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Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur
The Festival of Trumpet (The Seventh Trumpet and
the Day of Judgment and Atonement (Return of the Messiah)
When the Saints (Holy Ones) meet evil face to face.
Presented by Robert D. Mock MD
Rosh Ha Shanah- September 18, 2001
For three thousand five hundred years, the Hebrews, as commanded by God on Mount Sinai, celebrated the anniversary of the creation of mankind.
The Lord said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites: ‘On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. Do no regular work, but present an offering made to the Lord by fire. (Lev. 23:24-25)
Tishri 1, the seventh month of the Hebrew religious or spiritual months, is the 1st month of the Hebrew civil year, and on this month, all three of the fall festivals of the Lord occur. For many Jews, on this day God began the creation of this world, this planet earth, yet it states, on ‘this day was the beginning of Your handiwork, Rosh Hashanah Mussaf. Yes, this was day 6, and the first five days of creation had already occurred, beginning on the 25 Elul, five days prior to Rosh Hashanah. Today was the creation of man, Adam.
“Clearly Creation did not begin in a meaningful sense until God gathered particles of earth, shaped them, breathed into them a soul and said, ‘This shall be called Adam.’ (Gen. 5:2) Before that everything was in place, the celestial world, the world of angels and spirit beings. All living species on this earth including the vegetable kingdom, rivers, ocean existed. All creation was done, but none of it was worthy of being called the beginning of God’s handiwork until he picked up particles of clay, molded and formed man and man opened his eyes to see it, his mind to comprehend it, his heart to guide it.”
So what do we have. Rosh Hashanah, was not the creation of this planet earth, but the creation of man. The Hebrew Civil New Year, was the 7th month or the month of completion of the religious yearly calendar. As many of us are beginning to believe, as the spring festivals had their fulfillment in the first coming of Jesus, the fall festivals of the Lord will have their final fulfillment in the end of this earth’s age and Y’shua’s second coming. Here, we can see, this one month, the month of Tishri, three major festivals were packed together as a type and antitype of the last two weeks of the final age of this earth’s history. Here is our calendar sequence.
1st Tishri – Rosh Hashanah (New Moon)
Yom Yerrah, the first day was the Blowing of the Trumpets. This day was a call or the sounding of a warning to search one’s soul, to evaluate our lives individually and as a community and to make amends and to purify our lives.
The blowing of the shofar, the trumpets, is depicted in the book of Revelation as the 7th Trumpet of the Lord which resonates throughout all the earth as warning and a clarion call that the Great Day of the Lord, the Second Coming of Y’shua is about to be here.
1st to 10th Tishri – Yamin Noraim
These next 10 days were called Yamin Noraim, or the ten ‘days of Awe’. During these days, as the Israelites did in the days of old, we must now ponder and meditate over our actions of the past year, and make personal pledges to amend any past wrongs and promise to rededicate our life to the God of Israel. To the Hebrews, during these ten days, the Book of Life was opened by the Lord of hosts and each of their lives were reviewed. Yes, during these ten days they stood in judgment before God and in judgment before themselves. So today, it is imperative to make all things in our lives right before God, our friends and associates with ourselves.
If these festivals are a depiction of the last two weeks on earth by the remnant of the saints, then tonight it is important to visualize the saints hunkered down in hiding, all around the globe, as they are being ferreted out by the coalition of world governments under the world-wide command and leadership of the Antichrist. Zero point is now in Jerusalem, where the coalition army in encamped in Megiddo and Jerusalem is under siege with the remnant of the chosen ones and the two witnesses. The coming of Christ is near and the saints are in final preparation of preparing themselves to meet Y’shua and his army of Holy Ones.
10th Tishri – Yom Kippor
On the 10th day, was the day of Judgment, the Day of Atonement. On this day, to the Hebrews their lives were sealed and placed in the Book of Righteous or in the Book of the Wicked. Within the services within the temple, this was the holiest and highest day of the year. The High Priest was in preparation to enter the Holiest of Holy. Two kids of goats were selected and by lot and one was sacrificed to represent the sins of the Israelites. This blood was presented before mercy seat, where the Shekinah glory resided. In the presence of the Lord, only the High Priest could stand. If his life was not pure, he could be destroyed by the energy presence of the Divine. Bells hanging from his High Priestly garment allowed the priests in the Holy Place to know that he was still alive and walking. A cord around his foot, was a security measure that in case he sustained a cardiac arrest in the presence of the Lord, they could remove his body without entering the Holiest of Holy.
