Category: Historic Trends of Church

EVANGELISM AWRY

EVANGELISM AWRY.
The hidden humanism of the evangelical churches promotes the easy religion of do-it-yourself salvation. Much of this is achieved by twisting
1. God said it.
2. I said it.
3. I have therefore believed it.
4. I have automatically got it (irrevocable eternal life).

This is he humanistic psychology of New England Theology that pervades America and much of the global outreach in the third world after one hundred years of the Golden Age of Evangelism. Refined as faith by William James, the Father of American Psychology, in his Varieties of Religious Experiences in the 1850’s. This plague of easy religion that wet global in the 1948 B.G. Crusades is a complete distortion of the Reformation’s message of grace.

This easy religion offering unconditional acceptance into the Kingdom by SELF FAITH and automated repentance is justified by the moral majority who twist Romans 10:9 away from its context and bibliolatrously venerate it (& verse 13). Then the clergy of easy-religion use them to interpret all other Scriptures. This illogical hermeneutic becomes the arbiter of all New Testament truth and acts as a blocking filter to disallow both the effects of the curse and its legacy of ORIGINAL SIN to deny man’s utter dependence upon the endowment of grace to repent and believe the Gospel.
If the heart of man is as wicked and deceitful as the Psalmist, the Prophets and Jesus maintained, then only grace will enable ‘saving-faith’ unto regeneration, called the RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH.
Only grace can turn worldly sorrow into godly sorrow (repentance).
Only grace can cause the wanton heart to seek the Lord wholeheartedly.
Only grace can awaken the deadened soul to hear the CALL OF CHRIST TO FOLLOW HIM.
Only grace will thereafter cause the awakened soul to HEAR AND LEARN OF THE FATHER.
Only grace can bring a person to face his/her failed and fallen SELF.
Only grace can show the awakened his sin and his RESURRECTED SAVIOUR.
Only grace can instil and infuse the HOPE OF REDEMPTION by opening the eyes of the awakened to Christ in the Scriptures, and INSTANTANEOUSLY regenerate him and translate him from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of HIS dear Son.
Grace has received a bad name from Christendom’s moral majority. Indoctrinators of sectarianism, especially right-wing evangelicals conveniently see only black or white: viz: Calvinism or Arminianism.
Today this allows them to dispense with ORIGINAL SIN, the weakened state of human faculties from sin and the disabled, dysfunctional conscience that universally leads men to WORSHIP SOMETHING OR SOMEONE rather than Christ. Some unwittingly end up worshipping worship itself in a form mystical mesmerisation, which can hold hypnotic sway over the indulging group. This especially takes place where expectation of signs prevail and physical aberrant behaviour is accepted without question.
Even religious worship is merely an expression of a natural universal inborn desire of humanity to worship ‘THEY KNOW NOT WHAT. whether they are born into a Christian or pagan culture. The apostle Paul saw this at Mars Hill, in Athens. It can be regularly observed in among agnostics, so-called atheists, and various religions including spiritism and animism. Worshipping the god of REASON is nonetheless a religion. This includes the sophists spawned by Thomas Aquinas etc.
Eve was brought into Eden’s paradise in a state of innocence (not righteousness) but she, unlike Adam, unwittingly worshipped a paranormal spirit incarnate in the Serpent. She led Adam to succumb to her worshipful desire for KNOWLEDGE of the gods. Part of the curse endemic to mankind, is the NATURAL BENT TO WORSHIP which when indulged will smooth the dying pillow of the indulger, thus placating any fears about life’s temporariness.
America turned away from the message of its Puritan Fathers when the lapsed evangelist Jonathan Edwards in 1746 wrote ‘The Freedom of the Will. He had not only rejected the Puritan Fathers, but re-echoed the humanism of Origen, Pelagius, and Jacob Arminius. What was their root problem that led them into Christian humanism? They rejected both the Genesis account and the Romans 5 description of hereditary original sin and were deluded by Rome’s notion of Adam’s original righteousness. The logical extension of this main error is to misunderstand the image of God in human creation, and then innately arm all humans with the faculty of preserved freewill and an active light of conscience. Implied in this heresy is the notion of a universal residual vestige of inner faith enabling receptivity to God’s overtures.
1. Adam was crated in a state of innocence from which he and Eve fell when they rejected God’s offer of grace through the tree of life by grasping for paranormal knowledge from the Tree of Knowledge.
2. Adam was made in the tripartite image of God with a body-soul-spirit. As such he was unique to the animal kingdom with his reflective capacity to confer with himself, internalize, rationalize and cogitate accordingly beyond mere instinct. Of the trinity God the Father; God the WORD; and God’s Spirit self reflection is manifest in the Scriptures in Genesis and In the Gospel of John etc.
3. God created Adam with a definitive difference. He gave him a LIVING SOUL unique among the animal kingdom.
4. When Adam and Eve fell from their state of innocence their souls ceased to live. From the deadening effect of the fall into ORIGINAL SIN decay and degeneration had begun. The conscience had been seared and cauterized. Where once its light was God centred, it now self righteously became self centred in its link to the corrupted power of FREEWILL. Where once at the beginning of creation it reflected and echoed the voice of God, now it merely became evil in its duplicity, reflecting self-interest and self centredness. This is why the apostle Paul called the conscience ‘evil’.
John 1:9, truly declares the truth that the inner light of Christ’s indwelling is the only light which lights up the recipients of the Gospel throughout the world. Without it the impenetrable darkness of sin’s deadening effect is thus described in the ensuing verses 10 etc. That caused both the world and ‘His own’ to ignore or reject Him (the LIGHT).
Instead of the Puritan Reformation return to biblical faith through grace, we have come the full circle and made access to divine grace through human faith (that Jesus, the apostles and the prophets said we lack in the sceptical human heart of unbelief.)

