My friend Steve wrote the following:
Capturing a Generation
“Truly and most assuredly I say to you, laying the argument to rest, there is no possibility nor is there going past this family, generation, and race until the whole and all of this comes into being, transitioning from this realm and condition to the next.” (Matthew 24:34)
I attended a 4-year high school in Southern California that had about 2,200 students. At the end of my junior year, you could count on less than two hands the number of kids in our school who smoked marijuana or took drugs of any kind.
The counterculture hippie movement that began in the mid-1960s was gaining momentum and starting to take over the college and university campuses, especially in California. Places like Cal Berkley and the Haight-Ashbury District in San Francisco were having a profound influence on young people of all ages, particularly when it came to drug use and the new, revolutionary concept of free love. Professors like Timothy Leary were becoming the icons of free thought and expression among the university student class. He was among the early professors to indoctrinate students in the new norms of the new youth movement. He, along with others like him, began to openly promote the enlightening benefits of experimenting with mind-altering and mind-expanding drugs like LSD, mescaline, and magic mushrooms.
On the surface, the hippie movement was all about peace, love, and harmony. However, there were 3 notable exceptions: The Viet Nam War, the soldiers who fought in the war, and anything related to authority (other than their own). In addition, the federal government was considered corrupt, police were routinely called “Pigs” and the Marin County Sheriffs of Northern California were referred to as “The Blue Meanies.” As a sign of identity and solidarity, the movement came up with what it called the Peace Sign – the shaping of the first two-fingers into a V. This sign came to be used among the kids in both the high schools and colleges as a symbol of the hippie movement’s ideals of peace, love, and harmony.
Words
Jesus was beginning to teach me about the power of words and how the devil uses them to direct and control people without them even knowing it. He does this by changing the definitions and meanings of the words we regularly use and then getting us to accept his new definitions. He does it everywhere, in virtually every area of life where words are used to communicate thoughts, ideas, and feelings. He even does it in our Judeo-Christian belief systems, and especially in the document that Christians hold most sacred – the Bible.
While this is a highly provocative concept, it is still nonetheless true. For most Christians, the Bible and the scriptures are the same things. They are not. “Scripture” is a Latin term used to describe the original sacred writings of the various authors. The “Bible” is the collection and translation of those writings. The way the devil redefines the words of scripture is by getting the Bible translators to use words that change the meaning of the original words to support satanic purposes or to promote certain perverse religious doctrines or theologies.
We could list dozens of examples where the Bible translators have redefined the scriptures to make them mean something different than what God had intended, but for now we will offer 3 examples to illustrate the point:
• Example 1: Genesis 2:1: YHVH is describing to Moses (and thus to us) the conclusion of His creative work. A common Bible translation of this verse is:
“Thus, the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the hosts
of them.” (KJV)
When we read these words, we accept them. This is what the Bible
says, so this is what we believe is true.
Until Jesus gets involved.
He can do this in a variety of ways. One way is to have us consult with any number of reference tools. With what is available today, either electronically or in book form, we can reconstruct any Bible verse WITH Him using Strong’s Definitions of the original words of the text along with other word study helps. When these tools are used WITH Him to reconstruct Genesis 2:1, it reads:
“Thus, the whole and all of the heavens and the sky, the physical earth and land, and the army organized for war and warfare were completed, finished and accomplished.”
This definition-based rendering paints a very different picture than the Bible translators do. They use a vague, but majestic-sounding, English word (hosts) to translate the original Hebrew word (tsaba) that is very descriptive (a mass of persons organized for war and warfare – an army). So, while appearing to accurately convey the sum of YHVH’s creative work, the Bible translators actually hide an important aspect of it – that He also created an army to ensure that what He had begun would not only be defended but also finished and accomplished. This
deviation then raises the fundamental question: Who benefits by hiding the fact that YHVH has an army?
• Example 2: Genesis 3:8: A Bible phrase that captures the imagination of many is commonly translated:
“And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the
garden in the cool of the day. . .” (NASB)
This is one of those wonderful-sounding Bible verses that has inspired many a sermon about how wonderful it would be for God to visit us, “in the cool of the day.” Who wouldn’t want that? And so, we accept the idea that God visits us because that’s what the Bible says.
Until Jesus gets involved.
This time He teaches us to pause by taking a step back WITH Him to listen to what it means for God to visit us in the cool of the day. He then starts listing the implications:
o For God to visit His Man means He is in one place while we are in another. Thus, God is separated from His Man by location.
o For God to be separated from His Man by location means He is also separated from His Man in work. God is in one place performing His work while we are in another performing ours.
o For God to visit His Man in the cool of the day means He is separated from His Man in time and the conditions of the day. God is working under one set of conditions while we are working under another. When He finishes what He has been doing and we finish what we’ve been doing, then God visits.
o For God to visit when the day is cool means He only comes after the heat of the day has passed, which we, presumably, bear alone.
o For God to visit His Man means God is the One who leaves where He is to go to where Man is. Thus, He comes to us; we don’t go to Him. Just like what the Church teaches and practices.
