More False “First Nations”
Teachings
On Genesis 11:1-9
(Babel) and Acts 17:18-34 (Mars Hill)
by Sandy Simpson,
Apologetics Coordination Team,
May 2006
There is another pillar
underpinning the false teachings of the First Nations Movement or Indigenous
Peoples Movement (IPM) or whatever they are calling it these days. To
better identify those teaching these things the reader needs to know that these
are the people, backed by the leadership of the New Apostolic Reformation, who
are putting on the various events worldwide called the "World Christian
Gathering on Indigenous People" (WCGIP) and other names. Here is a
partial list of the events they have already sponsored around the world:
1st WCGIP - Whistler, BC, Canada, July 1995
"Inaugural" WCGIP Gathering - New Zealand, 1996
2nd WCGIP - Colorado Springs, CO, Oct. 24-25, 1997
WCGIP gathering (also called "second gathering") - South Dakota, 1998
3rd WCGIP - Australia, March, 2000
4th WCGIP - Hawaii (Honolulu Oct. 11-17, 2002, Hilo Oct. 6-9, 2002)
A Call To All Nations - Honolulu, HI, June 2005
5th WCGIP - Kiruna, Sweden, August 7-14, 2005
6th WCGIP - Davao City, Davao, Philippines, Sept. 11-17, 2006
7th WCGIP—Israel,
2008
THE TEACHING
This article is
written to expose another false teaching based on a misinterpretation of
Scripture, namely the Genesis 11:1-9 account of the tower of Babel. First
let's listen to what Leon Siu of Aloha Ke Akua, a spokesman for this movement,
has to say. He is simply repeating the teachings on this subject of his mentor,
Daniel Kikawa of Aloha Ke Akua. Take note of the highlighted
passages. I will deal with them later.
“Thank you, Danny (Lehmann). Aloha
everybody. Its really a pleasure to be here. Gonna be talkin' a
little bit about Christian history. Actually not just Christian history but the
history of God and His involvement in Hawaii from the very beginning of
time. If we go back to the book of Genesis we realize that God has
been, He's not only the Creator God but He's also the creator of cultures
and peoples. At the tower of Babel where the people conspired
to raise themselves up against God, God in His great mercy did not destroy the
people. Instead He scattered them, He gave them a separate language,
He confused the languages, and then He sent them to different parts of the
world so that there they might seek Him and indeed call out to Him and they
would know Him by the creation around them. So all the peoples
at one time, all the peoples of the world, at one time knew the Creator God,
not only that they knew Him by name. He made Himself known through their
language as to what they were to call Him. And in Hawaii and in
Polynesia His name was 'Io. 'Io the uncreated one, the highest one
above all else. 'Io in the center of the greatest heaven.
This is a song that was written a few years ago on a retreat on the Big Island
where a group of us got together and a Maori man, a songwriter, a minister,
often with YWAM, his name is Luke Ka'a Morgan, anyway he put these
together. And he took his inspiration for the song from various
phrases in Polynesian history, Polynesian chants, that refer to that one
creator god, 'Io. And the words go ... "'Io you are the
father of all things, father of heaven. ... 'Io you are the water of
life. 'Io you are the creator of life. The maker of all things in
all this world. The rock. The glorious mountain. You
are 'Io. (Chant begins in Hawaiian).1
THE HISTORY
To understand
the nature of these Indigenous People’s Movement (IPM) teachings, we have to
start back at the beginning of what the Bible reveals and work our way
forward. The problem with IPM teachers is that they take Scripture out of
context, and thus the undergirding of their movement is proven to be made of
sand. In fact, in this case, it is toxic sands that will destroy the faith
of those who need the pure Gospel message.
God created a
man in His own image (Gen. 1:27). God then made woman from man (Gen.
2:22). But they sinned against God’s command (Gen. 3:6) and thus brought
sin for the first time into the world (1 Cor. 15:22). Through them every
man is born with a sin nature (Rom. 3:23, Col. 3:9) and because the wages of
sin is death (Rom. 6:23), every man is born destined for judgment (Rom. 3:20, Heb.
9:27). Man is sinful because of inherent, inherited sin nature and because
of willful choosing to sin (Rom. 3:10). God had to cast Adam and Eve out
of Eden (Gen. 3:24) so that they would not eat of the Tree of Life “lest he
put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”
(Gen. 3:22-23). Their first son, Cain, demonstrated his sin nature in
disobeying the Lord and killing his brother Abel (Gen. 4:8). He was cast
out from the presence of God, was “cursed from the earth” and made “a
fugitive and a vagabond ... on the earth.” (Gen. 4:10-12).
The entire
pre-flood earth, called the “Ancient World” in the Bible (2 Pet. 2:5),
became so corrupted with sin, violence and demonic activity (2 Pet. 2:4-5) that
God had to wipe out all of mankind (Luke 17:27) with the exception of one
family and the animals on the Ark (1 Pet. 3:20). There was only one man
recorded to have walked with the Lord (Gen. 5:22) during the Ancient World
before Noah and that was Enoch because of his faith in God (Heb.
