The moral of the story!

Monday, 01 March 2004

In these conversations of mine with the Witnesses about the Quran, at the very moment I was about to abandon the Quran, the things they threw out made me cling to it with even greater curiosity. At the same time I was astonished. Those people’s knowledge on this subject was very slight, and they were deliberately taking sides as well. Now, if someone were to ask me, “Do Muslims know more?” of course I would say “no.” After all, did none of this happen under the influence of the Muslim world too? Isn’t it thanks to the foolishness and the evil deeds of the Muslims that these people consider themselves in the right? Only Christianity is no different either. In short, one cannot form a true judgment about these books by looking at the Muslim, the Christian, or the Jew. If one were to believe them, that too would not be a faith acceptable to God. They actually drive a person away from these books, in the opposite direction. If it is a lie, then look at our world and see, thanks to the fruits of those religious people, how many have any knowledge of or interest in these books. Very few, only the odd worthy person, has occasionally emerged from every religion. And them too, according to the standards of their own times, they have cast out by calling them “mad,” or by throwing them into prison, or by killing them.

Well then, how can knowledge be given to a person who has no interest? Yes, quite true, but there is another truth in it: the things they give and teach as knowledge to those who come to them aim solely to make you serve them and to enslave you to themselves, and it is for this reason that those people have felt no interest. With those ornate, swollen words of theirs they cast bait before people. (2 Peter 2:18-19) So that they will come and be caught on the hook. These are not people with no interest at all. If they had no interest, they would not have come there in the first place. But the interested ones who see these truths, as I said, quite rightly become uninterested. In truth, through their works those religions steal people away from God and drive them off. And for them this is a great success! Because they are not serving God anyway.

On these matters many people think wrongly, and I too used to think that way. For instance, we say that Jehovah’s Witnesses cast out from among themselves anyone who steps out of line. Aren’t those who are cast out from among the Witnesses actually a loss for that organization? I used to think that parties and teams look at numbers, and the more members they have, the more they rejoice by just that much. Since these people cast out from among themselves anyone who spouts off, I said to myself that, unlike the others, they do not stoop to throwing out bait to people. But the governing body’s tactic turned out to be something else entirely.

They cast out bait too, but they do it starting from the principle that rather than a thousand who bring them no benefit, there be a single one who obeys their word. Crudely put, it also fits the saying “where there is a crowd, there is filth.” They don’t even want them, saying they would only be a burden. Just as the Colonel in our national security course said: “Rather than feed a brigade of infantry, I would sooner feed a regiment of commandos.” That is, the logic of “rather than ten thousand lousy infantry, let there be a thousand commandos.” The Witnesses’ governing body in America knows this too, and applies it. And the point is not in quantity or scarcity, but in advantage. What they need are strong, powerful, moneyed donkeys that will carry them on their backs. Why would these men need a crowd? Are they going to gather votes, that they should seek a crowd? That is the politicians’ business. Have you ever seen kings shouting at the top of their lungs in the squares, explaining things to the people? Kingship passes from father to son; why should the man tire his vocal cords into the bargain? Now and then, when they deign to appear, they wave their hand among the people, and whether it is accepted or not, if they are going to give one they give some kind of speech just for form’s sake. That sheeplike people adores this. They practically trample one another just to catch a glimpse of that superhuman being from within the crowd!

When I look at England on this matter, I ask: what is the meaning of this kingship, this queenship, this princedom? What do these give to the people? They certainly take, but why do the people of this clever England, with its long arms reaching out like an octopus across the world, still look up to those kings? Are the kings so formidable that they simply cannot bring them down? In fact it is quite the opposite: most of them even take pride in these kings and queens of theirs. All those most famous magazines and periodicals with glossy, colorful, gaudy, fancy covers tell almost nothing but the stories of these people. They take their pictures. If one of them is caught taking a leak, this becomes a great event. What do you mean, the king has peed! Or the old queen tripped and stumbled over her foot. Well, there’s news for you. She’s the queen, of course her tripping becomes an event. They’ve smooched each other in their bedrooms — go on, read about this for months. Do you find these things boring? People adore them. And those periodicals are not working for their fathers’ good. It means there are people buying and reading, and so these men publish such news. Sometimes an ordinary outsider enters this palace as a bride. Just as, for the Witnesses, playing golf up in heaven above the clouds with the angels, so, for that person, entering the palace is like that. But a very short while after entering their midst, the person suffers a great disillusionment; her stomach turns, such a retching comes over her that she cannot keep herself from vomiting, and she flees from that life too. She begins to air their dirty laundry. Not all of it is that important, but then, as luck would have it, she also asks for the very thing these people love most, that is, money, compensation and the like. Not much time passes at all. Oh, what’s this! There’s an accident, and both that woman and her lover die, they vanish. God forbid, God forbid, just look at this coincidence! And then such a funeral is arranged, of a kind to make people go “oh my, oh my,” splendid. All those who did this deed will be flying with joy, if only those vile journalists weren’t around! And then you should see the people who come to that ceremony, they’ve come in herds. Millions, stone-headed millions. That thing called a head that they carry on their shoulders and the thing they carry below their waist are the same. There’s no difference at all.

