GOD AS OWNER

It never dawns on modern Christians as to who is the ultimate owner of all things. There is a lot of lip service among Christians that God owns it all, but their actions belie their words. There is a definite disconnect between actions and words when it comes to God’s ownership. The reason for this is simple, the modern Christian is an idolater. Being an idolater means that the modern Christian looks to the most powerful visible institution, civil government, and bows down and worships this idol.

The modern Christian knows nothing of spirituality. They are wholly devoid of the what makes a Christian a Christian, the Holy Spirit. The modern Christian is Christian in name only, not in action. The modern Christian is also an Establishment Christian. An Establishment Christian is interested solely in maintaining the status quo. The modern Christian reverses cause and effect and 2 Corinthians 5:7 which reads, "(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)" The modern Christian’s version of this verse reads, "For we walk by sight, not by faith." The modern Christian is content with the present civil government as constituted in Washington D.C.

The modern Christian starts out their proselytes in the book of John. It never occurs them to begin a new convert in the book of Genesis. A Christian needs to begin his faith in the beginning, not in the middle. The first chapter of Genesis declares God to be the Creator of heaven and earth. All life is dependent upon Him because He is Creator. All things exist because He willed that they exist. Man is answerable to his Maker.

Man does not want to be answerable to his Maker, so he rebels and puts his faith in the visible world rather than the invisible. The main institution that has brought about this rebellion is the government school system. The modern Christian is the wholly behind government schools. The modern Christian is all too willing to send his children into this atheistic training ground. After all this is where he learned to make the civil government an idol and he would not want to offend his visible god.

The modern Christian fears the IRS more than he does God. This is because he can see an IRS office and an IRS agent, but He cannot see God’s impending judgement, so he does not fear God. As long as the modern Christian gets his Social Security and Medicare from the government, he is content. After all, he received a free government school education. In his mind, all good things come from the visible civil government. He bows down and worships the golden calf of civil government.

The spiritual Christian recognizes that God is the Creator and therefore He owns all things and that there is only one law that can be instituted in God’s creation and that is God’s law, as contained in the first five books of the Bible. The spiritual Christian knows that God owns it all and thus, the spiritual Christian will work to institute God’s law into every facet of creation. Only spiritual Christians are capable of doing thus. The modern Christian worships a false god. Only spiritual Christians worship the true and living God.

ON A BRIGHT FUTURE

Very few people ever know what is going on. This statement is easily proved. Think about the prophets of the Old Testament. Time and time again, they told the people of Israel that impending doom awaited them if they did not turn from their evil ways. As is predictable, the children of Israel did not heed the words of the prophets and they suffered what the prophets had told them would happen to them.

The children of Israel were in the majority and the prophets were a small minority. It is no different today. Those who have understanding are still a small minority of the population. The vast majority of people do not know what is going on and furthermore, do not care. All that they care about is that they are able to live their physical lives. They disregard and have total disdain for the spiritual. They ignore the spiritual with all their heart.

Paul classified these people as carnally minded. Paul said to be carnally minded is death. The opposite are those who are spiritually minded. Paul said their lives would be characterized by life and peace. Paul was not referring to physical life, but spiritual life. What most people do not recognize is that there are two aspects of life, one is physical and the other is spiritual. The same goes for death. There is physical death and spiritual death. Failure to recognize these two aspects is to put everything in physical terms and thus be led into error.

For the past 180 years, the major eschatology has been Pre-Millennialism. This eschatology still dominates today. It is advocated by those who have carnal minds. The Pre-Millennialist takes a spiritual book, the Bible, and interprets the spiritual as physical. The errors that this leads to are legion. Based upon their interpretation, if they ever get anything correct it is a miracle. This is because Pre-Millennialists lack understanding. Those who view the world in physical terms are without understanding of the law of cause and effect.

Fortunately, the Bible is a spiritual book and the spiritual always triumphs over the physical. Post-Millennialism is the correct and spiritual eschatology. This eschatology is one of optimism. With the use of God’s law, the world can and will be Christianized. The efforts of the spiritual will pay off. Post-Millennialists think in the long term whereas, the Pre-Millennialist is concerned only with the present i.e. the imminent rapture of the church.

You would think that after 180 years have passed and still no imminent rapture that someone within the Pre-Millennialist camp would see that their interpretation of future events is wrong. They do not see it because they are not capable of seeing it. Pre-Millennialism preaches pessimism and the defeat of the church. Post-Millennialism offers the alternative of victory and optimism. Choose this day your eschatology. There are consequences to one’s eschatology.

THE COVENANT PARTY

I know that it does not matter to most people what I think, but I am compelled to give my opinion anyway. The present Establishment needs to be completely overhauled. Let it be understood from the outset that civil government is not optional. God has established civil government. He, however, did not say that civil government was to disregard His law. God expects civil government to enforce His law.

In America, we have a two party political system, Democrat and Republican. There is basically no difference between the two. The Democrat Party is liberal humanism and the Republican Party is conservative humanism. The common ground between the two is that their starting point is humanism. Both parties agree that God has not spoken in finality with regard to the implementation of His law. They mistakenly believe since God has not spoken about His law, civil government is free to establish any policy that they want. In other words, there is no restraint from God.

Everyone knows that the Democrat Party stands for totalitarian government. Democrats are filled with people whose thinking is colored solely by the visible world. Democrats thinking is superficial in the extreme. The Democrat Party wants government to micro manage every aspect of its citizen’s lives. They do not want citizens to be able to think for themselves. They have been successful in this through the government school system. The citizens of Americas thinking is the direct method. The direct method is also the level of thinking of animals.

The Republican Party is supposed to be the opposite, but government expenditures increased dramatically under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. The Republican Party is supposed to be the party of limited government, but in practice this party has given us more government, not less. Republicans will compromise when it comes to trying to institute public policy. Republicans have an inferiority complex. They want the Democrats to like them and to be taken seriously. Republicans will give up their voting base to appease the Democrats, every time.

The two political parties sole purpose is to keep the present Establishment in power. This is why they will bailout certain industries and financial institutions while ignoring those who do not deliver the political contributions and votes. The system is rigged in favor of the Establishment. Just look at the retirement packages that Congress has voted for themselves. These insiders look out for each other. No wonder politicians go to extremes to get voted in.

The church’s loyalty is to God and to God alone. When the civil government becomes tyrannical, as it is today, then it must be replaced with one that is based upon God’s law. This replacement is to be achieved peacefully through spiritual means and never by force. Force is what direct method thinkers use to try to get their way. The spiritual will always use the more effective indirect method.

The church’s roles is to be an advisor to the civil government. We are living in a time of separation of church and state in all aspects. There should be separation of church and state in function, not in law. The church is to proclaim the law and gospel and the civil government is to enforce God’s law. The church are to be experts in God’s law and inform the civil government as to God’s requirements. The church’s pastors are to be God’s lawyers. This is a call for the establishment of the Covenant Party to fulfill the biblical role of the church with regard to civil government.

MOVING FORWARD

One thing that I understand intuitively is making progress requires going forward. Going forward implies, not looking back. Remember Lot’s wife. The Lord told us that once we put our hands to the plough, if we look back, we are not fit for the kingdom of God. A Christian’s focus must be forward looking. There is a reason that God did not give us eyes in the back of our heads. We are not to be looking from where we came but to see where we are going.

Numbers have a starting point and advance sequentially. Adding and multiplying is increasing numbers. They are progressing upward. Time moves in a linear fashion. We add to each year from 1 A.D. to present 2009 A.D. This should tell us that we should be making progress in our lives spiritually. Christians make progress because they have the life principle in their hearts. The Lord Jesus came to give Christians life and life more abundantly.

We know that if something is true, the opposite is also true. Non-Christians have the opposite principle working in their hearts. They are motivated to commit acts of death. Death is not progressive. It is a regression. Whenever and wherever sinners have the ascendency over public policy, the result will be those policies will bear the mark of regression and death. Abortion and homosexuality are regressions and are based upon the principle of death. This means that our present civil government’s policies are regressive and based upon death.