11:5). Notice that God sought and called Noah and he alone obeyed the Lord
in the Ancient World of his time (Gen. 6:8, 13). After the flood God
commanded mankind, through Noah and his sons, to spread out and populate the
earth.
Gen. 9:1 So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: "Be
fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
But mankind stayed in a relatively small area of the
Middle East and only a few generations removed from Noah, through Ham, Cush,
and Nimrod (Gen. 10:6-8), congregated in “a plain in the land of Shinar”
under the rulership of Nimrod. The fact that it was only a few generations
from Noah is also backed up by the genealogy of Shem, Arphaxad, Eber, Peleg.
The Bible talks about the Babel dispersion: “To Eber were born two sons: the
name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided” (Gen.
10:25). It is also testified to in the
genealogy of Japheth, Gomer, Javan when the Bible states about the dispersion
from Babel: “from these the coastland peoples of the Gentiles were separated
into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their
families, into their nations.” (Gen. 10:4-5). You can read more about
Nimrod as a type of the Antichrist in the next chapter. Nimrod and the people
of earth built a ziggurat, high tower or migdal in Hebrew meaning tower,
castle, elevated stage (Strongs) with which to worship the created things
(Deut. 4:19). These created things included the stars and even Nimrod and his
wife. They did not worship God from that elevated stage. From the worship
of Nimrod almost all pagan mythologies and religions have a connection, such as
Marduk of Babylon, Osirus of Egypt, the Baals, etc. Thus the nations carried away false worship rather than true
worship of God. Towers are often mentioned in the Old Testament as places
of heathen worship and God often commanded them to be torn down (See
Judges). So God had to come down and judge mankind once again (Gen.
11:5). This judgment was necessary because the imaginations of mankind
were continually sinful and wicked (Gen. 8:21, 11:6) and they had imagined
themselves creating a civilization apart from the commands of God (Gen.
11:4). Since God had promised never again to wipe out mankind with flood,
God came down (notice that He calls Himself “Us” which is another Old Testament
allusion to His Triune Nature—Gen. 11:7) and He confused or confounded their
languages (Gen. 11:7, 9).
When they could not understand one another they could no
longer carry out their evil plans to build a high place to worship the created
things and create a civilization in opposition to God. So God, in confusing
their languages, scattered them over the face of the earth (Gen. 11:9) so that
they would carry out His commands even in disobedience. From there mankind
spread out to every corner of the earth. But the Bible records that they
did not seek the God they had already rejected at Babel. Instead the Bible
is clear that they rejected God (1 Pet. 2:4), were without God (Eph. 2:12) and
did not know God (1 Thes. 4:5, Gal. 4:8). God was a mystery to them (Col.
1:27), they had no hope (Eph. 2:12) and they continued in idolatrous worship (1
Cor. 10:20, 12:2).
It
is with this background information that we can understand what Paul was
teaching the Greeks on Mars Hill in context. It was always God’s intention
that people would seek Him (Heb. 11:6) and find Him (Acts 17:27). He would
never force them to do so because He created them with free will. But
because of man’s sin only a few individuals, from the time of Noah to Abraham,
had faith in God and, without exception, those few people are named and
detailed in the Bible. The rest continued in godless heathen idolatry
(Eph. 2:12). Because Abraham obeyed God’s call, the Lord began to reveal
Himself to Abraham and his descendants exclusively (De. 29:29). Through Moses,
God’s Law was revealed to Israel exclusively (Ex. 24:12) and only through faith
in God and by following God’s Law as a Jew could one be saved before Jesus
Christ (Eph. 2:11-12). After Jesus Christ died on the cross as the perfect Lamb
Whose blood sacrifice atoned for sin, and rose again to provide us eternal
life, the only way to be saved is to have faith in God's Son (1 Pet. 1:19),
confess our sins and repent (1 John 1:9, Acts. 3:19), believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ (Acts 16:31) and obey His commands (1 John 5:3). We are to preach the Gospel (Mark 16:15),
put off the old man (Eph. 4:29, Col. 3:9), put on the new man (Eph. 4:24, Col.
3:10) and display the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23).
THE DECONSTRUCTION
Now
we can deconstruct what IPM teachers are basing their blasphemous teachings
on. I use the Biblical term “blasphemous” because ascribing other names to
YHWH is blasphemy (Ex. 20:7, James 2:7, Rev. 17:3). Let’s take each
highlighted sentence, in Leon Siu’s opening statement, and look at them from a
Biblical standpoint. I will show that Leon Siu and others in the IPM, who
have made similar statements, “secretly bring in destructive heresies”
(2 Pet. 2:1), laying error alongside truth in order to deceive people because
they themselves are self-deceived. Leon Siu made these statements in a church
that has, heretofore, stood for sound doctrine. Yet even there if Christians do
not exercise discernment they can believe statements like these and the
blasphemous conclusion brought to them before the song, claiming ‘Io is
God. But take a closer look at it from a Biblical point of view and you
begin to see the evil these teachings hide.