With the blood of the kid, the High Priest sprinkled it before the mercy seat, seeking atonement with the Father of all the Universes. This blood representing all the sins of the camp of Israel were placed upon the other goat, Azaziel, who was carried far into the wilderness and cast and abandoned into a pit.
Our minds immediately is turned to Y’shua, who is now our High Priest. There is that ‘more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made,…and not a part of this creation,’ (Heb. 9:11) where Y’shua enters, now not using the blood of goats….but by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.’ (Heb. 9:12) There Y’shua offers himself unblemished to God, and then cleanses our consciences from acts that lead to death. (Heb. 9:14) There in the heavenly tabernacles portrayed so vividly by John in Revelation, Y’shua appears in the presence of the Unseen God, the Ein Sof. (Heb. 9:24) Here, only once in the history of mankind, Christ presents himself in the Holiest of Holy, ‘at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.’ (Heb. 9:13,26)
The drama does not end there. Jesus leaves now the Throne of God in the Holiest of Holies. With the presentation of Christ’s blood, which he sacrificed for our sins completed, he takes it, as the sins of all mankind, catches and binds Satan, thrusting all the sins of the world upon him and has him cast him into the Abyss, called the bottomless pit. (Rev. 20:1) Is Satan allowed to roam around upon a desolate planet for a millennium? No, he is cast in a pit and bound, his fate sealed for a thousand years. Why? So that he can tempt the nations no more until the thousand years are over. (Rev. 20:3) Are people and nations still going to be here? That is what the bible says. (see Zech 14:16, Isa. 66:18-20 noting that the new heavens and the new earth are still in the future in vs. 22)
Christ, our High Priest (Heb 9) as he leaves the Holy Place, he removes his High Priestly attire and dons the mantle of the King of Kings. With the heavens now standing wide open’ (Rev. 19:11) John sees Y’shua on a white horse, this time ‘his eyes are blazing fire and on his head are many crowns…. His name is Torah, the Word of God. The armies of heaven are following him and out of his mouth is an iron scepter with which he will rule them.” (Rev. 19:14-15) Y’shua is now preparing to make war with those of the Armageddon forces who have laid siege and captured God’s Holy City, Jerusalem. Before this happens, let us look at the literal sequence of Revelation 19 and 20.
What is different between the Hebrew’s Day of Atonement and the Coming of Jesus? The Hebrew High Priest went into the Holiest of Holy and came out still the High Priest. Jesus (Y’shua) assumes a different role, this time as a Priest-King, a Melchezedek, he enters the Holiest of Holies in the Temple of Heaven as the High Priest. When he leaves the Temple, he comes out as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. In the presence of his Father, the Lord of hosts, the Almighty One, Yahweh, he is given the kingship and the crowns of glory. (Heb 2:7-8) At this time, according to John, “Then God’s temple in heaven was laid open, and within the temple was seen the ark of his covenant. There came flashes of lightning and peals of thunder, an earthquake, and a storm of hail.” (Rev. 11:19) Before this time, Jesus is not our king, but our high priest. Now as the King of Kings, Y’shua slays the forces of Armageddon, (Rev. 19:15) throws the Antichrist beast and the false prophet into the Lake of Fire, that interdimensional destructive force reserved for demonic and satanic beings. (Rev. 19:20) As King of Kings, he orders the binding of Satan, who is cast into the depths of the earth, the Abyss, which resides in the Mohole at the core of this earth.
With this chronology in mind and knowing that God (HaShem) can change the variables, let us put on our spiritual and divine imagination. Who me? Yes, you! Everytime you reach up to God – reaching vertical – you must pass the veil of your own ego, must move beyond the outer reached of your own mind,
You must move into the mystical veil of the Unknown,
And say, God, I know you are there!
Here, in the presence of the Divine you are unsure of yourself, unsteady like walking gingerly over the ice of a thinly iced lake. Every step is guarded, testing its literal security on a Biblical promise, passage and remembrance of your studies in those more placid and secure days. That security is only by faith in Jesus (Y’shua) and belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who gave His Word, the Torah, to his chosen ones.
Let us make an assumption. We are going to assume a biblical concept that is not accepted by all biblical scholars. The seven trumpet plagues of God (Rev 8) are the same as the seven vial plagues or woes of God (Rev. 16) Why are they different?
