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Copyright © 2001 M. S. Thirumalai
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THE MARK
OF THE BEAST
Tomorrow's Education
Julio Severo
If asked how tomorrow's education will be, perhaps we would say
that it will be an education which, at last, will completely destroy illiteracy
and give learning opportunities to everyone. At least, our simple desire
is the well-being of our children, including in the educational area.
Education is an essential part of life. So, the majority of parents will
expect to send their children to good schools.
However, what if Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were asked how tomorrow's education
would be? It seems that they did not worry about this issue, for they
were busy with the responsibility to train their children to live for
God in this world. God was not also worried, for he knew that Abraham
and his posterity would fulfill that responsibility. He said: "For I know
him that he will command his children and his household after him, and
they shall keep the way of Jehovah, to do righteousness and justice, in
order that Jehovah may bring upon Abraham what he hath spoken of him".
(Genesis 18:19 Darby)
So Genesis, the first book of the Bible, shows that God was perfectly
aware that Abraham would be able to impart an education rooted in the
right place: the commands of God. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and did not
worry abouttomorrow's education, for their attention was focused on the
important mission of training their children in the ways of the Lord.
For them there was not greater educational interest than creating in the
children a mindset having a profound knowledge and fear of God.
What if other men and women in the Bible were asked about how the tomorrow's
education would be? It seems few would be in condition to answer, but
there are two men who would know how to give a relevant answer: Moses
and John. Having studied in the best Egyptian universities, Moses was
qualified to offer an outlook based on his experience in the Egyptian
educational system, which is not much different from the system we know
today. Yet, it appears that in nowhere in God's Word we see so a clear
and positive answer as the significant revelation found in the last book
in the Bible. In Revelation, Apostle John was given the opportunity to
see by special revelation how will be the educational system of a future
that, very probably, also includes our generation.
WHAT REVELATION TELLS ABOUT FUTURE
Among the many visions that he was given in the book of Revelation, John
saw a worldwide government system, under the leadership of the beast,
controlling the lives of all individuals:
The beast forced all the people, small and great, rich and poor, slave
and free, to have a mark placed on their right hands or on their foreheads.
No one could buy or sell without this mark, that is, the beast's name
or the number that stands for the name. (Revelation 13:16-17 GNB)
Is it hard to understand that verse? God loves the simple people who
love him and give attention to him. He wrote his Word so that even an
ordinary, unschooled man may comprehend. "The unfolding of your words
gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple". (Psalms 119:130
ESV)
How can we then interpret what God means in certain Bible texts? What
we need to do is to compare a spiritual passage with another spiritual
passage. In fact, the Word of God itself teaches us that we can learn
to distinguish the thoughts, intents and revelations of the Holy Spirit
in His Word by "comparing spiritual things with spiritual". (1 Corinthians
2:13 KJV)
So, comparing the Revelation text with two Old Testament passages containing
similar suggestion of mark on the hand and forehead, we can know what
this symbolism means.
This observance will be a reminder, like something tied on your hand
or on your forehead; it will remind you to continue to recite and study
the Law of the LORD, because the LORD brought you out of Egypt by his
great power. (Exodus 13:9 GNB)
This observance will be a reminder, like something tied on our hands
or on our foreheads; it will remind us that the LORD brought us out
of Egypt by his great power. (Exodus 13:16 GNB)
The repetition of the feast, year after year, would help educate God's
people never to forget God's Word. Explaining in a simple way, that repetition
was an educational method used to mark profoundly the minds of the people,
so that they would always remember to recite and study God's Word.
PROFOUND MARKS
"He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and
slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that
no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of
the beast or the number of his name". (Revelation 13:16-17 NIV)
Buying and selling is a part of the life system of society. To survive
in that system, each citizen needs a job at the very minimum. Especially
in large cities, virtually all jobs require certain educational level.
In fact, one of the first questions an employer asks to one wanting a
job is about his educational level. More than ever, today a man needs
a diploma to be able to have an occupation in the marketplace, and the
minimal educational demands are increasingly high, compelling children
and teens to spend most of their years in the educational institutions.
A human being today is only respected according to an official diploma
proving he spent years studying in schools and universities. It is getting
almost impossible to live without a diploma.
This trend suggests that soon it will be not possible to get a job without
a minimal government-approved education. Worried about their children
and in order to help them not suffer disadvantages and closed doors in
the marketplace, parents make a point of forcing them to spend most of
their years in the educational institutions. The today's social, political
and legal pressures do not let a young man get a worthy occupation without
a government-accepted diploma, annulling his survival prospects. Without
a job, how can one buy and sell to live? This is what the Revelation passage
suggests: those not having their hands and foreheads marked cannot do
anything to survive in the marketplace. What is then the meaning of the
marked hand and forehead?