“the history of God and His involvement in Hawaii
from the very beginning of time.”
God has NOT
been involved in the history of Hawaii from the beginning of time, at least not
in forming their culture and religion as its Author. Of course God upholds
everything by His Word (Is. 46:4, Col. 1:17, Heb. 1:3) but that is not what Siu
is talking about. First, the Hawaiians cannot even trace their history
back beyond the Polynesian islands without marked differences of
opinion. It is impossible to even set an accurate date for when the first
Polynesians found the Hawaiian islands.
“It is highly unlikely that the exact date when
Polynesian people first set foot on these previously uninhabited islands will
ever be known.”2
This
is demonstrated by the differing ideas people have about the origin of the
Hawaiians.
“First, from the Marquesas, came a settlement as early as 600 or
700 AD, and then from the Society Islands, another migration
about 1100 AD.” 3
“Settlers
who came to Hawaii 1,000 years ago, for example, are presumed to have come from the
Marquesas, 4,000 kilometers to the southwest. There was some kind of
pre-Polynesian population on the island, but it was probably absorbed by the
newcomers. A second substantial wave of Polynesian migrants arrived 500 or
600 years ago.”4
“Anthropologists
believe that Polynesians from the Marquesas and Society Islands first
populated the Hawaiian Islands in approximately AD 300, followed by Tahitian
settlers in approximately AD 1300 who conquered and eliminated the original
inhabitants of the islands. These Tahitian conquerors preserved memories of
their migrations orally through genealogies and folk tales, like the stories of
Hawai'iloa and Pa'ao. Relations with other Polynesian groups were sporadic
during the early migratory periods, and Hawai'i grew from small settlements to
a complex society in near isolation.” 5
That
being said, God was not in the business of forming the Hawaiian culture, their
society, their customs, their traditions, and above all their
religion. Hawaiians are hard pressed to trace their roots back to 600 A.D.
let alone the “beginning of time”. We are all descended from Noah because
there was only Noah and his family after the flood. Man rebelled against
God before the flood and after the flood, and had to be dispersed in judgment
at Babel. From the time of Babel to the present ALL Gentile nations did
not know God through any special revelation, nor did they even have hope (Eph.
2:12). They might remember that God created the earth. They might have a
vague recollection of the flood, though not accurate as demonstrated by the
many flood myths around the world as compared to the Biblical
account. There is a very slight chance they might even understand that God
created man in His image. This means they did not know God. God was
not involved in the Hawaiian culture from the beginning of time. This is a lie
designed to attempt to make a culture, which was sinful and heathen, into
something that is “good” after the fact. ALL GENTILE CULTURES WERE
HEATHEN!
The
word for heathen in the Bible is ethnikos which means “heathen,
heathen man, adapted to the genius or customs of a people, peculiar to a
people, national , suited to the manners or language of foreigners, strange,
foreign, in the NT savouring of the nature of pagans, alien to the worship of
the true God, heathenish, of the pagan, the Gentile” (Strongs).
In the Old Testament the word nokriy means “pagan,stranger,
strange, alien, strange woman, foreigner, outlandish” (Strongs).
This was used in reference to the Gentile nations who were foreigners to the
covenant of God with Israel (Eph. 2:12, 19).
“He’s also the creator
of cultures and peoples.”
Cultures
are the traditions of men (Micah 6:16, Mark 7:8-9, Gal. 1:14). God did
confound the languages of men, which all came from one language, and by that
act they could no longer communicate with one another and were forced to spread
out and populate the earth as God had told them to after the flood. In
doing this, God did not “create” a bunch of cultures. He sent people
groups out to where they were supposed to be to later be in proximity to Israel
after He dispersed the Jews (Deut. 32:7-11). But they clearly did not know
God and developed their own heathen cultures based on idolatry they brought
from Babel. To ascribe to God the charge of having “created” heathen Gentile
cultures, from which ALL Gentiles originate, is an affront to a holy
God. This assertion by Siu is also a good example of laying error
alongside truth. God did not “create” cultures. But God did create
people and put within their seed the ability to continue to procreate, while
God breathes life into them at birth and sustains them through life. This type
of false teaching method is what fools people. They accept one true
proposition, and swallow the false along with it.
“He gave them a separate language, He confused the languages”
Here
again we have one false and one true fact. The Bible does state that God
confused or confounded the languages. That word in Hebrew is balal from
which the name Babel is associated. It means “to mix, mingle, confuse,
confound” (Strongs). But the Bible does not say God “gave them”
separate languages. We have to be careful to use Biblical
terminology. Yes, in a sense God did “give” them separate languages, but
to be accurate and not leave the wrong impression, since we do not understand
the way in which God did this, we must use Biblical terms. Notice that the
Bible uses the word balal and not nathan or “to give,
put, set” (Strongs). That is significant as the Bible is accurate in every
word it uses in the original languages (Matt. 5:18). IPM teachers try to use
this act of confounding languages to prove that God “created cultures”, but in
the case of languages, the Bible says that He mixed, mingled, confused and/or
confounded them.
