Is Part of the Globalist Agenda to Target the Unvaccinated?

I haven't been following much of the current news these days, just bits here and there, enough to notice that COVID is still being kept alive for some reason, the propaganda against the unvaxxed continues though in more muted terms than earlier, the censorship of anyone who dissents from the prevailing policies against COVID continues, althoughit's certainly nice to see what Elon Musk is trying to do with Twittter and I hope he succeeds in restoring frree speech for the dissident side.   The globalist agenda is still on the minds of some on the dissident side, notably in the Christian arena where it fits so well into the end times scenario of th coming Great Tribulation.  

But what as been preoccupying me lately is some rumblings I'm hearing about the targeting of groups such as the unvaxxed, targeting in the sense of intimidation, harassment, vague threateings and evensometimes rather pointed threatenings.  This is all under the radar of the main sources of news and commentary I hear, and I'm still not hearing a lot these days so tht mayh not mean much.

Although I determined some time ago that I wouldn't listen any more to the late night sppok show as I think of it, Coast to Coast radio with George Noori, I happened to hear one of his guests talking on the subject of AI as a weapon in the hands of "aliens" to eliminate the human race, so I listened to most of it.   It's frustrating to me that anyone ebelieves at all in real phyiscal aliens as in extraterrestrials becuase their behavior is simply impossible in the phyiscal world.  Their "spacecraft" operate at physicaly impossigble speeds, change directsions at such speeds any physical ehicle would simply disintergrate and any living things perish in the maneuever.  Yet some actually seem to think this could be simple very advanced technology.  Tehy can't think outside the phyiscla context.  That's why I was so captiated by the UFOlogist Jacques Vallee who analyzed the UFO phenomena as spiritual beings.  He's not a CHristian, he isn't talking about demons, but just the fact that he sees their behavior in terms that defy phyiscal explanations and imply something spiritual he opens the dor to the Christian view that all such phenomena are really demonic, fallen angels with an agenda of their own that is malevolent , at the very least determined to deceive us and mislead us, underminje the Christian salvation offer, lead us all Hell if they can, and perhaps manipulate things on Planet Earth to some end of their own.   

But anyway tthis guest of George Noori was one Cyrus Parsa or something like that, and he does believe in real aliens and things their agenda is to destroy the human race and replace us with some kind of AI hybrid or something like that, pehraps a hybride of alien and human, I'm not sure I got what he really has in mind.   He also claims to have psychic or clairvoyant powers and to have predicted the pandemic.  I'd like to see his films or read his books but I haven'[t been able to find the films yet and I can't read any more. so...

I can't usually follow discussions of sophisticaled technology so I tune them out but lately I'm hearing about the possibility of technology on an extraordinarily advanced level being used to control intimidate harass or even kill human beings.  Of course the tchology of vaccines designed to destroy us rather than protect us is a hint in that difrections but it gets a lot spookier than that and I don't know how to judge any of this, I don't know what's possible techologically and what isn't.  Are very small drones that could be lethal or even deliver vaccinations against a person's will possible?  Are even tinier drones possible, REALLYsmall techno pmarvels that could harm people, perhaps get inside their bodies and hardm their organs and bringsaobut a slow death?  It siounds impossible to me but then I really have no clear idea about what's possible in the physical tech world at all.  I'm likely to think demons whern I hear anyhthing about such possibilities because I KNOW that demons are real, that they are malevolent and that they can hurt people unless those people are protected by Jesus Christ.

\I saw a film about "targeted individuals" in the UK and that's the title of the films.  They sound psychotic and they may be but then perhaps it's possible that they'[ve been subjected to some kind of high tech manipulations that are at least designed to make them into experiments for say some global power.  We know the global powers aare in operation and working up[ to some kijd of power grab sp tjat  so tthat part of it is crebdible at least to me.  But behond that are these things physical possible or are they all the inventions of hyperactive insecure people?

Ju[eratctove omagomatopms/

I'd like to be able to find out something about the possibilities involved.  I'd like to be able to find a source of information I coudl follow, about how sophisticated technology could possibly be used to target a vulenerable group of people who are refusing to goalong with the globalist agenda, say those who refused the COVID vaccines.  If such technologisy exists there must be some people somehweere who know about it, maybe even people who know it is already in use aginjsinst such groups.  

I've already been amazed at how much power those on the globalist side seem to have already, the power in particular to silence us dissicddents, anyhone who dissents from their agenda concerning COVID for starters.  I'm one though I don't feel threatened in such a personal way...yet.  I am persuaded that as manyh as ninety percent of those who have died of  CO ID would have survived if it hadn't been for the suppression of information about therapeutics such as hydroxychloroquine with ince, or ivermectin or even such the immune boosint effects of largedodoses of vitamins D and C aong other nutritional supplements.  I see a corrupt and vidious vicious propagansda campaign against such helpful thijgs while promoting the vaccines wihich are not vaccines, which don't prevent the virus or its transmission and have known adverse effects on a very large percentage of people compared to the usual permissible percentage which is very tiny and would oridinarily cause such a so called vaccine to be pulled from public use.   This is diaboligical manipulation of the public and it's very scary.  I wouldn't have thought it possible but it's been happening for such.  Along with the amazinglyh successful censorship of all the voices who are raised in protest of this corrupt and diaboligical agenda.  How many of the public actually get to hear such voices?  They are slandered to such an extent that many just accept that they must be charlatans who are passing along misinformation instead of the highly credential edmedical people most of the them are.  It's amazine how well this censorship and propaganda campagin has succeedded in keeping  so much of the pulic in the dark and inocjulated against the truth and marginalizing those who do know the truth.  

Anyway, I hear of individuals being targeted by intimidating tacts, even threats against their health and their lives through this sophisticaled technologist and I don't know how to find out more about it.  

Below I've copied out the link to the video about the targeted people in the UK, a few years beofre COVID so it's now about the vaccines though it could be the model for something along those lines now.  Unless of course the people simply are psychotic.  If I didn't know wsoso much about the malevolent propaganda that is clearly going on I might just dismiss them too, but in today's atmosphere I don't put it past those malevolent forces to target individuals as experiments or for whatever other purpose that fits their agenda.

I alsmot hav linkedto today's Jan Markell radio show becuase it's about the Great Reset.

 Meet the Targeted Individual Community; Target Non V'd - YouTube

The End-Game: Hiding in Plain Sight – Pastor Jack Hibbs and Charlie Kirk - YouTube

And here's a link to Chris Pito's site.  I haven't been able to listen to him lately because it's been hard to find his website.  I mjjust found it so I'm putting up the link:

NOTR - THE ANNUAL CHRISTMAS SHOW - 12.26.2022 - Show Downloads - Noise of Thunder Radio with Chris Pinto

s3.media.squarespace.com/production/827989/9727427/CHINA.UKRAINE.KANYE_12.8.2022.mp3?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIGASFZJDTI4L3CAA&Signature=0UGkoYdS%2Fa4TbZsHHVdQ01GamRY%3D&Expires=1672441196

Star of Bethlehem

 Happened on a teaching by John MacArtghur in which he covers the star that led the Magi to the child Jesus.  He speculates about carious aspects of the storiy in interesting ways but as he talked I realizeds his view of for instance the star itself was unconficing, and was reminded of the study by Rick Larsen called The Betlehem Star in which he uses an astronomy computer program to track down the star that scripture says appeared at the birth of Jesus.   I had to watch that video many times but eventually found it very convincing, and John MacArthur needs to see it.

MacArthur identifies the death of Herod, which is a key factor in olocating the time of Jesus' birth as 54 Ad.  I hope I wrote 4,  Fiyur Fiyr, AD,   Tujes U cab;t seen ti cibtrik nt fubdgers abt nire eutger,  Abtwatm ibe tgubg larsen did in his study was discover evidence that the four AD time for Herod's death was wrong although it's been preserved in all the recent publications of Josephus, which is the source of it.  Earlier references give ONE AD as the year of Herod's birth, and that makes a big difference in the attempt to discover the star.  Kepler had been hampered by the wrong date in Josephus, but with the evidence Larsen discovered he is able to come to a very convincing date for Jesus' birth and the explanation of tghe star that marked it.

Searching the sky with his astronomy software in the year Three BC, Larsen discovered a tribple conjuinction of Jupiter with the planet Regulus, King Planet conjunct King Star, occurring in the constellation Leo.  Herald of the birth of a great King?  Leo represents the Lion of Judah.  But right behind Leo rising in the sky is the constellation Virgo, which Larson recognizes as exactly fitting the description given in the Book of Revelation Chapter Twelve, the woman clothed with the sun and with the moon at her feet.   He speculates that this could be the conception date of Jesus and I think he's right.  It's Rosh Hashanah of Three BC.  

Nine months later is where the brightest celestial object anyone had ever seen, according to Larson, appeared in the sky.  June of Two BC.  Surely the time of Jesus' birth.

I'm convinced but you have to see it yourself and follow out his argument.

Then he brings the Magi into the picture, who would have seen that star and started their journey when they saw it.  As Larson puts the timing together he has them arriving at Bethlehem in two BC on... December 25th.   Yes, do watch the viceo and follow the argument.  I think it's very compelling.  It wasn't the birth of Jesus, which nobody thinks anyway since shepehereds don't watch their flocks on hillsides at night in winter, but the visit of the Magi, which is a sort of type of tghe giftgivers at Christmas now?  Why not?