Mark on the hand: Hand is the body part that acts, works
and performs tasks. The sign on the hand is a symbol that one received
so a profound and intense education that everything he does brings the
mark of what he learnt. He was taught to do things according to the patterns
of the government educational system. He was "marked" to act and behave
according to the education that was implanted in him.
Mark on the forehead: Forehead is the body part where
the mind lies. The sign on the forehead is a symbol that one received
so a profound and intense education that everything he thinks and speaks
brings the mark of what he learnt. He was taught to think and express
himself according to the values of the government educational system.
He was "marked" to think according to the education that was implanted
in him.
If this symbolism actually represents the influence of an educational
system on the way people think and act, then we can consider that influence
as a very effective mark, for today a child is obliged to spend years
in a formal school being marked by many government-education imposed teachings.
THE BEAST'S MYSTERY AND HER MEANING
What is the meaning of the name and number of the beast? There is a possibility
that name and number may be a very simple reference to the basic concepts
of language and mathematics, which are the fundamental pillars of education.
So in the beast's system every citizen, Christian or not, is forced by
law to attend school to learn the essentials (read and write) and, in
the process, absorb "other teachings" the beast consider of value for
the children and teens' education.
Therefore, the beast mentioned in Revelation is not a man, but some kind
of spiritual entity behind of a social system controlling and guiding
the course and lives of all citizens. So the beast is a system working
here on the earth under demonic direction and control. How exactly will
the beast control the people's lives? Who is the beast?
The term beast means in the original Greek
savage animal or wicked person. Following this definition, we can understand
that all people (whatever his religion, ethnic background or social status)
will receive an education conditioning them to think and live without
the support of moral values, just as the savage animals or wicked people
do. How precisely could the human learning institutions implant in the
minds of children openness to behaviors like the conduct of the savage
animals or wicked people?
A MAJOR ISSUE: SEXUALITY
God says about the human sexuality: "That is why a man leaves his father
and mother and is united with his wife, and they become one". (Genesis
2:24 GNB) In fact, the first and most significant positive command of
God for the first human married couple was exactly about sex, marriage
and family (see Genesis 1:28). Even though man has a special call from
God to leave father and mother to get united with his wife, become one
flesh, establish a family and subdue the earth, the modern educational
system forms children to think and act without moral boundaries, as if
human beings were savage animals.
To combat the threat of sexually transmitted diseases, the Brazilian
government offers the condom solution. In the public schools, the programs
to prevent these diseases have "as a primary purpose make possible for
children and teens to be able to choose responsibly and without a sense
of guilt in the sexuality area, without incurring the risk of an unwanted
pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases". Children and teens are taught
to "choose" in the sexual area [they learn to decide whatever they want:
oral, vaginal, anal sex.] responsibly [always using a condom and birth
control] and without a sense of guilt [without being troubled by sex without
a marital commitment]. This is how government wants public-school children
to learn to "protect" their sexual pleasure of possible "nuisances". Among
theses nuisances is pregnancy, which is put in the same category of the
threat of sexual diseases.
For government, the problem is not sex before marriage, but pregnancy
and an innocent child conceived. The problem is everything (pregnancy
or disease) that disturbs a teen from getting his sexual pleasure, with
or without marriage, with or without moral values. So the government's
aim is to use schools to educate young people to avoid pregnancy, not
sex outside marriage. It intends to teach "respect" and "tolerance" toward
sexual freedom, not respect toward all moral commitments involved with
sex, including marriage, family and bringing up of children.
By barring the essential role of the marital commitment between a man
and a woman as the only healthy and natural way to have sexual relations,
the public-school education eventually opens room to abnormal sexual choices,
including homosexuality. Homosexuality has been presented and taught in
classrooms not as a sexual behavior against nature, but as a different
lifestyle deserving respect and tolerance. Basically, schools today form
a child to think and act as a savage animal or wicked person in the sexual
area. Would the beast's educational system do differently?
Political leaders understand very well the crucial role of education
to form the tomorrow's citizens. In his Socialist government, Brazilian
President Lula launched a completely avant-garde, comprehensive program
entitled Brasil Sem Homofobia (Brazil Without Homophobia), to cultivate
in the Brazilian citizens attitudes favorable to homosexuality and, through
educational campaigns, implant in their minds a hostile ideological programming
to make them spontaneously reject all view contrary to homosexual acts.
This programming will condition them to see as prejudice, discrimination
and hate every stance, including from the Bible, regarding homosexuality
as a sin, abnormality and perversion. How will this subtle brainwashing
happen? The government's plan is to train especially public-school teachers
to make exclusively positive presentations on the homosexual behavior
to students. Then will it be a wonder to hear and see, some years from
now, most of the young people defending homosexuality naturally? Such
defense will be evidence that the years they spent in the schools produced
the results expected by the "educational" campaigns. So the government
sees schools as key factors in its effort to form and change the children's
mindset. Will the beast see schools differently?