EVANGELISM AWRY

THE HERESY OF EVANGELICAL MESSAGE TODAY

POPULAR HERESY OF EVANGELICALS SINCE 1948.
The hidden humanism of the evangelical churches promotes the easy religion of do-it-yourself salvation.

1. God said it.
2. You say it.
3. You have therefore believed it.
4. You automatically have it (irrevocable eternal life).

This is the humanistic psychology of New England Theology that pervades America and much of the global outreach in the third world after one hundred years of the Golden Age of Evangelism. This libertine right wing humanism was refined in a redefinition of faith by William James, the Father of American Psychology, in his Varieties of Religious Experiences in the 1850’s. This plague of easy religion that went global, in the 1948 B.G. Crusades, is a complete distortion of the Reformation’s message of grace.

In 1746 America turned away from the message of its Puritan Fathers with the lapsed evangelist of the First Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards. After reading the English philosopher John Locke, he wrote, ‘The Freedom of the Will. He had not only rejected the Puritan Fathers, but re-echoed the humanism of Origen, Pelagius, and Jacob Arminius.

What was their root problem that led them into Christian humanism? They rejected both the Genesis account and the Romans 5 description of hereditary original sin and were deluded by Rome’s notion of Adam’s original righteousness. The logical extension of this main error is to misunderstand the image of God in human creation, and then innately arm all humans with the faculty of preserved freewill and an active light of conscience. Implied in this heresy is the notion of a universal residual vestige of inner faith enabling receptivity to God’s overtures.

RE-EXAMINING THE CREATION RECORD.
1. Adam was crated in a state of innocence from which he and Eve fell when they rejected God’s offer of grace through the tree of life by grasping for paranormal knowldge from the Tree of Knowledge.
2. Adam was made in the tripartite image of God with a body-soul-spirit. As such he was unique to the animal kingdom with his reflective capacity to confer with himself, internalize, rationalize and cogitize accordingly beyond mere instinct. Of the trinity God the Father; God the WORD; and God’s Spirit self reflection is manifest in the Scriptures in Genesis and In the Gospel of John etc.
3. God created Adam with a definitive difference. He gave him a LIVING SOUL
4. When Adam and Eve fell from their state of innocence

Instead of the biblical faith through grace, it is now grace by human faith (that Jesus, the apostles and the prophets said we lack). Instead of seeking the Lord wholeheartedly with earnest pleading for the gift of faith hearers are told to use their own faith to claim what rightfully belongs to them so they can miss hellfire in the after-life. This DIY religion claims that:
A. God said it (Romans 10:9)
B. You believe it by saying it.
C. Once you say it too, you’ve got it
D. Now you have received the irrevocable gift of ETERNAL LIFE. (they are assured by the indoctrinator).

