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Constantly adding articles to this site.
LAST ENTRY WAS; 132
As the author of ACTSion web site I want to apologize for the terrible number of typos and the editing that
yet remains to be corrected. My many friends urged me to put the material up so it was at least
available.  So, please excuse the  errors and pray that someone will come along who will
feel it is a ministry to clean up this terrible mess. I have been doing some editing when
I have a chance but that is not too often. Thank you for your understanding. I have
a very good webmaster now and have had some work done as some of you
have noticed. BUT, web master's cost money and I use her when I am
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1.    A Letter From Jesus
2.    The No Doctrine Doctrine
3.    They say I'm Old Fashioned
4.    Calvary: Successor Victory?  
5.    NEWSCOPE: Are We seeing the
       beginning of the Antichrist Regime?
6.    Is the Moon Made of Cheese?
7.    CHART: The Seven Ages of Man.             
     
  From Paradise to Paradise.                    
8.    CHART: Five Digressions in each Age.
9.    Beware False Profit$   
10.  CHART: Pentecostal NOT Charismatic. 
11.  I Feared the People. 
12.  The Four Peaks of Power.
13.  Worldliness
14.  Tradition
1
5.  What sin will do 
16.  If the foundations be destroyed, what?
17.  The Israel war leads to the next war. 
18.  The Fifth Tree
19.  Bullfight
20.  Bulldog wisdom
21.  Robbing Hell  
22.  Born in the fire 
23.  Free Phone - Voipbuster.com
24.  1050 Commandments 
25.  See anyplace on Earth 
26.  A Tip About Your Teeth
27.  Why Islam Hates srael
28.  Understanding Terorism  
29.  The Junk Culture Generation
30.  Chart 1 - Holiness is Horizontal  
31.  Chart 2 - Righteousness is Vertical 
32.  Three Zones of Grace - Study Chart
33.  Thrice Crucified - Chart 
34.  My Blog Disclaimer
35.  Securing the Mexican Border is Simple
36.  The Slow Death of the World 
37.  Apostates Should Seek Second Opinion
38.  We Need A Good Free Search Engine
39.  The Three Levels of Learning 
40.  A Good Man With A Bad Spirit 
41.  The Good in the Bad
42.  When Salt Loses Its' Character   
43.  A Brief Story of the Bible 
44.  The Persistence of Evil
45.  Big Bucks In Bibles  
46.  That Pesky Atom and Evolution
47.  Western Culture Corrupting China 
48.  The Answer to School Violence          .
49.  Are There Two Accounts of Creation?      
50.  A Brother's Diary of a 40 day Fast
51.  Vitamins-supplements protected by Law
52.  The Calling to Ministry Abroad
53.  Bible Bashers and Hate Crimes
54.  Professionalism Needs Transformation
55.  Paul and James Agreed on Good Works     
56.   Fundamentalism Not A Part of the Problem
57.   Because of the Angels - 1 Corinthians 11 
58.   Freedom Is Only Through Boondage.
54.   Professionalism Needs Transformation
55.   Paul and James Agreed on Good Works
56.   Fundamentalism Not A Part of the Problem.
57.   Because of the Angels - 1 Corinthians 11
58.   Freedom Is Only Through Boondage.
59.   Doctrine of the Church Prior to 313 A.D. 
60.   The Holy Desire Chart 
61.   Literalists Live by the Word
62.   Ichabod! Cardinal Doctrine of Apostates
63.   Where There's No Vision People Perish.
64.   The Supremacy of Doctrine.
65.   Faith teaching Salvation Heresy
66.   Bleeding Hearts Are Blind
67.   Holiness to the Lord - The signate
68.   Have You Been Called Old Fashioned?
69.   There is No Such Thing As Freedom
70.   Jesus' Words of Ruby Wisdom 
71.   Amen topics for meat eaters only
72.   Choice - Parks on Predestination 1884

72.   There Is No Such Thing As Freedom
73.   "Doctrine Deparates, Spirit Unites" is BUNK!
74.   Apostles Teaching Compared To Apostates
75.   Better Get HIS Second Opinion-Charts
76.   Good News For the Godly! Maranatha!
77.   Radio Preachers Distort Grace
78.   The Mother Doctrine of Apostates
79.   How Do Liberals build Megachurches?
80.   Examples of the INGLORIOUS CHURCH
81.   Transformed in the Carpenter's Shop!!
82.   Forgiveness saves! Raca damns!
83.   Tongues of Fire and the cult of Cliques
84.   WHY KIDS KILL KIDS
85.   Pastors, Please Help Your Missinaries
86.   Obama for president of the USA ?
87.   How to Bring Gas Prices Down
88.   Christ Conquors the Kosmos (world)!  NEW
89.   GIST: Where I'm posting my study notes
90.   Father, forgive Us for Dry Eyes
91.   The World is a Stampeding HERD
92.   Stories from the field
93.   Destutute! Do we know what it means?
94.   The Accountability Policies of Commission
95.   Evangelism WITH Compassion
96.   Proof: God's Law, God's love Are the Same
97.   The Church Getting Used to the Dark
98.   666 is Here - The last sign Before He returns?
99.   3 Doctrines of Dualism - Biblical Dualism
100.  The DOG and The DOVE: Our Goal in Christ
101.  TV and the Computer - Is there a difference?
102.  Do You Remember The Hagios Letter?
103.  A story Leonard Ravenhil  
104.   A Photo Never To Forget!
105.   Fallen Preachers
106    Back to Godliness
107.   DRUMS In The Church
108.   Law of LIBERTY ?!?!
109.   The God of the Atom
110.   Photo Gallery


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     2009: An end time observation and how it applies to our family life:

2009 is past and Commission Ministries continues to embrace the same apostolic truths both in doctrine and calling that Jesus and the apostles gave to the church. As the years slip away behind us, sister Burkett, Penny and I continue to call on God's grace to make any sacrifice needed to reach the world that has not heard His name and pronounce the apostle's doctrine to the remnant church that remains faithful to the Lord in these last days. It may shock some to know that the Scripture teaches men who become married to be responsible first to their wives and their children above the call of God if ever his care for them is threatened and he has to choose between one or the other. Anything we do in the Burkett family that effects the family, we do together only after we have discussed it including our two children.

We live in a time of extreme conditions and extreme urgency for the church! This simply means that extremity must be met by extremity on the part of the church. It will take extreme effort for the church to reach the world population in this end time! It demands sacrifice. If we are going to win this world from the complex efforts of power X's many infiltrations into the human system (of which he is god). Extreme measures have always included special men anointed of God to fulfill His purposes if we hope to reach those who wait in the darkness of remote regions beyond. There will have to be more sacrifices made by men of God than are being made. The new gospel of prosperity and materialism has lulled us into spiritual indifference.

We are trying to accomplish A-bomb results with cap gun religion. The soft  modern evangelical philosophies are nothing but smug efforts to justify our dereliction toward the commission Jesus gave us to go into ALL the world and preach the gospel. One writer wrote in poem found again on this web site, that we do not want the living Christ dying on the cross, but we prefer the wooden Christ upon a wooden cross hanging around our neck because this wooden Christ does not arouse our fears. Another great man said, The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.

To reach this present world for Christ, God has provided means of travel, literature and communication to get the job done, but, the house remains full and the fields remain empty. Then, some may argue, America gives millions and millions to missions. Yes, I am quite aware of that. I have lived in and preached the gospel in 48 nations over the last 50 years. But I also know that when denominations send their missionaries to countries where there is already the presence of a national body of believers evangelizing their own people that American and western missionaries in that case are NOT missionaries. The term Missionary that comes from the Greek, apostolos is our word for apostle, one who founds churches or the father of churches. People sent from America, for example, that go to a country where the church already exists, are not missionaries. They are usually administrators or work with and for the church that was there long before they arrived.

I have a challenge for the church denominations: Shut down your present multi-million dollar operation and reopen it for only missionaries who will be willing to go into any part of the world where there is no church. Start with the hundreds of mountain tribal people of India who have not yet been reached. There are millions who have not heard the gospel inland China and it is now open for discreet one on one evangelism. I know because I did it for seven year winning many to the Lord! Start a missionary organization where only those who will go to unreached regions where there is not national church and dedicate yourself to staying in that area for however long it takes you to establish the confidence of the people and establish a church where there was no church. That is missions and that is the apostolic meaning of a missionary. When we send young missionaries to other countries these days they carry the infections of the Charismatic heresies corrupting those they reach with as pop culture crossover kind of message that is so worldly there is no difference between their lifestyle and the world which they think is the way it should be. These people have twisted the truth with human theology with a demonic error mixed in with it. These mercenaries think they are right and that worldliness is actually a tool that acts as a bridge between the saved and the unsaved. What splendid idiocy! I guess they have never heard of conviction that comes when sinners see the contrast between the holy life and the worldly. Jesus mentioned these corruptors (which we call missionaries, today) He said,  Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte (convert), and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

We have mega-churches boasting it's prosperous followers coming together to dwell on the pleasantries of of God's blessing and others with an emphasis on praise. But the hard places continue not to be reached and the populations of the damned continue to grow larger and Islam goes unchecked by by a church that has defected from the war. Year after year I have had the glorious privilege to reach into areas of the world where I found no other missionaries had been and the name of Jesus had never been heard and where the Bible had never been seen, and make them both known to the people. I plan to continue that ministry even though sister Burkett cannot accompany me to these places and remains faithful to the Commission office, we have opened a fourth front line of ministry God has given to us to reach into lands where the heathen rage, with Bibles in Muslim, Hindu and numberless pagen religions. And we shall continue on this course in His name and by His grace in spite of critics, gossip and who themselves do not attempt the impossible because they are too busy passing rumors against those who are. It would do well for the pastors across our land to do some teaching on RACA and until the churches are rid of it.

A group of Christians including a family I have known and loved for many decades, were without a pastor and asked if I would come and help them get a community church started so there would be a good traditional holiness church message in this city. After a family discussion we decided that we should accept this challenge until it could get to the place another pastor could take it. We all agreed it was a good thing. I started out in the ministry pioneering two Assembly of God churches in New York state under Joseph Flower, and now I am pioneering my third church. I came home from China because the Lord led me that way and I can see His hand of providence clearly now. I have been able to return to China every summer and return home frequently from the pioneer work for one week visits. The Lord has added several families to the church here in Washington, IN and God gave us precious souls each time we have returned to China. Two years ago the wife of a vice president of a university in Henan and last year the supervisor at the bank I use in Henan, her husband and her mother all three came to the Lord and prayed the sinners prayer with me. All of them are doing well and I must send them literature to do what I can to disciple them in a land where there is very little sound teaching and no open churches preaching a good solid message of holiness of life. But God's grace is sufficient!

Paul, we know was married or married at one time because he was a member of the Sanhedrin which required members to be married. Surely most of the apostles were married with perhaps the exception of John who was quite young. Yet strangely we hear nothing about the wives of these men who followed Jesus for over three years and then fanned out over the known world preaching Christ to the regions beyond, with not one single mention of their wives!

How do we explain this?  After the resurrection of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost It was extremely important for the church to reach every corner and culture of the world to plant the seeds of God's great plan of redemption and bear witness of Jesus, His teaching and the resurrection; to draw men back into fellowship with the God of Genesis. Paul probably best explains the why the apostles didn't take their wives with them into certain martyrdom; But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; 1 Corinthians 7:29. Not everyone can apply this statement by the apostle to their lives. Their are imes factors such as ailing parents, marriage and young children involved with some people - and yet, anyone who will make such a sacrifice not matter what is there to hinder them will receive heavenly rewards that only a strong faith and love for God can overcome to take the call. Many men have done it in the history of the church and for them a special glory awaits them in the judgment.

In these last days we have come to a final extreme urgency in the church's history. It falls upon the church to warn the world of the soon and sudden return of Christ that will be accompanied by a devastating spacequake cataclysm. Luke 21:25-28; Revelation 6:12-17. Extreme urgencies of the end time unevangelized world can only be accomplished as men answer the call to make extreme sacrifices. Men who are shut up in their little cocoons of self and materialistic creature comforts of the flesh just don't understand these things. 



2008 TRAVELS FOR HIM >    THIS YEAR WE HAVE BEEN ON THREE MISSION TRIPS MINISTERING IN ESTONIA, RUSSIA, CROATIA AND CHINA A TOTAL OF THREE MONTHS. IN JUNE WE WENT DEEP INTO SICHUAN IN THE EARTHQUAKE AREA SEEKING OUT AND VISITING CHRISTIANS THERE. IN JULY WE REACHED DEEP INTO THE INLAND MOUNTAINS OF THE NORTH VISITING MOUNTAIN PEOPLE WHO HAD NEVER HEARD THE NAME OF JESUS UNTIL WE CAME TO THEM. I have many photos of our travels in China and any pastor interested in having me for the true picture on China may contact me for a service at actsion@yahoo.com.   



                CHINAmtnLady

CHINA - 2009 : Three more very precious people come to the Lord this Summer. It's an outstanding story of a family that reached out to me to find the Lord. They asked me to help them become Christians with a great hunger created by their passing father who was a Christian.

MY DIVERSIFIED WORK: I have accepted a great challenge and am helping a pioneer group in Washington, IN. With the help of the brethren in the Shady Springs fellowship, I have been able to continue my travels freely and visiting my girls at home when I wish. The group is growing here and I continue to reach out in diversified ministry as the Lord leads thanks to the very kind and considerate people here in this small (but growing) group.

NEW BOOKS TO PUBLISHER >  My contacts in China are mostly in academia. While in China I developed a very effectual technique of teaching linguistics to English ESL majors that enabled my students to learn English accent free. (1)  I have written two books and one is on the Amazon list now teaching teachers and students alike this technique. The book has been critiqued by ESL experts and received very high recommendations. (2)  The second book is in the works and should be even more accepted than the first. As of this writing it is now going to press.
(3)  Our third book on prophecy entitled, SPACEQUAKE describing the return of Jesus for the Bride prior to His return earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords in Revelation 19 . There has been a resurgence of post-trib doctrine. I have read their books and found their doctrine faulty and worthy of reproving. The SPACEQUAKE book places the rapture in chapters 6 and 7 of Revelation where it belongs at the end of the church age and before the time of Jacob's trouble which is a Jewish dispensation and not a part of the Gentile church period. It is all explained in this 300 page book and holds a big surprise. We actually reveal  from Scripture what happens on the day Jesus returns - truths never before revealed. Not sensational but Biblically accurate. The Lord has provided for this ministry a wonderful holiness sister with high academic skills to do my editing and do the liaison between the author and and the publisher. The Lord is good and He is faithful!    





tattoos

Where Did The Recent Fad of Tattoos
Suddenly Come From?

Excellent article on Tattoos by Terry Watkins

http://www.biblebelievers.com/watkins_tattoos/bible.html

Consumer’s Report Quick ac data on the safety of the injected inks used.  The Food and Drug Administration has not approved tattoo inks safety.  Many tattoo inks are industrial strength used for printers ink and paint.  These inks are illegal in cosmetics in Europe because they can break down into cancer causing compounds. This simply
means that the inks used can cause cancer to appear anywhere in the body through the blood streams.  The immune system sees these pigments as foreign intruders in the blood stream.

Traces of tattoo ink can wind up in your lymph nodes and can cause granulomas, small bumps that form around the ink particles.  The ink is unsterilized and the needles can also be unsterilized and transmit infections.The risk of developing hepatitis C is twice as high for those with tattoos than for intravenous drug users.

Tattoo removal is difficult. I personally witnessed a tattoo removal in a hospital and it was not pleasant to watch andis also very expensive.

SHOPSMART Magazine has an article on page 19 (sorry no date), The Trouble with Tats, explains the physical dangers of tattoos. This small article points out several very important bits of information on tattoos;

That there’s no good scientific reports abouts tats.

2008 report from the archives of Dermatology removal can leave unsightly scars.

The new inks can be removed easier but there is still not little known about the long term effects on health.

Tattoos are certainly taboo in God’s Word.

Facts and actuality make up the truth. Live against that and you’ll only hurt yourself. God speaks against only those things that He knows are bad for us physically or do moral or psychological damage to the character of man.


Tattoos are appearing everywhere in just recent times becoming very popular with many people of the world. It seems that as we advance in technology that Civilization is moving backwards in lifestyle becoming more uncivilized and moving toward savage practices and conduct . Even Sarah Palin brags about her sons tattoos - a big map of Alaska across his back. That's a poor testimony, Sarah.

The question we want to put forth and answer from Scripture is; Should Christians tattoo their body? What the world does is often imitated by a church that watches the world and then falls in behind whatever fad comes along and to the beat of their worldly drums.

We are not directing our attention on the unsaved people of the world and apostates who pay no attention to what the Word of God teaches. What the world is doing is not our business. Our heart is effected by what the church does and how professing evangelical Christians relate to the teaching of the Word. My comments are directed to God's people who want to know the truth about how they can live closer to the Lord and who want to know what the Word of God teaches so they can please their Savior, not to the people of the world who do not have the Spirit of truth.

To Christians who might have asked themselves about tattooing and what the Bible says about the practice, we share the following.

Tattooing was a practice of the heathen for ages. It is nothing new. God forbid His people from marking their body with tattoos or any other marks such as cutting or mutating the body.

Leviticus 19:28 
Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD. 

Tattoos do not have a very good beginning, nor are they considered in good taste by the corporate world and responsible people with values and especially the Bible centered churches. Let us look further into the what the Scripture teaches on the subject.

Most modern translations use the word tattoo instead of mark in this text. It is from the Hebrew word, kethobeth kah-akah  which the Hebrew defines as, pricking the skin with a needle leaving a mark. This practice is forbidden by God's Word. Child of God, stay away from this heathen practice.

There are some modern unlearned self appointed doctrinaires teaching that the mark on the 144,000 in Revelation 6 and other references to marks of God are tattoos the Lord places on them. Would God be putting tattoos on His chosen ones when He has forbidden it by commandment? These false teachers apparently make no attempt to do a little exegesis and do a simple word study on the use of these words. The result is they come up with their own silly doctrine far removed from the actual teaching of God's word. They will deserve their fate at the judgment.


There were many commandments given in the old Testament that were framed by God that were given to counter heathen practices carried out by the pagan tribes around them. God's commandments are always based on sound moral eternal principle.

I have received several very nasty email responses on this tatoo article. The people used foul labguage and had no intention of having an intelligent discussion - just foul language that indicates that those who try and defend tattooing by cursing and using foul labguage indicates the kind of people who defend the practice of tattoos.

For example, many laws given to Israel are still applicable because the same conditions exist today as existed then. Where a reason for law exists then law remains a prohibition to preserve the good of God's people.  As long as conditions exist that made the commandment (law) necessary then that law remains in effect. But if the reason for a law ceases to exist, then there is no law. For example, 200 years ago there was a law that your horse had to be tied to the horse post provided on the street. When everyone traveled by horse or horse and buggy there was a cause for that law. But, now there are no horses on the city streets and so even though that law may still be on the city statute books, that law is not a law because the cause for it does not exist.

Some of God's laws in the Old Testament have ceased because there is no cause for a law. Any law that was written at any time in God's book for the good of man remains today under the New Covenant if the cause or causes for the law remain.

Conditions in the world today still demand that God's people abstain from harmful practices existing today such as purgery and incest. These are gross sins today as they were in the Days of Israel's beginnings when God gave to man the moral law.

The Jews were not to wear clothing made of wool and cotton together because heathen tribes around them worshiped the gods of fertility. They wore cotton to worship the god of plants and wore wool as a way of worshiping the gods of their animals that their harvests and animals would multiply and be fertile. That heathen practice does not exist for the church to heed in these times and therefore that law does not apply now as it did then.

There are 1,050 commandments in the New Testament. A genuine Christian is hardly conscious of these laws because he reads the Word and sees it as the loving instruction of a God who has redeemed us from the world and his/her conscience is made sensitive to what God wishes for the good of His children and gladly follows it. Someone has said regarding the Bible that if God gave a users manual with the world when he created it and gave it over to us, it's the Bible.

Tattooing the body was a practice of the ancient heathen world and God forbid His people from following that practice for good reasons. Marking the body permanently is a mutation of the human body which was created perfect  in His likeness and God saw it as good. The body is sacred and is the temple of God the Holy Spirit and should not have names, dragons or roses changing the appearance or displaying unholy images of any kind. The body should remain as God created it and should not be used to display images to impress people. It is the way of the world and they are not under God's kingdom law but under the civil laws of the world. We as Christians must not follow a multitude to do evil. Evil? Deuteronomy 23:2. What is evil about a tattoo? Answer: If God forbids a thing and we rebel against what God advises us not to do, that is rebellion and rebellion against God's commandments is evil.

Dr. Carlton French, who was a dear friend of mine, an Episcopal missionary living in Athens, Greece, once said to me, "Brother, when everybody's doing it, that is the first indication it is wrong!"  When a thing become a popular fad in the world the Christian should be very careful not to follow the multitude to do evil. You may ask, "what's so evil about a tattoo?" It's evil because GOD SAID IT WAS EVIL AND FORBID HIS CHILDREN TO DO IT! and that's good enough reason for any born again person. But the ridiculous licentious grace teaching today ignore the apostle's teachings and the morals taught throughout the Bible. The new apostate doctrinaires declare that we must imitate the world so we are not different from them because this way we can more easily attract them to salvation and faith in Jesus. This is careless and stupid theology! The world is attracted when the church stands in stark contrast to their sloppy amoral lifestyle stirring the desire to be pure as they see in the pure, and not because we conform to the world! 

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Matthew 5:16.

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of you mind (thinking differently than we did when we were in the world), that ye may prove what that good and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

To know the moral quality of a practice as a Christian, the first thing I should do is study that thing in the Bible and trace it back to it's origin. Where did this recent craze of tattooing have it start? Who made tattoos popular. Who made tattoos look "cool?"  The answer:  Hard Rock stars on stage with their body's tattooed with hundreds and thousands of screaming fans ready to imitate their admired idols. This belongs to the world and it's not our business as Christians to force the world to obey God's Word, but rather to teach and inform the church. Our business as a Christian ministry is to inform Christians who want to live a holy and separated life and stay true to the Lord in these bizarre end times. 

A tattoo is a mark that identifies you with the world and the people who who defy the teaching of the Bible.

Tattoos started being accepted and practiced with the low life culture of rock stars culture back in the sixties. There was a time that no lady would think of having a dragon or a flower tattooed on her body. Motorcycle gangs, rock stars and city gangs started the wider practice as we see it today where civil people and even professed evangelical Christians are going to the tattoo parlors to received their mark of the world.

When Antichrist rises to power he will have a "mark" and it might well be a tattooed mark. It may also be a chip that marks that person as having accepted and being approved by the Antichrist system.

When I was in the military it was usually something the guys did when they got drunk. I remember a scene in my barracks one morning. A boy woke up and found his body tattooed. He was angry and grieved and didn't even remember getting the tattoo.  He and two other boys had gotten drunk the night before and they talked him into getting the tattoo with them. They were all drunk. The bottom line is that tattoos have always been a practice of the worldly and anyone who thought a tattoo was a mark of manhood. But now women are as taken up with tattoos as the men.

Israel, like the church was living among heathen who worshiped false gods and held practices that honored their gods. God forbid Israel from any and all of the practices of the heathen so that the children of Israel would not become corrupted by them and turn to false gods.

God didn't want His people to have anything in common with the heathen they were near. The church should have very little in common with the world because that becomes a temptation for us to have communication with the ungodly and ultimately destroying the peculiar holy nature of the church.

We are living in a world that we once were a part of, but God has called us out of the world and we are not to practice those things in the world and then attribute our successes to those gods and believe in them. We are to be separate from the gods of the world and come out from it and not imitate it in any way!

2 Corinthians 6:17 
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,
(18)  And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

2 Corinthians 7:1 
Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

And where did Paul get this reference? From the Old Testament commandment through the prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah 52:11 
Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD.

And also in Numbers 16:21 we see pending judgment on the disobedient and the Lord commands Israel with urgency to go out from the disobedient before His judgment falls on the disobedient. God's judgment is coming on all who defy His commandments.

Be very sure you're on the right side of the truth when Jesus splits the sky wide open!




God's reason for such judgment is because the influence of the ungodly threatens
the purity of His people!
Today as yesterday. 




Then it was Israel, now it is the church. God is extremely concerned about His people who are called to holiness and called out of this world and then go whoring after the fads and life styles of the ungodly. We are not to be influenced by the evil practices of the world that we are surrounded by. If you are a Christian and you have allowed the Pop Rock culture to put a mark on your body - repent! You've been pickled!  See a physician and have it removed as a testimony to others that this is a sin against the Word of God - that it is of the world which you renounced and became dead to when you were baptized in water to tell the world you were raised to newness of life through Christ, dead to the world and worldliness and that tattoos are not pleasing to the God who created you with a clean body untouched by the world.

Let the world know there are no tattoo parlors in paradise!