“and indeed call out to
Him and they would know Him by the creation around them.”
This
assertion is taken from Acts 17. But there is nowhere in Paul's discourse
on Mars Hill where Paul is guaranteeing that Gentiles knew or would know
God. The Greeks had sought many gods and did not find God, nor were they
interested in finding Him once Paul told them about Him. Men do not
naturally call to God, seek God or know Him. You cannot have a
relationship with God based on general revelation such as creation. All
the way from the time of Babel men changed the immortal God for worship of the
created things (Rom. 1:25) and ALL Gentile nations were doing the same.
There are very few notable single exceptions to this, such as the case of Job
(Jobab?) and Melchizedek, both likely from the line of Shem. In the case of
Melchizedek he was likely either a Christophany (an appearance of the
preincarnate Christ in the Old Testament) or Shem himself, as Shem was still
alive during the time of Abraham. In any case, these people are named and we
are told about them in the Bible.
For an
explanation of the misuse of Acts 17, which I need not go over again here,
please go to that chapter. But let me briefly note what this passage
really teaches as opposed to how it is being used in the IPM. It is clear from
the outset that the Greeks knew nothing about God and stated as much to Paul.
Acts 17:18 Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers
encountered him. And some said, "What does this babbler want to
say?" Others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign
gods," because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.
Acts 17:19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying,
"May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak?
Acts 17:20 "For you are bringing some strange things to
our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean."
Paul
was bringing them news of an “unknown God”, not one they knew about.
Acts 17:23 "for as I was passing through and considering
the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO
THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I
proclaim to you:
God
did create all life, including mankind, and continues to uphold it with his
power.
Acts 17:25 "Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as
though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all
things.
God
created one man from the dirt and one woman from man and so every human is
related by blood.
Acts 17:26 "And He has made from one blood every nation
of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their
preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,
The
writer of Acts, Luke, was quoting from the Old Testament. We can
understand the context of Acts 17:26 by reading Deut. 32:7-11.
Deut. 32:7-11 "Remember the days of old, Consider the
years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; Your elders,
and they will tell you: When the Most High divided their inheritance to the
nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the
peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. For the LORD’S
portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance.
God
was setting the boundaries for the nations according to the children of Israel
so that the Gentile nations would end up in proximity to Israel and thus
possibly come to know the God of Israel. It was not that God was creating
nations and giving them “promised lands”. He was going to spread Israel
out among the nations as a witness from the establishment of Israel till the
incarnation of Jesus Christ. After Jesus Christ the message of the Gospel
would be spread through Jews and Gentiles who had come to understand and
believe in the mystery of the Gospel.
God is
omniscient; therefore, He knows and has ordered where people will be. He
has set the times of their living on earth and where they will live. He
knows all these things and all things are according to His Will. But this
does not mean that every man follows Him, knows Him, is His child (John 1:12)
or is saved.
Acts 17:27 "so that they should seek the Lord, in the
hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each
one of us;
God
spread people out from Babel because they had disobeyed the Lord. If they
had stayed together there would have been no way they would have ever had a
chance of finding God since they were already into idolatry and worship of the
created things. So since God is not willing that any should perish (2 Pet.
3:9), He sent them away from one another in groups so that another disaster
like the flood would not have to happen. But the facts from Romans 1 are
that men did not seek God. They instead traded the general revelation they had
of God for worship of created things (Rom. 1:25). Of course, God is never
far from anyone as He is omnipresent, and He is never far from those who cry
out to Him in faith. But how are they to know how to be saved without the
Gospel and one to preach it (Rom. 10:14)?
Acts 17:28 “for in Him we live and move and have our being,
as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’
Acts 17:29 “Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought
not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something
shaped by art and man’s devising.
God
sustains all living things. This is not saying God is in all of us
(Pantheism), that we are all little Gods (Benny Hinn), or that we are all
saved. The poets were correct in saying we are His “offspring” because we
are made in the image of God. But the IPM teachers try to make
“offspring” sound like we are all “children of God”. There is only one way
to become a child of God and that is to be born again (John 1:12). But
men, like the Stoic philosophers of Paul’s day, were trying to make God in
their own image. This has not changed today. God is the only One who
is Divine. We, the creation, are not the Creator, nor do we share in His
Divine nature, His indwelling Holy Spirit, unless we are born again (2 Pet.
1:4).
Acts 17:30 “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but
now commands all men everywhere to repent,
The
point is that men have sinned, they have worshipped false gods and they did not
and do not know God unless they have a revelation of His Son through the Bible
or someone preaching the Gospel. Notice that this is the part of the verse
that IPM teachers do not quote. What they are doing is trying to credit
God for ungodly cultures and religions to take the blame off where it belongs
... on sinful people!
Acts 17:31 “because He has appointed a day on which He will
judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given
assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
You
mean God will judge His “offspring”, His creation? Yes! Those who do
not believe in His Son, in this day and age, are on their way to
hell. This is further proof that the word “offspring” is not talking about
the “children of God”. God cannot be our Father unless we believe on His
Son (Gal. 4:6).