Why am I telling all this? Do I want to talk about politics or something? No, I have no interest in or love for that business at all. I want to tell people about ourselves. It is we who make those kings and queens into kings or queens. We take them onto our backs and carry them. We have bent over, we have put a saddle on our backs, and we are waiting. Well, of course we did this so that someone would sit on it. Fine, let us say it is like this from a political standpoint. Even with all this, we still said, “No, this burden is not enough.” Over our heads, under the name of religion, we have set popes, hodjas, rabbis, chairmen, administrators, organizations, and mounted them on our backs. And whoever has become a donkey to whom will insist on praising the very thing he carries on his back. He allows no word to be said against it. Perhaps he praises the thing he carries on his back not because he loves it, or finds it worthy. Its constant “giddy-up,” the poking of a stick into his rear, the spurring with its heels — especially if, like the Texas cowboys, the spurs are thorned and made of iron stars! With all of this his body is in pain, yet still he says, “there is death but no turning back,” and he will insist on praising the things he carries and exalting them to the skies. Because if he speaks ill of them, won’t they say, “why are you carrying them then, man?” If he says he has no other choice, it will come out that he is a donkey. And that person who has become a donkey is very ashamed of this. Sometimes he cannot bear the pains, and he rebels and runs off to another place and takes shelter in someone else’s stable. But is one freed from being a donkey by changing stables? When the owner of the stable there sees this, he is flying with joy, saying, “a free donkey has come to us.” And the one who has made himself a donkey thinks to himself: “This new master is better than the other one; look how happy he was to see me.” As for the stable owner, since he found him free and ready to hand — he rejoices because he found him ready, but he places no value on him at all. Just as the value of things obtained for free is, so is his. When does that donkey realize this? Only when all his strength is spent and he has become good for nothing? Unfortunately it is usually so. By then it means the deed is already done and past mending.

Who laughs more, the old or the children? Did you say the children? Is this so because the child is foolish and the old are wise? If laughing is a sign of joy, then who is wiser? Are you saying, “Come now, what have these got to do with each other”? Who does not want to experience events at which one laughs, always laughs from the heart? Amazing — everyone? Why does this become impossible as one grows older? Donkeys, too, hardly ever laugh. That beautiful face of his is always sorrowful. The donkeys whose situation is best are those in the zoos in Germany, or in some other European country. They don’t have to carry any load at all. They are captives, but unburdened. This time, with this example, I spoke of literal donkeys. But the people who are like donkeys, neither in Europe nor in America nor in Asia nor anywhere else in the world, are in a good situation at all.

How are the old to laugh? No matter what kind of life he has lived, when he takes a look at his life, at his past, whoever’s back he has climbed onto and gotten down from — while he was using that one as a donkey, another was climbing onto his back, and yet another onto the other’s. In the end, let the life be squeezed out of whoever is at the very bottom. And it has been, and this time the one just above has sunk to the very bottom. Yet why do we not want to stand upright on our two feet, instead of on all fours? God created the donkey as a donkey, and the human as a human. Why can we not know our worth as human beings? Pardon me — I meant not only our own worth, but one another’s, the worth of all humanity. Believe me, even those who climb onto backs and have themselves carried will be happier once they begin to walk on their own feet. Thanks to us, the men’s feet have gone numb; they can no longer walk. Once they fall, they writhe on the ground like worms! Their feet will not hold them so that they can get up. We are the ones spoiling them. And it is a pity for them too — thinking we are doing good, we are in fact doing one another such great harm. Either we crush, kill, annihilate one another, or we take one onto our backs and say: “From now on don’t even go to the toilet, do your business right on my head!”

