Ah, Those “Them”

Ah, Those “Them” — Tuesday, 12 May 2004

If you were standing before God, and God asked you a question: “Why did you do this or that in such a way, why did you believe like this?” — would you answer with: “I did it that way because They wanted it so; only because They wanted it of me”? Some stop briefly and answer at once: “Sometimes yes, I did it only for Them.” As we understand from talking with people anyway, they mean to say, “whatever happens, do what you are told and you will be saved, you will not get into trouble, you have no other choice.” Whether Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jew, Jehovah's Witness, commander, president, prime minister, administrator and so on — the watchword of all religions, states and armies is the same. The subject I will give weight to here is people's relationship with religions, and those administrators at the head of the religions — that is, Them.

You, I, he, everyone — imperfect, faulty, sinful; but those at the head of everyone, only in word do they say yes, yet in practice it is as if they commit no fault at all. They are practically gods. Even if they do commit a fault, They are right. And no one even knows Them, has never even seen their faces, does not even understand what they have written; indeed these are people who at times cannot believe at all in what is written. Merely because They said so, they will go even to death if required. And as they die, they suppose they are serving God. But which God, I wonder? Who are these “Them”!? Humanity goes on harping “Them, Them,” but who really are these?

One burns even himself for the leader of some Kurds, Öcalan, by taking orders from Them. Because They said so. They gave the order, “let some of us burn ourselves at this rally of ours.” And some poor wretches did. Some go to death — willingly or unwillingly — for Marx, some for Lenin, some for Hitler, some for Elvis, some for Napoleon, some for the Pope, some for governing boards, some for the president, king or prime minister of who-knows-what. People have always loved to treat a human like themselves as if he were a god. Yet however many gods there are, there is only one God. (Gospel — 1 Corinthians 8:5; Galatians 1:8; Revelation 22:9) On this subject the Holy Scripture gives an interesting example: although God ruled the Israelites, they insisted on wanting a king to be head over them. In the Torah, 1 Samuel 8:5-7, the people say this to the prophet Samuel about this matter:

“Look, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to rule us, as the other nations have.” But their saying ‘appoint a king to rule us’ did not please Samuel at all. Samuel prayed to the Lord. The Lord gave Samuel this answer: “Listen to all that the people say to you. For it is not you they have rejected; they have rejected me as their king.”

I am obliged to give again and again these passages, which I have spoken of in past subjects and which have much to do with this subject too. Yes, even though on this matter God, through His prophet, plainly and in detail told what troubles those kings would bring upon the heads of the Israelites, they nonetheless said: “We insist on a king over us.” 1 Samuel 8:20

In fact, as is plainly understood from this event, it is we humans who have always wanted to bring these “Them” over our heads. And so much so that we have become unable to manage without Them. Even if a public toilet is built, we have appointed an administrator over it and had ourselves ruled by these “Them.” There came a time when people shouted “democracy, democracy, rule of the people.” At election time they set up two or more people, each worse than the other, and said, choose. By this means they shut people's mouths. When things went wrong and people were crushed under them, they then silenced them by saying to one another, “you chose, brother.” Without going into the matter of “Them” in politics, let us again confine our words to people exploited, used and enslaved in the name of religion, in the name of God. For my aim is to express people's relationships with God and His truth. As we continue, let us also highlight a verse that the religionists love to use very much. In the Gospel, Matthew 10:40, Jesus says this:

Whoever receives you receives me. Whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward.

The religionists adore this verse. For they all say: “What is written here is us.” “Receive us this way, that your reward may be great”! But I am obliged to write also this verse, which they absolutely do not like to have used against them. Again in the Gospel, Matthew 7:15-16 and 21, it says this:

Beware of false prophets! They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You will know them by their fruits… Not everyone who calls to me, Lord, Lord! will enter the kingdom of the heavens. But the one who does the will of my Father who is in the heavens will enter.

