“Do you see all these things?” Jesus once addressed his closest disciples, as they gazed admiringly at the temple edifice in Jerusalem. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” (Matthew 24:2). How could Jesus know this? Was he speaking specifically about a soon-to-come sovereign destructive act of God? No, rather he was speaking from his own trenchant knowledge of scientific probability—the probability that a day will come when none of man’s works endure. In fact, such a day must come.
Though Jesus is most often thought of as a religious icon, the truth is that he was a scientist. He was probably the greatest scientist our world has ever known.
True spiritual life is based on scientific laws and principles. What this means is that everything in our world stands or falls as a matter of science. That which was set in motion in the beginning of creation determines all that happens now. All human drama and destiny hinges on our approach to this what-is aspect of life on the earthly plane. Resistance, rebellion, and ignorance always lead to judgment, death, and destruction, while harmony, acceptance, and knowledge always bring prosperity, peace, and the fullness of life. This is really not a very complicated scientific formula, so it is truly surprising that more people do not “go out on a limb” and make similar predictions, such as the one Jesus made that day when speaking to his disciples about the temple.
The one variable that tends to undermine the certainty of such scientific claims involves time. In other words, what Jesus said about the stones of the temple in Jerusalem was an absolute certainty in his mind. The problem was that there was an unknown time element that impacted his prediction’s fulfillment. Jesus knew this, but it was of relatively little importance to him. Why? Because the flooding of spiritual consciousness with eternal truth obliterates this time element and renders it inconsequential. And it is safe to say that Jesus possessed a spiritual consciousness that was highly developed in this way.
Conversely, for those human beings that have not yet fully developed their spiritual consciousness time is and always has been a major factor in life—one that enters in to and distorts all reality perceptions. Thus it is on account of time that people tend to deny the undeniable and disclaim the inevitable.
All of Jesus’ prophetic utterances were based on scientific probability, and therefore all were predestined to come to pass, just as he said they would. But this was not immediately apparent when he uttered them because time gave men the illusion that nothing dire was at stake. This illusory quality of time has always factored in to human history. Why? Because most people are not spiritual in their life-orientation and therefore see time as both real and powerful. When it comes to violations of universal law and the inescapable repercussions of those violations, men tend to take shelter in time. They say, “Maybe destruction is inevitable, but it is not happening right now. Therefore there is no reason to concern ourselves about it.”
What we find then is that time often counteracts the impact of prophecy, even when a particular prophecy is accepted as being inevitable. And the more time that elapses between a prophecy’s utterance and its fulfillment, the more its impact is mitigated. Thus we have always had the phenomenon of scoffing. Whenever a prophecy’s impact is watered down by time, scoffers arise who claim that the prophecy will never come to pass. Therefore it need not be taken seriously.
In essence, scoffing is the antithesis of prophecy. Certainly, to the prophet it is an unwelcome response to his or her labors. But a true prophet does not let scoffing intimidate him. Rather a true prophet stands by his prophecy heedless of the time element impacting its fulfillment. This is because true prophecy is not guesswork; it is science.
The true prophet knows God aright. He does not deal in the guesswork inherent in pinning God down to some personal sovereign decree. Rather he knows God primarily as an impersonal God of universal creative law. Thus the decrees of God are never impulsive or newly instituted. They are from of-old and are merely newly discovered and recognized. The true prophet does not call upon God to act. Rather he discerns the divine will through spiritual insight. Then he speaks in defense of the outworking of that will.
Jesus knew God to such an extent that nothing, no aspect of the divine will, was hidden from him. The source of his knowledge was the thorough development of his own spiritual consciousness. In fact, it was this spiritual self-realization that constituted the source of all his so-called miraculous powers as well. The reason Jesus was so set apart from other men was that he knew God aright, while the vast majority of people that have ever inhabited the earthly plane have been steeped in lies and false beliefs in this regard. But whenever a man breaks through the shroud of illusion and becomes enlightened to the truth about God, he comes to understand Jesus and gain insight into what it was about him that others have always found so enigmatic and mysterious.
What all this means is that Jesus never went out on a limb. His predictions, though veiled in mystery to those who did not know God rightly, were perfectly rational, even obvious.
Therefore Jesus’ prediction pertaining to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem was already a fact in his mind—not because he expected a personal anthropomorphic god to act out of anger or vengeance, but rather because of the aspects of universal created laws of cause and effect, laws that most people are ignorant of.
Life on the earthly plane, as we now know it, is a manifestation of man’s ignorance, lawlessness, and rebellion against God. As a creation of God, the earthly plane is interwoven with laws and divine decrees, but men do not recognize this or take heed of it. Most people associate earthly power with human initiative born from intellectual, emotional, and physical prowess. But in truth, human beings have little power, when compared with the power of created universal law. That is why even after six thousand years of human civilization, we are still subject to and helpless in the face of death, disease, and all manner of natural disasters. Even our most learned scientists admit that man’s tenancy upon the earth continues to be a tenuous one and ought to be undertaken in a spirit of humility and gratitude.
