In 1858, as the last of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Abraham Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.”
Those debates were to determine the U. S. Senator for the State of Illinois, which Stephen A. Douglas won. Still, this speech made by Lincoln is considered as one of his most important, seen as a public prophecy. There is a memorial statue of Abraham Lincoln in Washington D. C., but none in the nation’s capital dedicated to Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln is memorialized as the savior of the union.
The Lincoln Memorial has a speech Lincoln gave engraved in stone, the one known as the Gettysburg Address. He gave that speech following a battle in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where over 7,800 soldiers died, during three days of warfare. The number of wounded in that battle was a staggering 27,000, with over 11,000 more captured or missing in action. Overall, in the four years of the American Civil War between 785,000+ and 1,000,000+ soldiers, civilians and slaves were killed, so the United States of America would not be divided.
Honest Abe pulled from his Christian heritage when he made his debate point against Douglas, as he quoted Jesus who first said, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.” (Matthew 12:25; Luke 11:17, NIV, similar in Mark 3:24-25) Perhaps, that was the first time that a Republican politician aligned himself with Scripture, making it become the political party of the Moral Majority, with the spoils of property possession and wealth seen as God’s approval for believing in His Son Jesus? Maybe it is just a standard American political trick … to pretend to be “mightier than thou” by quoting Scripture? Like snake oil salesmen know, politicians learn: “Tell the people what they want to hear, and get out of town before they discover they have been conned.” Americans love a tall tale with Scripture included.
Let me quote some more Scripture that will point out how Abraham Lincoln went to great lengths to prove Jesus was right, as the prophets of God usually are. By the North conscripting aliens as they walked off the boats in the harbors of New York City and getting northern states to offer money for mercenaries to join the Union Army, since actual volunteers to be killed trying to kill rebels was not as inviting then as one might think, Abraham Lincoln was the blood-thirstiest president to ever serve. The division he saw in the thirty-four states of the United States of 1860 (Kansas became a free state in January, 1861) was the southern states dependency on purchased slaves to work the fields of plantations, versus the northern states having to pay slave wages to their masses of poor working in sweat shops.
The answer to that division was to drive a deep wedge further into the country through civil war, until the almighty solution was to replace the old system of slavery with a new system of slavery. The poor everywhere stayed poor; but the southerners, as those defeated in their surrender, became the slaves of their new northerner masters, who gave away southern land to the freed slaves (Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation), so southern Negroes would not move north en masse. Thus, one man’s slavery became another man’s political currency, so a divided land must always be divided: A house divided was then more divided … just duct taped together.
Today the United States of America (now 50 states, with possessions here and there) is still a house divided: White versus Black; Male versus Female; Rich versus Poor; Young versus Old; Gay versus Straight; Country folk versus City slickers; and of course – Republicans versus Democrats. The divisions go on and on. After 241 years of divisiveness (from 1776 to 2017), the U.S. of A. is like a run-down shack, held together by failing ideals and eroded Constitutional interpretations. It is like anything human: made to fall down.
God knew the collapse of America would be the result. While the Israelites had been given a promised land, which included the slaughter of any natives who resisted that possession coming with divine approval, they did not freely elect such giants of philosophy to lead them. The wonder of democracy had not yet been officially invented. That invention (plus the slaughter of Native Americans) meant the world’s shining light on a hill was Washington D. C. and Abe Lincoln (a simple log-splitter) could get a majority vote of the citizens in the new promised land (male landowners) that was the United States of America, which was expanding rapidly, with territories captured by the further slaughter of restless natives that resisted foreign possession of their lands. The good ole U. S. of A. was and is actually representative of the “other nations” the Israelites told Samuel they wanted to model. While they did not know Abraham Lincoln, they wanted a single leader like all other powerful nations had … a powerful leader that would lead armies against rebellious natives and sinful citizens.