And vfrom there Larson oes on to put it all together as what he calls a "celestial poem" leading up to the crucifixion, which he shows on his software was crowned by a blood moon and followed by the constellation Virgo with a FULL BLOOD MOON at her feet.   Yep, you need to see this video.

His website is Bethlehem Star.com.  Bethlehem Star.com.  can't control my fingers either these days.

It used to be at You Tube but ow there are so many things that come up under that title I'm snot sure which one is his if any of them are.

Don’t Dance With the Devil – Pa

stor Mark HJohn MacArthur: Becoming a Better You? - YouTubeenry, Pastor Jason Carlson, and Jill Martin Rische - YouTube

John MacArthurr on Galatians: "The Battle Cry of the Protest Reformation"

Getting the Gospel Right - YouTube

 Freedom in Christ, Part 1 - YouTube

aNOTHER bLEAT aGAINST THE nasb

John MacArthur on the Reality of Hell

J W Burtgon Could Have Saved the Church From the Bogus Bibles

Oh Oh please please please please please please.   At a Ligonier conference John MacAethur mentioned that Mark 16 "is not in the Bible."  this is SO upsetting, and yes I know I've said this so many times if anybody did read my blog it would be so annoying they wouldn't read muc more of it.  

Who said it's not in the Bible?  Westcott and Hort.  Westcott and Hort.  All sorts of thingsx that for centuries were known as Bible truth were declared by W and H not to be in the Bible   Because their preferred Greed manuscr9ipts, known as the "earliest" we have, don't include them.  It was their manuscripts that became the bedrock of the modern translations while the King James was treated as a poor translation from a bad set of Gree Manscripts.  On their sayso.   The fact that their 
earliest" manscripts are extant today, in nearly peperfect condition after nearly two millennia, doesn't seem to raise any doubts in anyone's minds.  They are dated back to the fourth century and there they are in all their pristine glory and it's just accepted that the tradition on which the King James ghad been based is the wrong one and this earlier stuff the true one.  Well, golly gosh, it IS earlier, right?  Isn't that all you need to know?

Bamboozled by the :scholars"   Mac Arthur, R C Sproul, Martyn Lloyd Jones.  all these and many others of the best of the best have accepted thje work of Westcoot t and Hort of the revising committie that produced its new bogus Bible in 1881.  I've heard all of these speak of passages that are not really in the Bible although they are included for tradition's sake in most of the newer translations.  they've bought the lie foisted on the Church by the Westcott and Hort dominated revosomg cp,,ottee/  

Unfortunately the main opponents, or the best known, the King James Only people, have credibility pro0blems of their own, so when James White did his book against them it had a lot of authoritative clout.   But although they are maybe the biggest group of opponents to the new fersions, and I'm not even sure of that any more but they certainly were a couple of decades ago, ... lost track of what I qas sayhing and insce I ca n't see what I'm writing I have to leave it there.  Sorry

I don't condser myself to be KJV Only althoughn I end up on their side from a different angle.   I read enough of DSean John Willion Burgon's books to be his staunch supporter and I  consider him to t bbe the one who should be taught in tbhe seminaries, not Westcott and Hort.  Burtgon is very convincing that W and H were not only Crypto Catholics who hated the King James Bible for reasons of their own, but deficient scholars to the point of operating at what he called "schoolboy" level/.  He wrote a lengthy book on Mark 16that I wish MacArthur had read, and he wrotge The REVISION revised which takes apart the Greek manuscripts they smuggled into their revision as well as their bad translation which Burgon says mangle the English on top of giving us a bogus Greek man uscript.

Burgon identified the Gree,k manuscripts preferrs by W and H as the word of early heretics.  they took out some of the most famous passages that had come down to us as the "textus Receptus which underlies the King James, and W and H made up the explanation that this was because scribes must have added in those passages along the way wince obviously to their mind these supposedly earliest manuscripts were the authentic ones and they couldn't be at fault.  Except that Burgon says they are at fault, and that is in fact why they are in such pristine condition.  the textus Recepturs exists only in fragments back to the tenth century because it was USED, while the W and H manuscripts are in such condition because they were never used.  

Anyway in my opoinion Buregon is the authority we should be trusting.  

Somehow or other MacArthur and others who accept this bamboozle nevertheless don't let it affect their belief in the Bible's inerrancy.  I'm  not sure how they manage this but somehow they do.  If pasages were added in later how can we accept them and how can we believe the Bible is inerrant if the original authorts cid not include them.  ???  

QWho am I to say anything at all?  I'm no scholar.  I just happen to think burgon makes the best case and what I've read about Westcott and Hort show them to be supre,e;lu iuntrustworthy.  For on e thing they did not even stick to the instructions given them for the revising committee.  Bringing in a new set of Greek manscripturs was a sneaky act of their own that was not warranted by the defined task of the committee, which was only tu up[date the King James Bible.

Burgon criticized W and H for their translation of the Greek word "aeion" as "age" and he argues that at some langth.  But their translation has stuck and people take it as an apt criticizm of tyndale's "wold" as opposed to "age."  He also criticized their ustranslation of a Greek tense which I think is called the Aorist?   aorist tense, which they translated with the awkward and unnglish phrases ending in "indg" supposedly because English doesn't sufficiently get across the ongoing nature of many of the Greek phrases which are more clearly expressed in the Greek.  As Burgon says this is ludi crous, and it reads badly in mty opinion.  I cringe everytime someone quotes such a phrasef from the NASB.  It's bad English.  The Eordinarly English past tense is just fine for conve nyhint gwhat needs to be conventy in most of those cases where they have mangled it with their schoolboy understanidng.  Where something more emphastic is required to get across the ongoing meaning of a pphrase the King James uses the "ing" form but for the bast manjroity of places wehre the Greek uszes the aorist tense it is not needs ed in the English.  Burgon knows what he is talking about.  i wish he were the authority the seniminaries use.

But whole generations of seminary students are now bamboozled about the Greek language, and ofcourse they aren't in any position to know any better. Idf MacArthur and Sproul and >Llloyd Jones don't knjow any better then the poor student new to Greek doeshnj'[t stand a chance.

Chris Pinto has covered a lot of territory on the subject of the bogus Greek Manuscripts used by Westcott and Hort in his filom series on the history of the Bible.  tares among the Wheat is one of them where it comes up but I think Bridge to Bablyon is where he gets more deeply into it.

Mark 16 belongs in the bible.  It wqas wsritten by Mark.  

I suppose it must be because the Church is under God's judgment that we are now subjected to this kind of insanity that undermines our Bibles.

----------------------------------------

Mea

Meant to poihnt out that in one of the supposedly earliest manuscripts so revered by W and H, the Siniaticus I think, there is a big gap in the text where tMark 16 appears in the tradition that undelies the King James.  Certainly d\suggests thatcontrary to the theories of Q and H that passage had been there before and was left out of this version.

Also want to add that I just heard R XC  Spro7ul  call the King James Bible "a bad translation" because of how it used the word "evil" instead of "calamity""y.  But isn't it just that the word had more of that connotation when the translation was done?  Why call it a bad translation?  that's part of the legacy of Westcott and Hort.  Distressing to me but then who am I ?  Most Christians have accepted the W and H frame of reference.  the fact that the King James Bible had a very high place in english speaking cultrue for centuries no longer carries any weight.  We now accept inferior translations of possibly heretical or even forged Gre4ek manuscraupts 

John MacArthur on the roman Catholic Abomination

Found a great talk by John MacArthur about the Roman Catholic Spostasy, including a discussion of the Reformers' view of the papacy as the Antichrist.  

John MacArthur - The Pope and Catholicism - YouTube

He's always been a strong opponjent of the RC oman Church but I hadn't seen a protracted discussion of the subject.   And this one is just an introduction as he says he'll go into more detail in a later discussion

but he holds out the possibility that the final Antichrist might not be a Pope.  I guess that does have to be a possibility but after the Pope has stood in that place for so many centuries I still have to suppose he;; go on in that role to the end.

I'd add that the way the number 666so precisely fits the Roman Numberals of the Latin title Vicar of the Son of God, Vicarivs Filii Dei, seals it for me.

Where Will You Spend Eternity?

My latest posts have ended up on the Fantasy of Evolution blog rather than on Faith's WQindow and since I don't know how that happened I don't know if the same thing will happen to this one as well.  

According to my eye doctor I am now legally blind.  I'm in touch with an organization called Services for the Blind that may have some mechanical aids that will help me continue to read some things for a while at least, wait and see.  What I'd really like is someone who could adjust the settings on my computer to enlarge print on the menus, blond it, and change everything to white on black because the white glare is hard on my eyes.  But I don't think that organization offters that help.  My son in law enlarged tghe cursor images a few years ago which helped a lot but he' hasn't been around to help with other things during the COVID period and probably won't be for a while yet.

Meanwhile the Lord helps me make outg some words when I ask Him for the help although it's all getting fainter and fainter.  

Anyway.

