Vol. 2 Timely
Greetings No. 26
THE ONLY
PEACE OF MIND
Volume 2
Number 26
Copyright, 1948, 1953 Reprint
All rights reserved V.T. HOUTEFF
SHINTOISM AND NON-PROGRESSIVE
CHRISTIANITY
TEXT FOR PRAYER
"Bring Forth Fruit"
I shall read from "Christ's Object
Lessons," pg. 60, the first two paragraphs:
"God bids us fill the mind with great
thoughts, pure thoughts. He desires us
to meditate upon His love and mercy, to study His wonderful work in the great
plan of redemption. Then clearer and
still clearer will be our perception of truth, higher, holier, our desire for
purity of heart and clearness of thought.
The soul dwelling in the pure atmosphere of holy thought will be
transformed by communion with God through the study of the Scriptures.
"'And bring forth fruit.' Those who, having heard the word, keep it,
will bring forth fruit in obedience. The
word of God, received into the soul, will be manifest in good works. Its results will be seen in a Christlike character and life. Christ said of Himself, 'I delight to do Thy
will, O My God; yea, Thy law is within My heart.' 'I seek not Mine own will, but the will of
the Father which hath sent
What shall we now pray for? -- Pray for
power to enable us to meditate upon His love and mercy and thus cause our
perception of Truth to become higher and holier; pray to realize that the soul
that dwells in the atmosphere of holy thought is transformed; pray to learn by
experience that the Word of God received into the soul, does manifest Itself in
good works.
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SHINTOISM
AND NON-PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY
TEXT OF ADDRESS BY V.T. HOUTEFF,
MINISTER OF DAVIDIAN 7TH-DAY ADVENTISTS
SABBATH,
MT.
Our text for this afternoon's study is found
in--
Jer.
In this verse we are told that the way man
should go is not in himself, that he of himself does
not know how to direct his steps.
Someone else must direct them if he is to go in the right
direction. For this very reason God's
people are led by a prophet and are preserved by a prophet. (Hos. 12:13.) So it
was that through the medium of the prophets God led and preserved the Church of
the Old Testament, and by the same Spirit He founded, led, and has to this day
preserved the New Testament Church, although the spirit that rebelled against
God's leadership anciently, is still in the Church today.
Naturally men are unconscious of the fact
that they cannot direct their own steps even after God starts them out as a
father starts out his little son. We
should never forget that when God's ancient people rejected the prophets,
including John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, and the Apostles, when He could no
longer lead them, their feet slipped in every direction,
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they fell from grace and lost everything. Only the followers of the prophets remained
with God and they only composed the Christian church in its beginning. No other than God did direct their steps into
the Church.
Let us take another example: The world at
large today, with but a few exceptions, is Buddhist,
Mohammedan, or Christian. Two-thirds of
the world's population is still following in the steps of Buddha, who lived
about 550 years before Christ. Think of
it! Two-thirds, a little less than a
billion of the world's inhabitants are still followers of Buddha!
And who was Buddha? What kind of a man was he -- good or
bad? Was he a deceiver or was he a
teacher of righteousness?
To find the answer, let us first take into
consideration the kind of people he was in contact with. He was not in touch with the Hebrews, nor
with the Christians, but only with degraded people of the Orient. And those who did not come in contact with
Buddha's teachings, -- those of the south sea islands in particular -- are to a
large extent still cannibals.
Taking these facts into consideration before
passing judgment we may ask, What did Buddha deceive
his followers from? -- From nothing is the overall answer. And what did he lead them to? History gives this answer; "What he
taught the people was that they should seek salvation not through the observance
of religious rites and ceremonies, but through honesty and purity of heart,
through charity and tenderness and compassion toward all creatures that have
life." -- "General History," p. 66.
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Since Buddha's kind of teaching certainly
does not come from the Devil, and since he led his followers from bad to
better, he could not have been a deceiver.