The only reason that regression and death have been codified in this country is because of the failure of the church. Most Protestants in America are Baptists. Baptists do not have any theory of civil government. This means that they support the Establishment, no matter the kind of Establishment. Baptists reject the law of God and by definition, they accept whatever civil law they find themselves under. Baptists are doctrinally regressive. Baptist theology is Pharisee theology.

When I talk about moving forward, most people imagine that I am talking in physical terms. This is not what I mean at all. I am talking about moving forward spiritually. The only way that you can move forward spiritually is to do it doctrinally. So what I mean by moving forward is moving forward doctrinally. This is what true progress consists of. We are presently living in a day when the second Reformation is being launched.

Some of us are not satisfied with the status quo i.e. the Establishment. The present Establishment needs to be disestablished because it is built upon the principle of death and the Pharisees. This disestablishment is going to take place spiritually. The pen is mightier than the sword. It will also happen because life overcomes death and light overcomes darkness. As the Lord told Moses to tell the children of God to go forward, God is once again calling His remnant to move forward doctrinally. We are well able to possess the land doctrinally.

FALSE WITNESSES

One thing that I have learned recently that I find to be absolutely so is that the direct method of doing anything is inefficient. Better results are obtained by using the indirect method. The indirect method requires thought before action. The indirect method uses understanding to solve issues. Most people do not do much thinking about how to approach a problem. They think if they tackle it head on, they will get the results they desire. They soon find out that things do not work out the way they intended.

We have to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. The Lord Jesus said that we are to go the extra mile. To get what we want, we have to see what the other person wants. It is always best to think of other people’s needs. Paul said that we were not to consider only our needs but other’s even to the point above our own. By doing this, we will also get what we want in a roundabout way. The roundabout method lets us escape the perception that we are only involved in an activity for selfish reasons.

We are living in an age of heresy. Most religious people do not know what heresy is. This is because they do not know what orthodox Christianity is. Orthodox Christianity has been under attack for centuries and now cults have gained more than a foothold. Some consider Jehovah Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and Mormons to be orthodox Christianity. This is because there are not enough Orthodox Christians that are willing to confront these heretics.

Heresy falls under the Ninth Commandment which says, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary’s second definition of heresy is "Heresy, in law, is an offense against Christianity, consisting in a denial of some of its essential doctrines, publicly avowed and obstinately maintained. Blackstone." Denial of essentials can only be accomplished by being opposed to truth. False doctrine is spread by false witnesses. Heretics look religious but inwardly they are liars.

The other day I was taking a nap on my couch when I heard a loud knock on the door. I answered the door and there was a large black lady standing on the porch. I immediately knew she was a Jehovah Witness. I did not let her try to tell me about what she believed. Since I am aggressive by nature, I told her that I knew more about her doctrine than she did. She asked me if I had studied with the Witnesses. She did not know that I am an orthodox Christian preacher.

What makes Jehovah Witnesses false witnesses? Jehovah Witnesses deny the doctrine of the Trinity. God is one God in three persons. Orthodox Christianity proclaims God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Jehovah Witnesses deny the divinity of Christ. They believe that Christ is a creature and not divine. This is heretical to the core. The Jehovah Witnesses deny eternal punishment. This is convenient for them. The truth of the matter is that Jehovah Witnesses are going to spend eternity with all other liars in the lake of fire which is the Second Death. All false witnesses deserve eternal punishment. God will make sure that the Jehovah Witnesses get what they deserve.

ARGUING WITH STUPIDITY

We are living in an age of increasing stupidity. The stupidity that I am referring to is based on ethics. Most people are ethically stupid. The Bible refers to stupidity as foolishness. From this frame of reference, most people are ethically foolish. The worst problem in the world is antinomianism. Antinomianism is anti-ethical. These people are anti-law. They will not follow rules unless they are to their liking or they can gain an advantage from a particular law. Then they are wholly for rules.

It must be hard to live by a double standard. Double standards are characterized by double minds or schizophrenia. Being double minded ensures that a person will be inconsistent in their behavior. These kind of people can be nice one minute and inconsiderate and rude the next. You never know what will set them off. When these double minded people are confronted with their inconsistency, they assume an aura of piety. They will say such things as, I am going to pray for you. Question is, who is going to hear their prayer? God certainly won’t.

James 1:8 reads, "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." The word double-minded means two spirited or vacillating in opinion and purpose. Unstable is inconstant i.e., inconsistent. Double mindedness leads in one direction, that of being unstable ethically. James 1:7 says this of the double minded man, "For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord." The double minded can pray but God does not hear nor answer their prayers. Their prayers are therefore, an exercise in futility.

A recent example will suffice in driving home the point of being double minded. I went to Wal-Mart the other day to pick up a few items. I ended up in the express check out which is 20 items or less. This is the rule for express check out. The good lady in front of me (I think she was a Baptist) clearly had more than 20 items. In fact, she had a shopping cart full of items. I kept repeating the rule to her about 20 items. She must have been feeling guilty because she responded back to me. She told me to shut up.

At one point, she became pious and said that she would pray for me. Others in line also commented about her behavior and she responded back to them that basically they should mind their own business. Through the whole ordeal of checking out she had many things to say about me and how I dared to call her to account. People like this lady always try to confuse the issue and make it appear as though you are in the wrong. People like this lady have no conscience. They see everyone else as wrong and them always right. People like her become dictatorial. When she told me to shut up, she was dictating to me what I could and could not do.

The stupidest thing that she called me was immature. For a Baptist, she sure is judgmental. How was I immature? The real child in this situation is her. She purposely refused to follow the rules of the express check out. It is clear that she is the immature one. She is also inconsiderate and rude. Actually, I was walking in love toward her by pointing out her ethical lapse. She had the opportunity to confess her wrong but she like her father Cain refused to humble herself and repent.

Another stupid thing she said to us in line was that the way we treated her was going to come back to us. She is not bright enough to realize that she is going to get into continual arguments with people when she pulls the same stupid stunt again. Fortunately, there is a place for this woman and it is called the lake of fire. This woman is going to experience eternal punishment and she will deserve it for the way that she treated others.

She did not know that she was arguing with a preacher. She would have been shocked. She is used to wimpy Baptist preachers who would never offend an ethical rebel. In fact, most Baptist preachers would have told me I should have minded my own business. This is because they are like this woman in ethical rebellion against God’s law. Occasionally, you have to argue with the ethically stupid. They are not going to change their behavior but at least the law is preached.

MORAL SOFTNESS

I write many of my articles based upon my experiences. As a recent example, I was relaying an incident that occurred to me to a receiver at Wal-Mart that is a Baptist. As I told him what had happened, he reacted negatively to something that I said by saying that I was being harsh. It was at that point that I realized that his theology is morally soft. This is a common occurrence in the church of our day. The church is morally soft.

There is an old saying that goes when things get tough the tough get going. What happens when times get tough, what happens to the soft? They do not get going, they capitulate. The consistent in any endeavor always dominate. Anyone who believes that we live in a soft world is deceived. Evil is ever present among us and evil must be overcome by persistent goodness. Theological softness produces moral softness.

The one doctrine that the church has forgotten or has watered down is eternal punishment. We act as though God is morally soft. We have forgotten just how tough God is on sin and punishment for sin. We think in this present age that God is not opposed to sin like He was in the Old Testament. Nothing can be farther from the truth. We need a theology that is full of fire and brimstone. All law-breakers’ place will be in the lake of fire which is the second death.

Some how we think that we get a better hearing if we leave out some of our of doctrines. Most people have no problem in proclaiming that God is love but when it comes to saying that God is a God of wrath, they want to hide this truth. Most people do not understand how to preach the gospel. Preaching the gospel requires giving the bad news first before giving the good news. It is no wonder that many who profess Christianity have never repented of their sins.

They were presented a false gospel of getting the news that Jesus had died for their sins with sins being undefined, and He wants to come into your life and make everything wonderful for you. Really, what they needed to hear is how sinful and wicked they were and how deserving of eternal punishment they were, prior to showing them how to get relief from their wicked state. The negative must always come before the positive. This is the only effective way of preaching.

