Idol Hunter The Evangelical Temple of Doom Volume 1: Idol Hunter The Evangelical Temple of Doom, #1

By C.L. Bruton

There have been more than 15 centuries of shameless corruption within the evangelical through abuse of power despoiling more than 26 Billion lives.
This book pursues TRUTH that will empower its reader to facilitate both the identification and destruction of idols in their lives as well as those which the western evangelical has erected over the past centuries most of which were inherited from their mother the Holy Roman Empire. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: IISCorp
• Release date: Jul 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781643704234

Book preview

Are You a Seeker?

4 And he taught me and said to me, Let your heart cling to my words; keep my commandments and live.  5 Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forsake and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.  6 Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you; love her, and she will guard you.† 7 Wisdom is the first thing; get wisdom, and with all your getting, get understanding. ° 8 Exalt her, and she will lift you up; she shall bring you to honor when you embrace her.  9 She shall give a wreath of grace to your head; she shall shield you with a crown of glory.  10 Oh my son, hear and receive my sayings, and the years of your life shall be many. ° Proverbs 4:4-10HRB

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Deception has been with us since the Garden of Eden and there is little to indicate that it has or will dissipate only that it by all accounts appears to be intensifying.  While we might want to lean into the notion that evil or spiritual subterfuge is something outside ourselves, something outside the ‘church’, even something outside those on the path of virtue never the less, the harsh reality is that, just as it was in the Garden, it is in our churches, it is in all our manmade social ecclesiastical structures because the wickedness resides in each of us. 

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9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is incurable; who can know it? ° Jeremiah 17:9HRB

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Ours is the program of and toward obedience which more than often will distill down to our propensity to choose what we need over what we want.  The topic that addresses this in scripture is idol worship.  True there are idols all around us that reside in the temporal space however, these idols are confined to a world where there are only two religious paths from which to choose, the path of Cain or the path of Able.  Idols are merely a temporal representation, fleshly landmarks of self-worship that longitude where we put what we want above all other.  If we are honest we could not defend our choice of churches, our choice of high places those contextual environments that serve up what it is we truly want.  It is curious to me that we need only look to find the religion that can deliver our most deviant and nefarious of desires.  This is self-worship, the self-same as paganism all of which begins in our hearts.  This is precisely why there are more than 40,000 denominations, increasing daily, and a venue from which it is said on any given Sunday a dozen pagan religions could emerge. 

The western evangelical is known above all other things as the religious theater in which the actors are eaters of their own, those who engage in spiritual cannibalism.  The reality that beacons us is the verisimilitude wherein we are capable of both affirming and confessing that our religious order has been taken over, that it has been abducted with the full consent of  the evangelical constituents.  It is only here on this latitude that we can advance, that we can cross the threshold emerging a seeker of truth devoid of the undiscerning heart of bias that has for so long held us in bondage while concurrently leaving us spiritually obtuse to the idols that have long since assimilated in our orbit only to metastasize.  Ours is the pursuit of the title of ‘good’ King, one who with great passion stalks the TRUTH, the mighty intrepid idol hunters both within and without.  Sincerity would dictate authenticity to a level where we could begin accept all things self-serving as idols.  When we are impatient, selflesh, greedy, intemperate, gluttonous, drunken, seek our own, unloving, unkind, critical, unforgiving, show disregard even disdain we are engaging in idolatry.  TRUTH is our only ordnance against the onslaught of deception.

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A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.  ~C. S. Lewis

