CHRISTMAS AND THE MEMORY HOLE

CHRISTMAS IN RUSSIA

 Less than a century ago, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin outlawed Christmas. Russians could be sent to Gulag in Siberia for erecting an illegal Christmas tree. The celebration has never been the same in Russia since.

CHRISTMAS IN GERMANY

During the Nazi regime, they sought to eliminate Christmas. Among the most important part of the elimination was the celebration of the winter solstice. The Nazis attempted to move the date of Christmas to the solstice instead and mounted large performances and community bonfires that supposedly drew on pre-Christian celebrations. They also tried to redefine St. Nicholas as Wotan, the ancient Germanic deity.

As the years went on, Nazi attempts to take over Christmas intensified. The Nazis rewrote the lyrics of “Silent Night” to remove all attempts to religion or Christ. They distributed Advent Calendars for kids filled with propaganda and militaristic imagery. They even tried to rewrite Handel's Messiah. Mothers were encouraged to bake swastika-shaped cookies. Even the familiar star that topped millions of Christmas trees was replaced by a sunburst that looked less like the Star of David.

 CHRISTMAS IN CHINA

Christmas in Mainland China is not a public holiday and is not related to religion at all. It’s more of a novelty day like Valentine’s Day, rather than a religious celebration.  

Christmas is celebrated in North Korea, but not with the same fanfare as in other countries. North Korean celebrations don’t look anything like the Christmas we know in the West. Christmas is seen as an exotic foreign holiday in this country. There are no Christmas trees, no decorations, and no traditional activities like carol singing. Instead, North Koreans celebrate the day by going to outdoor performances or gathering for family dinners.

CHRISTMAS IN NORTH KOREA

In recent years, there has been some change in the way Christmas is celebrated in North Korea. Some people have started to put up decorations, such as pine trees and lights, in their homes and on the streets. It’s not uncommon to see Christmas trees in the capital city of Pyongyang, although the decoration is still very limited.

Christmas is not an officially recognized holiday in North Korea, so there are no national celebrations. However, some religious communities, such as Catholics and Protestants, are allowed to celebrate Christmas in a limited way. There are churches in Pyongyang, and priests and imams can visit them on Christmas Day.

But these celebrations are more muted than in other countries. Church services are limited to under two hours and worshipers are forbidden from singing Christmas carols or speaking out against the North Korean government. They are also forbidden from taking photos or making videos inside of churches. 

CHRISTMAS IN AMERICA

At the lighting of the national Christmas tree by the President and his wife, it was the continuation of a 100-year old tradition. During the President's remarks, he stated the theme at the White House of this year's "Holiday," was,  “Magic, Wonder, and Joy.” 

You can read the rest of his remarks by going to White House.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/11/30/remarks-by-president-biden-at-the-national-christmas-tree-lighting-2/. When you get there I challenge you to find the words, "Jesus," "Christ," "manger," Bethlehem," "angels," "shepherds," "Joseph," or "Wise Men." Those words and the story in which they appear have been put down George Orwell's Memory Hole at the White House.

In a school district in Pennsylvania,  "A memo initially sent to drivers at Wallingford-Swarthmore School District demanded they remove any decorations associated with the holiday, citing a need for 'inclusivity.'

“If you have decorated your bus with anything specific to the Christmas Holiday or any other decorations relating to a specific religion, please remove them immediately,” a copy of the memo obtained by Crisis in the Classroom (CITC) reads. “'In addition, employees are instructed not to wear clothing related to Christmas or any other religious holiday.”

We see the result of all of the above in the following poll: 

"A Lifeway Research study finds 9 in 10 U.S. adults say they celebrate Christmas, including many non-Christians. Overall, 91% of Americans celebrate the Christmas holiday, unchanged from2  010.”

"Yet only 22% indicate they could “accurately tell the Christmas story found in the Bible from memory. A plurality of U.S. adults (31%) say they could tell the story but may miss some details or get others wrong. Another quarter (25%) could only give a quick overview and 17% say they couldn’t tell any of it.

“Almost half of Americans do not think they could share the Christmas story somewhat accurately from memory,” asserts Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research. “Of all the Christmas programs churches offer in December, possibly the most important is simply reading the biblical account of the Christmas story itself.” 

The summation of the saga is this: a dictatorship will not and cannot tolerate an authority higher than itself. The Incarnation must be Memory Holed.

 

 

 

 

HATERED OF THE JEWS IN THE CHURCH TODAY

 There is and should be a deep concern on the part of American Christians for our nation in view of the virulent 4,000 year-old hatred of Jews exploding in our country today. This spiritual aberration is a cancer in the college campuses such as the Ivy League schools along with MIT et al. We see frenetic demonstrations, endless mindless chants ("From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free."). We saw students in a high school in San Francisco rampaging through the halls yelling and chanting antisemitic slogans, the same students who probably can't even spell Palestine. 

True to form, the United Nations has once again placarded its long-lasting hatred of Israel: "The United States was looking increasingly isolated on the world stage on Tuesday after a resounding vote at the UN general assembly calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

"Cheers and clapping echoed around the general assembly chamber in New York as the emergency vote was announced. A thumping 153 member states out of the 193 total membership backed the resolution, with only 10 including the US, Israel, and Austria voting against, and 23 – including the UK and Germany – abstaining." (from a news report)

"Cease fire" means, "Israel, stop fighting and let them kill you." The 153 countries were opposing a nation the size of New Jersey. They gang up and condemn Israel day after day, year after year.

BUT WAIT!

Antisemitism is in American churches too. These churches promote antisemitism by teaching something called "Replacement Theology." This theology infects seminaries, scholars, books and journals. If you are in a church and you've heard from your Sunday school teacher or your pastor that God is finished with the Jewish people and that the church is now the “new Israel," if you have heard , "The covenants God made with Israel (the Abrahamic, the Palestinian,, the Davidic, and the New Covenants) are no longer valid," then you're sitting in and supporting an antisemitic church that has robbed Israel of her God-given promises.

Adherents of replacement theology believe the Jews are no longer God’s chosen people, and God does not have specific future plans for the nation of Israel. So, the prophecies in Scripture concerning the blessing and restoration of Israel to the Promised Land are “spiritualized” or “allegorized” into promises of God’s blessing for the church.

HOW IN THE WORLD?

How could the early leaders of the church read the promises that God had made to Israel and justify this replacement? They found that they could do so only by spiritualizing the promises, that is, deliteralizing them. This method of interpretation allowed them to replace Israel as the beneficiary of God’s unfulfilled promises. The words of these early Christian leaders reveal their theology of replacement.

Here is a sample of writings from the first 300 years of the church. The Epistle of Barnabas, written around A.D. 100, states that the Jews have no further claim to God’s promises:

Take heed now to yourselves, and not to be like some, adding largely to your sins, and saying, “The covenant is both theirs and ours.” But they thus finally lost it.

Irenaeus, writing around A.D. 180, said, “They who boast themselves as being the house of Jacob and the people of Israel, are disinherited from the grace of God.”