Buddha, moreover, not only taught good morals, but, if history is
reliable, he himself lived up to what he taught. Finally, in keeping with his great influence
he could have been a rich man, but he died poor. And if standards of living have any virtues
at all, Buddha's standards, if lived up to, could have lifted the people of the
Orient higher than the level of many so-called Christians in our day.
Buddha therefore appears to have been a
preacher of righteousness in his day, for his standard of behaviour
was practically the standard of the ten commandments,
the standards of the Bible. Where did he
get such a standard? Certainly
not from the Devil. We may now
ask the question, Was God in Buddha's day interested only in the Hebrew
nation? Did He entirely neglect the rest
of the world? And did He deliberately
permit a third of the earth's inhabitants to be led by Buddha from bad to
worse? or did
He see that they be led from bad to better?
There is but one answer that we can honestly
and wisely give: That God through Buddha did for the heathen that which could
not have been done through Moses or through any of the Hebrew prophets.
Comparatively speaking, God through Buddha
raised the heathen from the pit in which they were as many inches up, as Moses
raised the Hebrew's from the pit in which they were. The Hebrews, of course, rose much closer to
God than the followers of Buddha because the pit in which Buddha found the
heathen was much deeper than the pit in which Moses found the Hebrew nation.
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Buddha himself never thought that after his death
he would be worshipped as a god by his followers -- no, no more than the
prophets, the Apostles, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, thought they would be
worshipped after their death.
You can now see that while Buddha was
directing the steps of his people, the people were led closer to the standards
of the Bible and to the ideals of Christ than they were before his day. Since this is so, then Buddha was not a
deceiver.
As soon as Buddha died, though, his
followers ran against a wall as it were, and their
progress toward God, the Bible, and Christ, stopped where Buddha stopped. Indeed they could not have advanced further
for they made the death of Buddha become their block against progress toward
God. How did they do
it?--
It is a known fact that when people give
credit of a Divine deed to a finite being, then their hope of another as great, or greater ever coming to help them is forever
gone. They do not believe that God
lives, that he will raise another even greater to lead them further, but
believe that there is no need of another and no need for more Truth. Consequently as they do not expect another,
when one comes they reject him. Thus the
Buddhists put a stop to their spiritual progress. So you see that when the light that is in you
becomes darkness, "How great is that
darkness!" Matt. 6:23.
Judging from the experiences of the past,
the freedom of a nation and the assassin's bullet this year are likely to bring
forth another god -- Mohandus K. Gandhi. He is likely to become the Buddha of
today. Yes, the Hindu millions are
already giving to Mr. Gandhi the
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credit for all his good and Godly deeds.
He, like Buddha, certainly was a good man,
with high standards and good morals, the standards and morals of the Bible and
of Jesus Christ.
This brings us to another hard question to
answer -- Since Gandhi lived in the Christian era why did he not become
Christian? -- Perhaps he would have, but I suppose he took into account that to
become a Christian and join the Christian church would lower rather than lift
his standard of behaviour.
As he saw it, it looked to him that a
so-called Christian nation was sapping the blood of his people,
that she was abusing and treating them as inferior human beings. In fact, he himself, for his stand on
national decency and national freedom spent about twelve years in jail. These are the things that most likely kept
Mr. Gandhi from joining the Christian church and people. He certainly did not turn away from Christianity
to avoid any sacrifices, or to indulge in any sin.
Gandhi's theory, moreover, for freedom by
non-violence, by neither sword nor gun, succeeded and freed over 400,000,000
people who had been servants of the strong for nearly 200 years! This he accomplished while the Christians
were killing one another by the thousands!
These are some of the things which most likely kept Mr. Gandhi from
becoming a Christian.
Let us now for a moment consider Mohammed,
to whom something like 220,000,000 people bow.
