Historic Trends of America. – Bonita Bible Mission

CHURCH SLEEPS ON TURNING A BLIND EYE.

CHURCH SLEEPS ON TURNING A BLIND EYE.
THE MISSING SPIRIT OF PRAYER
With the late 19th C. downgrade of church prayer meetings the clergy then (conveniently relegated it to privatized intercession to the home. The increased pastoral control and often made him the hero as sole prayer guru of the assembly, although he too, usually lacks the fire to do so orally before the congregation today.
What happened to the gathering of interceding saints’ weekly meet of the congregation? Their once powerful prevailing mediation for the lost, for the state and the nation has been silenced or at best muted for over a hundred and fifty years?

No wonder congregations die and disappear to leave only the ebullient stage performing pulpits to simulate what has been lost by their irreverent and flippant humour, or unashamed secular jokes; improvised music of the world, and a manufactured sense of excitement to keep the hype going. They are sadly deluded, nothing can replace the abandoned spirit of prayer by the priesthood of all believers wherein oral fervent and impassioned brethren, elders, and deacons participated as moved by the burdens granted by the High Intercessor sitting on the right hand of the Father ever interceding for His body.

Today a nation has floated from its bearings once anchored, for the most part, upon the Rock.
New England Theology built upon the humanistic 18th C Enlightenment that led famed evangelists into liberal philosophy of the FREEDOM OF THE WILL (1746), rewriting the principles of prayer, grace, and salvation by faith through grace as they rejected both the Reformation and evident biblical principles.

This downgrade of the weekly public church prayer meetings urged pastors to reassert control over the midweek meeting and re-elevated their eminence as Commanders-in-Chief to replace the very life-breath of an assembly.

The pulpit replaced the-power-house of fire with a disappearing small slot suffixed to the pastors’ study at the end of his oration.

A “smoking flax” is all that is left of the fire that shook the church and awakened the lost with a hunger to hear the Gospel it preached, soon brought by the Father to Christ Jesus, though ‘the hearing of faith’ (Galatians).

Modern controlling pulpits have in a hundred years silenced both the voice of the pews and quenched the spirit of prayer and now the nation and o/or Union pays the price.

That Spirit of Prayer leaves when there is “no room for HIM in the inn”. But relegated to the stable the doors are locked and soundproofed for fear of that holy fire that once burned in pulpits and pews. The key is hidden in a time capsule as an anachronism of the past.

CHURCH SLEEPS AMID TWO PANDEMICS.

CHURCH SLEEPS ON TURNING A BLIND EYE.

DEGENERATIVE CHURCH MUSIC AND MESSAGE

THE FALLING AWAY PREDICTED BY JESUS IN “THE BEGINNING OF SORROWS”.

Is the prevailing music in assemblies and their broadcasts the music of Baal?
Have the tried and trusted sources of the Gospel unwittingly become Ichabod like Shiloh of old?
Has the remnant, the elect, grown weary, hungry, and de-motivated and finally lost contact with the Great Shepherd of the sheep?

Once there was one lost sheep absent with 99 safely in the fold. But now more typically there are 99 astray and one left in the fold.

Do the ninety and nine realize the danger of the devil’s thicket in which they are caught? Could they possibly be unaware that the thorns of the thicket grow prolifically by the worldly spell of Baal’s cacophonous and stentorian melodies?

What of the isolated ones who refuse to go the way of wandering sheep and reject the abhorrent sounds they hear? Do they long to hear again the still, small, voice of their Saviour in the quietude of yesteryear?

In their dilemma would they rather read the Word at home than hear their pulpiteer’s feigned sermons? These pontificating prophets were well described by Isaiah and Ezekiel?
(Ezekiel 13: 3-22 excerpts)

1) 3 Thus says the Lord God; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! …

2) 6 They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The Lord says: and the Lord hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word…

3) 7Have you not spoken a lying divination, whereas you say, The Lord said it; albeit I have not spoken?

4) 10 Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace;

5) 17 Likewise,…the daughters of your people, which prophesy out of their own heart,

6) 22 Because with lies you have made the heart of the righteous sad…and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life:

Article: John David
Quotations: King James Version of Holy Bible (Public Domain).

DEGENERATIVE CHURCH MUSIC AND MESSAGE

PRAYERLESSNESS OF OUR CHURCHES. (1)
by John David
Without the spirit of prayer present in a congregation converts will be made by men, but not by God. They will be taught doctrine, creed, and biblical history, confessions of faith, and biblical verse memorization, but lack the inner Teacher in the absence of the spirit of prayer.