Origen, the most prolific writer of the early church (c. A.D. 250), grounded his Replacement Theology in allegorical interpretation. For instance, when explaining that Jesus was sent to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” he argued that the lost sheep are not Jews, who are “carnal” Israel, but Christians, who are “heavenly” Israel.

John Chrysostom preached the same message in the capital city of the Roman Empire in A.D. 387:

It is because you killed Christ….It is because you shed the precious blood, that there is now no restoration, no mercy any more and no defense…. You have committed the ultimate transgression. This is why you are being punished worse now than in the past….If this were not the case God would not have turned his back on you so completely.

 

John Calvin,  a follower of Augustine and a leading figure of the Reformation, viewed the Old and New Testaments as continuous, with the Church inheriting the promises made to Israel. Luther was so done with the Jews that his 80+ page rant against them was quoted favorably by Hitler and his propaganda master, Goebbels. Luther infected Germany with Jew-hatred.and later came the Holocaust in his native land.

When you hear your pastor or Sunday school teacher tell you that God is through with the Jews, it's time to go and take your wallet with you. Period. Why? Because to stay involves complicity with those who are gouging God's eye: Zechariah 2:8: "For the Lord of armies says this: “After glory He has sent me against the nations that plunder you, for the one who touches you, touches the apple (lit. "pupil") of His eye.

The covenant God made with Abraham began in Genesis 12:1-3, it's concluding words are still in effect, "Those who curse you, I must curse." Be careful America, you are treading on the thinnest of ice. 

 

 

THE FUNERAL OF MRS. JIMMY CARTER

 Funeral services for former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who died at the age of 96 on Nov. 19, continued Tuesday, Nov. 28 in Atlanta, Ga. A tribute service at Glenn Memorial Church at Emory University took place from 1:30-3 p.m.

An interesting historical footnote arose when it was revealed that all of the living First Ladies were invited and in attendance. As would unfortunately naturally follow was a report and in one case, a critique of what the ladies were wearing. The critique, as would be expected, was written about former First Lady Mrs. Donald Trump who was called out for wearing a light gray coat. (It seems out of place to obsess over one's sartorial choice rather than the life of the deceased but that's the name of the game in the jungle that is politics.)

Various family members eulogized their mother, their grandmother as did various friends and a former employee who became a fast and loyal friend of Mrs. Carter. They praised her tireless work for various causes and the energy she brought to her husband's political campaigns as well as the crushing heartache she and the family felt when her husband went down to defeat in his quest for a second term. 

Music was in abundance at the service but there was one piece of music that should never have been at the service nor at any meeting of the church. How it got into the proceedings should be an insult to Christians everywhere but it seemed to be accepted as normal and A-OK with the congregation and the hosting church. 

It's a song by John Lennon, he of the Beatles fame of decades long ago. The lyrics speak for themselves: 

Imagine there's no Heaven

It's easy if you try

No Hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people
Living for today
Ah, ah, ah-ah

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion, too

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
Yoo-hoo, ooh-ooh

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
Yoo-hoo, ooh-ooh

 

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one.

It's a song that denies heaven and hell; a song of globalism; a song of communism (no private property) and a song of irrational idealism in a fallen world that will never be able to get back to Eden apart from the 2nd Advent of Christ.

Who chose that song? I don't know. Who approved of that song's being sung in that church? I don't know. But you and I do know that it's a song that conveys humanism in ever note. "Imagine" is a foolish song devoid of wisdom and cannot help but be such because "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." The author had no fear of the Lord which, by definition is a positive response to God and His Word.

 

 

THE NIGHTMARE OF JOHN BOOKMAN

John Bookman is the beloved pastor of the First United Church of Cannon Ball Run and on this Sunday night he was feeling mighty proud of himself for the sermons he'd preached, one in the morning service and the second one that evening. He was feeling his sermonic oats that day as he witnessed 15 people walk the aisle as the choir sang "Just As I Am," seven times during the invitation period. 

He'd concluded the two stem-winder preaching sessions with his standard invitation calling on those who wanted to be baptized and join Cannon Ball run to come forward; those who wanted to rededicate their lives to Christ to come forward; and those who wanted to make a profession of faith to change their geographic location and come forward. For those wanting to make a profession of faith and be saved that day, he'd given them a special set of instructions.

He told them that salvation was free but it would cost them everything. John didn't seem to notice the lack of logic in that statement but he'd heard his idol of a preacher say it, so it must be true. Rev. Bookman then went on to say to those wanting to be saved that they had to work up a feeling of sorrow for their sins, then turn from their sins and then give their lives to Christ and then the "free gift" of heaven would the theirs. 

John enjoyed the evening and couldn't wait for Monday morning when he would file his report of the attendance, the number of new members, the number of rededicates, and the number of those who were saved that day at Cannon Ball. As he filled out the forms to turn into the denominational headquarters, he enjoyed his usual surfeit of four slices of pizza and later, a slice or two of chocolate cake. 

It was getting near his bedtime, so he got ready to hie himself off into the arms of Morpheus and within fifteen minutes or so, he was sound asleep. And that's when the Reverend John Bookman dreamed a dream. 

He dreamed that he was watching a woman carrying a water pot and heading toward a well, and lo, and behold, Jesus was there. The dream was so real that he heard their conversation between Jesus and the woman, a conversation all about regular water and what Jesus called, "Living water." He heard Jesus telling the woman that one sip of that living water He was offering would render it no longer necessary to drink again.

It was then that what Bookman overheard really interested him; it was that this woman was immoral to the core. She had been divorced by not one, not two, but five husbands. He was astounded to hear that the man she was now living with wasn't her husband but that he and she were in a seriously immoral situation. 

And this is where his dreamed turned into a nightmare. Jesus didn't command her to feel sorry for her sins. Jesus didn't tell her to break off the relationship with her current boyfriend. he didn't tell her to turn from her sins which were no doubt plentiful. He didn't tell her to give her life to Him from that day forward. There was none of that in Jesus offer of salvation by faith as symbolized by the one drink.

The Right Reverend jerked awake in a cold sweat, grabbed his Bible and went into the den to read John 4 and all about that immoral woman and what Jesus said to her. He read it over and over but he couldn't find, "repent" in there anywhere; he couldn't find "turn from your sins in there either. Nor did he find, "give you life to Me," in the text. 

The Reverend John Bookman didn't sleep much that night. The shock was great. Could his idol have theological feet of clay? He went to I Corinthians 15 to read it with fresh eyes and found that the gospel contained none of works requirements he's been insisting on; instead, he found the gospel to be simple:faith alone in Christ the Son of God who died for John's sins, rose from the dead and offers eternal to anyone, anywhere who trusts His finished work for that eternal life.

 Bookman's entire system of theology had just fallen apart and great was the fall thereof. But after that dream, he began to learn that salvation is offered absolutely free.

THE IRRATIONAL HATRED

 If you were to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, you would find a picture there, a picture of the rabid Jew-hater, Martin Luther. "Among the Protestants’ founding fathers, Martin Luther was particularly anti-Semitic. His writings were precursors of twentieth-century National Socialist texts. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and Julius Streicher gladly quoted from Luther’s works, even if he never recommended the physical destruction of the Jews. Luther did, however, advise "burning synagogues in honor of God and Christianity," confiscating Jewish books, and expelling Jews from Christian countries. 

