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WHEN CLOUDS FURROW YOUR BROW

When dark clouds crease your brow in your life’s path,
Lessen not your pace walking in the dark,
Shadow’s gloom may cover your face awhile,
Heaven’s Son that made them has watching smile,
Hidden from downcast eyes of transfixed gaze.

Sun’s rays make silver linings in cloud’s maze,
No matter your waiting for rendezvous
Pain endures the soul for a night! It’s true!
But in the morn’ comes joy’s radiant sight!
Soon ‘twill be dawning day of hope and light,

Then your own woe will not long be your plight,
Your knees may be feeble, hands hung not right,
But grace will lift them! Soon will go the frown.
He makes straightened paths for your feet; new sound.
Lame steps once cowered in grief, He makes bound;

Once a flagging dawdler, now leaps on ground,
Former hapless walk becomes a quicker stride,
Vim’s vigour born on hope’s rising tide.
“Laugh at impossibility!” faith cried.
The fading night of darkness has belied:-

Righteous faith, stark, leaping grace from on high.
Where is your flight carrying sparks of light?
Youth renewed, mounting up in eagle-flight?
Will-o-the-wisp has gone; true glow leads on:
The Lord has taken your hand with a song.
John David 2020

This is addressed to those who know better but do not have a ready explanation or answer when confronted by thriving aggressive extremism.

1 Samuel 9:6. ‘shall be turned into another man’- (or later ‘God gave him another heart’). This would not be a spiritual transformation, though it was God’s Spirit temporarily changing the involuntary behaviour of a proud and wilful man, turned from a simple cattle-herder into a prophet and later a king. God in rare instances chooses unholy vessels for His ejaculatory utterance. Similarly Balaam, the spiritist soothsayer recruited by Balak to curse Israel, involuntarily turned his occult spiritistic utterances into a blessing, including a remarkable Messianic prophecy. But both Old and New Testament writers describe his character as unrighteously opposed to God’s people and was later slain by the Israeli army.

Later in the Book of Samuel God restrains Saul from his murderous intent by allowing another spirit to expose his insanity by his prophetic-like ejaculatory utterances. This other spirit caused him to strip off his clothes lying naked all night in front of his men prophesying. This is an instance of Satan simulating the gift of God. This is particularly the case in our present-day of the apostate ‘falling away’ in Christendom, predicted by Christ during the latter days.

Note that today many unregenerate individuals ‘slain in the spirit’ are seeking spiritual phenomenon itself and thereby open themselves to an involuntary simulation of glossalia or other aberrant human behaviours they have observed to be the fashion of fervent worship. Involuntarily they lose control and fall down prostrate yielding to the subconscious desire to be like others: a spectacle.

This compares to jargon-aphasia in pagan occultist manifestations of animist and spiritist tribes. Even the two unconverted sons of thunder, James & John, when impulsively wanting to call down fire upon other unknown disciples were reproved: “Ýou know not what spirit you are of” (Luke 9:55).

Jessie Penn-Lewis went to visit the outbreak in Azusa Street, Los Angeles in 1906. Upon her return, she brought back to Wales her false fire of ‘glossalia’ as the sign and evidence of the Holy Spirit. Already condemned by Azusa’s Pastor Seymour, she wrote of her false demonology in ‘War on the Saints,’ and ‘Satan & his Kingdom’ and was a proponent in her writings of radical feminism.

Her emphasis on ‘glossalia’ and her influence on evangelist Evan Roberts as his confidante totally quenched the Welsh Revival and completely depressed Roberts until the day of his death as an isolated recluse.

Peter and the rest of the Eleven were converted when Jesus rose from the dead and appeared at Emmaus and Jerusalem opening their eyes to the Scriptures, lighting a fire within as they received the Spirit of God. (John 20. & Luke 24.) It is easy-religion’s convenient claim that the disciples were already Christians prior to that time, when in fact they were doubters with little or no faith without understanding the mission of Christ.
“When you are converted you will strengthen your brethren,” Jesus told Peter.

What is sadly becoming acceptable, in an increasing number of denominations, is part of the great deception of the last days. Azusa street phenomena, broadcasting Rev. Parham’s 1901 ‘unknown tongues’, appeared in 1904-6. on the heels of the highly popular spiritualist church movement of New York’s Fox sisters.

ABERRANT BEHAVIOR IN THE CHURCH

Daniel 1:15. Cp. Abstinence of regenerated (illuminated) believers in James 4:4 in the New Testament. The common characteristic of true children of God from Abram onwards (Genesis 13: 5-9). Abram however, first had to get away from his Egyptian compromise and dishonesty before he could return to Bethel’s altar where he had been from the beginning. Then he called again on the Lord and could boldly take a stand for separation and pay the personal cost of holiness and usefulness. Afterwards the rewards were greater than all the losses: he was blessed with Christ’s grace (Melchizedech) [Genesis.14] then with faith & justification [Gen.15] then adopted by God the Father. [Genesis.17].