The law of God must be used to bring the sinner under conviction (rendered guilty) for their sins before someone will be willing to amend their ways and their behavior change for the good. This is called repentance. Since the law of God is no longer used to bring sinners under conviction what we get are people who have never repented and this lack of repentance leads to the moral softness of the present church.

Back to the incident that I related to the receiver at Wal-Mart. We had been in church on Sunday, May 31, 2009. I noticed about 5 teens standing in the street out in front of the church after service. When I was going to the parsonage, I noticed that my wife had a broom and dust pan in her hands. I asked her what was going on. She said that some kids had broken a beer bottle against the curb where we park our cars. She said that she hoped that she got it all up.

She told me that she heard these kids outside and heard the breaking of the bottle. She asked them who was going to clean up the mess. They of course ignored her. I knew that they went to the park by our house, so I hopped in the car and went to confront them. I found them at the park. The one who had broken the bottle, a teen about 15 years old was smoking a cigarette. There was a younger boy and two teen girls with him. I asked who had broken the beer bottle.

They all told me that they did not do it. I knew that they were lying. I told the teen boy that it was illegal for him to be smoking. As they walked by, I told them that they were liars and then I told the teen boy who I knew broke the beer bottle, that I hoped he died and went to hell. This is what the receiver at Wal-Mart said was harsh. What he did not realize that I was attempting to awaken this teen that his behavior has him headed to eternal punishment.

Let us analyze the actions of this teen before anyone says I am harsh. What had he done? He was destructive in the breaking of the beer bottle. Had my wife not heard what was going on, our daughter would have come home and driven over the glass and I would have to buy a new tire. When this teen was asked to tell the truth, he lied. He is of his father the devil, the chief of all liars. On top of this, he was being a law breaker by smoking under age. This teen is a law-breaker and law-breakers are harsh, not me.

It is amazing that the Baptists, who are the first to claim Matthew 7:1 of not judging, judges me as being harsh. That is a judgment. What is astounding is that this receiver did not take into account the actions of this teen. He did not judge the teen, he judged me. He judged the righteous, not the wicked. This is what happens when the church rejects God’s law. The church becomes Pharisees. This receiver ended up justifying the wicked rather than condemning them.

This is the reason I despise Baptist theology. It is the Pharisee’s theology. It is the same one that put Jesus on the cross. I learned a lesson from this situation. Do not relate incidents in your lives to those who reject God’s law and call themselves brothers. They will condemn you and justify the wicked. The Bible tells us not to throw our pearls before swine. I personally like this receiver at Wal-Mart but I realize it is better not to bring up theology with him. Father forgive him because he knows not what he does.

MATERIALISM AND SATANISM

There has to be a first for everything. We have to realize that there had to be a first sinner. The chief and first sinner is Satan himself. The Bible does not give an in depth account of this creature just that he thought he could rise above God and take over and become God. What a fool Satan is. He attempted the impossible and failed. He is still going about to bring about the impossible. His efforts are a monumental waste of time and energy. In other words, he is the biggest failure of all time.

Satanism is the religion of atheism. Atheism is the religion of the material or physical world only. Atheism denies the spiritual nature in man. Genesis 1:26 says that God made man in His image. God is Spirit as John 4:24 says. Satan has to by definition deny that God exists. This means that Satan is forced to deny that man was made in the image of God. Satan’s doctrines will be materialistic. Satan’s doctrines will teach that man his wholly physical and in no way different from animals.

Satan is wholly opposite of God. God is life and Satan is representative of death. God’s ways lead to life and Satan’s leads to death. Theism is the way of life whereas atheism is the way of death. If God condemns sinful behavior, you will find Satan affirming the opposite. God works through representation i.e., man and so does Satan. Satan’s disciples will affirm abortion as a woman’s right to choose. What is the woman choosing? She is choosing the death penalty for the innocent. By the same token, Satan’s followers will deny the death penalty for murderers. They will give the death penalty to the innocent and give a life sentence to a murderer. Is this logical?

There are two types of people in the world. They are followers of the Lord and followers of Satan. Satan’s followers are easy to spot. Their policies instituted among men head straight down the path of failure, bankruptcy, and death. Unions have ended up destroying the companies they work for. An economic law says that you cannot pay people not to work. When a company pays above market wages and pays retirees, the company must recoup these costs. Thus, they must charge higher prices. Higher prices reduces the market for a product. Eventually, the company goes bankrupt. Think General Motors and Chrysler.

Unions are Satanic because they seek to limit men’s ability to earn a living. Unions seek to limit competition. Unions want a monopoly so that their members do not have to be ambitious. Unions base promotions on seniority, not ability. This means that those who are of superior ability will not want to stay in an union. Union members are a conglomeration of the mediocre at best. This means that the quality of union production will be inferior to a market of free entry for labor. Satan’s doctrines have consequences and the chief consequence is death in all that these policies touch.

ANTI-SPIRITUALITY

I start many of my writings with the thought about the days in which we are living. This is because I have identified areas that show exactly the prevailing thoughts of our culture. No matter what word is used to describe the situation, the root is always the same. There is an ongoing war between who will be God. This is a war between God and Satan with man caught in between.

Actually, there is no war because God has defeated Satan at every turn. However, the war continues for us because God allows it. Just as Adam was tested to see if he was going to be an obedient son, we are tested by God to see if we are genuine or reprobate. The test comes by us choosing which side we will be on. Moses said in Exodus 32:26, "Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the LORD’S side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him." The sons of Levi were thus true sons who had passed the test. Being on the Lord’s side proves whether we are a true son or not.

When we reject one position, by definition, we choose its opposite. There is no other alternative. This makes things predictable. It is easy to see that if someone rejects God then, by definition, he will accept the position of Satan. As Paul said the devil uses wiles to try and deceive us into believing that his is the voice of God. Since the devil does not possess truth, he must use methods of trickery to make it seem as though what he is saying is truth. In other words, he must use deception. His deceptions are able to snare the unwary.

The Bible teaches that God is Spirit. This means that God is wholly spiritual. We are created in the image of God which is a spiritual image. To reject God is to reject spirituality. This rejection will result in the denying of man having a spiritual nature. The result will be those who reject the spiritual will accept the philosophy of materialism. To them the only world that exists is the world of the physical senses. These reprobates will automatically preach the gospel of evolution. They will deny God as Creator. They will teach that physical material is eternal.

Being anti-spiritual means being anti-law. Romans 7:14 reads in part, "For we know that the law is spiritual..." The law is spiritual and to reject God’s law is to become carnal. Carnality is characterized by sensuousness. Paul made this fact clear in Romans 8:7, "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." The Greek word for carnal is the body, as opposed to the soul or spirit. The body is physical. The inclinations or mind of the carnal are to fulfill bodily appetites. The carnally minded are opposed to any consideration for the spiritual. Thus, the carnal mind is anti-spiritual.

Being anti-law is finding yourself opposed to God and on the devil’s side. Rejection of God’s law has consequences. One consequence is thinking like an animal, in only being concerned with bodily appetites. Anti-spiritual thinking lacks a concern for the future. Anti-spiritual thinking is solely concerned with the immediate moment. The anti-spiritual mind is the mind of an animal. Man was never created to be an animal. Rejection of the spiritual has consequences.

ETHICS AND SPORTS

Most of my life I have been involved in athletic pursuits. While growing up, I was involved in school sports. During my high school years, I was known as a gym rat because I spent so much time in the gym. I think that these years of physical training have helped me today in being physically strong. I believe that I built a good physical foundation in those days. So maybe my previous athletic pursuits served some benefit.

I am still athletic today. I run 21 miles a week and lift free weights three days a week. My job has much physicality involved with it, so needless to say, I am physically active at 51 years old. I intend to keep up my exercise program for as long as I can. The more that you do, the more able you are to be able to do it. Following any exercise program takes self discipline. You must make yourself do it. Consistency is the key to an effective exercise regimen.