What kind of man was he? Was he a
deceiver? or
was he a teacher of righteousness? -- Let us also consider
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the people who were taught by him. They were the descendants of
Since Mohammed led millions of Arabs closer
to the Hebrew-Christian religion than the so-called Christians in his day would
have led them, it is hardly possible that he was a deceiver. He led his followers to a higher moral
standard of living, modesty, cleanliness, regularity of prayer and Biblical
diet than the Christians of his day would have led them. Mohammed's theory of religion according to
history, and as Mohammedanism has it now is this:
"Mohammedanism, the
name commonly given in Christian countries to the creed established by
Mohammed. His followers call
their creed Islam (entire submission to the decrees of God), and their common
formula of faith is, 'There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his
prophet.' The dogmatic or theoretical
part of Mohammedanism embraces the following points: -- 1. Belief
in God, who is without beginning or end, the sole Creator and Lord of the
universe, having absolute power, knowledge, glory, and perfection. 2. Belief in his angels, who are impeccable
beings, created of light. 3. Belief in
good and evil Jinn (genii), who are created of smokeless fire, and are subject
to death. 4. Belief in the Holy
Scriptures, which are his uncreated word revealed to the prophets. Of these there now exist, but in a greatly
corrupted form, the Pentateuch, the Psalms, and the Gospels; and in an
uncorrupted and incorruptible state the Koran, which abrogates and surpasses
all preceding revelations. (See Koran.) 5. Belief in Gods prophets and apostles, the
most distinguished of whom are Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and
Mohammed. Mohammed
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is the greatest of them all, the last of the prophets
and the most excellent of the creatures of God.
6. Belief in a general resurrection and final judgment, and in future
rewards and punishments, chiefly of a physical nature. 7. The belief, even to the
extent of fatalism, of God's absolute fore-knowledge and predestination of all
events both good and evil." -- "Twentieth Century
Cyclopedia," p. 507.
In view of the fact that Mohammed led his
people closer to the religion of the Bible than they had been before, could he
truly be called a deceiver? If so, tell
me what did he deceive them from?
Since Mohammed was so near to believing the
Christian religion, we may ask, Why did he not become
a Christian? -- Let us consider the possibilities that could have prevented him
from so doing:
Mohammed lived in the seventh century of the
Christian era, in the midst of the Dark Ages of religion, when the Christian
church was deepest in idol worship, graft and immorality, practices that are
prohibited by the Scriptures. If nothing
else could have kept him from joining the Christian church, then idol worship
along with the prevalent use of swine's flesh, practice that is against all
Bible religion, was enough to turn Mohammed from Christianity.
Mohammed, I believe, did the very best he
could, considering that in his time the so-called Christian church was at a
very low ebb, and that his morals and behaviour were
much higher than were the morals and behaviour of the
Christianized pagans. In view of all
this, who can say that Mohammed was a bad man, that he was a deceiver?
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Are we still inquiring why God permitted
Mohammed to teach his religion to millions of the earth's inhabitants? And do we still wonder why he did not become
a Christian? -- If so, here is a second answer: God permitted him because
Mohammed was making the people better than they were, and because Mohammedanism
in that day brought one closer to the religion of the Bible than could have paganized Christianity.
But why are the Mohammedans still Mohammedans? -- Mohammedans are still
Mohammedans, for the same reason that Buddhists are still Buddhists; that is,
because after Mohammed died, they did just what the Buddhists did: In the
progress of religion the Mohammedans stopped where Mohammed stopped -- at his
tomb. They stopped there to make sure
that their followers would never join another sect. They taught the people that there was to be
no other prophet, that Mohammed was the last, that there was no need for
another, that they had all the Truth to lead them to the pearly gates. Thus corrupt Mohammedanism drilled this false
idea into the minds of the common people then, and still more corrupted
Mohammedanism of today, like all other sects, including corrupt Adventism,
still does the same. Thus it is that no
sect as a people, but only as individuals, has ever accepted an additional
message and this is the reason for the multi-sectarian world.
