History Channel Bible Series: How dead can Christianity get but still think it's alive anyway?

Aaaargh.  More denatured Christianity.  Just heard about this series on The Bible on the History Channel.  I don't have TV so I can't watch it but I heard a good thorough report on it. 

Character misrepresented, God's purposes obscured, shorn of the gospel implications in the Old Testament stories, politically correct to the extent that Isaac is not clearly identified as the heir to the Covenant, and that homosexuality is left out of the Sodom account, but people are carrying on as if this is some kind of triumph for Christianity? 

THAT's depressing.  How much worse can things get?

Just had to say that much.  May be up to more later.

Reading "The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven" finally

UPDATE:  The mother of the boy of the book title disclaims all connection with the book.

After writing the post below I found Beth Malarkey's blog and was very interested to see that she denies any connection with the book about her son's experiences of heaven and in fact disagrees with it.  She is very clear on at least one page I read there that she's quite content with what the Bible has to say about heaven and doesn't support extrabiblical revelations. 

This of course makes me want to know the whole story, the true story.  How does such a book get written against the beliefs and feelings of the people involved?

Unfortunately the poor woman has been plagued by people who have read the book and want to talk to Alex, apparently thinking he's some kind of seer with words of wisdom to impart.

In one of her blog posts she says she called the ninistry Grace to You and had a good conversation with Phil Johnson who had written an article about the phenomenon of heaven books.  The link above goes to that article.

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April 28:  Thanks to Beth who found this blog and wrote a nice comment on it, below. 
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This book is promoting deception

I got another comment on one of my "heaven" stories posts, complaining that I hadn't read the book about Alex Malarkey, saying how inspiring the book is.  Well, as a matter of fact I got the book some time ago and had been meaning to read it, and finally now I am reading it.

My first impression is that these are Christian people, living for Christ, living by faith, intending to give glory to God in all things, telling the truth as they know it.  They lived through the tragedy of their son's becoming a quadriplegic at age six in a car accident, who should have died but survived against all odds and seems to be a happy person and a witness for Christ some nine years later.  Hundreds if not thousands of people from their own church and other churches prayed for Alex right after the accident.  The story is a wonderful testimony of the rallying of Christians to help in tragedy through prayer and practical means.

It IS good to know all this.  I believe they are sincere people who came through a terrible tragedy.

The part I have a problem with is Alex's experiences of visiting heaven, and of angels and demons that were continuing in his life years after the accident.

I don't doubt that he had and has such experiences, I just have huge doubts as to their source and their purpose.  I also don't WANT to have these doubts.  I wish I could just believe it's all true and means exactly what it is understood to mean by the people involved with Alex, because NOT believing it all as written raises questions that are very disturbing.

If you don't think too hard about it the images aren't in themselves unbelievable but you do have to not think.  Pure white angels with wings, beautiful colors in Heaven, the presence of Jesus when comfort is needed.  What's unbelievable, really, comes from the knowledge that the only experiences of heaven described in scripture were given to a very few, Isaiah and Ezekiel of God's Old Testament prophets, and Paul and John in the New Testament.  It makes no sense that God would give such experiences to anyone since then, least of all to completely unknown children.

The book does quote scripture including warnings to trust scripture over experience among other very good teachings.  You can't really fault any way scripture is quoted and interpreted.  Nevertheless the experiences reported by Alex aren't in accord with scripture. 

IF the experiences are not from God why would God allow them to occur to a young boy who as far as anyone could possibly judge from the story was truly born again at the time?

That is a disturbing question, but all I can say is I have to remain disturbed about it because I can't just believe that God DID give these experiences.  There are too many things that bother me about them.

God.  "No man has seen God at any time" says Scripture.  But Alex saw "God" as a very large man, but only his body, not his face, the idea being that you can't see God's face and live.  Is this what Scripture is saying?  I haven't studied all the references enough to know, but it doesn't "feel" right that you could see PART of God and not the rest of him.  But what's more disturbing is that Scripture says "God is a Spirit" yet Alex says he saw his BODY.  The only bodily form God appears in is Jesus Christ.

Alex also claims to have actually talked with "God" in an undecipherable language, like "speaking in tongues" which was heard by others in the room.  This "talking" would go on for some time apparently.

Although "Jesus" is said to have been present in a few situations he is mostly just a reassuring presence and tells Alex he's going to be fully healed.  Is this really Jesus Christ?

What about angels being all white and having wings?  In Scripture there are cherubims that have six wings, and seraphims that have four wings, but there is no mention of angels having wings as such.  Angels, such as Gabriel, appear as men, and are not described as having wings. 