Charles Finney of the Second Great Awakening and George Whitefield of the First Great Awakening were totally dependent upon the spirit of prayer. Finney would only preach in a church where it was manifest in at least one or two saints. The whole secret of his ministry was the spirit of prayer. He personally knew the secret of prayer described in Romans 8 and 2 Corinthians 10. He knew what it was to ‘stand in the gap’, to plead, reason, and remonstrate with his heavenly Father.

This was none other than the secret of Moses, Daniel, and Elijah. Albeit, for an assembly of the saints, warm coals can only retain their fire when with other warm coals which then may become hot if they pray audibly to their Father together. This is the secret of the statement: “I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”. Otherwise, the church is constantly on the defensive against a wily foe who can outwit it.

When saints pray audibly and unashamedly in Christ’s name the smoking flax will flare into flame again and the bruised and broken reeds will begin to revive. To underestimate the spoken prayers of the saints is folly indeed. The invisible cycle of this process is described in 2 Corinthians 10.

Jesus said that where two or three gather together in prayer there he will be in the midst. This is commonly misunderstood as happening in worship. It takes praying elders and deacons audibly praying together beforehand if Jesus is to be in the midst of that worship. No it is not a one man show or one minister’s responsibility.

Public unashamed audible prayer of the brethren, supported by the silent intercession of the sisters will bring a new dynamic. “Prayer changes things,” said Praying Hyde of India. “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of,” said Alfred Tennyson.

If allowed to be a stable part of the assembly’s weekly program inevitably the spirit of prayer will eventually be manifest impassioning and emboldening saints’ supplications with fervency. Cold hearts will become strangely warmed in the presence of interceding saints.

Without opportunity for the spirit of prayer no matter how pure an assembly’s doctrine; no matter how upright its preacher or elders; no matter how pious its members- it is nevertheless dying by attrition and all the evangelistic outreach and visitation efforts in the world will not keep the status quo from shrinking. This is why churches all over the west on both sides of the Atlantic finally shut their doors.

(TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2 & 3.)

PRAYERLESSNESS OF OUR CHURCHES. (1)
Without the spirit of prayer present in a congregation converts will be made by men, but not by God. They will be taught doctrine, creed, and biblical history, confessions of faith, and biblical verse memorization, but lack the inner Teacher in the absence of the spirit of prayer.

Without an opportunity for the spirit of prayer no matter how pure an assembly’s doctrine; no matter how upright its preacher or elders; no matter how pious its members- it is nevertheless dying by attrition and all the evangelistic outreach and visitation efforts in the world will not keep the status quo from shrinking. This is why churches all over the west on both sides of the Atlantic finally shut their doors.
Article by John David
Quoted Scriptures from the KJV Bible (King James Version- Public Domain.)

(TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2 & 3.)

OUR PRAYERLESS CHURCHES (2)

OUR PRAYERLESS CHURCHES (2)
by John David.
Without the spirit of prayer the pulpit may have the right jargon, fervency, and even ebullient oratory but its clichés and hackneyed phrases become worn. Above all the messages lack the energy and presence of Christ.

Even amid maximum human output, it is to no avail, because without the spirit of prayer God the Father cannot draw men to his Son as presumptuous pulpiteers and administrators think sermons, church evangelism and private prayer bulletins will be enough to feed sheep, reach the lost, and build the kingdom. None of the three goals will be achieved without reinstituting the old fashioned free-prayer mid-week meeting thereby allowing the spirit of prayer to return.

Some narcissistic ministers of the pulpit love the sound of their own voice several times on Sunday. They also feel their vocal cords must predominate, instead of the voices of the saints in prayer, during the mid-week meeting, once set aside for the brethren. This they do, at every possible opportunity, ensuring there is no such room for free prayer of the brethren, even though they resist the very fire they are trying to simulate.

As a side effect of the 19th C. divisive age that still pervades today, many are scared of any freedom that might allow a rebel to exploit free prayer for his own purposes. Yet many good ministers in the 20th C became adept in controlling any such eccentric without either havoc or abandoning the free prayer meeting.

Yet the euphemism of ‘security’ is often used to cover the common fear that administrators have should they permit such a regular prayer meeting. Though this is certainly true in the USA, it has also spread to the other side of the Atlantic.

Beware that today’s lock down on free prayer in the tabernacle does not prevent the incense of saints’ joint prayers from ascending to the gates of heaven.