However, the psychology of positivist religious humanism can never be a substitute for radical, real, conversion.
Even when the church is apostate and in a state of Ichabod the method of easy religionists will gain converts. More so when the preacher is a powerful speaker full of charisma. But, one may ask: What sort of converts? And: To whom have they been converted? The preacher, the church, or a denomination? It is most doubtful indeed that they have been ushered into the kingdom and translated from the ‘kingdom of darkness’ to which they belong.

Evangelists compass land and sea to make one more convert, but in the above context make them twofold more the child of hell, Jesus claimed.

KNOWLEDGE and the TREE OF KNOWLEDGE has unwittingly been made a replacement for the TREE OF LIFE.
whether EVANGELICAL, LIBERAL, ORTHODOX, OR ROMAN the emphasis is SALVATION BY KNOWLEDGE of creed, doctrine, confession, or sacred writ of Scripture.

There is no doubt that God will use any avenue to attract and arrest souls for He is not willing that any should perish. But the best that can be expected from the evangelicals today is that one might be ARRESTED by the Spirit and awakened, though this rarely occurs where Ichabod prevails where personality cult pulpiteers lead an assembly. However, when such does occur it is unfortunately called conversion and the victim is rushed into indoctrination to such an extent that he/she is brainwashed.

Perhaps pastors, evangelists, and soul-winners should be reminded that there is a Holy Spirit ready to do the work of grace once they stop interfering.

1. The Father will arrest and draw the lost awakened soul towards Calvary and self discovery in the process
2. The Father will ensure that the arrested seeker will HEAR AND LEARN OF THE FATHER so he can later come to Christ.
3. Like the Twelve the lost soul who has heard the CALL TO FOLLOW will be drawn to self distrust, self revelation, and broken readiness for the eye opening ILLUMINATION of the WORD at the hands of the risen Christ Himself. John 20, Luke 24.

The arrested, and slightly awakened soul shows such earnest gravity in his seeking that this disturbs the comfort zone of the hirelings wearing fleeces, who are unaccustomed to such a manifestation. If they cannot soothe the dying pillow of the lost with false hopes they then call for the psychologist or psychiatrist to ease his disturbed mind, because apostate church pulpiteers today have never seen God work before in genuine conversion. They do not know the signs of the godly sorrow or the anguish that a smitten seeking sinner experiences. It is foreign to the religious Protestants of our day and cannot be counterfeited even by paranormal physical aberrations common to mystics and phenomena seeking assemblies who claim to possess the Spirit’s fulness.

THE HERESY OF EVANGELICAL MESSAGE TODAY

WHEN CHURCH IS A DISTRACTER. (Pt.2)

    WHEN CHURCH IS A DISTRACTER. (Pt.2)

Humanistic Versions Of Church Christianity.

Beliefs adopted into churchianity.
1. IMAGE OF GOD in man that is said to have survived Adam’s fall from innocence into sinfulness.

THE TRUTH: it was irreparably marred and distorted when Adam and Eve rejected eternal life from God’s ‘Tree’ of salvation and chose paranormal insight from a taboo branch of knowledge.

2. CONSCIENCE: The surviving light of God’s guidance in human conscience is said to be preserved.

TRUTH: The light of the conscience was also ruined with Adam’s fall, leaving a universal shadow only of morality in the conscience.

    WHAT REMAINS IN THE HUMAN PERSONA OF ADAM’S RACE.

