In this chapter we want to find ways through which the entire world can be full of good people. Good people before God and good people before fellow human beings. In the new covenant, the blame game is not tolerated, and fault finding is prohibited. For this reason, we should help one another, Live In Peace (LIP), that is, peace in our inner hearts as well as peace in our surroundings. The country may be at peace, however, certain groups of people could be in torment of the heart and mind. It is the duty of everyone of us to see to it that we are all at peace, as well as in good health and with enough provisions. In the past neighbours would know each other very well and help was at hand, but of late, things are changing, our neighbours suffer alone in their homes while we are enjoying ourselves behind locked gates. Let us start from the basics, befriending our neighbours.

The Bible will dictate to us what it means to be good people by looking at the law of God in the beginning compared to where we are now. Therefore, we will go to the Old Testament and start from there. At the same time, we will place Jesus Christ, the Saviour of this world, at the centre of it all, for he came and made several changes as many of you already know. The changes we will make will be in line with what our Lord Jesus started during his earthly ministry.

From Genesis all the way to Malachi, our loving God lists several things of which he called abominations. An example of these is found in Proverbs 6:16–19. Seven things are listed here: “Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are swift in running to mischief, a false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers” (Proverbs 6:16–19). An abomination is something that God hates strongly. There are more than fifty listed abominations in the Bible, I cannot write them all here. All I can tell you is that every kind of sin is detestable before God, all sins are abominations to God. That puts the entire world on the wrong side of God as we all sin in one way or the other. On this very note, the entire human race is not good before God.

Be that as it may, out of his love for us, God took his own son, Jesus Christ, and gave him to us as our frontier. He made a covering for all of us, so that, when we fail to live by his requirements, God would not see our filthy and mischievous acts, but would only see the righteous life of his Son, Jesus Christ in us. God’s eyes will only go as far as Jesus and not beyond that border line. Therefore, anyone who is in Christ is a good person before God. This plan was devised by God himself, in order to save us. In simple terms, God gave us the “righteousness” that he so much wanted to see in the first family and in the BC group that failed to live by God’s rules. The AD group was fortunate to be awarded this “righteousness” without working for it. I cannot even compare it to an honorary degree because somehow you would have done something worthwhile for you to earn it. We, the beneficiaries of the life and “righteousness” of Christ Jesus are supposed to follow on the footsteps of Jesus by showing mercy and love to one another in the land of the living. The human being must be a helping hand to another human being. This is what God wants to see us do collectively, it will please him so much when we all live in love with one another. We can only do this by looking at what those before us did in order to bring peace and wellbeing to all people.

We will look in the Bible at how life was in the beginning and also look at what they changed as they progressed from generation to generation. We will also look at the issues that concern us today and see what we can change so that we can be good people before God and before the entire human race. Remember, if one group of people are suffering, the whole world may suffer. Read 2 Samuel 21 and learn about what caused drought in that nation.

In the Old Testament and perhaps the New Testament, those generations had slaves. It seems that it was tolerated in those times. However, we do not get any outcry of slaves until the Jews were enslaved by Africans in Egypt. I am not sure if this was the worst slavery in the history of that time or not. All I picked up from the Bible is that God reminded his people throughout the Old Testament that he rescued them from the land of slavery (Africa). The question is, what kind of cruelty did these people endure to the extent that all other nations talked about it? Being an African myself, I wonder if we were the first perpetrators of this kind of severe forced labour on the sons of Shem, and then the sons of Japheth ravished us in later centuries. The Bible portrays Africa as the breadbasket of the entire world. All nations went to Africa for food during famine, for refuge during the war and for civilisation. Even our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, found Africa to be a home away from home. We provided the world with every need that it lacked. Taking into consideration that Nimrod, one of our own was labelled ‘a mighty hunter before the Lord’ we can conclude that the African is a powerful and blessed being among all God’s creation and was given the best climate, fertile soil and rich minerals underground. The same Nimrod went and built eight cities before the sons of Japheth and Shem built anything. This explains why the entire world came to Africa for support of every kind. The African enjoyed free foreign labour for centuries to the extent that when the slaves left, he had no urge and the know-how to work for himself hence his current state.

As for me I was born when slavery was history, therefore I salute the generation that put a stop to it and chose to be good people in their time. Slavery was terrible and I do not wish it on any nation. We may have today what is termed modern slavery or voluntary slavery as people knowingly go into the same ships that took slaves to America and other parts of the world. This too should come to an end because the seas have had their fill of dead bodies and the suffering for the survivors is endless. The work of employment agencies and soccer clubs selling “people” so to speak, is part of slavery. Slavery as a term, in addition to what is presently defined in the dictionary, should be extended to mean ‘benefit of a third part’. Employers and employees should hire each other without any broker or middleman earning something. The moment one earns out of another is slavery because the broker is taking a share which could have been used to pay the hired worker a decent salary. Furthermore, slavery does not mean working for nothing and against one’s will but means earning a token and the rest going to a broker. Maybe one day someone will stand up and put a stop to all that because human beings should never be sold to anyone or to any organisation.