 
  Pain
                                 1 Peter 4:1

     Pop
Pop Culture Coming Into The Churches Through College and Church Choirs Turning To Gospel Rock Music Entertainment

If you want to rock, just attend one of the meetings where a Bible College choir is performing

The Pop beat is there. It is a fact that Bible Colleges have joined the Charismatics and liberal theology that has come by the philosophy that to attract young people to our churches and schools we must go down into the music gutters of the world to get them into our churches and youth services. Church choirs have stooped to playing music that appeals to the lower nature, the same music the world embraces. It effects the carnal man with rhythm. Sacred music appeals to the spiritual man and call him to worship God, not to indulge in the pleasure of the sound. Foot tapping, body swaying emotionalism is a far cry from the music, the psalms and the melodies referred to in Scripture. Christians have been led into the same kind of music by their choir leaders that the world embraces. Many of us can remember when worship music in the church, even the vibrant choruses of triumph and victory, had nothing in common with the music of the world outside the church. I remember hearing many years ago that the church follows the world in the it's music. But when the rock beat came into the world through a drug ridden pop culture filled with promiscuous "stars," I thought for sure the evangelical church would draw a line, but ti didn't. Across the land hymn books have been taken out of the sanctuary and keyboards and drums have replaced the piano and organ. Speaking platforms have been turned into stages where the pulpits have literally been moved aside or out of sight and standing keyboard musicians and rock guitarists mimic the hard rock culture in the night clubs down the street .

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to glorify Christ, and in doing so HE WILL DRAW ALL ME TO HIMSELF WHEN HE IS LIFTED UP! Using music that comes from sin infested rock culture obscures that Biblical fact and indicates departure from the Holy Spirit's sovereignty over the church.

You have replaced the shields of gold with the shields of brass!

To make matters worse, Those who foster this ungodliness in the church insist it is God refusing to admit it is a departure from that which is holy and sacred and from the divine pattern set forth for the church. That's what's dangerous about departing from God's Word. We see people coming in to hear the music and we don't know the difference between the spirit of the world and the Spirit of God! But in the end there will be scalding tears and those we tried to please and the success we thought we had achieved will suddenly vanish in the thunderings of God's judgment!

With the rhythm of the world the new Pop Culture music of the modern holiness Bible schools has lyrics praising Jesus rather than a message of moral or spiritual correction. It doesn't matter how you present a message, whether in a sermon or song, it should carry the message of correction and perfecting of the saints. Here we are in the middle of the end time apostasy and we're writing praise songs. Praise and worship are the emotional side of the faith. But that call to worship must be coming from a heart of holiness and obedience to God to be valid. Praise is not the message the church needs in this it's final hour when it is steeped in worldliness and compromise.

Praise apart from purity is putrid!
And why call ye (sing to) me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?  
Luke 6:46  This would include fasting, supplications, a knowledge of the doctrines of God and following the apostle's doctrine explicitly.


There are four objectives of the spoken Word:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for (1) doctrine, for (2) reproof, for (3) correction, for (4) instruction in righteousness:                  
2 Timothy 3:16


There is no substance to worship music. That is, it does not instruct and give substance in the form of truth that transmits the pure doctrine of the apostle's to the church, perfecting the moral quality of the believers heart making us stronger to do exploits for God.

Leadership in the holiness churches have become pathetically ineffective as leaders to steer our kids and curricula away from the world's philosophy of positivism and entertainment. Pastors are allowing Christians in the church to divorce and remarry and remain members. Wild music and promiscuous relationships between teen agers.  They have cast off the Holy Spirit for a cheap Pop culture kind of hybrid Pentecostalism, a cross-over religion that appeals to the carnal nature - and because their ladies don't wear pants it means they are holiness. To prove God's approval they create a lot of praise and emotionalism with their music and say it is the Spirit of God. Excuse me, sir, but when a thing is of the Holy Spirit it will in no way resemble the same thing that is produced by the same kind of music at a rock, pop or Bee Bop concert. In fact, the excitement and emotional response in a rock festival far exceeds the emotionalism Pop music produces in the entertainment put on in a church. You can use rhythm and sound to move the emotions of people but . . . move them to what? BUT when we minister within the lines drawn in Scripture and dedicate ourselves to not removing those holy landmarks, careful to remain within the defined sphere of Biblical doctrine and truth, the Holy Ghost will fall as at times before. As I have said many times; The way to God is to go back, not forward plunging headlong into the abyss of doctrinally illiterate liberalism!


The modern Pentecostal holiness movement has unconsciously
slipped further and further away from
the strict principles
of the Word to
the sloppy pandering to the world!

It's not emotionalism or praise or any other form of excitement that makes the Holy Spirit the author of something. Rock sessions are void of character qualities but packed with emotionalism So, the Pop Culture with words about God in a Pentecostal church will not build character, they only aid Satan's plan to demoralize the saints and distract men's hearts from God. And if the gifts are in operation in a music oriented church they will not have the depth of genuineness.

Music has it's place in Scripture but it was always sacred and an overflowing on the occasion of a very holy moment - NEVER AS ENTERTAINMENT OR A MEANS OF CREATING EXCITEMENT OR WORSHIP! It expressed worship but not used to incite worship. The book of Psalms, David dancing when the Ark came back into Jerusalem and the hymn they sang the night Jesus was taken in the garden the day before His crucifixion are a far cry from the music programs put on today on church platforms that exploit the skills of the flesh, cause pride and exaltation. We have followed the world by producing high powered musical showmanship programs with high tech amplified sounds that mesmerize the faithful and turn God's people into a bunch dumbed down doctrinally illiterate believers who think that music is a powerful tool in the hands of the Holy Spirit. How many of the musicians that perform in these theatrics in the churches, and how many of those shouting and praising God and sometimes even running can give a simple definition of the doctrine of justification or tell you what two doctrines make the doctrine of salvation?

Worship music in the church, yes. Pop entertainment, NO!

In reality music creates a broad range of emotional responses as we have all seen when thousands of rock fans stand and in a worshipful fashion raise their hands overhead swaying back and forth, lowering their hands toward the rock stars swinging their guitars on a strobed stage engaging the swooning masses in the audience.

Many apostate church leaders are equating music with how the holy Spirit operates and even feeling that the emotionalism created by the modern gospel music phenomena is directly attributed to the Holy Ghost. Why is it then that with the increase of entertainment and music that the gifted of the Spirit (and especially the quality of the utterances) have decreased and in many churches it deceased! Miracles are fewer and prayer requests sound more like
a medical class discussion than faith in God to do the miraculous.

Gospel Music has  done more to pervert the truth about the operation of the Holy Spirit in the church than any other extra biblical practice we have allowed to come into the church. My, but the Devil's smart. If I tell you the truth you will hate me for speaking against the spirit of entertainment because this gospel Pop has become so rooted we would not dare to seek God for the truth about it. The whole musical program in gospel churches of all evangelicals (except the Fundamental and Independent Baptists) has taken over the church. Loud drums and worship teams are take offs from the rock scene and our pastors do not have the wisdom or the dedication to realize that if we would clean up our act we would see the real Holy Ghost revival. We have replaced the gold shields with the brass!

 Let me shock you with a fact or two.

60 years ago we had the gifts of the Spirit operating in the Pentecostal churches. Now that music and entertainment is in the gifts are fading out from existence in the "Spirit filled" churches. Music and entertainment is in and prayer and fasting and the gifts are out and when they do seem to be operating they are shallow and lack the quality and depth we saw in the churches 50 years ago. As music came in the gifts, and especially the power and depth of the gifts started waining until today they do not any longer exist in most Full Gospel Churches! Why? because God's people are coming to church to be entertained. This has become the mentality of most (not all) Pentecostals today. They have been sublimated by a devilish spirit of entertainment that no longer tolerates hard preaching against sin. The mentality of many churches has changed from doctrine to entertainment being the core of the church program.

Music and movies (including the TV) are probably the two strongest influences on the
psychic behavior of man. Now, even the "Holiness" leadership is allowing rock gospel music
(if there is such thing) to take over their platform entertainment spewing this rock garbage
out over the saints as they gather in the name of Jesus to be perfected by the Word of God. The flesh loves it and doesn't realize it is the flesh that enjoys this Pop trash while the spirit of man languishes inside his breast.  The church is God's chosen race being redeemed back from the charms of the seducing sins of the snake, and we are allowing the rock sound to push out the hymns and melodies of praise for body raptured rhythm that memorizes
listeners with a tempo synchronized to the beat of the human heart.

While the holy Spirit is trying to bring men back under the godly influences of the Grace that teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, this low life beat that entertains the flesh and cultivates carnality is countering the efforts of the Holy Spirit. Gospel Pop is an
abomination no matter how beautiful the words may be. The rock sound is from beneath and just another trick of the snake to replace the anointing with a substitute sound the flesh embraces confusing good feelings with the edifying ministry of the WORD!

Holiness kids now dress crossover in part Pop Culture style and modesty. The girls kink
their hair (Pop Culture styling), wear tight clothing and unconsciously accept the
Pop sound as perfectly acceptable. Where are the pastors and leadership? This music has
a spirit that effects the psyche of the carnal nature and it is carrying us into the pits of ungodliness by degrees. Little by Little the snake is destroying the holiness we once
possessed by his hypnotic influences that soothe the carnal appetites. Wake up brethren! Spiritual leaders who are to teach separation have become the indifferent servants of the snake! 

The signature of the Holy Spirit being over a church is by two evidences being present in
that church; First, by the message of prayer and holiness (moral perfection) manifested by separation from the world including the world's Pop (not music)! Secondly, by the music that appeals to the spiritual man and leads him to brokenness and and perfection of
the inner man - not emotionalism and shouting or even praise in spite of his worldliness
and sin!!!

Modern church music has become a celebrity cult following the example of the world's Pop
music industry, a strictly fan fed money making professionalism. If there was no money in Music there would be no religious music industry. The church would be the much better off today without music professionalism keeping music in the pew as only a form of worship blending the voices of believers in worship of the Lord. The Devil is leading churchmen into
this worldly trend by the nose.

Our objective as ministers over the church is to perfect the character of believers. We teach and practice everything but that! In modern apostate churches you dare not mention the words holiness, doctrine, separation, worldliness, mortification, moral law, commandments, obedience to the Word in a positive tone. The reason we have sin, adultery, divorce, apostasy in the church is because holiness preachers will not touch or teach on these Biblical doctrines. Like Saul, they fear the people. If they know the people will allow them to preach against a certain sin, then they will come crashing down on it. The sin of the Laodicean church was that the Laity dictated to the church leadership what they wanted preached.

The modern Pop music phenomena in the church has distracted the church substituting the  apostle's doctrine with emotional entertainment. The religious Pop Culture is a moron Christianity who by their departures from the apostle's doctrine try to make us believe their moronic doctrines are more effective and relative than the salvation message of the apostle's.

They are not understanding two very basic facts:
First, the difference between being effective and the efficacy of the cross. According to the apostate mentality, the beautiful acoustical creations of Pop sound produces a rhythm that is more relative to the modern youth in today's world. These philosophies that contradict the teaching of the apostle's doctrine.

Secondly, The same pragmatism that makes any business successful can fill a church. Mr. Obama was credited with having one of the largest campaign crowds to ever attend a political rally. But what the media did not mention was that he had several rock groups performing before he gave his speech. The rock concert was what drew the crowd and that is pragmatism. Use whatever means necessary to get the crowd there to hear you. But alas, a person present at that rally reported that man people left the rally before he started speaking and during his speech. Apostates are coming by the same methods completely avoiding the strong message of repentance and the power of the Spirit to draw men to Christ. It is tantamount to saying, We don't need the Holy Spirit in this modern age because we can now create greater results with entertainment and celebrities. Greater in number, yes they have. But greater in quality of character they have not.

But then they attribute all of their Pop Culture pragmatic success to the Holy Spirit! They use the world's methods and then say it is the Holy Spirit. This gives their glaring successes credibility to people who do live by the Word of God. The world uses the same pragmatic methods and some rock stars are Demon worshipers! This world system murdered Jesus and many churches admire the Pop Culture celebrities that are corrupting generations of youth world-wide. Admire? Yes! If these apostate church entertainers did not admire the world they would not imitate their music!


I am for going back to the simplicity of the early church and eliminate everything that does not have a precedent in the book of Acts. I am for a return to Biblical puritanism including character development in our public school curricula. Mixing holiness preaching with pop culture music is like mixing water with oil. Pop and rock sounds do not belong in the house of God! I am for taking entertainment out of the church and getting so called "praise teams" off the platform and allowing only the Word of God that privilege as the place of the pulpit (Nehemiah 8) and not entertainment, or the putting up of people on the platform to perform in such a way before the church! Let me give pastors a simple rule; If it's not a Biblical precedent, don't do it! Let's get people out of sight and get God back on the platform. Let's try a whole new process and start studying the Word of God and revive all Biblical precedents and patterns that are pleasing God and following the patterns of the Word in our meetings.

When we do that we will see a revival never imagined! We have so taken over the church service with our own, "I think ... " that we don't even talk about revival anymore. No wonder, revival tarried because we only had the talk and r
evival never came so now we stopped talking about it. Revival tarries because we have have a lot of carnality and junk trashing our platforms. The Spirit of God won't walk in trash. He inhabits the praise of HIS people who are clean and separated from the world.

Praise that is generated by men is superficial. Praise that is spontaneous is of God.

We hear less and less about revival as we ourselves more and more dictate the meetings. But they just keep going on in the wrong direction carrying them further and further from God being deceived into thinking they are getting closer and closer to God feeling no guilt or wrong. BUT, the day of the Lord is coming! and there will be a lot of surprises in the judgment. They have wrongfully thought that the things around us in this very real world are more real than what is written in the Word of God. But these people are deceived and Pop rhythm that even effects our visible standards is one of the newest things that has come into the church to carry it further into the oblivion of deception.  Repent!




Church$State
Once in awhile our great conservative commentators make a serious mistake. One of the grossest of all
oversights they make today is either because of their ignorance or their religious bias.  The
coverage on the
visit of the Pope to the United States in April, 2008.
It shows an outright ignorance of their understanding of
the Second Amendment or their weakness to sometimes be honest and carry their beliefs across the
whole spectrum of truth. 

Let me be very quick to make the point.


During the administration of the Reagan presidency he signed a bill giving the Catholic church a
State status with ambassadorial offices of the Catholic church to the United States, a stark violation of the
Second amendment of the constitution of the United States. I was personally shocked with unbelief when this
was quietly announced by the media and to this day (4/08) not one word of  this has been declared a violation
of the constitution. Not one conservative radio commentator or publication has explained, spoken on or
justified this privilege of the Catholic church that has never been offered to any other church or religion.

I immediately shot letters off to my government congressman and representative asking why it was not
being challenged as a flagrant violation of the Second Amendment. I have in my possession the letters
of response from both men on US government letterheads stating that the Vatican had broad political
influence over the world and was therefore treated as a political entity. What a terrible confession by our
government! Proving it to be a political decision for political advantage and in that process ignoring
the constitution.

Conservative talk show hosts when confronted with these facts turn into whimpering wimps making the a
same weak emotional excuses as liberals who try to defend their empty logic. Rush Limbaugh fell all over
himself describing his emotionalism over the music played at the reception of the "Holy Father." He with
the President owe an apology to all the Evangelical victims Catholic persecution worldwide! who have
been wronged and suppressed by local Catholic priests over the world . . . and still going on in
many Latin countries! I have experienced it first hand in my crusades in Brazil.. Washington sees the
Vatican as an International political force, and that is precisely what it is!

The Pope spoke of removing predators from the priesthood, even though he should have used the word
homosexuals which covers all forms of sexual misbehavior including men lying with men, He had to deal
with predators because they were caught after allowing it to be swept under the rug for decades.
Here in America our freedom allows for even the Catholic church to be indicted for sexual crimes even
though they succeeded for so many years. In Catholic dominated Latin and European cities these things
still go unchallenged and undisclosed, and especially in local and rural communities.

The Pope should be asked to visit those countries where the Catholic authorities are discriminating against
and ostracizing at this moment, Evangelical Christians with immunity. Not here in free America, but in
those countries such as Mexico and all South American Catholic nations, across Europe in Catholic nations such
as Italy, Spain, France and Portugal plus others. Let the Pope go there and meet with those who have had
their lives inhibited and have suffered losses by local priests who supervise any religious activity that is
not Catholic in their region of governance.

The news wires carried the story that, "
He spoke privately with victims — in what is believed to be the first
time a pope has met with people who had been abused by priests. He also told bishops the problem
had sometimes been very "badly handled" — an indirect but clear papal admonition." 
He should be a
speaking privately with victims of his priests who suppress Evangelicals the world over where they
have dominance. Why is he here doing it? Because they got caught. For the same reason President Reagan
placed an ambassador in Washington. The Catholic church is a political entity and not a purely religious entity
as it wants many to believe.


There is a little prophet inside of me that hates to see evil triumph over good, and especially when that evil
wears deep red hand crafted shoes, rides in a million dollar Pope mobile and has a multi-million dollars
jet that resembles a palace inside while the world's million starve.

There is the saying that Peter came to the gate called beautiful and told the blind man, "Silver and gold have I none, and he had a wife. But today the pope has silver and gold and no wife.

Thousands swarmed and swooned over the pope as he went by motorcade through the streets of Washington
worshiping him as being a man of peace. He is a man of politics over an empire that has many pockets of
evil being ignored and tolerated to operate against the truth of the gospel in Catholic dominated countries.
It is unbelievable how the Catholic church goes on with its oppression in other countries and never
questioned, just absolutely unbelievable - until you realize that it is a political ally and being allowed to get
away with the persecution of non-Catholics for political reasons.

Conservative talk show hosts who claim they are the guardians of truth have proved by this pope's visit that
they are anything but guardians of truth the way they way they gush all over the "Holy Father." That they are
the guardians
of the truth is so much bunk when something like this is allowed to go uninvestigated
or mentioned. Of course, any radio personality that gets heavy financial support from Catholic friends and
has many wealthy golfing partners is going to find it convenient to turn away from the truth. That's what's
wrong with having the wrong kind of friends and then having to be politically correct with them when
it is to my personal advantage.


How is it that we receive the pope with such pomp but have never shown any slight appreciation for a
Baptist, a Pentecostal, a Methodist or Episcopalian? Even a mini reception at the White House. It is unbelievable
how silent the conservative voices are to (not) explain  this duplicity.


If anything ever was so evident exposing the duplicity of our government and the weakness of conservative
voices in America - it was this reception of the pope with all the slobbering eulogies when actually this man
is responsible for the persecution and misery of millions over the world! It was an act of wrong against
the American people who are not Catholic
! Mr Bush let down those millions of persecuted people in
Catholic dominated countries as well as millions of Bible loving Christians in America.


So all of the emotionalism that was brought on by the singing of the Battle hymn of the Republic,
the singing
of the Lord's prayer on our capitol grounds was really great ... but identifying those songs
of freedom and pure Christianity with the reception of this man who is responsible (not just for the pedaphels
predators exposed in America) for all of the persecution going on over the world by his priests, only gives
them more confidence in their crimes against the poor and helpless Evangelicals. All the high sounding
words such as love, hope and faith are meaningless when the truth of the Catholic church's activities
against minority churches is known. It is an affront against every Protestant in America. Protestant taxes
paid out millions of dollars to receive the
Pope as he landed in Washington in his plush private airliner. All
of this wrong was born out of a diplomatic agreement we have with the Catholic church - our violation of the
Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States with the Catholic church.

This has nothing to do with reasons Protestants have for resenting the Catholic church and it's departures
in doctrine from the apostle's creed. That is a whole different matter. What this blogger is taking issue
with is the way our government receives the Catholic Church as a political entity, granting the Catholic
church a political privilege not given to any other Protestant or church movement and ignoring the record of
facts and documentation of Evangelicals and missionaries in Catholic dominated countries.
To give this
religion recognition in our government and give it access to our Capitol Hill government administration is
wrong and violates the people, the churches of America and the constitution of the United States so
long as it continues to allow it's priests in Catholic dominated nations to discriminate against and persecute
non Catholics!

For our president to say in his speech that the pope knows right from wrong is reprehensible and an
irresponsible statement to those over the world who know the wrongs being committed against it's
enemies in Catholic dominated nations. The pope may indeed know the difference, but then, is he instructing
the actions of his Cardinals and bishops toward Evangelicals? Is he willing to let truth prevail? Apparently
not.  This church state is a political power that wants keep it's political control over the governments they
dominate. Another very good reason they should not have an ambassador in Washington.

Our government has not only made a wrong pact with a church/nation, but now we ignore the injustices of
that political entity we made the pact with. To the honest heart, such a reception said to be the largest
reception ever given in the history of America, represents a basic blindness by our administration that
offends God and millions of American Protestants for the political favor of Catholics votes.

Shame! Shame! Shame!   

The Pope has promised to keep child molesting priests out of the priesthood. But he failed to mention
the church's gross mistreatment of Evangelical Christians in many nations around the world.

This Pope could speak the word and stop Catholic persecution in Spain, France, Portugal and all of
South America and wherever Catholicism is the predominant religion. Our president and the Pope act as if
these discriminations and persecutions do not even exist. I have personally tasted the wrath of the Catholic
church in South America as a missionary. This Pope should be visiting these countries and stopping the
injustices being meted out to Evangelicals at the hands of his priests. With all the talk about human rights
in China and discrimination here in America and then this administration throws a party for a man whom
they surely know to be responsible for both of these social evils is hailed as a man of peace.

To censure China and then immortalize a Catholic pope is the height injustice!  It is a flagrant wrong against
all of those who suffer at the hands of Catholics in Catholic countries. The pope is the only one who can stop
the persecutions and oppressions and surely Mr. Bush and the Pope are both aware of these conditions, and
yet our president receives this man with great cost paid by taxes of American Protestants as if he were indeed
the vicar of God on earth.

Shame, shame, shame!

So Catholic injustices worldwide are being swept under the rug and the poor people being persecuted
are being forgotten and ignored in the name of love and peace, and Catholic politics. Our president is
acting like the globalists who want all people to come together and unite for peace all in the name
of compromise.

If Mr. Bush will not meet with the president of Iran, then he should not meet with the Pope until the
Catholic church cleans up its act and stops all persecution against Evangelicals in a score of Catholic
dominated countries. Granted, Iran stands for terrorism while the Catholic church stands for persecuting
their enemies. But the persecution of the Catholic church has been going on for centuries and continues to
this day!

The Pope is called "Pappa" by the faithful. I saw the Pope received in Brazil and the same devotion and
loud praise of the Pope was the same here as there. Thousands of Catholics flew into Washington
from other states to get a glimpse of this mere man. His greatness is tainted in the eyes of many Americans
who know the truth. Let him call a meeting of all cardinals from the nations and deliver an edict against
the maltreatment by Catholics of Evangelicals. When the Catholic church does this, then it will become a
religion in the eyes of many. But now it is a worldwide political power and will never do anything to
relinquish its power over others.

That is the point that makes honest people lose heart in their government leaders, when they refuse to
admit the wrongs they are responsible for allowing.

Someone has to think of the poor people who live under persecution in these countries dominated by Catholic
priests. It's not pleasant for them! I have lived with the people in the Catholic countries of Europe and Central
and South America and know first hand how born again Christians are treated in the hands of Catholics.
One example; I was holding a crusade in a city in the interior of Brazil. Prior to the crusade opening in the
city pavilion Penny took our young people out on the streets and handed out salvation literature inviting
people to the crusade. Just as the meeting started at 7:00 pm the electricity suddenly went off at 700 pm
sharp and the pavilion went dark and the PA was useless. Many men jumped from their seats and drove
their cars to the entrances and turned their headlamps into the hall lighting up the crowd. I raised my voice
and the meeting went on and souls were saved. As soon as the meeting was over the electricity went back
on. Some local people came to us and told us the local priest was very angry about the meeting and
the literature and ordered the electricity off. I have witnessed on many other occasions how the local priest
had the final authority in Latin cities and villages and used it against born again Christians. Pope Benedict
could stop this persecution with one word to a conclave of his Cardinals,

My wife and I have pioneered two evangelical churches in New York State in Catholic dominated
municipalities. The worst treatment and the most condescending attitudes and scourging came from
the Catholic homes we approached. In 1953 we started a church in a city in upper New York state and
erected a tent for special meetings. A gang of Catholic boys came with the intent of breaking up the meeting
but I went out into the parking lot and confronted them and fortunately I recognized one of them and called
his name and warned them to leave in peace. They turned reluctantly and drove off in several cars. In
recent years the tolerance of Catholics has improved, but that is in the United States.

The conservative talk show hosts are picking on Obama and Hillary, on the terrorists -
but why do we look the other way when it involves the discrimination of the Catholic church against
Evangelicals in nations where they are not being seen and getting away with it?


The answer to that is one simple word, votes. Catholics votes. Truth is fallen in the streets!

The power and influence of the Catholics to smoke screen their persecution of Evangelicals is unbelievable!
For example, make a Google search for "Persecution by the Catholic Church" and see what comes up. The
search is twisted and become "The persecution OF the Catholic church" !!! with no mention of the Catholic
church's persecution of the Evangelical minorities. This is just a sample of the Vatican's calculated power
to control. There is no reason why this search should come up with OF instead of the search word BY. To find
the information on Internet you must search, "Persecution of Evangelicals" without using the word Catholic -
then you will find plenty of the truth about what's really going on.

And lest anyone accuse these facts being words of hatred, let me admit to my hatred of oppression,
of wrong triumphing over right, and leaders of conservatism covering up for  a man as a world leader of
peace when the opposite is the true! ... for those things I confess a strong dislike.

Is the judge who hands down a severe penalty to a man guilty of a hideous crime, hateful?  Of course not.
The judge acted upon the reality of the facts and the admission of the guilty.  We hail that judge as passing
down a verdict that is based on the sound principles of jurisprudence (and especially if it was a crime
against my own child). But we are making the man guilty of social crimes and persecution around the
world a man of peace and a great power for good. We have lost our senses when we are enamored by
power and pomp and the high sounding words he puts out to the world gobbled up by the liberal media.
You will share that man's guilt for his wrongs against the innocent, and then hail him as a hero. The dirty
habits of politics has sucked you helplessly into its vortex with the very men who should be defending
the innocent and the truth.   Shame! Shame! Shame!

