Category: THE SCRIPTURES

WHO ELECTS THE SAINTS?

Romans 9
11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calls;)

12 It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.

13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
(Do we argue against God’s sovereign choice and call it unfair, or unethical?)

15 For he said to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

16 So then it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy.
(Universalists and freewill religionists say anyone can be redeemed, but what did Paul say about election?)

17 For the scripture said unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised you up, that I might shew my power in you, and that my name might
be declared throughout all the earth.

18 Therefore has he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
(Do the antinomies of the New Testament teach freewill of voluntarism or the enigma of God’s sovereign choice?)

19 You will say then unto me, Why does he yet find fault? For who has resisted his will?

20 Nay but, O man, who are you that reply against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why have you made me thus?

21 Has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

FOOTNOTES.
Romans 9:18. Bibliolatrous interpreters of the Word will extract one verse (10:9) or another (10:13) as arbiters of the whole book of holy writ so they can bypass the rest of the antinomies to support humanisms unbridled freewill as a determinant of salvation.
2 Romans 9:17. (Do the antinomies of the New Testament teach freewill of voluntarism or the enigma of God’s sovereign choice?)
3.Romans 9:16. (Universalists and freewill religionists say anyone can be redeemed, but what did Paul say about election?)
4 Romans 9:14. (Do we argue against God’s sovereign choice and call it unfair, or unethical?)

Bible quouations from the KJV, King James Version (Public Domain)

Noyes in parenthesis reiterated in footnotes by Bible Simply (John David)

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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?
 

AWAKENED BELIEVER’S ENLIGHTENMENT.

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)

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 indwelled them.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

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

9. The faith of the believer is not enlightened only his mind and doubts of the ambivalent will remain. His own faith it wavers all the time. 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.

BIBLE REFERENCES.
Preconditions to illumination (conversion).
1. John 6:44. No man can come to me, EXCEPT THE FATHER which hath sent me DRAW HIM:
2. John 6:37. All that the FATHER GIVES ME shall come to me…
3. John 6. 45. Every man therefore that has HEARD, AND HAS LEARNED of the Father, comes unto me.
4. Jeremiah 29:13. And you shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart.

REPENTANCE 2 Corinthians 7: 8-10.
1. REPENTANCE is neither automatic nor worldly sorrow (being sorry for yourself). 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 UNCONVERTED APOSTLES UNTIL HIS RESURRECTION.
1. Peter unconverted. Luke 22:32 .I have prayed for you that your faith fail not and when you are converted, strengthen your brethren.
2. Conversion by the washing of the blood purges the conscience. Hebrews 9:14. (Hebrews 10:22)
3. Natural faith cannot bring salvation. James 1:6-7. Natural faith is fickle.
4. 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).

AWAKENED BELIEVER’S ENLIGHTENMENT.

FOUR STAGES OF THE BELIEVER’S FAITH. (Part 1)

PART ONE: THE UNAWAKENED BELIEVER.
It is not enough to believe, but 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 N.T.
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 comes 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. 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 finds the Bible a mystery which he does not understand.
The unawakened person 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 baptism 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. The four stages of belief in the New Testament are the unawakened, the awakened, the enlightened, and the illuminated believer.

BIBLE REFERENCES.
John 6:44. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him:
John 6:65 … no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
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.
1 Corinthians 15:34. AWAKE to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.
Ephesians 5:14… AWAKE you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.
Romans 13:11. …it is high time to AWAKE out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
James 2:19. …the devils also believe and tremble.

FOUR STAGES OF THE BELIEVER’S FAITH. (Part 1)

Your Trust in Water or Blood?

IS YOUR TRUST IN WATER OR THE BLOOD?
1. So were you baptized to follow the kingdom example of Christ?
a) Did you know that He as a conforming Jew was baptized before He began the kingdom of heaven and that as the ‘Son of David’ in the Messianic lineage of his forbears that he needed to honour and fulfill all the promises of the patriarchs, the prophets and the Psalms of David?
b) He needed to ‘fulfill all things’ as John the Baptist was at first reluctant to baptize him because John himself insisted that he had not been baptized.
c) Did you know that Jesus declined to baptize John, the last prophet of the first testament era: Law and Prophets of which the Lord called John the greatest?
d) To fulfill the promises of the first testament of blood predicting a new High Priest would arise from the tribe of Judah
• Mark’s differing place of ascension- not Olivet-unnamed-
• Baptismal commission yet LJC neve baptized-only the twelve
• No place in the4 gospels where LJC baptized in water-not once-despite dispelled rumour in John 3 &4
• John 3-4 was started by a rumour and hearsay notwithstanding John 4:1-2 reiterated claim that the twelve baptized which has never been corroborated in the Gospels-even once.
• John B prophesiedthat Jesus would baptize others bin fire nopt water.
• The true commission from Jerusalem’s ascension mount of Olivet (Mt of Olives) reported in Acts 1 was not a baptismal commission but one that preempted the baptism of fire 50 days later at Jerusalem on the day of the feast f Pentecost.
• It is commonly known among a wide cross section of theologians (even evangelicals of the right,that the last part of Mark 16 (v9-20) was lost and replaced by another ending. Thus it is thought generally to be an unreliable section of the Word for doctrine and practice not withstanding the radical fundamentalist who may well be a pragmatic bibliolater.
• Many have advocated since the 19th C age of doctrinal pragmatism that the NT teaches baptismal regeneration like the church of Rome

REFORMATION’S NEW TESTAMENT FROM ORIGINAL GREEK.