So phobic have many overseers become that those who would meet together for spoken prayer participation in a home will rarely gain the required official permission. In the unlikely event that is allowed an administrator is delegated to govern such a meeting, which usually means it is dead before it starts. In other words once spoken prayer is controlled, timed, or conducted with selective participants it is not free but stilted, stale, and stymies free prayer.

One thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history. Viz: God has limited endowing the spirit of prayer to a church that has a public prayer assembly in its regular schedule. This assembly is unwilling to let busyness or the clock shut the curtain on the window of prayer. Other tabernacles merely go through the motions, to show they are prayerful, but are in reality resist the spirit of fire that will grow an assembly and make men holy.

Did this downgrade start with the new prayer methodology of 19th C. evangelists Moody and Torrey, who discovered the secret of prayer methodology? Their popularity elevated them to the literati as experts on prayer while their writings simultaneously discounted the importance of saint’s oral participation in any midweek prayer meeting. Instead the latter evangelist and teacher promoted a Bible Study in lieu of the traditional prayer meeting. This resulted in the saints’ audible prayer meetings being privatized to the home in the ensuing decades.

1. Two are better than one. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

2. A threefold cord shall not be quickly broken. Ecclesiastes 4:12

3. “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father.”‘Matthew 18:19

4. “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”. Matthew 18:20

Article by John David.
Quoted Scripture from King James Version of the Bible. (Public Domain)

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 3 & 4.

OUR PRAYERLESS CHURCHES (2)

THE ILLUMINATED BELIEVER. (4)

FOUR STAGES OF THE BELIEVERS FAITH: Unawakened Faith; Awakened Faith; Enlightened Faith; Illuminated Faith.
THE ILLUMINATED CONVERT.(4)
The truly enlightened disciple becomes more frustrated as time progresses and his hunger grows. He is disappointed with himself and his own inner self. One day he becomes so disillusioned with his own spiritual state that he considers quitting altogether.

1. He becomes sorrowful over his inner state and his inability to grasp the answers.
1a. Then still reading the Word, he grows despondent about ever becoming a spiritual person or becoming good enough when he sees so many of his own foibles, failures, and sins.
1b. He wishes he could be more than sorry for himself, but genuinely sorry enough to satisfy God.
1c. He hungers and thirsts for a resolution with a deep longing.
2. It is then after listening to regular preaching of a godly minister in a Bible-believing assembly expounding Christ in the Scriptures that a change will at last occur.
2a. The risen Saviour invisibly presents Himself to his mind.
2b. The glow of His presence is awe-inspiring and HOPE begins to burn within him.
2c. Suddenly doubts are replaced by the gift of grace.
2d. The Bible with which he so often struggled now seems the LIVING WORD of life which had hitherto only been a book of stories.
2e. His eyes are opened and his mind and soul are ILLUMINATED by the regenerating Holy Spirit.
2f. Within this believer, HOPE is accompanied by PEACE is beyond human understanding.
2g. His exuberance makes his spirit revel in JOY.
2h. He has become a new creature in Christ by the power of His resurrection. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
The typical believer who has been awakened and had a measure of enlightenment.
1. His own faith wavers (James 1:6-8) and believes in the Scriptures, but with reservations.
2. His own powers of reason raise obstacles that prevent him from being granted repentance and saving-faith.
3. When he gives up the mental struggle of contending with God and surrenders his mind and his questions he becomes a candidate for grace. (Jeremiah 29:13)
4. When he surrenders self-will and his intellect to God as inadequate in gaining an encounter with the God of grace, then he is near the kingdom of heaven.
5. Thus only when he admits that this life-changing encounter of grace is at the Lord’s behest, that prevenient grace gives the earnestness and patience to wait for the promise.
6. Others have told him that the individual’s ability of choice is enough. But, free-will is a myth.
7. The Bible teaches that man’s volition is biased. His will-power is captive to the curse of perpetual self-will. Adam’s natural streak of rebellion was in Eve as well, because the natural free-will went its own way even before the inherent curse began to plague his descendants of humanity. (Romans 5)
8. Both Eve and Adam rejected eternal life to gain a superior spiritual knowledge of good and evil. Ever since man’s natural propensity from birth is the hidden streak of rebellion that sways his decisions and the course of his direction. Man will aspire to and be content with enlightenment as part of superior knowledge, but in itself will be an obstacle to his illumination and translation from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His dear Son.

