when I say man, and I hope those of you who are just joining the session for the first time, I'm referring to mankind, not to gender. So in order for that to take place, man has to die. In that word, what I mean by die, he must die to his own thoughts, his own imagination, his heart must be struck. Then, only then, can he be resurrected and renewed in his mind. So that is, at this point, I'm going to end this little nugget, I guess I would say, concerning the Hebrew word law of Torah. And we'll continue with the topic, the sound of war. When we talk about war, it boggles the human mind why other human beings are so easily and so readily to commit violence on another human being. And we talked about in the previous session, the Hebrew word for violence is hamas. And violence encompass a lot of areas. It encompass also slander, lying. It also encompass not just the physical taking of life, or the physical injuring of another human being. It also involves violence with the tongue. And many times, that is what provokes. That's what escalates things to a physical manner. Hatred is a root of murder. John warns the early church about this. John talks about the fact that if you hate someone in your heart, then you are a murderer. And we saw an example of this where Cain and Abel, in the very beginning, when Cain hated his brothers to such an extent that he murders them. This is what causes us, our humans, to get to a point where we are willing to destroy another human being. We can't deny, when we look at another human being, that we're looking at another human being. So, we somehow, in our minds and our imaginations, convince ourselves that this is a subhuman, something worthy of death. This is the danger of it. I'm just fascinated with the fact that, and I guess the word fascination really is not, I guess the word I want to use here, I am baffled at the fact that we have had history that has taught us about these strong men who have disregarded other human beings only to accomplish something that they desired. Something so strong in them that was caused them to disregard human life. Such a strong desire is dangerous. And I'm just baffled at the fact that some human beings embrace this thinking as if somehow there is a reward for these men in the kingdom of God, which they understand if they don't know God and naturally understand this is not going to be rewarded well if these people violate other human beings only to satisfy their own desire for control. Now, the thing that does not really make rational sense is the fact that people that will not use self-control, and I want to say this again, people who will not use self-control for themselves are always anxious, anxious to control others. That should be a sign to anyone who would gather and be a part of any group, any person that will not exercise self-control, they do not deserve to rule over anyone. I want to say that again, they do not deserve to have the authority to make any decisions or rule over anyone else until they are able to rule over themselves. So with this sound of war, with these strong men, with the history that we've known, with the devastation, with this war that is going on in Israel and Gaza and all of these other places, Ukraine and the possibility of other invasions, what is at the root of all of this? What is this sound of war where human beings believe this is a just cause to destroy innocent people? I want to read from James, and I'm going to read two versions. One is the King James and the other is the N.E.T. I'm going to read from James, and this is the book of James, James 4.1, and it says this, From whence come wars and fighting among you? Come they not hence, even of your own lust, that war in your members you lust, and have not, you kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain, yet fight and war, yet you have not because you ask not, you ask and receive not because you ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your own lust. Now that was the King James version of the book of James verses 4.1 through 3. Now I'm going to read from the N.E.T. version. Where do the conflicts and where do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from this, from your passions that battle inside of you? You desire and you do not have, you murder and envy and you cannot obtain, you quarrel and fight and do not have because you don't ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, so you can spend it on your own passions. Now one of the things that we have to understand when we read the Bible, since the root of all of the language that translate it from the Bible comes from Hebrew, and there is some Aramaic in it in some areas, as Israel the nation became part of other nations. But anyway we won't discuss that, mainly we'll focus on what we're speaking of here. So it plainly says here that the problem arises from within the individual. It says these things come from within you, those passions, those desires that you are constantly inflaming in the mind of other people to cause them to have strife, strife is violence, to cause division, to slander, to lie on another person. We see those things as not being as dangerous as physical, but we don't understand nor do we consider or nor do we discern that that is the root. That is where the fruit comes from of the physical side. The root of it is all of these desires to control other people when you will not control yourself. Paul had to deal with at this time what we call the formation when the church was forming in its infancy. When Paul had to instruct younger believers, he specifically says those of you who believe in the Messiah, that was his words, those of you who believe in the Messiah, these things should not be among you. You should not be driven by your natural passions. And he says to those who were forming the leaders or searching for leaders, during this time, he warns them to say that if there is a leader that does not have self-control and cannot control his own home, he is not worthy to be a leader. This is a plain instruction for the kingdom of God, this is the new beginning, the new foundation that the kingdom of God be informed in cities and in the hearts of individuals. Paul gives this warning and it's very apropos that we understand it. In our midst, we have people that have ambition and desire and driven to seek glory that they don't care about the injury of the souls that are around them, how they injure other humans. This is a humbling thing that all men, all women who seek to be any leader of any capacity, to be ministers of God, need to understand that this is the requirement that everyone must have self-control. You first must control yourself. With the sounds of war, I remember the time where the reason he destroys the earth and the humans is with the flood, is because violence covered the earth. The first place that we see the mention of desire is in Genesis 3, when it says that Eve desired knowledge. That is what caused her to choose to eat of the tree of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil because of the desire, that strong desire that she could not deny, she would not resist. She knew the slander of the serpent when it came to God, the creator of all creation. When he says to her, thou surely will not die, he knew he was lying. She knew he was lying, but her passion was so strong that she was willing to suffer the consequences, not realizing or not caring the effect that it would have on the entire human race. One of the things that we find when it comes to war, one of the biggest desires and the biggest passions of those who are what we call strong men or kings who desire to rule over people and will not rule over themselves, is their desire to possess more. When you look in, and I'm going to remind us of the wars that Abraham fought, there was one thing that was significant about the end of that war. That after Abraham had made and conquered the kings, the first thing that the kings wanted from Abram was the people. It says, the kings came to Abraham and said to him, keep all of the things, the possessions, but give us back the people. See that's the passion, that's the desire to rule over people. That was the battle even in the day when Jesus himself wrapped himself in flesh and came and walked among us. The battle with the Pharisees, the Sadducees was to continue to have authority and rule over people. That's why they could not see the Lord of glory. That's why they could not understand him as being a savior, because their passions blinded them. Their passions were to rule, to have political power, to have religious power. All of these things were rooted in the passion and that's what led to the passion of Christ was to redeem man, but their passion was to control man. So with that in mind, I'm going to end this session and the next session we will continue with the topic of the sounds of war to better understand why there are wars in the world and to understand why man will not address the wars that are within themselves. Until that time, I will say shalom once again and look forward to having a conversation once again to the people, not so that we can coerce someone, I know that word kind of is a tongue twister, but coerce someone to follow a certain belief or a certain ideology, but that you yourself will seek to understand and know that the creator has a purpose for every human being and that it is not for me to decide when to restrain or restrict that human being from being able to exist in liberty of Christ. So until that time, God bless you and we're going to say shalom once again from the Voice of Humanity.