You are welcome to analyze the comparison below of Revelation 8 and 16, while I present a descriptive summary.
1st Trumpet - Rev.8:7 1st Plague or Bowl of Wrath – Rev. 16:2
Hail, fire and blood hurled to Foul malignant sores on men on earth,
the earth who had the Mark of the Beast
1/3rd earth burned,
1/3rd trees burned,
All green grass burned.
The
2nd Trumpet – Rev.8:8-9 2nd Plague or Bowl of Wrath – Rev.16:3
Blazing mountain hurled to Poured on the sea which turned to blood.
the sea.
1/3rd sea turned to blood.
1/3rd living creatures of sea died.
1/3rd ships foundered.
3rd Trumpet – Rev. 8:10-11 3rd Plague or Bowl of Wrath – Rev.16:4-7
Great star from the sky, flaming Poured on rivers and springs, turned to
like a torch, fell on a 1/3rd of blood.
the rivers and springs. Heard the altar cry, (5th Seal)
Star named Wormwood. They shed the blood of ‘thy people’, now
1/3rd water turned to wormwood. they are given blood to drink.
Men in great numbers died of
water poisoning.
4th Trumpet – Rev.8:12-14 4th Plague or Bowl of Wrath – Rev.16:8-9
1/3rd part of sun struck Poured bowl on the sun– allowed to burn
1/3rd of the moon struck, men with its flame.
1/3rd of the stars struck.
1/3rd part went dark,
1/3rd of the light of day failed
1/3rd of night failed.
Eagle with a loud cry as it flew in mid-heaven: Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of
the earth when the trumpets sound which the three last angels must now blow.
Rev 8:13
5th Trumpet – Rev.9:1-12 5th Plague or Bowl of Wrath– Rev.16:10-11
“Star that had fallen from heaven” Thrown on the throne of the beast (Jerusalem)
given key to the bottomless pit. Kingdom plunged into darkness.
Opened the shaft of the abyss. Men gnawed their tongues in agony– sores
Sun and the air were darkened
Out of the smoke came locusts.
Powers that earthly scorpions have.
Do no injury to the grass, plants or trees.
Injure only those who have not received the Seal of God.
Torment for 5 months.
First Woe now passed
6th Trumpet – Rev.9:13-20 6th Plague or Bowl of Wrath–Rev.16:12-16
Voice from between the Horns of
the Golden Altar
Release 4 angels, which bind the Poured bowl on the great river Euphrates
Euphrates. Ready for a year and month, day and hour.
Kill 1/3rd mankind
Squadron = 200 million
Waters dried up to prepare way for the
Kings of the East.
Three foul spirits or devils with miracle
powers which came from mouth of:
Dragon, Beast and False Prophet
Bring Kings to battle at Armegeddon
Second Woe is now passed - Rev. 11:14
7th - Seventh Trumpet – Rev. 11:15-19
The earth is a chaotic heap. Tribulation, that is the Time of Satan’s wrath, has manifested its full and ugly evil head. The world has been brought to her knees by terrorists attack, military counter-attacks, famine, biological warfare (pestilence), a world desperate for security finally accepting a one-world consortium of governments who monitor and limit every freedom known to mankind, every liberty except to spiritual ascend to the Throne of the Father in prayer and mediation.
A 10-12 Richter scale earthquake shakes the foundation of the whole earth. The sixth seal is over and there is silence. Suddenly in horror, a more destructive force of doom echoes around the world. A killer ‘Apollo’ comet on a kamikaze course with earth is discovered.
For days now, the airwaves and all TV channels have been analyzing earth’s doomsday. We know the when, but not the where. Minutes before entering the magnetic shield around the earth, the comet breaks up into multiple fragments
Let us quickly set the stage for the last Rosh Hashanah on earth.
Plague One
It all begins what appears to be the arrival of an Apollo comet, a killer comet, heading towards this earth. All humans await in awe and horror as it approaches. The head of this icy comet/asteroid pushes a mixture of cometary debris, iron oxide dust and rocks, ice and hail particles of various dimensions, thousands of miles in advance of the body of the comet. Here it enters our geo-magnetic sphere and the first plague is witnesses by thousands and millions of bolides, balls of fire streaking across our planet in a diagonal slope, and smashing across the landscape. “Hail, fire and blood”, the latter iron oxide dust, blowing across the land, destroys and vaporizes 1/3 of the earth, trees and grass. Yes, that includes all the cities, buildings, and people living in them will disappear. In a micro-moment in time, 1/3 of the population is gone. This will be a global disaster.