I gladly identify myself with the victims who have been persecuted and suffered great loss by the Catholic
church rather than what went on in Washington in 2007 when Pope Benedict visited the United States. 
Powers that be turn to persecution and violence when they cannot defend their beliefs by truth of dialogue.
For this reason they turn to oppression like any dictator and like the Muslims who stoop to any means to
cling to their power when and where they can. I speak for those who are suffering right this moment
under the dominance of the Catholic priests in their cities and villages. around the world. May God
give them courage and God's sustaining love.




beer
There were 23,000 homicides committed in the United States in one recent  year. Why isn't that making headlines!
These are senseless murders, thousands of which are young men - not to mention wives and children and family
members. In one year, mind you! We have been fighting terrorism on it's own soil for 5 years with about 4,000 deaths
of young men who gave their lives in a service they volunteered for. That is the military. It is considered an honor to
enter the military and defend your country against enemies who violate our territories. Radical Muslims attacked out
nation killing 3000 fellow Americans in an attack on our soil.

BUT, homicides (murders in America) are senseless and born out of hatred and blind anger. That is the real problem in
our country - the murderers and the gangs and senseless violence . Why aren't we going after the real injustices and
the real enemies stalking the innocent on our streets? Why isn't the media targeting the hundreds of homicides
committed right here on American streets everyday? Why are they counting the dead in a war but they're not counting
the dead laying in their blood on our streets, a number far higher than the war - WHY, I ask! I never read a
journalist's report on how many homicides have been committed right here in America. I have never read a
journalist showing concern over those murdered senselessly on our streets and in out schools.  Why? because
their concern is their political agenda to smear their political enemies. They have no compassion for the boys who die
in the war, because if it was a compassion and concern for the dying, they would have far more interest in 23,000 killed
on our streets! But making the boys in Iraq victims they can promote their dingy liberal propaganda and if they can do
that, who cares about those being slaughtered here in America on our streets.




DrugProblem

The other day, someone at a store in our town read that a Meth lab had been found
in an old farmhouse in the adjoining county and he asked me a rhetorical question.

'Why didn't we have a drug problem when you and I were growing up?'

I replied, I had a drug problem when I was young: I was drug to church on Sunday morning. I was
drug every night to church revivals.

I was drug by my ears to another room for a hard spanking when I was disrespectful to adults. I
was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad
report card, spoke ill of my teacher or the preacher, or if I didn't do my best at everything I was told
to do.

I was drug to the kitchen sink to have my mouth washed out with soap if I uttered a profanity. I was
drug to the kitchen to help Mother with the dishes and then drug to bed early to get a good rest.

I was drug out to pull weeds in mom's garden and flowerbeds and
cocklebur's out of dad' s fields.
Every Summer I was drug to the garden to hoe weeds and then mow the lawn around the house.

I was drug to the homes of family, friends and neighbors to help out some poor soul who had no
one to mow the yard, repair the clothesline, or chop some firewood; and, if my mother found out I
had taken one dime as a tip for this kindness, she would have drug me back to the woodshed.

Those drugs are still in my veins and they affect my behavior in
everything I do, say, or think to this
very day. They are stronger and more long lasting than cocaine, crack, or heroin; and, if today's
children had the kind of drug problem we had back then, they wouldn't have the kind of drug
problem they have today.  God bless the parents who drugged us.



You'd Better Get a Second Opinion . . . From Jesus
A Person or Movement Wrapped Up In Itself Makes A Small Package





     
                   He Is The God of The Atom!

GodofAtom



     LawofLiberty

The last thing in this world many of the Charismatics I encounter would agree to is that Liberty and Law have anything in common. Actually, they are synonymous! Here are a few scriptures that apostate Christianity is going to have to come to grips with or totally deny whole gobs of Biblical doctrine becoming like Marcion of the second century who headed Satan's first great threat against the preservation of the apostles doctrine.

There is a very interesting parallel between the Laodicean church movement of today and the Marcionites of the middle of the second century after Jesus resurrection. The anti-Textus Receptus movement of today being supported by money hungry mercenary publishers of numerous translations and specialty editions of the Bible is as Satanic as the Marcion movement of the early church. The NIV version of the Bible, for example has deleted scores of verses from their Greek text contending that "This verse is not found in earlier writings." "Scholars" using secular science as it's authority have managed to produce scores of Bibles with varying texts throwing a shadow of fallibility over the Bible. Fortunately, there is more evidence to prove God's preserved text that is easily available on the Internet by simply Googling the word, KJV.

The effort of Marcion to cast a question over the Bible canon made the early church more anxious to canonize the authentic writings of those who lived contemporary with Jesus. So we have the authentic writings gathered into a canon (about AD 150) and then other scholars have actually gathered a collection of the apocryphal (spurious epistles often signed in Paul's name or another apostle) writings as well. So the attack of Satan today and in Marcion's day was the same - against the infallibility of the Word of God and the creation of a movement that was intended to weaken faith in the apostle's record of Jesus and the early church. But here is the proof that Jesus or Paul NEVER implied in the slightest way that the moral law was went out with the Mosaic law. The moral law is eternal and the only moral revelation we have of the moral nature of God!  Satan would love to banish the moral law and he is using many apostate voices today in the Charismatic movement to make us believe that the moral law must go and love is now the guiding power of the church.

Have Christians gone crazy? Love is an emotion, a feeling that has many expressions and most of them are human and perverted! If you make love the criteria for spirituality WITHOUT a defined structure of meaning, you have a church that is loose morally and has no way of knowing what love is. There must be a written instrument defining that love and God wrote that instrument with His own finger on stone and gave it to man.

The moral law is altruistic. It is the most altruistic declaration ever written It is concerned entirely in the good and welfare of people - others. Only thieves, adulterers and murderers and the like despise the law! Those who are born of God love the caring tone of the moral law.

The moral law is the only true revelation man has of the moral nature of God. It is a revelation of His will for man.

The moral law reveals to man the principles of right and wrong that we do not have spelled out for us by any other tangible source. The moral commandments I know precisely God's feeling on every moral issue that has a bearing on my eternal destiny.

The moral law defines the love of God. That is precisely what Paul stated in Romans 13:8-10. John's whole first epistle was penned and left to the posterity of the church revealing one major truth; If ye love me, keep my commandments. John 14:15. And what are Jesus commandments? They are all recorded in Matthew chapter 5.

                  (8)  Owe no man any thing, but to love one another:
                       for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.

                  (9) 
For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery,
                       Thou shalt not kill,
                       Thou shalt not steal,
                       Thou shalt not bear false witness,
                       Thou shalt not covet;


                       and if there be any other commandment,
                       it is briefly comprehended in this saying,
                       namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
 
                (10)  Love worketh no ill to his neighbour:
                       therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Paul  makes it so clear a child can understand that  law defines love because love is only love if it acts out what is written in the moral law God gave to Moses. Every Christian must understand that love isn't some kind of constraint or drudgery, a compelling oppressive obedience that we MUST comply with . . . or else! No! Love is the desire to please God and serve others. It is a feeling, a desire to please God that the Holy Spirit puts within our bosom if we are saved through repentance - regret for the the life of rebellion we lived in the past. Old things pass away and behold, all things become new!2 Corinthians 5:17.  See also Galatians 5:17-24

Modern apostates are identified by their resentment of the moral law. But again the Scripture makes it clear that the moral law is good.

Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.  Romans 7:12.
For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. Romans 7:14.

It's you and me, our fallen carnal natures that are bad - NOT THE MORAL LAW OF GOD!

READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 5 AND THEN READ John 14:15.
By this you will know where you stand with Jesus.
Stop listening to radio preachers and other doctrinaires with cheerful assuring voices and listening only to what Jesus wrote in His love letter to you.




godliness

This is a word in the Greek text that is equated with the word holiness (Hagiosmos) but more personal in experience meaning piety. Strong's makes an interesting statement in his Greek definition of this word; He says,  "Specifically, the gospel scheme."  The idea is that God's whole plan of redemption is intended to transform our personal lives with a whole new moral mentality from the carnal into the divine. Strong's knowledge of the Greek language declares that this word (eusebeia) carries the meaning of holiness being personally applied. The words holy, holiness and sanctified are translated from hagios, hagiosune and hagiosmos, words similar but applied differently, while the word godliness is another Greek word entirely, usebeis, having more the meaning of having the likeness of God or, God-like in our behavior and temperament.

Man was created in the image and the likeness of God. That is, we were created in the beginning bearing the spiritual traits of our heavenly Father. Man left that estate having lost his God-likeness and started to conform to the behavior of others in the world around him. He became incontinent and frivolous twisting values to accommodate the preferences of his depraved carnal nature.

Modern Evangelicals have become pitifully like the world and have lost their way in an untoward world having strayed from God's original gospel scheme of piety and and God-likeness. The mentality of the world has taken over the thinking of men who lead the church. We have so much of the world's thinking and values that godliness has become a lost quality in the modern church. Through Jesus death we are empowered to become the sons of God - to return to possessing our original likeness to our creator. John 1:12. The sons of God will bear the likeness to their Father, God. Read 1 Peter 1:15-16.
God's sons will have the likeness of their Father, and that is God-likeness.

If there is a word that fitly describes this generation the Bible gave it to us 2000 years ago. ... in the last days . perilous times shall come because men are incontinent. act that man is pa... for men shall be ... incontinent (Akrates) meaning a loss of self control. Everything from music to sports to fashion and slang language establishes the pure incontinence. There is an international mood of incontinence with industries using advertising and language that encourages incontinence! In many cases parents have become derelict regarding the proper training of their children having believed the demonic philosophy that kids "just go through certain stages in life and to try and discipline them can mutate them mentally." Classrooms are void of any discipline and teaching self control to students. University campuses are run by the students who demand their rights to the freedom to live immoral under co-ed dormitory conditions. Society is fast destroying itself by incontinence - no self control. Rock festivals are marked by incontinence with lyrics that are immoral and violent and no fear of being controlled or condemned by any authority in world system.

TV shows place strong evidence on people screaming, running, shouting and the use of sensationalism as the mark of their shows. There is no moral law allowed to govern them continually challenging the laws in place to regulate radio and viewing. Loudness, wild music and sound effects now feature most popular radio and TV shows that cater to the ears of a young incontinent audience. The gods of this world, sound, color and speed have enslaved the mentality of the young, with each generation becoming less and less continent and more and more without any intelligent control of themselves or their  behavior. Modern apostate Evangelical churches feature rock stars and other "exciting" church celebrities advocate the same incontinent trends totally foreign to the godly life.

Incontinence is also a word used to describe the person who has lost control of the bladder. The whole world has lost control of it's bladder!!!  Children who do show control of themselves is a rarity that immediately attracts people's attention in public. Most children today are running, crawling, yelling, screaming with no constraint from the parents. If a parent does try to discipline a child in public there will be some do-gooder who will threaten to report you if you spank your children (as one missionary mother home on a furlough experienced in a laundromat). Kids are to be allowed to "express themselves" and grow up uninhibited lest we distort their personality. Satan is everywhere doing what he can on every front to produce that generation that rejects being governed or controlled by God's law of love. In the old Testament incorrigible children were to be stoned to death if they struck their parents or were rebellious - uncontrollable. Deuteronomy 21:18-21; Exodus 21:15.

When godliness fails then incontinence comes to fill the vacuum.

Godliness is the divine condition of passing from a depraved and carnal state into the divine state of becoming like God as a result of walking within the moral guidelines of God's Word. Sin is the state of rebellion against God and the order of things as He has intended them to be. When a person, young or old, is born by the Spirit of God he receives a new inner power from the indwelling Holy Spirit and that new spirit is in complete harmony with the Royal law of Liberty James mentions. James 1:25; 2:8,12. God's law acted out produces the godly nature and demeanor. It sets boundaries on our conduct and restrains us to remain within the sphere of godliness. In other words, we are delivered from the incontinent spirit of this world and and leads us into the intelligent behavior of continence and happiness.

Incontinence has taken over everything in the world system -  there is no control of the human and animal impulses. Everything and everybody has lost control of themselves. Animal impulses and emotionalism has has taken over the human race until those who are continent and show self control - have any values they live by, are considered to be the abnormal and unwanted specie in society. That mentality by the incontinent that despises the goodness they see in others is increasing more and more until in two more generations that which is considered wrong yet today will be come right and all moral values will reverse making moral people and Christians the persecuted minority when they refuse to come under the morally incontinent Antichrist system.

Today the bizarre has has replaced respectability in every area of our materialistic world! Abortion was once a crime and homosexuality was once a social scandal. Today we murder 1.5 million babies a year with abortion clinics across America and homosexuals have been accepted as simply an alternative lifestyle. This same element of society criticizes America for being at war against insane religious terrorists and bemoans the death of "soldiers" at war but kill 1.5 million babies in their own cities! Our values are fast reversing and that departure from the godly life will be the very thing that will destroy America - and not an enemy from without.

Godliness is the salvation of America and the only revival needed to halt the apostasy prevailing in the church world. Even our holiness churches have distorted views about holy behavior and like the scribes and lawyers of Judaism have interpreted some Scriptures to mean something not at all implied in the apostle's writings. In fact,s some holiness teaching in the church is as distorted and zany as Charismatic teaching at the other extreme of the Christian spectrum.

Strong is right. Godliness is the gospel scheme. God wants us to be righteous and merciful and gracious and yet firmly opposed to all evil as it is mentioned in His Word. He wants us to be like Him. When we look at the cross we can see God's perfect hatred of sin - that is, all rebellion against God. But look again and you see Jesus hanging there displaying they greatest scene for the world to behold - being tortured to death on a Roman cross for each of us and bring us back into the likeness of the Father.

In my years of living for God I have surely met some of the sweetest saints that ever tread the earth. I see several of these people in my mind as I write these words. Many of their names I am not even able to recall. But they were people who prayed and took on the continence of their heavenly Father. They were not mean and coarse demanding others to conform to their personal convictions. They were separated and sweet and left an impression that made you want to be like them. They carried the fragrance of their secret prayer life with them. Yo0u knew they were people of prayer and devotion to the Word of God not having any self serving motives in their behavior or speech. They walked softly and left their godly image indelibly on my conscience and I have never forgotten their sweetness and God-likeness. Oh, may we learn to weep and wait in His presence until He sends the church a revival of God-likeness.


         DRUMS

Have you ever listened to a good soloist in the church singing and couldn't understand a word he or she
was singing? The melody was great and you really wanted to hear the words but all you could hear was
the
beat of the drums and the blast of instruments. The drums were so loud you just had to sit there and
wish someone could educate the drummer about music and how drums should do for worship in church.
Some holiness churches use drums the same way and for the same reason as rock bands use drums to
create an emotional effect on the audience, and then call it "the Spirit of God."  People who are affected
emotionally by this kind of "Holiness" rock music when everybody else is shouting and running
are sometimes accused of resisting the Holy Spirit.
If  it is the Spirit of God moving as they say it is,
then they would become gentle and loving toward their brethren. Instead they react with anger and
criticism of anyone who does not line up with their wacky concepts of the Holy Spirit and the beat of
their drums. This amounts to serious error that does not agree with anything to be found in the book of
Acts or any of the other pastoral epistles. But facts like this will not move people away from their error.
To them, they are right and everyone else is wrong - including the Biblical fact that there is no precedent
in the New Testament to base their worship on. Music with a body beat is worldly! Music with a message
to the heart is from God. It is the still small voice of the Holy Spirit that transforms and teaching
the
doctrines  of  personal perfection
, NOT the body swaying to the sound of loud drums that is a sign of
pure religion!

Some of our churches have become like the rock bands that make the beat of the drums the important
thing in sound - a beat, by the way that is timed with the beat of the heart effecting the behavior and
emotions of those who connect their spirit with it. Drums appeal to the body effecting the person
psychologically to interact with the beat of the music. In a rock concert that beat is the major sound
that kids respond to, but in the house of God we are not appealing to kids preferences of music, we
are pleasing the Lord as Paul instructs us to do in 1 Corinthians.  1 Corinthians 14:40.

Some suggestions for pastors who would like to improve the quality of their music program:

(1) Hold a quarterly meeting of church orchestra (musicians) and all singers in the church
and
discuss how we can provide the best music
for the edification of the church. Using results of church
poll (No.3 below) as guideline for discussion.

(2) Install electric drums and the pastor controls the volume.

(3) Pass out papers to every person attending the meeting and ask the following questions;
    NOTE: No names on the papers, but age bracket to identify young from old opinion.

         Your Age Bracket: ___12-19;  ___ 20-25;  ___26-40; ___40 and older.
    1.  Is the church orchestra too loud?
    2. Can you hear the words of the song when soloist is singing?
    3. Which instrument is your favorite in our church orchestra?
    4. Are the drums too loud  __All the time;  __Sometimes;   __Never too loud.
    5. How can we improve our worship music?
    6. Please make any comment you would like to make about our church orchestra or music program.

I have heard more complaints from the unsaved who attend our churches about the loud music than
any other  comment. Several times I know of churches that lost good families who were looking for a
church, but because the drums drove them batty they could not stay! Could it be that we are only thinking
of ourselves and not the unsaved when we are holding our services!

Music has evolved through the church age from no hymns in the church until Ambrose in the 4th century
who introduced
hymns to the church. That first hymn Jesus and the apostles sang the night of the last
supper, and the loud rock beat in many of the modern holiness churches have nothing in common with
each other!

With literally thousands of gospel
singers and groups with electronic amplification and
special sound effects, gospel music has turned
the church into just another modern music culture. We
have gospel singers who speak of their "fans"
and have awards for the top popular songs following right
along with the world worshiping at the god
of the beat in the temple of gospel rock.

                  
The gospel music industry with it's celebrities and
rock sound
is an abomination to God!
WHY?
Because we have turned against hard preachers and sound doctrine in the pulpit
and replaced them with the soft gutless message of music. We have set aside the
pulpit that once burned with holy fire and now flock to hear entertainers
 on stage giving out with the empty but beautiful sounds
of apostate religion.
We have gone from laboring in intercession to high sounding praise that has turned into a money making music industry. Lord forgive us for making merchandise of your praise!


Ninety percent of gospel music is unscriptural and styled after the sounds and beats of the world music
industry. That hymn Jesus sang with His disciples in the upper room was probably one of the songs in
the books of Psalms.
was not with an instrument or or a set of snare drums. It was not a carnal a carnal
beat with the disciples all swaying and tapping their feet to the beat of demonic rock sounds. James
McKnight who pastored in Seattle was attending a conference in Indonesia called by the churches they
founded and supported.  An American singing group was asked to give special music. As they started to
play their guitars and drum loudly the Indonesians pastors all stood to their feet their hands into the air
shouting stop! Stop! Some were calling upon Jesus. The musicians stopped and asked what was
happening. One of the Indonesian elder came and took the microphone and turning to the Americans
he said, "This is the same music we played when we worshiped Satan to call forth the demons!
You cannot play this sound here." 
Brother McKnight was there and witnessed this scene and related it
to me personally. That was about 1972. Today we are playing that devil worship in God's house and
putting gospel words to the devil's sound.

Too much of the music played int the holiness churches resembles rock sound, the same sound that rock
bands play more wildly and with great abandon shamelessly expressing their demonic immorality with
four letters words.


If you want to win people to the cross and see your church grow, get the church orchestra under the
pastor's control. to tone it down. We don't go to church to have a "big time," but to win the lost who come
into our meetings. That is our primary purpose and our first objective. There is a chorus that says, "Forget
about yourself." We're losing some good people because we don't have proper restraint and right
priorities when we come together.
But that is what happens when we only think of ourselves instead of
thinking about winning others to Jesus.
Show me a church where there is revival (not to be confused with
whip up excitement) and I will show you a church that has found the secret of carrying on their meetings
in an orderly way that's pleasing to the Spirit of God!

Loud music in holiness
churches more than any other thing turn people away.

I learned something from James Suits several years ago that has enabled me to help many pastors when
we got on this subject of drums in the church. Here it is; The lead instrument of your church orchestra
is the piano. No other instrument should be heard above the piano. If your drummer drowns out the
piano, either bring him under control or fire him and get a drummer who will play the drums as a
background instrument that compliments the other instruments and provides a soft sound of timing in
the background ... and then maybe we could hear the soloist who bring "a message in song" to the
church. NOTHING should distort or drown out the voice of the singer. We want to hear her message
and we want to worship when he sings, but when the instruments are so loud that we can't hear the words
of the song our musicians are out of control and we are just having a jam session - not worshiping God.




                                                                       Concerning Christian Convictions
  A Difference Between A Computer and Television?

                   DON'T THROW THE BABY OUT WITH THE BATH WATER!

Some good brethren see the computer as evil, like television. Let me tell you the BIG difference;  I can sit at my computer and reach my arms around the entire world with the message of Jesus redeeming love and the transforming grace of God that saves.
Tell me, can a man do that sitting in front of his TV? It is perhaps one of the greatest tools for education and learning since the printing press was invented. We know the dangers of the computer and urge every Christian to use all the safeguards available for YOU and your children. You can make it safe for your family and even make it a tool for evangelism from your home to around the world.

TV-comp            It's true to say that people do have access to THE black pits of hell on the computer ... BUT that brings up another thing about a computer that you cannot do with a TV in your home if you have children.  As a parent you can install a program on your computer with a password that blocks out all undesirable sites you don't want your children to access even when you are not home or in the room to monitor them. You can't do that with a TV. A computer can be made to be used only for wholesome and educational purposes, which you cannot do with a TV.

The church is equipped with all of  it's needed powers through the Holy Spirit and He is all sufficient for our task of winning the world to Christ. We don't need the computer, high tech or anything to be a witness for the Lord in this world. We have been given the very mind of God in the gift of His Word and the Spirit of God literally baptizes us with supernatural gifts and divine enablement to convince the gainsayers. These are the resources God has provided to empower the church. We know we don't need anything else!  But the Spirit of God uses mundane things to become extensions of the His Word and His Spirit.


Brethren, we ourselves are extensions of Christ's ministry, and then other things in our hands to become extensions of our ministry.
And the LORD said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod. Exodus 4:2. Moses and Aaron both had rods they used to perform miracles. Moses was an extension of God, and the rod was an extension of Moses. God used both Moses AND his rod! BUT, Did God need those rods? Wasn't the power of the Spirit sufficient without the rods? Then why the rods? I AM NOT TRYING TO MAKE THE POINT THAT ALMOST ANYTHING CAN BE USED FOR GOOD OR BAD.THAT IS AN OLD WORN OUT ARGUMENT THAT DOESN'T HOLD WATER.

the point I'm making is that THE POWER OF GOD DID NOT NEED THE RODS TO DIVIDE THE RED SEA OR TO RELEASE TORRENTS OF WATER FOR A MULTITUDE OF MORE THAN TWO MILLION HEBREWS STUCK OUT ON THE DESERT, and the cattle.  It was indeed the power of God that divided the Red Sea! not the rod! 

There are many things used by men to glorify God other than His Word and His Spirit! For example, we have bibles printed with beautiful gilded gold edges, references in the margins, study notes and concordance, all printed on a modern printing press. So the printing press becomes a medium in the hands of good men to multiply the Word of God in the languages of the nations! That same press may be used to produce billions of dollars worth of pornography. But I will gladly receive a King James Bible not asking what other things might be printed on that same press.

Consider the modern translations of the Bible from different "original" Greek texts. Scholars have popularized the absurd idea that "Older is better." Implying that the older the MS the more accurate it is (?) and faithful to the original. The only thing that can make that premise valid is if we had the originals to compare the fragments with  - but we do Not have them. The high sounding idea that older is better is a bit of splendid intellectual idiocy! So, even the perfectly good Word of God has been corrupted in the hands of men.

There are many imperfect man made things in this world that God uses to reach the world with the gospel of redemption. I'm not going to say that printing presses are bad, but use them to print sound literature and reach millions with it.  I may add that many of the Christian printing publishers print outlandish modern translations on the same presses that print the preserved KJV Bibles.


I fly to several nations a year preaching and teaching the Word of God. Jet travel is wonderful, but like the printing press it is being wonderfully used to carry the gospel to the nations in these closing hours of Grace.

My point, again, is that God does use other things as extensions of the Word of God and the power of His Spirit and as mediums of propagation and as tools of evangelism. When you condemn something because some people use it for evil then you need to rethink it and remember that everything that touches a man's hands, no matter how good it is, he manages to corrupt it.

If you are reading these lines I am NOT asking you to change your conviction about the computer. You should keep your personal conviction if they are based solidly on moral facts or the principles of purity which you believe violate your Biblical convictions. Keep your convictions!   BUT . . . allow your brother or sister to have their convictions also. It may be that the use of a computer is essential to their work or even their ministry. We know there have been solid conversions to Christ through the computer. Over the years I have had numbers of people write me and thank me for the truth that turned them to the truth of Biblical separation and holiness of life. We may reject another brother's convictions, but don't reject the brother.

I have authored 9 books and booklets. All but impossible without a computer to do all the composition on including grammatical and spelling programs that automatically correct your writing as your typing. The computer is one of the most productive tools that technology has put in th hands of writers, artists and about every other industry. My first book took several months to compile and have ready for the printers. But the books I compiled with a printer reduced that to a few short weeks of time. I also have over fifty years of notes stored on the hard drive of my computer and a backup archive with all of my decades of ministry and work saved there to insure I won't lose it.

