IT IS SO SIMPLE

In no other religion, save Christianity, has the founder of the faith ever contended to be God. In the Christian faith Jesus Christ not only claimed to be God, but predicted his own death as the ultimate sacrifice and, the ultimate feat, he predicted his returning from the grave alive.

The Bible, in today's language, is a chronology of the evolution of the Christian faith as reported by God and personal experiences of people to man to be recorded in the written tradition. The story is simple in its concept beginning with the declaration of God. He creates everything around us including the world with all of its inhabitants. Man, as well as all the creatures of the world, was made with a free will to choose their actions and reactions.

Soon after man was created, he was given a great lie and the most foul falsehood in mankind's learning process. Man was falsely convinced as to his real purpose of existence. The great lie was given by a selfish former attendant to God. The temptation by Satan inflicted upon man was the great lie, convincing him he could be as God is and even become a god. As a result of this misunderstanding and man's disobedience, he and all the worlds and, ironically also Satan, was removed and locked out of the paradise God created. The result of this exile was the universe as we now know it was to be in a timed existence excluding all exiled from the timelessness of Heaven, and the personal presence of God's existence. This allowed man the false freedom to learn from his environment and create his existence to suit himself. The worst of all, man was now to die a mortal death. It is interesting that man with his free will, could even deny the existence of God.

In the generations that followed, most of the descendants of first man continued to loose touch with the reality and purpose of his existence. The prime purpose of the creation of man was to worship and serve God. This upset God to the extent that he destroyed all of the inhabitants of the world by a massive flood with the exception of one faithful man, his family, and a select choice of animals for his purpose. After the destruction of all of the air breathing life on the planet, man was again free to populate the world to the glory of God.

From the decedents of Noah, one person named Abram was honored by God to continue the lineage until a family of twelve sons grew from one named Jacob, who was later named Israel. One of the family of Jacob named Joseph, was led to Egypt and ultimately held in bondage. There they remained until God released them. Upon the release of the children of Israel and their decedents, they were led by God to wander around in a wilderness for forty years to purify and strengthen their relationship with God. The result of this was the beginning of a tribe from one of Jacob's sons named Jude. Only this tribal group remained together and became known as Jews. They carried the tradition.

During the world conquest by the Roman empire, once again most of the mankind had lost the personal relationship with God. Because God knew man could not be perfect in His eyes, He sent His physical personality, named Jesus, in the form of His son, born of a woman, to live the perfect life in this world. The temptations of the same Satan that befouled man in the beginning, were also inflected upon Jesus. This time, however, the rejection of the temptations of Satan was a definite defeat of the devil resulting in Jesus's prevailing against the temptations offered. This is a pure act of total strength.

Jesus began his preaching ministry to the common people of his countryside. It is interesting that during His ministry, Jesus never journeyed more than thirty miles from the city of his birth. His birth city, Bethlehem, was predicted by one of God's prophets named Mica, wherein was made the prediction more than two hundred years before the birth occurred. One of the many predictions foretold by Jesus was the question of the world in the future. It disturbed many people in that time, as it does to this day that the world will be destroyed by fire. God promised that he would not devastate the earth by water again but that the Earth would be decimated by fire and both Heaven and earth would be destroyed and totally rebuilt. If you think of it, it's a frightening thought.

The one simple message given by Jesus is how to gain God's favor and return to His presents after this mortal life is completed. Because man is, by his inherited nature, sinful, it is almost impossible for anyone to follow the rules of God. So, He first recorded His rules for us in the Ten Commandments. Because very few individuals have succeeded in this endeavor, Jesus Christ came in our place and suffered the physical death and even descended to Hell before arising from the grave to walk again on this earth. Without faith, it seems so impossible.

If the individual deciples chosen by Jesus did not believe in and witness His physical resurrection from the grave, why would they have continued to follow His plan after Christ ascended from this earth? It seems illogical to assume that the nature of man would not continue to follow a total lie and be put to death for a false belief in a non-happening such as the words of a self proclaimed prophet. It had to be true.

Because we can do nothing to earn salvation from the destruction, and torment of Hell, the simple truth of how a person can avoid God's punishment of not following His rules, is as Christ Jesus said that we should believe that He (Christ) was God, came to the world, lived the perfect life that we could not, paid the price of death and Hell for us, rose from Hell and the grave, and lives today.

It is so simple.