Have you ever experienced poison oak? One or two small patches will drive you crazy. Well, this is a contact dermatitis. With the contact of iron oxide over the planet, severe dermatosis will develop over all the population. The itching and scratching will develop into ‘malignant sores’ and abscesses. The population marked by the beast will be overwhelmed.
Plagues Two and Three
The comet/asteroid traveling tens of thousand miles per hour fragments as it enters our geo-magnetic field. Three giant fragments are described in Revelation. The first strike is in one of the major oceans of the world. Let us make an assumption that this is the Atlantic for visual imagery. This ‘Blazing Mountain’ will destroy all trans-atlantic commercial ships traversing the ocean. This wipes out 1/3rd of all ships in the world. The sonar and compasses on the submarines in a sea laden with iron oxide will go crazy. Not only that, the sonic shock will destroy all life, from the whales and sharks to the smallest of fish in one mega-disaster. On top of that, the red oxide dust will pile up many feet thick on the ocean surface and smother any remaining vegetative and plankton life remaining. Then comes the killer, the tsunamis. Computer projection states that a 30 foot asteroid impact between Australia and New Zealand would generate a tsunami which would impact southern Japan with 125 to 175 foot waves. What would a cometary impact of 10 miles wide do in the Atlantic Ocean? Projections of cometary impact during the time of the Noachian flood suggest models in which tsunamis reached thousands of feet in the air. Recent archeological evidence in the far East suggest that a giant tsunamis traveled into the far reaches of Inner Mongolia and Western China. Traveling over water in excess of 600 miles per hour, a tsunamis impacts all the Atlantic coastal areas which would destroy all the coastal cities of North American, Europe, Western Africa and Eastern South America. The worst tsunami disaster following the volcanic eruption of the island of Krakatoa in 1883 had 35 metre (115 foot) waves crashing into Java and Sumatra, drowning 36,420 people.
Immediately following would be impact number two, and this one will be on land. A ‘Great Star’, called ‘Wormwood’ will impact a major continent. One-third of all rivers and streams will be contaminated by the iron oxide dust, poisoning the entire population left after the impact with the lack of any potable water supplies. The underground artesian wells also soon begin to pump out red-slurpy water
Plague Four
At this junction, the earth is reeling out of control and out of orbit. The continents begin to slide as the crust of the earth rapidly shifts. The length of the day is shortened by 1/3rd, eight hours, as the earth assumes a smaller orbit closer to the sun. The new day is now 16 hours. The continental plates begin to crack, volcanoes begin to erupt around the entire globe, putting this earth in the specter of a nuclear winter. During the now eight hour day, the sun begin to burn with the intense heat, seven times hotter than prior and the moon seven times brighter. (Isaiah 30:25-26, Joel 2, Matt. 24:21-22, Luke 21:25-26, Rev. 8:12)
Plague Five
A third cometary impact hits Mohole, the center of the earth, as the core of the earth is ruptures as it penetrates the entire depth of the crustal plate of this earth.. Massive vulcanism begins. Here the bottomless pit is now penetrated and the shaft of the Abyss is opened as clouds of smoke in the form of locusts streams out over the earth. The smoke will be seen as volcanic flumes in origin, yet the unseen and other dimensional reality means that mankind now begins to meet ‘evil’ face to face as demonic spirits are released over the face of the earth. Every person, who has aligned themselves to a world of power, greed and control will find the spirit of God has left them. With their ‘house’ empty, they now become receptacles for demonic control. For the next five months, those who have received the Mark of the Beast, are now taken in possession by demons.
Is this a new story or a figment of modern imagination? About two hundred years before Christ, an account was written of the days of Noah, when after the flood, “evil demons began to lead astray the sons of Noah and deceive them and destroy them. Noah prayed to God, that ‘may the evil spirit not rule over them to destroy them off the earth.” Noah recounted the story of how the Watchman, the fathers of these spirits, acted in my day; and these spirits also which are alive, cast them into prison and hold them in the places of judgment….And the angel of the spirits, Mastema, came and said “ O Lord, Creator, leave some of them before me,…for I shall not be able to accomplish the power of my will among the children of men, for they are here for corrupting, and destroying and leading astray before the judgment….and He (God) said, ‘The tenth part of them shall be left before him (Mastema or Satan) and nine parts shall descend into the place of judgment (the Abyss).” Where is this account found? In a Jewish book called The Book of Jubilees of which multiple fragments were found in the hidden Essene library of the Qumran caves.