What's on my minjd for this post is the afterlife, mine and others'.   I mentioned a few posts down that I'd been through a period of doubting y salvation and it was pretty terrifying.  I'd never really thought about the reality of Hell before and it hit me very hard.  What if I'm beyond being saveable>  it can happen.  I'd heard enough of the best teachers saying that in many ways, how many who think they are Christians will not be saved in the end but go to Hell and what a shock it will be if they don't wake up and recognize the problem and try to remedy it.  If it Can BE REMEDIED, AND IT USUALLY CAN, THE UNFORGIVEABLE SITUATION IS PRETTY RARE.

bUT MANY WON'T GET THE MESSAGE.  aND OF COURSE BESIDES THOSE THERE ARE THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE HUMAN RACE WHO WILL NOT BE SAVED.  i FINALLY HAD SOME REASSURING EXPERIENCES THAT REINSTATED MY TRUST IN MY OWN SALVATIONM, AND i'VE BEEN GROWING IN THAT TRUST AND AM VERY HAPPY NOW, GROWING INTO DEEPER LOVE OF gOD AS i CONTINUE TO SPEND TIME ON GOOD PREACHING AND LISTENING TO THE bIBLE.  

bUT THE THOUGHT OF ALL THOSE PEOPLE GOING TO hELL, ALONG WITH MANY i KNOW HAVE ALREADY GONE THERE, RECENTLY GOT TO ME AND i CRIED A LOT ABOUT IT.  i DON'T THINK i'D EVER THOUGHT OF hELL AS A REALITY BEFORE AND NOW IT'S BECOME A VERY SCARY REALITY TO ME.  i DON'T DO MUCH EVANGELIZING, JUST SPORADICALLY NOW AND THEN, BYUT NOW i WAYT TO TRY TO DO MORE IF i CAN.  

i HAD A COUSIN WHO REFEUSED TO BELIEVE AND LIKED TO SAY THAT hELL IS REALLY JUST IN THIS LIFE.  bUT THEN ON HIS DEATH BED HE WAS OBVIOUSLY AFRAID OF DYING, KEPT GETTING OUR OF BED AND DIDN'T WANT TO LIE DOWN.  i*T WAS TOO LATE FOR HIM TO BECOME A BELIEVER EVEN IF HE COULD HAVE.  yOU CAN'T JUST MOUTH THE WORDS AND EXPECT TO BE SAVED, SALVATION IS FROM THE HEARLT.  nO DOUBT SOME HAVE BEEN SAVED AT THE LAST MINUTE, THE THIEF ON THE CROSS WHO SAW THAT jESUS WAS THE cHRIST WAS ASAVED, BUT CLEARLY THAT WAS FROM hHIS HEARD AND THAT'S VERY UNUSUAL.  

sO IT'S BEEN HITTING ME THAT THERE ARE ONLY TWO OPTIONS AFTER DEATH, hEAVEN OR hELL, AND THERE IS NOTHING ELSE.  aND THE ONLY WAY TO hEAVEN INS THROUGH FAITH IN jESUS cHRIST

S DEATH ON THE CROSS TO PAY FOR OUR SINS.  THAT'S IT.  "i AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE, NOBODY COMES TO THE fATHER BUT BY mE."  hE'S THE "DOOR" THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO SALVATION.  iT'S SOMETHING A cHRISTIAN "KNOWS" BUT i COULD SAY i NEVER REALLY KNEW IT UNTIL RECENTLY.  

Oh good grief, I think I've been wqriting in all capts.  Sorry, I can't fix it now.  I don't know how must of the text is that way.  Sorry.

So now everyone I knw who is not a Christian, and even some who are for that matter, I see as destined for Hell and I desperately want to turn them away from it, but there is s8uch resistance to the gospel message it's hard to know how to approach it.  I'm praying about it.

Very sad thoughts.  Everybody I see now seems to me to be living a totally futile life if they aren't true believers in Christ.  Ande that's  cours the mjajority of humanity.  Walking around in a fog, living for short term objectives if any objectives at all, wandering in a mist of ignorance.  Why am I only now coming to see things this way?   And most of them won't accept the gospel no matter how it's presented to them.  Some will though, they have to be the focus.

So many good teachings.  MacArthur on Who Is The Antichrist.  And now I've forgotten what the other one is that MacArhur preached.    but I do remember the one by Spurgeon aboutr prayer and here is the link:

rue Prayer, True Power! - Charles Spurgeon Sermon - YouTube

Book Recommendation: Murder, Motherhood and Miraculous grace

Pilgrim Radio has a daily program where someonbe reads a book a half hour at a time and the one that is being read right now is a dramatic true story that makes me wih I could still read because instead of waiting for wach daily installment I'd have bought the ook by now and read the whole thing.  It has an audible version but I haven't been able to figure out that feature so oh well.

This is the book "Murder, Motherhooe and Miraculous Grace" told by a foster parient who had a part in a murder trial in Wyoming back in the nineties.  That's all I'll say in case anyuone wants to get the book and read it.

I should add though that it's a sad story, about children as victims of irresponsible adults.

The Church is Limping from the Devil's Attacks on the Bible Manuscripts and on the Women's Head cCovering and on the Identity of the Antichrist

It gets to me, sometimes it makes me angry.  I do wonder if I'm wrong, Lord please please correct me if so, or motivated by self and pride and I suppose there's always going to be some degree of that influence but again Lord please please correct me.   When they, meaning otherwise good solid Bible teachers, refer to the "earliest manuscripts as their authoritative source on some passage where the King James tradition of manuscripts differ from it, I either cry or get mad.  Same when I hear the interpretation of the women's head covering twisted by that false claim that it's really all about the sucultural context of Paul's time and not about a literal head covering, or when I hear the End Times prophecy foloowers say we aren't going to know who the Anticrhist is because he is only going to be revealed after the Rapture.

Sounds arrogant of me I'm sure.  There are people on my side but they aren't the BIG guys.  TThey aren't the seminary professors.

I just heard a praecher interrupt his sermon on the book of Ephesians to note that the "earliest manuscripts" don't have the word" Ephesians' in the first line of it although for the most part it is there in the current versions anyway.  What's the implication of this?  That the earliest manuscripts are true to what Paul actually wrote and that somebody somewhere along the line added the word into later copies.  Which is a SIN.  That idea came from Westcott and Hort, that all kinds of things that aren't in those earliest manuscripts were added later into the line of manuscripts that underlies the King James Bible.

I've heard Westcott and Hort referred to with reverence by otherwise decent pastor.  Two men who violated the directive they were under on the committee called to update the King James, by addint a new set of Greek manuscripts, besides in the opinion of Dean JQ Bufgon, producing a very bad translation because of their inferior understanding of both Greek and Englihs.   Burgon is my standard, a highly qualified scholar of Greek as well as a true man of God.  Nwither can be said of Westcogtt and Hort.

It CAN be said of the King James translators though.  And besides Westcott and Hort I doubt it can be said of ANY of those who have produced any of our modern translations which are based on their corrupted manuscripts.   If the revising commiittee ohad done its job we could have had a decent updating of the King James.  Instead we have a babel of inferior translations based on a set of Greek man7uscripts that were known to Burgon as at least corrupted by earliy heretics, or possibly, as is explored in documentariesby Chris Pinto, even later forgeries.  

In any case those manuscripts arfe, amazinglyh, still intact, though they go all the way back to the early centureies of the Church.  How did they manage to remain so pristine?  Consider that the textus receptus, the line of Greek manuscripts on which the King James was based, only exist now in fragments, some five thousand of them, that go back only to the tenth century.  Which is what you'd expsect of Bibles that were actually USED.  For some reason those earliest manuscr9ipts were not used.    That's the only reason they could have survived for so long in such good condition.  IF rhey do in fact go that far back, which may be untrue.  T3ehy may be forgeries.  At least Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.

But the Church has accepted the Westcott and Hort production and takes it all very seriously.  Dare I suggest this is just a form of captivity by the devil?   Over what is at least the majority of the Church?

BDoes it really matter?  Well, I think it does.  I think the very fact that we have so many different translations in itself has a crippoling influence on the Church.   We need a common la nguage in order to share the scriptures with one another without always having to stop and correct and second guess everything, and certainly for the purpose of memorizing scripture.  And there is no need in MOAT of the cases for any change to the King James wording.  I was listening to the Book of Revelation read on the radio the other day in the NASB version and it was hard not to turn inte radio off.  There is no reason to have changed the word "V8ial" into the word "bowl,: or to make "fornication" reduceable to the vague term "immorality."  And that's just a couple of the problems I kept hearing in the reading.

Well, nobody is likely to isten to me.  I'm nobody a nd nobody readds my blog anyway, or not many.   I also strenuously object to the devil's work on the women's head covering too.  Scholars even of very good reputation can err but when they err they getr taken seriously as in this case.  The passage is about the HEAD, over and over and over it is clear it is about the HEAD, because it is about the order of headshi9p or authority God gave to His creation, God over Chirst over man over woman.  It is not about cultura,l expressions of femininmity.  I would think that would be prestty obvioujs.  Besides, as I like ot point out, we require men to uncover their heads in church, and that also came from that same pasage, so how on earth do we justify chanigng the meaning of the passage onlyu to apply it to women and remove the meaning that it's really about which is covering the head.

And then there is the Anticrhist.  He's been identified by ttrue Christians down the centuries as the Pope and the Reformers discovered thatat fact in their turn.  He's the Pope.  There's no reason to think some other figure is going to show up as a new version of the Anticrhist.  The number six six six fits him as it does no otgher person and he's been known for centuries as the Anticrhist.  We just aren't required to read the right histories any more.