SPIRITUAL RISKS OF THE PLUBLIC EDUCATION
In addition to sexuality, it is the government's will that the public
education should also include, covertly, religious elements. Even though
the Ministry of Education of Brazil (MEC) has not the least interest in
teaching children to know, read and respect the Bible, such ill will does
not apply to the practices of witchcraft. MEC believes that candomblé
and other occult religions from Africa are legitimate cultural expressions
of Brazilian blacks and wants systematically indoctrinate public-school
children not to despise or reject the practices of those religions. So
schoolchildren are taught to respect African occultism as culture. Any
opposition to that "culture" is considered racism. Would the beast's educational
system do less than this?
A major concern of every loving parent is guaranteeing the physical,
spiritual and moral safety of their children. Even wild animals protect
their young. Yet, in many public schools a child is exposed to drugs and
other situations endangering his moral and spiritual health and, sometimes,
his own life. Many schoolchildren are also not protected from bad influences
and teachings disrespecting the moral and Bible principles learnt at home
and church. It is in the school often teens and children are exposed to
improper models and examples of dating and sexual conduct. Is it a wonder
then that so many Evangelical young people are falling under the pressures
of their friends and are turning from the Lord after spending years under
such negative socialization and influence? Would the beast's educational
system do differently?
In the beast's educational system, children will be conditioned, in some
respects, to live and see themselves as an animal. While in the Bible
the human being is shown as clearly distinct, different and more important
than animals, in the schools of the beast's system children will learn
the human being had his origin not in God, but in animals. Is not exactly
this that is happening in our days? In today's schools, teachers receive
government command to teach that man came from monkey, making human beings
equivalent to animals. Innocent children's minds are marked by a lie against
God, the Creator. If man is equal to animals in essence, then why cannot
his behavior be made equal to the conduct of animals too? If animals do
not need to get married before their sex acts, why respect marriage among
human beings? Why await until marriage to make sex? Is it a wonder then
that the AIDS-government propagandas and the school education stress only
preparation for sex, not for marriage? Would the beast's system do differently?
STUDENT'S VULNERABILITY AT SCHOOL
The influence a child receives at school can mark him for the rest of
his life. An important example is what happened to a young man in Germany.
He wasted the money of his father in drunkenness. For the joy of his father,
who was a lawyer descended from rabbis, the young man was converted to
Christianity and left his bad habits. He began to write poems on his Christian
experiences. Yet, when he went to study in a school institution he fell
under the influence of a teacher who introduced him into an advanced level
of Satanism and radical political ideas. From this point on, the young
man got a new mindset and increasing interest in Satan. His new inspiration
led him to write poems and books on subjects very different from the teaching
of Jesus. In his poem The Player, he wrote:
The hellish vapors rise and fill the brain,
Till I go mad and my heart is utterly changed.
See the sword?
The prince of darkness Sold it to me.
For me he beats the time and gives the signs.
Ever more boldly I play the dance of death.
Somewhere else he said:
Every word of mine is fire and action.
The young man was so marked by the influence he received that he eventually
became the author of books that even today influence nations and world
leaders: The Capital and The Communist Manifesto. His name? Karl Marx,
the Socialism's founder, a government system established to occupy God's
place in the citizens' lives and control and determine everything they
do, especially in the education and family area. Perhaps no ideology has
provoked so much bloodshed to humankind as the Socialistic ideas. In fact,
Marx's words became fire and action, burning and killing. Millions of
innocent lives were destroyed in Communist Russia and China. Millions
of Christians around the world suffered and suffer cruelly in countries
controlled by radical Socialistic ideas, as Cuba, China and North Korea.
In nations where a "soft" Socialism thrives - as Sweden, Holland, Canada
and Germany - Christian churches are withering and the most fundamental
rights of Christians are little by little being suppressed on behalf of
privileges and special rights for homosexual behavior, abortion and other
practices contrary to the most basic Christian and moral principles. Evangelical
parents who, by obedience to God's Word, physically discipline their children
are targeted by the discrimination, prejudice and hostility from the Swedish
and Canadian government officials, while homosexual militants adopt children
and are allowed to promote homosexuality even to schoolchildren. Would
the beast's system do less than this?
SOCIALISM FOR ALL, BY EDUCATION
In spite of all the cruel reality involving Communism, Socialism, leftism
and all their ideological relatives, in the Brazilian schools and colleges
Socialism is presented in the most benign and favorable way. An Evangelical
young man told me that when he studied informatics in a college in Brasília,
the reading of The Capital, by Karl Marx, and other Socialistic books
was mandatory, even though those writings have no relation to informatics.
Can a young student be contaminated and marked by wrong ideas and influences
in school? Karl Marx is a tragic and actual example of what may happen
to a young man in a school setting.
Basically, Socialism - in all its forms - preaches entire submission
and dependence of each citizen on the government and its institutions.