God told Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them.” When Samuel called the elders of Israel together to tell them what the LORD had said, in response to their wish, he spoke to them: “[The LORD] said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day. But the people refused to listen to Samuel.” (1 Samuel 8:11-18, NIV)
“Work Makes Free”
Mr. Lincoln, sir, did you not read the whole Bible and know that slavery is a natural condition of life on earth, a required condition, especially when one is talking about being a nation? Did you not know that the Israelites delighted in the LORD’s promise of slavery being the effect of having individual leaders act like gods on earth? Did you not know that the prevailing wisdom of those chosen by God was to let the unity of twelve tribes be split into two nations?
The elders of Israel screamed at Samuel, “No!” They would not be dissuaded from being slaves to a king. They told Samuel. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”’ (1 Samuel 8:19-20, NIV) The Israelites wanted someone to lead them to slaughter; and the got Saul. He was an equal to Mr. Lincoln, as both were at war the entire times they reigned, with Goliath as frightening to Saul as was Robert E. Lee to Abraham Lincoln.
The Israelites were happy to have the Commander and Chief of the of the military that would lead their nation like Lincoln led Americans: to have over 3% of its citizens killed in a civil war (based on 31,443,321 being the population of the 1860 census). In the name of unity, they saw the symbol of a nation that would kill to prove the lands under their control would be nations that the world must reckon with. Lincoln’s legacy was, “Look what we do to American citizens who go against our Union. Do you think you want a little of that?” Such a legacy is the fulfillment of the LORD’s prophecy, as any second thoughts about break-away states and a smaller new nation are gone, beaten down as slaves to the concept of killing as many as need be, to exert that ‘man-dog’ image to the world.
No matter how many human beings an American leader can kill to have his or her way, that nation will never be anything other than a nation of slaves. Slavery can only be abolished through the righteousness of a slave to God, who physical death comes regardless of how a king, prime minister or president decides that physical death should come. Anything other than righteous slavery to God means an eternal slavery to the physical realm, where one will be the slaves of whoever becomes king for a day, roi de jour. Reincarnated without such slavery to God means coming back as a slave to some other corrupt form of Man. Patrick Henry’s cry, “Give me liberty or give me death!” was like saying, “The illusion of freedom leads the soul to death!” Jesus said often, eternal life is only awarded those who die as Christ, as all human beings are born of eternal death – born slaves to the material plane. Likewise, all nations are born to die and reincarnate as new divided nations.
The entire point of God leading Moses to seek release of the Israelites from the Pharaoh of Egypt was to free them of the bondage (slavery) of national worship. If God had wanted a group of human beings to be moved from one corrupt form of leader-worship to create another (which the freed Israelites asked Samuel to get God to allow), nothing of the Holy Bible would have ever been recorded. There would be no need, as human leaders are a natural worldly phenomenon. In fact, the idiom “Too many chiefs and not enough Indians” is why nations and houses will forever be divided. Honest Abe was a chief before he was president. He never could allow himself to be a simple Indian, much less a slave to the will of other chiefs (even though he was a slave to his own self-righteous beliefs). Being a slave to God, where one’s own body is the kingdom where the LORD is king, and the brain’s ego is just a lowly slave to God’s Will, is the only undivided house possible. The union of all the body’s parts is strengthened by the Holy Spirit, which keeps all the parts on the same page – resistant to the outside influences. A nation of human beings not filled with the Holy Spirit becomes like France … always willing to surrender to the latest interruption of their self-servitude. Thus, Jesus said, “Every city or household [i.e.: human body] divided against itself will not stand,” meaning one who forces one’s self to serve God, rather than loving the concept of slavery to a master, will always run away to find the illusion of freedom, will serve anyone who offers some fresh and new philosophy, or will go along with the flow, all the while complaining. The failure is never being freed from the material realm, as freedom can only be with God in Spirit form.
The problem with the Christian world today is the exact same problem that Samuel saw the Israelite world had when they asked to be like other nations: people want to be holy without any of the responsibilities of doing holy works. The reason the Israelites asked Samuel to ask God for a king for them is they knew Samuel’s sons were not righteous like their daddy. They figured God would be able to spot righteousness in their numbers. God had Samuel anoint David (of Jesse), but then David had the same problem with his offspring being ‘bad seed.’ While Solomon was the successor to David’s kingdom, when he died the division in Israel was so strong it demanded to be split into two kingdoms. Sound familiar Mr. Lincoln?
