Discerning False Teachers

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Post 315

For the second time recently, I am deterred from my intent to finish this section of Posts and begin the next. I had written expectantly that we would begin to reveal the Big Picture of the Grand Tapestry of all history that would make so much of this present work understandable in a revealed light, and yet we still haven’t done that, and the Post I had Posted next has been re-numbered and pushed back to include this one in a more cohsive order.
What I am finding as I endeavor to move forward, is that many earnest Christians are really stuck back at the McPherson discussion in trying to identify God’s message and delivery system as opposed to Satan’s. This lack of discernment is not a trivial issue to be brushed aside as something that will just “come in time”; but rather this lack of discernment is a gauge that reveals a very dangerous flaw in a confident faith that should by now be mature enough (Hebrews 5:12):

“And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of a stranger” John 10:4-5.

I have the present advantage of fresh perspective regarding new faith, by spending a significant amount of time working with a lamb that I was recently privileged to snatch away from the wolves by introducing him to Christ the Savior at what seems to have been “the last second.” But he does not yet know the shepherding voice of that saving Christ and is still so “shell shocked” by the long activity of the tormentors that he cannot differentiate the voices yet. We have all seen the movies of someone “frozen in fear” at exactly the wrong time to simply walk away from sure doom as their rescuer instructs, and while there is virtually nothing that keeps them from easily escaping their demise they need someone to physically grab them and lead or carry them to immediate safety and worry about mop-up afterwards (Jude 1:23). He has a lot of thorns in his soil that is taking a whole lot of aggressive diligent weeding to keep the seed of new life seeing the light of the Son which sustains it (Matthew 13:7+Luke 8:14), the risks are still great and we’re not even out of the last surgery yet, but the prognosis at this point is surprisingly good.
So, while we might scrutinize the facts of such a particular case as they relate to the above verse and conclude that these people are therefore not saved because they don’t know his voice, we can use simple reason to understand that not all things in life are completely instantaneous in the process of success (Mark 8:22-25)… in fact few things are. There is conception long before maturation results in birth, and this successful birth even long before the infant is capable of feeding itself to survive, and this self-feeding, long before the youth is ready to step out into the world as a viable adult. So at what point does life actually begin? With virtually nothing more than a belief to acceptance that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and came in the flesh to shed his blood for our redemption, we have new life, we are on the way to being born again, we shall be saved.
So now, where does the above passage come in, that speaks of a knowing ear for all who are Christ’s sheep? It seems to conflict with the basic promise:

“…Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” Acts 16:30.
But Jesus says:
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life;…” John 10:27-28a.

You might reply; “The voice they know is his voice that leads them to salvation.”
Great, all is wonderful. But why then does he indicate that they also follow him unto eternal life, and then he continues with:

“…and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one” John 10:28b-30.
As opposed to:
“Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away” Matthew 13:5-6.

By the above additional promises provided after the gift of eternal life to those who are actually Christ’s, among those who are not, it becomes evident that there are unpleasant extenuating factors in play, for all, that makes it necessary to have this comforting knowledge of confidence in the face of what seems by observed experience to be otherwise (Acts 27:20). This is a whole new level of faith beyond the conception of salvation that sprouts the seed, and this is where many of the young plants are lost. This “tried faith” is a faith of maturation after conception unto viability at birth where the shepherd puts them forth. This is exampled in Abraham as he was promised a land, and promised a son, but received neither through nearly his entire lifetime of maturing faith-in-waiting. (Romans 8:24-25).

So now, what if one who recently believes on the Lord Jesus Christ cannot yet distinguish the Lord’s voice in the desire to follow him? What if, in his lack of ability to distinguish one voice from another, he doesn’t flee from the stranger’s voice but follows him, thinking it is the Lord’s voice, because it's familiarly comforting? And similarly by complexity, what if, in that fear of potentially following a stranger’s voice because he is uncertain of knowing the Lord’s voice, the sheep just freezes in fear and can’t follow any voice, or even flees from the Lord’s voice because it is unfamiliar to what he has always heard? As Jesus said; sheep flee from a strange voice. How are these conditions applied in the concept of our study verses that says; “believe and be saved”?

