Debrecen Messages #10 – The Garden of Eden: Heaven and Earth Together (Genesis 2 Teaching)

Now I’m going to make a profound statement. No, I’m going to make a dramatic statement, and it is nonetheless true. If you think the Western world was not damaged by this, then let me tell you something, I want you to listen carefully because you’re going to think you misunderstood me. If the thinkers had not won out, if the Iona school had won out, if empirical observation, just opening your eyes and looking and doing some just ordinary everyday things like, How does the earth rotate? And doing some simple observation and experimenting with sticks, if you please. You can figure out the earth goes around the sun with two sticks.

If the Iona school had won out, man would have gone to the moon in the year 600 AD.

How do you know that, Gene? Because of the two Bacons. Have you ever heard of the two Bacons? Have you ever heard of Robert Bacon and Francis Bacon? You’ve heard of Robert Bacon and Francis Bacon. It was Robert Bacon who reintroduced empirical to the world. It was a lost concept. And from the day that man reintroduced observation and experimentation into this world, to the day that Neil Anderson stepped on the moon was 600 years.

And actually, if you count it correctly and you go back to the battle between the lonians and the Pythagoreans, it would have been around 400 AD, but let’s just take from the time of Christ, 600 AD. We should have gone to the moon, we should have been driving automobiles up and down super highways in 600 AD. We would have if we had just kept the practical, but we threw out the practical.

Well, who are the villains? Do you know the names of these villains? Who are these terrible people who stole from us the ability to be practical? Do you know their names? Let’s dislike them. First of all, please, out there, everybody, dislike these men. Be my friend and don’t like these folks. Does anybody know their names? Who were the great thinkers that made, that gave us the Western mind? And they affect your brain every day you wake up, brother.

The first one was the Socratic school. Socrates. And who was his favorite pupil? Plato. And who was Plato’s favorite student? Perhaps the brainiest brain that ever lived, or at least to ever write, Aristotle. Have you ever written down an introduction, main point, and conclusion? Have you ever heard anybody make a speech? They start off with an introduction, a point or two or three, and then they come to a conclusion.

Aristotle taught you to do that. The way your brain thinks, starting when you were taught in school and in kindergarten, before the first grade, you have been taught the Aristotelian mind, and there ain’t no way you’re going to break that influence in your life. A great deal of it leans towards knowledge.

Now, when the church took over the Roman Empire when it fell, and the church did take the place of the Roman Empire when it fell, somewhere between 400 A.D. and 500 A.D., the church took over, the empire fell, and nations began to form. Not an empire, but nations.

And the reason nations were founded was because when those Roman soldiers stopped guarding the roads, the bandits came in, and you didn’t dare move anywhere. And nations and city-states developed, even travel. It was too dangerous to travel. Only the church traveled, and people were superstitious enough to let the priest go. You didn’t attack priests; God wouldn’t like you. And a few others would go with the priest, and this was most of the traveling. And everything was, think about it, but don’t question anything the church says.

And the church adopted Aristotle and Plato. It’s often been said that the church baptized Aristotle and baptized Plato and made them Christians, and their way of thinking and their very ideas and the things they said were held almost as high as Scripture.

Now, there were men who followed the teachings of Aristotle and Plato, and they were Christians, and what they wrote is to this day considered to be equal with Scripture. Can you name me some of those men? Okay, let’s go back early. You’re absolutely correct. Thomas Aquinas. Dionysius. Augustine. Jerome. Gregory. And I’m looking at Ambrose. And those are the great writers, and they throw in Tertullian a little bit, and they’ll even tolerate Origen. Those were the people who affected the Christian faith.

Now, sister, I’m trying to explain something to you. You went to a training school, and they taught you observation, interpretation, and application. And when they did that, they aimed straight at your head without any thought of your spirit. And I don’t care if it was the Bible, and you can croak for all I care when you hear me say this, but you were taking the scripture and eating off of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.