But human ignorance has spawned its own attitudes and reality views, most of which are utterly godless in their orientation. Human ignorance has closed our eyes to the universal creative laws at work on the earthly plane and has instead put forth its own array of beliefs pertaining to our environmental predicament—beliefs that have, over time, come to masquerade as law. Thus human civilization is not entirely lawless, but its laws are largely manmade and propagated. The Bible has a word for this age-old human initiative. It calls it arrogance. And since arrogance is both the cause and effect of defiance in regards to God’s Law, it always brings judgment.
One of our most prominent manmade “laws” involves what we refer to as matter—that is, the belief in the inherent power and intelligence of physical properties. This belief-law grew out of our inability to correctly perceive the universe through our human senses. We ascribed power to matter in order to make sense out of some of the disturbing happenings indigenous to the earthly plane. The problem with such a strong humanly originated belief is that in ascribing power to matter we then became slaves to what we perceived to be matter’s dominant properties—namely mutation, instability, and decay. And it is out of this subjugation to matter’s properties that most of the serious ills of human society have arisen—ills such as disease, physical violence, and death.
The belief that we are helpless in the face of matter exerting its influence upon us is also tied to a false belief about our own makeup as human beings, in which we see ourselves as dominantly materialistic creatures—creatures who cannot escape being greatly affected by matter because we are made of the same stuff. Together these unscientific human laws have shaped our world since the beginning of time, injecting our institutions, cultures, and reality systems with a highly superstitious worship and fear of materialistic properties. And because our world has been built with these superstitions always at the forefront of men’s thoughts and emotions, decay has become one of its most dominant characteristics. Only the diligent exertions of human rebuilding efforts have managed to keep decay somewhat in check. But eventually these outworkings are inevitable.
Since then our predicament is not a scientifically based one but is rather the result of human ignorance and wrong belief, it follows that a true knowledge of and adherence to the genuine laws of our universe would effectuate positive change. We have made a god out of matter, and now we are suffering greatly because of that belief. But the true Law of God states plainly that we are to have no other gods besides the one true God. Therefore correction is always as near to us as knowing the truth and putting away the false.
Only God’s universal created laws are real and lasting, and these are what constitute true science. Furthermore, all of these laws are benign in their outworking. They were instituted for the good of all God’s creatures, including man. This is the dividing line between the earthly and heavenly planes. These planes are not physical locations, but are rather states of consciousness with distinctly different characteristics and governances. For thousands of years the earthly plane has been governed by human ignorance and superstition, while the heavenly plane has always been governed by the harmonious adherence to God’s created universal Law. Thus the earthly plane can quite easily lose itself and merge into heaven the moment it comes under the governance of true Law. This was Jesus’ foremost demonstration during his ministerial years. In contrast to all the suffering he encountered in the human scene of his day—suffering that he knew was the outgrowth of ignorance and wrong belief—he upheld the greater reality of God’s benign created Law. He moved in that reality by an inner sight that we call faith, but for him faith was anything but blind. It was actually scientific certainty. He was not even remotely swayed or affected by the darkness of human belief. Rather he held unflinchingly to the truth of God’s created science, while simultaneously laboring to open men’s eyes to the truth of their predicament.
In this unparalleled agenda there could be no compromise. Jesus knew that the truth of God could not be mingled with the error of man’s ignorance. This made him appear unsympathetic and unyielding at times. But only by presenting the truth in all of its unadulterated power could he hope to shake people out of their stupor. Materialism was nothing more than a superstitious belief system. It was not Law. Men did not have to experience decay, disease, and death. They only believed that they must. Therefore recognition of and adherence to God’s true created Law brought a harvest of liberation, perfect health, and eternal life.
But what about all the works of men? What was their fate to be? The answer was obvious to Jesus. If they were built while men were still ignorant and steeped in materialism, they could not help but be subject to the laws of matter. Thus Jesus could declare while gazing at one of the most impressive edifices on earth, “Do you see all these things? Not one stone will be left on another.” In other words, destruction and decay were inescapable.
What then can we deduce about our present modern civilization? Are the works of men different today than they were in Jesus’ day? If Jesus were alive today, would he suddenly change his tune about these matters? Would he look at the White House in Washington D.C. and find it impressive and glorious? Of course not. For unfortunately, nothing has really changed in the sphere of men. Though Jesus’ powerful demonstration two thousand years ago had the effect of rousing some individuals out of their stupor of ignorance and bondage to materialism, the society of men as a whole has yet to see the light. That is why decay and destruction still permeate human civilization. Materialism and other false belief systems are still darkening the minds of men.
If I say to you then that human civilization, as we now know it (not human life), is slated for destruction and must fall and that this decree is irreversible, am I being unreasonable? Am I going out on a limb? Is not such a perception based on scientific probability? In truth, only time stands between us and the inevitability of this outworking.
As individuals, is there anything we can do to be saved from this terrible fall? Of course there is. All we have to do is to disassociate ourselves inwardly from the collective attachment to error and realize that all that is not built on the solid rock of God’s truth must eventually pass away. Remember Jesus not only decreed destruction for the materialistic works of men; he also promised eternal life to those who were willing to repent of their human associations and align themselves with the true Law of God’s created universal order.