No dad, I would not
My dad used to ask us, his five little girls, “If everyone was jumping off of a cliff, would you jump too”?
His point was that, just because it might SEEM like something is being done by everyone, everyone doing IT, is NOT a good reason to believe IT is right.
I was thinking about that this morning. I was thinking about how “the cliff” could be analogous to anything that seems to be causing death, destruction or chaos. The cliff, or that which is evil, I believe, might SEEM to exist for the purpose of destruction, but in and of itself, it has NO POWER. A cliff cannot walk, talk, think or do anything intentionally can it?
To imagine “evil” has power, is to imagine that a “cliff” can, of it’s own volition, hurt, or kill us or others , by forcing us or others to jump off of it. But a cliff cannot force anyone to jump. We may KNOW that there is a cliff, located somewhere, just like we might know of something that is evil, but we can completely avoid it and of course, we would think it is silly, to believe that a “cliff” could have any power at all, to do evil. It is just common sense, as Ben Carson says in his podcast.
People who jump off a cliff have to make that CHOICE, to do evil, unfortunately,TO THEMSELVES. The lure of evil is that, listening to it, will BENEFIT the listener. But what happens to people who listen to evil, and jump off a cliff? They destroy themselves.
Think about the “cliff” that says that people should avoid someone who is sick, and refuse to allow them to be with their families. But Jesus says to love your neighbors as yourselves. Does love avoid Gods people, and refuse to touch them? Jesus was around lepers, adulterous women and thieves and murderers, and he helped heal them. Fear of disease was not a “cliff” for Jesus, but apparently it is a tool being used by evil today, because many people, unlike Jesus, are listening to those who would do evil.
God has all the power, not evil, and God tells us through Jesus, in the bible to NOT listen to evil. Jesus did not “rob” evil of it’s power, because evil never had any power to begin with. The only power evil has, is the power people GIVE IT by CHOICE, when they believe the lies evil is telling them. But the only power evil has is to destroy itself.
I have been saying this a long time in the things I am writing about. But something with great Truth, the bible, has been saying this much longer.
In the bible story, in Luke Chapter four, we see how Jesus, FOUR times in this chapter, is face to face with “evil”.
Evil in the form of a cliff, evil in the form of a temple pinnacle, evil in the form of food and evil in the form of the people in the town.
BUT JESUS did not listen to them, not once, He listened to God.
It is easy to read how, in each place where Jesus was confronted with evil in some form, he UNDERSTOOD that it has no power. He rejected it. I am guessing that The bible has four examples, because evil in these forms can seem very convincing to people, and even when Jesus was hungry and felt weak, he was still able to refute the false claims of evil. We can do the same.
A mountain cliff, may be beautiful to look at, like the Mountain cliffs I saw on my Microsoft computer screenshot this morning, depicting Chamonix France, but WE are NOT jumping off of them are we. These cliffs cannot make us jump, and have no power to control, limit or take what is good from anyone, unless we BELIEVE they do. I do not believe they do, and neither do you.
Again, it is just common Sense. THINK about it. No cliff can make anyone do anything stupid or bad. PERIOD. END OF CONVERSATION. What is the cliff in France? Macron? Hmmm… to the people in France, that cliff has no real power. Good is the only power. Now reject that cliff.
What about food? I do not know about you, but it seems there are a lot of people who have made food all about life or death, and have given it great power. IF they eat this food, or do not eat that food, it is bad of us, or bad for them. Or if they are afraid of being without food. But did not God supply his people with food, when they needed it? MANY times? And, Jesus says in the bible, to take no thought for what you eat and drink, so, in other words, food has no “power”.
FOOD is the first example used in Luke, in the bible to show what PRETENDS to have the power, and like the cliff, it has NO POWER of its own. The devil wanted Jesus to turn stones into bread, for food, but Jesus said that man does not live by bread alone but by every word of God. THAT is where the power is, in case you were wondering. Controlling food, to control people, is not what good does. God supplies food.
What about church? Church is a place where people are supposed to worship God and obey the laws of God. But suddenly we are seeing people in churches, who are doing the opposite of good. DOES CHURCH HAVE THE POWER TO GIVE PERMISSION TO PEOPLE TO DO EVIL OR BREAK GODS LAWS? NO IT DOES NOT.
Just because someone SAYS they are religious, does not mean that they are. Does their BEHAVIOR match what God wants mankind to do? Each of us must not kill, steal, be adulterous, and honor God, obeying the ten commandments. Passing laws , dogma or doctrine, that give permission to kill, steal etc. (abortion), which do the opposite of what our religion says, is the same as jumping off a cliff. Religion does not give people permission to do evil. It does not have that power and leaders of religions also do not have that power.
What about people? Do those with great numbers, or yelling crowds of angry people have power? The last example with Jesus demonstrated that even a large crowd of people in his own hometown, wanted to push Jesus off the crest of a hill “a cliff”. In this example, the great people are the cliff, or represent something that claims, to have power, to do evil. (these great numbers can also be small numbers that SEEM to represent real people, like computerized bots on social media,IT, or news media which is telling fake news, like telling all the people that God made a mistake and made men who are women or women who are men). But do they have any power? Does Jesus fear them, or let them control or manipulate the good he is doing?
“And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,
And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.
But he passing through the midst of them went his way,
And came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the sabbath days.
And they were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power.”
FIVE WORDS…HIS WORD WAS WITH POWER. Jesus did not FOLLOW THE CROWD. He went his way, unharmed.
When we listen to Jesus, and the words he is speaking to us, we cannot be harmed by evil. It has no power of itself and it is just a cliff. “HIS word was WITH POWER”, the words of God.
When we listen to God, we can speak to the “cliffs” in the world and tell them to begone, the cliffs in France or the USA, or Canada,(leaders or organizations in high places who think that their place gives them power to implement evil, such as, biden, trudeau, macron, putin, gates, fauci, xi, princes in saudi, eu, wef, the pope, zucherberg, twitter, tik tok, planned parenthood), the cliffs of people in the churches in pinnacle places, the cliffs of food (vegan, gluten, etc.), and the cliffs of popularity(social media, Hollywood).
None of these have any power and, following the example of Jesus, I say BEGONE SATAN. Evil has no power except to destroy itself.
So to answer your question again dad, “would I jump off a cliff if everyone else was”? NO dad I would not. And on a deeper level, I think my dad was telling me with his example, that rational people would not jump off a cliff, but that the reason people DO JUMP, is because evil seems to have an allure. But we know that our conscience always tells us what is good, and we are not confused, addicted, or tempted by the lies and lures of evil.
Thank you God for this new day and I know you hear me, but more importantly, I hear you, always.