Acts 17:32-33 And when they heard of the
resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, "We will hear
you again on this matter. So Paul departed from among them.
Godless
Gentiles, like these Greeks, when confronted with the Gospel, prove they do not
know God because they reject His Son. This is still true today. The
sticking point is always the Son and His resurrection. Our God is alive in
Jesus Christ! You cannot simply spiritualize Jesus by claiming some pagan
god is a type of “Jesus” like IPM leaders do.
May the Father, Adadoda, who is the Creator, Adanehilahusgi, and His
Son, Tsisa, bless you with perfect peace and favor by the power of the Holy
Spirit, Yohewa (Great Spirit). 6
Richard
Twiss, president of Wiconi International and keynote speaker at the 2001 conference,
said the land restitution is "the fruit of following traditional
indigenous protocol in presenting the redemptive message of faith and hope in Jesus
Christ as Healer, Great Spirit and Chief Shepherd of all tribes and
nations." 7
All
the gods of the nations are myths, are demonic, and on their way to
destruction, including ‘Io and, sadly, those who worship him (Ps. 4:2, 2
Pet. 3:7).
Acts 17:34 However, some men joined him and
believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named
Damaris, and others with them.
Acts 18:1 After these things Paul departed from Athens and
went to Corinth.
A
few will find the narrow gate and the narrow road (Matt. 7:13-14) when the
Truth is presented to them, but it is never large numbers. Today we are
seeing large numbers of people believing lies and myths from IPM leaders while
they claim to be preaching “the Gospel”. In point of fact they are turning
people away from YHWH and His Son, Jesus Christ, back to false demonic gods
like ‘Io.
“all the peoples of the world, at one time knew the Creator God”
The
Bible says they knew of Him(his existence) by
general revelation only, but vitually all people and ALL people groups from the
Ancient Times to the present day DO NOT KNOW GOD (Gal. 4:8). So this
statement by Siu is a false statement. It is clear from the eyewitness
accounts of Scripture, breathed by the Holy Spirit, that FEW men have EVER
really known God. Remember also that God “called” men to Himself (Rom.
8:28), and a few obeyed. It is also clear from history that Hawaiians did
not know God either. Even this “secret” ‘Io cult did not allegedly,
according to Kikawa, share their knowledge with Hawaiians who continued and
continue today to worship false gods. So even by Kikawa’s false argument
he disproves his own theory. All you have to do is go look at the latest
2006 International Cultural Summit here in Hawaii sponsored by practically
every Hawaiian government and Hawaiian society to see that (1) ‘Io is not even
on the radar screen and (2) they still worship other false gods and goddesses
like Pele. The cult of ‘Io in New Zealand among the Maori was also a cult
syncretized by two men, one of whom wanted to mix Christianity with his pagan
religion so as to not lose their influence in their culture and religion. Even
the last priest in Hawaii, Hewahewa “the Kahuna nui under the reign of
Kamehameha I” found out from sailors that there were people coming to
Hawaii to tell tales of a man named Jesus doing great miracles. He
pretended to prophesy the missionaries were coming yet “Hewahewa may well
have invented this story as a means of ingratiating himself with the
missionaries”. He wanted to help them so that he could find out how to
do the “Jesus magic stuff” he had heard about. When he realized later on
that Christians were simply preaching the Gospel and he was losing his hold
over the Hawaiian people, he reverted back to the pagan Hawaiian religion.8
A few web sites
out there have obviously bought the myth of Hewahewa recounted by Daniel Kikawa
(Leon Siu's pastor) in Chapter 9 of Perpetuated In Righteousness, about
him being a “prophet” of God.
“Hewahewa, being the high priest, knew the Prince of
Peace was on his way. ... Hewahewa knew the prophecy given by Kalaikuahulu a
generation before. This prophecy said that a communication would be made from
heaven (the residence of Ke Akua Mooli, the God of the Hawaiians) by the real
God. ... Hewahewa also knew the prophecy of the prophet Kapihe, who announced
near the end of Kamehameha's conquests, "The islands will be united, the
kapu of the gods will be brought low, and those of the earth (the common
people) will be raised up." ... Therefore, it was quite prophetic that,
when he saw the missionaries' ship off in the distance, he announced "The
new God is coming." One must wonder how Hewahewa knew that this was
the ship. ... At Kailua, Hewahewa gave an even more astounding prophecy, he
pointed to a rock on the shore and said to the new king, "O king, here the
true God will come. ... Hewahewa later retired to Waimea, O'ahu and became
one of the first members of the church established there. This church is
now located in Haleiwa and is called the Lili'uokalani Protestant Church."9
There
are also non sugar-coated versions of the end of Hewahewa. When you read
another account below you will realize that Hewahewa's motivation was not
unlike Simon the Sorcerer’s in the Bible, and that he was apparently never
really saved.