ROME ROME ROMEAgain

Was finally able to listen to the last two messages with the Read Aloud function and found out that a lot of the earlier message is gobbledygook, apparently the result of my fingers slipping off their proper orientation on the keyboard.  There's no way I can reproduce what I said there, I don't really remember it, but I think I can maybe say some more that may be related to it.

I was very impressed that it has ALWAYS been Rome that is the main persecutor of the saints of God, at least since the time of Jesus and down through the last two millennia of the Christian era.   The Caesars, the Christians hiding in the catacombs, the hints at it in the New Testament writings and the known history we have of all that.  

And then when the Roman Empire fell the Roman Church rose in its place and the Pope beame the new Caesar as it were.  Presiding over Western Christendom for about a milennium, and known for perseucting the true XChristiansz.  The Waldenisains and the Hugeuenots  and others down through the benturies, adding up to something like fifty million Christians martyred accordihng to one source, David Plaisted.  Others were also murdered by the Roman Church,, such as Jews and muslims, but according to Plaisted that number was about seventeen million whle the Christians are arer and away the greatest number of artyre.

How do we not know that these days?  When did the Church stop rading history?  When did they stop reading books like Dowling's History of Romanism and Wylie's History of Protestantism.  Don't we still read Foxes' Book of Martyrs"  Has that lesson been missed somehow too?

Yes Rome Rome Rome.  Rome in the early years and Rome in the Middle Ages, and it still goes on now in Roman Catholic Countries away from the public eye as I've noted on my Catholicism blog.   Tehy've never recanted thri anathemas against the Protestants which are enshrined in their Council of Trent.   Whenever they have the power we can be sure they'll be going after the saints again, and those must be the saints of the book of Revelation and their persecutor must be the Roman Church.  

Which IS what the Harlot image is in Revelation seventeen.  Mystery Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots.  That's Rome Rome Rome.  Just consider the statue of Nebuchadnezzar's drea m from the book of Daniel.  ONE image of ONE man made up of four empires with Babylon as its head and Rome as it's feet.   Rome is Babylon.   And the animsls of Daniel's own dreams and visions.  The fourth beast    It's hard to think of there being any other Antichrist yet to come than the Pope.  H'es been recognized for centuries bydissident Christians as the Antichrist, why would he stop being the Antichrist now?:

Besides which, the nu mbmer 666 most perfectly fits the title of the Pope, Vicarivs Filieii Dei.  Sorry I think I got that wrong.  Trye again.  VICARIVS FILII DEI.  It means Substitute for the Son of God which is practically a defintiion of Antichrist itself, but then the Roman Numberal s which are embedded in the title add up to 666.  If I managed to get it written correctly.  But I've written it selsewhere on the blog so it can be checked.

Why has the Chuirch been so misled?  They don't even know that Westcott and Hort were Catholic sympathizers and "hated" the King Ja mes Bible.  Hated it?  So they gave us Bibles of lousy translations based on lousy and heretical manscripts byat may be forgeries.  QWhat happened to the Church? What sort of blindness has overtaken us?  Are we reaping the consequences of the liberis.loism of the nineteenth century?  Is this judgment on the Yes and don't forget

Yes and don't forget the cCatholic connections with Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot and Rwanda.  Hitler even said he modeled his Holocaust on the Roman Inquisition.  The masascre in Rwanda was instigated by a Catholic Bishop over the radio.   

ROME ROME ROME.    WSHouse of God?  

I Really Really Really Don't Want You to Go to Hell

\\\\\\\\\\

My eyes are so bad it's amazing I can write anything at all.  Well, I can't see what I write, I just have to hope that myu figers are on the right keys as I feel my way.   The Lord does help me a lot.  When I can't see the word I want on the menyu, such as "Copy" or "paste" or Read aloud" I'll ask him to show it to me and He will.  He just did that with the word "paste" so i could put the link below to A Q Pink's sermon on Counterfeit swaving faith.

I had no idea there were so many messages out there about this very sort of thing, all the ways it can seem someone is saved or has the Holy Spirit when in fact they don't.  Mostly it's see,med to me that pastors want to give reassuring messages that we are in fact saved, and of course often that is exactly what is needed, but I'm afraid I don't remember hearing this other message from a pastor beofre, how easy it is to deceive ourselves that we are in the faith when we are not.  That may just be my faulty memory.'

Pink, Ryle, Owen all say quite a bit about this problem of people deceiving themselves about their salvation.   A month or so ago this theme put me in a deep state of fear about my own salvation.  Was I ever really saved?  Do Ireally have the Holy Spirit?  What about those horrible sins I've committed just in the last few years?  And He started to show me those sins.  A couple of them looked like the sort that damn a person who isn't saved, and from which they cannot be saved, as per that passage in Hebrews.  The dread I felt was terrible.   It went on for wee,kks.  Ifelt God had completely abandoned me.  I had a real sense that I could very well go to Hell after years of deceiving myself.   

Then THe Lord agve me a surpprising reassurance that I am in fact saved.   I was trembling with fear over my sins and I'd said I want ed to go on trembling because I didn't want to get complacent about sin any more.  But the trembling was pretty heaving, ral trembling, real shaking, a cold dread in the pit of my stomach.   I said to the Lord, I just want to go on trembling until I'm saved.  And at that moment the tremgling stopped.  It rapidly faded away to nothing.  So what did that mean?  I am saved NOW.  The trembling stopped when I was saved, and that is now.  I didn't get up and leap for joy right away.  I doubted it.  It's a subjective experience of course, however objectiving in form.  I've learned to doubt my experiences.  But over time I've become confinced.  Only He could have stopped the trembling.  And there is no other wayt to interpret it given the terms I'd presented Him with but that I am in fact saved.  So although to some extent the cold dread remains, or comes back from time to time, I ham now overall reassuraced that I am saved and am relearning how to put my trust in Him for that.

There messages have made me awfully aware of the situation of others though.  Mostly unbelievers.  My own terror of Hell is enough to make me want to save everybody else from it, and yet I'm not much of an evangelist and I don't reallyh inow where to start.  Those I have presented with the gospel have all said no many times.   

Saving Faith: Its Counterfeits - A. W. Pink / Studies in the Scriptures / Christian Audio Books - YouTube

At the beginning of April I started on a Spiritual Renewal Project.  I'm still on it, I'm never going to get off it.  

nzel Washington a Chr

A few months into it I istian Now? Listen to His Answer - YouTube

 

Last days, Revelation and Rome

Lately I keep running across messages related to the return of Jesus in the Second Coming.  I turn on Christian radio and someone is talking about one of the Bible passages about the Second Coming, or I listen to something on the internet and the same theme comes up.  There's so much of it I'm starting to take it as a warning to be more alert than usual because it must be very very close.

Last night when I couldn't sleep, about four AM I was revieing the Book of Revelation which I'd heard earlier in the day on my Audio Bible.   As usual the Antichrist appears to me to be the Pope and all other candidates seem wildly unlikely.   I was thinking about the first beast of Recvelation 13 and how it has the features of the beasts in the Book of Daniel whilch represent the empires of Babylonia, Medo Persia and Greece , the lion, the bear and the leopard.  The fourth beast is a great and terrible beast without such specific features in Daniel, but here in revelation it is made up of the emblems of these other three empires.  We know the fourth beast is the Roman Empire although of course Daniel didn't know that and angel didn't reveal it to him, but we know it because it is the empire that arose after those other three.  And in the time orf John's vision it was the empire they wree all living in.

Jesus died by the Roman method of crucifixion, some if not all of His disciples were martyred by the Romans, as were great numbers of ordinary believers.  Rome was the great persecutor of CHristians in the early centuries and then again in the Middle Ages under the Roman Church which is often understood to be the representative of the Roman Empire.  So when Revelation describes the Whore of Babylon to be full of the blood of the martyrd Christians there's little reason to think any other dsource could be meant than the Roman Empire.  Rome is THE persecutor of Christians and will be in the very last days as well.

Rp,e os Babu;pm/  As tje su,bp;s om tje bppl pf Damoe; ,ale c;ear  tjere was a seqiemce pf e,[ores frp, Babu;pm tp Rp,e tjat are a;; toed tpgetjer om sp,e essemtoa; wau/  Rp,e e,bpodes a;; pf tje,/  Rp,e OS Babu;pm/  Tje Cjircj pf Rp,e os tje omjerotpr pf tje re;ogopms tjat ca,e dpwm tjrpigj tje [agam matopms frp, Babu;pm/  A;examder Jos;p[

s bppl Tje Twp Babu;pms traces tjos ;omeage/

Sp wjat os tje beast pf Reve;atopm Tjorteem  We;; ot jas tje featires pf tje e,[ores su,bp;ozed om tje bppl pf Damoe;/  Ot os tje Rp,am E,[ore/  Amd uet ot os a;sp a ,am/  Tje Amtocjrost/  Tje Amtocjrost os tjerefpre sjpwm tp re[resemt Rp,e/  Mpt kist sp,epme wjp aroses pit pf tje fpr,er Rp,am E,[ore. sicj as amu Eirp[eam. big a re[resemted pf Rp,e otse;f/  Ot

s gpt tp be tje {p[e. tje jead pf tje Jp;u Rp,am E,[ore amd a;tjpigj at tje ,p,emt je

s mpt ri;omg pver tje wpr;d je

s certaom;u om a [psotopm tp tale tjat rp;e of corci,asstamces arose tjat a;;pw fpr ot/

We don't need to wait for him to be revealed.  He's been revealed.  We just need to know our history better.  He's also already in the temple, which is the people of god, he's already put himself in the place of Christ and even in the place of the whole Trinity.  We don't need to be expecting some future event to bring that about.  He just needs to be given the power to persecute the saints again, that's really all that remains to be fulfilled.