I've heard stories of some people who have experienced what must have been angels but they look like ordinary men.  I believe they were angels from the context of the story, such as the woman who survived being in one of the towers when the planes hit on 9/11.  A "man" held a door open for her and others who were trying to escape.  He was the only person she saw that day who smiled.  He told her she was going to be all right.  She didn't realize until much later that he must have been angel.  I think she had to be right about that.

Bill McLeod, who was pastor of a Canadian church that experienced a big revival in the 70s, described being in South America with his wife during those years, for some ministry purpose but without addresses or any way to connect with the people they were to meet as the information had never reached them, and on two occasions total strangers gave them the information they needed, one even leaning forward on a bus to tell them which stop to get off at.  Total stranger.  Had to be an angel.

These angels didn't have wings.  Neither did Gabriel or Michael in the scripture.  Why do Alex's angels have wings?

And so many in Alex's room?  Why so many?  The only time many angels appear in scripture at once is as warriors fighting for the whole nation of Israel.

Which brings up another question.  Alex also sees "demons" and Satan himself at times.  But the angels don't seem to be present at those times, which is odd since supposedly angels protect us from demons.  In scripture Michael the angel who is in charge of Israel fights off Satan's hordes. 

And another thing.  "Michael" is depicted in Alex's vision as sitting near the throne of God writing down things that happen on earth.  Michael who is the Protector of Israel?  Something is wrong here.

Also Satan is depicted as ugly in the extreme, bony, with three heads and fire for hair and flaming eyes and so on and so forth.  Alex says he never appears any other way.  Also the demons are ugly and have fire for hair.

But Satan "appears as an angel of light" says scripture.  And if nothing else pagan religions have images of demons that take many different forms, from ferocious and ugly to beautiful and apparently benign, and sometimes their practitioners experience such beings too. 

What is going on here?

If someone reading this book takes all these images at face value won't they be likely to think all pretty supernatural beings are friendly and couldn't possibly be evil entities?  Wouldn't that be a deception that would mislead them into trusting beautiful-appearing but actually evil beings?

What is going on here?

Trinity Foundation article on Rome

 

Dear Friend,

 

We have just posted our latest Trinity Review - "Rome's Sham 'Year of Faith' Is Unfaithful to Christ and His Gospel" by Richard Bennett and Timothy Kauffman. With the resignation of Benedict XVI effective February 28, 2013, Rome will no doubt continue its program of bringing back "Separated Brethren" to the fold of the Roman Catholic Church-State, no matter who the next Pope is. The call of the Bible is clear to all Bible believers: "Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord" (2 Corinthians 6:17); and "Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues" (Revelation 18:4). Please visit our website or click the links to read the latest Trinity Review. Thank you.

Cordially,

Tom Juodaitis

President

The Bible alone is the Word of God.

www.trinityfoundation.org

Pope Updates: Black cardinal candidate for next Pope, Benedict seeking to evade prosecution for abetting sex crimes against children

Black Cardinal Candidate for next Pope to Replace Benedict

Over four years ago I did a post that shows Pope Benedict's coat of arms which has the image of a black man's head in the upper left corner.  I pondered what that might mean, but it wasn't until his resignation that I became aware that there is a black African cardinal who is a popular candidate to become Pope in Benedict's place. 

His name is Peter Turkson, which does rather tie in with the "Peter the Roman" prophecy, but since I've been coming to think in terms of intentional human manipulation rather than simply satanic string-pulling behind the scenes, it occurs to me that if this cardinal does become Pope it's because it's been planned for a long time already and that's why the image is on Benedict's coat of arms.

It would be quite fitting if it turned out that the last Pope is a black man for many reasons, one of them being that, as I point out in that earlier post, Nimrod who was identifed by Alexander Hislop as the prototype of many of the pagan gods that are reflected in the papacy, was a black man.  This fact is in fact preserved in some of the images of the gods that represent him in other cultures, such as Krishna, whose name means "black" and who is represented as black in some statues, also by blue skin in paintings.  Statues of the Buddha also show him with kinky African type hair (and heavy earrings that pull his ears down, which is interesting because big earrings are also a feature of the head on Benedict's coat of arms), and in some cases, such as the Maitreya buddha who is Buddhism's own "messiah" predicted to come at the end, also shown as black skinned.  Now if the Imam Mahdi expected by Ahmadinejad should also have African features...

So back to Nimrod at the end?