In October of 1820, when missionaries from New England arrived at the
same spot on the same beach from Hewahewa’s vision, the big Kahuna was there to
meet them. He welcomed the new Christian priests and their “gods from far
high places.” However, it soon became evident that these “white Kahunas”
possessed little, if any, real magic. “The blind and sick and halt had been
brought before them and had been taken away, still blind, still sick and still
halt,” Long wrote. “Something was amiss. The Kahunas had been able to do much
better than that, idols or no idols.” Hewahewa still hoped to see the powerful
magic of these new arrivals. When the missionaries said they needed a temple,
he and his crew helped to build one of cut stone, thinking that the creation of
sacred space would enable them to perform their miracles. “But, when it was at
last done and dedicated, the missionaries still could not heal, to say nothing
of raising the dead as they had been supposed to do.” Evidently, this was
the last straw. Soon afterwards, when Hewahewa was urged to convert to
Christianity, he refused and returned to his native spirituality. At the same
time, he ordered his fellow Kahunas back to their native healing practices..10
Like
so many people today, pagan priests were looking for signs and wonders when
they ought to have first learned to place their faith in Jesus Christ who is
the only one who really does Divine miracles. The “signs and wonders” the
kahuna were doing were not Divine miracles, they were “lying signs and wonders”
(Mark 13:22, 2 Thes. 2:9) designed to trap (2 Tim. 2:26) people deeper into
false religion.
“they knew Him by name. He made
Himself known through their language as to what they were to call Him.”
If the
Hawaiians, assuming they could even begin to trace their roots back to Babel,
knew God “by name” then ALL Gentile nations would have been worshipping God by
the name He used at Babel.
Ge 11:9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the
LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD
scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
That
name is Yahovah or YHWH. Strong defines this name as: “Jehovah
= the existing One 1) the proper name of the one true God.” If ANY
Gentile nations carried away the name of God from Babel, then there is no
evidence of it whatsoever in history. Why? How could they have known
His name when it had not yet been revealed! Only Israel later came to know
that God was called the “I AM”, YHWH, through Moses.
So
the facts are that no Gentile nation knew the name of God from the beginning of
the world or from Babel. They had no relationship with Him as they had
been sent away in judgment partly because of the false religion they had
started at Babel which included the worship of Nimrod. They had to later
have had contact with the Jews, been circumcised and believed in YHWH or they
would have had to wait until the Gospel was preached everywhere in the world
(Mt. 24:14) to learn about YHWH and His Son, Jesus Christ.
“in Hawaii and in
Polynesia His name was ‘Io.”
This
is simply a myth made up by Daniel Kikawa, and does not even jive with what the
anthropologists and Hawaiian scholars state. To read more about this, so
that I don't have to cover this subject again, go to Mike Oppenheimer's
excellent chapter on Kikawa’s book “Perpetuated In Righteousness” on
this subject. Let me just quote a few scholars, that Daniel Kikawa cites
out of context, to put this myth to rest. Here is the truth about ‘Io in
Hawaii:
“I had come to the conclusion that 'Io (Hawk), would be a hawk-god
as a result of perusing much of the same material. It seemed obvious that
the hawk was named for its note: `io'io in Hawaii, and Iciolcio in the Tuamotus
and the Cook islands, means to chirp like a chick. Kepelino, writing in 1859
(10, p.2G5) says of the hawk, “It is named for its cry.” The hawk, then, which
does not occur elsewhere in tropical Polynesia, was named for its cry, and not
for a god named 'Io.11
Here
is what the experts say about ‘Io in the Maori myths:
Anthropologist and researcher Peter Best did not believe the supreme
being of the Maoris was based on Christian teaching. Because “There would
have been some analogies or some rendering of the old Scriptural myths.”
However he goes on to say “ Nor is there any resemblance between the Io of
Maori myth and the somewhat truculent Jehovah of the Old Testament”12
Peter
Buck, whom Kikawa quotes in his book to support his theories, actually stated
the following:
“Moreover, he and other scholars were suspicious of the fact that
both Te Matorohanga and his scribe Te Whatahoro had become Christians before
details of the Io cult were written down. Buck himself concluded that no
authentic proof existed for the concept of a supreme creator named lo, Kio or
Kiho in Eastern Polynesia before dispersal to the various island groups took
place”13
“‘Io the uncreated one,
the highest one above all else. ‘Io in the center of the greatest
heaven.”
Just
because a nation, a Gentile culture, chooses to ascribe great titles to their
supreme being gods does not make them YHWH. As a side note, Leon Siu is
mixing up what is ascribed (by Daniel Kikawa and not the Kojiki) as an
attribute of Ama-No-Minaka-Nushi with ‘Io by saying “‘Io in the center of
the greatest heaven”. Daniel Kikawa, on his “God's Fingerprints In
Japan” states that “Ama-No-Minaka-Nushi ... means the God in the
glorious center of heaven”. This is a syncretism within a syncretism!
The Kojiki actually states that this false god’s title is “Divine Lord of
the Middle Heavens and god of the Pole Star”.14
He is not even the high god of Japan. That would be Izanagi and Izanami, male
and female deities, who spawned the rest of the Japanese false gods.
Let's take only
three cases of “supreme beings” and there are many, many more I could cite.