In the most of European nations, their populations have been systematically
indoctrinated, by various educational strategies, not to be "intolerant",
"discriminatory" and "prejudiced" against abortion, homosexuality and
other perversions. They are being conditioned to see as natural government
occupying in their lives a control only God should have. They allow their
lives to be dominated from birth to death. In the past, when there were
family and national troubles, many Europeans turned to God. Today, they
appeal to government. When they needed jobs, they sought God more earnestly.
Now they were "taught" to think that it is the government's responsibility
to give job to everyone. European Socialism has indoctrinated citizens
to see government as the Great Provider. Is it a wonder then that Europe
is forgetting God and experiencing an emptying of its Christian churches?
The "soft" Socialism conditioning in Europe, through schools and media,
programs everybody to think that it is the government that has the duty
to supply solution to everything and everyone. In short, Europeans learnt
to depend more on the government than on God to provide their most basic
needs. For perverts, government gives laws favorable to homosexuality,
instead of protecting citizens against behaviors harmful to their physical
and moral health. For feminists, laws sympathetic to abortion, instead
of taking a consistent stance against the killing of innocent and defenseless
babies. For wives, ways to work outside home, instead of means for them
not to be forced by economical pressures to go out home to work and complement
family income. For children, daycares, instead of means for a mother to
be able to take care of their own children at home. For elderly, rest
homes, instead of working to promote family well-being, for home is the
healthiest place to welcome the weakest human beings, including elderly.
Not to mention that the mandatory school attendance laws keep vulnerable
children many daily hours away from family and its values and close to
government and its values. And the whole society sees as normal the government
role and its Socialistic policies that replace the most essential family
functions. Those policies render family to a certain extent irrelevant
and disposable.
Consider carefully: Would the beast's system do less than
it?
By imposition of the "tolerance" and "cultural diversity" government
concepts, modern schools promote Socialism, evolution, homosexuality and
sex without a need of marriage and moral responsibility. After spending
day after day and year after year under such "educational" influence,
how can children fail to be marked? Would the beast's system do differently?
So an intriguing question is: is the tomorrow's education already here?
Is the education revealed in Revelation already happening?
SCHOOL FOR
ALL, WILLINGLY OR BY FORCE
The modern issue is not only that someone needs
to receive a good education, but where everyone is forced to receive it.
In Brazil, the only kind of education approved for someone to have a good
job is the education from learning institutions following government guidelines.
If a Christian child receives a complete education, at home, all that
will be needed it is a fair acknowledgment. But government has its reasons
and interests for not giving such acknowledgment. Government sees a parent-controlled
education as threat to its ideological intents.
That control over school-age
children follows the Socialism and Nazism's track. Public education has
never been targeted by compulsory government policies in the past, but
the greatest killing dictatorships the world has already known had special
interests. Socialist Russia and Nazi Germany are among the first modern
nations to completely control schools, not to allow an exclusively Christian
education, to force teachers to teach that man came from monkey and to
put human being and his will in the heart of everything in education and
society. In that issue, there are no significant ideological differences
between Nazism and Socialism. In fact, most of the founding members of
Nazism were former Communist militants and it is known that the Nazi Party
- a short name for National Socialist Workers' Party - was a political
movement organized, with Hitler and his elite, by many secret homosexuals.
The greatest human calamity in history - World War II - began when National
Socialists in Germany and Socialists in Russia made a treaty to divide,
invade and ravage the defenseless Poland. After this, the world saw massive
tragedies and destruction. By that cruel example, nations should have
learnt that a government system which controls citizens and forces all
children to attend only Bibleless, government-approved schools is, literally,
on the way to destruction.
Doubtless, the mandatory school attendance
laws in Nazi Germany and Communist Russia would have got full and joyful
approval from the beast. Yet, has the government desire to control school-age
children ended? Sadly, no.
There are already in Brazil and many other
countries mandatory laws forcing all children to attend school, and the
social, legal and political trends suggest that soon no child will be
allowed to stay outside the government-approved education institutions.
Then is the mandatory education revealed in Revelation already beginning
to become real? Today, all children - regardless their religion, ethnic
background and social status - are forced to attend school and receive
an education according to the government determinations. A child may study
very well and even get an excellent educational formation, but if he does
not receive his education through government-determined institutions,
authorities will refuse to him a fair diploma, so that families may never
have the courage to take the responsibility to control the education of
their own children through home schooling. Those government actions leave
a child chanceless to enter the marketplace later. The issue is not only
that government wants children to receive an education, but also wants
them to receive a diploma proving that they were systematically indoctrinated
according to government-accepted principles.
A major side effect provoked
by the position of education on the social pedestal is that young people
are obliged to spend most of their years studying, without being allowed
to think in marriage. In Bible times and even recently, the large majority
of young people could marry as soon as they felt much need. Today, even
in great need, they are forced to await long years to get married, because
of the social pressures in their lives: everyone fears that without a
government-approved diploma young people will be not able to support a
family. Not to mention that the college-environment pressures for dating
early and for not marring early are so enormous that we can consider a
great miracle if a young man or woman finishes college as a virgin.