Plague Six
This final plague before the seventh plague and the Last Trumpet will depict the mobilization of all the world’s military forces as they head towards the Land of Israel to ‘do battle with the Lord’. Why? For what reason does the Land of Israel command such respect and fear? A survey of all scriptures reveals one truth. The Land of Israel and Jerusalem is called special, and the ‘apple of God’s eye’. Whoever has control over this land appears to be the victor in the final outcome of the great conflict between good and evil. Whereas the throne of Satan was Pergamum in Asia Minor in the description of the Seven Churches, the forces of Satan and the Devil himself continually eye Jerusalem. If they can take complete control of Jerusalem and the Land of Israel, the power of the Almighty can be wrested and wipe out from this planet earth forever.
Whereas the Kings of the East and the Armageddon forces are heading to Israel another and more sinister military force is revealed, the description of the squadron of 200 million horses and riders, whose intent is to destroy another 1/3rd of the world’s population leads one to feel something is purely evil. Can Evil be revealed even above demon possession? Yes. Someday, the veil of the other dimensional world will be laid open. Here we see the forces of Satan himself, the angelic forces that were cast out of heaven being revealed in our three dimensional world. A study on this passage will make you sick, as coming face to face with evil should make you feel horror and disgust.
Once again the question, why is this little land of Israel, so compelling that all the remaining forces of the world, under the banner of the Antichrist, head to Israel. Is this tiny land so strong militarily that the whole coalition of the one-world government must be thrown against it?
There is nothing in all the passages of the end of times, Old Testament and New, that suggests that the Land of Israel or Jerusalem is affected by any of the plagues of God’s wrath, until Jerusalem comes under the total control of the Satan forces of Armageddon. (Zech. 14:1-3) At this time the two witnesses are killed in a frenzied orgy of the demon controlled forces of Armegeddon. (Rev. 11:7-10) Three and one-half days later, they are raised again to life and were raptured into the clouds in the presence of the entire forces of Armageddon. (Rev. 11:11-12) At that time, the first catastrophe hits Jerusalem. The crustal plates beneath Jerusalem begin to separate, a mighty earthquake is registered not only here but around the entire world. This is the seventh trumpet. (Rev. 11:13, Zech. 14:4-5)
The Seventh Trumpet
Looking strictly at the geo-physical forces on the face of this planet, during this 7th Trumpet, what do we see?
The Last Rosh Hashanah
If you and I are selected to be apart of the remnant on the last Rosh Ha Shana before the coming of Jesus, what will be happening around us?
Before the final hour, the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord, all of God’s people will
meet evil face to face. Satan will present himself with all of his power and glory, as an angel of light in a final and greatest deception. Will God’s people fear in a paralyzed state or will they recall with horror as the full dimensions of evil are displayed. Protected as sealed servants of the Living God, fear will no longer be a part of their mental state.
A violent earthquake will occur in Jerusalem in which 10% of the buildings will collapse in the city proper, 7000 are killed and the city flees in terror. (Rev. 11:13-15) Half of the city will be in exile, their houses plundered and their women raped. (Zech. 14: 2-3)
Human evil is the only spectrum of evil known to man today. We can only sense with our sensory system which has become the central theme of modern scientific evaluation. Not many of us would confess that we have seen Satan and the forces of darkness face to face. No, we rather see the manifestation of these evil and sinister forces in the lives of human in which he come face to face. Do you ever recall with disgust or horror at awful spectrum of human evil. After the bombings of World Trade Center and the Pentagon, if any heart did not sink with horror, I beseech you to present yourself to the Throne of God and plead, Show me Your goodness, so that I might be aware of evil.”
The problem of evil is a mystery and does not submit itself easily to the minds of the scientific thinker. The mystery of goodness is even more problematic. If there was no goodness, we could not recognize evil. Have you not ever asked, why is there evil in this world? Then why have you not asked, why is there goodness in this world? We have this simplistic idea that contaminated goodness is evil. The course of humanness in history leads to one conclusion: it seems a natural course of human nature that children grow up to lie, steal and cheat. As parents, you are always fighting against the badness and laziness of life. For a child to grow up with honor, respect, honest and with integrity seems to be a remarkable mystery.