Haven't we all discovered that what one Christian may not allow, another may not feel a moral danger of? A brother may be very strict about a tie thinking it vain and worldly while another may not. One brother thinks it's quite alright to go to a restaurant after the morning service and then another may think it is a violation of the Lord's Day. I belong to the latter but I am not going to condemn or dis-fellowship the brother who does violate my strong feelings about the fourth commandment.

The computer is a devilish instrument if you are weak or carnal. But if you hate sin with a perfect hatred then it's not going to tempt you any more than you would be tempted to jog down the middle of the Interstate. But, even though the filth computer users have access to has no appeal to any godly person who is a friend of God, I have a blocking program on my computer that blocks any filth to further eliminate it from appearing on my computer. But the main reason I have it on my computer is to make it impossible for anyone to accuse me falsely.  My computer is simply not capable of being naughty!

We can make the argument that a rod, like anything else can be used to inflict pain or hurt on others as well as be used of God as a symbol of God's authority vested in Moses and Aaron. But the more important fact is that God used a rod when He didn't need it,
His miracles to perform!

          The computer has three powerful resources that can be used for God's work:
                     
One secret to living above sin is to cultivate a perfect hatred of sin
                            Another secret to avoid computer problems is to install a screening program on your browser.

1. PROPAGATION: As I stated at the top of this discourse, We must stop and think what a powerful thing the computer is to reach every soul with access to a computer - which now ranges into the hundreds of millions in every nation of the world and increases daily! It passes over borders, over mountain summits and across oceans to reach into every town and hamlet with the message of God's Son, Jesus. When I am abroad I often just refer people I am talking to to my web site, www.actsion.com. If they visit this site they are met with the story of the cross on the front page entitled CRUCIFIXION! Then they have a wealth of material explaining the message of the Bible. It's more than book, it's a whole library of the truth contained in God's Word! While I am sleeping every night people from over the world are visiting my web. There is no other way a person, a single person, can get access to billions of people from his own home. I have often wondered that if Paul the apostle was alive today. would he have a web site. The man who said, I am all things to all men; would he have a web site reaching it's arms around the world with his message? I lean heavily on a yes.


2. COMMUNICATION: Communication is essential to function efficiently. The computer has infinite means of communication now. I have a program that cost 12 dollars to sign up and then all of my calls to any phone in USA and Canada from my computer are free! Then you have the Hotmail and Yahoo Messenger service that allows you to call from computer to computer with a CAM (camera) to view each other while talking. I use the phone service because I can call any mobile phone or land phone free. The best I have found after trying most of them is Voipraider.com that you can download free. Pay a one time installation fee of 15 dollars and then you can make free calls anywhere in  Canada or the USA or to most nations in the world including Europe and China FREE!  This means we have instant communication to do the King's business! Then you have email which is also free if you have Internet access. This allows us to write each other. I just finished making up my Spring itinerary this week. It normally costs me hundreds of dollars on that month's phone bill, but now it's all free and that money has been freed for mission projects.


3. INFORMATION: We are living in "The Information Age." Since the Internet has become available to everyone through the Personal computer (PC) it means I can get on the Internet and make a search on any word or subject and immediately have a list of sites I can visit - sometimes millions of "hits" I can visit and get information from. The program, Answers.com allows you to hold down the Alt key on any word in any text and click on your mouse and a window comes up with the meaning or information on that word or name, or chemical - whatever! You can ask about headaches or Bible characters and always have more sources of information than you can possibly read. Do you want to know about Mohammad's early life? That he was epileptic and received visions while having seizures of epilepsy? That he married a girl of seven years old when he was 52 when his wife died? Most good Bible programs today have a library included making Bible facts available to us instantly. But there is information we sometimes need that the bible does not provide and when you are speaking on a subject you need to have a good information to speak knowledgeably. My study habits have changed dramatically in the last 30 years! Since we entered the computer age this is called The Information Age. The greatest and most powerful Bible software I have ever had on my computer for Bible study is a free download from e-sword.com. I use it daily building my website, preparing my notes and making in depth Bible studies.


Sorry to tell you, but the TV does not have any of these qualities - only the computer has these qualities to help us evangelize. Propagation? Yes, it can be used for that but it's only available to large rich churches usually propagating a false gospel of prosperity and sensualism. Then 80% of the junk coming over the TV isn't fit for hogs to watch. Communication? Yes, but it's one way communication and the popular unelected politics of liberalism sees to it that the content is controlled to control your thinking. You can get multiple views on a given subject on a computer and then you can reply and contact the source and talk back. Not on TV. Information? TV is controlled almost entirely by globalists and liberals. You can visit many different sites and find those who deal more in truth and reality than in th fantasies of a one world government. Yes, there's a lot of information coming over the TV but most of it by liberals and amoralists. You have nothing to say about what the producers put out. On a computer I can choose my sources of information.

That is the difference between computers and television.



                                      A Word About Dualism
                       
Preface to the DOG And The DOVE

Most Christians in Evangelical circles today have never heard the words Dualism, or Marcion, or Gnosticism. But it was at one time as common in church circles as our words today, Charismatic, Jehovah Witnesses, World Council of Churches and names like Kenneth Copeland and Dr. Moon.. It's a fact a the remnant of the Gnostics doctrine still remains in parts of the middle East today! The influence remains even though we have no idea of it's existence. So, for those ho are interested, here is a good web site to read more about the Gnostic movement of the Second century and Marcion it's greatest teacher.  www.earlychurch.org.uk/article_marcion.html .

We should insert a at least a few words about the history of the doctrine of Dualism. Dualism is really a theological subject not many modern 21st century Christians will know much about. Dualism is a doctrine of the Bible and in particular part of the many revelations given to Paul and embedded in his writings to the churches in many places. Romans chapters 7 through 8 the strongest along with Galatians 5. Dualism is first introduced by Jesus when on two occasions He alluded to the flesh and the spirit of man being two entities making up the nature of of man. Matthew 26:41 and John 6:63.

In the second century of the church's history a antinomian (against law)  movement was raised up by Satan to oppose the apostle's teaching. The Gnostics attempted to destroy the authority of Scriptures denouncing any epistle or writing that taught moral law. Gnosticism held many teachings of mysticism that were based on pre-Christian mysticism, philosophy and so called revelations of knowledge mixed with some Judaism. One of their most appealing doctrines was that the flesh nature and the spirit nature of man were two distinct entities in man (which is true up to this point) and that what a man did in his flesh would not threaten the destiny of the spiritual man. In other words, you could live like the Devil in the flesh and as long as the spiritual man believed in Christ and worshiped Him as Lord and he took part in the fellowship of the brotherhood, nothing he did in the flesh would keep him from heaven because the sins committed by the flesh did not effect the spiritual nature. You could literally be living a double life and be saved. Of course this effected every doctrine within justification through the blood of Christ! Repentance was not necessary because according to this teaching the spiritual man did no sin.  This Gnostic movement became popular and powerful in the first centuries of the church. By it Satan hoped to bring the fall of the church. Gnosticism was a take-off of Christianity combined with other ancient pagan theories about God and drew many Christians away from the early church. Marcion was perhaps the chief doctrinaire of this popular movement in the second century when it reached it's apex of popularity.  Here is an explanation of  Gnosticism given by Answers.com; Gnosticism, The name (derived from the Greek gnōsis, ‘knowledge’) given to a complex religious movement based on a myth of redemption. It was perhaps pre-Christian in origin, but it became prominent in the second century AD and had Christian as well as pagan forms. Gnosticism distinguished between a remote and unknowable divinity and a Demiurge (a deity descended in some way from the former, who was the (imperfect) creator and ruler of the world, his imperfect creation. Some individuals, however, possessed a spark of the divine spiritual substance and these might hope, by correct observances in this world, to return to the divinity after death. A redeemer was sent, perhaps Christ (or there might be another redeemer still to come), from the divinity, who brought gnosis and temporarily inhabited the body of a human being. Gnosticism in various forms persisted for many centuries. 

To have a better understanding of Gnosticism let me make the following terms a little clearer. Gnosticism claims a very deep knowledge of the spiritual realm through the ancient writings of Persian and Eastern mystics. In Gnosticism there were two levels, the low level uninitiated gnostic who possessed exoteric knowledge and the initiated isoteric believer who accepted the deeper level knowledge. The reason Biblical dualism was rejected was the result of the the early church councils declaring it to be error as taught by the Gnostics.  Gnosticism taught that the the spiritual man's destiny was not effected by the sins of the flesh. So, by  denouncing Gnosticism they denounced the Biblical doctrine of dualism along with it which is a powerful principle for godly living! It can be applied to the person and it does NOT teach that because man has a dual nature that he is not responsible for sinful behavior committed in the flesh, but quite the opposite.

According to Kenneth Scott Latourette, an authority on Marcion and dualism, there are three "dualistic systems" and not just one by Marcion and his pagan predecessors. To think there is only the Marcionian doctrine of dualism you must willfully ignore the dualism taught in the Scriptures and think of it as a stigma of sorts, a doctrine of disgrace, as a reproach and infamy of some kind. Church leaders contemporary to Marcion and for centuries after him over reacted to his error instead of teaching the Biblical doctrine of dualism and coming down hard on the fact that Biblical dualism destroys the Marcion teaching of laxness toward sin! They should have taught the Pauline revelation of dualism with such a fervent anointing that it would have sent Satan back into his war room shaking his head and mumbling to himself, "Back to the drawing boards, that one didn't work too well?"

Actually there are three kinds of dualism. Two of them are humanistic and only one has it's origin in the Word of God. The actual dualist systems current were of three different kinds: the Pauline dualism of Sarx-Pnuema; the Platonist dualism of the sensible and intelligible orders of reality; and the Gnostic dualism of the Pleroma, the transcendent world of the Supreme God, and the Kenoma, the material universe made by the Demiurge and dominated by the evil powers."  Kenneth Scott Latourette, 126. Daniélou, Jean Gospel Message And Hellenistic Culture. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1980), 396: "

Modernist seminaries distinguish the three different kinds of dualism but are not able to teach it. The Biblical ramifications of it can only be appreciated and lived out by a new birth experience.

Instead of teaching the correct dualism of the Scriptures they attacked the whole concept of dualism and played right into the hands of the Devil that virtually nullified one of the most powerful doctrines of the cross. If you have had the wrong concept of dualism as taught in liberal of Calvinist seminaries, then you should rethink the facts as we have explained them here and think for yourself over the pages of Paul's revelation in Romans chapters 6 through 8. The doctrine of Biblical dualism begins with the teaching of Jesus that, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that born of the Spirit is spirit." John 3:6. Throughout Scripture man is depicted as having two distinct mentalities, a flesh mentality that is greatly driven by the appetites (Se, Hunger and Greed), and then the Spirit mentality (guided by intelligence, Conscience and [consensual) Emotion).

So when the church fathers rejected dualism they failed to make the distinction between Biblical dualism and pagan dualism.

Gnostic dualism was derived from much of the teaching of the Iranian prophet, Manes, who lived contemporary with Augustine, the early church father. Augustine headed the cause for the bishops to denounce the religious dualistic philosophy of the Gnostics and at that time dualism was sharply taught against. Marcion, who lived contemporary with bishop Polycarp several hundred years earlier indicates that the religious philosophy of dualism had been plaguing the early church for centuries. Unfortunately, Biblical dualism was ignored and not taught in it's Scriptural form. Pagan dualism had brought a reproach to the very term to this very day! But pagan dualism is no way resembles the doctrine of Biblical dualism taught in Scriptures.

You can see that it was a complicated religion with ,any departures from Christian doctrine which included belief in a deity that was also the creator of all evil. It taught that man passes through zones of spiritual accomplishment to a state of pure knowledge which if achieved allowed you to pass directly to the presence of God without any further trials. The basis of gnosticism was the doctrine of Dualism which declared that man had two natures and that what he did in the flesh was independent from his behavior in the flesh. According to gnosticism the God the Old Testament did not exist! It taught that we were not guilty in our spirits of committing sin but that the sins of the flesh would not damn the spiritual man - that they were two separate lives. Marcion removed from the bible all books that contained commandments. Jesus was the loving figure of the Bible and the true revelation of God and did not condemn anyone. So Dualism was a deadly apostate doctrine threatening the very existence of the Church of Acts. The condemnation Jesus laid on the church at Pergamos denouncing those there who embraced the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate - was believed by Many Bible scholars to be the doctrine of gnostic dualism.

Dualism had become an evil word and left the church so shaken it overreacted to the threat and denounced dualism of every kind. Augustine compiled many writings against it and gave strong teaching against dualism until it became dreaded by the church. Tradition has it that Polycarp the bishop of Alexandria passed Marcion one day on the street . Marcion stopped and turned and said, to Polycarp, "Polycarp, don't you  know me?" Polycarp turned, looked Marcion in the eye and said, "Yes, I know you, you are Satan!" The threat of gnostic dualism was so viciously resisted that all forms of dualism became evil in the minds of church leaders and Christianity to this day. The early church equated gnosticism with dualism and dualism with doctrines of Devils. Dualism became synonymous with the gnostic apostasy and false doctrine.

Today in modern Christian seminaries dualism is taught to be an evil doctrine  based on a limited knowledge of what dualism really is. I see this total rejection of dualism as a Satanic strategy to negate Scriptural dualism that is actually the highest efficacy of the cross. I see Biblical dualism as one of the most powerful sin blasting doctrines of Christ and the apostles. Satan did not want the doctrine of Biblical dualism to be taught or known by Christians so he created a para-dualism doctrine to stigmatize and blind the leaders of the church by over reacting to the dualism of Marcion, which he taught and which became the doctrine of damnation!

But, to believe that all dualism is evil  is a very big mistake and a clever deception by Satan conceived in his war room with his imps as an effectual way to destroy perhaps the most powerful revelation Paul received from God during his three years on the desert receiving the true purposes of God and the prime efficacies of the power in the cross.

In this teaching I am showing you what the Biblical dualism is. You will see the great difference between Biblical dualism and the dualism taught by the dualistic philosophy of ancient mystics, Zoroastrians and the ancient apostate Christian doctrine of the Gnostics.

In nearly sixty years of ministry I have not heard but two men speak or teach dualism from these chapters! One was my dearly beloved Milton T. Wells back in the middle of the last century and the second was myself, Here in the chapters below are a few facts about dualism that you probably will not hear from any other source. It is my great privilege granted by the Lord of my salvation that He by His Grace has chosen me to revive this precious teaching and make it known to the church in the last days. In the doctrine of Biblical dualism is the God given power to achieve death to self, mortification and the depths of sanctification. Here in these chapters below under the title of The Dog and The Dove, are the explanations that have helped thousands take back the power we need to rule over our depravity.

The conquering of self can only be achieved by the many principles contained within this doctrine of the Lord. Our people need this teaching of the two distinct natures they possess so they can live victoriously in this end time world having a knowledge that can be used to commend us to God.

These are two very distinct forms of life and diametric to each other. If you are looking for new power and knowledge about your nature and a new command of your life, then read this explanation of the dueling natures that follows. Chances are that there is not another Christian site you can go to and learn the truth about Biblical Dualism. Read on ...


      DandD

                                                                                   Introduction

Jesus didn't say Christians were the sugar of the earth. He said we are the salt of the earth!

He was speaking of its power of moral influence. If it lost that power, it was to be "dumped."

In a modern world the Christian disciple is not only supposed to be able to maintain an overcoming life over it's enemies, the world, Satan and the flesh, but he is also to have enough power beyond that to be a moral influence on his society.

This message is dedicated especially to those Christians who are not satisfied with sweet tooth religion and want the experience of a discipleship on God's terms.

The message of The DOG And The DOVE is directed to the Christian seeking the joy of genuine discipleship.

My prayer is that a different person reads the last page from the one who started reading the first page.

               (This booklet is available through our office: Write for the order form at, Books, PO Box 90, Anderson, MO 64831)

BBB



The Parable of The Dog and The Dove

Let me tell you a little story that you'll never forget. Once upon a time there was a man who lived in a house all alone. He brought a stray puppy home with him one day to keep for company. The puppy grew and became big and mean.

Then one day a dove perched on the sill of his upstairs window and he fed it.

The dove became friendly and the man brought it inside to keep as a pet also.  But the dog resented the presence of the dove and barked and leaped with jealous fury.

The man tried to keep the dove away from the dog but the dog kept barking at the dove every time he sensed its presence.

Finally, the man decided to get rid of the dog and keep the dove.  But he couldn't get the dog to leave the house.

He tried everything . . . even bribing it out the door with morsels of Meat . . . but nothing worked.
He even tried force,
but the dog growled and snapped at him.

Finally, he decided to go to the professionals.  He told the veterinarian his story and then asked him what to do.  The professional said, "It's simple . . . get rid of the dove!"

The man returned to his house disappointed.  As he placed the key in the lock of the front door, he heard a terrible commotion . . . the dog was yipping and barking.  He quickly unlocked the door and ran into the house.

In the middle of the living room the dog was standing over the body of the dove!  Feathers were everywhere!  The wings of the dove were spread pitifully and there was blood.

The man leaped across the room kicking the dog in the side with all his might. The dog went rolling and
howling, scrambling for shelter under the table.

Tenderly the man picked the dove up from the floor. Its body was limp but he saw it was still breathing.

Carefully folding its wings he took it to the kitchen and began to care for it.

He then took the dove to another room and set food and water by it, closed the door and returned to the living room.

He looked into the eyes of the dog glaring from under the
table and said, "I'll get rid of you if it's the last thing I do!"  He began to shout at the dog . . . "I've kept you and fed you . . . "  There was a sudden and long silence as the man stood staring at the dog.  He froze with thought.  Turning and staring out of the window, he snapped his finger loudly and said, "of course, why didn't I think of that before?"   

He turned to the dog and said to the dog in a low tone filled with glee, "Your days are numbered".

In a burst of action that scared the dog causing him to jump backward, the man literally ran to the kitchen and opened wide the doors of the cupboards.  He gathered all the dog food he could find in the cupboards and then went to the corner of the kitchen floor where the dog's dishes were, scooped them up, and threw it all in the trash.

He then went back to care for the dove.

After checking the dove he returned to the living room and stretched out in his easy chair to relax.  He glared right at the dog, and said, "Now I am the master!  You depend on me to feed you . . . and I have stopped!"

The dog became hungry late that night and went to the kitchen and sniffed where his dishes had been.

There was no food for him.

That night the man slept very well and the next morning he awoke with new peace in his heart. 
It seemed the sun was shining brighter than ever before.

He heard the dog whining for food in the kitchen but paid no attention to him. and went about doing some cleaning and fixing his breakfast.
 
The dog whimpered and paced the floor licking his chops as the man ate his breakfast. 
It took some self control but the man refused to give the dog a crumb. 
When he finished eating, he went in and fed the dove.

Day by day he noticed the dove was getting stronger . . .  but the dog was getting weaker.

While he lost all concern for the dog, his care for the dove was meticulous!

Have you started seeing yourself yet?

Each day he fed the dove and starved the dog.

Each day the dove became stronger and the dog became weaker.

Finally . . . the day came.

He walked over where the dog was lying on the floor,  grabbed him by the collar and drug him across the room, over the threshold and out into the yard.

He returned to the house and fed the dove.

Today, the dove is well and flying around the house again.

The dog?  Oh, he's adjusted to his life outside quite well.

The dog you see, is the flesh nature in me.

The dove, as you may know, is the Spirit that has come to dwell in me.

For you see . . . In every "me" there are two natures, the Spirit nature and the flesh nature.

Here is a spiritual secret that can bring much longed-for change to your life . . . if you have the courage to face the changes reality often demands.

First, as Christian disciples, we must know something about ourselves which Jesus and the disciples taught us.  Each of us possesses two life natures - there are two of me, the Flesh and the Spirit.

A nature is something that has distinguishing characteristics.  It has a personality all its own when compared with other things. We have two distinguishable natures within each of us.

Paul put it this way;  So, then, with the mind I myself (one nature) serve the law of God; but with the flesh (another nature the law of sin.
                                                                                                                                                                   Romans7:25

    There are also two minds; the carnal mind and the spiritual mind. Romans 8:6

    Two different sets of desires.  Romans 8:4

    And these oppose each other!  Galatians 5:17

The opposing minds or natures are positive and negative in a moral sense. 
                      The negative nature is the nature of the flesh and
                      The positive nature is the nature of the Spirit.

These are as different from each other as clay and steel . . . as a DOG AND A DOVE. 
This is a universal fact with which every man living experiences.
 Man, within himself, is trying to go two directions morally at the same time!

    For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other;
    so that ye cannot do the things that ye would (want to).  Galatians 5:17.
It was this negative fleshy dog nature in man that that hounded Jesus to Calvary and then watched Him die!
    For dogs have compassed Me:  the assembly of the wicked
    have enclosed Me:  they pierced My hands and my feet.  Psalms 22:16.


It's a Fact:
The appetites of unregenerate man, or of the human body, and dog are basically the same.

Here Are The Three Flesh Appetites.

They are also called sense pleasures.

       (1) The sex sense pleasure,
       (2) The hunger sense pleasure and
       (3) The greed sense pleasure.

Most of man's behavior is influenced by these flesh appetites which are in the worldly environment.

When these appetites of the flesh nature are favored and gratified, in the worldly pleasures, you are feeding the Flesh nature and making it stronger.

By this we conclude that the carnal or fleshy, dog-like nature has affinity with the world environment that attracts the flesh. I John 2:15-17; 4:5

The dog nature, that is, the sinful carnal nature receives its strength from the world.
But . . .the spiritual nature of man is attracted to the holiness of God.

                                   Matthew 4:8; John 17:16; Titus 2:12; James 1:14, 27; 4:4; 2 Peter 1:4; 1 John 2:15-17; 4:5.)

Sin in the flesh has broken the human spirit's communion with God. 
So, the spirit of man languishes inside an appetite-controlled body.

These selfish and corrupted appetites of the flesh are everywhere exerting their influence! 
You see them everywhere you look - In literature, the arts, advertising, music, television and on your personal computer;
He is in the entertainment world, in politics and business, reaching out appealing to the appetites of the flesh to indulge.

Lust for gold, food and erotica keeps driving man toward hell and hounds him to the grave.

But God has burst upon the scenes of human history to give us a chance to escape the life of the dog and become like God!

When man seeks God and associates with God through His Son Jesus Christ . . . .he becomes like Him, like a son of God.

For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son.  Romans 8:29

This should be man's highest goal in life - to become like God!
This is the will of God for every redeemed person once they become saved

Every man is born between God in Heaven and the devil; Between a man and an animal; Between a dog nature
and a dove nature.

If man fails to reach for that "prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" he reverts to his appetites to find pleasure and never with peace.

Without God, man at his very best, is just a very intelligent animal.

The Christian overcomes temptation by being in moral, emotional and mental fellowship with God!

it's the only way God makes happiness available to us - through goodness, His goodness.

    For man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
                                                                                    
    Matthew 4:4
We were designed in the creation in His likeness so we can have things in common with our Maker.

For life to be meaningful and have fulfillment we must live and function for the purpose we were created.

We must think upon and communicate with God intelligently.

Since this demands a rational capacity, animals can't do this.

We conclude, then, that the soul of man is his rational self.

When man forgets God and others and thinks only of himself and seeks to indulge in all sorts of sense pleasure activity, that man is considered sensual and has animalistic tendencies.


No, there's just not much difference between the carnal
man and a dog.

The dog nature is given to the impulse of appetite . . .

See him running along with his nose to the ground . . . scavenging . . .

Gobbling up morsels of he knows not what . . .

Eating that which belongs to others . . .

Casting his waste and filth in beautiful places.

He mates shamelessly in the open.

He selfishly protects food he himself will not eat.

He is vicious toward any who approach his domain.

No wonder they call bad men dogs!



The Word Exposes the Dog Nature
    The Bible calls this dog-like nature in us "carnal."

    Paul called it the law of sin.  Romans 7:23

    He also called it the "body of death".  Romans 7:24

    The "carnal mind".  Romans 8:7

    The "deeds of the body"Romans 8:13

    The "lust of the flesh".  I John 2:16

    The "flesh with the affections and lusts". Galatians 5:24

    The "old man with his deeds".  Colossians 3:9

The word "carnal" literally means meat or flesh.

The word "lust" means to crave wrongly.  It is the "dog" nature in us that amounts to sin in the flesh.

Lust can only occur through the appetites of the flesh nature.


Lust is appetite out of control!

And so, we come to another conclusion; That if the appetites can be brought under control we have the cause of sin conquered!

The Bible makes the connection between appetites and sin very plain. Let's make a simple observation in Galatians 5:19-21 and see that the "works of the flesh" are divided into the three categories of the appetites.

SEX:  Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, lasciviousness, uncleanness.

GREED:  Hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, sedition, heresies, envying, murders, idolatry, witchcraft.

HUNGER:  Drunkenness, revealing and such:  "banqueting and revealing"  I Peter 4:3


Note! All of these "works of the flesh" can be classified
under one or more of the three appetites of the flesh.

Let me repeat,  that it is impossible to sin except through the appetites. This is very important Biblical fact.

What a pity!

God created the appetites in us for our good.

Like everything man touches, we have twisted them into selfish perversions.




The Appetites Are Good !

When the Spirit of Christ enters our life at the time of salvation, He does not cancel or destroy the appetites.

He teaches us to bring them under the control of the Holy Spirit and use them properly.

They once more become the meaningful servants God intended them to be.

When Christ comes within He brings His dignity and returns honor to the body.

If lust is appetite with no control, then holiness is appetite under Spirit control!