Again, in the Old Testament era, certain offenses resulted in death by stoning. Offenses like blaspheming the name of the Lord (Leviticus 24:16), adultery (Leviticus 20:10), rebellious children (Deuteronomy 21:18-21) breaking the Sabbath rules (Numbers 15:32-36) and of course murder. Any wrong doer, depending on the severity of the offense as dictated by God, would be taken out of the camp and stoned to death. That was a painful way of dying. This continued until the time of Jesus. When Jesus came, he rescued the woman caught in adultery from being stoned. That was the beginning of a new era – and the end of ‘death by stoning’. After the incident of the woman caught in adultery, Stephen was stoned to death in Acts 7:54-60 and then Paul was stoned and left for dead but regained consciousness and went ahead with his work (Acts 14:19).

I am not sure if there were any other incidences of stoning after that, when I read through the New Testament, I could not pick up any. Today we still have death penalty in certain parts of the world, but other countries have abolished it totally. Death by lethal injection is by far less gruesome than stoning. The mercy and grace of Jesus Christ touched the generations before us and changed the way they behaved in the past. We can also show mercy and change the harsh judgements that we are exerting on certain quotas. I know that in certain countries they still stone people to death. It is my hope that one day the authorities of those nations would consider the mercy of Jesus Christ and change their ways.

The next change that comes to my mind is the isolation of the sick. The sick had to be placed outside the camp for days or months and in some cases for years. There was nothing wrong with that because it was done for the sole purpose of infection control. However, when a word has been on the mouth of people for too long and is used to describe something not so pleasant like a disease, it is subjected to abuse and in the long run, loses its real value because whenever the word is spoken people see the condition and not the word itself. In the end the word may be despised, even if it is as simple as the word “leprosy”. Today’s society is dropping certain words that they think are derogatory, but the fact of the matter is that people do not see words, they see the condition that has been built around the word. For example, the term Tax Collector was used but over time people hated them so much (Luke 19:7). One would think, changing their title to Revenue Officer would help change the perception. Yes that may work within five-ten years but in the long run people get too used to the new title so much that they only see the work of harassment and mercilessness attached to the words “Revenue Officer”. The Bible used the words “clean” and “unclean”. There is nothing wrong with those words but as you know with time no one wanted anything to do with the leper because to them they were unclean. No one wanted to eat with or to touch the leper. “As long as he has the infection, he remains unclean. He must live alone in a place outside the camp” (Leviticus 13:46).

The segregation and isolation of the leper went on and on until the time of Jesus. When Jesus came, he had compassion on the lepers, touched them and healed them. This surprised all those who saw him touching because for them they were born into and brought up during the period when touching lepers was forbidden. The generation that saw Jesus’ mercy over the lepers, changed their perception and as a result, became the end of suffering for the lepers, they could mix and mingle with others freely thereafter, I suppose.

God may have given the instruction as recorded by Leviticus 13:46, but society took it the wrong way because they never understood why he did that. If we want to be good people let us imitate Jesus who taught us to love one another. We may not understand why God gave certain instructions but one thing we now know is that Jesus showed compassion, touched and loved all those society had rejected. Therefore, LOVE is our baseline going forward to being good people.

The human being wants the ‘why’ explained first before the command, he wants to be told why certain things should be done that way, but God is God, he does not have to explain himself to anybody. That is why the book of Leviticus has so many rules and regulations that all of us today are no longer keeping. I do not think we are not keeping these laws in defiance to God, but we are basing it on what Jesus did when he interacted with us during his earthly ministry. For example, in the book of Leviticus, we are given a strict guideline on who the clergy can marry, “The woman he marries must be a virgin. He is not to marry a widow, a divorced woman, or one defiled by prostitution. He is to marry a virgin from his own people, so that he does not defile his offspring among his people, for I am the Lord who sanctifies him” (Leviticus 21:13-15). Even though the reason for the command was given, today, even ages before, the clergy divorce – not because they want to, but, like any other person, circumstances beyond them cause their divorce. However, they remarry anyone as they please, all because of the mercy of their Saviour, Jesus Christ, the messenger of the New Covenant who, by his life covers them against this offense. He (Jesus Christ) sanctifies them.

Every generation before us has had its own type of “leprosy” that caused segregation and discrimination. As for us today, we are challenged to embrace in our hearts people with infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, SARS, MERS, Ebola, Covid-19, Hantervirus and many other diseases that we feel may endanger us. We can have a show of acceptance on the outside, yet our hearts are rejecting the infected. However, God, who sees inwardly, wants us to open our hearts and love the infected and the affected. More “leprosies” will come but now we know what Jesus did for the outcasts, he had Compassion, he Loved them, he Touched them and he Healed them and he said to you and me, “What you see me do, you will do also, even more than I do, you will do” (John 14:12). Use this abbreviation to remember what Jesus did for the people, C.L.T.H (Compassion, Love, Touch, Heal).

