How Ancestor Worship Came About in China
In the beginning,
ruled over China.
When he was old, he desired that 
would
take his place to rule, as was a
righteous man and was esteemed to respect his parents greatly by the people. He had
work on various positions first, to gain
experience. Then he gave in marriage his 2 daughters
to
as wife.
After praying to LORD (Note : Chinese called LORD
, meaning King in Heaven or High heaven),
he gave the rule to
on the first day of the year.
When became old, and seeing that
had proven himself in the taming of water
(Note: China was troubled by flood almost year after year, 's father was first assigned the job to tame the water. His father
built dykes to contain water, but dykes broke often, and water was not tamed.
Seeing this, he took another approach, he used the method of "diversion", building
lot of channels, to divert the flow from the river. And this cured flooding, and have
the additional benefits of providing irrigation/drinking water to many places.
And his method of "diversion"
and not "containment" became the standard of water engineering in China.), and he
too, after praying to LORD, gave
rule of China on the first day of a year.
(meaning
serve the people in the fear of LORD) was the words to describe rulers
at that time. (Note: in a sense, ruler in ancient China may be compared to
judges in the Bible, Chaper Judges).
gave his place to his son when
he was old. And from that moments onwards, kingship was not given to the most
able, most righteous person, but to sons, in China. After many years, when the kingship
was passed to 
,
oppressed the people greatly.
saw it, he sent messengers throughout
China, proclaiming "King perverts
righteousness, and exalts himself, and oppresses you people ...". And after that,
he raised an army to overthrow .
Great number of people deflected to him, much to his surprise, and he succeeded in
overthrowing .
made his sons king after him, and so
it went on this way. When 
ruled,
the moral situtation in China became worse. People started to worship demons,
practiced witchcraft, and believed in augury .... When
ruled, he killed many righteous
people with very cruel means (shed much innocent blood),
and he also loved beautiful girls.
,
saw this, they rose to overthrow him.
,
were very good kings. One of the
high ranking official under them,
, commented "
was righteous indeed, his mercy cannot be measured. (
)".
Descendants of ,
knew that their fathers returned to
LORD after their death, and so they prayed to their fathers, in the hope that their
fathers, who were now in the presence of LORD, would intercede for them.
At that time, there was a practice that king would give away pieces of land to people he desired.
After many years, those who had been given land to govern, and who had raised army of their own, became disobedient to the king. Thus it began a long period of great conflicts and wars between the warlords.
Confucius was born then, and he wrote (or spoke) "Analect"
(
, he also gathered the poems
popular then into another book, called 
.
From the poems, one can see how "pure" our ancestors were. Money, possession,
fame, life of enemy ... meant little to them. They had the joy of a child.)
Confucius taught in his book that we should worship our ancestors. And because
of "Analect", ancestors worship became rooted in China.
Over the years, people worshipped their ancestors, and spirits (demons), and also great heros/rulers that had died. And they forgot LORD. Whereas, our earliest ancestors worshipped LORD, and Yahovah is His name.
(I will cease to talk about History. Suffice to say that, among the warlords,
one 
was very crafty. He made
alliances with warlords far from his land (those who would not pose any
immediate threats to him), to war
against the warlords near him. He eliminated them one by one. He eliminated even
those who had previously formed alliances with him afterwards. Finally only him was left.
But his act displeased LORD, and LORD took away his life shortly after he succeeded
in getting the sole kingship in China.)
We, human beings, if we obey the teachings of LORD and Jesus, will not suffer
illness, ageing, or death. 
lived more than 900 years, comparable to those recorded in the Bible. We get
sick, age, or die because we disobey LORD, we wouldn't believe their kind teachings,
and have wrong attitudes. In doing so, we break LORD's Law, get ourselves into
various forms of trouble, thus torturing our spirit continually, and
therefore become sick, age, and die.
(Note : We Christians believe Jesus was LORD himself coming into the world in flesh. And teachings of Jesus is the teachings of LORD. Those who believe and walk in Jesus teachings, and repent of their past wrongs because of ignorance, and promise LORD to lead a new life - one lawful and right in the sight of LORD, will be forgiven their past wrongs.)
Now, how about our soul after death. As LORD is GOD OF JUSTICE, those who had sinned (broke LORD's Laws) will be punished in one place called "hell", until he had "paid the last penny", then his soul enters a state of sleep. Those who suffered in flesh, in this life, because others broke the Laws, will enter another place, called "paradise", and be recompensed accordingly, then, also, his soul enters a state of sleep. Finally, come the Judgement Day, when all souls will be resurrected, and those in hell will die forever, and those in paradise will enter the New Heaven and New Earth. [Luke 16:19-31, Dan 12:13, Rev 20,21,22]
(Note : LORD's Laws work like this : if A steals $100 from B, A will be fined double, i.e. $200, and B is to receive this $200 as a recompense. If A causes a disfigurement in B, A will be disfigured. But, beware, never take vengeance with our own hand, or we transgress LORD's Law too. For more details of LORD's Law , see [LORD's Law])
Our life in the present world may be compared to "probation". An employer would put the employee under probation for some months, see how he behaves, before enrolling him as permanent staff. So our life is a probation, to see whether we are worthy for the New heaven and new earth.
Some are exceptions. Some will go back to LORD immediately after death, or even without tasting death, e.g. Enoch, Elijah, Moses, Lord Jesus .... [Mt 17:1-13]
Here are some teachings of LORD,
- You shall have no others gods before me.
You shall not make yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them ... [Ex 20:3-6]- A man or a woman who is a medium or a wizard shall be put to death; they shall be stoned with stones, their blood shall be upon them. [Lev 20:27]
(Note : demons may appear to be friendly, but they are not to be trusted, nor befriend with. LORD knows the true nature of demons, and taught us never to befriend with them. Should someone befriended with them, they become extremely dangerous to the whole congregation, they will drag people to pursue after vain things, and not after LORD's righteousness, hence they shall be put to death.)- You shall not practice augury or witchcraft. [Lev 19:26]
- You shall not fear other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them; but you shall fear the LORD,... [2 King 17:35-40]
(Note : Many Chinese worship demons for fear of them, and hence they appease the demons with offerings. This is the wrong thing to do. This is similar to appeasing terrorists by giving them huge money. If we know the true nature of LORD, we would not be afraid of demons. Look at the sky, look at the billions of stars, they are formed just by word from LORD's mouth. The power of LORD is more than billions of Atomic bombs.
When LORD allows demons to afflict us, it is because LORD wants to train us in handling various situations, and we should trust the LORD, and handle such crisis step by step, carefully. We can learn a lot from such experiences.)- Whoever sacrifices to any god, save to the LORD only, shall be utterly destroyed. [Ex 22:20, Deut 13, Ex 34:12-17, Deut 18:10-14]
LORD ruled the earth by His Laws, much like governments do. And LORD's covenant with us is simple : keep the Laws, we will be blessed; break the Laws, we will be cursed. This is the sacred trust a society holds towards LORD. Hence, if we haven't broken LORD's laws, there is nothing to fear, not even demons. Will you fear policeman if you do not break the laws? But if you break the law, do you have the courage to face them, or the angels who uphold LORD's Laws ? [Joshua 1:1-9, Lev 26]