Bring Flesh Under Spirit's Dominion

A person "in their sins" is a person under bondage to the appetites, whether you profess to be a Christian or not.

Six of the ten commandments are restrictions against the appetites.

The Bible contains SPIRIT KNOWLEDGE for us in the form of instruction "that the man of God may be perfect".  2 Timothy 3:17

When the Christian allows the Spirit and the Word to teach him the control of appetites this is called "moderation", Philippians 4:5

But how can this powerful appetite nature be overpowered by the Spirit abiding in me?

Christian, the appetites are more of a problem to us than Satan himself!

Once appetite power is controlled, Satan and the world influence become a mere spiritual "mop-up operation".

Yes sir!  The big problem we have with sin is right under our noses - in our flesh!

Don't look for it in other places.

But I see another law in my members bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.  Romans 7:23

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: Romans 8:3.

This is where Christ directed His strike! At "sin in the flesh"...or the appetites!


The Other Nature?

We said there were two nature.s

We have talked about the "dog" nature . . . now let's talk about the dove nature.

The scripture does not put the guilt upon our spirits as is does upon the flesh.

Sin is always referred to as being in the flesh but never is such blame put on the spirit.

The scripture does not speak of such as things as "sin in the spirit" but it does, in many passages speak of the sins of the flesh - the works of the flesh.

From this we understand that our spirits are affected and degraded by their close association with the sinful flesh nature but not depraved in the sense that the flesh is depraved.

We venture to say that while man's flesh is depraved, his spirit is deprived.

The disobedience of the flesh destroyed man's fellowship with God.

In the first Adam man's spirit was imprisoned inside sinful flesh,  became the prisoner of the carnal nature . . .

 . . . until the Last Adam appeared!

That was when God started the new creation, the regeneration!

The first Adam turned my paradise into thistles and blood, sweat and tears.

The second and last Adam turned my tears and pains back into paradise!

The first Adam took me out of paradise but the second and Last Adam put paradise inside of me.

Life begins all new when we see God's great plan of redeeming love reaching out to us from Calvary. 
It's irresistible!  We
just can't ignore it.

We fall in repentance.

Then comes the Spirit of Christ crashing through the bulwarks of Satan, invading me with His regenerating forgiveness!

    For whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved.  Romans 10:13
Now the presence of His Spirit with my spirit links me up with heaven!

Before my repentance at the cross, my indulging flesh life had its strength and affinities in the world system.

But now my spirit will gain its wishes of control and strength through my new connection with the Kingdom system!

Now He joins me in my battle against "the old man".

I must crucify him and "mortify" him by choice . . . by many right choices.
 

    But wait a minute!
The battle still rages!  Satan still attacks, the flesh still rises!

It seems there is an escalation of the spiritual battle within since I was born again in the Spirit.
What is happening to me ? I thought the battle would die down after I had such peace at the altar of repentance !!


The explanation.

You see, before you were a Christian you had one sinful nature in control which was agreeable with the world value system.
Your spirit was
a prisoner of that strong and prevailing flesh nature. 
But now the
Spirit of Christ has come and joined my human spirit, giving me a strong spiritual nature to do battle with that opposing sin nature which is also strong.

Now I have two strong natures grappling for the reins of my life.

I have a flesh nature, and I have a newborn Spirit nature within me.

I have a dog nature and a dove nature.

The battle of Romans, chapter seven, is on! 
In my mind I
know the right thing to do and want to do it, but appetites are still winning some of the battles.
For the good that I would I do not:  but the evil which I would not, that I do. Romans 7:19


On the struggle goes . . . 

To go to the big party with my friends, or go to church, when there should be no questions. 
And then there are the matters
of my associations.

To load my plate again? I really need to lose 40 pounds! or stop because I know I've had enough.

To wear provocative, sensual fashion . . . or be modest as the Word and the Spirit teaches me?

To stare at a pornography poster in the shop or look away?

To let my imagination dwell on erotic things, or quote the Scripture and put my thoughts on things that are pure and turn my eyes to the non-biological things, accepting the discipline of Spirit-knowledge?

    Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into
    captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
      2 Corinthians 10:4
Should I tell the guy off . . . or humble my spirit and leave it with God?

I keep the struggle up but never seem to make gains in the number of battles I win.

I must ask myself - Is the spiritual life of the over comer real or the pipe dream of an idealist?

I cry out with Paul . . . "who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"  Romans 7:24



Read closely now and get ready for a taste of victory!

Here come the answers to this dilemma!

We each have two natures or, two difference lives, actually.

For any form of life to continue living it must be fed!

It's really quite simple.  You have a carnal life, and you have a spiritual life.

You feed the life you want to live and starve the life you want to die!

It's at this very point we create our own spiritual struggles and defeats.

We try and live for God while we feed both of these forms of life! The flesh and the Spirit.
This is what creates the struggle and makes life almost unbearable!

But if the spiritual nature was strong And the flesh nature weak . . . that would be certain victory!!

    Jesus Christ made this possible!
The Bible holds the secret again . . .
    But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof. Romans 13:14


The real question is this . . .

Which life do I want to be weak?  The flesh, of course!

Well then, if you don't want the carnal life to be strong . . . stop feeding it!

    Let's consult spirit-knowledge.
If you want something to live you feed it.

If you want something to die, you starve it.

    For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. Romans 8:5
The key word in this scripture is the word, "mind".

This word in the Greek is PHRONEO.  It means to provide for, or be concerned with.

You have a flesh life and you have a Spirit life.

You give "attention" to the nature you want to win and be sure not to provide for the nature you want to die!


Here is the principle again . . .

    Mortify (put them to death!) therefore your members which are upon the earth . . . Colossians 3:5
And again,

      Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.
Romans 12:9

It is a matter of exposing the spirit nature to pure and excellent things that strengthen it!.

If you are truly born of the Spirit, then you will be concerned with providing for the Spirit-life.

Your diet determines your destiny!

By the way, doves don't eat garbage and dogs don't prefer peanuts.

Each nature has its own source of nourishment.

Let this Bible secret work for you!

Feed the Spirit life.  Seek out Spirit food.  Feast on spiritual things.

Choose your spiritual friends carefully.
Control that close inner circle of friends.
These are the people you will admire and imitate.

While you feed the Spirit life, starve the indulgent demands of flesh appetites. 
Deny them when they whine and plead to indulge!

It won't be long till the life you feed is stronger than the life you starve.

It may mean you'll have to make some big changes.  In friendships . . .

    . . . in the kind of literature that you read . . .
    . . . in pastimes . . .
    . . . it's going to mean some big plans spoiled and provocative, immodest clothes thrown out and other carnal and egotistical items dropped forever from the list of personal possessions.
It's going to mean a whole new and glorious discipline!



Now, Get Rid of the Dog Food!

When you care for something it takes time, money, and attention.
You're the master of the house! 
Go to the pantries and get rid of the dog food!
 
Start searching the cupboards and pantries right now.

In your prayers, ask the Holy Spirit to direct you in putting away anything and everything the lower nature feeds on or is strengthened by. 

Ask Him for discerning powers for what is pure and clean and for ultimate good that you may prove your love to Him. Philippians 1:19-10

Start with your associations.

Check the pantry marked "entertainment".

Are you sure the little innocent things you protect with claims of being small and innocent, aren't feeding that dog nature?

What about your pastimes?  And pleasures?  Your language?  Your thought life?

Has materialism and luxury unconsciously blinded you to the difference between essentials and non-essentials?

What about the music you listen to and tapes and albums you possess?

Are they dog food or the whole-grain cereals of the heavenly dove?

Television?  Magazines?  Does it feed the dog or the dove?  Don't get sentimental now and start feeling sorry for the dog!

    For as much then as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind:  For he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin...that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. I Peter 4:1-2
Could it be you have the discovered the "law of life in Christ Jesus"?

Humans with "dog-like" natures, will not be welcome in Heaven.

When the redeemed are finally gathered in the city of God and the coronation anthems are bouncing off the stars the "dogs" will be yipping outside to get in.  Luke 13:24-25

    "Blessed are they that do His commandments that they may enter in through the gates into the city for without are dogs Revelation 22:14-15
                                                             
                                                                                 -  END  -

  NOTE: We have these Dog and Dove booklets in stock and can be mailed out in numbers. Contact us for an order blank. They are available on a donation basis to the mission.



              Christian, are you really ready to refuse the number
     of the beast , and lose all of your rights to buy or sell?
     666
I had returned from a mission in East Europe arriving at Chicago, O'Hara
airport late in the evening. Soon discovered there were no flights that night out
of O'Hara and the next flight would be the next morning - BUT, I could rent
a car and drive home in about two and a half hours. I proceeded to the car
rental counter and rented the car. But when I tried to pay in cash I was
told I could not use my money - it was no good! I had to pay with a credit
card. I didn't have a cc and walked away feeling an emptiness in my stomach.
I was realizing that the day would come when cash would be useless under
the Antichrist. I realized that some day soon if I did not have the 666 card or
his mark that I would not be able to function in society. It was the beginning
of the feeling I have many times since experienced.

I was arriving in the city where I was to have meetings and my small private motel room was already reserved by the pastor. I signed the guest
card and turned it back to the clerk. She immediately told me that I failed to enter my Social Security number and they couldn't give me a
room without it. After explaining to her that our CPA, the IRS and even a notice sent to us from the local sheriff that we had been strictly
warned not to give out our Social Security number under any circumstances. She called the manager and after another lengthy discussion
they finally agree to let me have the room without my Social Security number.

I've had many of these experiences in my travel in just recent years where a business demands a number or will not take cash fro payment.
I am not saying that any of these experiences indicate or are linked to the Antichrist. What I am saying that the complications of making
purchases that get to be more and more demanding leaves the feeling of what
it's going to be like when Antichrist does introduce and enforce an ID system
that will leave us without access to the social system we depend on for
survival. We are beginning o taste what that is going to be like. We also
know there are municipal governments who are using the implanted chip
system in a beta experiment for a moneyless system to come. Cards are more
and more in use and self check outs are being installed in stores. Checks
at Walmarts can now pay for purchases with your check handed back to you
on the spot without processing your bank account after the purchase. In
many banks and some government agencies a thumb print ID is required
to do make a transaction in that place of business. The noose is getting tighter
and tighter.  Everything is becoming automated moving fast toward a
moneyless system. A few years ago I would never talk like this - but today,
in a few short years I see now with implanting now being imposed on babies
and pets will be imposed by law upon everyone.  Christian, what
will you do? Will you cave in and take the number so that you and your
children can survive? Or will you be among the small number who will
try and survive by bartering and self determination, prayer and faith in Christ?

It's interesting to hear Paul's words in 1 Thessalonians regarding the
question many Christians have whether the church will be in the world
when the Antichrist is reigning? This writer happens to think that according
to what Paul said in 2 Thessalonoinas 2 that the church is here when
he is "revealed" or unveiled. His identity will be made known to the world and
the church will recognize him. There will be an overlapping of the
dispensations as there always is when we move from one dispensation
into another. For example, Jesus held His ministry in this world for three and
half years coexisting with Judaism and was in mortal conflict with the
apostate religion of His children, the Jews.  In that time the two
dispensations overlapped. When He uttered those words, "It is finished,"
being utterly abandoned by men and God, the New Covenant was
legally installed in the heavens - not on earth according to Jewry. For
another forty years Christianity and Judaism coexisted as two movements
with the church being oppressed by the influence of the Judaism upon
Rome.  The transition from Judaism to Christianity - an impossible
and insurmountable accomplish - took 50 years before it was
actually accomplished.

The transition from one dispensation to the next is always longer
than impatient men want things to take.
The transition from the church
age of Grace will not be as long as it took for the transition from Law to
Grace, but it will surely be over several years and then dramatically end when
the  cataclysm God sends upon the earth when the church is snatched out,
takes place and the Antichrist will then be left to globalize the world
under a single governmental system. That cataclysm that devastates the earth
and sets off a series of catastrophes in the form of the trumps and the vials
will keep the Antichrist dictatorship busy coping with those things coming on
the earth during his reign including the nuisance of the two witnesses
with invincible powers giving off the witness of God to a world he is trying
to convince does not exist apart from himself.

But coming back to today, as recent as just yesterday I see the corporate
world doing everything they can to get your personal information for
their mailing lists in spite of the privacy laws, or their own privacy policies
dictate. Your address has commercial value to them. If you have a computer
you often see flashing adds that tell you that you have just won a new
Cadillac Navigator, click the button to get your prize. When you click the
button you see a window that that asks for your name addresss, phone
number and usually several other bits of information. If you're foolish enough
to fall for that fraudulent language on the Internet, and you do go to the
next page you'll find an add for a product and by entering your
personal information you become eligible to win something far from a
Cadillac Navigator!
But they have your personal information for their
purposes.  Our congress has cleaned up the labels on edible products -
wish they'd clean up the Internet now and penalize the dishonesty that's
rampant and preys on innocent and naive people.

As I was saying, yesterday I went to Walmart to get my passport photos
and usually go to the electronics department and have them made in
minutes. But yesterday I was told they were now located at the front of the
store. The lady handed me a clipboard requiring me to put down all
of my personal information. I noticed a young couple in front of me that had
filled out the form. She had loaded all of their information into the computer
and then gave them their photos. These businesses are demanding your
personal information and in spite of privacy regulations you never know
where your information is going once it is entered into the data base of
that system. Companies
and now even services at the Walmart are
using every legitimate ruse they can to circumvent the privacy laws
and absorb
your personal information. When I asked to merely have
my passport pictures taken and refused to fill out the form, she refused to take
my photos! Sister Burkett and I politely handed back the form and walked
away again being made very conscious of the fact that without the
proper documentation we will be refused service - a feeling that is a precursor
to not having the 666 authorization to buy or sell. Today it's a credit card
number, a Social Security number, a bank account number or your
personal information, or else! Tomorrow it will be a universal ID card or
an implanted chip - and then we will be only one step from the law that
will require the number or the name of the beast, the global government ID
that allows you to buy or sell.

Today the mark, the name or the number required to buy or sell, but it's
inching closer and closer as the insidious plan of power X draws near.
The number of the beast, 666 is with us and now it is only a matter time until
it is implemented for us to exist in global centralized government system.
Right now, there in the United States many product labels are in English,
Spanish (Mexican) and French - three languages in an English speaking
culture where the law requires immigrants to know English, BUT, it is
not enforced but flagrantly violated by the very government agencies that
should be enforcing the immigration rules already on the books. This is why
any new immigration laws mean nothing so long as they are only laws
without teeth. Our Federal statutes are loaded with immigration laws that
have never been enforced - will they enforce any new immigration laws - and
the answer is that they will enforce any new immigration laws just the same
as they have enforced all previous immigration laws and then give amnesty to
the violators instead of deporting them. Our national identity is being betrayed
by those those within our government taking us closer to being a
homogenous we do not mark, name or number that allows us to buy and sell!

We finally ended up at Walgreen's Drug and then they wanted my
phone number for the computer to ID my photo. When we refused that
time the lady was gracious and put the number of the store into the
computer. More and more the matter of buying and selling is conditional -
you must render a card, a number or your personal information for the
computer. Little by little it's getting harder to make a simple transaction
with currency.  It's easier to use a credit card than money and you must give
your driver's license number, a phone number or other personal information
for their computers before they will go to the next entry for the clerk.
Cleverly designed to make the private citizen give up personal information for
the computer database. If you refuse to give the information they are not able
to complete the transaction and you leave the merchandise and are forced to
go elsewhere where personal information is not required - more
inconvenience. But the time will come when even that option will not be open
to buyers because all merchants will be requiring the same information in order
to stay up with the business trends.

The time is getting shorter everyday for those of us who prefer to use money
to buy and sell. There are more and more demands that are designed by
power X to gradually ready society for the day when a universal
non-currency system will be be dropped on us all in the name of preventing
theft and crime. Many so-called Evangelicals will fall right into the trap
because they have themselves become so dependent on a cashless
purchasing system that they will not want to give up their opulent lifestyles
and will feel they MUST take the number of the beast to survive.

Actually, the number of the beast is here and we are using it everyday.
Many Christians are well aware of this fact and it needs to be watched
as the Antichrist will use the Universal Price Code to globalize commerce. I
was teaching a class at a college in Brussels, Belgium a few years back
and identified the 666 now printed into the UPC (Universal price Code)
as  appearing on everything on the market today. Look at that little bar of
lines that they run over the laser reader of the market where you shop. You
will notice that the lines are between two elongated lines on either side of
the bar and then there are another two elongated lines right in the center.
On the Universal computers those are designated as 6's in every nation
of the world - three 6's, or 666.  I was explaining this to the class and in the
middle of my explanation the class teacher rose up and said to me, I'm sorry,
but you must be very careful when you make assertions of this nature and be
able to document the statement..
At the back of the classroom a young
man perhaps in his late twenties raised his hands while the professor
was speaking. The professor acknowledged his hand and was sure the
student was going to substantiate what the prof had said to me and the class. 

The young man was from Finland and worked for a large corporation and was
a computer science major. He said, My work in my company in Finland was
to design and register the UPC codes on our products. That was my job and
I would like to establish the fact that the three
double elongated lines in our
UPC codes are designated as 6's as Mr. Bill has stated.  I can document
his statement as being true. 


One day in my study at least a year before that day I was astounded
when reading about the UPC in the American Scientist magazine
to learn these double elongated bars were indeed 6's. So my assertions in
the classroom that day were based on a very sound source of
documentation! The prestigious American Scientist magazine - but when
that young man, who actually compiled the information on the UPC bars stood
in my defense that day, needless to say, I was grateful to him and had the
facts established because I was without the article I had read in the
Scientific American publication, but could only refer to the name of my source.
For your information there is no question regarding the 666 on the UPC
that appears on every commercial article now being sold on the
International market in every nation of the world..

If the church remains in the world under the wrath of God when He
punishes Israel and the world for their disobedience and unbelief, then
God's children will be forced to reject the mark and come under the wrath
of the Antichrist with those who rebelled and they will be forced out
of the system But this writer cannot believe that God's children will come
under the wrath of God or the beast. The church will suffer the persecution of the wicked in the very end time as th early church for 38 years at it's beginning, but they will NOT fall under the wrath of God. There is a big difference in the church being under persecution and being under the wrath of God. The early church was persecuted but was not under God's wrath!

God's wrath is announced in Revelation 6:17 before the trumps or the vials. If
the church is raptured in the 6th seal and seen in heaven before the throne of
God in Chapter 7, then the church is taken from the tribulation (wrath of
God) before the revelation of the Antichrist.

If this is correct, and I am very careful to say, IF this is correct, and the church
is taken out when the earth is covered with fire and smoke and tsunamis
are changing the shape of the Continents with their devastations
world-wide, then that means that the next great sign foretelling the near
return of Jesus would be the presence of a system of buying and selling using
the number 666. This means we are very near the lord's return! The number
of the beast will be 666 as Revelation tells us (Revelation 13:18) and he,
the Antichrist, will be revealed before Christ returns with the redeemed at the
end of the tribulation when Satan is bound and He sets up His earthly
Kingdom. But at His return for the church before the tribulation it will be
hidden by a world-wide cataclysm engulfing the entire world in flames and
fiery devastation from the waves and the sea roaring. In that confusion God
with Christ will return in the sky over earth snatching His faithful out of the
wrath that is to
come! If that be so, then His return for the pure church is nigh !       
    

                                                              Maranatha !



usedtotheDARK



 
    destitutebanner

     I keep this photo on my work desk and look at it every time I sit down to my work. I have been wondering lately if my evangelism lacks compassion and have asked God for more opportunities to help hurting people. Evngelistic fervor must be indwelt by a divine kind of compassion born out of prayer. The photo above shows the real life of millions of humans over the world that exist in a state of total and utter hopelessness. I would like to believe this little Sudanese girl born into Islam is praying but she only waits to be eaten by the waiting vulture - probably having never heard about the love of Jesus.

I have been in many dry barren villages like this in several African nations. We found a horrible condition in Northern Nigeria some years back with funerals of village children all around us who were dying of cholera and other diseases from the infested drinking water they gathered from green stagnant water holes. My heart was moved and the Lord gave me brother Abraham Okwe as field director in Benue region. With him building the wells in Africa while I was traveling the churches here in the States telling the pastors and churches about the plight of the Igede people, the Lord enabled us, together,  to place thirty wells in the villages of Benue! How many children's lives were saved only heaven knows.

If this village in Sudan had the Word of God, then this little girl might have heard the story of Jesus. Commission carefully sends Bibles to African Muslims and former Muslims who are evangelizing and telling their people about Jesus.  In Benue, Nigeria, there are also many Muslims and when they saw the wells being dug and 24 churches being built by the compassion of you pastors, with brick to withstand the flooding that destroyed the thatch churches, many of them came to the Lord  as a result of that work.

As one Muslim husband who had been abusing his wife because she was a Christian, said, " If these Christian missionaries come here and give us wells and buildings when they do not even know us, then that is the God I will worship!"  He and many other Muslims came to Jesus because they saw with their eyes the Love of the Christ flowing from all of you who gave to these and many other projects carried out through the Commission Ministries over the years.

Today the world is bigger and our projects have multiplied many times including the help we now extend to China until we are stretched far beyond our resources. We now have many projects on the table waiting for the funds to come in to carry them out in His name!  We need help badly! If you or your church would like to be a part of a very accountable and effective mission outreach working in a number of nations over the world including, Africa, India, Argentina, Brazil, Poland, Literature and street ministry, Russia, Ukraine, and prison ministries here in the USA, and China (a world in itself), then we invite you to join me and my family in our labors for Him - we really need a lot more help with many calling to us for help. If you email us or call us, or write and ask for a CoMissionary envelope to look over prayerfully, we will send it immediately. You can write to; Bill Burkett (or Commission)
                                                                                                         PO Box 90, Anderson, MO 64831
                                                                                                         Or  Actsion@yahoo.com
                                                                                                         Or   417 845 6266                        
                                                              . . . .  and now . . . .

                                                       A Word About Commission Accountability
From the beginning back in 1964 we agreed as a family that we would not take a salary out of the Commission fund made up of all offerings that come in whether they are in our name of the name of Commission. It would all go into the mission fund! Every ministry is divided between it's two distinct financial needs; (1) is the mission field funds and (2) the cost of administration. The big item in administration includes the salaries of the workers in that ministry. I believe, the last I heard, that the IRS allows up to 60% of a not-for-profit organization to be used for salaries of the administrators. That far too high which means that out of every ten dollars six dollars never reaches the field but is paid as salary to the workers. We have been able to operate far below that 40/60 rule because we do not take a set salary but as we need food or clothing we  take only as our needs  arise. This allows us to leave  monies  to remain in the mission fund to be used for the spiritual work of the Lord - and there are plenty.

I see this principle in the life and ministry of Christ. Judas carried the bag and the Lord apparently only took money from the bag when the requirements of life called for it. We are accountable to fine men who serve on our board and review the finances once a year. We are very conscientious about offerings sent in to us and we try very hard to use them as you would expect them to be used.  China is a new kind of challenge to us because the work there is not open evangelism but assistance to worthy and needy people who contribute to the spiritual purposes we embrace.


Compassion

                                     gist
                 




                                     
                                  KIDSKILLKIDS

Violence in public schools is rooted deep in the subsoils of our public educational system. This is not just another commentary analyzing the violence in the public schools. THIS IS THE ANSWER TO CHAOS! Its not gun laws we need to turn the nation away from violence and hostility - you cannot legislate violent behavior. You must change the behavior by taming the beast inside of man! Behavior issues from the inner man and the latent qualities which he develops as he passes through his environment in growth. Learning moral values and developing a young persons character qualities should be a top priority of the educational process. The moral character of people who make up a society and for that reason should be the supreme priority of the educational system of any nation that wants to establish a secure and peaceful society. Character is behind all failures as well as successes from the white house to the School house.

Most of us have seen the bumper sticker that says, "If you can read this, thank a teacher?"  I always liked that sticker. I think I can say that most teachers in todays educational system do not agree with everything the educators send down the pike to the local schools. These good teachers are a very special asset to our nation. They are underpaid and not heralded nearly enough for what they do for our young people and our nation.

We have some good teachers, and thank God for every one of them, they are excellent role models with values that leave right impressions on their students. But we have too many teachers today who are the product of new teaching philosophies, the new morality and situation ethics; teachers that teach sex and will not mention abstinence as the only guarantee against pregnancy, scalding tears and mental anguish; Teachers that show X-rated films to their debate classes (as one teacher at Columbine did and was vindicated by the local courts) just before the massacre there.