Abstinence part of Separation. (James 4.4)

IS THERE ANY TRUTH TO THE INTELLECTUAL’S DOUBT.
1. The church was the invention of Emperor Constantine for his new Roman religion
2. The word CHURCH is not found in the original New Testament but is a Latin word first used in the 2nd century Old Latin manuscript by Romanized believers
3. Eusebius rewrote the Bible for the Emperor in the first two decades of the third century in the Revised Old Latin Version of the 2nd C first Latin New Testament.
4. The use of the Latin ‘ecclesia’ means CHURCH or a religious institution
5. Though seemingly similar to the Greek word ‘ekklesia’, its meaning is vastly different.
6. Ekklesia means ‘summoned out to assemble’ or ‘called out’. The persecuted minority called: by the names of The Way; The Nazarenes; and finally: The Christians, were called out to separate themselves from the religions of Rome, Paganism, Greek mysticism and pantheism, and Judaism. While the early Jewish believers reemained in fellowship with Judaism, its synagogues and temple they had less persecution than experienced by other believers who had paid the price

SELF CONDEMNATION IN THE SAINT.
All who have the indwelling Spirit of God (not just God WITH them) will go through periods of self condemnation. Paul in Romans 7 talks about this cycle.

POSSIBLE CAUSES:
1) Neglect of private devotions in the word and prayer
2) Mental stress and unresolved tensions of the home
3) Monetary concerns and lack of faith for resolution
4) Unequal yoke in the home and dependence upon the partner instead of God.
5) Time management due to unrealistic crowding of daily regimen from social media and screen addiction
6) Compulsive addiction to home or work tasks which eclipse private time with God.
7) In equally yoked marriages overdependence upon the dominant partner’s program
8) Refusal to reserve private time with God fearing the discomfort to joint regimen.
9) Addiction to the endless demands of a house-proud partner
10) A refusal to say: ‘No, not now, maybe later.’
11) Boredom in a Bible book such as in the Major or Minor Prophets which seems incomprehensible, but one’s reluctance to grapple studiously with it.
12) Unwillingness of the believer to accept that God forgets his past sins and refuses to remember them again.
13) In other words he indulges in self recrimination and self accusation, unwilling to believe particular individual sins are totally covered by Christ’s atoning blood forgetting that the Father lay on his crucified Son the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53)
14) Nostalgia filled with regret is grieving the Spirit because the believer in his doubt is unwilling to forget those things which are behind and buried in the sea of God’s forgetfulness. (Philippians 3:13; Psalm 103:12).
15) Downheartedness over the repeated failure from the besetting sin and blaming demons instead of one’s own sin only perpetuates depression. ‘But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.’ (James 1.14)

To blame demons instead of your ‘flesh’ makes one forget he is still only a sinner saved by grace. For some, however, the person concerned is a goat, not a sheep, but wearing a fleece put on by some preacher or evangelist, or ardent soul-winner. As such a goat has confessed his sin/s, but never accepted that he is a sinner. There is a world of difference.

To the saint the answer to self condemnation is found in pondering the promise: “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature”. (2 Peter 1.4). Despite his bleak and downcast spirit this will generate a refreshing relief, as will other promises: “forgetting those things which are behind”. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

The word of John’s epistle (3.20) comes to some dear struggling saint who is over mystical or compulsively looking for phenomena, instead of the precious promises from the word of God: “if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things”.

This is the difference between the downcast goat and the discouraged sheep. The goat (the follower who only has the Spirit WITH HIM, but not yet IN HIM) indulges in inescapable cycle of self pity/self justification. No matter what, he cannot leave it with God and trust the promises regardless of addictive, compulsive thought patterns.

The sheep, on the other hand, eventually assures his heart in the fact that God is greater than his internal or external conflicts. The flame of the burning Spirit that has been reduced to ‘smoking flax’ will never go out.” A bruised reed he will not break and smoking flax he will not quench.” (Matthew 12.20; Isaiah 42.3) No matter how low he gets the saint will rise up again when he ponders the promises of the Word for faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by meditating again on the Word.

How can the sheep leave his own self-condemnation behind? By pondering and meditating (not just hurriedly reading) the Scriptures whose promises impart assuring comfort.

Conceded that Satan is the accuser of the brethren, confirmed by the opposition the brethren uncover from hostile worldlings. Yet though I am beleaguered by the god of this world and his spiritual forces of wickedness there is a greater enemy: one within: “another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” “The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” Galatians 5:17

This inner enemy is one that he carries wherever he goes: ‘the body of this death’ always ready to bring him into captivity if he decides to walk independent of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. To reject original sin and pretend that dead carcass is no longer a burden means he is no longer vigilantly watchful and floats from day to day in a sea of egotist self -justification.