Surveys
suggest that because of college studies, young men and women now get married
increasingly later in their lives. Yet, they keep feeling sexual desires.
While young people in Bible canalized those desires to sex within marriage,
young people today also canalize them to sex, but not within marriage,
partly because of the social imposition that hinders them from getting
married before a graduation. It is an important dilemma, where often one
or another is sacrificed, even though in the most of times the sacrificed
is family and marriage. So even many Christian young people are, when
they put their education aims before marriage in their urgent sexual needs,
eventually involved in situations very similar to the situations lived
by non-Christian young people: sex and pregnancy before marriage and,
tragically, even abortion. Government solves those "problems" by training
public-school teachers to talk about sexual issues (including birth control,
condom and homosexuality) in a level far away from family and Bible values.
All that government has done, in its efforts to help take "care" of the
children and teens' sexual needs, is to teach students to make sex without
pregnancy and marriage.
It is no novelty the fact that government has
an obsessive interest in the education of all children. Its aim, obviously,
is to form the future citizens' mindset since early.
DIVINE ALTERNATIVE
However, God's Word reveals that God also has a profound and special interest
in the issue of education of the Christian families' children. God's orientation
is for parents to take the responsibility to give their child a complete
education at home, where he can learn much more than only reading, writing
and add. God says:
Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all
your soul, and with all your strength. Never forget these commands that
I am giving you today. Teach them to your children. Repeat them when you
are at home and when you are away, when you are resting and when you are
working. Tie them on your arms and wear them on your foreheads as a reminder.
Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates. (Deuteronomy
6:5-9 GNB)
In Deuteronomy, to tie the commands and teachings on the arms
and on the foreheads is a sign and symbol used to represent the whole
education children are given at home, under the parents' guidance. Who
wrote that text was Moses and he knew very well what is to be marked by
education, for he himself had received such mark. The education issue
is so vitally important that God, through Moses, repeats the same orientation
to families:
Remember these commands and cherish them. Tie them on your
arms and wear them on your foreheads as a reminder. Teach them to your
children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away,
when you are resting and when you are working. Write them on the doorposts
of your houses and on your gates. Then you and your children will live
a long time in the land that the LORD your God promised to give to your
ancestors. You will live there as long as there is a sky above the earth.
(Deuteronomy 11:18-21 GNB)
Another translation is even clearer still:
Place these words on your hearts. Get them deep inside you. Tie them
on your hands and foreheads as a reminder. Teach them to your children.
Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street;
talk about them from the time you get up in the morning until you fall
into bed at night. (Deuteronomy 11:18-19 MSG)
That passage makes clear
that children and the home environment where they live should be profoundly
marked by education. Evidently, that education's heart is God's commands.
Without those commands, all education, within or out home, is worthless.
Parents were put on the position of natural teachers of their children,
with the opportunity and responsibility to teach spontaneously from dawn
to sunset of the day, wherever they are. So while children are in their
vulnerable phase, their closest and most important educational companionship
should be their own parents and their values. God's desire is for children
to stay entirely exposed all the day long, everyday and in everyplace
to the parents' educational example and influence, in order to mark completely
their attitudes and thoughts.
GOD'S EDUCATION VERSUS THE BEAST'S EDUCATION
When God used Moses to orient parents to educate children at home, there
already was an "excellent" educational system outside the family environment.
Today that system occupies so a great position of control and respect
that no one believes that at home a child may receive a minimum of adequate
education. Supposedly "no one can live respectably without going through
an institutional school". So the institutional education occupies a pedestal
of social divinity that no one dares to question.
Even though not attending
public schools, the godly families' children in the Bible received an
excellent education, especially in God's commands. The teachers were not
strange people, but father and mother. School was the home itself.
In
that time there were not pencils, pens, erasers, exercise books, books,
etc. Today, with all the resources available to us, parents think that,
before public-school teachers, they are unfit and inferior to teach their
children. Yet, having only God's Word and following the orientation of
Deuteronomy 11:18-21, parents in the Bible were able to educate and train
children for the Lord. If it was possible to homeschool in that time,
why not now? Today there are fewer hindrances for home schooling. There
are computers, videos and many other tools that greatly assist the child's
learning. Therefore, from the technological viewpoint, there are not barriers
for the child's education to be dispensed at home. The only barrier is
government, which fears to lose the opportunity to mark the child by its
ideologies. From God's viewpoint and calling, parents have the responsibility,
with or without barriers, to take on the whole education of their children.