• GOD’S CURSE IN ORIGINAL SIN. As the blight of God’s curse upon Adam’s descendants passed on to the human race by heredity, it left a dysfunctional trilogy of man’s body (degenerating from the womb); his soul (dead in sins and trespasses); and his spirit (his wilful persona).
• HIS WORSHIP. The original worshipping spirit of Adam was tarnished at the fall and left only a spirit prone and curious to search the mysteries of unseen powers above. This worshipful bent of humanity to fathom the divine is of itself neither virtuous, nor spiritual.

• WORSHIP MISUNDERSTOOD . The natural human desire to worship something, someone, or somebody is cunningly exploited by one’s innate wilful ego for self delusion and self justification. It thrives on the religion of the prevailing culture into which it is born. It works contrary to the spirit of truth possessed by the redeemed and is resistant in its blindness to God and Christ in Scripture.

• RELIGION. Self righteous from early infancy, humans are universally prone to self delusion. Acquiring church doctrines tends to garrison the heart against the overtures of God’s Spirit through the Scriptures and Christ’s ambassadors on earth who possess that inner drive to preach the Word. Indulging in religion, ironically buttresses this resistance to Christ and His Word. I.e. knowledge itself, even of Christian religion, usually increases the blinding deceit of the desperately wicked heart, said the prophets of old.

• This natural propensity to worship the unseen divine power is in a Western culture is called ‘Christian’, but not in other cultures with given nomenclatures of atheism, spiritism, animism, Buddhism, etcetera.

• In a Christian culture the bent to worship expresses itself in church attendance, which again is mistaken for the Spirit of God drawing souls to worship God, who are then named ‘Christians’.

• Whether in a Christian culture, or another one, this worship usually leads to the deception of self-justification, based upon indoctrinated knowledge from preachers, who for the vast majority today, are themselves merely self justifying, moralists and possess no gospel of redeeming grace to give to their congregations, but merely the gospel of knowledge, albeit biblical knowledge. As such they are educators, but cannot lift a lost soul blighted with darkness into the glorious light of the gospel of grace. This is notwithstanding their modern altar-mania, decisionism, and self perfect methods of converting those who respond to their emotive appeals and accept an unconditional free after-life eternal insurance package.
• The natural worship of the first man in his innocence, did not lead him to accept God’s offer of eternal life through the Tree provided.

• Eve, the first woman in Eden, found it easier to worship paranormal phenomena and voices of the gods, despite her knowing that God’s words offered her eternal life from the eternal Tree of Life.

• Eve had the knowledge of and the memory of “hearing the Word,” but it did not draw her to God, without faith, a gift of God’s grace to the wholehearted seeker. She forfeited eternal life by choosing more religious knowledge and the lust to dabble in the paranormal. The average church adherent or member does the same and her male counterpart capitulates to the status quo just like Adam.

WHEN CHURCH IS A DISTRACTER. (Pt.2)

When the Church is a Distracter. (Pt.1)

The Church.
Of today’s 2,800 churches and sects that comprise Christendom many call their own denomination: the ‘True Church’, or the ‘Correct ‘Church’.

Nevertheless, all but a very tiny minority, in Christendom’s 2.5 billion souls, have any idea of biblical regeneration. These, the Bible calls: the remnant. At best the rest merely use biblical vocabulary, clichés, and hackneyed phrases to justify their own doctrines of churchianity.

The word church, comes not from the original Greek manuscripts of the holy Scriptures, but from Constantine’s Latin term (‘ecclesia’) for the first official church of the 4th century, when the new Roman emperor stopped the Empire’s 300 years of incessant persecution of Christians.

Constantine decided to exploit the new religion of the East and use it to gain back control of an empire split between east and west in a long running civil war.

Thus he arranged for an Act of Toleration, and then started his ruthless militant program of nationalizing a beleaguered Christian minority into the Roman religion. He attempted thereby to end the civil war and join the factions into one. He arranged for the Bible to be rewritten into Latin, adding his seven new sacraments into the translation.

The Greek word ‘ekklesia’ (called out to assemble) he translated into ‘ecclesia’, meaning something else completely. The first English New Testament printed omitted the word ‘church’, as did five other modern translations in print.

At the dawn of the 16th C. Englishman William Tyndale dared to translate the Greek original New Testament manuscripts which had come to Europe after the forced exodus of scholars from Constantinople in 1400.