9. The curse of hidden inbred sin runs within the natural nature ready to break out at the opportune time. The Reformation re-echoed this forgotten truth of the bondage of the will, so amplified by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans. It was Origen’s writings that allowed the humanists to validate the myth of free-will as an asset of the human persona. This occurred in the church during the Renaissance before the 17th Century and in the Age of Enlightenment (Reason) afterward. Yet human reason, which is such an asset to the intelligentsia and the literati of our world, is the greatest obstacle to the conversion of a sinner into a saint wherein he is redeemed and ransomed by his Saviour giving his life for his rescue.

10. For illumination, the believer first needs to become a wholehearted pilgrim of the Man he follows. Albeit needed wholeheartedness is a constant theme of the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms and was reiterated by Christ and the apostles. (Deuteronomy 10:12; Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30)

11. Repentance is the last catalyst to illumination by the Spirit of Christ. Never has there been so little understanding of biblical repentance as in our present day, but godly sorrow is the gift of grace that the human spirit is incapable of simulating.

12. Countless leaders, within the church and without, are completely mistaken about its characteristics and attributes since the 18th C Age of Reason. Thus even the best of believers conjure up unbiblical concepts upon which they rely for their eternal destiny. It is either assumed in affirmation or automated in free-will decision responding to the entreaties of pulpit orators. In neither case is it present. Even in blessed sacraments and ordinances, it cannot be enacted by the elements of water-wine-wafer rites.

The 18th C Age of Enlightenment elevated reason but further darkened the soul emphasizing the ability of human will to be responsible, moral and religious.. Thus the false gospel of moralism is a poor substitute for biblically expounding Christ in the volume of the Book. (Hebrews 10). It rarely occurs in our pulpits’ extemporaneous banter.

While the believer’s enlightenment can arouse the mind to zealous religious fervour, illumination will by grace open the believer’s eyes of his understanding that he might understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24:32;45)

Whereas he had hitherto had a degree of mental understanding by enlightenment, now he will have spiritual perception. Until this point, he has had only a natural understanding of the Word.

Previous to his illumination “his natural man received not the things of the Spirit of God: for they were foolishness to him: neither could he know them, because they were spiritually discerned. Now his understanding of Christ in the Scriptures is not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Now he has received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that he might know the things that are freely given to him of God. (1 Corinthians 2: 11-15)

Peter and the ten other enlightened disciples went forty months before they were illuminated on the day Jesus rose from the dead. (Luke 24:27-32; 44-45; John 20:21-22)

It is possible for a believer to go forty years after being awakened, then enlightened in mind, before he is finally illuminated by grace to be justified by faith.

Bible References
a. John 10:16….and other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice
b. 1 Corinthians 15:3… awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of god:
c. Ephesians 5:14… awake you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.
d. Romans 13:11 …it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now, is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
e. John 6:37:… all that the Father gives me shall come to me

f. John 6. 45… every man, therefore, that has heard and has learned of the Father, comes unto me.
g. 2 Corinthians 7: 8-1: …you were made sorry after a godly manner. For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation.”
h. Jeremiah 29:13…and you shall seek me, and find me when you shall search for me with all your heart.
i. John 6:44…no man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.
j. John 6:65 …no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
k. John 1:13…born not of blood, nor by the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God.
l. Hebrews 9:14; 10:22; Isaiah 55.

** All scripture quoted from the KJV: King James Version (Public Domain).

Bibliographic References
1 Jonathan Edwards: Freedom of the Will (1746) was an evangelist (with George Whitfield) greatly used in the First Great Awakening of New England. He later turned against Reformation and paved the way for New England Theology’s easy religion of the 19th and 20th C’s that has permeated the USA and the globe.

2 William James: Varieties of Religious Experience, was the 19th C Father of Modern Psychology who gave easy-religionists and modern evangelists fuel for their false fire. His inflammatory book’s destruction of biblical conversion great Christians in modern history was his greatest accomplishment and destabilized a large swathe of Christendom. Though he was a certified agnostic he had devilishly influenced the theological halls of Christendom’s seminaries against radical, real, traditional biblical conversion. His philosophy has discredited faith-by-grace in evangelical conservative Christendom for the last 150 years. This is why easy-religion permeates the full cross-section of Christendom today.

THE ILLUMINATED BELIEVER. (4)

FOUR STAGES OF A BELIEVER (2): The Awakened Believer.