Home schooling is not impossible. Jesus said himself:
What is impossible
with men is possible with God. (Luke 18:27 NIV)
My wife and I educate
our children by this method, sacrificing everything so that God and his
projects may be absolute priority in their lives. We verify by experience
that a boy learns to write and read better and faster under the parents'
direct teaching. But we are not in no way alone. There are many Evangelical
families in Brazil homeschooling their children, even without any government
support and acceptance. In the USA, the number of Christian children in
home schooling is 2 million and keeps increasing. Yet, even if we were
alone, would it not be worthwhile? After all, God is faithful and he always
honors those who honor him above all.
The public education's aim is to
form the mindset of a boy and girl according to government-approved values
and transmit to them all that those values regard as essential. God's
aim, when he orients parents to homeschool, is to transmit to a child
all God' Word regards as essential. Of course, government has no willingness
to allow God and his Word to occupy the education's heart in the children's
lives. In fact, the modern social and political system wants us to believe
that it is possible to educate a child without mixing "religion", even
though in the public schools there is increasing room for the expression
of the African-Brazilian religions under the mask of an appreciation for
black culture. The whole education that government demands for children
is mandatory and does not include God's Word in the heart of everything,
not much different from the education revealed in Revelation.
[The beast]
also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave,
to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one
could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast
or the number of his name. (Revelation 13:16-17 NIV)
While Revelation
mentions the "mark on the right hand or n the forehead", Deuteronomy mentions
tying God's commands on "the arms and on the forehead". That Bible symbolism
refers to a whole and "marking" education in the children's minds and
attitudes, but with one difference: Deuteronomy presents God's design
to form children at home, but the humankind's future educational formation
Revelation shows will happen outside family's influence, control and their
values. Its most important connection will be the beast's values, and
the most effective way to transmit those values is taking advantage of
the opportunities when children are away from the parents' direct supervision.
- What is the place where a boy and a girl stay more hours, daily, away
from family's view and moral protection?
- What is the place where they,
in their most vulnerable years, stay more time away from the parents'
influence sphere?
- What is the place where they stay, during years, most
close to government and its values?
Answer: The institutional school setting.
Revelation shows that, through education, the beast-chosen values will
be implanted in every child and teen: religious and atheist, poor and
rich, black and white, employees and employers, etc. One of those values,
for example, is the tolerance, respect and acceptance as normal of behaviors
such as homosexuality. That education will be, in most future educators'
view, complete because the human being and his will be in the heart of
everything.
However, what good will it be for humankind to reach high
levels in its education "quality", without God's Word? "What good will
it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or
what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:26 NIV) Noah
Webster, author of the known Webster's Dictionary, stated, "Education
is useless without the Bible". Would a Bibleless education be worth the
sacrifice of our children's souls? Martin Luther declared, "I am much
afraid that schools will prove to be the great gates of the hell unless
they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them
in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures
do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not increasingly
occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt".
Was Luther mistaken?
Today almost all examples of Evangelical families where there are children
turned away from the Lord, the children began to distance themselves from
parents and their values during the period when they attended an institutional
school. They turn away through friends' influence, especially in the school
setting, where often there is not respect for the moral values of God's
Word. Besides, in the modern institutional schools a child and teen absorb
new values and basically learn independence from family and its values.
MOSES AND THE BEST SCHOOLS, FROM A HUMAN VIEWPOINT
Does God need the government-controlled
education to "build" and use a man or woman? Perhaps no one has experienced
so much of such education as Moses did. As the adopted son of the Pharaoh's
daughter, the ruler of Egypt, Moses spent significant part of his life
receiving education in the best Egyptian universities, which were regarded
as the most advanced in his days. In today's language, it would be as
studying in the best American universities. Modern history books confirm
that education in Egypt was advanced:
Many of the modern ideals and beliefs,
as well as great part of the knowledge on man, had its origin in Egypt.
The ancient Egyptians developed the first kind of national government
in the world. They produced a significant art and literature. They initiated
an architecture based on stone and made the first adequate material for
writing, the papyrus. They established the 365-day year, and the basic
methods of geometry and surgery.
Moses spent almost 40 years of his life
studying! His educational formation in the Egyptian universities was so
comprehensive that he became, by all knowledge and training he got, a
man having an ability to speak eloquently and achieve great works and
undertakings in the political, scientific, social, philosophical an military
areas. "Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was
powerful in speech and action". (Acts 7:22 NIV) Much before his being
used by God, he acquired an impressive fame and influence as a thinker,
philosopher, orator and entrepreneur. By human standards, which respect
only diplomas, he was bound to the success of the great careers.