The Vulgate Bible had been the legacy (via Jerome) of Constantine’s 4th century Old Latin New Testament since his fifty new Latin Bibles, were scribed for the inauguration of the empire’s Roman (Catholic) Church around 411 AD.

Therefore, with the combined release of precious koine Greek manuscripts from the east; Gutenberg’s printing press; the restoration and recovery of the original Greek text by Erasmus; and Martin Luther’s Puritan Reformation (1517) the glorious light of the Gospel message began to shine once again in darkened Europe.

So the humanist scholar Erasmus, and the French scholarly publisher Stephanus (Robert Etienne) enabled the early Puritan translators in Switzerland, Germany, France and Britain to accurately publish the Greek text into English, French, and German, without the Church of Rome’s inserts in the Latin Vulgate.

William Tyndale, who printed the first English New Testament in 1526 was martyred at the stake by the infuriated Roman Catholic Church in Europe. They burnt his first edition, and imprisoned and tortured anyone who dared to read or own it. His crime: he had omitted the word church and its 4th C sacraments of Constantine. He was not the only Puritan scholar to be hounded into exile, imprisoned and martyred for promoting the original copy of the New Testament in their native tongue.

NEXT POST. (Pt.2)

When the Church is a Distracter. (Pt.1)

BIBLICAL FAITH & REPENTANCE LOST SINCE 19th C.

BIBLICAL REPENTANCE & FAITH LOST IN THE 19th C.
Hebrews 6:1b. “not laying again the foundation of repentance”
“not laying again the foundation of…faith”.
PLAGUE OF AMERICAN NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY’S LEGACY.
1) The 19th C emergence of new genre evangelism and its sensational new type of preacher quickly introduced a new type of repentance which was said to be merely a ‘change of mind’.

a. It bypassed biblical sorrowful anguish brought by the Spirit through the prayers of the saints
b. It made the godly sorrow Paul wrote of in 2 Corinthians 7 something quickly attained in a moment
c. It conveniently suited the automated mass conversions of Billy Sunday and D. L. Moody
d. Though the preaching took Bible texts it added the psychology of New England’s easy-religion
e. It inadvertently expounded the ‘easy-faith’ concepts of William James, the Father of U.S. Psychology.
f. It violated Paul’s warning, not to lay again an alternative foundation to repentance or faith.
g. However, it appealed to the masses and the media and was mislabelled ‘revival’.
h. It overlooked the difference between awakening and conversion presuming both were the same.
i. The disciples were first awakened by the call to ‘follow,’ but only converted when Jesus resurrected.
j. In the preceding 40 months Jesus said they had little or no faith and did not understand his gospel.
k. Though Jesus gave them his powerful name to use in healing of others they remained sceptics.
l. As awakened and zealous followers who had the Spirit with them they needed the Spirit within them.
m. Like the Exodus Jews who followed the presence of God with them they had no faith as sceptics.
n. Only Joshua and Caleb of 600 thousand soldiers had a different spirit: God’s Holy Spirit.
o. Repentance is not just a change of mind but a gift to wholehearted, earnest seekers like Joshua
p. St. John 20 and Luke 24 tells how the risen Christ turned sorrow into godly repentance and faith
q. The Eleven then had more than ideology, knowledge, or the mere ‘willing suspension of disbelief’.

q. i. They were not told how to say a prayer
q. ii. They were not told how to believe
q. iii. They were not told ‘how to be sure they knew they were on their way to heaven’.
q. iv. As followers, not yet Christians, they had learned that their own faith and willpower had failed.
q. v. They had learned that their own knowledge of the Scriptures had failed
q. vi. They had learned that their own zealous profession of lips had failed
q. vii. They had learned that their own faith and willpower had failed
q. viii. They had learned that their own knowledge and ‘change of mind’ was a fickle failure.
q. ix. They had learned that they did not know how to pray without a different spirit.
q. x. They had learned that their own loyalty was turned to cowardice and denial in a moment.