    The one thing today's top educators don't understand is education!

                 kidskillkids

They can talk it academically and theoretically but their ties to the system and their commitment to unproven teaching techniques advocated by the educational aristocracy only takes us further into the quagmire of immorality and tragedy.  They attempt to educate the mind, the reservoir of human intelligence, but then completely ignore the intelligence of the heart (conscience) reveals a serious flaw of bigotry in modern educators. Both the mind and the heart possess the capacity of intelligence and both are centers of intelligence needing to be intellectually nurtured and brought to maturity. Both of these soul centers have the capacity to perform intelligently. The present educational system is focused on the brain having failed miserably to achieve education of the heart center, to recognize both of these centers and provide the proper and balanced development of intellectual and moral values in youth. We are only now beginning to reap the harvest of this blunder. It is a classic example of the stupidity of "intellectual worldliness." Isn't this great, we have an educational system that is doing nothing to develop the character, the moral intelligence in our young people!     We hear speeches, pass laws against guns and fill the media with philosophical solutions to the problem of violence and killing in the public schools. We have placed metal detectors at the entrances and armed police on guard in school halls. Keep it up! its only going to get worse so long as you refuse to recognize the supreme importance of character education. Furthermore, its not going to stop the escalation of violence. Politicians void of moral values themselves make fair speeches that strike fear into the hearts of simple minded citizens making them believe that the whole problem is guns and that new laws must be implemented to restrict the sale of guns. These political eggheads demonize organizations such as the NRA (National Rifle Association) for standing in the way of more gun controls. BUT NONE OF THESE PEOPLE HAVE ONCE HIT ON THE REAL PROBLEM BEHIND SCHOOL VIOLENCE AND THE TAKEOVER OF SCHOOLS AND STREETS BY OUR KIDS. THESE GUN CONTROL ADVOCATES WHO SPEAK IN CALM ASSURING TONES AND WITH SUCH PROPER GRAMMAR ARE THEMSELVES THE VERY CAUSE OF THE VIOLENCE AND THE UTTER DEGRADATION OF THE LAST TWO GENERATIONS OF OUR SOCIETY!    Our problem is that Satan has outsmarted the intellectuals making them think that religious morals are not needed to have a better society and by that persuasion he has put them on a self destruction course. Those at the top of our educational system in America, beginning with the legislators on up to the White House, are responsible for the moral impoverishment of our youth.

One news wire entitled Crime Spike Caused by Youth and gang Violence, writes; "WASHINGTON -- Increasing violence among teenagers and other youths appears to have contributed to a nationwide crime spike, the Justice Department said Tuesday. Gangs and gun violence are partly to blame for the rise in crime that is on pace to increase for the second straight year, says Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in a prepared speech."

The only way to offset a crime spike it to create a character spike inside the public educational program IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM!

Guns are made to be the "the fall guy" because they are visible and can't talk back.

But, a gun is not bad or good. They can be dangerous but they cannot be good or bad. The thing that makes a gun dangerous is when that gun is held in the hand of dangerous person - it is not in the gun itself (you dummies!). It's the character our social values and educational system has produced - not the gun itself.

it seems to be a rather simple deduction that the real cause of violence is not in the gun (or the knife or the fast cars) but in the man holding the gun. That "guns" are in themselves intrinsically bad is a falsehood that sounds good to the simple minded . If that were true, then even the police would not carry guns - but in the hands of a policeman that gun becomes good to defend the innocent.
 
           
Why can't an educated person see the true cause of the problem?

            The character of the person holding the gun determines whether a
                                                  gun is good or bad.

So, why don't we see that the problem is societal and caused by lack of character values of the individual and then start immediately to treat the real problem and start passing legislation that will reverse the real problem.

                  MORAL CHARACTER SHOULD BE THE BIG CONCERN OF EDUCATORS AND NOT SEX!

Guns are bad when in the hands of bad people. You will change the gun problem when you change the character of those who hold guns. Hilary Clinton made a remark to the effect "That growing up includes a person learning how to control their impulses." This is quite a statement coming from the Clintons. But, let's give her credit for one thing; She came very close to the need of blaming character for bad conduct when she made this statement. Why doesn't Mrs. Clinton go on to advocate a character development program in our school curriculum?   

May we also add here that all societal evils are the result of the American society turning from the Christian perspective of producing a society of moral values based on altruism (a moral value system that seeks the good of others above self) and turning to the humanist obsession with the sciences as being able to give us better answers ... and for that splendid bit of stupidity look at the mess we are in !!! and remember, what is happening in our schools, reflects what our next generation of society will be.

I repeat, derelict government educators and proponents of a Godless educational system in the classroom are the cause of the present moral dilemma in our public schools!

BECAUSE THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR EDUCATING OUR YOUTH HAS PASSED FROM LOCAL TO OUT OF TOUCH FEDERAL OFFICIALS HAS THE SYSTEM BECOME DERELICT, AND THE RESULT OF THAT DERELICTION IS THE IMMORAL AND VIOLENT  BEHAVIOR WE HAVE TODAY WHEN PEOPLE TURN TO KILLING THEIR FELLOW WORKERS AND THEIR FRIENDS IN IN THE SCHOOL. tHIS GENERATION OF KILLERS HAS PASSED THROUGH THE HANDS THAT WERE SUPPOSED TO MOLD THEIR CHARACTER VALUES BUT THEY NEVER WERE TAUGHT THE VALUES THAT WOULD PREVENT THE VIOLENCE THAT COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED IF CHARACTER HAD BEEN INSTILLED IN THEM.

Phyllis Schlafly writes in one of her excellent reports; "For the past 25 years, the prevailing dogma in public school teaching has been Values Clarification (as in the tremendously influential 1972 book of the same name by Sidney Simon). That means teaching students to reject 'the old moral and ethical standards,' and instead 'make their own choices' and 'build their own value system.' "

Educators play a major role in character education of the heart and conscience as well as secular eduacation of the mind. More than even most parents they spend more time with young learners than the parents and they are, you know, educators. form the character of each generation. That group of educators at the top that formulate the methodologies of classroom curriculum is the same group of people who control the minds that mold the lives of our children and grandchildren. Many of these people are committed to destroying the Christian value system and in its place follow the Sidney Simon philosophy that teaches our kids to reject the old Christian moral value system and form their own amoral values.

While behavioral values needed in the educational system are the same qualities taught in Jewish and Christian scriptures (right and wrong behavior is a universal factor), these values can be taught without reference to a religious entity. Most national religions teach a moral code of proper behavior. If the system can teach sex without moral values then they are certainly capable at the same time to teach moral values without sex.

The sensitivity training program being eaten up by brainwashed educators is designed to destroy Christian sensitivities and make the trainees insensitive to moral values they may have that are derived from values instilled in them by their parents and Sunday School teachers. There has been a calculated effort to remove God from the education equation and one of the results has been the merging and more frequent psychopathic killings. The only concern of educators is to raise the level of academic achievement in graduates, but they even flunked that test! with no concern whatsoever for moral values and character. Did it ever dawn on the educators that just maybe instilling moral is part of their job as educators? They will not grasp this until they grasp the importance of the development of the whole person? This is what the Bible teaches America and in better times they heeded it.

The reason we have dummies coming out of our school systems that can't count change, read or spell decently is because dummies can't teach dummies! I have taught at university level for years and I know how important it was to my students that I wove into my lectures and class discussions moral values. I am still receiving email from students thanking me for teaching them good morals years after being in my classes. I am not inditing the teacher in the classroom as much as I am those who impose amoral curricula and educational techniques on teachers that dumb down the student morally and leave him or her without moral moorings. Its the system being put on the teachers that does not allow the classroom teacher to successfully develop his/her students as every good teacher wants to do. The cause of most of our social ills as a nation is the stupidity being displayed by intellectuals who think you can educate young people without developing their character values simultaneously. When we don't pursue both levels as being equally vital we get what we've got today - a system that produces some twisted minds.

When we return to teaching moral values in the classroom again with strong discipline and lots a love - you will be able to forget the gun laws because they won't be needed any more.

You bunch of dummies! Why can't you see the bond between the development of intellect and character?

Intelligence apart from character produces Hitlers and Stalins and serial killers and shooting rampages by deranged kid killers. 

Your immoral and amoral educational philosophies and experimentation using our kids as guinea pigs is doing more to destroy America from within that any of her enemies from without. We are allowing these badly informed (at college level) educators to lead our nation into the abyss of moral permissiveness and promiscuity. They go right on practicing their disproved and demoralizing theories of sensitivity training and self esteem. It is not sensitivity! It is desensitizing the conscience and stripping our kids and teachers of every value they were taught before they entered the secular classroom. America, wake up and grow up! Your following the wrong politically correct eggheads. 

We're all tired of hearing about the Columbine High School massacre and now the Virginia Tech massacre. But I am coming to the conclusion that those politicians and educators  in charge of our public school systems, are either conspiring to remove all traces of Christian values from school systems or they are stupid - one of the two - some of them may be both. In either case they are not fit to be leaders or educators. Analyzing what happened to Cho at Virginia Tech is an exercise in futility. You're barking up the wrong tree! You people who seem to be so interested in stopping this carnage had better wake up to the realization that this is a result of producing amoral homo sepiens who have been robbed by the educational system of learning about the moral value system that could have made them very useful to society and saved scores of lives in the process. But they were deprived of a systematic education on moral values, ethics, altruism and grooming.

                         The answer!

Look at the curriculum in any public school today. It is completely void of character development subjects or programs. The educators could turn America around and save it from it's inevitable judgment if they would include Social Ethics and Business Ethics; Grooming sessions in the form of a finishing school for girls and boys. 

Classes on moral values and behavioral principles built into the class schedules from grade 1 through 12 would change America and restore to her to the greatness she has lost. Or, should I say, save her from what is being taken from her by the low life morals projected by the dollar loving entertainment industry and its' celebrities, the perverted sports industry and the political swill being crammed down the throats of naive kids with gullible minds. 

Moral Values; Inter social relationships between young and old; Beginning with the first grade as a required session at least twice a week covering such character developing subjects as Manners, Decency, propriety, Courtesy and Proper Respect for others and especially all symbols of authority; Promote the cultural arts, and then above all, every graduate coming out of high school with a separate certificate of achievement for completing ninety six hours of study in Altruism!

Religion wouldn't even have to be a part of the program but include universal moral principles that would be in every moralistic religion - just common decency and propriety could instill character qualities that would change the destiny of America. For starters, a study of a list of all virtues and vices would have dramatic effect on our kids starting in middle school. But, instead we are teaching about condoms, four letter words and promiscuity - and then ask, why? when another school is shot up and teachers and students lie in their blood in the school house. Teaching virtue and character qualities that too many parents are not teaching is the ANSWER.

Thank God, we still have thousands of parents across the land who teach their children moral values and respect for authority. These are the parents producing the only good element of kids out there - they're outnumbered, but there are still many of them. Every once in awhile you meet an outstandingly polite teenager. But he didn't learn those values in school -he/she learned them at home. What a pity that our schools can teach sex and encourage promiscuity but they haven't got the sense to teach moral values. Not all, but many high school students, especially in groups of three or more, you meet on the streets and in the malls are loud and boisterous taking up a whole side of the concourse. They often show little or no respect to the elderly or what other people think.

These are the signs of poor character. If its taught by the parent - good - then when that young person goes to school and learns the same thing in an academic atmosphere he/she will learn why the parents place value on good manners and courtesy toward others. There is no breach of the First Amendment in teaching values that enhance the social structure and insure happiness for each kid's future. Prisons would drop in population, crime rates would plummet and millions would be saved in taxes we now pay to cover the cost of crime. But will the "brainy bunch" see the light? We can only pray they someday will - but the reality is that these people will not ever acknowledge something they simply do not believe in - good moral character.

All character building subjects are scoffed at by the NEA. This is the epitome of intellectual arrogance - splendid idiocy! The educational system along with the judicial system is where the socialist free thinkers have infiltrated to cram their humanist theories of emancipation down the throats of Christian America. We have produced two amoral generations through the new morality educational system that fails at every fad program they promote and feed into the life streams of our kids. The answer: Teach character values apart from religion as a part of school curriculum; Take away the power of the social services; Make kids subservient to parents and symbols of authority again and give the authority you've given kids back to the parents. We have enough laws on the statute books to put away the violent parent. 90% of our problems would dissipate within the next generation if we would begin now to instill strong character building courses in the public school systems of America. Put character education and character development at the top of our school learning priorities where it belongs and watch all the laws we've enacted become obsolete! This is not an oversimplified solution. Our problem is rotten character development.

Don't dare place the blame on the parents, either! Many parents have their kids hurt or spoiled by the influences of the public school syndrome -  immoral teachers, thug students and the  lewd sex education curricula. They could have all been saved if the power of a proper education had been in place at the school where it happened. As someone so aptly said, "You took down the Ten Commandments from the schoolhouse walls and now you have to hose the blood of the students from the walls you removed the commandments from."  They stopped them from praying when the class day begins, now they all want to pray when they hear the crack of guns spewing death and pray again in the aftermath of the slaughter, and then pray again when they attend the funerals of the dead. Mrs. Clinton piously offered a moment of silent prayer in one of her recent speeches (5/99). Why doesn't she espouse prayer in the public schools if she believes in prayer? 

The root of the problem is that we have failed to educate our kids to be what we want them to be - good!  The socialists have produced that generation of godless kids without traditional moral values they claim they need to build the new world society of the next millennium, but your new society is doomed because you cannot build any kind of society without the moral character of the God of the Bible!  The lessons in the history books you teach from proves that! The violence we are witnessing today is the product of the humanists dreamers who sit at the top of the system and dictate their ideologies downward to the common people, all based on the perverted sciences of depraved people. It's sad to the common people respond to them almost as if they were gods. Wake up, America! Your problem is not guns! Your problem is the nit-wits at the top of the educational system who have advocated an educational program that supports the amoral element of dummies with diplomas coming out of the schools with no character values instilled. We have encouraged the proliferation of immorality and the base appetites and then call them the liberated generation. Yes, the prisons are full of people who have the "liberated" mentality - free to do what they like, incontinent and violent. They know how to use prophylactics but they don't have the slightest interest in character values. This is the product of an educational program that does not understand the true meaning education. 

Good kids are good because of the values their parents and their pastors taught them in spite of the libertine school environment. Kids without good parents brooding over them, teaching them right values, come out of the school systems more interested in pierced tongues, fornication and tattoos having no idea what it means to be dedicated to the good of others around them. The national directors of our educational system have wrongly desensitized (the whole purpose of sensitivity training) our kids to right and wrong and laugh in their seminars at anyone who dares mention abstinence and moral integrity based on the  traditional biblical teachings of Christ. The result of these "professional absurdities" is now being seen in the rash of violence breaking out across the nation on school campuses - Columbine being one of the prime examples of what our educators have produced. Now that the results have come in, you won't admit YOU produced this amoral mess and want to blame it on guns. It is this pride of the gurus that will not admit the error that their ideologies, the ones their professors at University pawned off on them ARE NOT WORKING AND THEY WILL NOT WORK BECAUSE THEY ARE VOID OF THE EXCELLENCE OF CHARACTER.



               helpmissionaries
                                                    It's called"ETHICS"

1.  ALWAYS receive the missionary offering for a guest missionary
AFTER he has
     finished speaking. Because;
     a. Some people have never met him and want to know what they are giving to.
     b. Every time you have a missionary he will have a new project to present.
     c. His message will inspire them to give more ... that's healthy for your church.
     d. God blesses the church that gives (Luke 6:36). The more you give the more
             your church is able to help evangelize through that and other missionary
             minitries.
     e.  After they hear him they may wish they could get their money back!

2.  NEVER laud and talk about other missionaries with a missionary sitting on your
     platform. Make that missionary feel like he is the man of the hour! The ethical thing
     is to do all you can to make your guest the person of honor. It's not good manners
     to brag about another missionary or read another missionary's letter when it is his
     service - make the brother/sister the important missionary of that service. The only
     exception is on the occasion of missionary conventions where there may be two or
     more missionaries on the program. Don't throw them all into the same mix. Single
     each man out and give each missionary his own time to speak and his own place
     of honor. 

3.  NEVER drop a missionary's support without being kind and thoughtful (and
     ethical) about it in a good Chrsitian spirit. Missionaries have a heart and feelings
     just like the rest of us. As soon as  you decide to stop supporting a missionary for
     any reason, it is the Christ-like thing to send a letter of intention to that missionary
     and explain to him that you will be ending the support and the date the last support.
     This gives that missionary at least a window of time to replace that support. I advise
     three ways to end it in a proper way; - a -  To notify him that his support will continue
     for three months giving him at least three months of assurance; - b - Ending it the
     end of that year or, - c - when he/she returns home on furlough thus giving him
     notice he must replace your support when he returns home but he is assured of your
     support until he returns to the States. The only exception to these rules is when a
     missionary makes a serious misstep in behavior or doctrine that requires
     immediate end of support.

4.  Consider the rising costs of living and review the amounts your giving to your
     missionaries the same as every church should review their pastor's salary yearly
     to make sure he is staying up with the rising cost of living. Has your church
     been sending the same amount of monthly support to its missionaries for the last 10 years?
     If so, it's time to consider a raise in pay for them. That would be encouraging news for
     them and let them know that their missionary work is important to you - and believe me,
     money certainly not everything, but Proverbs does ay it answereth all things.  That is, that
     with money you can buy literature and pay the bills - and those things cannot be paid by
     anyhring BUT money.  Our missionararies are always encouraged by money coming in.
     Most missionaries get much less than they give to those they are evangelizing.

5.  ALWAYS support missionary speakers who have the pure doctrine that you
     have and teach your people.
     What is his/her past track record?
     Has he identified with holiness people in the past?  Why not?
     What kind of people did he produce where he pastored in the past?
     Do the holiness men have a good report of him? Ask them?
     Why didn't he seek your fellowship before now?
     Does he fellowship with liberals AND with you? 
     Does his wife have a visible Christian testimony.
     Is he really after your fellowship - or is he needing your money. If he is not
         holiness then it is the latter.

         Is he needing your financial support or is he
identifying with your doctrine? 
         It should be the latter and especially on the issues of Biblical separation.
         (e.g., Separation, Television, modesty, sanctification, worldliness, sports.)
    `   
Allowing pseudo holiness men with an old fashioned preaching style onto your
         platform whose family does not reflect a love for holiness will lower the resolve
         of God's
people to keep the standard you preach and lean toward the standard of
         the men and members of their family you allow
in your pulpit for them to stare at
         for an hour at a time. What you tolerate
becomes their standard - not what you say
         but what you DO and who you
associate with and bring into the church. Pastors
         must think of that young impressionable generation sitting in the church learning
         by example, what they see and not so much by what understand that's being said.

When your people see a man with the world in him on your platform it weakens their
resolve to live holy and follow your teaching and example. When you allow a man on your
platform you are approving and advocating his doctrine and his lifestyle
. If you  do allow
low standards on your platform - then shame on you! You are one of God's problems.


Does he fellowship with ALL holiness churches or just the bigger churches?

6. WEEK OF MISSIONS: No matter how small your church is, each year set a date for a
special week of world missions emphasis and invite at least two missionaries to come and
speak sometime during that week. Later this can be a three days event as the church grows.
I pioneered two churches at the beginning of my ministry under very difficult circumstances
in the 50's. The first thing I did was to start supporting a missionary with a small offering
monthly. Through the year I set aside any monies I could accumulate above the operating
costs into a special missionary and evangelism fund. Then when there was a goodly amount I
invited a missionary or an evangelist and blessed them far above what they expected!  In my
last pastorate I amended the constitution to direct 10% of the total weekly income into the
missionary fund of the church.


If you want to know how you can start having a strong missionary church you should write to
my office or email us at actsion@yahoo.com and request the brochure entitled,

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul
P
lease enclose fifty cents in coins or stamps , and we'll send you this powerful  and practical principle.   



                                                                                                                       Check this Christian site out.
Scroll to the bottom  of www.jesus-is-savior.com and you will find
one of the best King James Bible web sites on the Internet.
ACTSion.com does not endorse the entire content of this web site.

     To learn about the early Christian writings, and Christian values, practices,      
             teachings, and history prior to 313 A.D. go to www.bibletexts.com 


        
          tonguesoffire

A saint singeing report on the wildest sin of the holiness people.
I know very well. I have been the victim of wild rumors spread by "holiness" people.

In Proverbs 6 we are warned that there are six things the Lord hates and spreading rumors and evil reports about brethren and four of the six things he hates are sins that telling and spreading rumors include.   These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
                  A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
                  An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
                  A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
                                                                                  
Proverbs 6:16-19
You would think Jesus never warned us about being turned into hell if we accuse a brother or slander him falsely. Do we know what the word RACA means? Matthew 5:22. It's going to damn some people who think they're saved. Camp meetings have become running, screaming parties followed by retiring to the dining hall to attend the rumor mills and gossip rallies. Ichabod!

Certain preachers are kept out of some fellowships because of a wild rumor about him that someone believed without checking with that preacher, himself. Just recently a rumor was circulating that I was in cahoots with a prophetess (if you can imagine this) and that we were making money selling land together. Another rumor insinuated that I was too friendly with a widow in Switzerland! People must lay awake at night dreaming up these things or they get visions from the Devil in their sleep - probably the latter. Ichabod!

While I was on a mission to Brazil evangelizing, my web master of several years ago, a family I trusted explicitly, heard a rumor that I was coming to their city and split their church ... just a rumor!There was nothing to it. She proceeded to delete my entire web site and even her backup files on her hard drive! When I called to inquire what happened to my web site, that I couldn't find it on line, the voice said, "We heard a rumor."  These trusted friends had removed and destroyed all of my web files - years of work ... because they heard a rumor! Tongues of fire will surely burn someday. ICHABOD !!!  They not only destroyed a Christian ministry but far worse, they destroyed a wonderful friendship that was created by the Lord's death on the cross.  Their deed revealed that their spirit was driven by Satan and certainly NOT by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. ICHABOD !

 A fellowship clique is the worst kind of clique! It bars men God has called to strengthen the body which amounts to working against the Holy Ghost. I have had so many rumors and slanderous things said about me by "holiness" people" - that if I did not know the real holiness of the Scripture I would have joined the Charismatics long ago! It is a growing sin in "holiness" ranks. Some tongues drag on the ground they're so long. Ichabod!

I have been accused of being a homosexual and divorcing the wife of my youth. Several times my kindness to others was twisted to make me look evil. Many of you reading these lines have been the victims of the same evil spirit James warns the church against, and you know what I am saying is indeed a growing problem in the holiness ranks. Ichabod! The tongue is the most unruly member of the body but it can be tamed and it can be brought under the control of a praying Christian.

What will God do to people with tongues of fire who profess His name? In every case no one come and faced me directly and asked me about the accusation. What has happened to the order of the church Jesus personally gave us? Matthew 5:24.People who start and repeat such stories without going directly to the person they are talking about are worse off than the drunken sinners on skid row! Your foul tongue is the instrument of a foul mind and the curse of the church!  Ichabod!

Yes, we have tongues of fire in the conservative churches but they are the tongues of fire that usually wag inside of a church or fellowship clique who share a common dislike for a brother because they can't get anything on him so they start evil rumors based totally on the imagination of their evil minds. This is a serious Satanic mental problem. Ichabod!

God loves you but He hates your lying rumor spreading tongue of fiery iniquity and it will surely endanger your right to enter the Kingdom of God.

James tells us that the tongues of these people set the world on fire with the flames of iniquity lit by the fires of hell James 3:6. They are the tongues of damned people inspired of Satan!

A young preacher made a passive mistake not worth mentioning. A simple conversation could have cleared everything up. Instead a couple of preachers make an issue out of it and the rumor spreads and worsens with every retelling of the story. His ministry and his spirit was wounded, his wife suffered horribly and his ministry was scarred because the brethren had to talk it and spread it rather than tame their tongues. Brethren, when a man's life and calling are at stake - have mercy and go directly to the accused brother and resolve it with him before you destroy a man and his marriage! And for goodness sake always remember in such cases that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us if the tables were turned! Don't throw a man's life and ministry to the wind like a pillow full of feathers.

There is a story that comes out of England of a woman who started a terrible rumor about her pastor. The rumor got out of control and caused much more harm than she had anticipated! Finally the elders of the church started an investigation and it led to this one lady in the church. They brought her before the pastor and she asked for his forgiveness. After listening to her the pastor said, Take the pillow from the couch and go into the city square and empty the feathers from the pillow and return here with the pillow case. Willing to do what ever was necessary to have his forgiveness she went to the square and emptied all of the feathers from the pillow into the wind and returned to the pastor with the empty pillow case. He then said to her, "Dear sister, now I want you to return to the square, gather all of the feathers and return them to the pillow case and come here once again and I will forgive you. The woman was in unbelief that the pastor had asked this! She explained to the pastor that this was an impossible request because the wind had taken the feathers and she would never be able to recover them all. The pastor then assured her that he forgave her of her evil deed and then explained to her that the feathers are like the rumor she started.While he can easily forgive her it is impossible to stop the harm the rumor causes by spreading and being repeated long after he had forgiven her. There would be no way to stop the rumor. So is the deadly spread of falsehood as it goes on and on long after the guilty may have confesses it.

Rumors and evil reports continue to destroy character long after they are found to be untrue. Slanderous remarks and insinuations are demon spirits playing with a mind that has some evil feeling that finds pleasure in hurting and bashing someone hated. It is also sometimes an attempt to throw off guilt and wrongdoing by making the person I have wronged look evil. At our camp meetings years ago we preached whole sermons on slander and gossip and filled the altars with repenting saints. Today we preach people happy and then sit around after the meeting and gossip about the latest rumors of fallen brethren when we should holding them up with tears of compassion.

A fallen brother came back to a Holiness church to feel the power of God again in his life. But he left the meeting with a cry in his heart ... with no one caring for his soul. He was never seen again in our meetings. I tried to get in contact with Billy many times but could never locate him. Oh, God, I wish I could find Billy Guthrie and put my arms around him and tell him I love him. Hurting people come into our meetings and they leave without the help they long for - simply the caring support of a brother or sister. But the tongues of fire just kept wagging and Billy Guthrie is somewhere out in the world alone I don't know where, because the clique didn't let him in.  Ichabod!




                         carpentersshop



The Carpenter's Son card inserted here.






Under this banner we will be loading tons of truth for the edification for the end time church to do our part with what God has put into our hands to expose the unbiblical doctrinaires who corrupt the end time church with their Antinomian inspired apostasy as we near the Lord's  return.