There was a time when at the head of Israel, God’s chosen nation, there was neither a king nor a ruler. There was no one to collect taxes, no one owing military service. The only tax one would pay was, if one had sinned, to take a sacrifice to the priest so as to show one’s repentance. According to the law of that time, since the priest was the mediator between God and the servant, in a sense the person was giving the sacrifice to God. And it was accepted only if he confessed and said, “I have committed a sin,” that is all. Later on, roughly 400 years after coming out of slavery in Egypt, these men came to Samuel, the prophet of that time, and said, “Set a king over us, as the other nations have.” Samuel becomes very angry. See what God says to Samuel the prophet at that time:

But when they said: “Give us a king to judge us,” the thing was evil in the eyes of Samuel. And Samuel prayed to the LORD. And the LORD said to Samuel: “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for it is not you whom they have rejected, but it is I whom they have rejected from being king over them.” 1 Samuel 8:6-7

But God goes on and says, “Only, warn them solemnly and tell them of the manner in which the king who will reign over them will rule them” .

Let us see, then, what those kings they so insisted on wanting will do to them, and what the rule of this business is. Let us read, and take note that God is saying all of this.

Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king: “This will be the manner of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and among his horsemen. They will run before his chariots. He will appoint some as commanders of thousands and some of fifties. He will assign some to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and some to make his weapons and the equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. He will take your finest fields, vineyards, and olive groves and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and your grapes and give it to his court officials and his other servants. He will take your male and female slaves, your finest bulls, and your donkeys, and put them to his own work. He will take a tenth of your flocks too. And you yourselves will become his slaves. When these things come to pass, you will cry out because of the king you have chosen. But the LORD will not answer you on that day.”

Do you notice what God means? By wanting a king, are they not in fact plainly saying: “Let us be slaves not to God, but to man”? See what this people still says, having heard all these truths:

However, the people refused to listen to Samuel’s voice. “No,” they said, “but let there be a king over us to rule us, so that we too may be like all the nations. Our king will judge us, go out before us, and fight our battles.” 1 Samuel 8:19-20

Yet what is the trouble with these people, that they keep seeking a calamity for themselves? If it is a king they wanted, God was already king over them. Indeed, did not God say: “They have rejected me from being king” ? Was God a bad king, that they wanted a man, who is supposedly better, to be king? When we read it, we say, “how absurd.” But in practice, we too are exactly like those Israelites. What did they say? “We will be like the other nations.” Why did the other nations attract them inwardly? What was their superior aspect? They had armies, soldiers, kings. At first glance this order looks pleasing to the eyes. Organized armies, identical uniforms, formations in certain ranks — these look ever so good to them. So good that they no longer even want to see the truth. Yet who are the ones who make up these armies? What do they really imagine? Do they think the one they call king will do everything single-handedly? No, quite the contrary — in fact he will make them do everything. And that by force. Moreover he will make them carry his own burden too. The most precious things in their hands the king will take. Their daughters, their young men, the best of foods, the most delicious of drinks — the king will use all of it for his palace and his servants. God said only briefly that things would be like this. But in the history of the Holy Scriptures, we read that those kings brought far more terrible calamities upon their heads.

Let us not look at it as though only the Israelites of that time were very foolish and evil. Because whatever they were, we are too. They were chosen and set down in writing only so as to be an example for humanity. (1 Corinthians 10:6-11) Had God undertaken to have the history and experiences of all nations written down, imagine now how many Holy Scriptures there would be. Even with just one, people do not take it up and read it. Yes, the people of that time were no different at all from the people of our time. Let today’s technology and such not astonish us. People’s fears, anxieties, grudges, jealousies, love of money, ambitions, hatreds, feelings of self-interest, laziness, and so on, existed back then too. Let us ask the same question again: what were the reasons that drove these people to that condition? Why did they prefer a man in place of God?

