SECOND DEATH
One of the things people who drop out of religion hate about religion is the commercial aspect of religion that focuses on paying tithes and offerings to kings, queens and princes who rule their religious kingdoms. They regret that they were lured into this deceit and are highly motivated to ensure that others will be spared similar needless expense. They take the meaning of The Lord’s Prayer seriously.

But the money is only a small part of the evil of religion that religion drop-outs regret and want to help others overcome. There are also false teachings, idolatry, hypocrisy and injustices of religion that they regret for themselves and for which they grieve for their friends and family who are still enslaved to it. They are glad to be set free from the sin of religion and now they are on a mission to help others gain freedom from it also. That was the attitude of Joshua and Jesus and that should be our attitude also.

Those who do feel this way eagerly accept God’s commandment to utterly destroy all religious kingdoms. Having been set free themselves, they are compelled to help other religious captives get set free from the control of taskmasters who make and enforce legalistic, religious rules. They know that these rules are based on doctrines made by men and have a form of godliness, but lack spiritual power.

STUDY TIP: See The Cry of My Heart for further understanding of the motivation to help religious people gain freedom from religion.

Many ex-religionists are beginning to understand that their personal Promised Land is also occupied by modern day Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. The only differences between the ancient religions and modern religions are the names of the religions. Religion is religion regardless of what you call it. There is nothing new under the sun.

In Biblical symbolism, ancient cities, kingdoms and nations represent religious people who resented Israel, and fought against Israel because it moved in to take over their religious kingdoms. The conflict between these religious kingdoms and New Covenant Israel is represented as bloody warfare which symbolically represents a war of words (i.e. God’s word spoken by true prophets in competition with the words of false prophets). This is the essence of the competition of good and evil.

STUDY TIP: See Religion is the Enemy, Gods at War and Sibling Conflict for more about competition between religious kingdoms. Also see Blood for understanding of the symbolism of blood and bloodshed in warfare.

Religious nations/kingdoms, past and present, are compelled to defend and expand their religious kingdoms because they are addicted to their respective religions. If anyone, or any other religion does anything that threatens the safety and future of their religion, they fight back. They fight back by stirring up warfare (i.e. spiritual conflict) against anyone who challenges their religion in any way. And their primary weapons are words which are symbolically represented as swords and arrows. Rulers of these religious kingdoms use words to discourage, discredit and disable God’s messengers (i.e. true prophets, angels, messiahs, high priests, witnesses, warriors, servants, shepherds and apostles) who God sends to tear down those religious kingdoms. When the words of accusation and abuse spoken by religious leaders successfully discourage, discredit and disable God’s messengers, those words have symbolically caused the second death of the messiahs whom God sends to speak words of truth. This is the symbolism of Jesus’ death. It was not a physical death, but a spiritual second death that disabled him for a short period of time (i.e. three days.)

That they, like Jesus, will suffer the second death caused by harmful words is bad news for true prophets, angels, messiahs, high priests, witnesses, warriors, servants, shepherds and apostles. The good news for these followers of Jesus is that God will restore them to life so that they can continue the battle against religion by speaking for God. It can be said, therefore, that, just as Jesus was resurrected from his second death, they also will be resurrected from the death/persecution that they will suffer when the preach the true gospel to people who believe a false gospel.

This all happens because people who leave their religion become  threats to the religion that they leave. Jesus became a problem for the Jews only after he was baptized and began healing people from the disease of religion. Prior to his anointing as a messiah, he was a member in good standing of his religious community. He became a threat only after he began healing people from their blindness and deafness to God’s voice. Everyone whom Jesus healed with his words quit practicing religion and started listening to God’s voice. This is how he became a threat to the religious community.

When someone leaves a religion, the people left behind take the leaving very personally. Leaving implies that the religion has spiritual deficiencies and that the people who remain in the religion are spiritually deficient. Such attitudes, whether spoken or implied, are enough to arouse those who are left behind to feelings of anger and jealousy.  And those who  are left behind have every reason to be angry because the ones who leave because they are followers of Jesus are indeed attacking their religion. They attack it with words of truth that expose all the many reasons why God hates religion.