The first thing to understand is that evil spelled backwards is live. The opposition to life is evil. Anything that seeks to hinder, thwart, suppress, diminish the full expression of life is evil. People who persistently seek to control others in order to hinder their full expression of life are evil. This is where any spectrum of power, greed and control, whether in our lives, our schools, our church lives, in our company and businesses where we work, our national life is evil.
Well, in truly human fashion, we must be shown goodness and evil to understand it. The Almighty Father understood this and this is why His son was sent to this earth. Was it not Y’shua who said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) I love the word picture of the abundant life and use it a lot with my patients. Abundant! That was the life of Jesus. He was a deviant, a strange man. Any protocol or convention for control he sought to dismantle. The only human freedom he chose to give up was to submit his will to his Father. He relished the social life with people, whether in the synagogue or on the mountainside. He relished life at its fullest, the weddings, the food, the wine, the fine oils and companionship. He sought to bring fullness into the life of everybody he associated with. He displayed remarkable resiliency in compromising his life to human conventions and rituals. His longevity was not his concern. His vitality was. He sought out the poor and the oppressed, and showed consistent distain for human puppets. If people were oppressed he showed righteous indignation to the oppressors.
Yet as hard as it is to define the goodness of Y’shua, it is equally hard to define the evil of someone like Hitler. In the biblical sense, the Zaddik or the righteous person, like Enoch, Joseph, Daniel and James the Just and the evil persons, like Balaam, Amalek and Esau have similar qualities. They are both possessed on the extremes on two sides of a spectrum. The righteous ones are possessed by God and the Holy Spirit and the evil ones are possessed by the Belial, Satan and the forces of evil. The culmination of the conflict between good and evil is that all people engaged in this battle between good and evil will be possessed. When we are called to be the servants of the living God, that servitude is slavery, yet a slavery that in response to our free will. We cannot choose freedom. We can freely become servants of God. To do so, we must respond fully to God’s will and His command. The paradox is, by choosing to be servants of God, we become free.
How would we identify a person who is evil. The psychological sciences have been reticent to look and analyze evil, for many reasons. For one reason, it is uncomfortable to be in the presence of evil and not to many psychiatrists have been willing to put themselves to the task.
Why bother. On the other hand, people who are evil have no interest in being analyzed, much less being helped. When you are revolted and uncomfortable about being in the presence of a person, you are probably in the presence of human evil. There is a natural revulsion to evil, a feeling of disgust. Crimes against society like the hijackers who made humans and airplanes become missiles at buildings in which thousands of humans were killed, gives evil a megalithic image. Stalin, Hitler, Jack the Ripper, Milosevik, Hussain and the bin Landins in our society give the specter that to be evil, you must do it big. Big evil is noticeable. Kill a few thousand people, commit a little genocide, torture a few people, plot out your victim for ritual murders, serial killing are all actions of people who have gone over the brink. Strange as it may seem, almost all of them grew up lives similar to most ‘normal people’. The facts are they chose to do evil and evil over and over in their lives, in a striking consistent and persistent way, that eventually they crossed the path of no return. Putting evil to the microscope is what we wish to do now.
The most consistent profile of an evil person is narcissism. This is simply self-absorption. We would typically call this person selfish, inward seeking, and greedy. They are takers in society, seeking to take for their own good, without the reciprocity of giving something in return. They are willing to gossip or character-assassinate another person in order to enhance their own position in society.
We accept narcissism in children and call it childish. But an adult who remains childish or self-absorbed looses all consideration for others, their welfare and has no place in his life for a higher goal, calling or God.
The evil person is a narcissistic or self-absorbed person in an even more pathologic state. This was called ‘malignant narcissism’ by Eric Fromm in ‘The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil. The controlling nature of evil to Fromm is portrayed in the myth of God asking both Jesus and Satan how He should deal with the newly created human race. Satan’s plan was typical of most business, military and even religious plan to mold human behavior, called negative reinforcement. With the legions of angels at the command of God, Satan proposed God to assign one angel to each person with punitive power to punish deviant behavior.
Jesus’ plan was vastly different and more creative. “Let them have free will and go their own way, but allow me to live and die as one of them both as an example of how to live and of how much You care for them”.
This type of evil is ‘willful evil’. It is portrayed by an unsubmitted will. The God-submitted person says, “Thy will, not mine be done.” Truth is when you believe in a higher calling, which is not manipulative by your own self-will and one, which is not used to dominate other people’s will.
