Even when I know I am typing accurately, when I take special care and know I'm getting it right, still I get very strange readings of what I'v written. This has to be a hacker. I know I've had a hacker at times in the past. Once when I was writing something in the Word program , which I no longer have, I got a message on the screen --this was back in the days when I could still see well enough to read it --telling me that there was another person editing what I was writing. That was really creepy. I have no help to deal with such things so if I have a hacker I have a hacker and some of what I write may not be what I myself wronte and I can't do anything about it except from time to time mention it so the readrer can give me a little grace now and then when something sounds crazy, crazier than usual.
I'm still reading Douglas Murray's book he Strange dseath of Europe, but also took time out to listen to that podcast again on which he and Tom Holland and Steve Meyer discuss "Does God Exist? Tht's the Uncommon Knowledge podcast hosted by Peter Robinson.
First a few quotes from the Bible, Hosea again since I've been reaing that a lot recently, that describe some of the things we in America have been experiencing during this IMmigratin roundup. The =ives within and robbers without is on e form of judgment, and we've got the Somali theives within and many nations that have been cheating us for years without, as Trump has been resporting. Another is , His strength is devoured by strangers. Not straightforward but I think of the fact that we have so many weak irrational leaders, governors, mayors and other officials who are making suicidal decisions about the immigration situation just as they are in Europe. They will murder your children. How's that one for taking your breath away? So there are a few ways a nation can come under God's judgment for violating the Moral Law, beisdes the one in my running title about those who hate us reigning over us which in a way is already happening. Certainly is in Europe.
There are many more such descriptions of what judgment brings on a nation throughtout the Old Testament, in the prophets but also in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. As I say in my previous post the solution to the immigration problem Murray is describing for Europe and we are experiencing here too, is not just a return to our Christian faith although tht would be a very good thing for the nation of great numbers did do just that, but something more active is called for to deal with this situatio and that's confessing and repengint for the sins which have brought down God's judgment on us, and doing what we can to undo them. And as I also keep saying, that seems just about impossible. But I'm prayig god might find a way to bring it about. He's the God of the immpossible and if enough of us whant things to change there's still some hope.
It's interesting and frustrating to read, listen to, unblievers talk about the history of CHristianity as they understand it. They treat biblical concept s sometimes as metaphors that can be extended to apply o things other than they do in the biblical context, so for instance original sin is made to describe something like a nation's supposedly having been founded on slavery. It happens to be a lie as it is used, but here I'm just talking about the use of the term itself where it doesn't belong. Original sin desribes all human beings born into this world since the fall of Adam and Eve when they disobeyed God's comman not to eat the fruit of a particular tree. We all inherit this original sin which in practical terms means we are born without the capaicty to know God, which was the first "death" they experienced as a result of their sin. We are subject to death in many forms, injury and disease included, because of our fallen nature, our sin nature, which we inherit because of the original sin. It only confuses things to apply the term to anything else. It's very useful applied where it belongs for us to understand why we are in the predicament we are in on this planet.
In the podcast I mention above Tom Holland gives his idea that Christianity has a form of atheism built into it as we are in recent years hearing an evangelical sort of atheism according to him. He thinks this comes from the criticism of iddolatries in earlier forms of the relgion as he see s it, so that the Reformation was an expression of that tendency against the Roman Church, and now today's atheism is using the same logic to attack Christianity as a whole. Well, no. The Reforme ation was not the improvement of the religion either as is so comonly said by unbelievers, an improvmeent that Islam for instance has not undergone and needs to under go. This is way off the track. The Reformation attacked Romanism as false Chrtsiainity, a usurpation of the otiriginal belief system. Romanism is false religion, false Chrsitainity, in fact as the Reformers came to understand it from their study of the scirptures, it is the system of Anticrhist, the Pope in every generation being the embodiment of that biblical character who is to reign over the whole earth in the very last days for a short bperiod of time. He ruled over Europe during the MIddle Agesj, as a sort of Caesar figure over what they called the Holy Roman Empire, but not just caesar, the pops usurp the name and title and role of Christ Himself which is a bgreat blasphermy. Yet they are treated by most of the world as ja legitimate expression of true Chrsitanity. Most people have no knowledge of the khistory that makes all this clear. It doesn't show up in Tom Holland's book for instance, he treats the Roman hruch as Christainity as usual. Reallyh all it should take is a rough understanding of the scripotures to recognie that the Roman church is something else than the religion that grew from the life of Christ. The weird vestments they wear should be a clue, red and purplsee robes? That weird pointing hat of the bishops that Alexander Hisloep identified as the headgrear worn by the priests of the god Dagon, whom we encounter in the scirptures as the god of the philistines, the fish god, and well, the hat is shaped like the head of a fish. The Madonna and Child imagery and concept come down from the religion of Nimrod and Semiramis, through other pagan religions in Asia and India to get taken up in Romanism as a major part of their system. Veneration of Mary and belief in those apparitions and following her messages as so many of the popses themselves tdo, is blasphemy. She is a human being and they've ade her into a goddess. A human being in heaven can't hear all those people who ask her to pray for them in their rosary rescitation but she is treated as having that kind of power. Only God can hear the prayers of rmillions of people simultaneously. She can't hear even one. And the rosary itself has a pagan origina, nothing to do with Christianity, found in ancient Nineveh I understand, and used today in some Muslim groups and even Buddhism. I had a friend who became a bBuddhist and wore one wrapped around her forearm. Nothing to do with Christianity, something papgan like all the other stuff. Like holy water. Superstititon. Like lighting candles. Like making the sign of the cross. Romanism is paganism, compounded of the pagan religions of ancient Rome. and yet of course it also incorporates a lot of Chrtistain biblical teachings as well. So compromised by all he other stuff it would be a miracle if any Catholic could be saved in that system.
Holland also misuses the concept of being born again, I think to say that cultures may be regenerated or something like that. Being born again is the thing that makes a person a Christain. It is a gift of Bod upon believing that Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins agaist the Moral Law, for which we would otherwise have to die ourselves and pay for with an eternity of Hell. That is what we are saved from, and when we believe that, believing it based ont eh testimony of the biblical and other believing witnesses, theyu we may recive the regeneration of the spirit that we lost at the Fall, or inherit from our first parents who lost it at the Fall, so taht our ability to be in touch with God through the spirt is now again part of our makesup. It is lost to all of the fallen world, the once born as it were, but restsored to those who believe. That's what it means to be regenerated, another biblical world. Or at least Christaian word. The Fall, original sins, sin, and the new birth are all important Christian concepts that need to be preserved in their true meaning and not wildly applied where they don't belieong, if we have any hope at all of making the faith intelligible to unblievers.
Nopne of this is guaranteed to make anyone a believer but we dont'; need believers in the wront things.
I think about Douglas Muraray and hoew much he needs Christ and how little chance there is that hell find Him. Not just Murray of course. I have family who don't believe. It's very distressing. I 've een wonderin if it would be possible at least to get very noisy about at leas making the biblical facts available somehow to the world at large. How of course is a problem in itselv but I eman istead of just beig evangelisgts and proselytizers, I mean treating the facts as facts that explain who ow this world is put together, what a human being is according to the biblical reveltation, who God is, His nature, His plan of recdemption, His reason for creating human beings. It could all be treated as the hsitory ist is. But of course that is just as silenced as everythig else that could save us.
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