When viewed from this perspective, Jesus reveals that the “cool of the day” translation conveys the core belief system of the Christian Church: Man is separated from his God who only visits when certain conditions have been met. Until then, we do our thing where we are while He does His thing where He is – what God calls sin.
But that message completely contradicts what the definitions-based rendering conveys:
“And hearing in the enclosure of the garden the sound and
voice of YHVH of the Elohim coming, going and walking in
the breath, wind and spirit of the day. . .”
Notice that cool isn’t in the definition of any of the original words. It is an insertion that has been used by the Bible translators to replace “breath, wind, and spirit.”
With this contrast in view, we begin to wonder if the translators are wanting us to believe that YHVH was talking about the temperature in the Garden that day? Of course, He wasn’t. Otherwise, He would have had Moses use the Hebrew word qar (cool, cold). Rather, YHVH was showing us through His words that He is always WITH His Man. He comes, goes, and walks, and is present in the ruach – breath, wind, and spirit – of His Man and his Garden (life) continuously. And so, by inserting a word that sounds really good but that isn’t actually there, the Bible translators completely change the relationship between YHVH and His Man from one that is continuous and uninterrupted to one that is occasional and periodic. All by a single word – cool.
Adam learned about the continuous and uninterrupted reality of YHVH’s presence being WITH him when he did his deed by eating from the forbidden tree. Though he tried, he soon discovered that there was no place for him to hide. And even though his disobedience made him feel ashamed, afraid, and separated from YHVH, the reality was that he wasn’t. YHVH’s Voice was still and always there – IN Adam’s breath, IN Adam’s spirit, IN the wind of Adam’s garden, and IN the physical earth where he was to rule WITH Him. YHVH’s Voice was always there and everywhere WITH him, and it both terrified and comforted His Man, both male and female. (Genesis 3)
Adam and Eve’s firstborn son, Cain, discovered the same thing. At his lowest and most vulnerable point, YHVH was WITH him. His Voice was there, in the garden of his life when his countenance was ravaged with anger, YHVH laid out the issues and challenges that were facing him. And WITH His Voice YHVH offered to Cain the solution that would resolve his dilemma – to master sin; the perverse idea that it was okay to decide, act and live separately from YHVH. (Genesis 4:6, 7)
• Example 3: Luke 3:23: Luke is setting the stage for introducing Jesus.
A common Bible translation of this verse says:
“And when He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about
thirty years of age. . .” (NASB)
When we read these words, we once again accept as true the idea that Jesus came to the earth to minister.
Until Jesus gets involved.
Then, He points out that the word ministry isn’t even in the original text. It is a Bible translator’s addition. And only after reconstructing the verse WITH Him do we see what Luke is telling us:
“And, Jesus, Himself, was commencing to rule at about thirty
years of age. . .”
So, which rendering impacts you the most – that Jesus started His ministry or that He began to rule?
No wonder Jesus said that the Father would instantly make available to Him more than 72,000 angels (12 legions) if He asked for them. He knew exactly what His role and prerogatives were as He discussed WITH His Father the options and resources that were available to rule over the situation that appeared to be threatening Him. Yet, the Church has been scratching its head for centuries trying to figure out what the Father sending an army of angels has to do with ministry.
(Matthew 26:53)
“But come to know, recognize and perceive absolutely by personal experience this one thing, that if the head of the family had seen with his physical eyes to grasp the spiritual truth about the character of the thief who steals in secret by stealth, and in what time and manner it was going to come, he would have stayed awake and been vigilantly watchful and would not have permitted his house and family to be broken into and robbed.” (Matthew 24:43)
“For as the soul of a living person thinks, so is he. . .” (Proverbs 23:7)
The tidal wave of drugs that poured into Southern California during the summer of 1968 launched the drug culture in the U.S. It soon found an enthusiastic partner in the wildly popular rock concert scene. Kids who weren’t old enough to drive and who could never buy alcohol or party in bars, went to concerts to get high on drugs with their friends. The same thing was happening with our young servicemen who were fighting in the Viet Nam War. They would ease the horrors of their war experiences by smoking the easily accessible Vietnamese weed.
This trio of drugs, concerts, and war targeted America’s youth. It was cleverly woven into the fabric of the idealistic but naïve Baby Boomer generation. This was the first generation groomed to carry this new cultural norm to the succeeding generations of youth giving it an uninterrupted generational capability.
And it didn’t stop there.