Yet the problem of evil does not lie in the will itself. Great people in this world are ‘strong willed’ and equally so the very evil people. There is a vast gulf between ‘willingness’ and ‘willfulness’. This is the challenge of parents daily in raising their children. The willful failure of submission is what characterizes malignant narcissism. This is the story of Satan, Cain, Nimrod, Esau, and Judas. Why? Because they are people who live a lie.
M. Scott Peck, a large source of inspiration for this talk tonight in his book, A People of the Lie, wrote, “The words, ‘image,’ ‘appearance,’ and ‘outwardly’ are crucial to understanding the morality of the evil. While they seem to lack any motivation to be good, they intensely desire to appear good. Their ‘goodness’ is all on a level of pretense. It is, in effect, a lie. This is why they are the ‘people of the lie.’”
The evil person is not interested in deception, but in deceiving themselves. They will not tolerate the pain of self-reproach, examining their behavior in the mirror of Christ’ righteousness. Why do people need to look perfect, unless they are hiding something, unless they are desperately need to flee from their own evil ways.
Mentally ill sinners, like most of us, are pain avoiders and just lazy. We do not want to rise to the mark of doing good, of being responsible as sons and daughters of God. We are too lazy to make the effort. That is ‘missing the mark’ or another way of saying, ‘sin’. No, sin and evil are different.
Evil people hate the light of scrutiny and self-examination. It is this scrutiny that exposes them and penetrates their self-deception. To submit to the process of self-examination is suicide. And so they will go to excessive length to appear the best person in their social circle or to re-create their society to fit their deviant behavior.
They are experts of disguise. The fake smile which covers their distain, the smooth talk which covers up their fury, the hug that is superficial, the velvet glove personality that covers the fist of anger. As experts of disguise, it is so difficult to ferret out their maliciousness
Outside the truly righteous, which by the way is very rare, and the truly evil, most of us live a life on a continuum. We are good, we are beautiful, and occasional we are evil. What God threw into this mix is ‘free will’. We have a choice and free will is a reality. While we have free will, we do not have freedom. “There are only two states of being: submission to God and goodness or the refusal to submit to anything beyond one’s own will – which refusals automatically enslaves one to the forces of evil. We must ultimately belong either to God or the devil.” Y’shua portrayed this paradox when he said, “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it. And whosoever shall lose his life, for my sake, shall find it.” (Matt 10:39, 16:25, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24) Or as C.S.Lewis wrote, “There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.”
Rosh Hashanah and the prevention of evil.
In the wisdom of the Father, built into the festivals of the Lord, was a way for the Hebrews and their spiritual followers to eradicate evil from their lives. During this ten days, we are to become transparent to our own lives, put our lives under a microscope. Whatever evil we have done to anyone else, to society or to ourselves, we must repent, confess and seek to rectify our wrongs. The Book of Life is not to keep out sinful people out of heaven. Y’shua will take care of that by his own sacrifice and by it, we will become transformed into that ‘glorified’ body at the end of time. The Book of Life was to keep out evil people. They cannot confess, they will not repent, they will not allow themselves to become transparent to themselves and to others. As my major professor, Graham Maxwell said, “Heaven is for those who are safe to save.”
At Rosh Ha Shanah, in that last month before Jesus returns, the purely evil, the children of darkness will meet the good ones, the children of light. The Essenes in the days of Jesus had it right. At the last days, the conflict between good and evil will be manifested in its extreme poles, on our planet earth in us, humans. Cosmic evil will be reduced to our planet. Satan will be trapped in our three dimensional space and sent to the Abyss. He will no longer be a threat to humans, at least for a thousand years and will no longer be a threat to the other dimensional worlds for eternity. Every year at Rosh Ha Shanah, God gave man ten days to practice the art of eradicating evil. By the end of times, practice will make us perfect, as we submit ourselves to Y’shua and His Father, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
How can evil be overcome? Only by love. It was Jesus who said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” This was not a command. This was a statement of fact. We cannot love our neighbor until we love ourselves. “The first task of love is self-purification. When we have purified ourselves, by the grace of God, to the point that we can truly love ourselves, then a beautiful thing happens. We can now love our enemies. When this happens, it is as if the boundaries of the soul become so clean as to be transparent, and a unique light then shines forth from the individual.” May this be our prayer during the remainder of the Days of Awe.