In the Western world, mankind celebrates diversity, the expression of one’s self and independence. You must be allowed to choose for yourself what is right and wrong, people say. No one can decide that for you. Human nature does not want anyone telling it what to do. It would rather rely on its own strengths, its own intuition.
The first two humans, Adam and Eve, fell prey to Satan’s deception about being “free” and succumbed to this philosophy. He wanted to make them think that God was harsh, squelching their individuality. “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). You can rely on yourself, he told them. You don’t need God!
Mr. Armstrong wrote in Mystery of the Ages : “[Adam] took to himself the knowledge of good as well as evil. He relied wholly on himself—both for the knowledge as well as the power of performance of good as well as evil. He rejected reliance on God and chose the course of self-reliance.” Adam held the same philosophy present on college campuses today. He didn’t want to be told what to do. He wanted “independence.” But what he did not realize was that the tree he chose would not give him independence. One tree meant he would rely on God and His Holy Spirit, and the other meant he would rely on himself (though really under the influence of Satan the devil). From that moment on, man was not independent, but actually held captive!
Created to Be Dependent
Mr. Armstrong wrote in A World Held Captive, “Adam had been created with the potential to be born a son of God. Even though not as yet even a begotten son of the God Family, he had been created as potentially just that. Once he succumbed to Satan’s way of choosing to ‘do his own thing,’ in rebellion against a deliberate command of God, he became spiritually the property of Satan …. All humanity came out of Adam and Eve. The present world was founded in them. The world has ever since been held captive!”
This is how Satan’s deception was so ingenious. He disguised world captivity as do your own thing, be independent, no one can tell you what to do! And man believes himself to be the greatest of all beings—the end of the “evolutionary cycle”—so superior to the world around him. But little does he realize that he is being influenced and even manipulated by the prince of the power of the air, Satan the devil!
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Pagan Holidays-or God’s Holy Days-Which?
If you told man that he would soon be dependent on a higher power, he would be insulted. But the astounding fact is, he is ruled by Satan now and doesn’t even know it (2 Corinthians 4:4).
God gave man 6,000 years to prove that he could not make it “all by himself,” that he could not be “independent.” And it will get so bad that God will have to intervene in man’s affairs to ensure that he does not annihilate himself. This is pictured by the Feast of Trumpets. This needs to happen first—so man can actually realize how much he really needs God.
Man will realize that being dependent on God is a beautiful, wonderful way to live—the only way to live—the way he was created to live. This way, he can be freed from the captivity of Satan.
How Fasting Relates
What the Day of Atonement pictures is man, not only at one with God, but free and independent from Satan. This is why God commands fasting on this day.
Proper fasting frees us from our fleshly lusts and brings us close to God. Isaiah 58:6 states, “Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?” There is a certain sense of liberation associated with Atonement. This day pictures the time when humanity will be freed from the evil, sinful burdens that weigh on them.
Abstaining from food pictures abstaining from fleshly lusts, resisting sin and resisting Satan—which is what the world will be doing once this day is fulfilled. Throughout the Millennium, this day will be observed as a memorial of mankind’s being freed from Satan. But now we fast to learn how to be free from Satan—because we still have to deal with him.
Probably the most powerful example of fasting is that found in Matthew 4 and Luke 4, in the context of Christ’s titanic battle with Satan. Christ prepared to replace Satan as god of this world by fasting, removing any temptation to rely on Himself or His physical body, and instead relying on His Father. And how did Satan first tempt Christ? “And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread” (Luke 4:3). Satan knew that if he could get Jesus to focus on the physical and thus rely on Himself, He would no longer rely on God.
The fact is, man is dependent on physical food. But notice how Christ responded in verse 4: “It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” Man can learn by fasting that just as he was created to need food, so was he created to need the words of his Creator! Just as badly as we feel we need food or water when we fast—just as much as our knotted stomachs yearn and dry mouths cry out—that is how desperately we need God!
Why Man Needs God
Paul states in Romans 6:16, 18: “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? … Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”
It is a universal law that man would be a servant of one power or another. Once the world is independent from Satan, it then will be reliant on God. Atonement is a type of independence day for the world—but only independence from Satan. Then man will be at one with God and will be dependent on Him.
Man was created with a human spirit (Job 32:8)—the performance of which depended on the presence of God’s powerful Holy Spirit. God created it that way. All of mankind will have access to the Spirit, access to the Father, once Satan receives the blame for all his deception and is removed from this Earth.
Remember, when Christ our Passover died for us, the veil to the holy of holies was ripped apart. Because He qualified to replace Satan as ruler of the Earth, He also paid the ransom to free us from the kidnapper and deceiver of all civilization. We, as firstfruits, can now have access to God the Father, the holy of holies and the Holy Spirit to combine with our spirit. And it will be the same for the entire world when the Day of Atonement is fulfilled!
Once at one with God, humanity will be on the path leading to membership in the God Family. They will develop His character, His nature and eventually have everlasting life in His Family. And all because they learned to rely on Him!
Romans 6:22 states, “But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” Once freed from sin, we are then servants at one with God, eventually attaining our potential to have life as God has life.
What a vision contained in the Day of Atonement!
This evil world will soon learn this vision. They will soon learn what true independence is: freedom from Satan, freedom from evil human nature, but reliance on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of their Creator.