This is not a rare condition today. In fact this is the norm in our age of confusion, and it deserves a more thorough discussion. After all, this is the age just before the end when no more men can be saved (Ezekiel 14:14,16,18,20, John 12:35-36, Jeremiah 13:16-17, II Peter 2), therefore we should expect an increasing degree of difficulty as that day of impossibility approaches.
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Microwave Christianity:
I find that most all the modern failings of earnest Christian-doctrine-applied are found in the sloppy use of scripture. The earnest but ignorant generalization of the word of God leads to failure because the principle of mathematics never results in a correct answer if either our input of data or our calculations are even a fraction off. This is not a matter of “mostly right” but of right and wrong by the very nature of right and wrong. Even in elementary school you did not get a “mostly right” grade for concluding that 5+7=11 or for identifying three apples as 4, and even our youth have no problem understanding that a single misplaced letter in the log-in rejects all access to their FaceBook page, yet somehow today, adult Christians use this sloppy approach to scripture and then are stunned that the scriptures have failed them in the earnest application because they expect that sincerity, in ignorantly random faith, counts. Let’s try a bit of math-mentality with one of the above verses and see just how sloppily we understand our own faith:

“…and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” Acts 16:30-31.

So tell me, when is this person saved?
“He is saved at the moment he believes on the Lord Jesus Christ,” right?
Are you sure?
“Of course I’m sure!” you reply.
So what about those in his house?
In fact, most Christians are so sure of this truth, that they will boldly and confidently base their eternal soul on the truth of this verse… or more accurately, on their perception of this verse. But I will show that this rock solid faith is flawed. This verse does not actually say that the salvation is instantaneous but rather is a much longer process that has just begun at the said belief. Which is why Abraham can be called a man of faith yet lie about his wife in fear to save his own skin… twice!
I understand that to your Christian mind this immediately sounds like heresy, and that your long Christian faith rises to battle such “new” thinking as being “a stranger’s voice.” But if, because of the few elements that you can recognize as undeniably true, you cannot conclusively distinguish the “strange” voice speaking out of Mrs. McPherson, then you may in fact not know the voice of your shepherd as well as you imagine. Obviously the voice I heard and the voice heard by the contending web author regarding the McPherson’s gospel, are two different voices. We both claim to be the sheep of Jesus Christ who was sacrificed in the flesh for our sins, so what is going on?

“Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is in the world” I John 4:2-3.

If you don’t have a clear answer to this dilemma in our very practical application, please put down your unskilled ear-hacking sword of Peter defending his Lord (John 18:10-11) and let’s discuss this reasonably, to a greater understanding.
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Shall:
Let’s start in our study verse with the word “shalt.”
We recognize that in the wording of Acts 16:31, the word “shalt” (“shall”: affirmation in the future tense), has two possible meanings, because the asker is not yet saved in the present tense of the question. So this can either mean that upon believing on the Lord Jesus Christ the asker will be instantaneously saved, or it can mean that by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ the asker will eventually be saved.
The very confident and longstanding faith that believes simplistically in the instantaneous interpretation of completion, will react with the suddenly frightened complaint that I am arguing semantics or intentionally making a complex issue out of a very simple and precious verse. And, as a stand-alone verse I make no defense; the instantaneous interpretation is actually quite true in simplicity of genuine faith to a new believer who needs such assurance. He shall be saved. Period.
But our discussion is not discussing such a simple new faith, but rather a mature faith that for some reason does not have the practiced ability to distinguish our Lord’s voice from that of a smooth-talking stranger and is instead; “pretty sure but uncertain.” The proof is that while you may be pretty sure your spirit doesn’t like where I am going with this, my argument is scripturally strong enough that you can’t be sure I am wrong. Are you willing to argue through the facts of the case to find the truth wherever it leads, or will you cut me off in fear of being deceived? If the spirit that leads me is not of God, it should become evident even in the argument of my “right words.” And if you are afraid that I might skillfully deceive you away from Christ then you have just proven my point that you don’t know his voice well enough to follow him when he “puts you forth” as in the above John 10:4-5. This dilemma is not the problem of new lambs because the shepherd does not put them forth yet as he does the older sheep (I Corinthians 10:13), but today we have an entire flock of mature sheep that still do not know his voice so completely that they simply cannot be deceived, even by a good impersonator intending to sound like him for that purpose (*1). In fact I may be just such an identity thief, and so what good would it do for me to plainly tell you that I am not?
So what are you to do? How are you to know? I am sorry to report that in answer; most Christians today just “follow their heart” the same as the world does, but these Christians call it “the leading of the Holy Spirit,” which claim, has the additional benefit of demonizing any honest evaluation of the claim’s truth. Logic and reason cannot succeed against such emotionalism and the outcome cannot be different than we see with the outcome of Jesus’ trial (John 7:7 becomes 15:18= Matthew 24:9-10), or the similar Islamic blood letting in the name of God-- regardless of the CAR style, changing identity of the bloodletters. Unrestrained emotionalism knows no limits in its desire to defend what it loves or get what it wants, and ruling passion recognizes no laws but its own. The feminine horse of the heart's passion needs a masculine rider of law (reason) to guide it. (See Post 168 “The Heart” http://when-did-reason-die.blogspot.com/2011/02/heart.html).