I imagine had Solomon sired a son like Honest Abe, then that linking-log as his successor would have squashed the concept of splitting Israel splitting into Israel and Judah. King Lincoln would have killed everyone in Judah to make his point: “Nobody has the right to think unlike me! Union uber alles. Seig heil! Sieg heil! Seig heil!”
The myth of Abraham Lincoln is due to the belief that he was a well-intended man. He only had brother kill brother to save a Union (albeit a Union minus his political rival’s ideology). The myth is that he wanted to make the world a better place to live in – by force and the threat of war and death. That means a monument was built in honor of Abraham Lincoln because he was a philosopher on the same monument level of national good intent, as Adolph Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Josef Stalin, and all other tyrants that use the excuse of righting a world gone wrong, through their personal abuse of powers, as their motivations for tyranny. The fact that monuments to some fallen leaders were destroyed later, in anger, only means those left standing in honor will still face their day of destruction.
Abraham Lincoln (like all the others aforementioned) was no Saint. He was not filled with the Holy Spirit. We know that because he lusted for the presidency of the United States and the power to kill all who opposed his views. The Apostle Paul (who was never the leader of a nation) knew it is hard enough controlling the nation of self, much less a nation of many people (perhaps 32-million). Paul wrote, “So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.” (Romans 7:21, NIV) People who retain possession of their brain-led egos will always be led to kill in the name of good. Without the presence of the Holy Spirit, well-intended humans will always end up doing evil. It is just the nature of the beast that human beings are; and that goes for real kings of nations (like Prince Charles of England) and real popes of Rome (too many to name). Because they are not Saints (such absence of Spirit being a prerequisite for putting one’s name in the hat for rule), they always protect evil at the expense of good. Like in a GEICO commercials conclude, “It’s what they do.”
When all the chiefs of nations that have to serve as Indians, as the ones who vote their illustrious leaders into office (becoming surrogate chiefs), they relish the role that has them go along with all their leader’s plans to ruin the world they control. Such minions that yield power to individual human beings also lack the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Those minions who pretend to be chiefs by plotting to undermine a regime unwanted, rather than stay neutral in their servitude to the One God, they too lack the guidance of the Christ Mind. If they had the Holy Spirit, they would not vote or do anything not willed by the Father (who is not the source of rebellious political protests). If someone came to their doors, hollering, “Come out! You’re free!” They would either say nothing and go about their prayers and faithful work, or they would holler back, “Go away!”, as they went about their prayers and faithful work. But, the great unwashed love a good political lie, one that promises things like the abolition of slavery or free health care (freedom of disease), even when they know it cannot be done. The heathen populace just cannot not like a bald-face lie.
Political philosophy is so often based on the Utopian concepts of everyone loving everyone. They sell love as the reason for hate. They quote Jesus as the motivation to kill anyone who would oppose such a pure idealism. The politicians sing songs of change as a right to overcome divisiveness (forcefully, by law or warfare), such that they offer their promises as like how Isaiah sang:
“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling[a] together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the cobra’s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:6-9, NIV)
Of course, Utopian societies are impossibilities, just as Isaiah was not singing about a state of existence that could ever be possible on planet earth. The Holy Spirit within Isaiah allowed him to see the real world in which we human being live, where wolves will slaughter lambs, leopards will devour goats, and lions will make calves their lunch fares. Isaiah actually was singing about the coming of Jesus Christ (the Son of God, from the root of a stump), who would lead Saints into the heavenly kingdom, where all creatures can then live without fear or a natural desire to harm others. In heaven, there will be no division represented by Predator and Prey. All souls will be those of Saints, which will sing praises to the LORD constantly and eternally, as willing, loving slaves of devotion. All souls there are united in heart, mind and deeds, with no divisive thoughts desired. That is the only kingdom that will not fall. That is the only house that will not be brought crumbling down by self-serving big brains.