When we observe the Kings of Israel we are only capable of determining two breeds, two classes, those of the religion of Cain and those of the religion of Able, good Kings and evil Kings.  One, will not, cannot find a mediocre King.  We are just as the Kings of Israel and Judah as we have been conveyed the jurisdiction necessary to govern our lives.  Ours is but to choose if we will be good kings or evil kings.  The single solitary element the catalyst of the classification ‘evil’ King lives in the want of life.  The eyes are the narthex to want as they provide the lion share of provisions of nourishment to our primal instincts those appetites, impulses, even dispositions of the flesh.  These are those moments in life where we abandon the reality that YHWH will provide possibly because we know emphatically that He will not, He cannot that we elect to take care of ourselves relinquishing for a time our trust in Him.  For some it is the agent of collaboration in an effort to better facilitate even expedite the will of Elohim that we intervene.  We have all been in that premeditated situation such as celebrating graduation when we tell ourselves that the case of beer on ice in the back is all right, having long since seized the comprehension that we will in short order exit the reservation under the guidance and directive of our volition.  This could be described as an auto immune disease of the spirit manifesting itself in self-destruction.  This is the battleground between the spirit and flesh.  These areas of our lives are the most vulnerable places in the walled city of our minds, the gates.  If we are to be successful we need to make TRUTH our solitary quest.  Next, having encountered TRUTH we will have eyes with which to see even ears to hear.  In our endeavor for the ‘good’ of the King clothed in righteousness we can begin to employ the TRUTH to seek out and vanquish the idols in our lives those gates in the wall of our mind.  We defend the gates the weakest points in the wall by eradicating them preemptively. 

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True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.  ~C.S. Lewis

7 Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy concerning you, saying 8 This people draws near to Me with their mouth, and with their lips honor Me; but their heart holds far off from Me.  9 But in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the command-ments of men. ° 10 And calling the crowd near, He said to them, Hear and understand 11 It is not the thing entering into the mouth that defiles the man, but the thing coming forth out of the mouth, this defiles the man.  12 Then coming, the disciples said to Him, You know that hearing the Word, the Pharisees were offended?  13 But answering, He said, Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up.  14 Leave them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind; and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.  15 And answering, Simon Peter said to Him, Explain this parable to us.  16 But Yahshua [יְהוֹשׁוּעַ] said, until now, even you do not understand?  17 Do you not yet perceive that everything entering into the mouth goes into the belly, and is thrown out into the waste bowl?  18 But whatever that proceeds from the mouth proceeds from the heart and becomes a defilement to a man†.  19 For from the heart go out evil thoughts Murder, fornication, theft, false witness, blasphemy.  20 These things are the things defiling the man. But eating with unwashed hands does not defile the man.  Matthew 15:20HRB

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Asa was considered a good King of Judah.  Why was Asa esteemed a ‘good’ King?  It was because he was a zealous reformer determined to root out idolatry and its attendant licentiousness single handedly discharging male prostitutes, idols from holy places, breaking down altars, pillars and Asherim.  His was what we would today consider a positive sum game as he and his kingdom would as a result of his maintaining the true worship of YHWH would experience both rest and prosperity in his land.  Isn’t this the point, the aspiration of all our enterprises?

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2 And Asa did the good and the right in the eyes of YAHWEH his Elohim.  2Chronicles 14:2HRB

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Following Solomon, Jeroboam would be a player in YHWH’s tearing the kingdom apart.  Jeroboam was considered an ‘evil’ King of Israel.  What contributions led to the appellation of ‘evil’ King?  Here he is at the crossroads of Cain & Able where he must choose what he wants or what Elohim wants.

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Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning... ~C.S. Lewis

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26 And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now the kingdom shall turn back to the house of David;

27 if this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of YAHWEH at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people shall turn again to their master, to Rehoboam the king of Judah, and they will kill me and go again to Rehoboam the king of Judah.  28 And the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Behold your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!  1Kings 12:26-28HR

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After having been made king over all Israel his first care went to fortification.  This single solitary act is a tell of the longitude of his heart.  His was governed by a carnal policy over that of the will of Elohim.  He engaged in calf worship violating the commandment of one altar at Jerusalem.  Next, he worshipped YHWH under the form of images in violation of the 2nd commandment.  It would be the sin of Jeroboam that paved the way for baal worship.  He would erect shrines only to be forever branded the man, who made Israel to sin.  As a result of his evil leadership Israel would endure affliction as would his own house.  His son would die as a result of his disobedience and defiance toward YHWH.  This is chaos at an epic level. 

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30 And this thing became a sin, for the people went before the one, to Dan.  1Kings 12:30HRB

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26 and walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and in his sin that he caused Israel to sin, to provoke to anger YAHWEH the Elohim of Israel with their vanities.  1Kings 16:26HRB

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23 In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash the king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Jehoash the king of Israel reigned in Samaria, forty one years.  24 And he did the evil in the eyes of YAHWEH; he did not turn aside from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he caused Israel to sin.  2Kings 14:23-24HRB

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There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, Thy will be done, and those to whom God says, in the end, Thy will be done. All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened. ~C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

Before we step off in it we would do well to examine our history that place from where we come to insure clarity.  For we in the western evangelical we owe a formidable man our gratitude.  He forged the way for Protestants all over the globe.