THE AWAKENED BELIEVER.
1. Reading the Word of God produces moral convictions and these grow until the reader is uncomfortable. Why? “That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.” (Romans 7:11) The seeking believer then has the choice of turning away from his convictions or continuing with the quest of his soul caused by his awakening call of Christ to follow him. Should he choose to turn away he will then be a miserable soul for whatever time it takes for him to relent from his folly and return as a pilgrim seeker.

Easy religionists of our pulpits today would jump in where angels fear to tread and reassure him with false hopes. Such clergy fail to discern the difference between awakening and conversion. The seeker’s soul will never be placated by the ‘rabbit trails’ of water-wine-wafer sacraments/ordinances; ‘full surrender’; infilling of the Spirit; tongues’ speaking; or full sanctification. Clergy making these alternative easy ways to avoid real repentance have not the slightest inkling of biblical conversion or the meaning of faith by grace that the Reformation heralded some 500 years ago and shelved by 99% of the church today.

2. The moral law and the condemnation it produces in man’s conscience is meant to bring the believer to the end of himself and distrust his own efforts, and the false hopes of his own faith, and his own religious creed/ sacrament.

3. Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity for saving grace. The eleven disciples were in hiding, except John, after the crucifixion. They were at the end of themselves in mortifying sorrow facing their cowardice, disbelief, and failure.

4. This was the opportunity for the risen Christ to change their worldly sorrow into godly sorrow of repentance. Concomitantly the Lord Jesus converted their double-mindedness into genuine godly faith enabling them to believe as the day-star of the Spirit indwelling them.

FOUR STAGES OF A BELIEVER (2): The Awakened Believer.

FOUR STAGES OF A BELIEVER. (1)

FOUR STAGES OF A BELIEVER.
1) The unawakened believer; (2) The awakened disciple; (3) The enlightened pilgrim; (4) The illuminated convert.

THE UNAWAKENED BELIEVER
It is not enough to believe, and there are many believers in the church who have not been awakened. They have never had an encounter with the living Christ’s spirit because they have never sought him with all of their heart. They were happy to have a quick-fix that the church has offered the world since the 19th C. There are varying degrees of belief towards Jesus in the Gospels of the New Testament.

Many religious have never heard the call of Christ. They may read the Scriptures and attend Christian worship services. One day listening to the Bible-based preacher there is a personal response of the believer. He/she is suddenly arrested by the challenge to follow Christ and do His bidding. His whole being is awakened into the reality of Christ’s presence and he/she becomes an ardent follower or disciple.

Unawakened souls are not disciples of Christ, merely religious in mind. They may be in the church, but they do not have God’s presence WITH THEM and are not yet His SHEEP.

The unawakened believer has no knowledge of the Scriptures and he finds the Bible a mystery which he does not understand. He is classed as a walking dead, or ‘dead man walking’. The unawakened believer needs not to procrastinate too long or the day of grace may pass too soon.

The unawakened person may well have knowledge of creed, confession, and written articles of faith, such as water washes away sins.

Awakening does not happen at one’s own behest or the will of the preacher. It is at God’s behest alone. No decision, prayer, water, wine or wafer can compel God to awaken the lost soul, dead in sins and trespasses.

FOUR STAGES OF A BELIEVER. (1)

FOUR STAGES OF A BELIEVER.

1) The unawakened believer; (2) The awakened disciple; (3) The enlightened pilgrim; (4) The illuminated convert.

THE UNAWAKENED BELIEVER
It is not enough to believe, and there are many believers in the church who have not been awakened. They have never had an encounter with the living Christ’s spirit because they have never sought him with all of their heart. They were happy to have a quick-fix that the church has offered the world since the 19th C. There are varying degrees of belief towards Jesus in the Gospels of the New Testament.

Unawakened souls are not disciples of Christ, merely religious in mind. They may be in the church, but they do not have God’s presence WITH THEM and are not yet His SHEEP.

The unawakened person may well have knowledge of creed, confession, and written articles of faith, such as water washes away sins.

THE AWAKENED BELIEVER.
1. Reading the Word of God produces moral convictions and these grow until discomforting the reader. Why? “That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.” (Romans 7:11)

THE ENLIGHTENED BELIEVER.
1. To have an enlightened mind is inadequate to understand the spiritual side of the Bible’s sixty-six volumes. It is the most unusual book ever written and one needs something more than an enlightened mind of curiosity and rational reason to understand its message.

2. Though enlightenment produces zealous interest, curiosity, and understanding of the Bible’s characters, history, and moral directives it is unable to give spiritual discernment of Christ’s grace and redemption. Independent reason will prevent the natural mind from fathoming the saga of grace from Genesis to Revelation.