In 1985 the World Federation of Lutheran Churches, embarrassed and in disdain of the above material, distanced itself from these statements of their founding father.

Luther recommended a seven-point program for dealing with the Jews. He wrote: 

Let me give you my honest advice. In the first place the synagogue should be burned and what doesn’t burn must be covered with mud. This must be done in honor of God and Christianity so that God can see that we are Christians and we do not just have patience or approve that his Son and Christians will be publicly subjected to lies, curses, and slander.

In the second place, their houses must be broken down and destroyed. They must be housed in stalls like Gypsies so that they are aware that they are not masters in our country as they proudly declare, but poor prisoners as they incessantly complain before their God. Third, their books must be taken away. Fourth, their rabbis must be forbidden to give lessons on punishment of death. Fifth, they are not to be allowed to move freely. Let them stay at home. Sixth, they should not be allowed to take interest. The money one takes from them must be devoted to helping a Jew who is baptized. Seventh, they must be put to work very hard.

Luther ends by saying: “Honorable rulers and noblemen who have Jews in your country: if this advice doesn’t suit you try and find something better so that we all will be liberated from this unbearable, devilish burden, the Jews.”  He also accuses the Jews of wanting to kill Christians, of ritual murders, and  of poisoning wells. (From The Jewish Center for Public Affairs)

Another of the leaders of the Reformation, John Calvin, played his antisemitic card, although not with the bombastic language as Luther. Calvin wrote of the Jews, calling them ‘mad dogs,’ ‘beasts,’ and "animals."  

This irrational hatred of the Jews, only because they are Jews, makes no sense whatsoever. To see those engaged in their fury against the Jews is to see people who appear to be possessed by some supernatural beings. 

But wait a minute. It makes perfect sense when you read Revelation 12 and learn that behind all the fury is "the god of this world," Satan himself. But why is Satan on a rampage against the Jews? 

We find the answer in prophecy.

The Old Testament prophets declared with clarity that God has a future planed for His ancient people, the Jews. This plan has to do with the Second Coming of His Son who, Scripture says, will fulfill God the Father's plan to institute a Kingdom on earth for 1,000 years (Revelation 20);

This Kingdom was promised to the Jews in the eternal and unconditional covenants God gave them. And it is as a result of those promises that we find the reason for the rampages of Satan against the Jews throughout history. Satan is the "prince of this world" and the Bible says the entire world lies "cradled in his arms."

One thing Satan does not want to give up is his kingdom he assumed at the fall of man. Therefore, if he can annihilate the Jews, wipe them off the face of the earth, that will destroy the fulfillment of God's covenants with Israel. The promises to the Jews of a kingdom under the rule of the Messiah will then be rendered null and void. Christ will not rule from Jerusalem over His people and the world..

How widespread is this Jew-hatred? As of October 7, 2023, a satanic rage against the Jews exploded in England, France, Australia, and America. Tens of thousands poured into their streets for hours and hours of demonstrations against the Jews. 

College campuses erupted in rages against the Jews, calling for their deaths to the extent that in American universities, Jews had to go into hiding for their own safety as they did at Cornell. We get this report from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: "Today, Jewish and Israeli MIT students were physically prevented from attending class by a hostile group of pro-Hamas and anti-Israel MIT students that call themselves the CAA. This is after students from the CAA harassed MIT staff members in their offices for being Jewish and interrupted classes in the past few weeks. All of this has occurred with no clear response from the administration. 

"With each passing day, MIT admin’s silence makes Jewish and Israeli students feel unsafe at MIT. Many Jewish students fear leaving their dorm rooms and have stated that they feel MIT is not safe for Jews. This message is compounded by the public and private warnings of Hillel and many faculty that Jewish students should not enter MIT’s main lobby today, November 9th, 2023."

It was only a few years ago that this would have been unthinkable in these countries, especially in America. But Satan never sleeps. The egg of antisemitism has been hatched all over the world.

We're not only seeing this rage in universities but we saw it also in high schools as witness the parading of the students in San Francisco chanting, "From the river to the sea Palestine shall be free!" A slogan of code words calling for the extermination of the Jews. 

This is where Zechariah 12:3  has something to say to and about America: The Bible predicts a future event in which antisemitism will reach its zenith under satanic direction: "It will come about in that day that I [God] will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely ^[c]injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it."

Did you catch it? There's America in the Bible. America is included in that one word, "all." All the nations of the earth will unite against Israel just before the 2nd Advent of Christ. But Jerusalem will once again prove to be a stone, an immovable stone that no one ever has or ever will be able to move. God's promises will stand sure.,

What we're seeing today is move after move, strategy after strategy of Satan as he tries to ensure his "head will not be crushed" and that his kingdom will remain. All his strategies will be futile. 

What we are seeing today is Satan's age up close and personal.

 

THE ARREST OF A MAN IN ENGLAND

  "A shocking cell phone video purportedly shows a police officer in the United Kingdom explaining how an army veteran was arrested over an anti-LGBTQ post he reshared online that had caused someone 'anxiety.'

"The video was recorded by actor and leader of the British Reclaim Party, Laurence Fox, who shared a meme on social media showing pride flags altered into the shape of a swastika. He said the meme was meant as a commentary on the authoritarian nature of LGBTQ and transgender activists. 

"I don’t understand. I posted something that he posted," Brady said. "You come to arrest me. You don’t arrest him. Why has it come to this? Why am I in cuffs over something he shared, then I shared?" 

"Because someone has been caused obviously anxiety based on your social media posts," the officer responded. 'That’s why you’ve been arrested.'" (From "The Daily Mail")

"‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" is a famous line from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. A man, a military veteran, posted something that "caused anxiety" in someone is handcuffed and under arrest? In the United Kingdom? What in the world is going on? Something is rotten in the United Kingdom. (The arrest causes anxiety in me et al.)

The arrest occurred 4,148 miles from me. Should you and I worry? Yes, because whatever is rotten in England soon smells on our shores. And this brings us to Paul's causing Demetrius to feel "anxiety" because of the gospel: "About that time a major disturbance occurred in regard to the Way.  For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, was bringing considerable business to the craftsmen;  he gathered these men together with the workmen of similar trades, and said, 

'Men, you know that our prosperity depends upon this business. You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that gods made by hands are not gods at all.  Not only is there danger that this trade of ours will fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be regarded as worthless, and that she whom all of ^[Asia and the world worship will even be dethroned from her magnificence.'

"When they heard this and were filled with rage, they began shouting, saying, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

Earlier, we read about the anxiety Jesus' message caused: "Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and left the temple grounds."

 And later, "The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him." Then we read about Stephen's theology/ history lesson to the Sanhedrin and how much anxiety he caused: "Now when they heard this, they were infuriated, and they began gnashing their teeth at him.  But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God;  and he said, 'Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.'  But they shouted with loud voices, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one mind. When they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him; and the witnesses laid aside their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul.  They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!'  Then he fell on his knees and cried out with a loud voice, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them!' Having said this, he ^[ak]fell asleep."