Drums in the church? As music becomes a means of working up the emotions of God's people rather than His presence coming down upon a church of praying godly people we continue to mistake the true work of the Holy Spirit for a humanly produced psuedo Holy Spirit visitation. This keeps the church from experiencing the genuine supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit. It prevents the operation of the gifts to operate in the church that could bring Church of Acts power back to the church.
The piano should be the lead instrument in a church orchestra and especially in a worship service.

Biblical Preaching styles. To make a Scriptural study of the record of preachers and how they preached in Scritpure would surely bring a revival to many churches today that have developed a style of preaching based on values and origins certainly originating in Scripture.

In some Pentecostal circles "good preaching" has become the ability to preach a message of happiness and not holiness. Happiness makes people feel good about themselves while sin remains in their life. Good

 holiness preaching brings conviction and makes people with sin to repent - and that includes Chrsitians. Good holiness preaching sensitizes the conscience to be mindful of their carnal flaws that go counter to being like Jesus.

Oh, for preaching that is not determined good because it's loud marked by a handkercheif in one hand and a booming mic in the other. Scripture gives no such impressions by any of it's preaching examples. Jesus lifted up His voice, but that means He raised His voice and has no reference to His going into a style of preaching we see today.

Inspirational messages have good effect on the body of of Christ, but when our message becomes purely inspirational the church becomes spiritually malnourished. The church begins to believe their experience must be felt or they're backslidden. But then when the persecution comes they will learn several things very quick; (1) That they lack the strength that doctrine gives to withstand the horrendous signs and wonders of the Antichrist! (2) That they have no campmeetings to sustain their emotionalism. (3) That they regret not seeking out more opportunities to to sit and learn the sustaining powers of pure doctrine. There should be a balance with more doctrinal preaching to strengthen the saints against the onslaughts of the increasing campaign of the Antichrsit to turn the world against the church. But we are drifting more and more toward the empty shout and further and further from the tears of contrition.  The moderate churches, the false religions and the Charismatics have been successfully  neutered spiritually by Satanic deception and now the boy is turning his attention on the Pentecostals. How will he neuter them? Not by getting out in front of them and stumbling them, but by getting behind them and pushing them down to drown in a sea of human emotionalism. Let us go back to the Church of Acts and see them once again as our model and do nothing any different than we see the apostles doing.



             forgiving
Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which
are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of
meekness; considering thyself,
    lest thou also be tempted.

How is it that the forgiven are so unforgiving?

Allow me to paraphrase that for you; Brethren, if a man makes a mistake in life, then you who claim to be spiritual should reach out to him in a forgiving and reconciliatory manner and bring him back into the fold and nurture him spiritually until he is once again solidly grounded in the Lord - because you are made of the same stuff he is and you could very well make a mistake yourself, and then how would you like the brethren to treat you if the shoe was on the other foot?  Galatians 6:1.

A fallen brother came to a camp meeting to show his desire to fellowship with the brethren - seeking restoration by the brothers. The evangelist that night came off the platform speaking on the topic of fallen preachers, walked over to where the fallen preacher was sitting. Preaching into the microphone under the anointing (?), put his face right up into the face of the fallen man when he made the statement,  "... and that's why when a preacher falls he should never preach again!!"  Some months later that preacher made a mistake and the shoe was on the other foot.

In a second case a pastor fell and later recanted, left the sin he was in and returned to the church and rededicated his life to Jesus. Later he returned to the church he was pastoring when he fell from Grace. We are not saying that was too wise, but he probably assumed he was forgiven and made the decision to return. The new pastor went to him and told him to never come back to the church again.

In both cases we have mentioned the statements made to fallen men have an element of truth in them. In the first case, the preacher did not commit the scarlet sin of the act of adultery (a sin unto death). But in the second case the scarlet sin was committed and in that case he
should not fill the office of a bishop pastor or stand behind a sacred desk again. But rather than charging angrily at a brother in such a case, remember what Paul said, in meekness  restore such a brother! When a brother commits a scarlet sin we are not to blast him and add to his misery, but we are to mend or restore completely! that is what that word meekness means in Galatians. People think in imagry and even the memory uses images to recall unpleasant scenes from the past. It is certainly contrary to Scripture when Paul gave to Timothy the qualifications of a bishop (pastor/minister). There are sins that bar men from holding a sacred office again, ever. He can never fit the qualitfications and his personal calling is cancelled by the transgression that has marre4d the body. He can never again stand before the church as an example.

BUT, IN BOTH CASES THE MANNER IN WHICH THESE BROTHERS WERE APPROACHED AND TREATED WAS SHAMEFULLY WRONG AND CERTAINLY NOT GENTLE OR RECONCILIATORY. IN BOTH CASES THEY MAY HAVE REACTED TO THE DEEDS CORRECTLY BUT THEY CERTAINLY REACTED TO THEIR BRETHREN IN A VICIOUS AND UNFORGIVING WAY! THEY WERE RIGHT IN CONDEMNING THE MISDEED OF A BROTHER BUT THEY WERE DEAD WRONG IN THE WAY THEY HANDLED A PRECIOUS BROTHER WHO LONGED TO BE RESTORED.

What are Paul's words? Restore such an one in the spirit of meekness.
Praotes, meaning with gentleness and humility - not with an angry stern spirit. First, you arrange to see the brother privately, and then explain to him that you love him and forgive him and receive him as your brother and friend. Then explain to him why it would be better for him not to appear in the church until you decide and that it opens old wounds and recalls a dark valley for the people of the church. Explain to him that you would be happy to fellowship him and help him any way you possibly can and welcome his fellowship outside the church.

Be gentle and meek as Paul instructs us. Why? because the Holy Spirit works through a gentle spirit and the fruit of the spirit, and if we want the Spirit of God to help the church and the fallen brother we must walk and speak within the instructions given us in the Word of truth. It's not your angry and stern spirit that is going to help the brother or the church - it is speaking and acting in love toward one who seeks love and providing the Holy Spirit the atmosphere of truth and brotherly love He can work and do His wonders in.


When Paul instructed pastors to rebuke before all, that all may fear, he was addressing an altogether different situation than restoring a brother in meekness. In that case he was speaking of rebellious troublemakers in the church, not fallen brethren seeking to a way back to God. We must not confuse but rightly divide the Word of truth.

If a fallen brother returns to any fellowship with a wrong attitude and a belligerent spirit then the brethren are required to meet spirit with spirit! But here we are addressing the forgiving restoration process of a fallen brother who is broken and regretting his sin, whatever it was.

If it's a tithe paying family who leaves the church we go after them. But if a man makes a moral mistake and weeps in contrition and would be reconciled, most preachers will not forgive him but rather mark him and wound him with slander and gossip until he is driven out in shame. WOE to the unforgiving preachers who ostracize and kick fallen men when they are down!

Would you please notice the missing step (according to our assumptions) in this word of instruction Paul gives to (us) the church; that it is not mentioned that this wayward brother came back and asked for forgiveness! It's very clear that the church is to reach out to that brother and reason with him and receive him until he is restored WITHOUT him asking or begging for forgiveness! NONE OF US WOULD BE SAVED if our salvation depended on our asking God to forgive us before He went to the cross! HE REACHED OUT TO US BEFORE WE EVEN EXISTED AND PROVIDED FORGIVENESS AND THEN SENT HIS SPIRIT INTO THE WORLD TO CALL US OUT AND DRAW US TO CHRIST. We never asked Him to help us BEFORE we were saved. It was not until after we were touched by God when He reached out to us that we repented and were brought into the kingdom. HE reached for us BEFORE we asked Him for help.

The message is clear here, brethren. We are to reach out to men and women who have fallen and not ostracize them and bar them from the holy club of those who have not made the mistake they have. Methinks your attitude toward a fallen brother stinks in the nostrils of God and you may be committing more of a sin than they committed. You become like the unjust steward who was forgiven a half million dollars in talents and then beat on a man that owes you a mere 3.00 dollars in pence. Shame on us for making a man's mistake a scandal that destroys him. Is this the way Jesus came to you when you sinned against him? OR, does He treat you that way when you commit a secret sin and confess it to Him? NO! He receives us back with gentleness and forgiveness. Shame on us when we have been forgiven a whole life of sin but we can't restore a brother who has fallen and is trying to get back.

Many fallen have been turned away by unforgiving preachers when they tried to come back. But after being ignored and made a "marked man" by the brethren, turned back into the darkness, disappeared, and were never seen again. Shame on the FORGIVEN WHO HAVE NOT LEARNED THE REAL LOVE OF GOD THAT FORGIVES. THEY ARE FORGIVEN BUT THEY WILL NOT FORGIVE.
                  Forgiven people should be forgiving!
           Do we fail to forgive whom God does forgive?
The horrors of the cross indicate to every intelligent creature that there must have been an extreme reason for such an extreme measure to be taken by God as the only means of redeeming man from his sin.

Let's go back and consider from the very beginning the cause of the cross. The cause was sin and then we will show the link between the two as we go along. The meaning of sin is rather vague in most people's minds. It can mean different things to different people - and to some it means nothing! But we find the true meaning of sin in the bible in the very beginning of our redemption.

Adam and Eve sinned against God by showing contempt for His commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They trifled with death.That is they defied the commandment and placed little importance on what God said about disobedience bringing death. We have a lot of Adam's and Eve's today who are saying, God didn't really mean that, and then do their own thing in complete rebellion against what the Word teaches (pure doctrine). That attitude constitutes REBELLION! You may think you're getting away with it, but you're not. So we deduct from the very dawn of Biblical revelation that SIN IS REBELLION AGAINST GOD, REBELLION AGAINST HIS MAKER.  Sinners are REBELS against God's commandments, they may confess to believe in God and at the same time they show contempt for His commandments. Any person who treats the Word of God with indifference or contempt is a REBEL - A SINNER!

Rebellion against your maker is the grossest of all sins!
Free thinkers and professed atheists and agnostics don't want to believe in creationism because that would mean that God owns them as their maker and they become obligated to an authority beyond themselves and they don't want to be governed by a creator! So, to throw off His authority they simply deny He exists - and that won't work either!

The cross happened because man could only be restored through a process of perfect justice (justification) based on equivalence and that life was in the blood. The reason the cross was carried out was because it was the only way God could forgive man without any principle of perfect justice.

The cross happened because God wanted to forgive us.
It was the only way man could be forgiven.
The substitutionary death of Christ on Golgotha is the only possible way God can offer man forgiveness.
If God had no desire to forgive man then the cross would have never happened!
now, Whosoever will to the Lord may come! Revelation 22:17.

But from that broken idyllic relationship between man and God we see God from the moment of transgression reaching out to man to restore him and redeem him back to Himself offering FORGIVENESS. Yes, the great heart of God ached at the thought of being separated from His creation, humans, who had the power of choice had chosen to disregard Him and turn from Him to seek the pleasures of the human appetites - which all who rebel against God are doing to this day! The economy of the world is based on human life apart from God's governing principles. The cosmos system delights itself in pleasure, sensationalism, the appetites of sex, hunger and ambition, human gain and power with little or no regard for their creator, showing  contempt especially for His moral commandments.

And yet God's son keeps reaching out to man with nail scarred hands to prove His forgiving love toward us. It's woven throughout the Scripture that God is a forgiving God full of love for the rebel sinner who returns to him in repentance.

There is that one classic verse in the Bible that tells the whole world the whole story of how God reacts to all the rebellion of mankind;  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

In the beginning when Adam and Eve rebelled against God's word to them, He slew two animals and made coats of skins and clothed them.  From the very beginning God was reaching out to man to forgive him and bring him back to Himself.  At the time we did not realize that He was already instituting blood redemption based on perfect justice that He might forgive all who have rebelled against Him.

The slain animals providing a covering for Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 was the first type of blood redemption that foretold the coming redemption of the cross that was  the final divine act of God providing forgiveness for man to save him from just damnation.

You cannot understand the Bible;
You will never understand the nature of God or the cross until you see that at the root of all He has done and all that recorded in Scripture is based on his divine desire to forgive man and restore him to to the fellowship of his presence and favor.

Forgiveness is at the heart of the cross.

Forgiveness is the very foundation of the gospel.

Forgiveness is the reason for justification.

It is the theme of the Bible and the message of evangelism!

Forgiveness was the main topic of Jesus and the cry of the disciples as they went out into the world after the cross.

Forgiveness was the message of the prophets and lies at the core of every Christian doctrine.

their cry to REPENT! offered forgiveness of God to all who called upon His name believing.

Forgiveness is why sinners cry at the altars of the church.
Forgiveness is the reason every message of evangelism ends with a call to repent.
Forgiveness is why the church exists and without it, it is not a church!
Forgiveness changes everything including you and your destiny.
Forgiveness jerks a soul from the flames of hell and sets his feet on streets of gold!
Forgiveness transforms a hopeless and heartless drug addict into a loving father.
Forgiveness of the foulest sinners is the only word that can define the true character of God's love.
When forgiveness through repentance was refused kings and nations fell apart.
Jesus gave His life for His killers. Man of sorrow, what a name,
                                                      For the Son of God who came,
                                                      Ruined sinners to reclaim!
                                                      Hallelujah, WHAT A SAVIOR !!

But forgiveness is not to be limited to God FORGIVING MAN.
JESUS CAME TEACHING US TO FORGIVE ONE ANOTHER.

The presence of that forgiveness is the signature of the truly born again and it matters not what your nature was like before new birth.  A forgiving nature is the one thing every Christian should be cultivating, and as I will do that, it will effect my attitude in every other area of my life.

Forgiveness between brethren, family members, neighbors and business associates was once a major theme of the evangelical message from the church house to the brush arbor camp meeting and it was common for Christians to possess that quality. Asking forgiveness and making restitution for wrongs we committed, or losses we brought to others was part of the conversion experience and was  preached and practiced from the pulpit to the pew in church generations past. But in the modern materialistic church this godly principle has been all but trashed and relegated to silence.

But when we lose this sweet quality we lose the Spirit of the cross.
Asking forgiveness takes a broken heart.
A proud man is not going to ask another to forgive him.
A hard spirit will not ask for forgiveness.
Thieves and the dishonest are not going to ask forgiveness.

Condemned men strapped down ready to be executed in the death chambers often ask forgiveness - too late.

Marriages go on the rocks because spouses who were once tender asking forgiveness became hard and proud losing the humility needed to say, I was wrong and I'm sorry.

A forgiving spirit will let some things pass by in order to avoid hard feelings.

Forgiveness is not necessarily something we do if we are asked,

             And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any:
                             that your Father also which is in heaven may
                                         forgive you your trespasses.

            But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven
                                             forgive your trespasses.

                        Do you think God is fooling when He says this?

You don't have to be asked to forgive before you forgive someone. Forgive them before you pray!

I can forgive a person even if they do not ask me to forgive them.
That what Jesus did on the cross.
A forgiving spirit forgives without being asked, BUT, if I wrong any person I should offer my apologies and ask for forgiveness that it might be well with me in the judgment!

Do you see that God provided forgiveness for the world before the majority of us were even born!
Forgiveness was there waiting for me from my birth.

Let us take a lesson from God and learn forgiveness as He demonstrated it by His example.

I remember once when I was a young preacher that an older minister became very suspicious of me trying to draw people around myself in a takeover of the church. The furthest thing from my mind!! I didn't realize his suspicions until one night service he preached on Absalom, kept looking at me and drew parallels between "some young preachers" and Absalom that was quite clear to all he meant me. I was shocked and my heart was pierced because I was deeply devoted to that pastor and proved my loyalty to him so many times.  I went to the altar and prayed at the end of the service and asked God what I should do - what I could possibly do to calm all of his fears. The Lord told me at the altar that night what to. After the altar service I went to the pastor and I said to him, "Pastor, the lord really spoke to me tonight and I have asked for His forgiveness for any wrong, (even though I knew I had done no wrong. But that was what he wanted to hear and what would give him assurance). Thank you for this message, it spoke the truth to my heart." He grabbed me and hugged me and that was the end of his suspicions. I could have risen up with righteous anger to think he thought such an evil thing of me. I could have started talking and denouncing his suspicious spirit to the other brothers. But the answer is not vindication, the answer is to forgive him and do anything possible to preserve the peace of of the church. That was a precious lesson from the Holy Spirit for me on the power of Forgiveness. I learned that forgiveness is reconciliatory.

To this day a brother I love very much and enjoyed working with on a mission field refuses to forgive me after I asked for his forgivness and he continues to slander me to other brothers.  Actually, he accused me falsely and would not even acknowledge that when I gave him proof and his own blood brother confirmed I was telling the truth. He ignored the facts and chose to hate me and tried to bar me from the favor of other brethren. His problem to this day is that he cannot FORGIVE nor can he ask to be forgiven. Once he picks a fight with a brother he commits RAGA refusing to forgive, telling others who sat in on the meeting I had with him to clear everything up, that I didn't mean it when I asked for forgiveness. When I presented the facts about his false charges against me, he brushed them aside instead of admitting what he did wrong and had falsely accused me. 

We have two examples above to show that forgiveness is reconciliatory but an unforgiving spirit is reckless and dissembling. Pride, anger and ambition will rob your soul of the forgiving spirit.  Forgiveness wants to put things together and restore what was lost even if it means taking the blame.

Jesus made it very clear that if we do not forgive our brethren that we will not be forgiven. To not be forgiving is an attitude of the most dangerous kind! It can have eternal consequences.

In Matthew 6:14-15 we find the Lord's words concerning this danger.

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
                                                                                                                                              Matthew 6:14-15

When I see an unforgiving attitude in a professing Christian I wonder if they ever reflect on the fact that Jesus has forgiven them. Can we be forgiven so much by the Lord and then refuse to be forgiving to any person?  Look at the cross all of you hard boiled loveless people who call yourselves Christians - THINK! See what He has forgiven you!
         Forgiven people should be forgiving!

In Matthew 18:21-35 is one of the Lord's strongest teachings on forgiveness.
A certain king would take account of his servants:

One was brought that owed him 10,000 talents!
This is more than 1,500,000 dollars - a million and half dollars!

His Lord ordered him to be bound and he, his wife and children to be sold as slaves because he had no way to pay such a huge debt!
He cried out to his Lord,
Have patience with me and I will pay it all.
Then his Lord looked upon his plight and had compassion on him.
He was loosed and forgiven the debt! FORGIVEN THE DEBT!! 1.5 million dollars!!
He came out from the presence of his Lord and found another servant that owed him 100 pence - about $3.00 - took him by the throat and demanded the debt be payed!

That servant asked forgiveness of him in the same words the unjust steward cried out to his Lord asking for mercy.
But one of the servants went and told the king.
He was brought back to the Lord again and this time there was no forgiveness!!

                                                      Let me repeat;
         Forgiven people should be forgiving!

This wicked servant was delivered to the tormentors.
                   This should give us a pretty good idea how God
                      will deal with unforgiveness in the judgment.

The wicked servant offers many precious lessons. Will we learn from them?
1.  He respected the king and called him Lord
     But he had no respect for his fellow servant.
     How can we love God and not love our brethren?
        If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar:
        for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen,
        how can he love God whom he hath not seen?  I John 4:20.
        He worshiped the King and despised his brother? Impossible !!

2.    He recognized the authority of the King but then abused his authority when dealing with a           brother.
        
3.     God will judge the forgiven who are unforgiving without mercy in the judgment!!
 
4.     Forgiveness arouses gratitude \
        And gratitude should make us forgiving of others.
        If we hold grudges and commit RACA against anyone it is only a three     
        dollar wrong compared to what He has forgiven you - 1.5 million dollars!

Unforgiveness makes no sense to any true Christian. After being forgiven more than a million dollar debt we turn around and take a man by the throat for three dollars!? No wonder God will turn the unforgiving over to the tormentors!

5. How much did Jesus stress the importance of forgiveness? When asked by Peter how often we should forgive our brother - maybe seven times? Jesus started His answer with, Verily, verily. This may be the same as, firmly, firmly, or surely, surely, meaning so be it or Amen! When He started any reply with these words it simply meant, you'd better be sure! or, it's a very sure thing! The Jesus said, I say unto thee, not seven times, BUT SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN. What He meant by that was - there is not limit. Forgiveness should never be withheld from anyone and especially anyone who asks your forgiveness. And that means we forgive as God forgives and that offense is removed from between us as far as the East is from the West!

Let the church return to forgiveness and give the pentent a break. Forgiveness is always followed by gratitude and produces good fruit in all who have received it from God and from other of the brethren. Don't hold a grudge, but rather show the Calvary love that forgave you 1.5 million dollars worth of sin!  The forgiven should be forgiving.

Some other subjects we will be treating here;

Tithes: Is the tithe a dispensational principle or does it apply to both law and Grace?
Fasting: A day by day diary a brother kept while he was on a 40 day fast.
Confession of Sin. Does the Scripture teach us that we should confess our sins before the congregation? If you want to  hurt the body of Christ you will.
submission of wives: Is the world becoming girlie in what is political correct?
Divorce/Remarriage: Does the bible tolerate divorce or remarriage? Or does God hate putting away? 
  ...
and many, many other subjects modern preachers have forsaken that Jesus taught us.



                  Choice
        See the chart, Three Zones of Grace, Before, At and After
              For a Good understanding of Grace and Works
Allow me to make a few comments on this subject and then read Parks excellent treatment of Eternal Security. This doctrine is a doctrine that can be taught convincingly that salvation is unconditional and can be strongly supported by many Scriptures but there are as many scriptures that teach the balance to the true meaning of election that salvation is conditional. But the proponents  conspicuously avoid any explanation of those Scriptures that teach that salvation is conditional or that it also entails good works. I heard both David Breese and Dr. Curtis Hudson deliver excellent messages on How I know I have Eternal Life. These are two of the finest apologists for Evangelical Christian doctrine and they both have my highest respect as men of God. But as I listened to their inspiring messages teaching the Eternal Security doctrine hoping they would address more than a select few Scriptures, they both stopped short of doing that. Dr. Breese, who is now deceased, treated the subject for more than two hours on tapes basing his study on Ephesians 2:8 and 9 but never went on to include verse 10 which mentions good works.

One day, while visiting Randy Sheridan he opened his library of old books and some of the greatest writings of Bible expositors from the past. He even allowed me to borrow a couple of the books to my delight. In one of his books I read the greatest and most simple approaches to Arminianism I have ever read or heard, by W. J. Parks, 1884, who lived more than a century ago but whose words are full of unique treatment of truth in God's Word. I felt I must share this great man's message with all of you. It first appeared in my Hagios (Holy) Letter which I sent out over two years and now here it is on my web site for your spiritual pleasure. Let me say a few words about this position paper on Eternal Security.

I want to repeat that the part of Scripture is interpreted by the whole of Scripture and never does a part of Scripture interpret the whole of Scripture. When you attempt to isolate a Scripture or several Scriptures from other Scriptures that treat the same subject you will always end up with wrong doctrine and leave a wrong impression that a half truth or part truth always leaves on the mind. Brother Parks approaches this doctrine from a very correct assumption that eternal security assumes that once you are saved you will neither backslide or return to your sin and that if you do, you were never saved in the first place. According to the predestination people, it means you were never saved if you fall away from the lord. They teach that you cannot be saved and then be lost and then be saved again. Brother Parks proves clearly from the Word of God that this is error! Predestination is covering it's backsides by asserting that when you get saved it's once and forever with no second chance once you backslide - because if you backslide then you were never saved in the first place. This is the premise that brother parks shatters into bits and pieces. here are here words solid as the rock on which we stand!


This study on the subject of conditional salvation is taken from an essay entitled Apostasy by Reverend W. J. Parks and edited by Thomas O. Sumners, D.D., Southern Methodist Publishing Company, 1884. Here is a voice from the past speaking again to the church a century later. The author uses the term apostasy where perhaps today we would use the word backslidden.

In this article W.J. Parks proves from the Bible that there is a conditional aspect to salvation. Election is certainly a sovereign thing with God as to the conditions of salvation, and his calling after a person has accepted Christ. But the idea that Sovereign Election is without the individuals consent and choice is to fly in the face of scores of Scriptures throughout the Bible. Let us be wise and humble about it and reconcile the part the sovereignty of God plays in man's achieving heaven with the part free moral agency plays in determining the destiny of man.

Little did W.J. Parks know when he penned this study on conditional salvation that his words would be put on cyber space reaching around the world to the edification of believers the world over. Here is the truth about salvation and eternal Security teaching.

Brother Parks lays the Sword to the predestination doctrine
The original study was entitled, Apostasy

By W. J. Parks

Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, IF thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.  Romans 11:22

BIBLICAL EXAMPLES OF MAN CHOOSING TO FALL FROM GRACE 

KING SAUL
In proof that Saul was saved and favored of God, we refer to 1 Samuel 10.  It says, "God gave him another heart."  I wish to ask, was that a good heart or a bad one which God gave him?  He had a bad heart before, and needed not another heart like it;  nor was it consistent with God's nature or design to give him a bad heart, for the purpose of qualifying him to govern Israel.

It is also said, "The Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied;" from which it appears the word of God was fulfilled, (1 Samuel 10:6,) for he was "turned into another man."  Here I would again pause to ask, Did a holy God turn him into a bad man?  If so then God turned a bad man into a bad man?!? God directed Samuel to anoint Saul, that he might be "captain" over his people Israel, and to save them "out of the hand of the Philistines!"