The case
of Amen (Aman) of Egypt.
Amen, Aman or
Amon was the “supreme being” of Egypt. Notice a few of the similarities
ascribed to Amen by his worshippers that also belong to the true God, YHWH.
“Primeval Creator God mentioned already in the
Pyramid Texts (5th Dynasty) as a primeval deity whose shadow protects the
other gods. His female counterpart is Amaunet. He is often called “The
Hidden One” which shows an association with invisibility. The ancients regarded
him as being behind and in all things, a deity too complex to describe in one
name or even possible to depict in his true form. Therefore another name was
“He who abides in all things”. ‘Hidden of aspect, mysterious of form’ or the
‘ba’ of all things are other epithets. They also called him ‘asha renu’ which
means 'rich in names.”15
Yet
God said that this “supreme being” was judged. Was YHWH judging
Himself? Ridiculous! He was judging yet another false demonic god
trying to set himself up to be worshipped as God.
Jer.
46:25 The LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says: "Behold, I will
bring punishment on Amon of No, and Pharaoh and Egypt, with their gods and
their kings—Pharaoh and those who trust in him.
The case of Hadad of the Arameans.
Hadad,
the false god of the Arameans, was ascribed basically the same attributes as
YHWH because there was a long-standing rivalry between those who worshipped the
Baals, of which Hadad was one, and Israel who worshipped the true God.
“While El or Il, whose name means ‘god’, is
commonly described as the creator of the earth, the Arameans ranked Hadad
before him. (http://home.comcast.net/~chris.s/canaanite-faq.html)
Baal Hadad (alternately, Adad) is portrayed as a god who dwells within the
darkness of a thundercloud, whose thunder is his voice, and whose rains,
initiate the Flood that destroys all mankind. (http://home.comcast.net/~theseeker/Yahweh.htm)
Hadad was the supreme Baal or God of Fortresses, whose worship extended
southward from Carchemish to Edom and Palestine. At Damascus he was adored
under the Assyrian name of Rimmon. (http://www.clydelewis.com/dis/sungods/sungods.html)
Hadad. Hadad was a prominent god among the Arameans, Syrians, and other west
Semitic peoples. The name appears especially in the Edomite genealogy of
Genesis 36 and in the history of the two Israelite kingdoms to the downfall of
the northern kingdom in 722 b.c. Hadad was the deification of natural forces
and war. He was viewed as the god of the storm, who displayed his power in
thunder, lightning, and rain. He was credited with both the good (desirable)
and bad (undesirable) sides of storms. He was regarded as the origin and
regulator of the beneficial rains, making him the principle of life and
fertility. The Assyrians saw him as a mighty warrior-god. He was portrayed
as standing on the back of a bull, wearing the horns of the bull on his helmet
and wielding a mace and thunderbolt.”16
Just
because a god is given some attributes of YHWH does not make him the true
God. The Bible is clear about Hadad:
1 Kings 20:28 The man of God came up and told the king of
Israel, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Because the Arameans think the LORD
(Hadad) is a god of the hills and not a god of the valleys, I will deliver this
vast army into your hands, and you will know that I am the LORD.’”
Remember
that Hadad was the “supreme being” of the Arameans above El.
Israel was judged because they did not fully destroy the Arameans and their
worship of the false “supreme being” Hadad.
Is. 9:11-15 But the LORD has strengthened Rezin’s foes against
them and has spurred their enemies on. Arameans from the east and
Philistines from the west have devoured Israel with open mouth. Yet for all
this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised. But the
people have not returned to him who struck them, nor have they sought the LORD
Almighty. So the LORD will cut off from Israel both head and tail, both palm
branch and reed in a single day; the elders and prominent men are the head, the
prophets who teach lies are the tail.
The case of Marduk of Babylon.
The god of
Babylon was Marduk. Note the “godly” attributes ascribed to him by his
followers.
Marduk (Merodach) was called “lord of Babylon.” ... “lord god
of heaven and earth.” ... According to one version of the creation
story Marduk was the one who has created us. ... The chief god of the
city of Babylon and the national god of Babylonia. As such, he was called
simply Bel, “Lord.” His name probably of Sumerian origin, is of uncertain
meaning. He was given all the powers and prerogatives of all gods, because
it was his mission to conquer the monster of the primeval chaos Tiamat - the
first Satan in history. He becomes "lord of the gods of heaven and
earth, king of the gods of heaven and earth, king of all gods and kings and
lord of all lords." All nature, including man, owes its existence to him;
the destiny of kingdoms and subjects is in his hands.17
And
yet those who worshipped the true God, YHWH, refused to bow down to Marduk or
any statues made in his honor or of Nebuchadnezzar.
Daniel 3:16-18 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and
said to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this
matter. "If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver
us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your
hand, O king. "But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do
not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set
up."