3. Enlightenment is secretly driven by the Father’s magnetic attraction of the believer to His Son in the Scriptures. Though mistaken today for the new birth, it falls far short of one possessing eternal life. He/she needs the illumination of Christ’s regenerating Spirit.

4. Awakening and enlightenment are all part of the Father drawing the believer to His Son. (John 6)

5. The faith of the believer is not enlightened, only his mind but the doubts of the ambivalent will remain. His own faith wavers all the time. He needs the gift of true faith by grace. Until then he is like the first twelve disciples who were lacking in faith.
An enlightened mind is not enough to understand the spiritual side of the Bible in its sixty-six volumes. It is the most unusual book ever written and one needs something more than an enlightened mind. Though that in itself produces zealous interest, curiosity, and understanding of the Bible’s characters, history, and moral challenges, the enlightenment of the mind is unable to give spiritual discernment of its real message of grace and redemption. Man’s independent reason will prevent it.

The first eleven apostles were unconverted until the first day of the resurrection (Luke 24 & John 20).
It is secretly driven by the Father’s magnetic attraction to the Scriptures. More than anything else that drawing of the Father is paramount. It is not universal, but only to the wholehearted seeker. For God the Father alone can reveal the person of the Lord Jesus Christ who then calls the believer to follow Him. However, he is still in need of illumination by Christ’s regenerating Spirit. Awakening and enlightenment are all part of the Father’s drawing the seeker to His Son.

1) Enlightening has to do with the arousal of the mind, not his faith. Though he may well be a disciple of Christ he is solely reliant on his mind until he is illuminated and born of the Spirit. He needs the grace of faith because no matter what method is employed natural faith remains natural regardless of the psychology used. Humans are natural disbelievers, better described as skeptics. At best natural faith wavers and is ambivalent. He needs the gift of true faith by grace. Until then he is like the first twelve disciples to whom Jesus questioned for their lack of faith.

a. One’s own faith, whether it is childlike or not, is natural, and the natural man receives not the things of God for they are foolishness to him. ( 1
Corinthians. 2:14).
b. Freewill faith, now popular among a full cross-section of evangelists, ministers, and preachers everywhere.
c. Freewill faith is sourced in New England Theology. Its modern resurgence was in the humanist Age of Enlightenment of the 18th Century.
d. It elevated the natural attributes of humanity’s own powers of reason, conscience, and faith and made God the source thereof.
e. Yet the NT clearly describes the degeneracy of mankind through the curse that fell on the human race through Adam.
f. That is the very reason for the 1st Advent, for which Christ was born (the Second Adam, says St. Paul).
g. William James, The Father of Modern Psychology, went one step further by linking FAITH to WILL power so that the two became synonymous. James
attributed faith to any human action towards God, though he himself was a convinced agnostic.
h. James tried to destroy biblical conversion and faith by grace emphasized in the Reformation. He discredited the major evangelists of the Great
Awakening and the Second Great Awakening by his book ‘Varieties of Religious Experience’. This masterful philosopher sadly
influenced the evangelicals and the liberals in their theological halls of learning and seminaries.

THE ILLUMINATED CONVERT.
The truly enlightened disciple becomes more frustrated as time progresses and his hunger grows. He is disappointed with himself and his own inner self.
One day he becomes so disillusioned with his own spiritual state that he considers quitting altogether.

1. He becomes sorrowful over his inner state and his inability to grasp the answers.
a. Then still reading the Word, he grows despondent about ever becoming a spiritual person or becoming good enough when he sees so many of his own foibles, failures, and sins.
b. He wishes he could be more than sorry for himself, but genuinely sorry enough to satisfy God.
c. He hungers and thirsts for a resolution with a deep longing.
2. It is then after listening to regular preaching of a godly preacher in a Bible-believing assembly expounding Christ in the Scriptures that a change will at last occur.
a. The risen Saviour invisibly presents Himself to his mind.
b. The glow of His presence is awe-inspiring and HOPE begins to burn within him.
c. Suddenly doubts are replaced by the gift of grace.
d. The Bible with which he so often struggled now seems the LIVING WORD of life which had hitherto only been a book of stories.
e. His eyes are opened and his mind and soul is ILLUMINATED by the regenerating Holy Spirit.
f. Within him, HOPE is accompanied by PEACE beyond human understanding.
g. His exuberance makes his spirit revel in JOY.
h. He has become a new creature in Christ by the power of His resurrection. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