This cardinal is a very nice-looking man, I'd rather not have to think of him as perpetuating the pagan evils of Rome.  I wish he'd repent instead.

Pope Benedict Seeking Immunity from Prosecution

Now in the news is the appeal of the Pope for immunity from prosecution for covering up sex crimes against children.  Apparently he's been told that if he stays within the Vatican after his resignation he'll be safe from prosecution but not otherwise.

If even only a small amount that is known about the evils perpetrated by the papacy were faced squarely you'd think any idea that this institution is related to Jesus Christ would just disintegrate, but sadly people continue to hold onto this delusion against all the evidence.

There are many sites that cover this story. Here's one saying the end of the Vatican could be near.   Well, it could be, but if it is then according to the most likely Biblical understanding so is the end of the world before the Lord returns also near.  That is, since the papacy is the Antichrist system identified down the centuries, the last thing it will most likely do is produce the final Antichrist, or the False Prophet to the Antichrist, and then the Lord will come back and destroy the whole pagan monstrosity.

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Later: I'm actually going to link to Scott Johnson's most recent discussion of these things because on this subject I enjoy his emotional denunciations and think he's right both in spirit and in letter.  (Well I can only "enjoy" this information up to a point where I end up emotionally wrecked by the revelation of evil).  On other subjects he does, oh well, he is often over the top denouncing people who do not deserve to be denounced, he is ignorant of church history, and he really drives me crazy with his bad stuff because SOME of his stuff is good.  Anyway on this one I like what he does and I'll include his very thorough PDF file on the same subject as well.

Jonathan Cahn and Dr. Ben Carson Two Powerful Voices For Christ Speaking Light Into Our National Darkness

I was worried about the inaugural prayer breakfast on January 21st where Jonathan Cahn was going to speak because of the strong ecumenical flavor of its organizers, but Cahn himself came through with a powerful message in the Name of Jesus Christ that pulled no punches.

I can only pray that the ecumenical spirit that dominates Washington D.C., that characterized the blasphemous prayer meeting in the National Cathedral convened by George W Bush after 9/11, and that is contained in the format of these prayer breakfasts, would be pulled down like so many altars to Baal, that the National Cathedral would be cleansed of all the trappings of the false gods that have been invoked there and that no prayer breakfast would ever again be convened in Washington except clearly in the Name of Christ. {But since that could include Catholics I have to say no to that too. Catholics do believe in Jesus Christ not the right way)

But I thank the Lord for Jonathan Cahn and his boldness in declaring Christ to the nation, and the desperate need for the nation to repent of our national sins, even calling the President himself to be true to the oath of office he takes on the Bible not to violate what God teaches there, .



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grm2_-ruH-k

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And another powerful voice for the Lord is heard at the other inaugural prayer breakfast on February 5th, the official prayer breakfast at which President Obama was present, Dr. Benjamin Carson, another voice that doesn't pull punches, who like Jonathan Cahn challenges the strictures of political correctness against free speech, who even dared to raise concerns about some political issues critical of the President's policies. 

In answer to criticism for doing this Dr. Carson remarked in an interview by Sean Hannity that the President is not a King, he is a public servant, answerable to the people, and on another occasion he said that "Somebody has to stand up to the bullies."

THANK YOU LORD FOR BEN CARSON, please watch over him and protect him because he's out there on the front lines and that's dangerous.
Ben Carson speech at inaugural prayer breakfast.


Gifted Hands, The Ben Carson Story the full movie at You Tube.

You can also find Sean Hannity's full hour interview of Dr. Carson at You Tube, in three segments.

And here's the Wikipedia biography of Ben Carson

Of interest in this bio is his statement that he doesn't believe in evolution: 

Carson is a Seventh-day Adventist. In a debate with Richard Dawkins, Francis Collins, and Daniel Dennett, Carson stated he doesn't believe in evolution: "I don't believe in evolution...evolution says that because there are these similarities, even though we can't specifically connect them, it proves that this is what happened."^[6]

Good man.  Yes, that's all they've got:  similarity from which they deduce but cannot prove genetic descent from one species to another. Lots and lots and lots of similarities, NO proof of genetic relatedness between species

Here's audio of the debate on evolution mentioned in the above article in which Dr. Carson participated.  There are various ways to hear it at this page.

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Thank You Lord for raising up powerful voices in Your Name at this time. Both Jonathan Cahn and Ben Carson are true voices for Christ.