Another bone of contention is found in Leviticus 18:22 which I can say refers to the LGBTQ. It is a pity that not one member of the LGBTQ went to Jesus by day or by night to ask his views on it. We do not have a written opinion of Jesus Christ on the matter except that, in comparison with cities that would reject the salvation message, Jesus said, “It will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that city” (Matthew 10:15). This statement on its own places the sin of rejecting Jesus Christ and the existence of God above all other sins. Besides that, looking back at what Jesus did for all those that were the outcasts of the time, I would also think that he would have showed compassion on the LGBTQ, loved them, touched them and healed them as he did with the leper, the blind man and the woman with the issue of blood. Jesus healed the physically challenged individuals, he healed the lepers, he raised the dead without declaring himself unclean after being in contact with the dead body according to the rule in Numbers 19:11. To me the law of the dead body and cleansing or isolation as we call it today, had something to do with infection control. At the time no one did any autopsies therefore they had to handle bodies with caution to avoid transmitting infection to their entire camp.

1 Corinthians 6:6-10 has a list of people who will not enter the kingdom of God. Our aim is to help one another enter heaven and be good people to one another here on earth. Therefore, we must critically examine the list that Paul gives us in 1 Corinthians 6:6-11. Let us read the whole passage below:

1 Corinthians 6:6-11
“Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters. Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God”.

Let us also read Galatians 5:19-21. “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21).

In case your sin was left out on the list that Paul gave us – do not boast as yet, yours is definitely mentioned below. “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars, they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulphur. This is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).

Now we all know the truth, we are all equally barred from entering heaven. All sins are the same before God as we see in Revelation 21:8. There is no sin that is regarded as petty because he who wrote the book of Revelation got the list from Jesus Christ himself. If Jesus said a liar would not enter heaven that means the sin of a murderer and that of a liar are regarded as the same. It does not matter if dishonesty does not send us to prison on this planet, before God, a murderer and a liar stand condemned. Let me share with you something we consider small and tiny but has huge consequences on our people. Over a million deaths occur per year that are caused by a tiny little insect called mosquito and yet only 250 deaths per year are caused by lions. Therefore, what we may consider petty sins, these might be the biggest killer in spiritual life.

If Paul’s list is written in order of gravity of sin, then sexual immorality is the most hated of all our offenses. Jesus also mentions it in his list in Revelation 21:8. However, I do not think Paul’s list is presented in degrees of severity. What does sexually immoral mean? It means prohibited or illicit sex between unmarried couples. It does not matter whether the couples are grown up adults or children, the meaning remains the same, it is illegal sex by unmarried couples. The sexually immoral people are known as fornicators in the Bible. Many people have accepted fornicators and changed the name so that it may lose its biblical heavy meaning to “cohabiting”. Many churches of today are no longer placing these sinners under the rod of the church like in the past. Actually, the rod of the church has varnished in many denominations. Fornicators take Holy Communion as they please, they serve in the church as they please, they lead home groups as they please, their tithes and offerings are accepted, basically they are allowed to do anything and yet they are mentioned as the first offenders in Paul’s list. Not only is fornication mentioned first, it is hammered more than the rest. It is hated even more as we read from 1 Corinthians 6:13 to the end. It seems that this sin carries more gravity than the rest, yet the majority of the human race has accepted it as a normal way of living.

Remember, children of God, our goal is to turn every human being into a good person. We are not here to accuse anyone of wrongdoing because our Saviour did not come here to condemn us but to save us. We also should not condemn fornicators but save them as the church of today has done so far by accepting them. It could be that the church became lenient with the fornicators because of the conversation that took place between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacobs Well (John 4). Jesus did not reprimand the woman when he told her that she had had five husbands and the man she was currently living with was not her husband. Contrastingly, with the adulterous woman, Jesus commanded her “to go and sin no more” (John 8:11). The Samaritan woman was given no further instructions pertaining to her personal life except that she was told that the Father was looking for those who would worship him in “Spirit and in Truth”. We should not forget though that the final instruction from Jesus to John in the book of Revelation says that the sexually immoral will not enter heaven. Therefore, we cannot be sure that his silence at the Jacob’s Well on the matter is a green light for fornicators to continue living in sin.