Because
of his special education, he was more than prepared to lead a people,
in the political and military sphere. One of his first acts, after years
of training in the Egyptian learning institutions, was to kill an Egyptian
who was mistreating a Hebrew. Even though God often directs his leaders
militarily, he did not need the Egyptian educational and military training
to use Moses to lead the Hebrew people in their exit from Egypt. So God
led Moses to the desert to remove from him the education and preparation
of Egypt and give him the education and preparation of the Lord. There,
after years working with flocks of sheep and without access to books and
other means to feed the vast cultural knowledge he had acquired in the
Egyptian universities, he lost his ability to speak eloquently and courage
to accomplish great works (see Exodus 4:10,13). Forty years of desert "training", without access to the high human knowledge of Egypt which
he is so used to, left him humble in his words and actions! The long years
Moses spent in the Egyptian universities also were, in the same measure,
the same long years God chose to mold him and remove from him the marks
the Egyptian education had left in his way of thinking and acting.
After
spending 40 years in the desert and being "unmarked" and "decontaminated"
from the Egyptian education, Moses could have what all the years of study
never gave him: openness and sensitivity to hear and attend to God's voice.
In order to remove from him all negative socialization he experienced
in the learning institutions, God put him in a situation where there was
almost no social contact, except his wife, children and… God's presence.
Seeking God profoundly in the solitude of the wilderness was a momentous
experience that helped him become a man sensitive and open to the Holy
Spirit. Hearing the Lord's voice, he kept learning his will and, eventually,
he was used by the Holy Spirit powerfully to teach God's people. In fact,
it was through him that the Lord gave the orientation of Deuteronomy 6:5-9,
where parents are instructed to take on the whole education of their children,
marking their minds to think and their lives to act as the Lord determines.
Moses knew very well what school education is like. Philosopher Philo
of Alexandria (circa 20BC-AD50) remarked that Moses studied mathematics,
geometry, science, astronomy, poesy, music, medicine, hieroglyphs, etc.
He studied all that the Egyptian universities had to offer. Even though
the instruction he received in Egypt marked him powerfully to speak and
act according to the education of the best learning institutions of his
time, Revelation makes aware that the beast's system will surpass the
Egyptian education, marking much more profoundly the way people speak
and act. Of course, the beast's conditioning in the people's minds and
lives will come disguised as excellent human education.
In Deuteronomy,
God uses Moses, a man having vast experience in the human learning institutions,
to show parents that the best education happens at home. In Revelation,
the beast will show and force all the people to accept as fact that the
best education happens at institutional schools, outside the sphere of
family and its values. The sign or mark on the hand and the forehead the
Bible reveals suggests the power of a systematic education marking profoundly
students in their way of thinking and acting. The difference is where
each system works to mark the people's lives.
Mandatory institutional
school attendance is increasingly the government choice for families.
Yet, God's choice gives us the option to choose a better way to train
our children academically, free from government interference. God-approved
education has home as the essential school, but the tomorrow's education
will happen away from family and their moral and spiritual supervision
in the children's lives. That future education will happen under the responsibility
of governments and laws inspired by a spiritual entity which wants to
condition human beings to think and act, in some respects, as savage animals
or wicked people, who do not follow or respect God's commands, especially
in the issues of sex, family, children, abortion, homosexuality, etc.
JOHN THE BAPTIST AND THE BEST EDUCATION, FROM GOD'S VIEWPOINT
The current
generation needs God's visitations. And the truth is that he is very much
pleased to visit people to bring healing, deliverance, change and salvation.
If we want to bring up and educate children who will have a spiritually
strong life structure to help prepare the visitations the Lord wishes
to achieve in this desperate and needy world, we need to have the willingness
and spiritual openness that the couple Zechariah and Elizabeth had. They
were willing to sacrifice everything for God and his projects. Because
of this willingness, God gave them the honor and opportunity to become
parents of John the Baptist, the man God used to prepare the people's
hearts for the coming of Jesus Christ.
John was trained in a very special
way, since early in his life. He was born exactly in the time of Jesus'
birth, and he was almost killed, for in his furor against the coming of
the baby Jesus in the world, King Herod launched a campaign of persecution
against families in the town of Bethlehem. He ordered the killing of all
babies, hoping to destroy the Messiah who had been born. To save their
baby from death, Zechariah and Elizabeth took John and fled to the desert,
where they lived hidden from the authorities. They were already very old
and probably spent their last years in the wilderness, protecting and
training their special boy.
Zechariah and Elizabeth, who were very godly
people and came from sacerdotal families, were very qualified to teach
everything about God and his powerful Word. They strongly implanted in
John God's truth and commands and gave him basic instructions on how to
survive in the wilderness. By his rustic attitudes, we can notice that
he grew up without a "normal" sociability. But God chose exactly such
circumstances to train him to grow up different from other people. Men
and women who have a special mission from God in their lives are trained,
since early, in a special way of life different from "normal" people.
The special training of John changed his life, strengthened his calling
and moved the Holy Spirit to pour out on him the powerful anointing of
Elijah, a praying man who lived in deserts with God, a man who was prophetically
used by the Lord to touch a whole nation.