My purpose in maintaining my exercise regimen is for my health. I consider my exercising to be my form of health insurance. It is an inexpensive form of insurance, in my estimation. I believe that the best form of health insurance is preventative maintenance. It is better to prevent an illness rather than to treat one. As the old adage goes an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Wisdom prevents disease and foolishness treats it. Sadly, most people are treatment oriented rather than prevention minded. Remember, it is easier to prevent than to treat an illness.

Organized sports of our day has been filled with the use of steroids. What needs to be understood about organized sports is that they are entertainment. Organized sports serve no other purpose. Life would go on without them. Organized sports are not necessary in any way. They are a diversion from the real world. In this regard, they are wholly fantasy. Those who live in this world are living a life of fantasy. There is nothing real world involved in organized sports.

There are those who decry the use of steroids in sports. They say that those using them are cheaters. Question, what are they cheating? After all sports are just a game and nothing more. It should surprise no one that modern day athletes use steroids even at the risk of losing their careers. The eternal principle is where your heart is, there also will be your treasure. Those using steroids are demonstrating through their actions where their hearts are. They desire to be idolized and immortalized.

Theology governs all aspects of life, even sports. The other issue is that these athletes do not believe in any absolutes. They have been taught all of their lives that absolutes do not exist and all things are relative and when they follow what they have been taught, people ask why they did that? No one says it is because they are following the dictates of their hearts. Athletics is the god of our age and the athletes are the gods. This is why they make such astronomical salaries for playing a game. This is the result of the acceptance of Greco-Roman thought over Biblical law. Let the games begin!

THE END OF A CULTURE

We are living in tumultuous times. There is nothing anchored down, so there is a constant drift into the abyss. Those who are currently in charge of setting our civil policy do not know what they are doing because they have no plan. Having a plan requires forethought. These elected officials have no forethought. This can only mean one thing, the whole of culture is headed for a great crash.

Make no mistake about it, this country has already crashed spiritually. What is transpiring is the crash of the culture objectively. The only thing that is holding back the inevitable crash is the inconsistency of its adherents. Fortunately, idolaters are not wholly consistent with their religious beliefs. Their open hypocrisy is a blessing to us all. While they scream at the top of their lungs we need green energy, they still fly in planes and drive automobiles.

While the young are being indoctrinated into the Green Religion at the government schools, the amount of carbon emissions being emitted at the time school starts and ends by parents and students driving cars and these indoctrinated students are released into the real world, is a lot. Those who really are involved in the green and conservation movements are those who are home schooled.

Home schooled students do not have to be transported to the central school. This saves the environment that the Green Religion worship. Even if home school is a co-op, classes are held once a week. So home schooling reduces carbon emissions. You would think that this would be something the Green Religion would embrace. This does not even enter into their thinking. They hate home schooling because they cannot indoctrinate these students with their drivel.

A culture is at its end when it wholly abandons the spiritual. When a culture abandons God’s law, it sets itself up for God’s judgment. God is not mocked, whatsoever a culture sows that is what it will reap. The world is reaping the judgement of God. The judgment of God is designed to bring about repentance, but usually what happens is that the recalcitrant heart defies God to a greater degree. This defiance is suicide.

The meek inherit the earth, not the humanist. This means that a culture that is at its end will demonstrate more and more the principles of death. Spiritual death means physical death. This is what we are seeing in open display in our culture. This death can be a slow and painful one. It may takes years before the final collapse is complete but make no mistake about it, the end will come to a culture that defies God.

God’s wrath is poured out against ungodliness. Wicked men will not prosper forever. Their days are limited. This is God’s world and His is the only government. Man can pass law after law but man does not have the power to enforce all of his laws. This present culture is at war with Christianity and ultimately God. This culture is bent on destroying itself which it will do. The question becomes what will rise out of the ashes?

WHICH SYSTEM WILL YOU CHOOSE?

I have understood from the beginning that there are two systems to everything. There are two voices that are beckoning to be heard. It is a matter of which voice gets a hearing. These two voices are God’s and Satan’s. Each has a different voice and as a result different consequences by listening to one as opposed to the other. The center of these voices comeS from either Jerusalem or Athens.

In other words, we will either be following Hebrew thought or Greek thought. One is theistically based and the other will be atheistic. One is spiritual and the other solely material. If there is no God, then man becomes his own god. It is a designer god that comes into vogue. Differences between the two systems can be best highlighted by the way of contrast. Contrasts allow us to compare they two systems side by side. The goal is to extend these thought systems to their logical conclusion to see what the results will be.

Greek thought or humanism makes man the measure of everything. Humanism is thus, atheistic. Humanism does not allow for a God to whom man is accountable because man is his own god. This can lead in one direction, idolatry. When the First Commandment is violated by having another god i.e., man, then the Second Commandment is broken by definition. The Second Commandment prohibits the making of an image of the creation.

Paul described this idolatry (humanism) succinctly in Romans 1:25, "Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen." Man is a creature. When man worships himself as god, he is worshiping a false god. He becomes a liar and bears false witness against his neighbor. Instead of worshiping the true, he worships the false.

Paul wrote to a Greek church in 1 Thessalonians 1:9, "For they shew themselves of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, how ye turned from idols to God to serve the true and living God." This is proof positive of what happens when someone follows Greek thought. They become a humanist and an idolater. There is no other alternative because humanism does not allow for God.

Repentance then is the turning from idols (humanism) to be dedicated to the invisible Creator. Faith in God will find it repulsive to worship the creature. Faith in God is accepting Hebrew thought. It is wise to worship the Creator where idol worship is foolish. Idol worship is foolish because it is false and dead. Serving God is wise because He is true and living. The final conclusion then is that being a Hebrew is the only wise course of action.

FIGHTING A LOSING BATTLE

Reality has a way of creeping in on me. I have such drive and energy that I thought that I could convert the world to Christianity. I figured that everyone would want to be a Christian. I have found over these twenty years of being a Christian a much different story. I have found only a handful of people that understand what it means to be a Christian. The masses are unreachable. Only a remnant are currently following the Lord wholeheartedly.

The established church in America is so steeped in idolatry. It is no different today than when the Lord Jesus Christ was on this earth and when Paul saw that the city of Athens was wholly given over to idol worship. All churches that reject the law of God are in idolatry. The law being spiritual means that those who reject God’s law are rejecting spirituality. This means that their thought patterns can only go in one direction, to the physical which will lead to the worship of the creature rather than the Creator.

Most churches in America are against evolution in name only. They will decry that evolution is a pernicious doctrine that leads to atheism and yet, they send their children to the government schools to be taught evolution in every subject. These church members actions speak much louder than their words. They are hypocritical to the core. True Christians have long pulled their children out of these devil worshiping schools.

There are teachers who claim to be Christians that teach in these God forsaken institutions. Do they not understand what is being taught in these schools and how the Bible is censored? It is obvious that they are oblivious to reality. The pastors are silent regarding what is taught in the government schools because it just may be that their wives are school teachers and their children attend these godless places.

The religion of atheism is preached and established through the government schools. America has compulsory education. Church members willing send their children to learn about the devil and then go to their churches on Sunday and learn how to be good idolaters all in the name of their chief idol, Jesus. If truth will not prevail in the church, how will it prevail in American culture? Our present church world is hopeless. There is no hope of changing the majority. Only a remnant can be reached with the truth.

Since I became a Christian twenty years ago, the moral condition of America has only gotten worse. You know that a culture is on its last leg, when it allows for homosexuals to marry one another. Where is the church? They are waiting for the fairy tale rapture to take place. They are hidden against evil because they have nothing to fight evil with. Evil can only be overcome by good and Paul said in Romans 7:12 that the law is good. The American church is full of dolts. Unfortunately, idolatry in the church is too entrenched to be eradicated. Anyone standing for the truth is fighting a losing battle if they think they can convince church members to believe the truth. Most church members lack the ability to understand true Christianity. As Jesus, said, leave them alone.

IN THE BEGINNING

The phrase "In the beginning" is familiar to all who have the read the Bible. It is the first phrase in the Bible. It is grammatically a prepositional phrase. Beginning of what? It is the beginning of the created or visible world. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth is the full verse of Genesis 1:1. God is the cause of the visible world we call the creation. The word creation means that the world did not exist prior to God’s causing it to exist. This means that nothing existed prior to God.