Nevertheless, we are still looking for a way to help fornicators not stand condemned. We want them to worship God in Spirit and in truth without feeling any shame or guilty because the life of Jesus covers them as well. Matthew 18:19 tells us that, “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven”. Since many churches have decided to overlook this sin, we hope that their agreement was accepted by our Father and his Son in heaven. There is nothing we can do to take the fornicators out of this sin except to encourage them to jump into and live in the Bethesda pool, that is in Jesus Christ (John 5:1-15). In that pool, any type of sin or disease will be washed. No longer does the angel come to the pool once a year but is forever there. Let us encourage everyone to jump into the pool of the blood of Jesus and be saved on the last day. From the beginning of time to this day, the sexually immoral were taught to stop their ways but as you can see, they never stopped. We must stop condemning them otherwise they will be in greater sin because of our condemnation.

The next sin on the list is adultery. Adultery occurs when a married man or a married woman is involved in a sexual relationship outside his/her marriage. There are so many adulterers in the world today the number is beyond count, these are like sand on the seashore. Adultery caused men in the seventh generation from Adam, to marry more than one wife and now it is even worse because on paper, a man has one wife but in reality, he has something else. In Deuteronomy 21:17 there is a teaching given to the people which tells us clearly how far adulterers had gone, and God had to intervene and correct certain matters. “He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father’s strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him” (Deuteronomy 21:17).

God could see and read the heart of his men, he knew that they didn’t love the wives they had married. These women not only lived in loveless marriages all their lives but had to endure the unfair treatment of their children as well. All this, I believe, was hurting our Creator, that is why he had to tell them how far they could go in their wickedness but would not allow certain rights that God had put in place to be taken away, that is, the right of the first born. Adulterers have regarded marriage certificate useless by not respecting the union which God put in place. Having said that, how can we help adulterers to be good people too. The partner that commits adultery brings so much pain on the faithful partner and for this reason we must find ways to help the adulterer to stop this sin. Besides this reason, our Lord Jesus told the adulterous woman to go and stop living in sin. All adulterers must stop their actions because they may not be allowed in heaven as their actions are hundred percent avoidable.

The first question we must ask ourselves is that of the ratio of men to women. Are we paired equally, that is one man to one woman? When we look at global numbers, without considering the age of men, we have slightly more men than women. There are more boys at birth than girls. However, men die earlier than women leaving many women of the same age groups with no partners (https://countrymeters.info/en). There are also more men in certain parts of the world like China and India because of their history but elsewhere men are fewer than women. If we want to be good people on this planet, we should come up with ways to balance those numbers so that there would be no one without a partner, unless it is by choice.

The first thing we must do as good people before God and humans is to avoid conflict which usually sends men to war where they die in large numbers leaving women without husbands. The same women that are left are likely to go for married men causing them to become adulterers or polygamists.

The other solution would be to make a global ruling that every person, man or woman can only marry someone who is 5 years younger or 5 years older than him/herself. This will help every generation to have partners of their own because as it is now a 70 year old can marry someone 20-30 years their junior which is not fair for women in the 65-75 year range, they will be deprived of a partner. Let each age group marry their own age mates and I think 5 years up or 5 years down is a fair number. Every generation would know their boundaries or border line. This must be a state law, not only a church law but the entire country should honour it.

What is the biggest contributor to divorce? I think adultery is still the most cited reason in divorce cases. As long as men are allowed to marry their last-born daughters, marriages will continue to be broken like glass. I say this because some of the women they marry are younger than their last born from the first wife. I still think that, to avoid the sin of adultery, God allowed men to marry more than one wife and overlooked all their concubines as well. He knew that prohibiting them would cause divorce which he said he hated (Malachi 2:16). He left them to marry any number they wanted that is why Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:3). I believe too that as the entire world gets to know the Lord all these weaknesses will come to an end because many people, by choice and not circumstances beyond them, have chosen to commit adultery and have chosen to divorce one for another which is an abominable thing to God our Father.

On the issue of LGBTQ how can we also be good people towards those that are born differently to us. LGBTQ stand for, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. The Q stands for “questioning”, as in still exploring one’s sexuality or “queer,” or sometimes both. We need to be clear though that being LGBTQ is not a choice one makes. It is a condition that one is born with and there is nothing that person can do to change it. If I were to ask a heterosexual man to kiss another man, he would get angry and walk away because his body can never accept a touch from another man. The same with heterosexual women, it is just unimaginable. The same goes for a gay man, to force him to live with a woman because this is ‘normal’ to us is just the same as forcing a person like me to marry a woman. I would rather be alone the rest of my life than to marry another woman.

In my mother tongue we have an expression which when translated to English literally means, one must strive to seek understanding of an issue or a problem before it comes into one’s family. Many of us do not understand much about this condition as it was placed under the carpet for centuries. However, let us seek to understand it when it is still far from us than to seek understanding when your own child tells you that he/she is lesbian or gay.

There is a verse in the Bible which says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15). I think it fits in very well with the situation we find ourselves in concerning an issue we cannot relate to simply because it is not on our “flesh” but on someone else’s. I would rather we seek to understand it whilst it is still far because you never know when the same condition may come in your blood line.

