Continuation of the chapter 5
The flesh, the war!
The couple, the groups and the nations
We have so far spoken of the individual and will now extend our meditations to the group stage, whether they are couples or nations.
God "gave" the woman to the man and asked him to be subject to him. Does this mean that the man will have all the rights that he deems fit and that in no way she will be entitled to the word? This interpretation was and remains too often advocated by egocentric and misogynistic religions who do not even know that physically weaker, the woman must be protected. Instead of bringing man to support her, cherish her and submit to herself knowing willingly to consider her needs with equity, this leads to abuses of the man over the woman, perpetrated sometimes as a normality in the name of God.
If the man takes account only of him, without submit himself to his wife, to know his needs, what does he do well before God? Did not Jesus give His own life for the forgiveness of our sins? That is to say, His "Wife"! This Wife that we are all if we follow Him, and whom we will talk about again.
If he has set an example for those who want to follow Him, why can not we do it? Once again the cause lies in the bad image we have of the man in our flesh, the great, the beautiful, the strong, who is catch by nobody off guard. The image that remains of "the MAN" in a collective memory, of the kingfish firstly idolized by his wife, while the latter suffers silently from the bullying of the husband, but is itself valorized compared to the image that she possesses of the submissive woman... everything exists in this carnal human nature.
In this collective memory of another time, we find our: We! The one we want to seem, for ourselves and the image we "must" give of ourselves to be listened to and followed. If we turn our gaze to the collective memory of our society, there is in it the idolatry of the man who has defeated the divine royalty established by God, and generates in some French the glory of their: "Revolutionary character ".
As we have already mentioned, rather than lose a minimum of his feudalism, this King of the French, Louis XVI, had indeed preferred to have his acolytes drawn on his own subjects. This king had confounded what many confuse, his rights and his duties conferred upon him by the anointing he had received from God in order to fulfill his function as king. The duty to behave for the best of all, without discrediting God in whose name he was going to act.
Let us never forget that our position as a man never gives us any rights over other human beings, especially if we have received from God the anointing to behave well as a husband toward our wife, as a pastor toward our church or the king toward our subjects. Must we deduce from this that the execution of Louis XVI was legitimate?
We can not take the plunge, because was it really necessary? This is the whole problem of revolutions that lead individuals to reprehensible individual acts and sins, just as they even more easily lead an entire people to ignoble exactions, legitimized by collective behaviors that are just as important sins.
We could almost believe to hear some people, that there is something glorious about not knowing how to dialogue and prefer to massacre. God does not see it that way, quite the opposite. We have seen in the chapter "The Revolutions", nothing comes out of really good from these revolutions. They produce an inverse of privileges and generate counter-revolutions at least equal to what existed previously.
We are therefore entitled to wonder what collective feeling really brought the execution of Louis XVI to the French people, apart from the absurd image which remains to us, of making our revolutionary character a glorious cause. It led some persons to suppress what represented for the people of that time the part of the king god to rule over him, and as a direct consequence, the refusal to let himself be governed by the true God. There is, however, a very large part of our people for whom it was not so, as we had noticed in the preceding chapter, because they had kept themselves away from the principal revolutionary torments.
The French revolution, although communist in character from 1792 to 1794, did not destroy predominantly the image of God which subsisted, contrary to what 1917 produced in Russia. It allowed the people, however, to detach themselves from the image of human kingship as a representation of God, thus of good. This is why, as we will see it later, even if the errors remain the errors and must be treated as such, as numerous as they may be, 1789 can now turn to our advantage if we treat the effect in a good way. It is sufficient, however, to compare the evolution of the three countries of which we have spoken England, France, and Russia, to realize that the longer carnal feudalism lasted, the more bloody extremism it created, and an explosion of violence.