In Biblical symbolism, this threat and jealousy are represented as the tension and conflict between Old/First Covenant religionists and New Covenant disciples. Stories about sibling and tribal rivalries are parables of this tension that often evolves into outright warfare. These stories use the symbolism of physical weapons and blood to symbolize the power of the tongue (i.e. words) used by religious leaders to compete with each other in a war of words for the hearts and minds of people who are looking for a religious leader to follow.

STUDY TIP: See Kings, Queens and Princes, Pharisees and Scribes, and Shepherds, Priests and Sheep, and Serpent, Devil, Satan, Adversary, Demons, Evil Spirits and Anti-Christs for the many different ways the Bible represents religious leaders.

When anyone leaves a religion, those left behind are aroused by fear of loss of income and loss of social integrity that will weaken their religious organization and their personal security. They may also experience doubt about their eternal security. These fears inspire them to defend their religion for their own personal benefit. They may think that they are defending Godly principles, but God knows that the motives of their hearts are selfish. What they are really defending is the religious system that feeds their religious pride.

Ex-religionists will notice this fighting response sooner or later. They will also notice that they feel a call to do battle with religion. They understand the story of Jesus and the money-changers in the temple, and they are similarly compelled to tear down idols and high places. They are angry about the years that the locust has eaten and want to see deliverance for everyone. But they may not be prepared for conflict from friends and family who are still religious — even though God has given adequate warning that when we break away from religion there will be conflict with people we once knew intimately and with whom we shared religious beliefs and practices.

Knowing what we know about Israel’s history, and applying that experience to our own lives, we should not be surprised when we find that our religious friends and family become our enemies when we leave religion. Just as Israel posed a threat to the kingdoms that occupied the promised land before Israel arrived, Jesus’ followers (i.e. New Covenant disciples) pose a threat to modern religious organizations — including Judaism and Christianity. We should not be surprised, therefore, when religious communities at home and abroad are offended when the population of former religionists (e.g. nones, dones, and Spiritual But Not Religious) grows while religion declines. Religionists will fear that the security they have in religion will erode if too many people leave it. Believing that there is safety in numbers, religionists will fight back with words to ensure that their religions remain intact. And New Covenant disciples are their enemies.

God uses the term persecution to describe warfare techniques used by religious enemies to preserve their religion. Persecution can occur in an infinite variety of forms such as accusations, criticism, shame, slander and rejection. These are all verbal and relational weapons used by false prophets to defend themselves against anyone who challenges their beliefs and practices with truth. The ones whom they attack Jesus’ followers who are God’s anointed messengers (i.e. true prophets, angels, messiahs, high priests, witnesses, and warriors) who, like Jesus, speak for God. The persecution they suffer at the hands of religious people is also called “second death.”

God also calls the ongoing effect of religious persecution “dying daily” as we carry/bear our cross (i.e. symbol of death) while speaking out against religion and living a life of freedom. God also calls this the “second death.” This second death does not occur at a unique, singular point in time but is an ongoing process that New Covenant disciples endure as long as they stay committed to their mission to set captives free from religion.

This life of suffering persecution, shame, humility, and near death experiences is evident in the lives of many notable Biblical characters. In the Old Testament we see the men and women of faith in Hebrews 11 who, being powerful in battle, routed foreign religious armies, conquered religious kingdoms and administered justice to people who had been held captives by those religions. They all faced jeers and flogging, chains and imprisonment. Some were put to death by stoning, some sawed in two and some killed by the sword, but they were all destitute, persecuted and mistreated. They all symbolically suffered what God calls “second deaths.” The parables of their lives show us that being a New Covenant disciple is not for wimps.

We learn these lessons from these stories:

These are hard words for Jews and Christians to hear. They say that they have faith, and they do, but the faith they have is not from God. Their faith is in things and activities which can be seen — not in things unseen. Their faith is in their religion — especially in their religious leaders.

The faith of Jews and Christians is in their religion and doctrines of false peace. Intoxicated as they are to their religions, they do not understand that they are in an ongoing battle with God (i.e. they are God’s enemies) to keep people in bondage to their religious kingdoms for personal rewards (e.g. applause, affirmation, praise, money, etc.). Accordingly, they never consider or teach God’s commands to destroy religious kingdoms, tear down idols and high places of worship, and set captives free from bondage to religion. If they would teach about such things, they would destroy their own kingdoms.