What
do we learn from these few examples? There is only One God in Three
Persons, and His Name is YHWH. His Son's name is Yeshua Ha Mashiach or
Jesus Christ. His name is not Amen, not Hadad, not Marduk, not ‘Io, not
Ama-No-Minaka-Nushi or ANY other “supreme being” of the nations. He
revealed Himself exclusively through His chosen people, Israel, to whom God
committed His oracles (Rom. 3:2) culminating in Jesus Christ being incarnated,
dying and rising again. Today the Gospel must be preached for men to have
a relationship with God. There is no other way. But Leon Siu
seems to think there is:
“So
these are clues that we felt God had left (the Hawaiian people) and evidence
that He’s left as well as processes He has left in which our Hawaiian people
can respond in a very natural way to God and really set things right between
them and God.”18
“a Maori man, a songwriter,
a minister, often with YWAM ... he took his inspiration for the song from
various phrases in Polynesian history, Polynesian chants, that refer to that
one creator god, ‘Io.”
In
the end, all Leon Siu has is myth upon myth. We are supposed to believe
that this song, concocted by a YWAMer, is “history” and accurately reflects
what the Hawaiians believed about “God”.
“Thank you Danny. Aloha everybody. Its really a pleasure
to be here. Gonna be talkin' a little bit about Christian
history. Actually not just Christian history but the history of
God and His involvement in Hawaii from the very beginning of time.”19
But
the fact is that this is just a case of syncretization. It is clear that
this Maori pastor took his inspiration from the mythologies of people like Te
Matorohanga and his scribe Te Whatahoro, and from Daniel Kikawa to write this
song about a false god. On top of this disgrace, he chants this song
without fully translating it for an English-speaking audience so they don't even
know what he is singing (1 Cor. 14:28).
“The rock. The
glorious mountain.”
Finally,
in this short clip, ‘Io is ascribed names like “the rock” and “the
glorious mountain”. Only Jesus Christ is the Rock, the Cornerstone
(Eph. 2:20), not a literal rock. God is also not a literal mountain, nor
is He described as such in the Bible. God has dwelt at the sites of
mountains in the past (Ps. 43:3, 99:9), and His temple is called a “mountain”
(Is. 2:2), but God is not a mountain. God is not His creation, as the
American Indians, Maoris and many other cultures believe. God is separate
and distinct from His creation (Is. 40:22, Acts 17:24). This is an important
point to make among cultures that tend toward pantheism.
THE CONCLUSION
When
will this all come to an end? Only when the Lord comes back and defeats the
forces of Satan, the "Zeitgeist", the spirit of this age that is at
work to bring people back into slavery to false gods like ‘Io and bring them
together into a false apostate world religion. This stuff is, for lack of
a better term, blasphemy—especially when it is allowed to take place from the
pulpit of a church. Yet this is what we are to expect in this age of
apostasy (2 Thes. 2:3), great delusion (2 Thes. 2:11)—a falling away from the
faith and a following after the coming Antichrist.
2 Pet. 3:14-18 Therefore, beloved, looking forward
to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot
and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation——as
also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has
written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things,
in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable
people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the
Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest
you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the
wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
What
has long been the command for those who follow YHWH with regards to other gods?
Exodus 23:13 "Be careful to do
everything I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not
let them be heard on your lips. (NIV)
Exodus 23:13 "And in all that I have said to you, be circumspect
and make no mention of the name of other gods, nor let it be heard from your
mouth. (NKJV)
Endnotes
1—Leon
Siu, interview by Danny Lehmann, Calvary Chapel Komo Mai, 4/06
2—Hawaiian
Roots, http://www.hawaiian-roots.com/hawaiihistory.htm
3—Ibid
4—An
Outline of American Geography, Chapter 17, Hawaii,
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/geography/geog17.htm
5—Hawaii,
Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii
6—http://www.injesus.com/Groups/ViewMessage.cfm?MessageId=YA006JT4&GroupID=SA006ILX&UCD=hjn
7—Richard
Twiss, Charisma Magazine, October 2004,
http://www.charismamag.com/a.php?ArticleID=9744
8—http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/kona/history5a.htm;
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pac/ku/ku03.htm;
http://www.gonorthshore.org/history.htm;
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_8_114/ai_n15696923/pg_3
9—Daniel
Kikawa, Perpetuated In Righteousness, The Makahiki Symbol,
http://www.wovoca.com/prophecy-hawaii.htm
10—http://www.alternativeapproaches.com/altapr/aahuna1.html
11—Journal
of the Polynesian Society, The Hawaiian God Io by Kenneth P. Emory
12—Maori
Religion and Mythology by Peter Best p.47
13—The
Lost Caravel by Robert Langdon, pg. 252
14—Japanese
Gods, http://www.lowchensaustralia.com/names/godsjapanese.htm
15—http://www.philae.nu/PerAnkh/perankhA.html#Amun
16—http://bible.crosswalk.com/Dictionaries/BakersEvangelicalDictionary/bed.cgi?number=T301
17—http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/rbaa.htm,
http://www.geocities.com/spenta_mainyu/god2.htm
18—Leon
Siu, Word to the World with host Danny Lehmann, KLHT, 2001, show #544
19—Leon
Siu, interview by Danny Lehmann, Calvary Chapel Komo Mai, 4/06