One of the evil effects of the Westcott and Hort Tamperings with the Text of the Bible

 Listening to a sermon on Pilgrim Padio, the local Christian radio station for Northern Nevada and Wyoming and I think also parts of northern California and Montana.  This was a sermon by a Zack Schlegel who pastors a Baptist chuirch in Upper Marlboarough Maryland, in a series on the ospel of John, That You May Believe.  Today he preached on John seven and eight in which the story of the woman caught in adultery is stold, and he commented that the footnotes says this story does not occur in the oldeest manuscripture.

Which for me is a distressing reminder of the destructive work k of Westcfoot and Hort on that benighted revising committee that came to an end in 1881. wjocj [rp0,o[ted tje tot;e pf ,u b;pg pm tjat sibkect Tje Great Bob;e Jpax pf tjat uear/

By the way since I can't see well I'm going by ear on how to spell the pastor's name and other things releated to the topic.

So.  Those oldest manuscripturs, often described as the oldest and best, are those manuscriptures in Greek that Westcott and Hort replaced the accepted manuscripture with, against the directives of the assignemnt of the revisingcommittee.   They were only to do an update in English to the King James Version.  Instead they replaced its underlying texts, known as the Textus Recepturus, with these other manuscriptrs which have been wrong accepted as valid.   Dean John William Burgon has wiritten very lengthy treatises on the falseness of those manuscripturs they brought into play, that now are accepted by the Church, which is a sad situation accortding ot some of those who have followed the historty of this situation.

Thew passage about the woman  n caught in adultery was added according to Westcott and Hort to the tradition of manuscripturs that underlie the King James.  Burdon says it was among passages that were subtracted by heretical sects in the early centuries.  Adding or subtracting to the Word of God is of course a serious sin forbiddfen in the text itself.  We have five thousand fragments of the GBibble from the tenth century that inclyude all the passages left out of those earliest manuscripturs.  Were they added in to that line or were they subtracted from the earlist manuscriptus.

My following of this story puts me on the side of the King James manuscripturs.   For one thing if those eaearlier manuscr8ipturs have survived all this time they were clearly not used, which some thinnk is evidence that they were regarded as heretical.  The reason mwe have fragments from the tenth century is that the tradition they be,ong to WAS used to the point of wearing them out.

It is a very sad thing if the Church has accepted the destructive work of Westcott and Hort.   It does contribute to the idea that the Bible is not interrant despite all the effortys to argue, as S chlewgel doeas, that it doesn't call inerrancy into question.that a passabge was added to the text that was not in the original written by John himself.  Of course it calls inerrancty into question.   Westcott and hort are to be charged with this sin in my opibnion, and I wish the Church would wake up to what happened back there on that revising committee.

Chris Pinto has covered this subject in at least one of his documentaries on the bible, but maybe two of them:  Tares Among the Wheat and Bridge to Babylon.

How To Deal With Private Or Hidden Sins. - YouTube

The Soul Winner | Charles H Spurgeon | Free Christian Audiobook - YouTube

Why We Believe the Gospel

Another assurance that I must belong to God is in this sermon by John MacArthur about why we believe the bible is the Word of God.   It's all through the Holy Spirity.   There is no way for an unregenerate fleshly person, an unsaved person, can't believe in it.  CAN'T believe in it.  Because it's spiritually discerned.    I beliee wholehearedly in the Bible as God's Word.  So no matter how despairing I get oubt my sins and how I deserve to be damned for them I have this to cling to.  I MUAT have the Holy Spiri5t, and if I do then I belong to God.

 Why We Believe While Others Reject (1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16) - YouTube

And here's another great one from J. C. Ryle:  the necessity of a new heart, which is the same thing as the new birth, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  Without this change nobody will see the Kingdom of God, nobody will be saved:

The Heart: Old Paths - J. C. Ryle - YouTube

A Hard Trial With Important Lessons

 As I've been listening to teachings about my own condition of fear and doubt I've discovered that I am far from the only one to have gone through such a state of mind.   

Although I have times of great fear and despair I also have times of  peace in the Lord, even the "peace thta passes understanding>'  Although I fear I've been cast off I nevertheless go on praying and thinking of God as present with me.   If I were really cast off would that be the case?   

Then I think this must be, not only chastisemenet for my sins, but an opportunity to grow in understanding of the ways of God and perhaps even something that  can make me a help to others.  Of cdourse I would very much like to think that.

It can only be a good thing to be learning how much sin offends God, how it makes us fit for Hell.  Especially these days perhaps, though of course you can read many of the past complaining of the same kind of thing in their own time, sin is not treated with the seriousness it deserves.  Some preachers even seem to go out of their way to make light of it, call it "mistakes" or emphasize how it hurts us while leaving out what an offense it is to God.

And the other lesson I am learning is that God really is to be rfeared.   Fear of God is another biblical concept that is often played down ty preachers.   But even Jesus tells us that we are not to fear those who can harm us and even kill us in this life, but God who has the power to cast us into Hell.  I wonder if I'm remember that right, I hope so but it may not be.

I've prayed for both a greater sense of the vileness of sin and the greatness of God as I've felt I've lacked a right appreicatiohn of these things.   Even in the midst of these painful experiences I want to know more about the vilneess of sin and the greatness of God.   

I still plunge into times of great despair because of my sins, but I also come back to times of peace and even joy.  This is a good sign.  I hope eventually the Lord will let me rest in the peace He gives me.  Even at eighty, amazed that I ever lived this long, I still hope He might sustain me a while longer.

Praises and blessings to our great God.   Even sayhing that is hopeful because the unbeliever can't say anything good about God, it can only come through His Holy SPirit

The Christian’s Assurance of Salvation - YouTube

The Terrors of Hell

I thank God that He has led me into this period of spiritual renewal that I have been pursuing for the last few months.  I thank Him in particular for the many powerful preachers of the gospel that have been made available on the internet in  audio form, that great ones, the old ones,, Spurgeon and Ryle but also Owen and the Puritans are available, the ones who preach the gospel with no frills whatever, no silliness as we might get from one of today's preachers.  

I've been awakened in a way I would never have suspected was necessary or possible, and since it's coming to me at the age of eighty it is especially terrifying to be finding out just how much I've frittered away my Christian life and don't even have a really clear idea of whether I'm saved.  I've had such concerns fro time to time over the years but they've been brought home to me with a terrifying power in these few months of intense pursuit of the whitehot core of Christianity.

Nothing else matters now but seeking assurance of my salvation and if I don't have salvation seeking to receive it.   I've been looking into the pit of Hell and am not yet sure my faith is secure enough to keep me from it. 

Yes I know the gospel and if I didn't know it well enough before I certainly do now that I've been listening to all these great preachers.     What I'm told today is that it's a matter of looking to Christ in simple faith and that i of course absolutely  true.

Here's another deep one from J.C. Ryle: Our Sins - J. C. Ryle / Old Paths - YouTube

Here's the most encouraging message I've found so far:   Spurgeon, Not Beyond Hope

Discouragement Due to Lack of Assurance - Puritan William Bridge 1648 - YouTube

Shaven and Shorn, but not Beyond Hope! - Charles Spurgeon Sermon (Judges 16:22) - YouTube

A Sweet Call to Salvation

 

 For Weary Souls: Greenhill on the Sweetness of the Savior - Reformation 21

 

First, the Puritans presented Christ as a Savior who really desires to save sinners. He had a heart for the lost, so they tried to entice sinners with His sweetness. Hear what William Greenhill had to say:

Does not Christ sweetly invite you, and use sweet invitations and allurements to draw sinners to Him? Can there be sweeter invitations than what you have from Christ upon this account in Matthew 11:28: ‘Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest”? 

Can you hear Christ crying out, “Oh, you poor sinners of the world, you poor sinners of the earth, you who travail under the burden of your sins, you who are heavy laden, you who are ready to sink into hell through fear of wrath: come unto Me; come unto Me.” He does not say, “Why have you broken Moses’ law? Why have you offended My Father? Why have you lived so basely and vilely?” No, He says, “Come unto Me, you who are weary and heavy laden, you who are ready to sink and perish, who are hungry and thirsty and know not which way to turn for relief; come unto Me.”

See what a blessed invitation is given in Isaiah 55:1–2: “Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat; yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do you lay out your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” Is not here a sweet, gracious, blessed invitation to poor sinners, unto such as we are here this day? The Lord Christ is speaking unto you this day: “Ho, everyone, everyone who thirsts, young or old, rich or poor, learned or unlearned, of whatsoever condition you are—are you thirsty? Would you have mercy, peace, grace, and the Spirit of Christ? Would you have anything to do your souls good? Then come, come unto Me. Come to the waters.”

“Aye, but I have no money!”

It matters not; come without money. Come, for here is wine, milk, bread, marrow, and fatness; there’s that which will make your souls live; here’s virtue in Christ to make your souls live forever. So we read in Proverbs 23:26: “My son, give me thy heart.” God says, “O my son, give Me your heart.” Christ is the everlasting Father and He says, “My son, give Me your heart. Come to me.”