The gospel of grace causes anxiety and anger because it's inherently offensive in the hearing of fallen man: The message of the gospel is, "You can't fix yourself." "You are accountable to your Creator." "You are dead in trespasses and sins." "Your good works are as filthy rags." It opposes the hubris of fallen man and cuts him down to size.

It is one small step across "the Pond" into America, where, to slide down the slippery slope only a few feet before we see our posts, our witnessing, our sermons, our writing, our handing out tracts causing "anxiety" and the cuffs are out.  

We need to listen to what Paul wrote to Timothy: :"Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and exhort, with great patience and instruction."

 

 

ESCAPING OUR ATTENTION

 There's something going on in the Gospel records that can be overlooked if we're not careful. Let's take a look at Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

It doesn't matter what Gospel record you choose to read, you find the same overlooked event happening. You'll notice the power of the Word of Christ. For example, He often confronted demonic beings. These unclean spirits are the angels we designate as "fallen" because they took part in Satan's rebellion as recorded in Isaiah's five "I wills." (Isaiah 14:13-14). Their Luceriferian assignment is to snatch away the gospel from the lost lest they believe and are saved. (Luke 8:12). 

During these confrontations, Jesus issues commands to them: "Shut up! Come out of him!" (Mark 1:25). In the famous incident in Mark 5, Jesus orders the unclean spirit, "What is your name!" and the demon obeys by telling Him. It's at this time that Jesus tells them to enter the swine and they obey. These two incidents will suffice; you can read about other interactions with the spirits and Jesus commands to them.

When we read further in Mark's record, we read of Jesus' issuing this command to the wind of a Sea of Galilee gale: "Hush! Be still!" (Mark 4) The winds obey and immediately they became perfectly calm. 

But reading further in the divine records, something very much different occurs. On several occasions, after Jesus heals someone, He issues the same order to them: "Tell no one." For example, in Mark 7:36, after healing a deaf mute, we find this: "And He gave them orders not to tell anyone; but the more He ordered them, the more widely they continued to proclaim it." 

Then we read about the egregious case of disobedience when Christ healed a leper: "Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. ⁴³ And He sternly warned him and immediately sent him away, ⁴⁴ and He *said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” ⁴⁵ But he went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the news around, to such an extent that ^[a]Jesus could no longer publicly enter a city, but ^[b]stayed out in unpopulated areas; and they were coming to Him from everywhere." (Mark 1)

Now we come to the escaping-our-attention-part. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, forces the wind to obey Him; He forces the demons to submit to His commands. But in the instances given above, He commands but does NOT force obedience. The question is, "Why?" 

The answer is that free will exists and Christ will not violate it. In the Gospels, we see the active opposition to Jesus' Person, work, and claims of Christ mushrooming. But He doesn't stop it, although He could have. 

In the most important issue that faces any human being, "Who do you say Jesus is," the unforced choice is yours--is He the Son of God who did for all your sins, past, present, and future? Did He rise from the dead? Is He the only one you trust for eternal life? God does not predetermine your choice. You choose to have nothing to do with His Son and He will let you have your go your way apart from Him. But remember, Hell will be locked from inside. 

HAMAS

 You won't be surprised to learn that the Hebrew word, "hamas," means "violence." The name is well-chosen. The world is seeing violence on steroids in Hamas' attack on Israel, an attack that continues to the point one commentator, an American Jew, has described it as, "The worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust." 

Hamas is raging through Israel, killing, kidnapping, and burning Jewish houses with fathers, mothers, and children trapped inside, burning to death. And in the horror of indescribable horrors, murdering 100 babies, some by beheading. Can anyone imagine the depth of savage depravity it would take to do that? The Satan-inspired hatred of the Jews in the Middle East and around the world knows no bounds. The mask is off. 

But there's one thing Hamas doesn't know, one thing the elites of our nation and the elites of nations around the world do not know. That ignorance is a willful one. What they willfully refuse to recognize is that what Hamas and those countries helping them financially have done is to attack the "pupil" (literal translation) of God's eye. In this anthropomorphism, the author uses the most sensitive part of the human eye to describe God's regard for Israel. 

And thereby hangs a tale which comes to us from the shortest book, an ignored book, in the Old Testament, written by a prophet named Obadiah. It's a book devoted to warning one Gentile nation and therefore all Gentile nations of which America is one. Obadiah wrote a book about Edom, the nation descended from Esau the twin brother of Jacob. 

Edom had an infection, the Hamas Syndrome--a abiding and fierce hatred of Israel.That hatred was their attitude but the attitude turned into action. Because of that, God issued a stern warning to Edom and, by application, to all Gentile nations who would dare to touch the pupil of His eye. 

Obadiah begins God's warning by shining the divine spotlight on Edom's arrogant attitude: Edom thought herself to be untouchable because of its geography, which, in their way of misguided thinking, i. e. human viewpoint, made it impossible for any nation to come against her. Their geography made them indestructible, a veritable fortress.The arrogant Edomite was Icarus flying high. 

The Edomite believed that because of his position, there was no chink in their geographical armor. But God is the Creator of geography. It is finger work for Him to make a major chink in such puny armor. 

Obadiah relates God's graphic decree issued because of Edom's opposition to Israel: "I will bring you down." "I will ruin you." I will ransack your wealth." "I will destroy your wisest men." "I will destroy your military." "I will slaughter you." And last but not least, "I will destroy you forever." In more graphic terms, "I will wipe you off the face of the earth."

The question the reader his is, "Why? What have they done?"

The answer is a fourfold one:

1. When Israel was invaded by her enemies, Edom did nothing; she stood aloof.

2. When Israel was attacked and looted, Edom gloated, rejoicing to  see it.

3. Edom then took an active participation in the sacking of Jerusalem.

4. Edom set up roadblocks to stop and kill the Jews who were trying to escape the destruction.

Obadiah is telling the Edomites, what goes around come around, only worse. 

Isaiah is equally graphic as he cites God's coming in judgment against those who strike at the pupil of His eye. Isaiah paints a word picture: God's sword will be filled with blood."(Is. 34) 

Isaiah has a word of advice to the leaders of the Gentile nations: "Seek the book of the Lord and read it." It's in Isaiah's book (and Obadiah's) that the Gentile nations can learn what happens when they attack the pupil. 

These warnings are serious ones for America as we contemplate our nation's role in empowering Iran to finance Hamas. It is scary indeed as we see rallies on the prestigious campuses of our educational institutions chanting their support of the savagery of Hamas; it is unbelievable as we hear some our elites in government refusing to condemn the barbaric behavior of Hamas against Israel, therefore "standing aloof" as Obadiah said of Edom; then there are those gloating over atrocities too horrible to even think about. 

Campuses, showing surfacing of the intellectual and spiritual rot that has  been their cancer for a long time, erupting in antisemitism is Edom writ large, a harbinger of the coming discipline cominig to American shores.

And by the way, what happened to Edom? Has anyone ever met or even heard of an Edomite living today? 