Martin Luther was a complex man who accomplished four colossal crowning triumphs.  First, he was successful in the tearing down of idols even high places some 1.5 millennia this side of the 1st century church.  Second, he led the reformation movement wherein those who would follow would secede from the Holy Roman Empire, Catholicism, and their New Testament appellation, ‘The Beast’.  Third, his movement would culminate in what we know today as Protestantism.  Finally, the greatest achievement of Martin Luther in my opinion was his encounter with YHWH that which made possible the previous three only eclipsed by the fourth.  As a result of a collision with YHWH Martin Luther would for the first time in his dedicated life have eyes to see the Holy Roman Empire, to which he had devoted decades of service, for what it was, evil.  It was because of this new reality that we are here today.   How does the Bible describe the Beast?  The Beast is portrayed as:  powerful, blasphemous, cruel, makes war with the saints, worshipped by all that dwell on the earth, performer of great wonders.

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2 And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and its feet were like the feet of a bear, and its mouth was as a lion's mouth. And the dragon gave its power to it, and its throne, and great authority.  Revelation 13:2HRB

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6 And it opened its mouth in blasphemy toward YAHWEH, to blaspheme His name and His dwelling place, and those dwelling in Heaven.  Revelation 13:6HRB

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The fact which is most consequential for we Protestants is that the reformation of Protestantism was born out of the Holy Roman Empire.  We are the illegitimate daughter of Catholicism.  This lends itself to a particular bias.  As Protestants, those which came out of the reformation when we encounter an indictment of the Catholic Church we should without any decenters convict. 

Early in the 16th century a revolution began – the reformation movement.  For centuries there had been friction between the Catholic Church and the people.  One of the principle leaders of the movement was Martin Luther.  He was bold enough to publish his protest in the 95 Theses.  This caused a revolt in Germany.  This soon had a domino effect throughout Europe.  Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther, but Luther burned the decree at Wittenberg.  The cries arouse over the sale of indulgences.  For money, the church would release people from crimes including murder (by selling indulgences).  Then the pope claimed infallibility.  This supremacy was disputed by England and Germany.  Papal power was weakened when she had two popes at the same time hurling words of anger against anyone who should support the other.  At about the same time there was a movement in Switzerland by a priest named Zwingli.  He married in 1524 openly disobeying the pope.  John Calvin settled in Geneva and taught theology which was adopted by the Puritans of England and was carried across the Atlantic by the Pilgrims who came to America for freedom of religion.  Scandinavia withdrew its support of the Catholic Church in 1527.  Denmark abolished the authority of the bishops in 1536.  The Netherlands went over to the Lutherans.  Spain, France and Scotland were rejecting the authority of the pope.  One by one the ten kingdoms of Europe were leaving the Catholic Church.  The entire movement was about a BOOK called the BIBLE.[i]

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Martin Luther as we mentioned previously achieved some remarkable things matters that would take substance and grow over millennia.  However, there was a darker side a sinister nefarious facet to Martin Luther one which exceeds our ability to comprehend such a duality existing only at the ends of the behavioral continuum.  His persecution of those he intended to liberate was ghastly heinous. 

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Many groups formed to take advantage of the new liberty and rebelled against the overlords. Incredibly, Martin Luther opposed them and set the cause of freedom back by his opposition to changing the feudal order. He supported the Imperial system on the basis of the scriptures that say that kings, or powers that be, are ordained of God, and whoever resists the power resists God. In the Peasants' Revolt in Germany, the peasants, through their charismatic Christian leaders, attempted to establish communities and to control their own lives and land. The appeal of the peasants in The Twelve Articles* which they issued contains demands that most civilized nations now accept as ordinary rights of all men everywhere. Not so Martin Luther; he condemned their rebellion as anti-God, and since they would not follow the scripture in submitting to the powers that be, they would be damned if they died in battle. On the other hand Luther took the most incredible position that the lords would be saved by their very act of killing the rebels because they were doing their God given-duty!** In the passage that follows Luther is defending the harsh attack that he had made on the peasants before the revolt and he rebukes the people who now urged clemency to the peasants who were still being slaughtered even though they had been defeated and had surrendered.