Let me here state very simply and clearly that the word of God is His voice, and is to be trusted above even “the Holy Spirit” as you know him, or rather, think you know him:

“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” Galatians 1:8, (and again in v.9 for driving the point home).

Simply speaking; if you know the written word of God then you know his voice to the same degree. But there is a problem beyond simplicity, because Satan also knows that written word and is therefore capable of twisting your perception-- i.e. interpretation-- of that voice if you are so susceptible. The Comforter is he who provides the; “I KNOW that this is God’s true voice,” but Satan also uses an imitation-comforter to speak comparable “feelings” to a different result, which is why you may get one thing from the word but another from the spirit. This “conflict of information” is much like an OT lot cast into the lap, which in principle (*2) comes up; one “yes” and one “no,” or in otherwords; “No answer.” There is always a specific reason why you get from God a “no answer” (I Samuel 28:5-6, Proverbs 16:33). But, again we see that everything the Lord provides, the Devil corrupts (Joel 3:3, Nahum 3:10), and today, in place of the no answer possibility of the OT lot of God’s faithful, a single coin is flipped by the faithless to leave the “answer” to chance that always gives an answer, but in so doing provides no guarantee to the accuracy, or even supernatural involvement.

So, with the last-days word of God and the Holy Spirit to confirm it, the Devil now provides his own “internal confirmation” as his listeners by familiarity read that same word and come up with a completely different answer than we do, thus the I John 4:6 discernment of the spirit of error, which is actually distinct from the I John 4:3 spirit of anti-Christ, which is the multiple identity of “they, and them” in v.5 referring to v.1.
No longer content to just have his own crazy books of whacked religions that have always been good enough to deceive lost people, nor even content to have his own perversion of the original book needed to deceive Abraham’s “other” children, the age of confusion is just getting more confusing as he actually now uses our own book to deceive us; the very elect. This is spiritual identity theft! (Matthew 24:22-25).

So in light of our confused mind’s and heart’s ability to misunderstand even the scriptures of the Apostles, How then are we to be sure of anything?! We must return to the basics and begin again from there:

“…Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” Acts 16:30-31.

Even an infant, who still knows nothing, knows the voice that he became familiar with while still in the womb. Belief is the conception of the life that will become salvation if planted to grow in good soil (Mark 4:20, Deuteronomy 28:1-14). Salvation is the eventual familiarity of that voice unto practiced obedience that results in the I John 3:6-9 impossibility of following another voice:

Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them (the deceiving spirits of the preceding verses): because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error” I John 4:2-6.

To the untrained ear this just sounds like so much arrogance of the same sort of “my religion is right” speech that the opposition preaches to their own. Take Islam for example. But this passage of scripture is not preaching to Allah’s children but to Jehovah’s. Jehovah’s children have an internal beacon that triggers on the truth of what the Apostles of Christ are saying; “This is truth,” their spirit says, even as their mind might struggle with understanding it. And Allah’s children say the same thing by their own beacon when they hear his spirit speak through their prophet and ministers. This is only a confusing war of “Whose right?” when you don’t know the shepherd’s voice because you are not his. A lying, deceiving, or even a sloppy application of scripture, is not his voice: it’s a v.6 lying spirit of error designed to deceive you, because, by your accepted sins in dirty grace, you have prepared yourself to listen to it (I Kings 22:20-23=II Chronicles 18:19-22, Acts 28:26-27, John 12:39-40, II Thessalonians 2:10-12).