The Malachy Prophecy Part of the Great Delusion

The seductive thing about this supposed prophecy of the last Pope to be the one now to follow Benedict XVI is that we've all been watching the end times appear to unfold for a long time and it fits right in with our expectation that the Antichrist is soon to be revealed.  I mean by "we" we evangelicals, we Protestants of course.  We wouldn't regard any of this in a pro-Catholic light but unfortunately it's turning out to have such implications that get carried along with any sort of affirmation of it, which makes it dangerous to say anything at all in support of the prophecy.

I'm one who was not alert enough to the implications of such a prophecy's coming up at this time, its source in the Roman Church and especially the Romanist support for the prophecy.  I've been falling down on the job here, not doing the necessary research.  Just seemed to me like Wow, this is of course a false Catholic prophet but this prophecy seems to fit right in with what we've been expecting anyway, so let's just watch and see how it plays out.

It's not that simple.  One thing I should have learned by now, especially thanks to Chris Pinto's work that I've been following for a year or so, is that the devil's deceptions with respect to Rome are many-layered and of course subtle, sometimes superficially promoting one point of view while covertly really promoting its opposite.  I've been wanting to do some posts on various aspects of the history of these things and just haven't got to them, and the resignation of the Pope has somehow derailed that project at least for a while.

Now I'm becoming aware just how this prophecy plays into Romanist purposes.  I don't follow Tom Horn* but I do still sometimes listen to Scott Johnson, who can drive me crazy with his assertions that are not always well backed up with evidence although sometimes he has good stuff nevertheless, and tonight's teaching is on Tom Horn who is supposedly an evangelical but has been leaning to Rome for some time.  Tom Horn appears to have some very positive things to say about the Malachy prophecy, couched in very pro-Roman terminology.

This post is not to get more deeply into any of this yet, just to say that it's best to treat this prophecy as false in every possible way, expect that anything that appears to validate it has layers of deception behind it, then sit back and watch and pray that the deception will be exposed to God's people.  That's all I'm really up to at the moment and I hope I haven't said anything to this point that contributes to the pro-Catholic propaganda that I now see entwines it all.  I may have been clear enough about this already, but felt I needed to emphasize it.

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*Tom Horn's website is Raiders News Network but I found this interview with Horn and Chris Putnam that was done a while back about the book they wrote together about the Malachy prophecy, in which they discuss among other things how they expect the last Pope to take office in 2012.  Well, obviously that didn't occur, but the discussion is very interesting as it covers many of the issues related to this that I've only been discovering recently.  And I have to say I HATE the tone of that discussion, a very chipper jolly the-end-times-are-upon-us-and-isn't-this-fun sort of tone which I've lately come to dislike if not quite abhor. 

While they don't exactly endorse Catholicism they also don't denounce it as they should either.  The fact that the Malachy prophecy is taken seriously by Catholics has begun to bother me greatly, and that many of them are expecting some great apostasy to occur over which the last Pope will preside as False Prophet (not Antichrist) even more disturbing because of its obvious paralleling of Protestant belief while at the same time denying the essence of that belief  --  that the Roman Church has been apostate since at least the sixth century.  Layers of deception must be enbodied in such a notion.

Somehow over the last few months a sense of the evilness of evil has been growing on me in a way I don't remember experiencing before, a sense of an implacable vicious hateful cruelty in Satan and his minions, which of course include the Popes and the Jesuits as well as some American political leaders, that makes me hurt for the human race in a way I never experienced before.  I don't know what all has led me to this frame of mind but it takes me far from any atttitude of "isn't this fun."  The hardness of people to the gospel is part of it, the crudeness and meanness of people these days, along with all the revelations of conspiracies to destroy the good and install evil in its place. 

How Much Longer, Lord?

It can't just be "coincidence" that we've been seeing signs that suggest the closeness of the very last days for some time now, and the Pope just stepped down and there was also the news of his securing himself a seat in the Upper Room in Jerusalem (that of Judas I must suppose). 

That is, all the events we have been watching accumulate for some time now cannot be the mere machinations of Rome herself to make things LOOK like the end is near, as I've heard opined.  Whatever they can engineer to make the next Pope appear to be the last according to the Malachy prophecy of Peter the Roman couldn't succeed unless the whole world stage were set, as it certainly seems to be, for the appearance of the final Antichrist, and how much of THAT could they have engineered.  (Yeah, some).

Yes I've come to accept that there are human conspiracies going on where I would not have suspected them until I started following Chris Pinto's very convincing presentations in his films and radio shows, but Rome must be as much a puppet moved by supernatural forces as everything else in this world is.  The final Pope is most likely going to be THE Antichrist Puppet whether the next one is the final one or not.  But the timing is SO ripe it can't be long now (...can it?) If it isn't this next one it has to be the one after...  The world is groaning, how much more time could there possibly be?

