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Unity Versus Division in the World Today

Unity Versus Division in the World Today

In the beginning God created one human species, Adam and Eve, united in love. But that godly unity was divided by sin. As soon as the first human pair believed Satan’s lies, the bonds of love and trust were broken; they corrupted themselves with fear and selfishness and were divided. Adam blamed Eve, saying, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it” (Genesis 3:12 NIV84).

The first set of brothers, Cain and Abel, were not united in godly love but were divided in sin—in fear and selfishness—which inflamed envy and jealousy in Cain, who murdered his righteous brother (Genesis 4:8).

There has been a division in the human family ever since—a division between those who, despite being born in sin and conceived in iniquity (Psalm 51:5), have been won back to trust in God and reborn with righteous hearts and those who have hardened their hearts against God and become solidified in selfishness and sin.

At the time of the great Flood, only one righteous man remained on the earth with his family. The rest of the human population had solidified into a worldwide rebellion against God. In mercy, in love, as a therapeutic act to keep open the avenue for the Messiah and fulfill the promise of Genesis 3:15, God put that rebellious world to sleep in death.

But shortly thereafter, the rejectors of God’s mercy began to unite again in a unified rebellion against God, seeking to build a tower into heaven. So, once again, God therapeutically intervened by confusing the languages and scattering the people around the world (leading to the distinct racial divisions we see today), steps designed by God to slow the lies of Satan and impede humanity’s rebellion against heaven and, thereby, allow the plan of salvation to be completed (Genesis 11:8, 9).

These language, tribal, racial, national, and ethnic differences are not evil; these differences are not sinful—they have no bearing on our worth as human beings, they have no value in determining good or evil, but God did foresee that these differences along superficial characteristics would work to keep the sinful human race from uniting in a worldwide rebellion against Him and heaven, like the people did at the time of the Flood.  

 

A Divinely Ordained Division

But there is evil in this world, and we are to recognize it and separate from it. There is to be an intelligent and purposeful division that we actively seek to create and promote among all people, without regard to their language, tribe, race, nationality, or ethnicity, for God loves all people equally. The Bible recognizes this division as the only one that righteous people are to act upon—the division between good and evil. The Bible describes this division between the righteous and the unrighteous in these terms:

  • The sheep and the goats
  • The wheat and the tares
  • The fruitful vine and withered vine
  • The pure woman and the harlot
  • The faithful and unfaithful
  • The holy and the unholy
  • The saved and the lost

Dividing along these lines is godly. Differentiating the righteous from the unrighteous in order to wisely discriminate regarding whom to associate with, date, marry, hire, place on our boards, and allow to be our friends is a very godly approach to life.

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore come out from them and be separate” (2 Corinthians 6:14–17 NIV84).

We are called to discriminate the honest from the dishonest, the loyal from the disloyal, those who love others from those who are selfish and exploit others. We are to actively discern the wise from the foolish, the kind from the cruel, and the merciful from the vengeful. The apostle Paul taught that as we approach the second coming of Christ, we are to be purposeful in disassociating ourselves from certain people:

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them (2 Timothy 3:1–5 NIV84, emphasis mine).

We are to be discriminating in our associations, relationships, hiring, and friends because, as Paul also wrote, “Bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33 NIV84).

Jesus Himself said that He came to divide society:

I have come to ignite the fire of truth and love upon the earth, and oh how I wish it were already an inferno!  But I have a mission to complete, and the pressure on me to complete it is overwhelming. Do you think I have come to make peace with this selfish world? Absolutely not! I have not come to make peace with selfishness but to cut selfishness out of the hearts of people. From now on, those who choose the Remedy will cut dysfunctional family ties, and a family of five will be divided — two against three and three against two. Love will free a son from selfish loyalty to his father’s ambitions and feuds, and a father from the selfish exploits of his son; love will sever a daughter from the control of an oppressive and manipulative mother, and a mother from the selfish demands of her daughter; love will cut through the fear and hostility a daughter-in-law has toward her mother-in-law, and mother-in-law toward daughter-in-law (Luke 12:49–53 REM).

God created human beings to be united in love and trust, but humanity became divided when Adam and Eve sinned. The natural state of this sinful world is selfishness, and Jesus did not come to unite with sin and selfishness but to set people free from sin and restore them to righteousness and eternal life. This necessarily means separating people from all that is unholy and ungodly.