This means that God had to create the world out of nothing since nothing existed prior to God. Matter is thus not eternal as the Greeks have presupposed but the direct creation of a Creator. God as the ultimate Cause has the power of action to bring about the results He desires. This power of action is also personal. Therefore, God is the personal Creator. To be spiritual is also to be personal. Thus, God’s created world is a personal world.

Anything that renders the world impersonal is false doctrine. All false doctrines make God an impersonal God and a God that is not spiritual. An impersonal God is one who is not the First Cause. An impersonal God becomes at best a superman, not the Ultimate Cause. An impersonal God is more an effect than a cause. An impersonal world frees man from being accountable to a Creator. This is why man apart from God desires to make the world impersonal. He thinks that it will make him not accountable to anyone but himself.

The world that God created is governed upon the principle of cause and effect. Not just cause and effect but ethical cause and effect. All causes are spiritual and thus, personal. Man is a cause but always a secondary one. Causes possess the power of action and this power of action will always be personal. When someone murders another, it is done personally. Murder is performed with the hands and since hands come in pairs, they serve as double witnesses that the personal actions of the murderer are evil.

We all have personalities. Personality is spiritual because it is invisible. This personality of the individual allows the person to perform actions. The rule is, change the cause and the effect will change. Change the heart of the individual (cause) from sinner to saint and the actions (effects) of the person will go from evil to good. This is why the heart (the cause of action) must be changed. If the cause remains the same, the effect will remain the same.

When talking about ethical cause and effect, we are to understand that the law of God is personal. Since God governs the world based upon ethical cause and effect and He is a personal God and we are made in His image, it follows that we are to base our actions upon the spiritual or personal. Romans 7:14 informs us "For we know that the law of God is spiritual..." i.e. personal. Understanding cause and effect makes us responsible for our actions. The law of cause and effect engenders personal responsibility for our actions.

NOT KNOWING

We are living in a downward cycle. America keeps heading farther into the abyss with no end in sight. For a long time the civil government has been at war with Christianity. Of course, it has not been much of a battle, for the civil government has long ago won the war. The church has not been in the battle for a long time. Those who know what has gone on are a small minority with no ability to effectively change the entrenched establishment.

This is a good situation to be in because the civil government has become overconfident and is in the process of destroying itself. This country is in the process of death. The theology of death is what has triumphed but this theology cannot sustain itself because it has no future and no hope. The theology of death leads to a condition of hopelessness. This is obvious by the rash of mass murders that have taken place over the last three months (February, March, and April 2009).

Anyone that knows the psychology of mass murder understands that those perpetrating these heinous crimes are at the end of their proverbial rope. Their goal is to take out as many people as possible and then commit suicide. Suicide is committed by people who do not have a future and have lost all hope. This is because they are trapped in the physical world. They lack any spirituality that would show them that, through repentance and faith in Christ, their hopeless state would be transformed into one of blessed hope.

This is all predictable, of course. When Christianity is rejected, the only alternative is death. So our civil government has legislated against life in favor of death. Our government has legislated darkness rather than light. Once this takes place, what follows is easy to understand, death. Our government has legislated death through abortion and homosexuality. Both of these abominable practices are open expressions that there is no future and thus, no hope. Children represent the future. Abortion and homosexuality prevent the birth of children and thus, the future.

Society has degenerated to a point with no moral direction from the church. The church of our day has lost its savor. There is a church on every street corner and yet death continues to gain the upper hand. This is because the modern church does not know what is going on. The modern church has accepted the operating principles of the enemies of God. The modern church are used as apologists for the death culture of America. How many church members voted for the abomination that is Obama?

The modern church is as wholly useless. God does not work through these churches. God has nothing to do with a church that will ordain a homosexual. Everyone that calls himself a Christian is not a Christian. The Lord Jesus Christ said that we will know false prophets by their actions. The modern church is a church full of false prophets. The sooner that the spiritual recognize that the modern church is apostate, the sooner the death culture can be transformed into the life culture.

LIMITING THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT

Faith is essential to the Christian. Without faith in God and His word, there is no Christianity. Either what God has said in His word is true or it is not. Most Christians do not put God’s word to practical use. For most Christians, God’s word only applies to them when they are in Church on Saturday evening. It is amazing how many church’s now have Saturday evening services. This is so they can do what they want on the Lord’s Day, the first day of the week, Sunday.

Christianity is clearly on the slide downward. Whenever Christianity wanes, the civil government grows. This is because theologically the church has shifted its faith from the spiritual (God’s law) to the visible civil government (idolatry). Theology has consequences. This should not astound anyone. This is because Christians have been sent to, send their children to and now support the devil’s church, the government school system which includes all state colleges and universities.

The official religion of America is atheism. The government school system has no place for God in its curriculum. These hypocrites who decry any form of censorship, actively have censored the Bible from any government institution. Most Christians have accepted the presupposition of Satan, any law is acceptable but God’s law. Since they have rejected God’s law, the only other alternative is atheistic man’s law. This they will support because it is something that they can see with their physical eyes. This proves that we are living in a period of spiritual dearth.

God’s law decentralizes government. When God’s law is instituted, it limits the authority of any earthly entity. Only God is capable of governing the universe He created. Man is incapable because of man’s limitations of time, space, and knowledge. When Christians govern their lives under God’s law, they are putting their faith in God and His word. Rejection of God’s law leads in one direction, centralization. Centralization leads to totalitarian dictatorship which is the height of idolatry.

Decentralization breaks down large units into smaller units which become manageable and thus, governable. Centralization leads to bureaucracy, that is to govern too much, which means a loss of governability. Controlling too large an enterprise will eventually lead to fraud and waste. Too large an enterprise will eventually become unmanageable. When something become unmanageable, it has to be reformed. The best form of reformation is decentralization. Break it up and make it smaller i.e. governable.

The visible Christian thinks that bigger is better. The visible Christian will put his faith in largeness. It is what he can see with his physical eyes. He thinks a church is godly because of the numbers who attend. He does not know the invisible God. He has an idolatrous God. Those whose faith is in God will know that only God can govern the world. God governs the world through His law. This ensures the limitation of governments. God intends it to be this way. Think about the Tower of Babel.

WHY I AM NOT A CALVINIST

It is amazing how many times in life that we cannot see the truth because we have made a prior assumption that does not allow us to see clearly. When we make an assumption without fully considering its ramifications, it will lead us where we have to defend our position, no matter how illogical. Interpretation is an inescapable concept. It is never a question of interpretation, no interpretation, but which interpretation.

The Christian Reconstruction Movement is a movement of Calvinists. They love to say that Wesleyan-Arminianism is heresy and blasphemy. It is impossible for me to read very far when they start their diatribe against Arminianism. I, for one, am in agreement with much of what the Christian Reconstruction Movement stands for. I believe wholly in God’s law as mediated through Christ, which they agree with. I accept the covenant model as a method of interpretation. I am a Postmillennialist. So I walk hand in hand with the Christian Reconstruction Movement on the majority of their positions.

They cannot accuse me of not reading their materials as I have most of their publications in my library, which I have also read. Where I cannot agree with those in the Christian Reconstruction Movement and ultimately with Calvinism is in the area of salvation. Two points of Calvinism that I wholly reject are total depravity and limited atonement. If man is totally depraved this means that he is incapable of doing any good. If man is wholly depraved, then he would murder everyone in sight, he would steal everything in sight etc.

This is not what we see in experience. While any good that man does, without being born again of the Spirit, does not merit salvation. Any good man does, apart from salvation, is works and biblical salvation is by grace and not by works. Man, even without the Spirit of God, will run into a burning house to try and save life. This is not an act of depravity. A totally depraved man would not attempt to save any life. He would be incapable of doing any good.

In the book, The Great Christian Revolution, John Lofton writes on page 314, "A believer doesn’t have faith unless God has given it to him. Faith is a gift from God, and God only (Ephesians 2:8). God releases His power according to His will. His power being released is not dependent on any human action. The clay does not determine what the potter does!" There is much that is wrong with these statements.