Have you ever seen someone whose first child has had a wedding and the parents of the bride or the groom would never stop telling everyone the joy they have? They can spend the whole year telling everybody and showing everyone the wedding photos. Sometimes you avoid going to their house because you are wearied with their joy. You begin to wonder if their child was the first to wed in the entire clan because you cannot understand their behaviour. This is all because the joy they are experiencing is not in you and because of that you will never understand it. That is why the Bible made it simple for you by telling you to simply rejoice with them whether it makes sense to you or not – just rejoice.

The same goes with mourning, others will do it in a way that you end up asking whether they are the only ones who lost a family member in this world based on the behaviour. The Bible says, just mourn with them, in other words just flow with them because you do not understand what they are going through. Do not wait until loss comes to your family to understand loss. Do not wait for a problem to come to you to understand that problem. Just sympathise and empathise with them. This is what I call everyone to do in dealing with anyone who belongs to the category of LGBTQ, whether you understand the condition or not, whether it makes sense to you or not, whether you know anyone who is gay or not, my request to you is simply accept, tolerate, touch and love as Jesus Christ did. Do not block them from jumping into the Bethesda pool (Jesus Christ). You are not their judge.

Just as God overlooked polygamy so that children will not be fatherless let us allow gay marriages so that our boys will not be sodomised. Again, one may argue that a married heterosexual may rape a girl next door, so having a wife of his own will not necessarily stop him from raping other women. In the same way homosexuals, whether in a long-term relationship or not, may still sodomise young boys. However, we all know what has happened in the past, our tears for the boys that were raped across the globe are still fresh, it is my hope that even churches that require celibacy among their clergy, will think twice on that issue because it is only on paper and in the mouth when vows are made but behind the scenes a lot happens. Untie everybody from the ropes they have chosen to hang themselves with these vows.

Look at this scenario, fornicators/cohabiters do not want a marriage certificate, adulterers have no value or respect for a marriage certificate, the LGBTQ are dying to tie the knot in the church and we are saying ‘no’ to them. Maybe they are the ones who will show both the fornicators and the adulterers the importance of a marriage certificate and what it means to be faithful to one another in marriage unions whether in church or outside the church. Elderly heterosexual couples marry, not to have children, but they desire the church to bless their union only. Some young heterosexual couples make a stern decision not to have children after they wed. Therefore, not every union is a childbearing marriage, the same goes for a LGBTQ union. We should never forget the words of Jesus when a crowd felt that he was wrong in going to be a guest at the house of a sinner. This was Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, considered to be a very sinful man who could not (had it been within the crowd’s power) intermingle with the Lord who is extremely holy. “Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost”” (Luke 19:9-10). The people who grumbled about Jesus’ actions thought they were hundred percent right according to their shallow thinking but to the Saviour himself they were utterly wrong. We also think that we are so “right” on the matter of LGBTQ and yet to God and his Saviour Jesus, we are hundred percent wrong. Know today that, just like Zacchaeus, LGBTQ are sons and daughters of Abraham who are saved by Jesus Christ too and have the right to benefit fully from the abundant life brought about by the Son of God himself.

Isaiah 34:16 tells us that “Not one will lack her mate” therefore let everyone marry, let everyone find a partner. The fact that most of the previous abuse cases are in our courts right now does not mean the end of sodomy. Therefore, let us put preventive measures in place so that our children will not continue to suffer like in the past. Not one will lack her mate, the Bible says. Therefore, let us help one another to have a mate including the entire LGBTQ. Let them also be allowed to have legal unions because they never applied to be born differently from all of us. Remember if we do not condemn them Jesus and his Father will not condemn them. If we choose to condemn them, they stand condemned (John 8:11). In addition to my remarks on fornicators, the Bible goes on to say, “”Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them”” (Matthew 18:18-20). If Jesus is with us, then his Father will accept us. People of planet earth, since we want to be good people before God, that is living in peace, without hating, hurting or harming anyone, why not go to God, through the mercy and the teaching of Jesus Christ and humbly ask him to accept our plea for mercy on behalf of the entire LGBTQ. I think we all agree that no one among us know the current view of God regarding this matter except that when he compared the sin of Judah, he found it worse than that of Sodom (Ezekiel 16:46-50). In verse 49 of Ezekiel 16, God explained the real sin of Sodom and verse 50 he tells us what he did with them.

““‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore, I did away with them as you have seen” (Ezekiel 16:49-50). This was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah as stated by God himself. Even to this day there are so many people who are living in the same sin, they are arrogant, overfed and unconcerned whilst the poor and needy are suffering with nothing to eat or to wear.