REFORMATION’S NEW TESTAMENT FROM ORIGINAL GREEK.

Reformation’s Published New Testament from Original Greek.
(*Marked editions were the six Reformation New Testaments.)
1. 1400 Islam invades Constantinople (today’s Istanbul) forcing Greek scholars to flee into Europe with their invaluable Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.
2. 1439 Gutenberg invents the printing press.
3. 1450 The printing of Europe’s first book: the Latin Bible of Rome in polyglot format.
4. 1516 The Renaissance Dutch scholar Erasmus prints the Greek New Testament.
5. 1517 Martin Luther begins the Reformation at the University of Wittenberg.
6. 1522: Luther publishes the New Testament in German from Erasmus Greek NT
7. *1526: William Tyndale publishes the first English edition using Erasmus Greek NT
8. 1527: The pope burns and bans Tyndale’s English New Testament (NT)
9. *1535: The Crown (UK) unwittingly publishes Miles Coverdale Bible, (Tyndale NT).
10. *1537: The Crown (UK) unwittingly again prints the tabooed Tyndale N.T. of John Rogers under the pseudonym: Thomas Matthew’s Bible, (includes nine OT books).
11. *1539, The Crown (UK) prints The Great Bible, a Miles Coverdale revised edition of the Thomas Matthew Bible (Tyndale NT reprinted).
12. Changed English monarch (RC) forces Puritan scholars, translators, & publishers to flee to Geneva (Switzerland) as a refuge and safe harbour.
13. *1560, Geneva Bible published. Widely used by Shakespeare & American colonies.
14. *1611: King James Bible, the sixth and last Bible of the Reformation using the Greek New Testament of Erasmus.

The English Inquisition saw arrests, torture, imprisonment, and execution of those who dared defy the conflicting powers of Canterbury (Roman), the monarchy, the Holy Roman Empire’s pontiff in Germany, and the pontiff in Rome itself. Even Henry 8th at first pro-Protestant, later banned reading or possessing the Tyndale NT of 1526 and 1534.

As Tyndale was burning on the stake in 1536 he was also strangled to stifle his stentorian prayer’s voice: “That the eyes of the king (UK) be opened.” Within the year came the miraculous Crown publications of the very same contraband New Testament of Tyndale in various formats, under Puritans like Coverdale and Rogers. His prayer had been speedily answered and its impact changed the English speaking world’s culture on both sides of the Atlantic.

The humanist 18th C Age of Enlightenment led to the 19th C replacement of the Erasmus Greek New Testament by Westcott & Hort, the basis for all the so-called new and better translations of the Bible unleashing the covert denigration of the Scriptures’ final authority present today.

Originating in German rationalism it hatched liberal modernism and Higher Bible Criticism. Each of these unholy branches of academia conveniently rejected Reformation scholars, translators, and publishers. In so doing it invented its own hermeneutic of private interpretation, condemned by the New Testament.

This ejection of the Byzantine tradition included the Elzevir Brothers’ Received Text published by Stephanus, (Robert Etienne) the well known French publisher. He also versified the English New Testament of Tyndale to make its twenty-seven books more readable. All of such work was due to the monolithic translating work of Erasmus in 1516, rendering the New Testament for the first time in its original language.

One main influence in the vacuum created by the false scholarship of the 18th C was the re-elevation of the ancient Vatican manuscript: Codex Vaticanus. The second significant portentous change under Roman and pro-Roman liberal scholars of the 19th C was the highlighting of another non-Byzantine manuscript: the Codex Sinaiticus.

It was discovered at Mt. Sinai monastery by Count von Tischendorf in the 1840s. He opined that both Codices were scribed by the same hand around the same period as Emperor Constantine, who founded the Church of Rome. The new emperor with the recruited team of Bishop Eusebius re-translated the 3rd C Old Latin NT and ordered his team to scribe fifty new Latin Bibles from it. Reformed and Puritan scholars later purged five of the added seven sacraments of Constantine in deference to the Greek New Testament’s originality.

Rome’s Counter-Reformation continued denigration of Reformation scholarship against the Erasmus Greek New Testament was the undercurrent, not always visible to the naked eye of the politically correct wings of Christendom today.
THE CONTINUING COUNTER-REFORMATION OF 16th & 17th C VIA ACADEMIA.
• 1568, Bishops Bible more for Roman Catholics, not liked by Queen Elizabeth.
• 1582: Douai-Reims New Testament for Catholics: against Protestants
• 1609-10: Douai-Reims Old Testament for Catholics: against Protestants

REFORMATION’S NEW TESTAMENT FROM ORIGINAL GREEK.