How are we to take this water? “Let him take of the water of life freely.” There’s something in this word “freely.” It notes, first, that, let a sinner be what he will, there is no bar put in against him to keep him off from this water. Let a man be a great sinner, an old sinner, let his sins be crimson and scarlet sins, God puts in no bar. Christ does not say, “Let a little sinner,” or “a young sinner,” or “a sinner who has sinned once or twice, or a hundred or a thousand times,” come, but He says, “Let whosoever will come; let him take of the water of life freely. Let his sins be what they will, all manner of blasphemies shall be forgiven.” There’s no bar except against the unpardonable sin; but whatever sin, though long continued in, though of the most heinous nature, though clothed with the most dreadful aggravations, yet it shall be forgiven. Let that sinner come and take of this water of life freely. A man who is leprous all over may as freely go into the river or sea and wash himself as the man who is sound. There is no bar in his way.

If the water of life is freely offered to sinners, then you who are barren and dead-hearted, who complain of unfruitfulness and unprofitableness, wait upon the Lord Christ in the use of means; for here is water of life, and Christ gives it out in the use of means. Are you dry, barren, and fruitless? Have you a dead heart? Christ has water of life to quicken you. Christ has water of life to make you more lively. “I am come,” said Christ in John 10:10, “that ye might have life, and that ye might have it in more abundance.” Christ is saying, “I have come for the very purpose of giving life, and to give life more abundantly, to give out these waters freely and fully.”  When the rain falls from heaven upon the mountains and barren places, it will make them look green. So when Christ gives out these waters to mountainous hearts, to barren spirits, this water of life will soak into you, soften you, make you grow and flourish, and bring forth fruit. 

This is all that God require. Under the covenant of works there was “Do this and live.” But now the last motion that Christ made when He left the world and gave out the Scripture was this: “If any man has a will, if there is willingness in you to receive waters of life, that’s the only thing I require, and all I require.” 

He does not require great matters at your hands. He does not say, “Give Me house and lands; give Me your shops and your wares; give Me your ships; give Me your limbs, your blood and your lives.” No, He says, “If any man will, let Me have but willingness in you; this is all I require.” Proverbs 23:26: “My son, give Me thy heart.” What is His meaning? “Let Me but see a heart in you prizing, choosing, and pursuing the waters of life. That’s all I require. My son, give Me your heart.” He does not mean the piece of flesh in your body which you call your heart. But He would have you to have so much understanding as to see an excellence in Himself, His Son, His Spirit, His Word, and His grace, and then to choose the same, and to use the means to attain them. This is that which God requires, and all He requires. Shall the Lord only require your hearts, nothing but your hearts, and will you not study to have a heart willing to have God, to have waters of life?

 

Consider how easy that which the Lord requires at your hands is. The Lord requires no hard matters of you, only that whosoever will may take of the waters of life freely. The Lord might have put hard conditions and hard terms upon men and women. He might have done as Saul did with David in 1 Samuel 18:25: “Give me 100 foreskins of the Philistines, and thou shalt have Michal my daughter as your wife”; or as Caleb did when he said, “If any man will go and take Kiriath Sephar and subdue it, he shall have my daughter, Achsah” (Joshua 15:16). He might have put you upon it as he did the young man in Matthew 19:21: “Go and sell all that thou hast and follow Me, and thou shalt have waters of life.” But He does not put you upon such things. He only says, “Whosoever will, let him come and drink of the waters of life.” So it is easily received. Therefore, consider these things, and through the blessing of God they may prevail with your hearts to be more willing than ever to have water of life.

 

The next use is to let us see the infinite goodness of God, and His condescension toward poor creatures: that He who is greatness and glory, majesty and excellence, should condescend to us who are flesh and blood, who are corrupt, full of guilt, full of deformity, having no beauty, no excellence, no good in us; that God should condescend so far as that, upon our being willing, we should have waters of life. As was said before, He puts no hard terms upon us, but says, “Whosoever will, let him take of the waters of life.” That is, “let him take Me for his portion; let him take My Son. He shall be his righteousness. Let him take My Spirit; He shall be his sanctification. Let him take My Word; it shall be his light, his rule, and his comfort, and he shall be blessed here and hereafter.”

Oh, the infinite goodness and condescension of God towards poor wretches such as we are! Had you seen Solomon in all his glory and royalty to have stooped this far to a poor woman, leprous and full of sores, having no friends to speak for her, and had you heard him say to her, “Come, manifest your willingness to have me, and I will take you into my house, wash you, make you my queen and make you happy,” would this not have been a wonderful condescension from Solomon? 

 

Thus it is with God. We were dirty and full of sores, with no friend to plead for us, but all was against us. We have no good or worth in us. Now Christ, the Prince of peace and life, comes and says, “Will you be saved, poor creatures? Will you be washed in My blood? Will you go along with Me? Will you be happy? Come, go along with Me. I will carry you to My Father. You shall sit upon a throne and live forever and enjoy God.” Oh, the goodness and condescension of God to poor sinners!

 

Soul Food: forgiveness, Regeneration, Self Denial, Presumption, and Bunyan's Grace Abounding... etc

Storming The Battlements: Charles Spurgeon Sermon Audio - YouTube

\Justification: Old Paths - J. C. Ryle - YouTube

Forgiveness: Old Paths - J. C. Ryle - YouTube

Having The Spirit: Old Paths - J. C. Ryle - YouTube

Alive or Dead?: Old Paths - J. C. Ryle - YouTubeRyle Are There Few Who are Saved?

Few Saved: Old Paths - J. C. Ryle Sermon / Audio Book - YouTube

How to Die to Self - G. D. Watson Sermon - YouTube

A Caution To The Presumptuous: Charles Spurgeon Sermon Audio - YouTube

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners | John Bunyan | Audiobook Video - YouTube

Repentance, What it Means to Repent and Why We Must Do So | J. C. Ryle | Christian Audiobook Video - YouTube

According to Promise. Of Salvation, Life, and Eternity | Charles H. Spurgeon | Free Audiobook - YouTube

Holiness (Part 1) | J C Ryle | Free Christian Audiobook -

Paul Washer says we can't learn self-denial because we dobn't understand regeneration

Self Denial & Regeneration ~ Christian sermon by Paul Washer -

A  Pink on the New Birth:

Regeneration, or The New Birth, by A.W. Pink. -

Ryle on the Cross:

The Cross | J C Ryle | Christian Audiobook - YouTube

Spurgeon takes Us Deep Into the fallen Nature, our Natural Enmity to God

 Charles Spurgeon plumbs the depths of the fallen human natur, the carnal mind which is enmity with God.  Have you ever taken a glimpse into that enmity inb your own fleshly nature?  It's terrifying to someone who hopes to be saved because it looks absolutely impossible for such a creature so naturally at odds with God ever to be changed to such an emormous extent.   Yet that is what all the works of salvation done by Christ accomplished.   

The Carnal Mind Is Enmity Against God: Charles Spurgeon Sermon Audio - YouTube

I think of Christopher Hitchens who wrote "God is not Great" and debated as an atheist for many years before he died.  the epitome of the fallen human nature in himself.  All his arguments come from his inborn enmity to God.  It takes the breath away.

It's all here.   Why we must be born again, regenerated.  We must have a new nature.  It's nothing we can do ourselves because all our means are corrupted by the  Fall.  God Himself has to do it all.  We can't add one smidgen of an iota of our own effotts to the mix,  in fact we must not.   We must become poor in spirit , having absolutely nothing to contribute.    

Jesus Calling and A Course in Miracles Come From the Same Source

 The more I think about the book "Jesus Calling" the more amazed I am at how such things fly under the radar in Christian settings.    How did I overlook it the first time I encountered it?   How was it only a vague sense of a red flat the second time?   Why did it take hearing a number of people experienced with such things before I too came to see it as a demonic counterfeit?

Sad to say I think a lot of it is spiritual dullness brought about by a way too casual attitude to sins of various kinds.   Sin dulls the siritual senses.   their sharpness can be regained but it takes some effortt and self-denial for that.  

But I think in many cases it's a problem of Bible illiteracy.  Great numbers of people are drawn to these counterfeits from within the Church.   Maybe many of them aren't savedb but at least they are not likiely to be very knowledgeable about the bible.    How such enormous numbers could fill a whole stadium to listen to a Beth Moore or a Joel Osteen is hard to explain unless most of them really aren't Christians in the sense of being born again.    the same must be true of those enormous numbers who gobble up the false teachings of a Jewsus Calling or the Shack and that sort of thing.

I realized recently that the method of wriing Jesus Calling is the same as that for A Course in Miracles.  It starts out something like "This is a Coure in Miracles, Please take Notes" and it's supposedly dictated by "Jesus."   "Jesus Calling" is compared by the critics to a New Age book called "God Calling" but it's just as much related to "A Course in Miracles" and probably also many other channeled demonic writingsa that may not use the name Jesus.   

But of course the name Jesus would have a  special attractiveness to people with a Christiian identity, a vague and compromised Christian identity anyway.   Those who live a strong Christian life and know the bible are a lot less likely to be attracted to this sort of thing.

Weak preachin has to have a lot to do with this too.

this Church needs rescuing.

"When the Last Elect Person Believes"

That's when the Rapture occurs, when the Church is snatched away.  That's how John MacArthur puts it here"

The Rapture John MacArthur - YouTube

He's stating the position of the Pre=tribulation Rapture as I've heard it from all those who believe in it.