BIBLE REFERENCES.
Preconditions to illumination (conversion).
REPENTANCE: ( 2 Corinthians 7: 8-10)
1. REPENTANCE is neither automatic nor worldly sorrow (being sorry for yourself). The sorrow of the world works death
2. WORLDLY sorrow is ‘but for a season’. The passing sorrow for one’s own consequences.
3. GODLY SORROW is the gift. You were made sorry after a godly manner. For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation

THE TWELVE WERE NOT CONVERTED UNTIL THE RESURRECTION.
1. The awakened and enlightened Peter had yet to be converted (illuminated). Conversion by the washing of the blood purges the conscience. Hebrews 9:14.
(Hebrews 10:22)
2. Natural faith cannot bring salvation. James 1:6-7. Natural faith is fickle.
3. Conversion by illumination comes alone by preaching, not water, wine or wafer.
a. 1 Corinthians 1:21. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

** All scripture quoted from the KJV or King James Version (Public Domain).
BIBLE REFERENCES
1. UNAWAKENED FAITH.
a. James 2:19. …the devils also believe and tremble.
b. 1 Corinthians 15:34. awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of god:
c. Ephesians 5:14… awake you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.
d. Romans 13:11. …it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
2. PROCESS PRIOR TO AWAKENING:
The Father draws the seeker to become wholehearted.[ Deuteronomy 10:12; Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30]
a. John 6:37. All that the Father gives me shall come to me…
b. John 6:44. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him:
c. John 6. 45. Every man, therefore, that has heard and has learned of the Father, comes unto me.
d. John 6:65 … no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
e. Jeremiah 29:13. And you shall seek me, and find me when you shall search for me with all your heart.
f. John 10:16. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice.

Freedom of the Will 1746; Jonathan Edwards: First Great Awakening who later turned against Reformation & paved the way for New England Theology’s Easy Religion that has permeated the USA and the globe.
Varieties of Religious Experience by William James the Father of Modern Psychology added fuel to the fire trying to burn out the true biblical conversion.

FOUR STAGES OF A BELIEVER.

FALSE HOPE: BABBLING ECSTASY OF SAUL

Babbling unknown ecstatic glossalia was never sanctioned by Paul the apostle, even in the corrupt assembly at Corinth. It is not the gift but a simulation of understandable gift manifest at Pentecost, Caesarea, and Ephesus. 1 Corinthians 14 records not a precedent, but an exception now a delusion since the 1906 Los Angeles’ first Azusa Street Meeting. Even its Pastor, black blind Mr. Seymour said so. (Dictionary of Pentecostal & Charismatic Movements: Ed. Burgess, McGee, Alexander)

1 Samuel 9:2.
Saul’s attractiveness was his sturdy, tall, & unblemished appearance. Goodly did not intone godly character, for he was a self-willed, Narcissistic man from the beginning of his reign until his evil demise from dabbling with witchcraft for answers. His later change of heart and his prophetic utterances were no more than Balaam’s who also was a soothsayer God temporarily used for His purposes when in character he was an unusable mouthpiece. Saul’s momentary decision to accommodate Samuel’s orders was not heartfelt service to God, of which he and Balaam were incapable. Whether a mere equine ass or the wilful giant Saul, they were not beyond transient ecstatic utterance. God can choose to show his omnipotence enigmatically regardless of the vessel chosen.

FALSE HOPE: BABBLING ECSTASY OF SAUL

BIBLICAL GUIDE TO WORSHIP PRINCIPLES
Amos 5:23
Take away from me the noise of your songs; for I will not hear the melody of your viols.
James 4:4.
know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
1 John 2:15-17.
15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.17 And the world passes away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abides forever.
Exodus 32.17-29 (excerpts)
17 And when Joshua heard THE NOISE OF THE PEOPLE …18 And he said,…THE NOISE OF THEM THAT SING DO I HEAR. …19 And … he saw the calf, AND THE DANCING: and Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. 26 Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, WHO IS ON THE LORD’S SIDE? let him come unto me. … 28 And there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.29 For Moses had said, Consecrate yourselves today to the Lord, even every man …that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day.