All we can do is to bring everyone to God for he is the Maker of us all. Not one sin is greater than the other. There are many sins that are stated in the bible, however, we have chosen to turn a blind eye on some and overdramatised on others. We have no right to do this. Let us touch everyone with the love that Jesus taught us (1 John 2:6). As we all know for sure that the fire of God came down on Sodom and Gomorrah and ravaged everyone (Genesis 19:24-25), we should also know that it was not the only fire in the Bible. The fire of God also came down on complainers and grumblers in the wilderness and destroyed lives (Number 11:1-3). Today we are still complaining about almost everything. When it is cold, we complain, when the sun comes out, we complain of the heat, when it does not rain, we complain, when it rains, we complain. When we have nothing to say about the weather, we complain about the economy. When the economy is stable, we complain about the leadership. If there is nothing to say about the government, we create a “hype” and later complain about it and yet the fury of God does not fall on us but on Sodom and Gomorrah only. It will be hypocritical for us to only think that the flame of Sodom and Gomorrah is still lit and yet the fire of the complainers and grumblers was extinguished. On what basis is our judgement?

The Bible is full of daily instructions from God to us and when I read the story of the adulterous woman, I learn a few things to live by for the word of God is alive and active and relevant to every generation. “Then Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, Lord,” she answered. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Now go and sin no more”” (John 8:10-11) There you go, if no one condemns, Jesus does not condemn either. Let us not condemn others so that they will not be condemned in heaven. Let us rather follow this instruction in John 20:23 which says, “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”” The fact that we have all accepted that cohabiting is no longer “sin”, fornicators are not condemned.

Allow me to put forward this case from the Bible where the writer clearly states that the instruction is from the Lord and not from himself. “To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife” (1 Corinthians 7:10-11). There are two issues here: The first one is that wives should not leave their husbands and the second issue is that husbands should not divorce their wives. Let us all be honest on this case. We are all guilty of this, do you know why? The church ministers conduct and endorse these second marriages, of man that divorced their wives and of women that left their husbands. Friends and relatives attend these weddings with all joy and guiltlessness and yet the Bible says these women should remain unmarried unless they are reconciled to their husbands. The only women who are commanded to remarry are found in this verse which says, “Now to the unmarried and widows I say this: It is good for them to remain unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion” (1 Corinthians 7:8-9). Who, then, among us, can say he heard from God, that we can now do as we please on divorce and remarrying? This according to the Bible is forbidden but we do it anyway because society does not condemn it.

My next case comes from 1 Corinthians 14:33-35 which says, “As in all the congregations of the saints, women are to be silent in the churches. They are not permitted to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they wish to inquire about something, they are to ask their own husbands at home; for it is dishonourable for a woman to speak in the church”. As you all know, no one under the sun is observing this rule and no one gave us a command to ignore it. Paul said, women must be in submission, as the law says, therefore, it is in the law, however, we have deliberately dropped it from our churches today. I will combine this case with another one found in 1 Corinthians 11 about women covering their heads. Paul teaches the Corinthian people to cover their heads when praying and verse 13 says, “Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered?” Verse 16 then says, “If anyone is inclined to dispute this, we have no other practice, nor do the churches of God”.

The question one can ask is, how many women cover their heads when praying? Who said that this tradition has changed? Who said the issue is now insignificant, therefore, God does not real care about it? Who said that we should not consider what Paul said in addressing matters that were arising from various communities that he led? No one said we should ignore Paul’s teaching. We decided on our own, what was best for us as the majority, and what was not. Unfortunately for the minority it has to take decades if not centuries for us to be considerate on the matter. How long did it take the church to accept women as Priests and Bishops? Some churches to this day they won’t ordain a woman as a Pastor. Even when everybody in the world can see that God is using women mightily in ministry, they will not budge. We do not know if the story of Pope Joan is true or fiction, but we all know that the Pope position belongs to the men’s club. I hope after reading this book the Vatican may consider choosing a female Pope for a change.

Going back again to 1 Corinthians 6:6-11, who then will see heaven since all sins are mentioned here? How about thieves, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers the swindlers? Is anyone spared from this list though? Is there anyone among us who can sincerely say he is without sin? I don’t think so, we have to pray for his grace to abound towards us every day. We must ask in prayer that his grace may see us through, that by his grace we may enter into second life because if it is by works and self-holiness no one can see heaven. For this reason, the big debate on LGBTQ should be put to rest because none of us are righteous enough to see heaven on our own but through the grace of the one and only Saviour Jesus Christ. I suggest that we stop condemning one another and put all our energy into helping each person so that we can all see the kingdom without pointing a finger to just one group and say this sin alone is the most hated. Divorce is an abomination to God (Malachi 2:16) but society has no issue with people who divorce even more than twice.