But isn't there a huge gaping problem with this idea?  Supposedly many will be saved during the tribulation that follows the Rapture, both Jews and Gentiles.  If the last elect person came into the Church just before the rapture, who are all those who get saved after?  

Something is wrong here, and this is just one of the problems I've bbeen having with the Pre trib position, although in saying that I'm not saying there's any other end times system that makes any better sense to me.  Most of the others are far less coherent than this one.    Nevertheless there are pro9blems with ti that I can't resolve.   I've mentioned a number of times the problem of the martyrs under the altar in Revelation Six, the fifth Seal.     How can there be martyrs waiting for the fullness of their number when the Rapture has already occurred which presumably would have taken all the martyrs of the Middle Ages?   Why have a separate group of martyrs that doesn't include those?  

Well, I don't have the answer, all I can do is ask the questions.  lThey lead me to wanting to push the Rapture further ahead into the tribulation or after it, but those answers only raise more problems to solve..     But still I keep coming back to this problem of the two different groups, it's still the biggest problem to me.  If the times of the Gentiles end with the Rapture how can there be millions of Gentiles getting saved after that?   They aren't elect?  How can that be?    

Later , about 5 pm:   Also, how can the "times of the gentiles" be ended with the pre-trib Rapture if there is still to come a gentil Antichrist representing the last of the four Gentile empires of the book of daniel, and the antichrist is to desecrate the Jewish temple?      the Church Age would be ended with teh Rapture burt  the Times of the gentiles relate to the Jewish temple, don't they?Of course there won't have been a Jewish temple for about two thousand years at the time of the Pre-Trib Rapture...

Otherwise it's a very satisfying coherent tsystem, bringing in the Seventieth Week of daneil in a specifically Jewish framework etc etc etc.  

Badn English Drives Mde Bonkers

Bad English eats at me when it comes out of the mouth of educated people as it too often does these days.  I don't have such a reactio to people who simply speak English the way they learned it as children if they had no opportunity to learn otherwise, I don't even really notice it and would certainly not wanto to make an issue of it.   But when college-ed7cated people say "I could care less" or "If I would have known" or "{I was laying down when..." and so on, it's  very hard to take.

We've heard that the French have an agency that protects their lan\\

guage, I why don't we have something like that for English?  We wouldn't havew had the abominable English in the NASB if we did.

And I wouldn't be having to deal with the bad English in some of the books I've been listening to, which I'm very sure were not the original speech of the writer but added by editors to "update" it for modern readers or listeners.   Did Bunyan really write "if the crows would have been able to ..." ?  I doubt it.  But I have to be subjected to it because of some "well meaning" editor who doesn't know it's bad English.

That's all I'm going to say.  I've probably already committed the sin of unkindness

Does Matthew 5:32 Allow Divorce for Adultery?

 Well, here I go again.   I've had this objection to the accepted understanding of a biblical passage for a long time, though I've thought maybe I'm just not getting something about it that would change my mind, and since it came up again I wanted to see if I could get to the bottom of it once and for all.   

This is Matthew 5:32 where Jesus says "But I say unto you that if a man put away his wife, save for the cause of fornication, he causes her to comitt adultery..."

This verse is interpreted to mean that forniicatiobn is a legitimate reason for diverose.  I don't read it that way and I wantedd to know if everybody does or if some see it the wsay I do.  I foudn a three part series on this passage by John MacArthur and it seemed from some of the early statements he makes that he might end up saying what I've been thinking so I listened to the whole thing and he finally gets to a direct statement about that verse at the very end pf Part three:

JOHN MACARTHUR - Divorce and Remarriage, Part 3 (Matthew 5:31-32) - YouTube

that's Parrt 3, I thought I had Part 1 but I guess I lost it.  If you start at the f beginning it will roll over to the second and then the third parts, but maybe starting at part 3 is enough anyway for my purposes.

Throughout his discussion he mentions many times that there was only one legitimate reason for divorce given by Moses or by Jesus or by any of the New Testament writers, yet as he quoted passage after passage I saw nothing that seemed to me to say anything like that.   Where does it say divorce is  not condoned except for the cause of sexual sin or fornication or adulter?  Nowhere.  What am I missing?  The ONLY place it seems to be said, and he finally seems to be saying this too, is in Matthew 5:32, "He who puts away his wife, except for the cause o fornication, causes her to commit adulter."  

And that is the common interpretation that I just don't see at all there.  What I see there is a simple logical point:  if the cause of the man's putting away his wife is fornication, which is the same thing as adultery, as MadArthur also makes clear, then of course divrocing her isn't going to cause her to commit adultery becaused she's already committed it.  It's a simple logical point.  If you divorce her for any other cause THEN she will commit adultery by remarrying, but if the cause IS adultery, just logically speaking you won't cause her to commit it by divorcing her.   The man she marries will commit adultery in marrying her and the husband who divorces her will commit adultery when he remarries, but the woman who is divorced for committing adultery won't be made to commit it by the divorce because she's allrady committed it.

I read that verse over and over and over again and that's all I can get out of it.  It's a simple logical point, it is not an "esxception clause" to the prohibition on divorce which is otherwise all-encompassing.

MacArthur's discussion otherwise is his usual terrific thoroughly biblical discussion.  I learned a lot from it and I'm impressed at his seweing it as part of the discussion about adultery which starts in verse 27.  I think he's right about that.  

But I've still got my objection to the interpretation of verse 32 and I continue to be pe rather bewildered at anyone's every getting that interpreation out of it.   MacArthur makes a great case for even adultery's not being a legitimate reason for divorce despite what he sees as this exception clause that appears to allow it, but nevertheless I don't think it allows it and I stil ldon't see how anybody gets that out of it.

The Disease of the Modern Bible Versions

 Deceptions that affect great numbers of Christians are like a virus that makes the whole body, the body of Christ, sick.    This metaphor just occurred to me and I hope it's not silly.   Seems like I'm some sort of virus detector, not that I always get it right, but I get it right enough to be always in some state of distress about the state of the Church.   Yes I'd like to know I'm wrong if I'm wrong but so far when I do my best to investigate some of my strongeest alarm reactions I end up being convinced even more that I'm right.

I have my o9wn little limited bailiwick, it's not as if I'm alert to all the ways the Church is compromised these days.  I didn't know anything about the book Jesus Calling for instance, I had to research it recently after becoming aware of its great influence in the Church.  I hear about teachers like Joel Osteen and Beth Moore but I don't delve into their influence until I'm forced to.  I'm so put off by such a popular book as the Shac that it took me forever to get around to learning what it's all about, and not to any depth either, just the bare bones.

So I'm sensitive to these viruses only within a very limited sphrere.   The fact that the woman's head covering was abandoned on the basis of a totally bogus argument is very distressing to me.   There are others who agree with me that First Corinthians Eleven is about a literal head covering that applies today as well as it did for the whole last two millennia, but we are all marginalized in the Church.   The false teaching has captured the biggest and best names in the Church and the seminaries.

Samew with the Bible versions.   While I'm getting an ulcer, as it were, ove these things, the seminaries are teaching the pathogen instead of the remedy.  The churches are suffering from the new Babel as so many different translations are used by the members of the congregation.   But there are also congregations where a particular translation is favored by the leaders and  and that at least makes for less confusion, but by my virus detector they have usually chosen a bad one.   

And by a bad one I mean one that is based on the Greek manuscripts foiseted on the Church by Westcott andHort.  

It makes my ulcer throb painfully to hear someone say for instance that there are four literal translations of the bible, listing the King James, the New King James, the English Standard and the New American Standard.   Yes they are faithful translations except for some bad bad bad ways of construing the Greek text as JW Burgon makes clear in his book The Revision Revised but the bitgger problem is that the Greek manuscripturs are wrong, a Trojan Horse delivered to the Church by two misguided men.  The King James and the New King James are based on the trustworthy Greek texts, although the New King H  James is compromised in other ways, while the ESV and the NASB are based on Westcott and Hort's corrupted Greek texts.

Burgon jshows how.  His books should be better known, though I know that he isn't given the recognition he deserves while Westcott and Hort get the approbation they don't deserve.;

It turns my stomkach to hear a good Christian preachers mention that a couple of lines in the pasasge about the pool of Bethesda are in doubt because they aren't in the "earliest and best" Greek manuscripts and are understood to have been added later.

it makes me sick to hear Martyn Lloyed Jones, one of the best of the best in his time, mention that the passage where Jesus tells His disciples that they couldn't drive out a demon because that kind only go9 out by prayer and fasting.  Jones mentioned that "fasting" is not in the earliers and best manuscripts.  

This is a slander on the Christian Church that was made up by Westcott and Hort.  They favored these bogus heretical and possibly forged Greek manscuprtives and thnerefore explained how they don't have some of the best known passages wse find in the King James as having been added  later by overzealous scribes.    This is saying that those translators were adding to scripture, a horrific sin according to the bible itself.  How did W and H get away with that?  No, the fact is that certain pasages were left out of the "early and best' mansccripts they liked so much because the heretical possessors of them left them out.   Burgon saiy the Church had recognized this line of manuscriptus as heresies.  or the produ ction of heretics.    Later it becomes a distinctr possibility that they were later forgeries.  The fact that they exist aqt all is testimony against them since to have survived from the early years means nobody ever read them.  AAnd they weren't read because they were recotgnized to be false.