DOWN THROUGH CHURCH HISTORY until 19th C masquerade by new easy-automatic evangelism, counsellors of seeking respondents always made room for the Spirit to do his peculiar work of conversion, or regeneration, in the lives of seekers. This was so until the wane of the 2nd Great Awakening on both sides of the Atlantic, which had started in 1825 and had been ushered in by a spreading spirit of prayer.

Counselling assurance was not given because a sinner’s prayer was offered. The evangelist/preacher/soul-winner waited for the Lord Jesus to work and convert sorrow into repentance; despair into hope; doubt into faith; and self-condemnation into joyful assurance. They knew that the Lord needed no help to do His peculiar work of grace and regardless of church denomination the inevitable outcome was the result.

Where there is a spirit of prayer and the seeker is wholehearted the inevitable outcomes always occur. They are described in Luke 24; John 20; Acts, and the New Testament Epistles. Awakening is the beginning of the journey, not the end, which only occurs with the illuminating of the awakened into newness of life.

This cannot be simulated by mechanical ideology and persuasive approaches of psychology in which men and women take it upon themselves to convert souls by the methods of easy-religion that has dominated evangelism for over a hundred and fifty years.

Even indoctrinating select verses of Scripture to justify this simulated evangelism produces, for the most part, false converts who are both inured against true evangelism and become its resisting until death, only to discover that they are part of the five foolish virgins whose borrowed oil had been inadequate for meeting the Bridegroom (Christ). When finally they had realized their mistake and were willing to pay the price for their own oil it was too late and they were shut out of the kingdom.

SCRIPTURE: What Jesus said to those followers who presumed that God’s presence with them was enough for eternal life.
• Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. 2 And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.3 They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: 4 But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. 5 While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. 6 And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. 7 Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. 8 And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. 9 But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. 10 And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. 11 Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. 12 But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.
(Matthew 25: 1-12)

• When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.
Luke 13:25-27

• Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
(Matthew 7:22-24)

Scvriptures quoted are from King James Version which is Public domain. (Not quoted from the Authorised KJB)
https://www.biblegateway.com/

Biblical knowledge cannot give eternal life anymore than affirmation, lip confession, and the water of the baptism.

CONCLUSION.
“One thing we have learned from history is that we do not learn from history”. Most of the best church members are taught to choose only Scriptures which agree with the preacher’s belief. By pragmatism one scripture is said to supersede another scripture. This is not willing amnesia but bibliolatrous twisting of whatever scripture they want to believe that suits their own false version of Christianity. This is “Ichabod” or the curse of apostasy, making the status quo of Christendom confident of their insight when in fact they are blind and deaf to God’s entreaties from the whole of the Scriptures No part of the New Testament supersedes another part, nor do they contradict one the other if contextual place, time, audience, speaker, background and antinomy is duly considered. Popular literalistic bibliolatry of the right wing moral majority and the hundreds upon hundreds of fringe sects which follow suit conveniently block their ears to the whole counsel of God in the New Testament and exploit that which suits them in their reactionary pragmatic wresting of Scripture to their own destruction.

Popular mass easy-evangelism of the globe for two hundred years has smoothed the dying pillow of the lost with its false hopes, condemned by Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Jesus:-

Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. Luke 11:35

BIBLICAL FAITH & REPENTANCE LOST SINCE 19th C.

PAUL’S WARNING TO ALL PREACHERS.

SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES.
PAUL’S WARNING TO ALL PREACHERS. 2 Corinthians 2:17

This is a warning for the preacher to beware of pragmatically using the Bible as a mere tool for his own doctrinal agenda by introducing philosophy, psychology and the flippant devices of the world. Included by implication is the exhortation against tickling listeners’ ears attempting to make a cong

regation beholden to him by unctuous flattery. Personality preachers play the man with needless commendation to make a congregant a hero and in the process make the person in the pew beholden.

Likewise, a minister’s cunning self-aggrandizement to elevate himself to be something special is to be abhorred. Paul hints at the need for honest exposition rather than topical populist ranting over controversies.