I have bounced around the actual evidence of scripture that the word “shalt,” as used in Acts 16:30, is speaking of a future salvation. So let’s go back to the word of His voice to hear more of that voice (i.e. intent):

“But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed…And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren…” Acts 15:5-7.

Are you hearing this? These Jesus-Christ-believing Pharisees, who knew well the law of Moses, were in hot disagreement regarding an accepted but “strange” doctrine of the faith because it was not familiar to them (see Acts 11:2-4,16=18), but Peter, the Jewish Apostle of Christ Jesus, called all in that meeting “brothers in Christ” because they all believed. There was no Islamic style anti-Christ spirit there to be judged, nor a spirit of error that misused scripture to a wrong conclusion, but rather a lack of full understanding in the faith, or a difference of opinion on how to implement it; (see the Acts 18:25 limited knowledge that was corrected in v.26 to great advantage [v.27-28], and the Acts 15:36-41 sharp contention between Paul and Barnabas as examples). Now let’s hear Peter’s conclusion as it relates to the Gentile’s faith:

“And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith (rather than by the law)” Acts 15:8.

Peter’s argument is that the undeniable evidence of God’s Holy Spirit in these Gentiles was proof positive that they were indeed saved and purified by faith alone without the works of the Jewish law. They were saved, just as the Hebrew believers in Christ were saved, but the Hebrews did not yet have the liberty of the Gentile’s freedom from the law. The Gentile’s salvation was by faith alone, something the Jews were really struggling with because it seemed to “feel wrong” to their long confident understanding of the faith that said it must come with strict obedience to the law as tangible evidence of their sincerity. Then to this affirmation Peter concluded with:

“Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they” Acts 15:10-11.

Peter was actually raising the faith of the Gentiles above that of the Jews because the Gentiles needed no rules of conformance to keep them in line; they simply found faith and devotion to God without such rules, and the believing Jews were still catching up to such faith in practice.
But here is the sum that makes my point: Peter, and the group of believing Jews that he was addressing-- even after Christ’s resurrection, even after the Holy Ghost was given-- were still looking for a salvation that they did not yet have! But neither did the Gentiles that they were discussing: Salvation is a condition of the future, that through faith (belief) we confidently possess in “hope” the confirmation of “shall” (I Thessalonians 5:8-9). We are not actually saved until we are wed to the Messiah at the marriage in heaven. This is confirmed by the parable of the ten virgins waiting for the bridegroom to open the gate but not all make it in, in spite of the “shall,” as we have discussed earlier (Matthew 25:1-13). See also I Peter 1:3-5, Romans 13:11.
* * *

Why is this distinction of “shall” important?
It is important because while after we believe to confession, we yet remain here on earth to struggle with the maturity process before we enter eternal life as viable adults of faith useful to the kingdom of heaven. So if we wrongly conclude that salvation comes as an instantaneous and complete result of belief unto confession, then we have a wrong perspective on why we remain here on earth, and the resulting neglect or struggle in maturity takes us off-guard-- as with the five foolish virgins who thought they were OK-- and so such a belief confuses us to destructive ends at a time that is too late to fix.
The additional confusing fact resulting from the concept of Identity Theft, is, that many, who really seem to be sincere in the true faith, aggressively stand against our own true and sincere faith, so we are prone to call them anti-Christ when it’s nothing more than immature faith:

…“For if I by grace be a partaker, why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks? Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God: Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved” I Corinthians 10:30-33.

So now, understanding the complex layers of true and false faith, we can grasp the concept that just because another believer cannot find the grace to understand our approach and therefore calls us demonic subverters of the faith, does not mean they are not saved, nor does it mean that they don’t even have the Holy Spirit! Wow, knowledge and understanding-- or the lack thereof-- are very powerful elements of our spiritual humanity that can actually conflict with our genuine faith and cause us and others great trouble without “loosing our salvation”!

“If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death” I John 5:16-17.

BUT, with this complex knowledge, we also see that this grace extended to those believers, who, in a lack of knowledge or understanding might attack us in defense of the faith as they know it, in no wise condones a false faith, even if it’s sincere and shows a very similar manifestation as ignorance. Let me show this distinction in our practical application:

In a recent Post I suggested that the Christian web author that stands fully against the McPhersons as holding a deceptive demonic doctrine of devils, was acting as the Pharisees that refused to hear Jesus’ truth and condemned him to death in the defense of the faith of God as they knew it. These Pharisees, by rejecting the Messiah himself, were in fact the children of Hell. These were not the same Pharisees that contended with Peter regarding the practice of the Gentile believers! This is an important distinction!
So which type is our contending web author?