For one, man is made in God’s image. In that image, there is the belief in God. Faith is something therefore that we have possessed from the beginning. God put faith into our hearts which would of course have been by His grace. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has put eternity in our hearts. Only the spiritual can respond to the spiritual. If God has to give us faith, then God has predetermined some to be saved and some to be lost. This means that man has no ability to choose anything. Man must wait around for God to save him. He cannot do anything to cooperate with God in salvation. According to Calvinism, man is incapable of responding to the preaching of God’s word. Then what is the use of preaching?

Here are some Scriptures that destroy the limited atonement of Calvinism. First is 2 Peter 3:9, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness: but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." God’s will is that not one man should perish, but all should be saved. All men do not come to repentance. Why? According to Calvinism, God has to give us faith to believe. Since God wants all men to be saved, it follows that God would give to all men the faith to believe. Then why do they not come to repentance? Is it because God does not want them to be saved or is He unable to bring all men to repentance?

Man is created by God to be a limited sovereign. There are those Calvinists who speak of the sovereignty of the consumer. How can a consumer be a sovereign, but when it comes to life, man has no sovereignty? Without limited sovereignty how can man carry out the Dominion Mandate and the Great Commission? If man is not a limited sovereign, how can he demonstrate any self control or self government? Revelation 1:5 says that Christ has made us to be kings and priests. Isn’t a king a sovereign?

Calvinism leads to one inescapable concept that God has predetermined who would be saved and who would be damned. I am thankful that this is not the God whom I serve. I hate the God of Calvinism just as much as the Calvinist hates the God of Arminianism. I have come to the conclusion that there will never be an agreement between Calvinists and Wesleyan-Arminianism regarding salvation. Each will accuse the other of heresy.

Another scripture that destroys the limited atonement is Revelation 22:17, "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whomsoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Following the laws of grammar, it should be obvious that God wants all men to take the water of life freely by the use of the word whosoever. To take the water of life freely i.e., without compulsion, means that we have the ability to do so. God never commands impossibilities. We have to take the water of life to have it.
God has predetermined His law. God has predetermined the provision for salvation. This provisional predetermination is revealed in Romans 5:6-8, "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ dies for the ungodly (not the elect). For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet preadventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners (not the elect), Christ dies for us." These scriptures say that God has provided a lamb. The ungodly and sinners qualify for salvation, which means all men for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The limited atonement of Calvinism is a myth and unscriptural.

Will Calvinists go to heaven? They will go the same way that all Wesleyan-Arminians make it to heaven, solely by God’s grace. What is going to happen when we get to heaven with Calvinists? I do not know. I am hoping at that point that God will straighten them out. I often wonder how both Calvinists and Wesleyan-Arminians claim to have the Spirit of God and yet cannot agree on such an important area as salvation. I thought the Spirit of God brings agreement, not disagreement.

GIVING UP ON THE ESTABLSHED CHURCH

The modern church of today is wholly worthless. It has become what the Lord Jesus Christ said about salt losing its savor, it is good for nothing than to become something to walk on and nothing else. This accurately describes the church of our day. The church of our day is idolatrous to the core. Church services only accomplish a social function. The modern church is useless in the fight against all the wickedness of society. In fact, the modern church is wholly indictable for all that is morally wrong in our world.

The main problems with the church are its eschatology and its basis in law. The church is wholly antinomian and pious. Instead of fighting the outward giants, the church is trying to fight the giants within their hearts through a morbid introspection. Instead of persecuting the world with righteousness, they have retreated from the battlefield into endless prayer meetings asking God to deliver them while the culture around them continues to disintegrate.

The modern church has accepted the operating principles of the pagan. This is because they were taught these principles in the established church in America, the government schools. They have learned the principles of atheism and then they bring these same principles with them into the church and interpret the Bible in the same way that the atheist does i.e., there is no God who has given us His law. The modern church rejects God’s law as expressed through Christ and therefore, they reject the God of the Bible even while they carry their Bible’s to church.

There in nothing redeemable in the modern church. It must be wholly abandoned. The modern church does not abandon the government schools. In fact, they are one of the main reasons that the government schools are increasing in size. The fact that they do not understand the atheism of the government school curriculum demonstrates that they are in support of atheism rather than theism. It is time to bring sanctions against atheism by supposed Christians taking their children out of the government school system. Until they do, they are nothing more than wolves in sheep’s clothing.

It is time for Christians to abandon the modern church. There needs to be an exodus. God is raising up pastors who preach and believe in God’s law as expressed through Christ. Soon it will be impossible for those who claim to be God’s people to remain in these idolatrous settings. They will be aware that the Spirit of God has written Ichabod on these congregations a long time ago. Repentance begins by abandoning these congregations. Mega churches are the worst of the worst. These dens of iniquity are all about mammon, not serving the living God.

It is time for the true people of God to awake and come out of these false churches. They are not doctrinally sound. They have no foundations. It is time to bring sanctions against the synagogues of Satan. The way that people bring sanctions is by leaving. The Spirit of God will lead His people where they need to go. The times are changing for the better. Those who are spiritually dead will remain in these dead churches. They cannot hear the voice of God.

SPIRITUAL SCHOOL OF INTERPRETATION

The key to history is to make progress. Time is linear and therefore, we should be making progress in all aspects of life. We are living in a time and age of regression. The spiritual regression is being made apparent by physical regression. Those whose heart’s guiding principle is death will automatically go backwards and become primitive. Why do people mutilate their bodies by piercing and tattoos? This is not a sign of civilization but a visible sign of reverting to a primitive lifestyle.

The reason for this reversion is obvious to those who are in the know. Most people do not understand it because they lack the interpretive key. Their method of interpretation does not differ in any way from those who have mutilated their bodies. There is a liberal idolatry and a conservative idolatry. Idolatry is the culmination of the interpretive method of the literal. The literal method of interpretation is the doltish way of taking everything at face value. It is a superficial method of interpretation. It ignores any underlying reality. It is a method that demonstrates the interpreter’s lack of understanding.

The literal method is the method used by the Pre-Millennial and antinomian. The Left Behind Series is the literal masterpiece. I made a statement that I could not write a novel. A congregant told me that I could write a novel and the name of it would be the Moving Forward Series. Unless we are progressing, by definition, we are regressing. In never dawns upon those who interpret scripture literally that their system is wholly faulty and will never come to the proper interpretation. So they come up with the same failed interpretation over and over again.

I have never been one to be lacking in confidence. Confidence is essential if one is going to start a new school of thought. All scripture is interpreted scripture. In other words, one’s understanding of scripture is determined by his method of interpretation. Interpretation has consequences. There are only two ways of interpreting scripture. One is literally and the other is the spiritual method.

The spiritual method is based upon the spiritual preceding the physical or the law of cause and effect with the addition of the law of identity. The spiritual method of interpretation is comprised of the laws of grammar and historical context. The law of identity incorporates reason and logic. The spiritual method is a trinity. It takes into account the spirit (heart), mind, and body. It is a complete method of interpretation.

The literal method is based solely upon the physical. It denies any underlying spiritual reality. Those who say they interpret scripture literally will reject God’s law as applicable to today. Romans 7:14 reads in part, "For we know that the law is spiritual..." It makes sense that they reject the law because it is spiritual. Literal interpretation is unspiritual because it rejects the source of the spiritual. Remember that God is Spirit.

CHOOSING A DOCTRINAL SYSTEM

It should be apparent to us that our lives are based on our ability to choose. While it is true that there are certain things that we cannot choose such as our parents, hair color, body type, gender etc. These are physical attributes. Our ability to choose is spiritual, not physical. Choice is thus ethically based. Those who do not believe in absolutes will makes choices situationally. Situation ethics is based upon effects i.e. situations, not upon causes.

When using situation ethics there is no ability to foresee consequences because choice is based upon the visible situation. Situation ethics wholly ignores the future. Situation ethics is immediate moment oriented. Situation ethics is thus chosen on a moment by moment basis. This means that choices will be decided randomly. This randomness has a chaotic effect both in an individual’s life and the culture at large.