The same is true of the individual as of the people, the one who refuses too much of the conflict by fears, shyness or idolatry of the other, will not settle it first in the dialogue, but will often find himself forced to settle it in the excesses. Through the parallel of these various personal or collective examples, it confirms that a people is built and acts psychologically in the very image of the individual. The basis of values that we lower ourselves to flout, through what we suffer, will have the same impact on the behavior of an individual as on that of a people, even if the impact is more durable on a people to because of the diversity of its cells and its lifespan. If the revolution of 1789 had been avoided in its exterminating part, no doubt there would have been no introduction of this base of revolutionary value a little absurd still today among the French people.
Just as a man can perceive the identity he considers to be his by means of bad deeds, the French people recognize itself through revolutionary acts, which it easily condemns in others. Is not that often our case? A bit like a human being is made up of cells, which merge with each other to give a body, so a people is made up of human beings who gather together to give a nation. That is why the forfeiture of Louis XVI was at least equal to that of the people, because just as the head does not destroy the body under the pretext that it is hot, cold or hungry, it should not have had such carnal reaction by mounting a coalition against his people, to retain abusive privileges.
This is one of the reasons that led God to say to the prophet Samuel, as we saw in chapter three, that it was He whom His people rejected, when, at the time of the judges, it had asked for a king in His place. Man struggles to acquire or retain privileges, while God is the absolute integrity. God does not, therefore, want men greater than one another, at least in their attitudes of heart toward their fellows. Man led by his flesh chooses first of all the image of the great man, according to the greatness he venerates, to be assimilated to the one in whom he finds personal glory. The image he then imposes of the "submission" becomes more that of serfdom, which can go as far as a form of prostitution. This is why the idolatry of the strongest brings about the servitude of others. Servitude besides which is not due solely to the fact of the leader, but to all the subjects who install themselves in a voluntary lowering for the benefit of the one they place above them.
In moments of crisis, this need to satisfy the more or less carnal part of a people, allows manipulators to gather popular masses, claiming that after heaven will exist on earth. These men, wholly led by demons, are not ashamed to act in the name of God, as angels exterminators of millions of other "bad". The weaker and the less close to God persons, then let themselves fooling, as individually we can let ourselves be dominated by a bad incitement of the spirit, facing a good exhortation of the Spirit.
Different theses, more pompous than the others, will then be justified. In the utopian governments of proletarian dictatorships, therefore, the human nature of each one will be enhanced to that of the Spirit of God by its identification with the developed ideology of which it becomes the guardian and the opposite, so close that is the traditional dictatorship the nature of one is raised to that of God. In the utopian governments each tries to establish the "Earthly Paradise", the Celestial Jerusalem, to "his" way, silencing God to the benefit of the all-puissant party better than God, while the presumptuous dictator seeks to establish it in "HIS" way, enhancing himself above God. The mode of action remains the same, by lowering the glory of God to a level lower than that of the human. Both of these types of government create a structure in which the party or the dictator puts himself in God's place, as the devil does so well. Everything is submitted to God, the Head, and everything is like watering of God, like a "theocracy" of God on earth. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but they put themselves at the head of everything and everyone, see everything and hear everything, but above all, manage and dominate everything. That is why we must learn from what Jesus has bequeathed us by "submitting one to another" (Ephesians 5:21). In which democratic system can we be most submitted to each other? The Republic!
Unlike the monarchy, even the parliamentary, the republic elects a president who, according to the constitution, becomes again an ordinary citizen at the end of his mandate. Even if he is a little set apart for a time, there is not a definitive situation here, which more or less scleroses the spirit of the one to whom the title is attributed from his earliest childhood. A human must remain in its human dimension to remain balanced, but kings no longer have the right to be it. They are doomed to live as watched and admired examples, but on the first faux pas, they are just vile individuals everyone is talking about. They are a bit like caged men surrounded by lions. Their real human misery is perhaps, not to be entitled to this status of man, and this is what we will remember before all things for their defense.