To reject the teachings of a boy who has been given the gift of the Holy Spirit to a degree more than most, is not to the Jewish Jesus-killing faithless degree, because the faith in Jesus Christ the redeemer is retained in the web author’s faith and understanding: Therefore, this is not an anti-Christ spirit issue. But, this is indeed shaky ground because to reject the truth of the Holy Spirit is to reject the Christ that he reveals, in the same way that rejecting the Son is rejecting the Father. Therefore, we need more distinction.
The distinction must be recognized in the knowledge or lack thereof. The web author in question has not bothered to spend the time to actually hear the message, because in fear he/she has outright rejected the method of delivery even before hearing the message, just as the Pharisees did with Jesus. This doesn’t look good, but it’s still possible that this is not a case of actually rejecting the message, nor the Holy Spirit that gives it, but rather the delivery method, just as the believing Pharisees contending with Peter. This, like Mr. MacArthur’s blanket condemnation of “anyone who comes back from a trip to heaven,” is hopefully a simple “mechanical issue” of zeal, that we pray can be fixed in time with more knowledge and understanding of God the Father and his Son our Lord:

“Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:” II Peter 1:2-3.

Since God’s ways are so vast that they are past finding out (Romans 11:33), we can safely imagine that he has a few ways that might shock us a bit, just as the salvation offered to the Gentiles-- even additionally exclusive of the long-standing Jewish laws-- was a double-shock to the Jewish believers. But those "new" ways were discovered proven true in the OT as a part of God’s plan all along, and so are some of the things we see today-- as well as some things we will see tomorrow! (Revelation 11:3-10).
My greater concern, in this present case, is the spirit of error that permeates the web author’s material. This, more than anything else, is the distinction that provides the true identity of the spirit behind it (II Timothy 2:15-18). There is a vast difference between ignorance and the spirit of error, and this just reeks of sloppy error that must be firmly stood against without condemning the person under the influence: recognize, repent, and repair the error, and the person is back with us, just as a leper cleansed! (II Timothy 2:19,21). But stubborn resistance to the exposure of the error is a spirit that leads to a very bad place (Proverbs 29:1, 6:14-15).
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The evolution of mankind:
What do you suppose would happen if a high school graduate entered his first day of college Calculus class without a firm grasp on the basics of elementary math? Not only would the student be utterly incapable of passing the class, but the professor would be as utterly incapable of teaching him anything; “Those were things you should already have in your grasp before you entered this class.”
Is the professor to blame for utterly confusing the boy who wants to remain but can’t keep his hand down with foundational questions? To stop the class and explain the basics again and again at every step to prove that this “new math” is not in conflict with the former teaching, would be to practically fail to teach Calculus!
I am jumping ahead a bit here, to describe that while Christians utterly reject the concept of Evolution, the actual word and its meaning, in the lower-case “e,” is to be fully understood and accepted by Christians in its true form of; natural and predictable maturity from a single cell to seasoned adult: evolution is the process of maturity.
Now taking this elementary concept into college, from which mature thinking is advanced, we must not confuse the “new” mature knowledge of how a seed becomes a tree, with the perversion of Evolutionary thinking that now masquerades as this mature thinking and teaches us that a tree’s seed can magically become a cow. Evolution with a capital E is simply a perversion-- another gospel if you will-- of the elementary knowledge as we try to use it in an advanced class that already has confusions enough.