To those who hope to enter paradise and prosperity because they obeyed the command of others — even without understanding and without believing — I try to explain with examples, beginning from Adam, the forefather of humanity. In the sacred writings we read plainly how, after Adam sinned, he immediately threw the blame on Eve, and Eve threw this blame on the serpent, but they could not escape with these excuses. With many more examples — even prophets', indeed wrong behaviors that would cause the death of a prophet brother like himself — we show, giving examples from the Holy Scripture. (Please read in 1 Kings 14.) Again, showing from God's words, how the wrong and corrupt behaviors of David and other kings dragged a host of people to death behind them. (Please read again the whole of 2 Samuel chapter 24.) And it is no secret how the priests who represented God led the people astray from God. In short, however much you say “I did it because someone else said so,” this will be no excuse for you.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Gospel — Matthew 22:37

God expects people to come to Him with a whole heart and a willing soul. God's servant Jesus, with these words, did not mean that people could attain this aim only by appointing an administrator over themselves. Throughout history, because people saw this command of God as something that could never be done, they supposed that they were freed from this responsibility through the authority they gave to the people they brought over themselves. People saw this love that should be shown to God merely as a burden that only Those should carry. And they still persist in approaching God in this way, with the same mindset and attitude — without learning a lesson even from the documents of a long history full of suffering, which has caused only their own ruin. Even though they often hate this situation, they have nonetheless said, and still say, “you rule us, you bring us near to God.” Wise Solomon, inspired by God's spirit, says, fittingly for this subject:

There is a time when one man's dominion over another is to his own harm. Ecclesiastes 8:9

Because those administrating “Them” know this too, they have practically enslaved the people they have taken under their command by instilling fear, with torture, with every kind of pressure. And people hate the truth not because they do not know the truth, but because they cannot pay the price of the truth. The greatest reason is that, because they are afraid and ashamed, they smother the truth within themselves.

Humanity's fear is, of course, not for nothing. For these “Them,” whatever happens, demand unconditional obedience to themselves. The word “no” is the word they hate most. For this reason, frightening the people around them is a success for Them. They think, “otherwise this mindless people cannot be ruled.” That is, the more they frighten, the more successful they are. The more they crush, the better they are doing. The more they destroy, the more powerful they are, it means. And those “Them” do not do this destroying themselves. For it is a dirty job; they are diminished in their own eyes. For this they have others do it. It is very interesting: Hitler had a portion of the Jews killed, again forcibly, by the hand of the Jews themselves, and made life bitter for them by one another's hand. It is the same in religions. Those Them never dirty their clean hands. Is someone to be destroyed, excommunicated, or to have his association cut off, his head struck off — they have others do these jobs so that they themselves always remain innocent and clean! They generally give orders; they do not even want to see it. It turns their stomach! And the others themselves pull the execution rope of their comrades who are like them — and with pleasure, at that — to curry favor with Them, to live in comfort a while longer.

People no longer even have the knowledge of the thing called a clean conscience. The apostle Paul paid great attention to this clean and spotless conscience in his service to God. Paul continues his letter, saying:

“I speak the truth before God and I do not lie; the God whom I serve with A CLEAN CONSCIENCE…” Yes, a person should be able to say, “everything I did, I did with a clean conscience, because I love you, my God, because it was right.” Whatever happens, the truth should not be changed because this one said so, because that one said so. We feel concern for one another — as Paul also says, even to please our wives. But to fling the truth away and deviate from righteousness, saying “I will please others,” means to sell ourselves.

We do many empty things we do not want to. To please the one before us, to win that person, we put up with many absurdities. But how is God to be abandoned! — even though we know that His wishes are only for our own benefit.

If a state or a commander, president, religious organization, prime minister, or an idol, honor, glory, material things, fear, courage, height, lowness, things in the heavens, things on the earth, or things under the earth can separate us from God, then it means we do not belong to Him — it is that simple. Are we making this up out of our own heads? In the Gospel, in the book of Romans 8:35 and 38-39:

“Who shall separate us from the love of the Messiah? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?… For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulerships, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in our Lord Messiah Jesus.”

Who said the words above? A sinful person like us. If he said and did this, is God not, through him, saying to us: “YOU DO IT TOO”? Unfortunately we humans cannot exert ourselves for good things. We generally choose the easy, ugly and short path. For nothing, we die and we kill, saying, “never mind, I did this for Them.” We suppose that with these things we soothe ourselves with our wrongly-trained conscience. Let us not forget: this conscience is not the same as the conscience the apostle of God above spoke of. We cannot become aware of what a pitiable state we have fallen into. Is the most correct thing really to say, “let us cling to someone, and wherever he takes us, let him take us”?! Those shape our lives. And on top of it, we are so at ease, saying, “these are Their responsibility, They will give account for this” — don't even ask! True, Those will certainly give account in their own names. Well then, in whose name will we give account? In Their name? No. In our own name? Yes.