They do not realize it, but this is reality for all religious people. Once they get out of religion, however, they will, or should, see it all differently.

While they are religious they see themselves as righteous and generous toward all people. They even think that their efforts to evangelize people into religion are virtuous. Little do they know, however, that they are slaves to the sin of religion and that in their evangelism they are effectively enslaving others to religion also. This is totally opposite of God’s idea of evangelism which is to set the captives free from religion and encourage them to listen to God’s voice.

Once people get free from religion, perspectives change. Now, with God’s perspective, they see that they were once the persecutors for the cause of religion and that they are now persecuted by religion because they are not religious any more.

Persecution may not come immediately and it may not come overtly, but it will come to those who have courage to obey God’s commands to destroy religious kingdoms, tear down idols and high places of worship, and set captives free from bondage to religion. If they have such courage, ex-religionists will know religious persecution when they see it. Whatever form it does take, it will hurt bad — especially since it will come from someone close to them (e.g. friend, neighbor, family member, etc.). Knowing that the persecution will come helps prepare us for it, but does not lessen the pain when it does come.

God uses a very hard word to symbolize the pain of persecution by religious people: Death. In particular, the “second death. This may seem to be an exaggeration to anyone who has not experienced religious persecution after leaving religion, but those who have been subjected to it will fully appreciate the symbolism because religious persecution can be very oppressive. Anyone who doubts that being a non-religious person in a religious community (i.e. in the world but not of the world) only needs to look at the life of Jesus after he was baptized.

Before his baptism, Jesus was a member in good standing of the Jewish religious community. After his baptism, however, everything changed. After he started confronting religious leaders, they began plotting to have him killed. Except for his disciples and a few followers, Jesus was hated, insulted and persecuted by the Jewish, religious community that accepted him while he was religious. The anointing Jesus received changed him forever. He was on a mission. Abuse and persecution could not stop him.

This was Jesus’ life after baptism (i.e. born again.) People who have been baptized by God’s word are set apart from religious people. There can be an awful sense of loneliness and emptiness because of the loss of relationships that happens when we are set apart from religion and go on a mission to destroy it’s high places and take down it idols.

Being set apart would be hard to endure except that they have God’s many words of encouragement and comfort for people who suffer persecution at the hands of their enemies. He wants them to know that he is still present for them after they have lost relationships for the sake of having his laws written on their hearts. His comforting assurances affirm other promises that they will not be hurt by the second death.

Some people who have quit religion have already learned that it is not easy living in a religious community after escaping from religion. There is no physical bloodshed or warfare, of course, but there is conflict, tension and emotional pain that comes from rejection and hurtful words spoken by religious people to those who are no longer religious. God symbolizes these conflicts as death by the sword. He also graphically represents the experience  of pain a warrior on a mission in Jesus’ crucifixion. It is all a parable of the second death that New Covenant disciples endure when they get serious about following Jesus in his ministry.

The blood, abuse and lashings Jesus experienced all symbolically represent the war of words that all of Jesus’ followers will endure. But, even if there are no words spoken, there is social distance between the religious community and Jesus’ followers that makes it uncomfortable for both. This kind of conflict occurs regularly, if not openly within all religious communities. It emerges visibly, and perhaps violently, however, when someone exits a religious community.

The point of discussing warfare with religious enemies is to warn people who are contemplating quitting religion that life will be different when their non-religious status becomes known to people who are still religious. Being a New Covenant disciple is a great blessing, but it comes with a cost: Broken relationships and persecution by those who are still religious. These are the substance of post-rapture tribulation. The stories of Jesus, the prophets, and Paul the Apostle are the stories of all New Covenant disciples. They all suffered at the hands of religious people.

God has made it very clear that rejection and insult is what New Covenant disciples can expect from religious people. This is the second death. These terms, along with other verbal abuses are symbolically represented as death that comes from the power of the tongue (i.e. sword) to bring life or death. This the kind of death that is symbolically represented in Jesus’ death.

STUDY TIP: See Death, Resurrection, New Life, Salvation, Forgiveness, Heaven and Hell for more understanding of Jesus’ death and resurrection.