So with this understanding, we will soon discuss the Grand Tapestry that shows us the evolution of humanity in a way that I expect will astound you, and make clear a whole lot of things. But for now, what we are dealing with in this present Post topic, under the title The Mystery Is Not The Beast, is college Calculus to students who have been happy to take basic math in every year of pre-college schooling, thinking that there can be nothing beyond 1+1=2… which of course it does.
Some people will just never understand this degree of spiritual evolution (maturity), and that’s fine, but in a technological world of computers and quantum science as the Typology of the expected spiritual state of maturity today, they better be content to sweep streets in the kingdom of heaven rather than govern multiple cities! (Matthew 25:14-30) (*3).
Humanity’s Christians, 2000 years after Christ’s sacrifice, are supposed to have progressed beyond the basics by now (Hebrews 6:1-2), yet we seem to continually come back to shore-up these important truths when the hands all over the class go up again and again in confusion. This is indication that somebody needs to go home and do some long neglected personal homework to catch up! There is a difference between memorizing the answers and actually understanding and knowing how to do the calculations that will be necessary for advanced class. As I will soon show; Today’s world-age is existing in the advanced classes, we simply don’t have the option of changing the curriculum for a classroom full of primary-level students. The Matthew 24:37 days-like-Noah are coming, and Noah knew how to build a sea-worthy boat! This is the age of Advanced Boat Building.
But having said that, like as Paul indicated; I really don’t mind walking through the very important basics, so don’t stop asking how they relate (II Timothy 2:24-26), just spend more time in your homework too, and get to know the God that the word speaks of!
My writing intentionally speaks in principles, avoiding the simple straight-forward one-sentence answer that you are accustomed to, because I am less interested in teaching you the simple answers and more interested in teaching you how to find the answers for yourself. This concept is extremely important in our present age of confusion that has more questions than answers can be memorized. My intent is to break through your normalcy bias and allow you to consider what has long been blindly rejected.
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Perpetually Unstable Solid Footing:
Being an earnest and diligent Christian for most of the life that I can remember, I have always felt I had a solid footing in my faith even more stable than of those whom I made acquaintance. But in my solid faith I eventually came to a keen awareness that my faith was not in rest, it was not in victory, but was rather in a constant struggle and a regular state of repenting for continual failures that were too strong for me to overcome, representational of the Jewish OT law that Peter said could not likewise be kept. And while most all of my Christian associates were contented to remain in this state of defeat by proclaiming “We’re all human, and all men sin,” I was expecting more from my faith because the scriptures seemed to tell me to expect more.
The Galatians 5:22-25 Fruit Of The Spirit and the opposing Galatians 5:19-21 Works Of The Flesh were lists of signs on two different charts that told me in no uncertain terms where I actually stood if I dared to be honest, and where I stood was clearly in the flesh department in spite of my strong and stable faith and desire to be otherwise. For years I had no victory and God seemed to provide virtually no James 1:5 wisdom in the continual asking.
It was only after I made the James 1:7 determination to clean my house, utterly abandon my “insignificant” pet sins and distractions, to turn my full attention upon God in earnest (Jeremiah 29:13, Psalm 119:2), was I then finally able to have true victory over my vices addictions attitudes and stumblingblocks that kept me crawling back to the cross for guilty repentance of things I had spent my life enslaved to and had earnestly repented of countless times before to no avail.
The deception that must be fully confronted is the permissive sins and distracting cares of this life that plague our “Good Christian American” existence. And although, in our sin-inflicted stupor of intoxication with this world we don’t see the connection, they nonetheless manifest as; lawless, anger, lust, greed, envy, bitterness, frustration, apathy, and a critical spirit. Said simply: Our earth-minded worldly focus makes us powerless Christians.

“…lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away” II Timothy 3:4-5.

Looking back upon my solid footing of a powerless Christian who was significantly more upright than those around me, I could not see the obvious truth that this verse described me perfectly, and that real Christians were commanded to turn away from me. ME! This is not something to take casually. But this is the typical American Christian today, who having obtained salvation is now just waiting on God to do something powerful in their lives, and the obvious lack is God’s failure. This is the Christianity of failure that will send the world to the Great Whore of Babylon, who is at least not a powerless hypocrite to be mocked, but rather a very alluring destroyer in a great disguise!
God is not condemning such a confused Christian but earnestly desires them to turn fully to Christ Jesus in a real faith that will save them from the judgment that is in fact coming like a Freightliner at night toward a deer in the headlights (I Thessalonians 5:1-2, II Peter 3:9-11). So, while perhaps actually still a Christian, let’s just say that God is so unhappy with this form of powerless Christianity that he directs his faithful to turn away from them. This is as the lepers turned out from the city of God to dwell alone for the health of the family.