At the start of the subject, I spoke of how people make donkeys of themselves. Perhaps you perceive these words as a fairy tale, a joke, or an insult. There are surely some among you who say, “Come now, would a human ever make himself into such a thing?” Think for a moment. Run through the history of humanity in your mind, according to your knowledge. There have always been some people over our heads. And wherever they went, we have gone after them. And most of them led us to ruin, brought unhappiness, and became a torment to humanity. Anyway, let us not speak of all that has come upon our heads, but rather of why we were donkeys, so that those things could come upon our heads. As I said, someone who stands there on all fours, with a saddle on his back, waiting — what does he really mean to say? Does this not mean: “Climb onto my back and take me wherever you want, and I will carry you”? That is, let me not think at all, let me not tire my head at all, you take on all the problems and troubles, and I will do whatever you say. As if the person he takes onto his back will not have his own troubles and problems? Will he protect you thinking only of your troubles and problems, that you make yourself a donkey to him? In a danger, will he protect you and throw himself forward, as it were, in your place? Or will he push you into danger and flee himself? Of course he will push you forward and flee himself; this is how it is by its very nature. Does becoming a donkey keep one far from danger? When you say, “Leave me alone, let me not think, let me not toil,” will those troubles and problems be lifted off of you? The ostrich, they say, buries its head in the soil when it sees danger — does this protect it from danger? Precisely this — not thinking about these and similar questions and problems — is what has led us, like the Israel of that time, to become donkeys. Some enjoy climbing onto backs, while others enjoy taking others onto their backs.

At the bottom of these matters there always lie laziness and fear. People are afraid of making a mistake. They are afraid of making wrong decisions. They think about the problems and cannot find their way out of the matter. And so this time they come to hate responsibility and flee from it. They think, let some other person shoulder all these troubles. They imagine that with this they are relieved, that they will be at ease. People are always optimists anyway. They are optimists because they are afraid of realities, of the truth. So the king is doing the people this evil? “So be it,” he says, “that won’t happen to me.” Even the worst of it is going to happen, this way or that? Still he passes it through his mind: “this situation won’t find me.” Bad things will always be for others; he himself is always outside those bad events. Heaven forbid he should ever think for himself, so long as he is not forced to make those decisions. Let others do these things in his stead. Let others think in his place and, supposedly, calculate how we might reach prosperity. And even if he does it with the money in his own pocket, so what, dear me. As if those at the top go into the assemblies with the money in their own pockets? Do they eat one another up for free, like cockfighters? Do they open wars on other lands trusting in their own sons? No, all of this, but all of it, and more besides, they do by taking it from you and from me. He opens the war, you and your son die. He spends the money, you and I pay. He causes the harm, he makes the wrong decisions, and you and I bear the punishment for it. They do not even lift their tiny little pinkies to touch these burdens. Those whom we set over ourselves, saying, “please, rule me,” do it all in necktie and jacket, with a chauffeured official car, eating the best foods, using the best servants — and all of it taken and torn from your very life, your nails, your flesh. The men sit down in that chair at 70 kilos and become 120 kilos already in their very first term.

In the old days kings were chosen from among the bravest heroes. They made the most stouthearted men king. So that they would perform feats of valor and protect them, they would also send him foremost in battle. Now the age has changed. The most spineless men, men who are scared to death of their wives, who cannot make their own children mind them, govern states and open wars on others. Never mind governing states — these people govern the world. He himself, meanwhile, is always protected. He is surrounded by donkeys who will go to their deaths without blinking to protect his life.

We have taken these onto ourselves — fine, let us say. As if all this were not enough, since we have gotten used to this situation, we have sought a chief for ourselves even in our relationship with God. Saying: “Oh please, I can’t do it, I can’t speak, I don’t even know how to pray; you speak with God in my place, you believe in my place, you think in my place, you research in my place, you learn. You pray for me, guarantee me heaven, I am with you. I will do whatever you say, so long as you are over me.” By saying this again and again, we have made those who can’t hold their bowels and let it slip into their underwear into mediators in our relationship with God. And are they going to let themselves be crushed under these burdens! They have climbed onto those donkeys’ backs, squeezed their windpipes, and on top of that: “Bring us whatever you have, you bad, lazy sinners, you hypocrite infidels, God tells us so!” And they have brought it, and trembled and shivered before those people. They have not truly feared God even a ten-thousandth as much as they feared them.