So to ask why Mohammedans and Buddhists are
still Mohammedans and Buddhists -- why have they not advanced since Mohammed
and Buddha died, is like asking why Catholics have not yet become Lutherans,
why Lutherans have not yet become Presbyterians, why Presbyterians have not yet
become Methodists, why Methodists have not yet become Baptists, why Baptists
have not yet become Seventh-day Adventists, and why Seventh-day Adventists have
not yet become
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Davidian Seventh-day Adventists? The overall answer is that each successive
denomination has failed to keep pace with the progress of Truth because each
has failed to climb higher than the height of the founder of each respective
denomination could possibly have led them in his life time.
The Jews never rose higher than the height
to which Moses led them. When Moses
died, they as it were died with him so far as spiritual progress was
concerned. Thus it was that they
rejected and killed the prophets that came after Moses, not sparing the Son of
God.
The same spirit prevailed in the Christian
church. She never rose above the level
on which the Apostles left her, and for a time she even fell almost to the
bottom of the pit. And she would have
dropped out had God not again visited His people in the persons of Luther,
Knox, Wesley, Campbell and the other reformers, through whom the Lord brought
to light certain parts of Bible Truth that had long been trampled under
foot. But did the Christian world as a
whole see the Light? And did all walk in
It? No, indeed
not, not as a people, but only as individuals.
This is what accounts for the present multi-sectarian world; that is, as
it became necessary for Christ to organize a new church, the Christian,
separate from the mother church, the Jewish, in His day, just so the reformers
found themselves cast out from the mother churches, and necessarily were
obliged to organize the followers of advancing Truth into a new denomination,
one after another.
In this light, you see the spirit which
keeps the Jews still Jews, the Buddhists still Buddhists, the Mohammedans still
Mohammedans, the Catholics still Catholics, the Lutherans still Lutherans, the
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Methodists still Methodists,
the Baptists still Baptists -- the very same spirit is today working within our
own denomination, the Seventh-day Adventists, presumptuously believing that
they are rich and increased with goods, in need of nothing more. It, too, thinks that its dead founder was the
last in the line of the prophets, that there is no need of another. It feels certain that the light and energy in
its ship, Zion, is sufficient to take it to the shore of the Kingdom, though
they well know that their message, the Judgment for the Dead is not the last,
but that the Judgment for the Living, the which they do not yet have, is the
last! This spirit of sliding back rather than going forward, of opposing
spiritual growth, and at the same time fostering the spirit of lukewarmness, is successfully working with many in spite of
the fact that the prophecies of the Bible which point to our day, are to them
still mysteries. They care not to know
them.
There is therefore yet a great work to be
done, not only for all nations, kindreds, tongues,
and peoples, but for the Church herself, if any are to be saved from the coming
doom. According to Jeremiah's prophecy,
corrupt Christianity is nothing short of a form of Shintoism:
Jer. 10:1-5 -- "Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be
not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for
one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the
hands of the workman, with the ax. They
deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid
of them; for they cannot
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do evil, neither also is it in them to do good."
The widely used Christmas tree, on the 25th
of December -- a tree cut down from its source of life and fastened up by nails
-- does not symbolize a birth, but rather one's death and a futile effort to
make him live. By cutting down the tree,
to the heathen it symbolized their dead chief, and by propping it up, it
symbolized life though one be dead. Now the fact that the spurious Christmas tree
is widely celebrated not only by Christians, but also by non-Christians, the
world by this act is worshiping the dead, a form of Shintoism. Worshiping the dead prophets and killing the
living ones, is a brutal effort to block the progress of Truth, to deceive self
and others.
Finally, had it not been for the fact that
some wide-awake ones throughout the ages have dared take up their cross and
follow God through His prophets in order to be led from one height of Truth to
another, the world would not have stood this long.
There is no doubt, the Church from creation
till today has been led and preserved by the prophets, and she can continue in
no other way from here on.
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