from John White

"Whatever way we may conceive or fail to conceive in the nature of the Trinity, of one thing we may be sure. Human beings did not invent it out of their neurotic need for security. People who say that man created God as a father forget this. God, as he is revealed to us, comes not just as a Father, but as a Three-in-One, an entity which we cannot understand let alone invent." 

The Truth About the Illuminati

In the Batman movie triology that recently completed this past year, the overarching story line is the work of The League of Shadows, an underground organization that spends years solidifying control over society's powerful elite in order to carry out its own nefarious mission. 

Sound familiar? 

It should. Throughout human history, rumors have come always existed about secret societies and international conspiracies. Nero blamed a group of people who called themselves Christians when a great fire burned down the majority of Rome (which, coincidentally, the League of Shadows takes the credit for in Batman Begins). Both Hitler and the Russian Tsars believed that the Jews had a secret plan to take over the world. And people have always suspected the Freemasons of being up to something. 

The latest group to start trending on Google is the Illuminati. Here's the basic breakdown: in the 1700s a Bavarian Catholic priest named Adam Weishaupt began an organization called the Illuminati. This organization has allegedly been behind a secret movement to enslave the whole world in a satanic plot for a one world government. Specifically, the plan has is to divide all of human civilization into 

"opposing camps in ever increasing numbers on political, social, economic, and other issues...The opposing sides were then to be armed, and incidents were to be provided which would cause them to fight and weaken themselves, gradually destroying national governments and religious institutions." 

The method would include obtaining control over men in high places of authority, faculty at colleges and universities, and media executives and producers. Controlling the people in power would allow the Illuminati to drive human civilization into more and more disunity while controlling the media would allow them to hide what they were doing from the masses. 

Source: http://www.prolognet.qc.ca/clyde/illumin.htm 

What Would Jesus Say About the Illuminati? 

By their very nature, conspiracy theories cannot be proven or disproven, so I'm not going to try. But one thing you cannot deny is that conspiracy theories take our thoughts captive. Soon we start seeing evidence for them everywhere. Mark Dice, who regularly publishes YouTube videos aiming to expose the Illuminati, has over 50,000 subscribers and 9 million views on his YouTube channel. Thousands if not millions believe that recent Super Bowl halftime shows were actually Illuminati rituals meant to brainwash unwitting viewers. Type in "illuminati" on youtube and most of the videos have hundreds of thousands if not millions of views. 

Conspiracy theories take our thoughts captive. 

But what does scripture say? 2 Corinthians 10:5 says to take captive every thought into the obedience of Christ. 

Let's take a moment and imagine ourselves at the End of Time, the Last Day. As believers who have put our faith in Christ, we will be standing before God as his children, seen as perfect and without sin, completely justified by his son Jesus Christ. There will be great joy, all of creation will be made whole once again, and I'm sure there will be much time to share in perfect fellowship with one another and with God. 

Now, in that moment, how high would your thoughts and/or suspicions about the Illuminati be on Jesus' list of things to talk about? Likely not very: hasn't Jesus already made clear what his priorities are? Are they not spreading the good news of God's grace and the breaking in of God's Kingdom into our world?

The truth is, Jesus just isn't all that concerned with secret societies or conspiracies, so why should his followers be? Even in Revelation, where John is given a clear look into past, present, and future supernatural reality, there is no mention of secret societies or underworld rulers controlling our destinies without our knowledge. Even the rise of the dragon, beasts, and false prophet in John's Revelation are seen not as secret events or conspiracies, but direct attacks that happen out in the open.

But conspiracy theories abound and each tend to take our thoughts captive, when we are called to instead take every captive to Christ. Yes, followers of Christ need to be wise and should test everything. But being wise is different from being paranoid. Followers of Christ, be warned: do not be drawn in by these theories.

A few links that provide some interesting (and sometimes humorous) views on conspiracy theories, from both Christian and non-Christian sources: 

http://www.acts17-11.com/conspire.html 

http://deliveredfromdarkness.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/christians-and-conspiracy-theories/
http://gawker.com/5981088/this-years-illuminati+super-bowl-connection-is-more-sinister-than-ever

A Series of Questions: How Does One Know What God's Will Is?

In my last post we looked at the question of whether there would be food in heaven, and how asking such a question can really be a powerful thing for a follower of Christ to do. 

Today we're moving on to another question that was posed during our new membership class, and that is: "How does one know what God's will is?" 

Again, a fantastic question. 

First of all, let me say that if this question is on your heart, you're pretty much halfway to where you need to be. One of the greatest battles we have as followers of Christ is to...wait for it...keep following. We're often distracted or downright discouraged from following Christ, and therefore seeking God's will can often be the last thing on our mind. So if you are seeking it, AWESOME! 

Now, how do we move from simply seeking to actually knowing what His will is for us? 

The answer is fairly straightforward, thanks to the gift of the Holy Spirit. I'll break it down into three questions. 

1. Has the Spirit been moving you? Not every follower of Christ has a clear sense of when the Spirit is speaking to them. Perhaps you've never experienced this (at least consciously). Each church teaches about our relationship to the Holy Spirit differently, so it's not always a given that a follower of Christ knows how to listen to the Spirit.

Here's the thing: the one given in Scripture is that those who put their faith in God can receive the Holy Spirit, and thereby receive the counsel and guidance of God. In Acts 13 we see the Spirit tell those gathered to set apart Paul and Barnabas for a special ministry. In Acts 7 Stephen is moved by the Spirit to preach a powerful word before the high priest, even though it led to his execution. 1 Thessalonians 4 indicates that by the Holy Spirit we can live godly lives and make decisions in line with God's will. 

In short, if God is leading you in a certain direction, the Spirit that he has given you will be moving you in that direction as well. Sometimes He will speak through just a strong internal pull towards something. Sometimes it will be even clearer than that.  

2. Has the Spirit been moving others? In what I might call the definitive chapter on the Holy Spirit, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12 this about the Spirit: "For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body...and all were made to drink of the one Spirit." Later on he goes on to teach how therefore we are to see the church as one body, united in God's Holy Spirit. 

To make a long story short, if God is telling you something, you better believe he'll also begin putting it on others' hearts as well. The Spirit will speak not only to you, but to the rest of the church. If you feel yourself or the ministry called to something but no one else is showing any indication that God is putting it on their hearts, then it's time to slow down and really bear down in prayer. Time and time again when the Spirit moves, it'll move through the whole body, not just one person. 

Again, in Acts 13 it's the entire group that's gathered that knows it's time for Paul and Barnabas to leave Antioch. Dissension and disunity are sure signs that we need to slow down and listen more carefully to the Spirit.  

3. Is what you're thinking Scriptural? If what you think God is calling you to do strictly prohibited by Scripture, then it's definitely not God's will. Again, going back to this idea that the Spirit is one, if God is telling us something then it'll line up with what God gave us in his word through the Holy Spirit. What we see in Scripture isn't just a collection of stories written by people now long gone. Scripture is "breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Thessalonians 3:16). 

In short, if you're hearing God tell you to go get wasted or go steal something, you're not actually hearing from God. 

So that's it in a nutshell. Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts on this!