Let us say that, whoever they may be, those we have set over ourselves are good; indeed let us suppose they are very good people. Let there not be even a single stain on them. Let us assume it is so. Well then, what benefit will this be to us? Can those people save us? Have we not read “no” from the words of God? If we have forgotten, let us recall it again from the book of the prophet Ezekiel, where it says:

The word of the LORD came to me: Son of man, when a land sins against me by acting unfaithfully, and I stretch out my hand against it and break the staff of its bread and send famine upon it and cut off from it man and beast; even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, by their righteousness they would deliver only their own souls, is the word of the Lord Jehovah. Ezekiel 14:12-14

……Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, is the word of the Lord Jehovah, they would deliver neither son nor daughter; by their righteousness they would deliver only themselves. Ezekiel 14:20

Astonishing! It is written so. So then, no matter how good a person is, our attaching ourselves to him does not necessarily save us. Through our own righteousness and good works, we ourselves may hope for salvation from God, but not from that righteous man to whose skirt we cling. That God Himself plainly states that such a person, on his own account, can save only himself and can save neither son nor daughter. Why do people not want to understand these truths?

This truth is thus when one attaches oneself to a good person; well then, what about when we attach ourselves to a crooked and evil one? Will the excuses “it happened because of him, I did whatever he said, this happened because I went after him” save us? Please open the Holy Scriptures and read from 2 Kings 17:7 up to verse 23. See the end of Israel, this people that God Himself had chosen, and why this end came upon their heads. As for what it is to go after those kings, nations, and the ones they set over themselves, I will write only a single verse related to our subject.

All this came upon the Israelites because they had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. For they had worshiped other gods, and had lived according to the customs of the nations whom the LORD had driven out from before the people of Israel, and according to the rules that the kings of Israel had made. They had done these things that the LORD their God did not approve of, in secret… 2 Kings 17:7-9, New translation

There, we have seen where the kings — of whom they so insisted, saying “we want a king over us” — led them. With their own laws and rules, they destroyed that nation. In the history of humanity, did this come upon the head of Israel alone? No, this disease of setting someone over oneself — this making of chairmen, kings, prime ministers, popes, muftis, faithful and discreet slaves — rules over all peoples and nations, and in our time these rules, applied in an even more severe form, rule over all of humanity. This passion is the passion of “I can’t do it, you would surely do it better.” What a wretched, pitiable state we are in. In writing these things I made no joke whatsoever. Nor did I exaggerate with the things I have described. Believe me, donkeys would not do the things we do, but we humans do them!

Many people say, “it cannot be otherwise.” In their view, it is impossible for it to be otherwise. Yet God, with the example He gave concerning Israel, showed that this could be. And He had written down the examples showing how — over sinful people, faulty people, like ourselves — they lived for roughly 400 years without a king, without a chief. Well then, did this nation have no problems during that time? Of course it did; and so, how did they resolve these problems of theirs? The book of Judges in the Holy Scriptures speaks only of these experiences. The evils that came upon them were always because of their own sins, that is, their immoralities. But when they pleaded, God nevertheless had pity on them and raised up a deliverer from among them. Yet these deliverers did not fasten themselves onto them as kings or anything of the sort. He too was no different at all from the other people. From time to time the Israelites’ desire to make a king existed in their days too, but the judges always rejected these desires of theirs. It is plainly written in Judges 8:22-23. When they wanted to make that judge and his children king over them, they say that “neither he nor his sons will rule over them, but the LORD will rule over them.”

In the problems and disputes among them, in every city there were God’s priests, the Levites, who acted as judges through those called elders, people trusted for their word and for themselves. They too from time to time took bribes and gave crooked judgments. We have to accept that problems like these will exist everywhere. How many innocent people there are who have been condemned to death because of a slander, an injustice. Even so, these judges who give crooked judgments do not necessarily mean a king, a ruler. Even if the judges had authority over the people, this was not like that of a king, of a chairman. It was limited only to being a judge. And again, when an event occurred, as a nation they all made decisions as if they were one man. Over a problem they would come together like this, put in the effort until that problem was resolved, and then they would all disperse again to their homes. There is neither a head nor a tail, all as though one man. There were times when they argued, and surely times when they wrangled too. Their greatest helping standard was the word of God. Even in that, there was no obligation to accept that only what one person said was right. There were cases they never could resolve; then they would consult God and ask. And God would answer. If someone asks, “Now if we were to ask, would God answer us too?” — whoever your king is, whoever your chairman is, through whomever you draw near to God, will not God say too: “Go to him; why do you come to me?” (Judges 10:10-14) Is He unjust in saying so? Even so, God is forgiving; we live by taking refuge in His mercies. Even though this people of that time also had their sins, their king was God. And accordingly, in their problems, in their great problems, they consulted God. But the trust that present-day Jehovah’s Witnesses show to their governing bodies as so-called faithfulness — these men did not bring to God, as a problem, a question like where should we relieve ourselves. Even though God was king over them, He also gave people the mind, the talents, the capacity, the qualities to govern themselves. And He wanted them to use these qualities too. That is, God is in favor of people being active. He does not want to raise passive, cowardly, lazy people who have trouble knowing what to do, as is the case in religions, in states, in rulers. These things put the brakes on people, stifle their talents, destroy them. Because, however much the creature called man has debased himself, he is the only being possessing the most exalted creation on the face of the earth.