JFK, BERNIE SANDERS, AND A MAN NAMED VOUGHT

 Back the day, 1960 to be exact, John F. Kennedy was running for the office of President. Back in the day, he had a problem; he was a Roman Catholic and no Roman Catholic had ever won the presidency. The opposition to a Catholic president was mainly coming from the southern states and one of the strategies of his campaign was to select Lyndon Johnson as his running mate in the hope that such a choice would bring the Lone State's electoral college votes into the Democrat column. Johnson was in a powerful position at the time as the majority leader of the U. S. Senate, a position far more powerful than that  the of the Vice President. 

Johnson, with a sense of the macabre, asked his staff to check on the number of vice presidents who had become presidents due to the death of the president. They did. Johnson then decided that the odds were fairly good, so he accepted the offer.(Was he prescient or what!)

During the campaign, JFK, to combat the anti-Catholic sentiment in what was then the "Solid South," arranged a meeting in which he would address a conference of Protestant pastors to confront the issue. But he did more than that. He pointed out that, according to the Constitution, there is to be no religious test for office. To wit:

"Article VI specifies that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” This prohibition banned a longstanding form of religious discrimination practiced both in England and in the United States. It provided an enduring constitutional commitment to religious liberty and equality that has influenced the way Americans have understood the relationship between government and religion over the last two centuries.

"In England, religious tests were used to “establish” the Church of England as an official national church. The Test Acts required all government officials to take an oath disclaiming the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and affirming the Church of England’s teachings about receiving the sacrament. These laws effectively excluded Catholics and members of dissenting Protestant sects from exercising political power. Religious tests were needed, William Blackstone explained, to protect the established church and the government “against perils from non-conformists of all denominations, infidels, turks, jews, heretics, papists, and sectaries.”

"At the time the United States Constitution was adopted, religious qualifications for holding office also were pervasive throughout the states. Delaware’s constitution required government officials to 'profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost.' 

"North Carolina barred anyone 'who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion' from serving in the government. Unlike the rule in England, however, American religious tests did not limit office-holding to members of a particular established church. Every state allowed Protestants of all varieties to serve in government. Still, religious tests were designed to exclude certain people—often Catholics or non-Christians—from holding office based on their faith."

Kennedy also stressed during the campaign that nobody bothered to ask him his religion beforehe  fought in WW II.  

That was then, this is now.

Enter stage left the current Democrat Senator from the Green Mountain State whose state motto is, "Freedom and Unity," Bernie Sanders. (I would suggest, "We make pancakes tolerable" but that's another story.) And at his entrance, we see that Senator Sanders is angry, nay, enraged because of the man seated before him, a man named Vought. 

Mr. Vaught is there before Bernie Sanders and a panel of other senators because Mr. Vaught is seeking to be confirmed to some type of office few people have ever heard of. The senator is enraged at Mr. Vaught because his staff has uncovered some "dirt" on the office seeker. Bernie Sanders is in possession of what the the staff has discovered and he is horrified. It's in the form of a sentence Mr. Vought wrote.

Does the quote have anything to do with recommending child molestation? Was it a posting commending Timothy McVeigh? Or did Vought write something scandalous on a statue of Martin Luther King when he was in college? The answer is "None of the above."

Sanders was livid because he had discovered that Mr. Vaught, on January 17, 2016, had written an opinion piece for a publication called The Resurgent in which he said, "Muslims have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they stand condemned."

Senator Sanders hammered away at Mr. Vought and then summed up his indignation to the chairman of the committee, saying, "Mr. Chairman, in my view, the statement made by Mr. Vought is indefensible, it is hateful, it is Islamophobic, and it is an insult to over a billion Muslims throughout the world." (One might wonder if the Senator might be upset at the Koran's instruction to "Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal sternly with them. Hell shall be their home, evil their fate.” (Sura 66:9)

How did the confirmation go? Sanders closed by saying the nominee was "Really not someone who this country is supposed to be about. I will vote no." (Vought was eventually confirmed by a 50-49 vote nonetheless.)

The ecclesiastical system of which JFK was a member holds to this tenet: "Chrsit himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and baptism and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it." The tenet of Islam states: " "And whoever seeks a religion other than Islaam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers." [Aal ‘Imraan 3:85]

 And "There is no-one, Jew or Christian, who hears of me then dies without believing in that with which I have been sent, but he will be one of the people of Hell." .

Vought simply stated a core belief of the Christian faith which was somehow by some strange twist of logic, used to declare that he hated Muslims. He was expressing his beliefs about the theology of Islam, that it was deficient and stating the result of that deficiency and that was used as a religious test for office by the 48 other senators who voted "No" So, who endures the unconstitutional test of religion? The Christian.

One chapter and verse come to mind: "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you." (John 15:18)

. 

THE SIN THAT WILL BRING AMERICA DOWN

 There is one sin that will bring about the fall of America. Guaranteed. It seems to be occurring, right now, today.

Some may think that sin is the murder of over 63 million innocents since 1973, by the violence of abortion Others may think that it's America's rebellion against God's design for marriage, the in-your-face-sign of which was the recent flying of the so-called Pride Flag taking center stage over the American flag in June 2023, at the White House which included a celebration of the rebellion. Flying that flag was a signal that the movement has conquered the nation. That's what a conquering army does, it takes down the flag of the conquered and hoists their flag.

But, as evil as those sins are, they aren't the one sin which guarantees our destruction. The sin is named in the shortest book in the Old Testament one that details that one heinous sin and it does so in three sections. So, let's go there, to the tiny book of Obadiah, listen, and learn.

The prophet gives four reasons for the fall of the nation of Edom whom God says He will "make small among the nations" because of that one sin:

1. Edom made treaties with those who wanted to destroy Israel.

2. Edom commuted acts of violence against Israel.

3. Edom gloated over the defeat of Israel as it stood with its allies who came against Jerusalem.

4. Edom was inhumane to those Jews who fled the destruction of Jerusalem,"cutting them down" or "imprisoning" them.  

That's it. That's the one sin that will "make America small among the nations:" to side with those who come against the apple of God's eye, Israel.  We call it antisemitism. 

A CONDESCENDING CLERGYMAN

 He stands behind the pulpit at the ready to make his dramatic, sarcastic, and condescending statement to the flock. He, dressed as if he's ready to mow the lawn,  begins, "You can't walk up to someone on the street and say (at this point, he puts on a mocking, false, high pitched voice) "Jesus loves you and God loves you."

He goes on to declare, "Paul never said (putting on the false, mocking voice again) "Hey, guys, Jesus loves you!" He doesn't stop there: "I challenge you to find that statement anywhere in the book of Acts that the apostles said, "Jesus loves you." 

That's true but you can't find that any apostle walked up to someone on the street and said, "Hey, it's a sin  to have an abortion." 

His sermon is a belief of many Calvinists, the idea that God's love isn't for everyone. During a question and answer period, a woman asked R. C. Sproul that very question, "Is God's love for everyone?" His answer was, "No." 

However, what do we find in the book of Acts? We find Acts 17:1-4: "Now when they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. ² And according to Paul’s custom, he ^[a]visited them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, ^3 [b]explaining and ^[c]giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.” ⁴ And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a large number of the God-fearing Greeks and a significant number of the leading women."