As Carl Menger said in his Principle of Economics, "All things are subject to the law of cause and effect." I came to the same conclusion when I have said that the "spiritual precedes the physical." This is saying the same thing. This also means that the subjective comes before the objective. Understanding means that the subjective will determine the understanding of the objective. The objective must be interpreted and all interpretation takes place at the subjective i.e. casual level.

All causes are spiritual and all effects are visible. This is so because the spiritual (cause) always comes before the physical (effect). The way to test if this statement is true is to go to the creation account of Genesis 1. The creation account begins not with "In the beginning..." Prior to the existence of the physical world, God existed. Ontologically, God is Spirit and Spirit is invisible. The physical world (effect) was created by God (the First and Final Cause). The created world (objective) existed in the mind of God (subjective) prior to its existence.

Since we were created in the image of God, we will think in like terms as Him. We think subjectively (cause) and it comes into reality (effect). Ayn Rand said about writing that something remained subjective until it became objective i.e. written and visible. Having this kind of understanding enables one to begin to look at doctrinal systems and making a choice for them which comports best to their level of understanding.

How does one become a Calvinist or a Wesleyan-Arminian? Both choose to believe one or the other. It is a matter of choice. One believes as the other believes that for him, he has discovered the truth of the Bible. God’s world is based upon ethical cause and effect and whether you are a Calvinist or a Wesleyan-Arminian, this must be the foundation of any doctrinal system. If all things are based on the law of cause and effect, then all interpretation is based upon the same law.

CONTINUING DEBATE - INTRODUCTION

There has been a theological debate that has been going on for over five hundred years and to this day, it still has not been resolved and is a continuing point of debate. Both sides have their scriptural points and both have been defended by very godly men. It is the purpose of this writing to look at which side is right and the future ramifications. The question that needs to be asked is whether this debate will ever be resolved. If it has been going on for five hundred years, the question becomes is it a resolvable situation?

What debate am I referring to? The debate between Calvinism and Wesleyan-Arminianism. Theologically, these are the main doctrinal camps. Anything else is and is always going to be marginal. Charismatic and Pentecostal movements have added nothing to theology. These two movements are not relevant doctrinally because both are not based upon sound doctrine and therefore can be dismissed from this conservation.

Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:3, "Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." To me this verse is talking about doctrine. Unless we have doctrinal unity, we cannot have the bond of peace. A lack of doctrinal unity will result in a division in the body of Christ. The Spirit is the interpreter of all Scripture as He is its author. As Daniel Steele has said, "the Holy Spirit is the conservator of orthodoxy."

Doctrinally, orthodox Christianity begins with the concepts of unity and plurality or the one and the many. These concepts are the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is that God is one God in three persons. All things revolve around this concept of the Trinity. For instance, all life is based upon the one and the many. Any system is based upon this principle. Take a piano, for instance. We call it a piano or unity and yet it is made of different parts that constitute the whole, plurality. You cannot have unity without plurality and you cannot have plurality without unity. Both are inseparable from each other.

I believe that both Calvinism and Wesleyan-Arminians are orthodox when it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity. This is a point of doctrinal agreement. My point in this is, that whatever the differences between Calvinism and Wesley-Arminianism are, they are marginal but nevertheless important enough to seek a resolution. I am not a middle road type of guy, but both sides points must be considered before coming to a final determination as to what is doctrinally correct.

Can these two doctrinal stands be brought together in the bond of peace? I tend to believe that the answer to this question in total is no. The question then becomes do we have to be either wholly a follower of Calvin or Wesley? We are not to follow neither. We are to follow Christ. I realize that all Scripture is to be interpreted and that we will see Scripture through a particular interpretive lens. The key is either our interpretation will be correct or incorrect.

ANOINTING OF THE HOLY GHOST PRODUCES RESULTS

Introduction

Last week we saw how the disciples had been filled with the Holy Ghost and Peter under the anointing of the Spirit gave an anointed sermon under the unction of the Spirit. He spoke boldly and fearlessly. One of the benefits of being filled with the Holy Ghost is having the anointing of the Spirit which produces results in bringing conviction and leads to souls being saved. 1 John 2:20 and 2:27 read, "But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things...But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him." The Holy Ghost is our instructor. He instructs in the truth of the word of God and reveals truth to our soul. In other words, we have been given divine guidance.

Application

John 16:8 says, "And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." The Amplified Bible renders this verse, "And when He comes, He will convict and convince the world and bring demonstration to it about sin and about righteousness–uprightness of heart and right standing with God–and about judgment." Reprove means to convict. This is a legal term. All of God’s proceedings are judicial in nature. Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines "convict" as "1. To determine the truth of a charge against one; to prove or find guilty of a crime charged; to determine or decide to be guilty, as by the verdict of a jury, by confession, or other legal decision. 2. To convince of sin; to prove or determine to be guilty, as by the conscience." "Convince" from the same dictionary is "1. To persuade or satisfy the mind by evidence; to subdue the opposition of the mind to truth, or to what is alledged, and compel it to yield its assent; at to convince a man of his errors; or to convince him of the truth. 2. To convict; to prove guilty; to constrain one to admit or acknowledge himself to be guilty." The Holy Ghost brings men to the knowledge of their lawless ways and produces guilt which leads to repentance and saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Acts 2:36 reads, "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." Here Peter makes his sermon personal. He said in effect to his audience that they were guilty of killing the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, they were murderers. The reason some preachers are never able to bring conviction to their listeners is that they generalize their messages and do not make it personal. They will not cry against the guilty as Nathan did to King David, "Thou art the man." Preaching that does not produce conviction is not Holy Ghost anointed preaching and will not result in bringing sinners to the point of decision.

Notice what happened to Peter’s listeners. Acts 2:37 says, "Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?" The word "pricked" means that they were cut to the heart. These are men that were in the valley of decision. They needed to get rid of the guilt for their crimes against the Lord. Only forgiveness can relieve a guilt ridden soul. Peter gave the remedy in Acts 2:38, "Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." The first thing a convicted soul needs to do is to repent of their and sins and to forsake them. Repentance is having a change of mind and attitude towards our previous behavior and wanting to change the course of our future actions. When a man repents, then God in a judicial act forgives or remits all the charges (sins) against the accused. This relieves the guilty party of his of sin debt. They are forgiven and no longer exist. Baptism is a outward sign of an inward change. When a man is forgiven, he is simultaneously regenerated. He is born again. He is brought out of spiritual death into spiritual life. Once again, the Holy Ghost is a gift and can only be received as such by faith.

Acts 2:39-41 reads, "For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 40And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. 41Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls." This so great salvation is available to whomsoever will. The Lord has called all men to salvation. Young, middle aged, and old have all been called to partake. Peter encouraged those present to be delivered from this wicked generation they were living in. Repentance brings joy and peace in believing. They gladly received his anointed words and were baptized that day. Peter’s anointed preaching resulted in 3,000 souls being saved on this day of Pentecost. Not bad for a day’s work. The kingdom of God had greatly been expanded. These were a wave offering before the Lord of the first fruits of the harvest. Praise the Lord! This spiritual reality was expressed in the natural in Leviticus 23:20, "And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits for a wave offering before the LORD, with the two lambs: they shall be holy to the LORD for the priest." Anointed preaching will always produce results.

THE LAW AND UNITY

Introduction

The greatest dilemma for anyone is to explain unity and particularity. It is the age old problem of the one and many. To miss the one is to miss the correct interpretation of reality. Without a universal principle of bringing everything together leads to anarchy or to total particularity. The particulars, man, thus, becomes god. God is triune. However, in this Trinity, we have unity. In other words, in distinctiveness, you have homogeneity. Without a Creator, the creature ascends the throne for man. This means the Civil State. Paul said this concerning civil government specifically, also applying to all God given governments, in Romans 13:1-4, "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. 2Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. 3For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: 4For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." The civil government is to be a minister against evil. That is they are servants, not lords. The particular can never take the place of the universal.

Application

To properly understand the Bible, we need to use what is known as applied theology.