Concerning this subject, the most striking and finest example is written in the book of Judges, in the passage from chapter 19 to chapter 21. In total, three chapters or sections. About a tribe within Israel that in time became immoral, and the things it did. There it tells the story of how all the tribes of Israel gathered as though one man and how they judged that tribe that had set itself against them. The words that occur in that verse are exactly as follows:

And all the people rose up as one man and said: “None of us will go to his tent, and none of us will return to his house. And now this is the thing we will do to Gibeah: we will go up against it by lot” …Judges 20:8-9

Among them there is no chairman, no king, no ruler. The people themselves are the chairman, the head, the ruler. The whole of that nation, every last one of them personally. There are also those among many people who think: “This won’t work now; those in that time did it, but we can’t.” Yet so-called communism began with a philosophy resembling this. But a far greater regime of oppression is what actually came out from under these words. In this writing of mine I am in any case not saying that we will go back to being like the Israelites of that time, nor that such a thing will ever happen again. The things we should await cannot go beyond the message the holy books give in the words of God anyway. From these books we also know that in the future, the one who will rule the earth as king, from the heavens, will not be a man, but Jesus Christ. And the one who appointed him as king is God Himself. And such things will not happen again anyway. Rather, everyone will be full of love toward one another, and no one will be able to impose sanctions and rules over anyone else, such as oppression, ruling, or dominating. The name of this is paradise. And no human being will establish this paradise. Because human power cannot achieve it. That is, we have need of a superhuman power, of God.

With all this, we do not mean to oppose the present-day governments and the like. Because there is no government that is not from God, or that God has not permitted. In the Gospel it is written so. (Romans 13:1-7) Let this not mean that God accepts and approves every evil, ugly, God-distant thing that governments do. Just as, in every kind of evil we do, God does not give our punishment at once but permits us, so too He permits the governments in the same way. Let God’s not punishing at once not embolden us. Unfortunately, it does embolden us. The wise Solomon writes in the book of Ecclesiastes that it is so:

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Ecclesiastes 8:11

Let us return again to those who say: “This is impossible; doing those things that happened in the past is something we cannot achieve.” Yet when people read these books, they generally hurl remarks against the Jews, like, “those people were very evil, stubborn, thickheaded and faithless.” If they were able to do it without a king for centuries with these so-called evil qualities, and if we are better than they, then why can we not do it now? When it suits our purposes, is it justice to say they can do it and we cannot, or the reverse, that they are the worst nation and we are not? As I said, we are no different from them. They too came from Adam, and so did we. Are there those who say we came from monkeys? Of course there are; in humanity there are yet all sorts of things. Even if we came from monkeys, it still means we are the same sexless lot. Let us not ask whom the monkey came from! Because those clever ones, by this route, abandon investigating their own human lineage and set about investigating God’s lineage, and by asking a question like, “Then where did God come from?” they insist on wanting to prove themselves right in having come from a monkey. Do they imagine that with such a question they have proven the truth! Are people in the right when they ask questions whose answers are unknown? A little earlier I called people donkeys, but I made a comparison. These, however, do not use coming from monkeys as a comparison; they believe it exactly so. Do they imagine that by forcing themselves to believe a lie they will escape from the truths? Let them go on. As we said, since no one can bring salvation on another’s behalf, if they will be able to give an account, let them go on. The soul is one’s own soul, the body is one’s own body, and God is the God of us all, but a day will come when everyone will give an account before Him.

For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. Ecclesiastes 12:14