This almost rules out extemporary ranting by the sensationalist preacher. Arousing the senses of the audience to excitement is a sensuous, device to simulate the arousing awakening of the Holy Spirit that has only accompanied the spirit of prayer down through history.
John Caleb

PAUL’S WARNING TO ALL PREACHERS.

DECLINE OF NORTH ATLANTIC CHRISTIANS ( 2)

DECLINE OF NORTH ATLANTIC CHRISTIANS (Part 2)
The paucity of Western Bible believing assemblies is their ignorance of the needed spirit of prayer.
1. Lost in the 19th C to automatic easy religionists of New England Theology.
2. Lost to American automatic easy conversion: i.e. come and get it, it’s free, and one does not need to seek it before hand with all the heart.
a. Its costless, cross-less and unconditional eternal life.
b. All you have to do is believe the printed verses shown and salvation can be had without any awareness of it.
3. WHY LOST? Commonly believed by clergy: freewill religion of the mind ideology is all that matters. Affirmation, lip profession, and some blessed water: presto! Acknowledgement is enough.
a. If men have the ability to access eternal life by their own will and mental knowledge of the printed ink there is no need for awakening grace. So why renew the abandoned church prayer meetings of the brethren to pray for same.
b. If repentance is merely a change of mind men do not need to be granted the gift of repentance, so why pray for awakening through grace.
c. If universal measure of grace and faith enables anyone, anywhere, anyhow to access God through his own faith then preaching is alone the need. Just print and speak the KNOWLEDGE of the printed ink it is enough.
d. If the preacher’s assurance through counsel is all that is required then mass conversions can happen without the awakening grace.

The weekly intercessory input of the brethren lost.
Without the free opportunity to publicly assemble and intercede for the lost the spirit of prayer is both quenched and resisted. No amount of preaching and/or evangelism can compensate. While it is unchallengeable that (1 Cor.1:21) God has chosen the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe,” that truth cannot stand alone without its nexus, the spirit of prayer described by Paul.

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why doth he yet hope for?
But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

1 Corinthians.1.24-25
Preaching without the Spirit of Prayer is mere ideology.
1. It can inspire the orator and the admiring loyalists but it cannot inspire hope that saves and regenerates the hearer.
2. Preaching without its nexus is like a cloud without water; a smoking flax smoke, but no fire;

Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered. And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

(Romans 8:26-27)

INDOCTRINATION IS PROXY REGENERATION
1. With all bibliolatry of the 19th C, one or two verses are pragmatically selected to use them as an arbiter to interpret the rest of the Bible. For example Romans 10:9 has become a magical fetish for quick, easy, unconditional salvation. It is twisted away from context and the overall total teachings of Paul in the rest of his epistle.

2. The method of bibliolatry is excessive reverence for a select phrase, verse, or passage to interpret all other related Scripture and pragmatically dispose of any counter balance. This rationale created over 2,000 new Christian denominations in the 19th C. Literalist and fundamental bibliolatry gave unprecedented rise to divisions within Christendom. Those divisions were based upon purist separatism and the worst form of sectarianism that continues to polarize and fracture the community of the saints.

3. The tragic irony was the further splits from the newly formed denomination leading in the end to many saints opting out of church attendance altogether as the disease of judgmental censoriousness consumed them.

4. Modern evangelists are wrongly compared to Finney, Edwards, Wesley and Whitefield, and there is no similarity whatsoever between them and their counterparts the American evangelists of the late 19th, 20th, and 21st Century. The striking differences are:-

a. They do not have the spirit of prayer,
b. They instead manufacture a spirit of excitement
c. Excitement relies on certain musical tempo and lilt to stir the feelings;
d. Excitement grows on musical instruments for atmosphere
e. Excitement is dependent on vocal entertainment (called spiritual?);
f. Excitement relies on tension reducing humour to release emotions
g. Excitement thrives with a stage produced persuasive psychology
h. Excitement comes from skilfully manipulating mood and emotion
i. Excitement is to titillate expectancy with a note of urgency
j. The tools of excitement vary according to the needs of a congregation,
i. Traditional, contemporary, or modern audience
ii. Minors, teens, youth, adulthood, elderly;
k. All psychological methods to excite are poor substitutes for the spirit of prayer, which alone brings genuine awakening of the soul when the Gospel is preached; which alone is conducive to Holy Ghost illumination and regeneration of disciples. I.e. those who have not the indwelling Spirit, but only God’s presence temporarily with them while the Father patiently draws them to the Saviour; to conviction; and to repentance. Only then will they receive the gift of faith (not to be confused with their own fickle freewill faith).