In some Christian circles, however, there is still some doubt about God's will to keep theocracies, rather than establish democracies. We will not enter into theological debates, but will remain attached to the defense of the words of Jesus to love us, therefore to remain submitted one another. We will then notice that if God has allowed monarchy to be established against his will for so many centuries as we have seen, and that it is the same of democracy, it would still leaves us plenty of time for us to come to repentance.
We will not go further in the first instance with regard to the carnal behavior of nations, the important thing being to have penetrated to the heart of the problem, doing the parallel between the individual or collective soul. Thus, what we will see in the next chapter, as being good for man, will be good for the nation. The flesh, for its part, will reproduce eternally only what it has known and by which it has been "tamed". If the man was really without God, he would have no other alternative, and that's why we find in our culture, some proverbs as "Chase the natural and it will come back at a gallop". If we had no other alternatives to our carnal dimension, we would probably be right to be pessimistic. It is not necessarily so, and this is what we will see in the next chapter.
Before turning to the more that God offers us, let us look briefly at what contributes to the wobbly construction of our carnal psychology and continues to dominate our reactions, even after having sincerely given reason to the God's will. We can all see that if some of our reactions can remain hidden by the intellect when we have a sufficient response time to bring our reasoning, it is not the same in the reflex reactions related to our subconscious. In action, we are therefore able to change our natural, but faced with spontaneous reactions, it always comes back at a gallop.
This is almost mathematical, biblical, because our carnal psychology is conditioned by the spirit, in opposition to the Spirit, with a great "E", which is the Holy Spirit of God. So it's not a problem of intelligence, ability or any other possible differentiation of the human being, but of our very nature. We are certainly the most evolved beings of the "animal" kingdom on earth. We may have somewhat surpassed it, in the sense that God allowed us from creation to reign over the animal dimension, and created us in His image. The limits of our psychology, however, are never educated in joys and happiness, which are the driving force of many presumptions as long as they are of a carnal nature, but in sufferings that curb our egocentrism. That's why we are not great in the kingdom of heaven.
This one is firstly kingdom of the Spirit, and beneath, of the spirit that are the masters of our carnal feelings. Jesus told us of this, about John the Baptist in (Luke 7-26 / 28) But what went ye out to see? a prophet? Yea, I say to you, and [what is] more excellent than a prophet.
This is he concerning whom it is written, Behold, *I* send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee;
for I say unto you, Among them that are born of women a greater [prophet] is no one than John [the Baptist]; but he who is a little one in the kingdom of God is greater than he.//
There is nothing surprising that our nature is from a lower level to any part of the Kingdom of heaven, and to any even fallen angel, since we still live today, under the dominion of the Prince of this world originally called Lucifer, then after the "Fall" Satan or the devil.
To make sure of this, let us read what Satan claimed to have authority over the world, at the temptation of Jesus, (Luke 4-6) And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.//
Jesus' response to this assertion of the devil was not "behind me Satan, you are only a liar".
If Satan is the master of the kingdoms of this world; as for life, what about though it is? (Job 1-12) And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.// and (Job 2-2/6) And the LORD said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.
And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.
And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.//
God is the God of life, of the supreme. Nothing can be agreeable to Him, if not the life which He Himself gives and, moreover, wants to give us in abundance. When Jesus spoke of Satan, He did not oppose his declarations, but instead named him as a prince. A prince certainly judged and called to disappear from our logic, because of what he was and still is for us through his lower limits: (John 12/31) Now is [the] judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out.//
His judgment has been carried out since two thousand years through the "suffering Messiah" who suffers the crucifixion because of the conspiracy of people too attached to their own religious and carnal values, when at the cross Jesus pronounced these words "All is finished". The execution of the sentence, however, is postponed until His Return as "Reigning Messiah" in place of Satan, so that a majority of the earthlings are at the benefit of the birth of the Spirit in them. So we are not talking here about the resurrection of the dead, but of the "living", which is a little bit the same thing.