The essence of the First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," (Exodus 20:3), is that there is only one Absolute. There are not many. God is not polytheistic. He is One in unity. To reject Him is to spurn the Absolute for relativity. This is why sinners are characterized by moral relativity and situation ethics. They have no universal standard by which to determine their conduct. One day, they will follow this one. The next day, it will be something else. They are never stable in anything. They are like Reuben in Genesis 49:3-4, "Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power: 4Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch." Unstable as water is the characteristic of those who lack a omnipresence.

Moses wrote in Deuteronomy 6:1-5, "Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it: 2That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. 3Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey. 4Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: 5And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." Since God is one Lord i.e. one Absolute or unity, we are also to be one in our response to Him. To love God with all our heart, soul, and might, presupposes to love Him in oneness. We are not to have divisions in our being. We are to be one at root.

One cannot understand the New Testament without having a firm grasp on this concept of unity. Paul had a firm comprehension in this regard. He displayed it in Ephesians 4:2-7, "With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; 3Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. 7But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ." Humility and patience are essential qualities in maintaining unity and peace. The Spirit, referring to the Holy Spirit, is in perfect unity. Provided we have that Spirit, we will, by definition, be led into the same unity. We must conform to something. Once again, the Amplified Bible gives us the essential message of Ephesians 4:3, "Be eager and strive earnestly to guard and keep the harmony and oneness of (and produced by) the Spirit in the binding power of peace." This is what I have been attempting to stress about unity. It takes an Absolute or a Universal to produce this harmony. Without a harmony of interests, we have discord and dissension. Having more than one god, will result in a conflict of interests.

Conclusion

As always, the Lord Jesus Christ hits the nail on the head. He made it clear the impossibility of serving two Gods simultaneously. He said very clearly in Matthew 6:22-24, "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 23But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! 24No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Being single eyed is to be in complete harmony. No schizophrenia here. Being single eyed results in the whole body being full of light. If our body is full of light, by definition, there can be no room for disharmony. Everything would have to be in accord and agreement. The opposite is so if the eye is evil. It will automatically result in total ethical darkness and lead to a failed attempt to serve more than one god. Discordance is the result of attempting to serve more than one god. The Lord Jesus Christ said we can only serve one master. Attempting to serve two masters is because a lack of having an Absolute in our lives. The result is the individual seeks to fill the void by trying to become the Absolute themselves.

THE LAW AS OUR CHIEF WEAPON OF OUR WARFARE

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

WHAT COMMANDMENT?

Introduction

To properly understand case law, one needs to recognize which of the Ten Commandments it falls under. In other words, the Ten Commandments are summary law, whereas case law is the summary law applied to specific examples. No matter what laws man may seek to legislate, the bottom line is that we are solely judged by God’s law. This is His world and He governs it. This is why it is important to study and obey His law, so that we do not commit sin against Him. Romans 13:8-10 is a summing of up the purpose of the law, "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. 9For 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. 10Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." The Amplified Bible renders Romans 13:10 as, "Love does no wrong to one’s neighbor (it never hurts anybody). Therefore love meets all the requirements and is the fulfilling of the Law." One who follows the law of God allows the proper authorities to carry out a sentence against a law breaker. In other words, he himself does not commit sinful acts against his neighbor. Love can only be defined through the law. In the same manner, hatred can also be defined as those who rebel and break the law of God. This is what Exodus 20:5-6 explains, "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments." Love toward God is keeping and obeying His commandments. Anything else is hatred.

Application

To properly understand the Bible, we need to use what is known as applied theology.

Leviticus 20:14 reads, "And if a man take a wife and her mother, it is wickedness: they shall be burnt with fire, both he and they; that there be no wickedness among you." Sinful man always wants to make up his own rules and laws. He does not see anything wrong with the above situation. To him, this is a good thing. God’s law has a prohibition against it. This, of course, makes the natural man angry. He does not want anyone telling him what to do. He is determined to be his own god (Genesis 3:5), determining for himself what is acceptable or not.
Paul wrote the following in Romans 7:7-13 to explain what happens when a sinner hears the law.

This is their reaction to it, "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. 8But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. 9For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. 11For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. 12Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. 13Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful." The Amplified Bible presents Romans 7:8 as, "But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment (to express itself), got a hold on me and aroused and stimulated all kinds of forbidden desires (lust, covetousness). For without the Law sin is dead (the sense of it is inactive and lifeless thing)." When sinful man hears that he is not supposed to do something, it intensifies his desire to do those very things. Sin is most of all, deceitful.

The chosen text falls under the Seventh Commandment. Exodus 20:14 says, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." All sexual sin falls under this summary commandment. It is interesting to note that prior to our modern dictionary definition of the word "sex," merely meant either male or female and nothing more. This shows how depraved our society has become. This summary commandment therefore, regulates when sexual union is permissive and where it is not. Only in marriage is the marriage bed allowable as Hebrews 13:4 makes clear, "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." The Amplified Bible gives this verse as, "Let marriage be held in honor (esteemed worthy, precious, of great price, and especially dear) in all things. And thus let the marriage bed be undefiled (kept undishonored); for God will judge and punish the unchaste (all guilty of sexual vice) and adulterous. Leviticus 20:14 certainly falls under such defilement of the marriage bed and God gives the civil authorities the power for the death penalty by fire.

Conclusion

The only acceptable Biblical sexual behavior is abstinence until marriage and then purity in the marriage relationship. When we are married, we are to forsake all others. Why is this? Malachi 2:14-15 explains, "Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. 15And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth." To have offspring not legitimately conceived i.e. through the marriage bed is to have a bastard. God does not look kindly to such. A bastard did not have a social standing in the congregation of the Lord as in Deuteronomy 23:2, "A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD." A long time had to pass to make something illegitimate, legitimate.

THE LAW AND WISDOM

Introduction

Wisdom in the principle thing. We are encouraged by Proverbs 4:5-7, "Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. 6Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee. 7Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding." Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. We must have true knowledge to in turn have true wisdom. Wisdom presupposes knowledge. Not many in our day and time have this true wisdom because they do not seek it at its true source. This is what 1 Corinthians 1:24 says in regard to wisdom, "But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." Christ is the wisdom of God. This is the true source of all wisdom. God’s word is what makes us wise as Psalm 119:97-100, "O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. 98Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. 99I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. 100I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts." Being wise is a definite asset.

Application

To properly understand the Bible, we need to use what is known as applied theology.

Leviticus 20:22-26 reads, "Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out. 23And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them. 24But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the LORD your God, which have separated you from other people. 25Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean. 26And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine." All the prohibitions of the law of God, the people of the land of Canaan were guilty of committing. Because of this God abhorred them. In other words, He absolutely despised them and their actions. His people were to be different by not committing such abominable acts. They were to be a holy that is separate people ethically from those around them, in the same way we are to be today.

If we are to be a wise nation, we will have to follow all of God’s precepts. This is the message of Deuteronomy 4:5-10, "Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. 6Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. 7For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? 8And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day? 9Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons; 10Specially the day that thou stoodest before the LORD thy God in Horeb, when the LORD said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children." It should be obvious that those who do not obey and follow God’s law are foolish. Those who obey and teach their children God’s law are considered to be wise.

Proverbs 6:23 says, "For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life: 24To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman." These commandments and statutes give us light that we may avoid all the works of darkness. Law keepers are considered wise as Proverbs 28:7 says clearly, "Whoso keepeth the law is a wise son: but he that is a companion of riotous men shameth his father." These covenant keepers will avoid being friends with evil men. They understand that one becomes like those he associates with. Likes beget likes. Proverbs 28:9 states plainly what God thinks about those who do not love the law, "He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination." Their very words are detestable to God. They lack good sense.

Conclusion

Many in our day and time believe that the Old Testament law has been abrogated. This is not what the Lord Jesus Christ said in Matthew 5:17-20, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." The only Scriptures available at the time the Lord was speaking would have been the Old Testament. He was not seeking to undo it but to uphold it by fully obeying its dictates and encouraging us to do the same. This is true wisdom. Man must live by law. It comes down to which law? God’s law or man’s law which he derives from his own mind. What is your wisdom and ultimate reference point? Mine is the law of God.