DECLINE OF NORTH ATLANTIC CHRISTIANS ( 2)

SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES: Did Jesus Baptize?

Truth is Stranger than Fiction: Baptism
Matthew 28
In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.
2 And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.
3 His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:
4 And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.
5 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
6 He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
7 And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into GALILEE; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.
8 And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.
9 And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.
10 Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into GALILEE , and there shall they see me.
11 Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that were done.
12 And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers,
13 Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept.
14 And if this come to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him, and secure you.
15 So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.
16 Then the eleven disciples went away into GALILEE , into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.
17 And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.
18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.  
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FOOTNOTES
Matthew 28:7; 10; 16. Jerusalem was the location of his passion, resurrection, forty days’ appearances; apostolic commission and ascension from the Mount of Olives nearby . Cp. Footnote to verse 20.
Matthew 28:10
Matthew 28:16
Matthew 28:19. The apostles did not practise a threefold invocation, seemingly unaware of its decree. Harmonizing the Gospels and Acts there was only one Great Commission given to the apostles. Zechariah 14 predicted Christ’s return to Mt. Olivet where Luke also locates both ascension and second coming. Luke 24; Acts 1. St. John too, focused on Jerusalem, notwithstanding his Epilogue, chapter 21.

SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES: Did Jesus Baptize?

MYTH OF GRACE BY ONE’S OWN FAITH

MYTH OF GRACE GAINED BY MAN’S OWN FAITH
Can anyone come to Christ at any time by their own faith unconditionally? Is biblical faith by grace or is His grace by our own faith? Does the reader merely choose one verse he wants to believe and pragmatically override the rest of context, or have you honestly searched the scriptures about this matter? Does God first awaken then teach, then convict, and finally grant the gifts of faith and repentance? Search the Scriptures. Goats and tares outnumber the few remaining sheep who have tolerated the great falling away and apostate preachers who motivate the goats by tickling their ears.

1. No man can come I, except the Father which has sent me draw him:. John 6:44
Is one’s own childlike faith sufficient regardless of knowledge?

2. Every man therefore that has heard, and has learned of the Father, comes unto me. John 6:45
Is freewill exercise of choice sufficient a response for Christ?

3. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. (John 6:65.)
Is Jesus unusually high standard sound offensive?

4. From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. (John 6:66.)
Are there prerequisite actions needed before God accepts belief as valid?

MYTH OF GRACE BY ONE’S OWN FAITH

Church Universalism a Blight

The Blight Christendom’s Universalism.
Whether in orthodox, liberal, evangelical or fundamental wings of the church this disease is a pandemic blight upon the biblical gospel of the Lord Jesus, Its seeds were sown in the third and fourth centuries and they germinated in the Renaissance of the fifteenth century. finally bearing fruit in the eighteenth century’s Enlightenment. Its early buds of growth emerged to counter Luther’s return to the true essence of Christianity: the just shall live by faith in the 16th C. Reformation.

However, the full appearance of its diseased fruit blossomed in the 18th C. Age of Enlightenment convincing pastors, priests and prelates that it was ‘was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom’ they were gulled as quickly as Eve was in the Garden of Eden. Thus once tasted its poison began to work among the intelligentsia of the church who wrote prolifically about its benefits.

In that new age of reason a new breed of Christian humanists were generated among the ‘tasters’ from the clergy and theological scholars
Today’s humanist pragmatic bibliolatry was borrowed unwittingly in the 19th C from the 18th C liberal Age of Enlightenment. 21st C evangelicals and even fundamentalists still use its legacy in their hermeneutics to arm their sectarian separatism or their liberal ecumenism.