From a human viewpoint, John
may have lost many opportunities of social contact, but there were not
actual losses, as confirms Jesus, "If anyone would come after me, he must
deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to
save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find
it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits
his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son
of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then
he will reward each person according to what he has done". (Matthew 16:24-27
NIV) His lack of "normal" social contact was met by God with a special
training that involved him in very special contacts: most of Jesus' apostles
already followed John much time before knowing Jesus. He got the privilege
to guide the early spiritual training of Peter and other disciples of
Jesus! From a spiritual viewpoint, the education John received was very
helpful and gave him a strong structure which made him able to prepare
the men's hearts who would take important part in Jesus' ministry.
God
found it necessary for John to be brought up in the desert, with many
sacrifices to him and his parents, so that he might stay away from every
kind of negative socialization and influence that could turn him from
the divine calling to him. The only education John experienced in his
wilderness seclusion was the Bible and personal instruction that his parents
transmitted to him. There was nothing more to divert him. There was no
other kind of educational influence. His most important contact was the
presence of the Holy Spirit, his parents and their values. And he was
not the only man of God to "lose" on behalf of more important aims. Apostle
Paul said himself, "Not only those things; I reckon everything as complete
loss for the sake of what is so much more valuable, the knowledge of Christ
Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have thrown everything away; I consider
it all as mere garbage, so that I may gain Christ". (Philippians 3:8 GNB)
Zechariah and Elizabeth died soon, but their spiritual values and teaching
never died. "Son, do what your father tells you and never forget what
your mother taught you. Keep their words with you always, locked in your
heart. Their teaching will lead you when you travel, protect you at night,
and advise you during the day. Their instructions are a shining light;
their correction can teach you how to live". (Proverbs 6:20-23 GNB) They
homeschooled his son themselves. Their homeschooling was passed on together
with the teachings of God's Word. The God-intended education has home
as school and God's Word as education's heart, under the direct supervision
and companionship of parents. Even distinguished men acknowledge that
the best education comes from the Bible. Theodore Roosevelt, President
of the United States, stated, "A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth
more than a college education". To acknowledge a truth is important, but
to sacrifice oneself for it is of infinitely more value. The parents of
John the Baptist sacrificed everything to put God's Word above all in
the education of their son.
All that Zechariah and Elizabeth taught John
remained alive in his soul, guiding him in the purposeful mission to announce
and prepare the Messiah's coming. By his home schooling (or, more appropriately,
his desert schooling), John was enabled to do what, in God's sight, is
the most significant aim of every human being: to live God's will and
calling on earth.
Modern education and its formal institutions may appear
much more appealing, sophisticated and important than the Christian teaching
at home, but institutional education is a deceptive-promises filled, treacherous
oasis increasingly controlled by governments to indoctrinate children
systematically. That control and indoctrination is the central characteristic
of the beast's system revealed in the book of Revelation. In contrast,
home schooling offers freedom for families to strengthen and protect their
children morally and spiritually. Is that education achievable? In the
examples of Moses and John the Baptist, God shows that even in deserts,
where there is shortage of educational resources and where no one sees
hope for success, he can educate and raise up great men of character,
integrity, wisdom and courage to lead a nation, train leaders and, especially,
honor the name of Jesus Christ. So if God can work in deserts, how much
more at home!
For Christian families, home education is essential because
its control does not belong to government, but to parents. Home schooling
gives parents the precious freedom to put God and his will in the heart
of everything and train and enable a child to become an adult equipped
to do God's will, glorify the Person of Jesus Christ and help advance,
in society and the people's lives, a higher government: the Kingdom of
God and its values. So home-educated Christian children are given the
wonderful opportunity to know and obey their Master, Teacher, Lord and
King and are trained, as John the Baptist was, to help men and women become
enthusiastic and passionate followers of Jesus. Such education is perfectly
attainable when parents give free room and full opportunities for God
to be its Enabler.
Bible translations used:
GNB: the Good News Bible -
Second Edition © 1992 by American Bible Society.
Darby: A literal translation
of the Old Testament (1890) and the New Testament (1884). By John Nelson
Darby (1800-82)
ESV: English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.
KJV: King James Version.
MSG:
Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible
in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights
reserved.
NIV: New International Version. Copyright International Bible
Society.
Copyright 2004 Julio Severo. Julio Severo is a Brazilian writer.
Copyright 2004 Julio Severo. Julio Severo is a Brazilian writer. He is the author of the book O Movimento Homossexual (The Homosexual Movement), published by the Brazilian branch of the Bethany House Publishers. He writes especially on pro-life and pro-family issues and his work has been mentioned in the Brazilian Congress and in major national Evangelical magazines, including Revista Show da Fé, Eclesia, Enfoque Gospel, etc. Besides, his articles have appeared in many Brazilian websites and published (including three cover stories) in Defesa da Fé (Defense of Faith), the leading apologetic magazine for Evangelical leaders in Brazil. He is also a homeschool leader in Brazil.
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