*All quotes from the King James Version (Public Domain)
JAMES & JOHN’S USE OF THE WORD: ‘’WORLD”.
1. The world is a word standing for the worldlings in the kingdom of darkness.
a. This means their songs, their lyrics, limericks, beat, and rhythm
b. This means their instruments not listed in Scripture
c. This means their loud needless amplification of same into the blast of excessive decibels.
d. This means their corrupt means of attracting and winning an audience
e. This means using entertainment dependent on worldly methods, not spiritual ones.
2. The music of the Hebrew worshippers had radically changed (see Amos 5.23 above).
a. Alignment with an idol changes everything in worship’s music and song:
b. The idols are instruments of the world, the dance rhythm/beat & emotion of worldlings;
c. The dress and undress (progressive immodesty) revealing by exposure or slovenliness.
d. Israel wanted to change worship because of doubt and distrust of traditional worship.
e. This change in music led to unseemly behaviour and sinfulness of their dance and nakedness.
f. The same Satanic delusion of Christian worship in a majority of churches causes the Spirit to be grieved and God departs to let the alternate deceiving spirits come in to simulate tee Spirit’s work and this started in the 1950s, continuing apace today using the world’s methods of attracting an audience with the same sensual rhythms used by sensual vocalists in the kingdom of darkness.
g. These churches rarely see even an awakening let alone conversions by illumination because God has left and man has taken over.
h. These churches (the increasing majority) in the ‘falling away’ of the last times (Matthew 24) rely on creation of excitement to unwittingly copy the inimitable atmosphere that the Holy Ghost brings in a small quiet voice (c. Elijah at Mt. Horeb escaping from Jezebel) 1 Kings 19:9-13
God is not loud, He works quietly in a reverent quiet congregation.
The average preacher and song leader seeks to awaken the interest of the audience so it will come back and support their unique sectarian movement, But only God can awaken and no man or minister can simulate. It will not be accomplished by instruments and songs using the rhythms and beats of the world.
Most new churches/missions/movements claiming to be unique fail to discern the invisible body of Christ by their sectarianism. Their uniqueness is quite frankly their misled humanism and pragmatism based on the 19th C fundamental emphasis of selecting special words/phrases or verses to be arbiters of truth to the neglect of the whole counsel of the whole Bible. It is tabooed private interpretation when this is done, making those words or passages superior to the rest of Scripture.
This allows each denomination to create its own hermeneutic or interpretative system of the Bible for its own biblical and doctrinal nuances, twisting the Word of God to its own destruction.
Thus following the humanist 18th C Age of Enlightenment the19th C pragmatist can twist the Scriptures to its own liking as it creates new unique doctrines. This had created over two thousand new breakaway splinter churches. 2 Peter 3:16.
Thus the 2,800 (Barratt 1977) separate church denominations, movements, and sects go each their own way and “every man did that which is right in his own eyes”- to the great detriment of the emaciated ‘body of Christ whose shepherding pastors will rarely feed the sheep (Ezekiel 13 & 34) as do not discern the body of Christ this eclipsed by their own misled uniqueness. For this reason, they are often sick and asleep (1 Corinthians 11) as their pulpits judgmentally advocate their sectarian bent instead of expounding Christ in the whole volume of the Book.
Western Christianity is fractious, judgmental, pragmatic, and thinks it has the right to freely use private interpretation of the Bible, tabooed by the apostles in Peter’s Epistle [ 2 Peter 1:20] and John in his Revelation [Revelation 22:18-19].
The result is that God the Father is very limited on how He can draw the lost to His Son, and He is obstructed by the false hopes of modern-day evangelists/ pastors who preach the gospel of affirmation, sacrament, decision, or tongues as evidence of the Spirit.
In their easy religion’s boast of numbers and statistics, they have in fact raised goats shown how to wear fleece instead of bringing lambs to birth. Assumptions of automated faith are at complete odds with the Scriptures.
Services are dominated by the bombastic stage performers with their flatteries and unctuous winsomeness. They act as gods and God often departs to leave the congregation in Ichabod.
God has called the preacher and missionary to preach Christ by expounding the Word of God through the foolishness of preaching without a private doctrinal agenda being foisted upon adulating pews.
Many get them to speak in unknown tongues never used on the day of Pentecost, rejected by the founder of modern-day Pentecostal at Azusa Street, Los Angeles 1906 as spiritism ending in witchcraft. Paul tabooed it for public assembly meetings. Unknown tongues (jargon aphasia of the pagans) was neither manifest at Caesarea, nor Ephesus or on the Day of Pentecost.
Only the corrupt drunken and gluttonous Corinthian church was it accepted until Paul banned it. 1 Corinthians 14.
I. Behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?…
II. and he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord…
III. and, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind … but the Lord was not in the wind…
IV. and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake…
V. and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire…
VI. and after the fire a still small voice…
behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?