In Acts 15 we find a story similar to what we are facing in our generation. I guess no one had asked Jesus concerning circumcision when he was with them. Jesus had commissioned them to go and preach his gospel to the ends of the earth, baptising everyone in the name of the, 1) Father, 2) the Son and 3) the Holy Spirit. Circumcision was never mentioned as a requirement for salvation. When teachers of the word are not filled with the spirit of knowledge, they twist the word of God and make it so hard for others to accept it. They told the gentiles that “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15:5). That was not true because elsewhere, the Holy Spirit was coming upon the uncircumcised (Acts 10:44-46). The Holy Spirit came upon the people in the house of Cornelius who had never been circumcised, and Peter was surprised. The debate on circumcision was a heated one because the Pharisees wanted the covenant to be honoured forever. They respected God as well as Abraham who had received the instruction and passed it on to all the generations to circumcise their males. Indeed, this was a covenant between God and Abraham’s descendants, therefore, to just drop it was a hard call to make for all Jews. However, the response that Peter gave in one of the meetings silenced everyone and hopefully it can silence us too. He narrated the stories that he had witnessed the Holy Spirit coming down upon gentiles and then said to them, “God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:8-9).

Barnabas and Paul also gave their testimonies of the miracles that God had performed on the gentiles. James then took over the meeting as well and made his final ruling by saying, ““It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God”. The end result of that meeting was that the council members decided to write to the gentiles to continue to worship their God without going through circumcision. None of the council members consulted God on the matter but they made the ruling on their own. Our Lord Jesus also taught us in Matthew 5 that, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8) which tallies well with what Peter said above.

All I can say is this, let God be God today. Let us do the work of teaching the word of God to everyone just as Peter did to the people at Cornelius house and then leave the rest to the Holy Spirit. God wants our hearts, not anything else. He does not want our money, he does not want our fasting, he does not want anything on the external but our hearts. Let us give him that which he requires – a pure heart (internal worship).

Each generation will always have something that divides society. Those before us abolished slavery, removed racial segregation, stopped the barbaric colonisation, raised the standard of the living for the poor by providing council accommodation and benefits, made a way for universal education so that we can all read the Bible for ourselves, demolished the divide between natives and foreigners, brought in a number of rights to bring a smile to those who could not defend themselves. There is no end to change, keep changing what needs to be changed. Let us not build a new divide by calling one group “straight” and another “queer”. Let us enjoy what Jesus Christ died for, that we may all have abundant life and that we may worship him freely in Spirit and in Truth. Let no one curse anyone inwardly or be a stumbling block to anyone (Leviticus 19:14).

However, the question that may be on the hearts of many could be this; does God change his laws because society has changed? When we look at the law of clean and unclean foods we can tell that the laws were reviewed and changed (Matthew 15:11).When we look at the law of stoning we can see that it was reviewed and changed (John 8:5). When Paul gave a ruling that a priest should be a husband of one wife that tells us that celibacy is not necessary, it should not be imposed (1 Timothy 3:2). Countries themselves do, from time to time change, or add new laws to existing ones. As I said earlier, we are not cleverer than God. If we can make those changes to our justice system, do you think the Law Giver Himself does not review and change his laws as he sees fit. He allowed men to marry many wives because he didn’t want children to be fatherless. He said sternly that he hated divorce (Malachi 2:16) but men kept on divorcing their wives. The state changes certain laws in order to help their citizens. God also brought in a new covenant in order to help and make life easier for his creation to be accepted into his eternal kingdom.

Fornicators have changed God’s law on marriage, in a way to avoid divorce by staying together and testing the relationship over time. However, is that the real reason or it is lack of commitment or patience to wait for the right time to get married? Justified as it may – what does God say about it? Truly speaking, as I see it, the cry of God is that we may be saved from the second death that is coming and that we may love one another and that we may worship Him together as one. God is looking for those who will worship him in spirit and in truth. God is looking into your heart and once your heart is right and is committed to him, you will have love to do what is right for yourself first, your family second and for others.

There are so many things that we value which are of no value to God and in many cases, we deceive ourselves. We may think that we are doing the right thing by fighting for this or that and yet we are killing the other. In John 16:2 we read, “The time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God”. Do you perhaps know that when we attack others, thinking that we are doing it for God we may actually be killing them in a way? I have several Muslim friends and whenever we discuss religion, I always tell them that, we do not fight for our God for he is alive and active. Our God fights for himself for he has power to give and take away life. If anyone out there blasphemes the name of our God or his Son Jesus Christ, we have no time to go to war with anyone, for we know that our God deals kindly or harshly with the perpetrator as he sees fit. Therefore, I urge every human being to spend time praying and not fighting against anybody you think is a sinner.

Whoever you think is living in sin out there forgive him and forgive yourself too for pointing a finger. We are all sinners requiring God’s Grace. Let us all start afresh and choose to live clean lives from today. I am not saying the Bible should be re-written, in fact, the verses that we no longer practice should be left for the future generation to know how far we have gone and what we have changed so that when their time comes and there is another “leprosy” that divides them they will do like we did. If we remove those verses, we will damage the generations to come for they will not have anything to base their change on. Besides, we are not allowed to remove or add anything in the Bible (Revelation 22:18-20). Although this instruction was for the book of Revelation it can still pass for the rest of the Bible. I benefited from all the content in the Bible and what surprises me is the fact that, this content was relevant to the generation that was on earth 2000 years ago and it is still relevant to me in 2020. That can only be the Spirit of God doing his work in our hearts. I urge you to get your own copy of the best seller book of all times and enjoy it, invest in a Bible this year.