When we marry, do we ask the hoca whom, which one, to marry? When we take a job, do we consult the priest about which job to take?! When buying a car, we certainly never go to the rabbi (the Jews' religious man) about which color and model car to buy. But on the matter of God, we are scared to death to step outside Their word! For this would be a very great betrayal against Them!!

Certainly, with all this we do not mean to say that every administrator is bad. How many well-intentioned administrators have come and gone. For example, David, who wrote a part of the book of Psalms, and his son Solomon were also kings. The Holy Scripture tells of many kings who came, whole-hearted with God, together with their faults and sins. We must accept that there also lived good administrators not recorded in those books. The Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, once, was perhaps aware of something God had said long beforehand. To his people, most of whom did not even know how to read and write and lived off farming and the land, he said words like these: “Learn to govern yourselves.” Ecclesiastes 8:9 supports this thought too.

Just as administrating is a very hard thing, let those who adore ruling not forget that they will give account not only in their own names but also in the names of the people they adore ruling!

Do we want an example to follow? Did God not give this to humanity? Do we want to follow someone? Are there not, in the Sacred Writings, persons to take as examples and their works? — and tested persons, at that, on whom God has set His seal. What more do we want? To the question, “how should we live, how should we please God?” we read this answer again from the Gospel, in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-3:

“…God's will is this: be holy…”

What does it mean to be holy? Is being holy: performing ablution five times a day, remaining celibate for life, fasting and giving ourselves punishments, repeating countless times by rote the surahs we do not understand, blindly obeying human commands far from justice, going from door to door preaching so many hours a month? If we do not know its meaning, why do we not try to learn it from God's word, from the books He had written through His prophets? When we ought to do what is right, why do we not cast off from ourselves fear, laziness, falsehood, hypocrisy, selfishness, the spirit of adultery, the love of money, and whatever else there is like these? (Please see Colossians 3:5-9 in the Gospel.) Let us not allot our minds only to wearying ourselves over how to obtain our interests at any cost. Let us examine ourselves. Let us ask ourselves: “What is it that passes through my mind, and that I do, all day?” For we read that, before destroying the humanity of Noah's days, God was a God who looked carefully at their minds. There:

“The Lord looked, and great was the evil that man did upon the earth, and his every thought and inclination was always toward evil.” it says, in the Torah, in the book of Genesis, verse 6:5:

Just as the Lord destroyed those living on the earth at that time, why should the same God not now destroy? Are we better than the world, the people, of that time? I tell you, no — on the contrary, we are even worse. You may be certain, absolutely certain, that God will also destroy the wicked. The real situation is not as many suppose and wish. «The Lord neither sleeps nor forgets.» «The one who made the eye is not blind; the one who made the ear is not deaf.» Well then, do you suppose God will keep silent forever about the things He sees and hears on our earth? Again I am obliged to say no. As God revealed to the apostle Peter in the Gospel:

“The Lord is not slow concerning His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all people should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9

I want to draw your attention: it does not say “He will be slow,” it says “He is patient.” And we are living at the end of that patience. What should our aim be? What should our expectations be from life, from the brief span we pass? Which things are the goal for us?

Let us repent and turn from our sins. Let us cast off from ourselves gossip, backbiting, enmities, tyrannies, every kind of corruption. Our aim should not be to change Them, the administrations, the administrators, the religions, the institutions — in short, the world; our aim should be to change ourselves. God does not give us the task of changing the world, but commands: “change yourselves.” To whom does He say this? To us, to everyone, to all humanity — “because all have sinned,” it is written. (Romans 5:12) Finally, I want to encourage you all with these verses. With the authority he received from God, Jesus the Messiah, in the Gospel — Revelation 22:11-12:

“… For the expected time is near. Let the one who does evil still do evil. Let the one who is filthy continue his filthy works. Let the one who is righteous still do right. Let the holy one remain holy. Behold, I am coming soon! The rewards I will give are with me. I will give each one according to what he has done.”