Is suffering and dying not an evidence of love? Or, what about these statements in John 10:11; 15:13; I John 3:16; and Romans 5:8:

1. “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.

   
   
2. Greater love has no one than this, that a person will lay down his life for his friends.

   
   
3. We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers and sisters.
    
   4. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
    
   Then there's the most popular verse in the Bible, John 3:16: "For God so loved THE WORLD that He gave His only begotten Son . . ."
    
   5. In addition, we read in I John 2:2: "And He Himself is the propitiation ("satisfaction") for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the WHOLE world."
    
   6. We conclude the list with I John 4:8: " The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love."
    
   The Bible is soaked with statements of God's love. It was that love that sent Jonah to the Ninevites. 
   
    And over and over again, we find God's statements to Israel that He loves them with an everlasting love. Hosea 11:1; Isaiah 43:1, 4a; 54:10; Ps. 47:4
   
    
   It was Jesus' love for Jerusalem that brought Him to say, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling."
    
   To quote the lines from the hymn, "If That's Not Love:"
    
   He left the splendor of Heaven
   Knowing His destiny
   Was the lonely hill of Golgotha
   There to lay down His life for me
   

   And if that isn't love
   Then the ocean is dry
   There's no stars in the sky
   And the little sparrows can't fly
   
    
   Condescending politicians are infuriating as are those condescending men of the cloth who make such an outlandish statement. A professor at Dallas Seminary would tell the members of the graduating class, "You all are  pathetic. It's going to be years before your maturity catches up with you education." We would hope that the spiritual maturiety of  aforementioned member of clergy would soon catch up with his education.
   
     

I WAS ALMOST SCAMMED

 I know about scamming first hand: it happened to me when a scammer and his partner called to tell me I was to get a refund of $40.00. I won't go into the long story of the ins and outs of the deception, except to mention that on my computer screen they had pulled up my bank statement. Really! My bank statement. I saw it, it was right there. They were high tech slick operators. 

But, praise be, I caught on in time to stop their nefarious scheme and ignored their threats to send the police to my house to charge with trying to steal $40,000 from them! I told them to get the police to my house fast; that would be A-OK, it would be all right with me. 

Other scammers are at work. These are the prosperity preachers-- their scam is to use (i. e. abuse) an account in I Kings about a poor widow, her son, and the prophet Elijah and they, the scammers, are just as slick of the ones that almost got me. Let's examine how they skillfully work the scam.

In I Kings 7:7-17, Elijah the prophet finds that the brook has dried up and he's in need of water and food. God tells His poor prophet in need of food and water about a poor widow and her son, telling the prophet to go see her; she will give him water and food. 

Elijah finds the woman gathering sticks and asks her to bring him some water and bread. She's in such a desperate condition that she tells him,  “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”

But the prophet tells her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. ¹⁴ For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’”

 "She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. ¹⁶ For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah."

And now the sheep, having heard the scammer tell that story, are setup for the shearing. Just as seeing my bank statement had set me up for their manipulation, prosperity preachers abuse this story all the time. They tell the sheep, "Even if you're as poor as this widow is, God will bless you when you give to my ministry.")

What's happened is that, in their telling, Elijah has become the multimillionaire Joyce Meyer, (or whoever is telling the story) and the sheep have become the widow. The sharing of the bread and water have transformed into money. Therefore, based on the Word of God, the scammer says, "Financial blessings will be yours when you give to the me, the millionaire, no matter how poor you are and that's a promise from God. (The scammers conveniently leave out the millionaire part.) God is at the ready to pour out financial blessings on you like you couldn't believe, they're told."

It's amazing how these scammers can sleep at night.

What they've done is take a description in Scripture and turned it into a prescription for the sheep. This account isn't a prescription of what you're to do, it's a description of God's providing for a poor widow and her son, as well as His poor prophet. Both of them are poverty-stricken. What we're reading in I Kings 7 is not a promise God makes.

These prosperity scammers employ various scamming tools to work this nefarious scheme on the unsuspecting sheep who have no idea they're being conned. The prosperity charlatans use their best selling books, their CDs, television, and church auditoriums to go to work, and churches cooperate with them because they're as ignorant as the sheep. 

If your church library has any of the scammers' books, burn them. If your church has such CDs, throw them into the flames too. 

As long as the sheep stay ignorant and have even scant wool, the scammers will come with their shears.     

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT PART II

 It's difficult to see something hiding in plain sight; we can easily overlook what's not stated. As per last week, we saw that when the infamous serial adulterer, the one known only as "the woman at the well," became convinced that the Savior had now come and was talking to her, so she accepted by faith His offer and took a drink of the water of life, that is, she believed and was eternally saved.

What's hiding in plain sight in the evangelistic conversation in John 4 is that Jesus didn't demand that she feel sorry for her sins; He didn't order to stop living with a man who wasn't her husband; no admonition to clean up her life,no statement of "turn from your sins, no make a promise  promise to make Me the lord of your life. She met Him as a woman involved in adultery and she left saved as a woman living in adultery.

The one requirement for eternal life is faith alone in Christ alone as John states one hundred times in his Gospel. 

Let's move to something else that's hiding in plain sight: John the Baptist did not declare the same gospel message we do today. We see this by reading what he said when he presented his repetitive message the Bible calls the gospel ("good news") of the kingdom which was that the kingdom promised Israel in the Old Testament was at hand because your King has come!

In Luke 3, he's proclaimed that message, and the Jews listening ask, "Then what are we to do?" His answer was, “The one who has two ^[tunics is to share with the one who has none; and the one who has food is to do likewise.” ¹² Now even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they said to him, “Teacher, what are we to do?” ¹³ And he said to them, “Collect no more than what you have been ordered to.” ¹⁴ And soldiers also were questioning him, saying, “What are we to do, we as well?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone, nor harass anyone, and be content with your wages.”

We can see this isn't the good news we preach today  by comparing John the Baptist's message with Paul's in I Cor. 15: "Now I make known to you, brothers and sisters, the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you also stand, ² by which you also are saved, if you hold firmly to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

"For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures."

We see John's message was not that of Paul's when we read Galatians 2:16: "a person is not justified by works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the Law; since by works of the Law no flesh will be justified." We Paul's message of the gospel in Romans 4:4-5: "Now to the one who works, the wages are not credited as a favor, but as what is due. ⁵ But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness."

When we look at John's message in Luke 4, his is filled with works such as  giving  your clothes and your food to others; stop harassing people, don't extort higher taxes than the law allows, in other words,  "Stop these sins and start sharing,"

With the woman at the well, there was no, "Stop all this adultery and clean up your miserable, sinful  life.!" The message to her was, "Accept My free offer of eternal life."

What's the difference? The difference is John's message and his audience, as he states right off the get-go of his mission, is, "Get prepared, Israel, for your King who is now here." It's a message of get ready to accept His offer of the kingdom promised to you. His was a message for Israel. The King came. They rejected their King, shouting, "We have no king but Caesar!"  Therefore, the kingdom is now postponed.