Let us all go to Jesus Christ to find mercy so that we may be good people before him. I have never seen anyone go to Jesus with a clean life. We all go to him so that he can wash us in his blood, so that he can teach us his word, so that he can turn us into different people by his Spirit. On our own we can never be able to tame our flesh but with his Spirit we will. We are all sinners in dire need of mercy, grace and healing. The Good News Gospel is meant to do the following – to wash us clean, “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11) so that we can all make it to heaven.

Let us hold each other’s hand as sinners and deep ourselves in the precious blood of Jesus so that we will all come out clean, without any blemish. As it is now, we are all in sin in one way or the other as you have seen on the two verses earlier, 1 Corinthians 6:6-11 and Revelation 21:8. Let us all collectively pray for a blanket cover of grace, for an amnesty from our Maker on behalf of the entire planet. Let us all ask God to forgive us for treating each other harshly, for judging others – a work that is never ours. Jesus came so that we can have life and have it in full. Let us not deprive others from living the abundant life that Jesus brought for them. We disagree over trivial matters, which I perceive to be immaterial in the kingdom. What God wants from us is to acknowledge him and worship him together as one. All the other issues we fight for will be solved by him just as ‘death by stoning’ was dealt with, by Jesus himself.

Through prophet Malachi, after telling us about the messenger of the new covenant (Jesus Christ), God listed these sins, “”So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud labourers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,”” (Malachi 3:5). I wonder why God mentioned these sins only after telling us about the Refiner in verse 3 and 4. Maybe we need to open our eyes wider, so that we all come to the realisation that, we are all wrong doers in the new covenant, pleading for the mercy through Jesus. Therefore, we should never be a stumbling block to anyone under the sun.

Do not get me wrong though. I am not saying let us embrace everything. With all the “rights” before us, we are allowed to do anything within the law. However, there are things that are good and there are things that are real evil. The evil, we will have nothing to do with it, we will stand together as the majority to stop it. Paul teaches us about all the “rights” at our disposal, but we should be selective. 1 Corinthians 6:12 says, “”I have the right to do anything,” you say, but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”, but I will not be mastered by anything”.

This book is bringing the knowledge of the Lord to all people on this planet. It is teaching everyone that there is one God and there is one Saviour, Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches us that there is only one Father, that is, God Almighty. There is only one Teacher, that is, Jesus Christ (Matthew 23:8-10). The kingdom of God has only one rebel or dissident called Satan. He operates with the help of his demons. These are the fallen angels, just like Satan who is a fallen angel of God. When we say God created everything, we also include the kingdom of Satan because they rebelled against their creator. The Bible teaches us about the mission of the kingdom of Satan. His mission is to steal, kill and destroy. 1 Peter 5:8 warns us about the activity of Satan, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour”. On the other hand, the kingdom of Jesus Christ brings life in abundance. John 10:10 says, “…. I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full”.

With this knowledge at our fingertips, should we then, deliberately take our innocent children and subject them to the teaching of Satan, that they may know him as a good spirit when he is not? Can we even permit this teaching in the name of “Rights”? I believe there should be a time to draw the line between good and bad. If we agree, together as one, to be good people, where the manifestation of Isaiah 11:9 can occur, then we should stop evil from entering our schools and other institutions. If we agree to be good people let us take the Bible as it is back to our schools to be taught as is and not as Religious Education that encompasses all other man-made religions (Daniel 3).

To protect the children also, LGBTQ marriages should not form part of the school content. We do not want children to grow up thinking that this is an alternative union. This marriage is not an alternative one, but it is specifically for people born that way. They did not choose to be born that way, it is not the fault of their parents for them to come out this way. Therefore, this marriage is only for them. Just as we all know that it is not an alternative for a person with functioning legs to sit on a wheelchair and move around on a wheelchair, the same goes for LGBTQ marriages. The content about LGBTQ and their marriages may be taken out of context by children, they are still too young to understand it. The teaching which is meant for good may be distorted and cause harm instead. Let us leave this for home-teaching and for church-teaching when children are of mature age. This is my humble request to all countries.

Call to prayer
Lord Jesus, I acknowledge that all things were created through you, by you and for you. For years we have done as we pleased but now we give back to you all things including myself and all that belongs to me and all that you gave dominion to us. Take over what was yours from beginning of time and manage it. Fill us with the knowledge of the Lord that we may be good people on this planet. Help us to know God the Father, to know you and to know God the Holy Spirit. Walk among us, guide us and be our good shepherd forever and ever. Amen.

This is chapter 15 of the book “Would you like to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord” Click here to read the whole book.