The saint is compelled to bear testimony of Christ in some small way, or spiritual boredom and drought will set in. Each of us brush shoulders with scores of lost souls in our day to day living. The saint, no matter how dejected, will carry something in the pocket or handbag with the gift of life. E.g. a small tract, pocket Gospel, that can be handed to ‘other sheep’ not yet in the fold of the kingdom, but whom the Father is drawing to His Son. This does not mean saturating all and sundry, but being ready when a positive opportunity arises.

Every decent, warm conversation in personal encounter, though only short is the Lord opening the heart to the Word by readying the person to receive it. Seeds must be sown for germination and you may well be the catalyst. If one refuses to carry the Word of Life, preferably without a church soliciting itself on the back page, there is no chance of a seed being deposited. This does not mean confronting the person and forcibly arresting them in their tracks, as some unwise zealots do. Evidence cannot be measured by response and that must be left to eternity, for often in most cases you will never meet the person again. Ye are my witnesses, and besides you I have no other.

BIBLE REFERNCES. (ex King James Version of the Holy Bible-Public Domain)
“Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any”…”but if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.”
(Isaiah 44:8; 2 Corinthians 4:3)

1 John 3:19-21.
19 And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.20 For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.21 Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.
John 5:24
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
Romans 8:1
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

BELIEVERS’ SELF CONDEMNATION

THE MIRAGE OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH.
The writer acknowledges the vast difference between the visible earthly church (churches) of man and the invisible body of Christ, the true church comprised of the saints. The latter are those whom God has regenerated by His Spirit at His behest rather than by mere human design and persuasion.

Many are still looking for the true church, as they discover the flaws of each church evaluated. They will never find it, because it does not exist. The word itself is not in the original New Testament (Koine Greek) and at six New Testament English translations omit it altogether.

The American Church poses as the world’s leader in the art of preaching but in essence its extemporary ‘gift of the gab’ and unctuous verbosity does not fool the man of the street. It is not the real thing and the common man knows it.

Its superior psychology of evangelism is merely the closeted use of the agnostic Father of American Psychology, William James. Its abandonment of biblical radical regeneration has been replaced by automatic clerical midwives who usher in thousands upon thousands of still-births each week.

Its Bible has been substituted by William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience (1850). Indeed, experience has become the be-all and the end-all. On the one hand the experience of doctrinal or biblical knowledge is said to automatically gain redemption, while on the other hand popular church indulgence in feverish so-called spiritual phenomena (paranormal) is said to be the best experience.

The American church has learned well the pagan devices of humanistic crowd control and professes to have invented them.

From 1814 America’s Age of Evangelism spread its superior message of easy-religion all over the world for the next hundred years. By the 20th century it had become a pandemic.

American super-spiritual methods of quick mass conversions are not only boringly repetitive, but merely sound and fury without the genuine fire that only the abandoned spirit of prayer can bring. But is it based on its superior gift of the gab and its unctuous disease of verbosity?

Is its barrage of ideology drawing upon mere biblical knowledge from the Tree of Knowledge or do its homilies draw upon the Tree of Calvary? Humanism now possesses its pulpits said to be superior to the blight of sacramentalism. Affirmation, lip profession has come to stay with the aid of fanatical bibliolatry that exploits chosen Scriptural extracts twisted from context and made interpretive arbiters of God’s Word. No wonder there were 2,800 Church denominations by 1970 (Barrett’s World Christian Encyclopaedia). Is it any wonder that reactionary pragmatism has become the common place tool of church pulpits?

THE MIRAGE OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH

Truth About 21st C Christianity.(5)

1. Religious speculation became rife after the death of the soul. The endless babble of Babel’s builders demonstrated its futility.
2. Likewise today’s babble of extemporary preachers infatuated with their own unctuous unction is often void of biblical content and full of humanistic sectarian psychology laced with their own philosophy.
3. Despite their reliance upon natural faith it is weak, double-minded, & can’t access God. The Twelve often exasperated Jesus with their lack of faith. Only when they were converted after the resurrection was distrust replaced by the faith of Christ as they received His Spirit. (Luke 24; John 20.)
4. In the case of the first twelve disciples prevenient grace was given by Christ at Jesus’ awakening call to follow him.
5. Prevenient grace moved the twelve men to seek his company and presence wherever he went as they heard & learned of the Father (John 6)
6. It took 40 months before their eyes were opened at conversion Luke 24, John 20
7. Illuminating-faith and repentance given them at Emmaus & Jerusalem Luke 24
8. Eleven of the twelve disciples became sheep & testified with Christ over 40 days to 109
9. The 120 (11+109) prayed ten days waiting Pentecost’s outpouring Acts 1.
10. Only the interceding High Priest sending the spirit of prayer to gathered saints in free-prayer will move the Father to awaken lost. But do-it-yourself evangelism of the 21st C has completely forgotten this with its easy-automatic religion.
11. Evangelism without the spirit of prayer is empty and often the verbose self-effort of easy-religion