Jesus cannot provide eternal life to people who refuse to leave sinfulness behind.

Therefore, Jesus seeks to separate people from sin—and all associations that keep sin active in their lives!

Yes, there is a real division in the world; it is a division between God and Satan, between holiness and vileness, between good and evil, between love and selfishness, truth and lies, freedom and coercion. And as Jesus is uplifted, as the gospel advances, as people surrender to Him and draw closer to Him, then fear and selfishness are replaced with love and trust and we are drawn together as a united people (Ephesians 4:13), just as Jesus prayed:

I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me (John 17:20–23 NIV84, emphasis mine).

The Bible describes this end-time unity, when the gospel is advanced, as the reversal of the scattering God initiated at Babel. The Bible describes “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They [are] wearing white robes,” which represent their characters having been purified to be like Jesus (Revelation 7:9 NIV84). These diverse people come together in love, loyalty, and devotion to God, a united human family woven together in the bonds of godly love and trust, practicing the principles of Jesus in how they live and treat others. But this restoration into one united human family is only possible when Jesus is placed at the center.

Satan knows he cannot win if Jesus is uplifted, if the gospel is made central. Therefore, he actively opposes it. The evil one does not want people to focus upon Jesus and then recognize the righteous divide between truth and lies, love and selfishness, good and evil, so he has a two-step trap to keep people from turning to Jesus and thereby inflame evil divisions.

Step One: Satan replaces the godly dividing line between moral and characterological good and evil with some other superficial difference occurring among people groups—race, gender, language, ethnicity, national origin, etc.—and causes people to attribute value, privilege, and superiority/inferiority to those differences, thereby inflaming fear, selfishness, jealousy, envy, hate, and violence and inciting acts of injustice against those deemed inferior.

In step one, he deceives some people into believing the lie that skin color or gender or national origin makes some people inferior or less valuable or worthy. This lie leads to the creation of various caste systems (including the historical notion of “divine right” of rulers and the lie that there is an actual difference between people in the royal class and commoners). And these false divisions cause people to inflict real injustice upon the innocent—slavery, Jim Crow, aristocratic oppression of the commoner, and many other forms of exploitation, abuse, and restrictions of human freedom.

His step-one lie has divided society for millennia—and people still fight over this lie today. But as evil as Satan’s step-one deception is, his step-two lie is even more diabolical.

Step Two: Satan’s second step to ensnare people into becoming like him and dividing society is by tricking good people who recognize his step-one lie into seeking to rectify the step-one injustices by using Satan’s methods.

This means that rather than pursuing justice by advancing the gospel and placing Jesus and God’s methods of doing right at the center, Satan tricks people into placing the various injustices of the wicked at the center. Racism, sexism, and various other wrongs are focused upon, which inflames anger, outrage, and our sense of injustice—and then he offers his solution, “social justice,” by the application of law, coercion, and external power to force behavior change, rather than winning people to love and trust. This two-step deceit keeps society divided, inflicts more layers of injustice upon more innocents, and actively keeps Jesus out of heart and mind, obstructing the only solution to racism and all other forms of human injustice.

What makes this so diabolical is that this method of seeking “social justice” causes people to feel good, to feel they are doing right, to even believe they are advancing God’s kingdom—after all, they are opposing evil—but all the while, they are advancing Satan’s kingdom, practicing his methods, spreading more evil, corrupting their own character, obstructing the gospel, and inciting greater societal division.

This methodology is the core and heart of Critical Race Theory that, along with all the other Critical Theories, functions along this two-step deceit process. I will expose this in detail in an upcoming new magazine scheduled to be released in April 2023.

The only solution for division is to cut fear, selfishness, and sin out of human hearts. And the only way that can happen is to place Jesus Christ at the center. We must advance the gospel of Jesus Christ. As people open their hearts to Him, focus upon Him, make Christ their supreme Lord, the One whom they long to be close to and to emulate in all things, they draw closer to Him and, simultaneously, to each other. We become unified in love, just as Jesus prayed, and experience the unity that inherent in our faith (Ephesians 4:13).

So if you want to do justice—to oppose evil, racism, sexism, and all other forms of injustice—then uplift Jesus, make Him the center of all things, and practice only His methods in principles in how you live your life and treat others.

 

 

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