Paul's message, Jesus message to the woman at the well were not the same as John's, nor should ours be.  

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT PART I

There's an account in the Gospel of John which has been told and retold millions of times in church history down to right now today. It's the account an an encounter Jesus had with a woman at a well, a woman as immoral as they come a serial half-breed adulteress. The woman of no name whom we know as "The Woman at the Well," as recorded for all time in John 4. And it's in that chapter that a huge, big-time truth hides in plain sight. 

You know the story. John tells us that Jesus "had to pass through Samaria." This is the land of the much despised by the Jews, low-class Samaritans. Now, Jesus' disciples wouldn't even give her the time of day, so, Christ has to send them away to get some food while, He, tired from the trip, sits down by the famous well Jacob dug long, long ago. 

It's the hot time of the day and here comes the woman to draw water. The best time for this chore is later when it's not so scorching hot. But she comes at noon because no other women will be there and she won't have to endure their censorious looks, crude comments, and their ostracism. 

She sees that there's a Jewish Man there (she recognizes His Jewishness by the way He's dressed.) Lo and behold, He says to her,"“Give Me a drink." This surprises her, so, she asks, “How is it that You, though You are a Jew, are asking me for a drink, though I am a Samaritan woman?” John makes an editorial comment for his Gentile readers who aren't familiar with the long-established hostility existing in that day when he explains, "For Jews do not associate with Samaritans."

The conversation continues as Jesus replies, "“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” 

She's been doing this burdensome chore of hauling water for so long that she wants to know about such water. Jesus explains, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never be thirsty; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.” 

To her, this must have sounded like what will later be known as The Fountain of Youth that Ponce de Leon would seek in Florida in the 14th century. She want's a drink.

The Stranger switches the subject and His command shock her:“Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said to Him, “I have no husband.” Jesus *said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this which you have said is true." How in the world could a complete Stranger know intimate and sinful details which she tried to cover up?

She now perceives that something is going on, so, she thinks He must be a prophet. She has a burning question for Him--she wants to know the answer to a long-standing argument between the Jews and Samaritans. The $64 question is, "Who's right? Are we Samaritans to worhip here or in Jerusalem like the Jews say?"   

The conversation continues by her saying that when the Messiah comes, He'll give us the answer. Then comes the bombshell: She's talking to Him!

She believes Him. She drops her water pot and takes off for town to say to the men, "So the woman left her water pot and went into the city, and said to the people,  “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is He?” They rush out of the city: "They left the city and were coming to Him." Many of the men believe Him saying that they too are convinced  that Jesus is the Messiah, "the Savior of the World."

Now did you see it? Did you see what's been hiding in John 4 for 2,000 years/ It's right there, right before our eyes and has been there for a long, long time. 

She's now a believer. But did you notice what Jesus did NOT say to her. He didn't say, You have to feel sorry for all those adulteries you've committed. You have to leave the husband you're with now. Or to phrase the way one pastor did erroneously thinking that James 4:7-10 is the way to gain eternal life: [Woman,], "Submit therefore to God. But ^[h]resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Come close to God and He will come close to you. [Woman], Cleanse your hands, you sinner; and purify your heart, you ^[i]double-minded. Be miserable, and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into gloom, [Then and only then, believe in Me.]

What's been hiding in plain sight is that she came to Jacob's Well an adulterous woman and left an adulterous woman, forgiven and saved by drinking the living water. As the book of Revelation concludes, "The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires, take the water of life without cost.  

THIS IS RIDICULOUS

From time to time, there are those who "find" America in the Bible with certainty and then there are those who find that America "may" be in the Bible.Two such examples will follow.

Back on September 11, 2018, a columnist for "The Daily Star" declared that 9-ll may have been predicted in the Bible. The writer "found" the prediction in the book of Revelation, chapter 18 to be exact. The text reads, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird!"

Then she writes, "Some" (who the "some" is undefined) believe the fact that fallen is mentioned twice is a reference to the fact that there were Two Towers making up the World Trade Center. she goes on to point out, "Three times in the chapter, St John describes the desolation as happening in one hour.

In verse 10 he writes “Alas alas that great city, for in one hour your judgement has come. Verse 17 reads “For in one hour such great riches come to nothing”.And in verse 19 “in one hour she has become desolate.”

John is predicting the destruction of the center of the political system at the end of the Great Tribulation which has nothing to do with two large buildings in NYC prior to September 11, 2001. 

The 2nd example is a wildly popular Bible "teacher" who "found" the Bible's prediction of 9-11, this time, not in Rev. 18, but of all places, in Habakkuk 1:8: "Their horses are swifter than leopards And keener than wolves in the evening.Their horsemen come galloping,Their horsemen come from afar;They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour."

However, God clearly identifies those who are coming "from afar." They are the Chaldeans as stated in 1:6, 15. And, just in case you missed it, God also gave the false teacher the revelation that the swooping eagle in 1:8 are the two airplanes that hit Twin Towers. Who would have thought? Evidently there was no prediction of the third plane which flew into the Pentagon the same day in the coordinated attack nor of the plane that crashed before hitting its target. 

It's strange: Habakkuk says "an eagle," yet there were two planes, not one, and four if you count the Pentagon plane and the one that crashed.The prophet didn't get the number right.

So, according to this "prophet,"he was the only one who found the attack in the book of Hab. 1:8.

From this we see two marks of a false teacher: 1) They find America in the Bible. This is guaranteed to rev up the audience and their readers and 2) they have special "revelations" or "visions" or "a word from the Lord." Each one guaranteed to further excite the folks.

WHEN ONE SENTENCE WILL DO

 

 Three of Calvinism's brightest lights are seated on stage awaiting questions from the moderator which were taken from the audience. The three Calvinist theologians are Lawson, MacArthur, and Sproul. If anyone should be able to answer the queries, these three would be the ones. 

The host begins with an interesting question from the assembled: "Why do you think that so many resist Calvinism?" That’s a good question and one which brought forth a condescending and insulting answer from Lawson. But his answer will leave the true answer unsaid. The answer he gave: “Because they don’t know the Bible.” This answer, being interpreted means, "Because they're ignorant but we aren't."

Really? Some well-known people who aren't ignorant of the Scriptures and who reject Calvinism are: C. S. Lewis, Billy Graham, Norman Geisler, John Lennox, and Zane Hodges, et al. These people don’t know the Bible? 

His answer was an example of what’s known in debate as “the ad hominem fallacy.” Instead of discussing the argument itself, criticism is directed toward the opponent’s character. Another example of the ad hominem fallacy is:

Person 1: I think it's important to enforce minimum-wage legislation so that workers are not exploited.

Person 2: Nonsense. You only say that because you just can’t get a good job!

The Q/A went on from there. But what’s important is that Lawson should have given the answer according to Calvinism in one sentence. (Why he didn’t give the correct answer according to his system is another matter) According to Calvinism, in the system he was defending, the crucial doctrine is, "a belief in meticulous divine determinism over every thought, choice and event throughout human history." Here are some quotes by Calvinists:

J. I. Packer

“God… orders and controls all things, human actions among them…He [also] holds every man responsible for the choices he makes and the courses of action he pursues… Man is a responsible moral agent, though he is also divinely controlled; man is divinely controlled, though he is also a responsible moral agent. To our finite minds, of course, the thing is inexplicable. (This the familiar Calvinist retreat from “contradiction” to “an inexplicable mystery.")