BIBLE REFERENCES:
Luke 24:31; 32; 45; Acts 16:14; John 1:16; Romans 1:17; Ephesians 2:8; 2 Corinthians 7:10; Acts 5:31; Acts 11:18
Acts 3:16; Romans 12:3; Galatians 2:20 Ephesians 3:12; Philippians 3:9; Colossians 2:12
1) And their eyes were opened…32 Did not our heart burn within us, while he … opened to us the scriptures?
45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,
2) … whose heart the Lord opened…
3) … grace for grace.
4) …the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith:
5) For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that ‘not of yourselves: it is the gift’ of God:
6) For ‘godly’ sorrow works repentance … but the sorrow of the world works death.
7) Him hath God exalted…for to ‘give’ repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.
8) Then hath God…granted repentance unto life.
9) …the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness…
10) … God hath dealt to every man…the measure of faith.
11) …I live by the faith of the Son of God,
12) …by the faith of him.
13) …through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
14) …through the faith of the operation of God

Truth About 21st C Christianity.(5)

Truth About 21st C Christianity.(2)
In the aftermath of the 18th C ‘Enlightenment’ Christendom in 19th century America seemed to become fractious and deceived to the extreme.

This was to such an extent that hundreds upon hundreds of new cults emerged, each claiming to be solely unique in having more understanding of the Scriptures than the rest of Christendom.

This was the era of aberrant sectarianism. It was the period of extremes in which the liberals became libertine and the purists became simplistic in their bibliolatrous literalism of select parts of Scripture. The right wing in the USA became noticeably judgmental and legalistically confrontational in their homilies. Brazen bellicosity and denunciations were in vogue. All of this in the name of superior Christian truth for the separatist cause.

By the 20th C Barratt in his voluminous Encyclopedia of Christianity (1977) listed about 2,800 separate church denominations active in the world.

Christ had predicted that in the period after the beginning of sorrows a plague of false doctrine would confuse and, if it would be possible, deceive the very elect.

Standard Biblical Tenets Accepted by Sheep Before 19th C.
*Any honest study of the four gospels and Paul’s letter to the saints at Rome will amply endorse the following:-

1. Of the human race none want to seek God. (Romans 3)
2. All from birth are blind to their sin and resist gospel light
3. None of them have the ability to understand or want it.
4. Many of them will be religious, but use religion for self-justification.
5. From creation mankind has had perpetual attraction to religious mysticism

6. The image of God in mankind was marred by the Fall, but Adam fell from a state of innocence, not original righteousness. Innocence is not righteousness and it is not a tendency towards God even when confronted by Him, as was the case in Eden’s creation.

7. Conscience was corrupted when the race committed itself to mystical worship of the supernatural power of knowledge via Eve, the first created woman, who then deceived Adam.

8. The light of conscience had been crippled by self-interest since Adam fell.

9. Adam’s living soul died, when he sinned by rejecting the tree of eternal life offered him. He blamed Eve, and she blamed supernatural deception by the being with whom she had chosen to converse in her curiosity.

10. The blight of the curse from Adam’s original sin upon the human race is its endemic legacy of blindness. Also its spell of religious idolatry and mysticism upon the whole human race.

11. As in Eden, humanity today still resists God through the knowledge of good and evil and impenitently hardens its heart through reason.

BIBLE REFERENCES
Matthew 24:11; Matthew 24:24; Mark 13:22; 2 Thessalonians 2:3; Jeremiah 17:9; John 3:20; Matthew 24:11; Matthew 24:24; Mark 13:22; Romans 1:17; Acts 26:18; Romans 3:11; Psalm 14:3; Romans 3:12;

Truth About 21st C Christianity.(2)

Truth About 21st C Christianity.(1)
Biblical Christianity has always resided with a small minority among churches within Christendom. Over the centuries true converts had doctrinal consistency and unity of biblical adherence regardless of class, creed or church. Until the 19th C sheep could not quickly be deceived by goats, no matter their academic kudos. Saints resisted goats in pulpits distorting Scripture for their own sectarian advantage.

Whether from the first Church of Rome, or from scholars like Origen and Pelagius, humanism did not shake the saints, because as Jesus quoted, “My sheep hear my voice and a stranger they will not follow.”

Truth About 21st C Christianity.(1)