This is one of the ways today's Church is comprompised.  The translations too are bad, accordinbg to Burgon, just plain bad English because Westcott and Hort had a deficient understnading of Greek according to him.  So we have to suffer through phrasing sthat are abomiable English on top of being assaulted with the attack on Bible inerrancy in the accepted idea that our best known passages were added later.  

..on is the main critic of the new manuscripts and translations, but Chris Pinto has also done documentary films that expose the problem.   I think it's Tares Among the Wheat where he goes into most detail about the problem, one of the films in his series on the history of the Bible.

By the way I think I should add that I probably shouldn't go on about my  being a virus detector as if I were in some special position on these subjects, it's just that I do have strong almost physical reactions when I encounter them and I do think I'm right in those reactions, but I certainly don't think I originated the observations, I had to research these things to have the opinions I have.  I've given my ousources for the head covering in the blog on that subject and it's J W Burgon who is the main source of the k,nowledge I have about the bible versions, although Chris Pinto has added a lot.  I'm just one of the receptrs of the information and I try to disseminate it, which is a joke since I just hang out here writing mostly to myself.

And I'm also arrogant enough not to give the Lord thanks for His gift if I do have a good virus deteector.  May He enlighten me.  Soon Lord.

The Sabbath and the Lord's Day

Because there are so many references to Sabbath observance and Sabbath-breaking in Ryle's books I realized I need to know more about the history of this practice.   I've accepted the contemporary understanding that Jesus is our Sabbath rest so that the observance of the day itself was ended with His first coming but the seriousness of these old saints I've been reading about does make me stop and wonder if they had a better understanding of these things than we do.

So I looked for videos at You tube addressing the subject of the Sabbath.  I specifically looked for J C Ryle on the subject ut didn't find anything.  Then I decided to look for talks on the Ten Commandmenets as a whole and found the Puritan thomas Watson on that subject.   I listened only to his discussion of the fourth commandmenet and fouhd him laying out the importance of Sabbath observance with the same passion I was hearing in the eighteenth century preachers Ryle was writing about.

\It's very convicing, it's full of a deep reverence for God And a plausible explanation of the scriptural grounds for continuing the obserfvance into the Christian era.  

S I needed to remind myself of today's interpretation hoping I could find somethinjg of a comparable depth and value.  I did.   John MacArthur.   Two talks, one on the Sabbath and the next on the Lord's Day.

\https://youtu.be/DxQ4ffL7caU?t=12

All I'm going to do here is give the links to thes different interpretive systems though it needs more discussion.  \\

Why Sunday Is the Lord’s Day (Selected Scriptures) - YouTube

I wWhy Sunday Is the Lord’s Day (Selected Scriptures) - YouTubeas struck by Watson's final statement on the fourth commandment where he talks about the consequences of what  he, and apparently the Puritans in general, considered to be a serious sin.  Hardening of hearts, searing of the conscience, and the begetting as it were of more sin.   Sincew that's what's been going on in today's culture and I've been pondering the connection with feminism because of what I heard about a study by Wayne Grudem that found feminism at the start of many church deteriorations into apostasy, Watsons's comment made me wonder if our abandonment of the Sabbath in today's cultures had a similar role.     After hearing MacArthur I gave up that line of thought and I'm glad of that in one way, for sure, but also was hoping to find a solid basis for understanding the path of deterioration not only in the culture but in the churches.   Maybe feminism and liberalism are enough.\\Anyway here are some other discussions about the Sabbath. 

 Thomas Watson on the Ten Commenments, whree I listened to the chapter on the Sabbath, the Fourth Commandment:

The Ten Commandments (Part I) | Thomas Watson | Christia

And here's Voddie Baucham on the Fourth Commandment

 Audiobook - YouTube

The Books that Could Revive the Church I*f Only People Would See their Value

What gratitude I should have for God's provision of so many great Christian sources on the internet, at You Tube yet, in audible form, what a blessing to someone like me who is going blind and can no longer read.  Ryle's "Christian Leaders of the Eighteenth Century" has been such a valuable gift I'm aware of  how much it deserves my thankfulness and how little I have of that thankfulness.  I can only ask God to give me the gratitutde He deserves for this amazing provision.    At eighty I have no idea how much time I have to learn from these things but it's an enormous mercy that I've been given this boost to my determination to try to get my Christian life onto a more serious path.   Even a little effot is worth something though I wish I could dive into it as if I were much younger.

Now I'm reading Ryle's book "Holiness," which I read at least in part some years ago, and it's going to be another great boost to my Christian life.   It's interesting to be reminded of the historical context of the Holiness movement which was in full swing in his day, from whith the concept of the Higher Life was born.   It makes me aware that there were many errors in that movement and that I've3 tended to reduce it to the simple apprenension that most Christians live at a very low level of what scripture holds up to us as the true life in Christ.   No it was a much more complicated and scripturally questionable movement.   Ryle is certainly the one to show the right way to pursue the deepedr life which is laid out in scripture.

Holiness (Part 1) | J C Ryle | Free Christian Audiobook - YouTube

I just discovered that there are also works byu Samuel Rutherford at You Tube including his Letters which Ryle has mentioned in passing are regarded by many as the closest thing to inspired writing to be found among Christian teachers, so after listening to his book on holiness I want to go there next.

If more Christians gave up today's shallow silly and heretical teachers for these old teachers what a huge boost to the power of the Christian Church we could see in our day.  

Many Mansions and Other Vexed Issues

 J. C. Ryle's book on the great Christian leaders of the Eighteenth Century is so inspiring it makes me want to abandone everythig and sp[end what little time I have left trying to become more like anyu of these men.   As Ryle makes clear, it is certainly not that England in the eighteenth century was generally known for its high standards of Christian life but these men represent a revival that brought the level tup to something extraordinary.   Doctrine and Christian life, holinjess etc. wree at a height of near perfection, in these men and probably many of those who were converted under them.     If there are Christians who live at such a level today I don't know of any of them.

But that isn't what i started out to write here.  I'm near the end of the book, on the last of the men he's going to discuss, a John Fletcher, and he's introduced this man with a remark about the meaning of  Jesus' assurance His disciples that He was going to prepare a place for them, and that in His Father's house are many mansioions, which He follows with the remark that if it were not so He would have stold them, which I always thought very odd. 

Itg is certainly odd in the context of the usual  understanding of the concept of many mansions as we encounter it today, which has prommpted more recent translations to render it "dwelling places" as if "manions" was a translational error, simply because they can't make any sense of it and think all Jesus meant was the general message of preparaing a place for His disciples to live.  

But I rarely accept the idea that the eminent scholars and holy men who put together the King James Bible wcould be charged with an error of translation., so I assumed it must  mean more than just a dwelling place, there must be a reasons why the term "mansions" was chosen, mansions meaning of course very large houses.    Why would He tell them there are many large houses in heaven, and add to it that if it were not so He would have told them?     There would be no reason to add that if all He meant was a dwellibng place or a place for them to live.  So what is meant by mansionjs or very large houses?

It hit methat what it must mean is that there will be different groups in heaven who live together in their own large houses.    What groups?   What came to my mind was groups of people with different spiritual gifts or shared understandings of some sort.    The latter comes closes to what Ryle shows was the accepted meaning of the passage in his day, that it will be different theologies that occupy the different large houses, Calvinists, Arminians and so on.  He aalso mentions that the idea had been distorted to include outright heresies as having their own houses, but of course he denounces that idea as heretics are not going to be in heaven at all.    However, there will certainly be people who are definitiely Christians who nevertheless differ in some points that would make them compatible roommates with each other but not so much with people of other theologists.

I don't know if that view is going to turn out to be the correct one but  it doesn't make sense of the term "mansions" which today's interpreteters want to throw out because they don't understand it.  I'm very glad to see it justified by Ryle and now I'm looking forward to finding out just how we will be allotted our place in group living quarters.And this reminds me that in discussing a couple of the men earlier in the book he quotes them using the word "knowledge" of Hosea 4:8 to refer to knowledge of God or knowledge of Jesus Christ, while I've noted that at least three teachers I'm aware of have interpreted it to refer to knowledge of such things as poisons or other threats to human well being.    I should have given the qhole quote before this but since I can't see well enough togo back and include it I'll add it here:  it's where God says "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."   This gets interpreted in terms of threats to our safety, lack of knowledge of our enemies or of pollutants that can harm us and that sort of thing.  But as I've pointed out the context of the passage is the sins of the people and the destruction they are bringing on themselves by their lack of knowledge is God's judgments.   We are destroyed by our lack of knowledge of what we need to know to be saved or what we need to know to avoid the wages of sin which is death.   

So not only does it seem that there is a much lower standard of Christian life even when we're talking about the best of the best , but there's a low level of biblical interpretation.

I also noted that in the days of the men Ryle is writinbg about, and perhaps in Ryle's day too, the Sabbath was considered to be set aside as a day of rest and worship throughout the culture, just as it was in America until sometime in the sixties or seventies, I forget when, at which time businesses all startedd staying open and Sunday was no longer any kind of special day.    Sabbath-breaking was a sin in the eyes of the men Ryle is writing about.   How far we've come from such standards of life.  It makes me wonder if along with abandoning the head covering for women our abandonment of the Sabbath is another reason for the deterionarition of the CChurch in the West that we should recover if we have any hope of regaining God's favor.