R. C. Sproul

“I am suggesting that God created sin.”

Gorden H. Clark

“I wish very frankly and pointedly to assert that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do it…” He goes on to assert, “Let it be unequivocally said that this view certainly makes God the cause of sin.”

Mark Talbot and John Piper

"God brings about all things in accordance with his will. It isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those that love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects… This includes God’s having even brought about the Nazi’s brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Rader [BTK] and even the sexual abuse of a young child.”

So now we come to it. What did the one sentence Calvinist not say, that, according to his Calvinistic system, he should have said? If he had been true to his system, he would have said: “The reason why so many resist Calvinism is because God decreed before the foundation of the world that they would resist and be ignorant." They had no other choice because God decreed it.

Therefore, according to their theology, God decreed their resistance and their ignorance, and their pride (which added as another reason for people's resistance) and yet, God will hold them accountable for the resistance, the ignorance, and the pride and punish them for it. 

Or to say it as another way as an author who left Calvinism did, "He predetermined people to sin, and then held them accountable for what they could not have refrained from doing." 

Why didn't he give what is, according to his theology, the correct answer? As we say in America, "Go figure."

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NONE DARE CALL IT CORRUPTION

 For anyone even remotely familiar with the Reformation, the name  of John Tetzel rings a bell. His is a name that will live in infamy on the pages of history. The history books tell us: 

"John Tetzel is infamous for arousing the ire of Martin Luther by his outrageous claims for the sale of Catholic indulgences.  He was given the task of raising money for the building of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. He was exceptionally good at it, and his claims for the effect of indulgences were exceptionally extreme and superstitious.

"He's famous for this claim: 'As soon as the gold in the coffer rings; the rescued soul to heaven springs.' John Tetzel fed on using those superstitious fears. It was easy to convince people who believed that their dear mother, departed wife, or beloved child were at that very moment burning in flames in purgatory, that they ought to pay money to release them from their torment." (From "Christian History")

A person could purchase another type of indulgence.

"The other type of  indulgence guarantees the promise of the remission of temporal punishment upon the basis of certain prescribed “good works,” e.g., fasting, prayers, pilgrimages, etc. Mainly, though, the promise was that the pains of purgatory could be minimized by the payment of money into the treasury of the Roman Catholic church.

"The construction of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome was partially financed by the sale of indulgences. Tetzel traveled throughout Germany selling indulgences on behalf of the Church.

"These indulgences not only bestowed pardon for sins committed already, they were used to license the commission of future transgressions as well." 

Historian Merle D’Aubigne relates an amusing incident:

A certain Saxon nobleman heard Tetzel proclaiming his doctrine of indulgences, and the gentleman was angered at the church's perversion of the truth. So, he approached the monk one day and inquired as to whether he might purchase an indulgence for a sin he intended to commit.

“Most assuredly,” replied Tetzel, “I have received full powers from his holiness for that purpose.”

After some haggling, a fee of thirty crowns was agreed upon, and the nobleman departed.

Together with some friends, he hid himself in a nearby forest. Presently, as Tetzel journeyed that way, the knight and his companions attacked the salesman, gave him a light beating, and relieved him of his money, taking no effort to disguise themselves.

Tetzel was enraged and filed suit in the courts. When the nobleman appeared as the defendant, he produced the letter of exemption containing John Tetzel’s personal signature, which absolved him of any liability.

When Duke George (the judge before whom the action was brought) examined the document, exasperated though he was, he ordered the accused to be released.

You might be thinking the abuse of the gullible died with John T. Think again. John Tetzel lives today! And this is where Joyce Meyer enters stage left with an absurd false teaching of which John Tetzel would be proud.

A pastor, demonstrating his ignorance of the Bible and of church history, gushed effusively and excitedly to his huge church as he introduced Joyce Meyer to the thunderous applause of the congregation as, "The best Bible teacher in America!" 

Little did the equally biblically illiterate and historically ignorant know that they were applauding a heretic and a corrupt one at that.

Joyce Meyer spoke of a conversation she had with someone named Dr. Roberts, and said, "He talked about something awesome." She went on to say that he told her, "The Bible talks about giving and receiving. God taught me that another way to say that word is 'receipting.'" [No, that is not another way to say "receiving" nor is it another meaning of the Greek word "receive" in the New Testament.]

From that platform of absurdity, Joyce Meyer then moved in for the kill in true Tetzel fashion, "When you give, you get a receipt in heaven. Then when you have a need, you can go to God and say, 'You see God, I have got my receipt from my sowing ["sowing" means giving money to Joyce Meyer] and now I have a need and I'm cashing in my receipt.'" 

At this point, the easily taken in began to applaud, not realizing that a female version of John Tetzel was in their midst. Their applause was their stamp of approval, sheep ripe for the shearing. Joyce Meyer carries her shears with her. The shearing has been profitable over the years.

"Once upon a time, Ms. Joyce took to the skies in a Bombardier Challenger 600.  Facing criticism over this, Joyce replied that “there’s no need for us to apologize for being blessed.”

Apparently that “blessing” wasn’t sufficient to serve the Lord, however, and so a few years (and a Senate investigation into her ministry’s “tax-exempt” status later) she traded up to a Gulfstream IV.

Blessing or no, the Gulfstream IV is a top flight private jet, with a crew of two, room for nineteen passengers, and a top cruising speed of Mach 0.85." (From "Areocorner.com) She says that  she can't travel commercial because, "It's too hard." [That mode of travel is for the unwashed herd, not the elite.]

You too can have a Gulfstream IV for a cost of between $3,495,000 and $4,500,000 with 19 currently advertised for sale. All you need are some mighty big shears.

Joyce Meyer’s house in Missouri is located in the St. Louis suburb of Fenton. The house, which sits on 10 acres of land, is 10,000 square feet and features five bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, a pool, and a pool house. The estimated value of the property is $10 million.

Joyce Meyer’s Florida home is located in the upscale community of Longboat Key. The house is situated on a one-acre lot and has six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, and a pool. The house also boasts stunning views of the Gulf of Mexico. The estimated value of the property is $4.5 million.

In addition to her Missouri and Florida homes, Joyce Meyer also owns a property in Los Angeles, California. The house, which is currently on the market, is listed for $6.5 million.

Joyce Meyer also owns a vacation home in the mountains of Colorado. The house sits on 10 acres of land and features four bedrooms, five bathrooms, and a private lake.

A reporter asked Joyce Meyer if she felt any guilt about taking the rent money from those who were struggling to make ends meet while she lives the life of Croesus. Her laconic answer: "No."  

This is only one aspect of her heresies. Her damaging doctrines of demons (Cf. I Timothy 4:1) also include the person of Christ and the atonement. 

A heretic is loose in the vineyard and they love to have it so.