For these people, the knowledge in my Posts are not the knowledge of God for you, but are rather, to you, just a curious placebo that you use to delay acquiring the knowledge of God for yourself. Can you find that knowledge through my Posts? Yes! But few readers will, because they read it through intoxicated eyes of want, that have no real intention of laboring to get, in spite of their loud protests that they want to (*3).
This is usually why they never got it figured out back in spiritual elementary school, but an additional possible reason is because it wasn't taught there anymore, just as with our temporal Typology and basic math.
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(*1) Identity Thief:
Here is one example of countless that I constantly see scattered across FB like leaves in a fall wind. I cannot recover the original lost in the volume, nor include its length if I could, so I offer this short gist:

I complained to Jesus that I had a bad day and wondered why he let all that happen.
Jesus replied: “Oh? tell me about your day”
I said: “This morning my alarm didn’t go off and I was late for work, then at lunch the sandwich shop made my order wrong and I had to wait for them to make me another, then at the end of the day my car wouldn’t start and it took forever to get a jump, etc., why did you let all that happen?”
Jesus replied: “The angels were fighting for your very soul this morning so I let you sleep through that, the person who made your sandwich was sick, I didn’t want you to catch it so I had someone else make you another one, there was a drunk driver on the road that would have killed you so I delayed your entry onto the freeway after work, etc.”
I was ashamed and said thanks, and asked him to forgive me,
Jesus said, “Sure, Just remember that I’m looking out for you.”

While this sounds all warm and fuzzy and endears us to this “Jesus who cares for us,” who are we, to put words into the mouth of the very Word of God, and thereby imagine to fabricate the very mindframe and motive of the Maker and Sustainer himself?! What abominations we commit as we relegate Jesus to the role of imaginary servant to our human emotions! What explanations does this Jesus say to the 12-year old virgin raped by her uncle, or the young woman who just lost her two year old son to a drunk driver, or the man who watches his wife slowly die of a horribly painful disease, or…
Oh the unspeakable crime of Identity Theft as we presume to make the All Knowing All Capable God the pet of our human minds of emotion and manipulate HIM to be what WE want for our emotional pleasure! I suggest that the author and the disseminators of such sweet poison go and read the book of Job and then re-think your false gospel of Jesus’ words and motives.
Is Jesus really so incompetent as to be unable to cause the sick sandwich-maker to not show up to work at all? or perhaps make the drunk driver’s car quit instead, and thereby save every motorist in his path?
This kind of warm and fuzzy “Jesus story” is the very face of the Great Whore who does not reject Jesus, and this is but one of the plethora that daily preaches this new squishy Jesus to ignorant people thinking themselves to be solid Christians making excuses for why Jesus has failed them.
But in confusion; doesn’t this story give you the enlightened mindframe to comprehend and accept that Jesus has plans that you don’t know about or haven’t considered? Sure, but at what cost to the actual truth do you learn this tidbit? I am not concerned that you should be corrected by my rebuttal, but why you might believe this trash in the first place! Jesus’ sheep hear his voice, and another they will not follow! What is this telling you who swallowed it because “it sounded so right”?

(*2) The Old Testament Lots:
I have not yet found conclusive evidence of just what the OT lot consisted of. The principle is to flip two “coins,” each with two possible outcomes: heads or tails. For the lot to be true it must land with either two heads or two tails, each outcome having a pre-determined request attached to it.
There is a possibility that the lot consisted of three “coins” and therefore must result in three heads or three tails to validate the outcome as genuinely supernatural. Anything short was a “no answer,” which then must be investigated to find the cause of God’s silence. Scripture indicates that a “no answer” was an anomaly, not the norm.

Today, God’s people do not cast lots because;
1) we have the Holy Spirit and the Word now, and
2) the lot has been corrupted by the dark arts to the extent that any use of such, by the turning away from the Holy Spirit who now provides the answers, leads to demonic activity (I Samuel 28:6-7=16).
Now that we have the Holy Spirit and God’s complete written word, we simply have no need or use of the lot and any return to such would be going backwards not forwards, and this is forbidden (Genesis 19:26, Luke 9:62, Hebrews 6:4-6). But neither are we to cast off the understanding of the principle, because God never changes; he just uses different methods at different times (Hebrews 1:1). Therefore the principle of the lot can help us comprehend our interaction with God’s Spirit, and a right response when the heavens are brass (Deuteronomy 28:23), or God forbid even iron (Leviticus 26:19). (See Job 28:2+Isaiah 48:4 for a curious study to develop later in Beyond Alchemy).

(*3) Please review Post 164 “EET - Favor with God” (http://when-did-reason-die.blogspot.com/2011/02/ett-favor-with-god.html).
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