* Tappert, Theodore G.; op. cit. pgs. 308-316.

**Tappert, Theodore G.; op. cit. pgs. 353, 354. In this essay, Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants; Luther makes some of the most extreme statements on war and slaughter that even the stoutest hearts must cringe.

If they think this answer is too harsh, and that this is talking violence and only shutting men's mouths, I reply, 'That is right.' A rebel is not worth rational arguments, for he does not accept them. You have to answer people like that with a fist, until the blood drips off their noses. The peasants would not listen; they would not let anyone [he means himself] tell them anything, so their ears must now be unbuttoned with musket balls till their heads jump off their shoulders. Such pupils need such a rod. He who will not hear God's word when it is spoken in kindness, must listen to the headsman when he comes with his axe. If anyone thinks that I am being uncharitable or unmerciful about this, my reply is: This is not a question of mercy; we are talking about God's word. It is God's will that the king be honored and the rebels destroyed; and He is as merciful as we are.*

* Tappert, Theodore G.; op. cit. Vol. 3, pgs 365, 366.

Ironically the same emperor whom Luther would support as ordained of God to put down the peasant revolt would install the inquisition to clean out by torture and murder Protestant adherents in Spain and Holland. Wells says this same emperor, Charles V, called on the grand inquisitor when Protestant teaching was discovered close to his own city.

Tell the grand inquisitor to lay the axe at the root of the evil before it spreads any further. [He recommended as an example his own mode of proceeding in the Netherlands,] where all who remained obstinate in their errors were burned alive, and those who were admitted to penance were beheaded.*

* Wells H.G.; The Outline of History; Garden City Pub. New York; 1950; pg. 764

Ironically, Luther, who should have been the champion of individual rights, set the cause of Protestant freedom back literally hundreds of years and he imposed on the German people the iron fist method of discipline and the unthinking obedience to government authority that has molded many a German family* as well as the German nation, including the Third Reich. This is not to discount the immense good that Luther contributed to faith and morals in opposing wrong when he saw it and releasing the scriptures to the European nations. But he has to have been mistaken in his dealings with the peasants. Even the Catholic rulers used Luther's tract, Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants to justify their own slaughter of the peasants whom they had defeated. God knew he would be mistaken in this area; He said, it shall make your belly bitter.*

*Of whom this writer is one.

Beside the Peasants' Revolt in which over 100,000 peasants were slaughtered, the new thinking of the open Bible would be the cause of political unrest (not yet revolutionary but continuous) that would be the cause of seemingly endless wars and disputes in a mixed Protestant-Catholic feudal order until the old order that Luther thought was God-ordained passed.  You see, God had not crowned the emperor, the Pope had crowned the emperor.* The symbol in Revelation says the little book would be sweet in the mouth but when it was digested it would make the belly bitter.  Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.

*Emperor Charles V of Spain was made emperor by the seven electors in 1519.  He had himself crowned by the Pope with great pomp at Bologna, Italy, in February 1530 to validate with this final touch his claim to the medieval position of Holy Roman Emperor.[ii]

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Having acknowledged our heredity to the point of embracing the paradigm of Martin Luther as pertains to the Catholic Church we can precede eyes wide open.  We will encounter a number of patterns that immerge from this study one of which will reveal the culprit of these conspiracies spanning some 2 millennia as well as the mascot the intended recipient of worship.  These patterns will create an environment which will make identifying the architect, object of and benefactor of adoration, the rationale behind the conspiracies spanning millennia, notwithstanding the obvious that of wealth and power leveraging the most influential of entities that construct which has and continues to embody the global church, and the pattern that will shine some light on manner, and method in which it has successfully accomplished the greatest of deceptions.  Ours is a world defined by words, the question is who defines those words?  The next question is are we engaging in double think or would we realize it if we were?  The word criticism has not always carried with it a negative connotation but instead a sense of accountability which is everyday more and more a mirage.  Today the new word for criticism which once was judgment even complaint is now in the pigeon hole of negativity.  Ours has become a world of top down accountability in which those of us not in leadership encounter this negativity but it has a single solitary flow downward like the old saying, shit rolls downhill.  When we attempt to hold our leadership accountable we are at best censored and at worst banished.  We need but look no further than the fictional moral high ground or the top of the heap to find that superficiality even flattering lips draw the greatest audiences.  One such machination is you’re either with me or against me.  How can this be when there are 100’s, 1000’s of alternatives in any given scenario?  This is no different than the two party system that plays we the public against each other where they eliminate all other possible alternatives effectively purging the system of choice and freedom. 