Whatever human invention comes up with to stage some kind of last days fakery, whatever role human conniving might have played in bringing the world to this point of horror, the breakdown of all morality, the stalking of alien and inhumane ideologies through what once was "Christendom," whatever plots may manifest in murderous expression with a fake Armageddon, a third world war, this CAN'T be just the prelude to another failed attempt to establish the Holy Roman Empire, it has to be The Finale.  The REAL Finale, the REAL Last Days.  It has to be.

It may take a lot longer than we're able to imagine for it to play out (the thought is indescribably wearying), but I don't see how there could be any more wars after the next one, any more Antichrists after the next one, any more Inquisitions/Holocausts after the next one....   If we aren't in the very last of the Last Days I don't think I want to see even the beginnings of the real end to follow (fortunately for me that's not likely anyway, but I also wouldn't wish it on the next generation either).

Some say this is an exciting time for a Christian to live in, and I said it myself a few years back on this very blog, and of course it's true that to watch Biblical prophecy play itself out is a great privilege, but then why am I crying my eyes out all the time these days?  I can't stand much more of it, I want it to be over, or I want to leave before it gets started.  Watching the world fall more deeply under the power of Satan is NOT fun.  Watching the churches fragment and veer off into false doctrine is NOT fun.  Watching "Christendom" go to the demons is NOT fun.  Watching good replace evil and evil replace good in the news almost minute by minute any more is NOT fun.  It's heartbreaking. 

America is under God's judgment and the only remedy is national repentance, or at least the repentance of the churches. Christians should all repent for all the churches, all the bodies that call themselves by the Lord's name, the apostate churches, those that have rejected parts of His word, those that have twisted His word.  Although we may not personally share in their sins we have enough of our own to repent of anyway, and as a corporate body we do share in them.  Daniel confessed the sins of Israel as his own although he personally had no such guilt.  He knew himself to be a member of the corporate body of the people of Israel and guilty along with them and he hoped for corporate repentance and turning back to God so that God's judgment would be lifted from them.

I know there are Christians praying, there are churches praying, and Jonathan Cahn's book has had some impact toward a spirit of repentance.

But this can't be an ecumenical effort, and it worries me when I hear about Cahn's involvement with nonChristians in his zeal to get out his message.  It doesn't matter how solid his gospel message might be if it's compromised by joining with those who appeal to false gods along with the true God. 

It also worries me when ANY Christian ministry or leader, or any Christian for that matter, talks about Catholicism as if it were Christian.  There are plenty of good Catholics out there who have admirable conservative politics but they need their eyes opened to the nature of the organization they belong to and how can we pray with them if they remain attached to it?

Was God pleased when Israel prayed both to Himself and to Molech?  All that does is dig the nation's grave deeper.

There are signs of mercy and hope in all this though.  There are some intelligent and godly voices getting a hearing.  Listen to Dr. Ben Carson's speech at the recent prayer breakfast in Washington for instance, and the interview with him by Sean Hannity which is also at You Tube. There's some hope in the recent revelations of conspiracies that keep coming out, that I get mostly from Chris Pinto, such as Charlotte Iserbyt's whistleblowing on the propagandizing of our children through the schools that I recently posted on, the possibility such exposures might wake up more Americans -- not a LOT of hope since it's so little so late, but hope anyway.  And there's hope in the rumblings of anger at Obama's high-handed moves to take away our guns, and hope in the interview with Garrow I recently posted -- people are paying attention.

But the bottom line is still that the nation has turned away from God and all this is being permitted as God's judgment for that.  The bottom line is still that there needs to be repentance if we are to have any real hope of saving the nation.

A real Reformation, a real revival, a pushing back of the darkness and the deception for some protracted period?  I still try to hope. 

Meanwhile I just cry a lot and pray a lot.

Psa 80:3   Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved. 

Psa 80:4   O LORD God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people? 

Psa 80:5   Thou feedest them with the bread of tears; and givest them tears to drink in great measure. 

Psa 80:6   Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbours: and our enemies laugh among themselves. 

Psa 80:7   Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved. 

Psa 80:18   So will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name. 

Psa 80:19   Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved. 

Psa 85:4   Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease. 

Psa 85:5   Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? 

Psa 85:6   Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee? 

Psa 85:7   Shew us thy mercy, O LORD, and grant us thy salvation.