It was said to Saul by Samuel, "God is with thee."  Let us look at the king as he now stands before us.  Here he is, "turned into another man."  "The Spirit of God is with him:"  "God has given him another heart," and he is "prophesying" amongst God's prophets.  It does seem that no one could believe other than that Saul was then a good man, made so by God's power and grace.

Let us now inquire, Did he fall?  He did, and died a wretched apostate, by a voluntary act of his own.  In 1 Samuel 16:14, it is said, "The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul," and that "an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him."  In chapter 18, we learn that this evil spirit "came upon Saul."

In chapter 28, he sought out, went to, and consulted a witch; a woman that had a familiar spirit.  This he did, it seems, because "the Lord answered him not."

He repeatedly made efforts to murder David by his own hands.

In chapter 31:4 and 6, we read, "Saul took a sword, and fell upon it: . . . so Saul died." His final act was self murder, suicide.

Samuel charged him with breaking God's commandments.  He had "turned back from following God:" "the Spirit of God departed from him: . . . an evil spirit came upon him . . . the Lord departed from him."  He was a murderer - he tried to kill David, and did kill himself.  "No murderer hath eternal life abiding in him:" hence, it is written of him, (1 Chronicles 10:13-14,) "So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the Lord, even against the word of the Lord, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to inquire of it, and inquire not of the Lord."

Here was a good man:  he fell - he died a wretched apostate.  "Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed, lest he fall."

CASE 2.  JUDAS ISCARIOT IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE.
Was Judas A Devil? - I am aware that it has been often alleged that Judas was a devil from the beginning.  Of this, however, there is not the least intimation in the Bible.

Let us now calmly inquire into the history of Judas, and see whether or not the fact is clearly established that he was ever a good man, a Christian.

I offer in proof of this the following facts and arguments:

THAT JUDAS WAS CHOSEN
Judas and eleven others were chosen by Jesus Christ as his apostles, (John 15:19,) and sent out by him to "preach, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils," etc. Matthew 10:7-8.  What! a devil sent out by the Lord Jesus Christ to cast out devils!  Impossible!  Did Jesus Christ choose a devil to do his work?  Strange choice, this!  Jesus, addressing his twelve disciples, Judas being one of that number, said, "Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."  Matthew 19:28.  In proof that Judas was present, and the promise made to him as directly as it was to the others, I refer the reader to chapter 20:17, where the twelve are addressed as having been all present.  This sitting upon a "throne" was a strange promotion promised by Jesus Christ to the devil, if indeed Judas were such.  The very idea is ridiculous, not to say blasphemous.  Judas was Christ's "own familiar friend, in whom he trusted."

Compare Psalm 41:9 with John 13:18 and Acts 1:16.

I ask, is it possible that any one can be so blinded by a creed as to believe that Jesus Christ ever was the "familiar friend" of the devil, and, what is yet worse, "trusted" in the devil?  If this were so, how foolish were the disciples, when, to fill his place, they were so careful to select a good man, Matthias, that he might fill the place of a devil, who "had obtained part of this ministry."  Acts 1:17-27.

Jesus Christ knew the hearts of all men, and came into the world expressly for the purpose of destroying the works of the devil. To accomplish that work, He chose a devil, a child of the devil, and ordained him, made a "familiar friend" of him, and sent him out in His name to preach his gospel, cast out devils, raise the dead, promising him a seat on one of the twelve thrones of judgment!  This can only be true if none apostatize, unless Judas was indeed saved in the beginning. 

Let us now examine the possibility of Judas becoming lost after being a chosen friend of Jesus.

JUDAS LOST
We read (Acts 1:25) that "Judas, by transgression, fell."  He went to "his own place."  Christ himself said, "Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition."  John 17:12.  Judas "went and hanged himself."  Matthew 27:5.  Like Saul, his last act was self murder, and we quote John  again, "No murderer hath eternal life abiding in him?"  Christ said, "Woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed:  it had been good for that man if he had not been born."  Matthew 27:24.  This, however, could not be said in truth, if Judas was saved.

We learn that "Satan entered into him."  John 13:27.  He had become "a thief," (John 12:6;) and with his money, the price of his Master, he "purchased a field, the reward of his iniquity."  Acts i.18.  Judas himself said, "I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood."  Matthew 27:4.  True, he "repented,"  and "wept bitterly,"  but his was the repentance of despair, and his tears did not fall in the sight of mercy.  The picture of this wretched apostate is a dark and gloomy one; hence we ought to "take heed, lest we fall."

CASE 3.  HYMENEUS AND ALEXANDER ARE EXAMPLES OF TOTAL APOSTASY. 
                                                                                                               See 1 Timothy 1:19-20.

Although the history given of these
persons is a short one, it is conclusive proof of the possibility of apostasy.  They are said to have "put away faith and a good conscience."  They not only put these away, but, "concerning faith, they had made shipwreck."  By this form of expression, I understand a total wreck, a total apostasy, so that they had by the apostle been "delivered over to Satan."  "How are the mighty fallen!"

CASE 4.  THE YOUNG WIDOWS
In 1 Timothy 5:12, Paul speaks thus:  "Having damnation,
because they have cast off their first faith."  If this were good faith, saving faith, which they once had, and if they were now damned "because they cast it off," then were they truly ruined apostates.  If we suppose theirs was a spurious faith, then are we involved in the absurdity of admitting, and Paul of teaching, that people are damned because they cast away that which is worthless; so, then, we would be damned "because" we did not cast it away, and damned "because" we did cast it away.  Fine theology, this!


CASE 5.  THE ANCIENT ISRAELITES ARE ALSO EXAMPLES TO WARN US OF
                THE POSSIBILITY AND DANGER OF APOSTASY

This is the use the apostle makes of their fall in various places.  The reader is referred especially to 1 Corinthians 10, and Hebrews chapters 3 and 4, for the history of their overthrow, and the account to which the apostle turns it.

A few words of comment will serve our purpose in presenting them as examples.  They "were all baptized (was this believers' baptism?) unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink;  for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ."  Yet of these very people it is said they tempted Christ, murmured, committed idolatry, believed not, etc.; and we are cautioned by these things written of them- "written for our admonition"- to "take heed, lest we fall; . . .  to "labor, therefore, to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief;" and, seeing "they could not enter in because of unbelief," to "take heed, lest there be in any of you (Hebrew Christians) an evil heart of unbelief in
departing from the living God."

                                                 SCRIPTURAL TESTIMONY

We now consider a few of the many Scriptures that teach of man's being saved and then being damned. These passages from the Bible would have to be wrested and explained by a forced construction, to make them mean anything but the Biblical truth that man's eternal salvation is based on the condition of obedience.

2 CHRONICLES 15
God said to King Asa, (2 Chronicles 15:2,) "The Lord is with you while ye be with him;  and if ye seek him, he will be found of you;  but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you."  This is plain language, and perfectly accords with David's words to Solomon:  "If thou forsake him, (God,) he will cast thee off forever." 1 Chronicles 28:9.  Precisely the same doctrine is taught in

EZEKIEL
God says HERE by his prophet, "When I shall say to the righteous that he shall surely live, if he trust to his own righteousness  and commit iniquity, all his righteousness shall not be remembered;  but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it." Ezekiel 33:13. The very same views are presented at large in this chapter, and in the third and eighteenth chapters of Ezekiel's prophecy.

It has been said the "righteous" here spoken of are the "self-righteous."  If that is so, it would mean God is telling the "self-righteous" man that he should "surely live," when the self righteous ("his own righteousness") "shall die". 

Three Different Kinds Of Law
1. Law of Faith. Belief in the finished works of Christ secures for us a new relationship with God
2. Law of ceremony
3. Law of works. Good works produced by obedience to the laws of God. When man establishes his behavior in the law of God he produces results that strengthen and bring order and happiness to the social conditions.

A Temporal Death?  -  It has been said that the death here spoken of is a temporal death.  This is too absurd to need refutation;  for if this were true, then would the promise be good to every righteous man who did not turn away from his righteousness, that he should never die a temporal death;  whereas, "we must needs die," for in Adam "all die."

This passage in Ezekiel  passage I have above quoted, and others of similar import, throw much light on many portions of God's word, especially on such portions as treat of the safety and security of God's people, where no mention is made of any condition upon which such blessings shall be conferred. 

THE PROMISE -
Does God, in any place, say to his people, "No good thing shall be withheld" from them- "no weapon formed against thee shall prosper"- etc., so let it be. 

THE CONDITION -
Yet we are always to remember that we "are kept by the power of God, through faith,"  (1 Peter 1:5,)  and that, whenever or wherever God says to the righteous, "he shall surely live," whether the condition is there named or not, it is implied. 

ALL PROMISES CONDITIONAL WHETHER MENTIONED OR NOT -
He said to the Jews, (Jeremiah 18:9-10,).  "At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;  if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them."  Jesus Christ promised Judas a throne to sit upon, as we have before shown;  yet he never sat upon it, because he, "by transgression, fell."  He did not comply with the conditions implied, although not there expressed.  There are hundreds of promises in the Bible of like character:  they are made to us on the conditions elsewhere and often repeated. In 1 Samuel 23:11-13, we learn that David inquired of the Lord thus: "Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his (Saul's) hand?  Will Saul come down?  Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul"?

The Lord told him,  "He will come down.  They will deliver thee up."  And yet Saul "forbare to go forth."  He never went to Keilha, nor did the men of Keilah deliver David or his men up to Saul.  Pray why?  There was no condition named, and yet, as in thousands of cases, it was implied.  David left Keilah; so Saul never went there.

"When I say to the righteous, he shall surely live,"  "At what instant I speak to a nation," is God's declared method of dealing with man, and presents the whole truth, and reconciles all portions of Scripture.

MATTHEW 5
But to return to our direct proof.  Christ, in his Sermon on the Mount, says to his disciples, "Ye are the salt of the earth;  but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?  It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men."  Matthew 5:13.  This passage conveys no meaning whatever, unless it is this, that the salt may lose its virtue, and thereby become "good for nothing;" the moral of which, and what I suppose to be the Saviour's meaning, is beautifully set forth in the words of the poet:

"Ah, Lord, with trembling I confess
A gracious soul may fall from grace:
The salt may lose its seasoning power,
And never, never find it more."

MATTHEW 12
We refer you, in further proof, to the parable of the "unclean spirit," Matthew 12:43-45.  Surely "when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man," he must be a good man.  "When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace.  But when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armor wherein he trusted."  Luke 11:21-22.  From which I learn that the devil- "the strong man"- "does not leave of his own accord for political reasons," as one said, but he "keepeth his palace" until Jesus Christ - the "stronger than he" shall "overcome him," and cast him out.  Yet we learn that this very same "unclean spirit, and seven other spirits more wicked than himself, enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first."  Can any one believe he was a bad man with an unclean spirit in him, and then a bad man without an unclean spirit, and then a bad man with eight demons in him?  Is this the lesson taught?  Nay, reader:  he had a bad heart.  Christ cast the demon out; but he was permitted to return and reenter with seven others.  He apostatized.  Hence the truth and propriety of the declaration, his "last state" was "worse
than the first."

MATTHEW 18
In Matthew 18, we have a parable in which is set forth this fact:  a king, in reckoning with his servants, found one that "owed him ten thousand talents," whom, out of "compassion, he loosed, and forgave him the debt;" yet, in consequence of the wickedness of that servant subsequent to this, in refusing to have "compassion" on a a fellow- servant, he revoked the pardon, "and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him."  Christ applies this, by saying, "So, likewise shall my Heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses."  "Do also" -in like manner.  How?  Revoke the pardon, and hold us to account for all our sins- "All his righteousness shall not be remembered."  Universalists of the old school, usually called "Hell-redemptionists," might claim that such are saved, after paying "all that was due."  I judge it is a bad chance to rescue a backslider when he is turned over to "the tormentors" to "pay all that is due,"  and he insolvent.

MATTHEW 25
In Matthew 25, we have the parable of the ten virgins, in which the same doctrine is taught as to the possibility of a decline in religion, such a decline, too, as proves fatal.  All were virgins;  all went forth on the same errand;  all had lamps; and it would seem all had these lit- as the foolish said, "Our lamps are gone out."  The Margin has it, going out.  They all alike slumbered and slept.  They all alike awake at the cry, "Behold, the bridegroom cometh!"  yet five of these were shut out.  Why?  Because, "foolish"- improvident, they "took no oil in their vessels" to replenish their lamps.  Had the bridegroom come early, at the usual time, they had doubtless all been ready;  but they suffered their light to go out, as thousands do.  They were apostates.

JOHN 15
In the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel by St. John, we have upon record the Saviour's parable of the vine and the branches.  Christ represents himself as the "Vine," and believers as "branches."  He affirms such "are clean,"  and then exhorts them to "abide in him," assuring them that, "as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in me."  In verse 6, he says, "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned."  Here, again, the only chance to save such as are cast forth out of him, is by "hell-redemption," which rescues from the fire of hell such as have, by being tormented therein, paid the debt.

ROMANS 11
Paul, by a similar figure of speech, teaches the same doctrine, in Romans 11.  He there shows the Gentiles why and how the Jews fell; and sets forth the relation of believing Gentiles to God and his true Church under the figure of an "olive tree,"  the natural branches of which -the Jews- had been "broken off because of unbelief;"  which fact he uses to caution them, i.e., the Gentiles who believed in these words:  "Be not high-minded, but fear; for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee."  He tells them of God's goodness toward them, but says, "if thou continue in his goodness:  otherwise thou also shall be cut off."  Comment is needless:  in fact, no comment on such plain language can make it any plainer to an unsophisticated mind.

1 CORINTHIANS 9
Paul, in speaking of himself, said, (1 Corinthians 9:27) "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway" -literally, a reprobate.  No language can be any plainer.  Paul was stating what he, as a Christian and Christian minister, did, and why he did it.  He had acted the part and character of preacher or herald to others.  To them he had held out a crown of life:  it was, therefore, essential to him that, on his part, he complied with the rules of the race, lest the Great Judge should reject him in the final day of distributing crowns.

2 TIMOTHY
In another place he said, "I press toward the mark, for the prize of my high calling of God in Christ Jesus."  Philippians 3:14.  Having done all this, no wonder when finishing his "course," he could write to Timothy, (2 Timothy 4:7-8) "I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day."

ROMANS 8
From the above, it is easy to comprehend the apostle's meaning when he says, (Romans 8:38-39,) "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God."  For as he had said, (verse28,) "All things work together for good to them that love God."  He "kept under his body,"  and they were walking, "not after the flesh, but after the spirit."

Of all such, it is true, nothing shall, nay nothing can "separate them from the love of God."

HEBREWS 6
In Hebrews 6:4-6, we read, "It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance;  seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." Certainly, those who were enlightened, and had tasted the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and had tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, were Christians.  If not, I should like to know how we are to settle that question with any one.

What does the word "again" in this place mean?  Does it not clearly prove that they had before that repented?  It does:  hence, the word "again" is used.  Whatever else is taught in this place, it is certainly taught beyond a doubt that apostasy is possible.

HEBREWS 10
Again, in Hebrews 10:26-29, we read, "If we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.  He that despised Moses' law, died without mercy, under two or three witnesses:  of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of grace?"  Here we have the doctrine of the possibility of apostasy set forth as strong as language can make it.  Two facts strike our mind forcibly:  First, the height from which such fall;  Second, the depths into which they fall, hence the "sorer punishment" spoken of.  Yes, a punishment awfully more severe than befell the rebellious Jew.

2 PETER 1
In 2 Peter 1:9 we read:  "He that lacketh these things (the things above enumerated, such as adding to his faith, virtue, etc.)  is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.  Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure;  for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall."  Such language needs no comment.  (a) The wretched state of such as lack these things, and (b) the way to avoid it, are both clearly pointed out.

2 PETER 2 (Verse 14)
In the second chapter of the same Epistle, verses 14, 15, Peter speaks of some whom he calls "cursed children," and charges that they had "forsaken the right way, and had gone astray, following the way of Balaam."  Surely, if such had "forsaken the right way," they had once been in it.  He says, in speaking of them, (verse 17,) that, for them, "the midst of darkness is reserved for ever."

2 PETER 2 (Verse 20)
Again, verse 20 of the same chapter, he speaks of such as had "escaped the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ;" and alleges that they, being "again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning;" and declares that "it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them."  Nothing can be plainer than these words of Peter in proof of our position. These persons had "escaped the pollutions of the world,"  and that, too, by the evangelical method it was "through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."  They had "known the way of righteousness," and yet, if such be "again entangled" in the "pollutions of the world," and "overcome," the "latter end is worse with them than the beginning;" and it had "been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness;" yet this could not be said in truth of such, if their "final salvation is sure."

The apostle closes the chapter by informing his brethren that "it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, "The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire."

The comment made on this by a minister in the pulpit was rather singular.  He said, "The sow was a hog all the time, both before she was washed and afterward:  therefore, from this passage there was no proof of the possibility of falling from grace."  I will just remind the reader that the relapse is the very thing Peter is here discoursing about.  The sow had been washed:  she was then a hog, that is true, but a clean hog;  but when she returned to her wallowing in the mire, she relapsed into her former filthy state;  just as apostates do, in a moral sense, when they return to "the pollutions of the world,"  from which they had "clean escaped."  (Editor's note: You don't stop being human when your saved, you are made "clean" by the blood. Transformation effects the natural man but he does not cease being human or physical. John 15:3; 1 John 1:7,9.)

2 JOHN
John says, (2 John 9,)  "Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God;"  and surely he that "hath not God,"  cannot be saved eternally.

JUDE
Jude, in his Epistle, verse 12, forcibly describes the state of apostates, whom he calls "trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots."  Once such were "dead in trespasses and sins;"  but they had been  "quickened together with Christ."  Now they had so relapsed into sinful desires and habits, that they were dead again  -  "twice dead;" 
and to show the utter hopelessness of the restoration of such, Jude adds, "plucked up by the roots."  In verse 13, he makes their destiny clear, beyond all dispute, by saying that to such "is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever:"

REVELATION
The Epistles to the seven Churches in Asia abound with proofs of the possibility of apostasy.  We select only a few examples.

Ephesus
In Revelation 2:4-5, these words are addressed to the Church at Ephesus:  "I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.  Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works;  or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove they candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."  To say that such would certainly escape the curse by obeying the instructions, is begging the question.  They are addressed as moral agents, who might not repent, and escape these calamities.

Pergamos
Christ also complains of a portion of the Church at Pergamos, and says, (Revelation 2:16) "Repent or else I will come unto thee quickly and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth." 
Laodicea
The Laodicean Church (Revelation 3:15-16) were complained of, because they were "neither cold nor hot;"  hence, Christ said to them, "Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth."  Terrible threat, this;  yet it was a threat made not to tantalize, but to be executed, if they did not reform.

REVELATION 22
In Revelation 22:19: we have these remarkable words:  "If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."  Here, to "take away out part out of the book of life," on certain conditions, is a thing spoken of as possible.  More than that, it comes as a caution, as a threat.

It is worthy of remark, that, at the very beginning of the revelation of God to man in his holy book, we have the history of the fall of our first parents, who, although made "in the image of God," (see Gen.i.27,) yet, by "sin," they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body."  (Presbyterian Confession of Faith.)  So, at the close   -   yes, almost in the closing words of the Book of Revelation  - we have the admonitory words above quoted, clearly setting forth the danger and possibility of apostasy.

                                  SCRIPTURAL EXHORTATIONS OF WARNING

This class consists of the threats, promises, and exhortations so frequently found in the Bible, which are made with reference to this very fact.  To each of these separately we now invite the earnest attention of the reader, giving only a few specimens of each.

1.  Threats. 
"If thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever."  1 Chronicles 29:9. 

"If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him."  Hebrews 10:38. 

"How shall we escape, if  we neglect so great salvation?"  Hebrews 2:3. 

"I will come unto thee quickly, and remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."  Revelation 2:5.  God threatens, unless they repent, to "fight against them with the sword of his mouth."  Revelation 2:16. 

Christ threatens his Church at Sardis to "come on them as a thief," unless they "watch."  Revelation 3:3. 

God threatens the righteous man, that if he "turn from his righteousness, he shall die in his sin."  Ezekiel 3:20.

2.  Let us now give a few specimens of promises, made with direct reference to this subject. "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."  Revelation 2:10. 

Again, in the same chapter, (verses 26-28,)  we have the promise of power over the nations;  and Christ adds, "I will give him the morning star . . . that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end."

In Revelation 3:5, Christ says, He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.  At verse 10, we have these remarkable words:  "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee,"  Peter says, (2 Peter 1:10,) "If ye do these things, ye shall never fall."
 
The above will suffice as specimens, out of hundreds of promises to those who watch and overcome.

Exhortations abound cautioning us against apostasy;  such as, "Take heed, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." Hebrews 3:12. 

"Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.  1 Corinthians 10:12.  

"Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, (25) To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.   Jude 1:24-25

End of  Parks excellent study




        
Following are some additional comments regarding the predestination doctrine.


A THEOLOGICAL LOOK AT PREDESTINATION

The Different Kinds Of Predestination
Predestination is a term used to speak in general regarding God's will or eternal decree concerning the eternal state of people.

Supralapsaranism or antelapsarianism  -  This is the harshest view of predistination that teaches that even before the creation and fall (lapsus) of man, that God eternally ordained some men to salvation with no regard of merit or worthiness. (This doctrine also called Double Predestination.)

Infralapsarianism or sub-postlapsarianism is the milder form of predestination. It holds that God'
decree of election was not made until after the fall. (Known as Single Predestination.)

The infralapsarians argue that supralapsarianism is not consistent with the love or justice of God who would not damn men before their creation with no option to choose to shun hell..

The supralapsaians argue that infralapsarianism is theologically wrong because it does not allow for the omniscience (all knowing) and omnipotence (all powerful) attributes of God.

Predestination has had many names through the history of the church: Antelapsarianism, supralapsarianism, single predestination and double predestination, Eternal security, sovereign election, Calvinism, "Once saved always saved."

Simply stated, true Calvinists believe that if you do not persevere in the faith then you were really never saved to begin with. It may sound logical but the Bible says, "Whosoever will, to the Lord may come."

Predestination in its harsh "double predestination" form is the election teaching Augustine and Calvin both taught. This classical Calvinism holds that God predetermined who would be saved and lost before even the creation of the world. This would mean that He also predestined the fall and all of the ensuing degradation, pain and suffering that has come upon the world. It means that God is the reason behind all human misery. It means that if there are "few that be saved," that God elected billions of souls to burn in hell for eternity. it means there was no reason to create the world if everything was decided who would and wouldn't go to hell and heaven.

Come, come, Mister Calvin and Augustine, give us a break!  This hyper-predestination (supralapsarianism) theory is based on the extremely austere interpretation of God's sovereignty with no consideration of His benevolence, His love and Fatherly affection for man and above all his just nature.

A Brief History Of Predestination  -  The doctrine of predestination was not developed until Augustine (353 A.D.- 430 A.D.). Augustine who is called by some "The Father of doctrine," made four basic conclusions concerning the eternal salvation of man. In his four conclusions he deducted that (1) All men were utterly lost (2) only God's grace enabled man to have faith (3) that the grace of God was irresistible and (4) that grace was given only to a limited number and all others damned to punishment. Augustine's doctrine of double predestination was quickly rejected at the Second Council of Orange (529 A.D.)

Arminius Remonstrates Against Calvinism  -  Most of the reformers were Double Predestination in doctrine. A man by the name of Jacobus Arminius, a follower of Calvin's teaching saw that not all Scripture was being duly regarded in Calvin's doctrine and formulated a document of remonstrance (reproval). It contained five points: (1) That God's grace and salvation were conditional upon belief and repentance and not a predestined elect group; (2) That Christ's atonement was universal, for all, and not an elect group. (3) That man must be regenerated by the Holy Spirit before he is capable of doing good deeds, (4) that God's grace is essential to salvation and that man is capable of resisting it; and (5) that God's grace is sufficient to assure the triumph of good in man, and that men made good by grace can fall from grace and return to a state of lostness having once been saved.

The Calvinist reformers who were persecuted by the Catholic church started persecuting the Puritans, Arminians and Unitarians once they gained their own freedom in Europe.  When the Calvinists encountered the Arminians in several debates and could not effectively disprove the minority Arminians, the state of Holland issued an "edict of full toleration for both parties" in January of 1614. But the strife did not end. The Calvinists insisted that Arminianism could not be defended theologically but apparently failed in proving this and reverted to persecution under Maurice of Orange. and several Arminians were put to death by Calvinists who were in political power. Hundreds of others were imprisoned by the Calvinists while hundreds of others were driven from Holland. At the Synod of Dort (1618-19) a restatement of Calvinistic principles was issued and Arminiansim was condemned. Over three hundred Arminians were expelled from their posts in government. When Maurice died (1625), Arminians were again tolerated in Holland.

Calvin Taught Predestination And Separation  -  Modern Calvinism teaching is not the same gospel that Calvin taught.  the basics of the doctrine have been modified several times through the history of the baptists. There was no difference between Calvin and Wesley when it came to godliness. Calvin adhered to a strict code of morality which was observed by the faithful. Modern Calvinism actually denounces abiding by any code or law of conduct the same as the backslidden Arminians. John McCarthur of radio and literature fame, should be commended for his moralistic message as a Calvinist preacher of high profile today. In spite of his double predestination doctrines and his extreme psychic rages, Calvin believed in the disciplines of the saved and that they live holy lives.

Modern Calvinism And Arminianism Apostate  -  We mean by that, that all forms of evangelicalism have removed from the original teachings of the apostles and have high tolerance for worldliness and sensualism. Modern Eternal Se