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It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.  ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The indictment against the evangelical is the non-existence of any activity that even remotely resembles the tearing down of idols either corporately or individually even while this is one of the most prolific Biblical themes.  Ours is such a paradox in the era of tolerance and the age of the critical spirit.  When we disagree with the church program our choice is suck it up and stay or leave.  Based on the non-activity of downing idols one might presume that there are neither idols nor high places in the evangelical or within its constituents.  It makes one wonder what was meant by:

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12 So then, my beloved, even as you always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much rather in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, Philippians 2:12HRB

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3 And you shall break down their altars, and shatter their standing pillars. And you shall burn their Asherahs with fire. And you shall cut down the carved images of their gods, and shall destroy their names out of that place. ° Deuteronomy 12:3HRB

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4 for the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but of the power of Elohim to the demolition of strongholds, 5 casting down imaginations and every false thing lifting up itself against the knowledge of Elohim, and bringing into captivity every thought into the obedience of Messiah, 2Corinthians 10:4-5HRB

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1 And the Philistines took the ark of The Elohim and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.  2 And the Philistines took the ark of The Elohim and brought it to the house of Dagon, and set it near Dagon.  3 And the Ashdodites rose early on the next day. And, behold! Dagon had fallen on its face to the earth before the ark of YAHWEH! And they took Dagon and put it back in its place.  4 And they rose early in the morning on the next day; and, behold! Dagon had fallen on its face to the earth before the ark of YAHWEH, and the head of Dagon, and the two palms of its hands, were cut off at the threshold. Only the flat part had been left to him.  1Samuel 5:1-4HRB

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We live in an epoch wherein the ecclesiastical at all levels has long since been infiltrated even permeated by idolatry to a degree that it has become adopted tradition no longer taking up lodging in the realm of the high places as it has been deemed virtuous forever precluding it from the list of teardowns.  What we will observe while moving through this document is the emergence of Protestantism, its inception was not without spiritual contagion those idolatrous maladies the exposure to which was in vitro.  Protestantism was born a proverbial crack baby having been addicted in the womb by its mother.  These idols passed down via genetics and tradition in a subversively surreptitious manner.  In their genesis they would appear to be legitimate organs never requiring scrutiny.  The curious thing about idols & high places is that their core support team, maintenance crew, even advocacy group is made up of solely people.  The idol of dagon bowed prostrate before YHWH and was unable to right himself without the help of his worshippers.  The worshippers of idols are their proletarians arm those who will defend the idol as it is incapable of self-defense.

To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.  ~ Martin Luther

Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?  ~Corrie ten Boom

Prayer of Jabez

9 And Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. And his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bore with sorrow.  10 And Jabez called to the Elohim of Israel, saying, If indeed You would bless me, and make my border larger, and Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil so that it may not grieve me!  And Elohim gave him what he asked.  1Chronicles 4:9-10HRB

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1 Chronicles 4:10

Called - When he was undertaking some great and dangerous service.  Enlarge - Drive out these Canaanites, whom thou hast commanded us to root out.  Grieve - That it may not oppress and overcome me: more is understood than is expressed.  He useth this expression in allusion to his name, which signifies grief.  And God granted, &c. - Prospered him remarkably in his undertakings, in his studies, in his worldly business, and in his conflicts with the Canaanites.[iii]

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Jabez prayed for larger territory.  The scope of this request is understood to be greater than the temporal the actual focus of which is spiritual.  While a territorial prayer was spiritual that battle would it seems leech into the temporal by addressing those enemies,