The Amazing Watchman Nee Unpacks Salvation in Christ like Nobody Else

I find myself listening over and over to Tozer's "Pursuit of God" and I thin kI'm going to do the same with Nee's "Normal Christian Life." These are the food for the soul I need, and I am bitterly sad that I've not made the use of them I should have over the last three decades since I beame a Christian. I don't know how I made it to the age of eighty and it's hard to imagine I have much more time to live but if the LORDD has mercy on me I'd want to take in these two books along with the Bible for whatever time Hew gives me.

Another Deception from the Fertile Minds of OUr Demonic Deceivers: "Negative Spirits"

Heard Coast-to-Coast radio again last night. Sigh. Sometimnes I think they must be trying answer my blogs about them. Guess that's qa pretty megalomaniacal thought but it's interesting how the topics they air lately seem related. Anyway, last night's guest was someone who works with demons ahnd "netive spirits" to help people protect themselves from them.

He believes that negative spirits abount "out there" in the universe and that they are the souls of dead human beings. He thinks demons are not so numerous. Asked if he thinks demons are fallen angels he said yes but he doesn't seem to have much of an idea what a fallen angel is. It's the usual situation we're in these days in which few understand that this is a fallen world, that we are fallen human beings, and that fallenness is the condition of being a sinner againt the Creator God and His Moral Law.

A third of all the angels fell when Satan rebelled against God, taking that many of the angels with him. that many angelss are thought to amount to billions. I don't know how it is calculated but that's the idea I usually hear. That's not the few the radio show guest has in mind. Surely what he is calling negative spirits that are really dead human beings are also demons, up to their usual masquerate as human beings. Sometimes they haunt houses, sometimes they show up in seances etc. AThis radio show guest believes they are human beings who exert a lot of "negative energy" or anger, against living people and he considers it his job to help people get free of their influence.
He says he believe in God, as so many do who certainly do not have the God of the Bible in mind bu5t rather a god of their own imagination. He says it helps people to protect themselves from these neatie spirits and from the demons to have a religion and use the energy of their rightoues teacherrs to help protect them or something like that. So much for the all-powerful Jesus Christ who alone has power over the demons.
A biblical view of what happens to people when they die does not have them roaming freelly around the universwe or hanging out in houses or cemeteries or whatnot, or coming back to communicate with loved ones they preceded into death. If the story Jesus told of the rich man and the poor man Lazarus can be taken as a model, there are two places people go after death, to Hell or to Paradise, in that teaching known as "Abraham's bosom" for the Jewish poor man Lazarus. The rich man is depicted as suffering the flames of Hell. The one exception in scripture is the appareance of the prophet Samuel to King Saul which Saul had request of the Witch of Endor. The real Samuel appeared to Saul in that case to rebuke him for calling him from his rest. THAT WAS A SPECIAL EVENT ORDAINED by God, not to be taken as typical. What mediums normally cal up is demonic impersonaltions.

So this man who claims to be psychic and deals with demonic spirits though he thinks mostg of them are departed human beins, is deceived about this spirit world he is dabbling in as they all are. A man called into the show though who claimed to be a Christian and praised the man as having his psychic gift from the Holy Spirit to serve humanity, an astonishing claim. How on earth did he maintain such an idea in the context of a church which he said he belonged to? Was the church totally apostate or was he a rebel against its teachings, in which case they should have excommunicated him. You can't have the Holy Spirit unless you are a born again believer in Jesus Christ.
T

A Post About C.S. Lewis

Hre's one of those posts where I mainly want to preserve something I enjoyed and hope anyone reading it also enjoys it. this is a play about the life of C.S. Lewis ("Mere Christianity" and Narnia books among others). I'm not a fan of rht eacting style but I always enjoy Lewis' story and this covers the main events. The last half is about hi brief marriage to Joy Gresham which is very romantic and very touching.

I think I read all of lewis' books during my reading binge about religion which finally led me to Christ, and Lewis was a big part of what turned me to Protestantism. I'm really not a fan of his children's books but Mere Christianity and The Abolition of Man are I think my favorites. How he became a Christian is an interesting part of his life story and this play touches on it:


then I watched an interview with his stepson, Douglas Gresham, about whom I had known nothing until then, and what's particularly interesting to me about it is that When his mother Joy was diagnosed with bone cancer and given a few mweeks to a month to life, Douglas who was ten went and prayed for her to be healed, telling God that he couldn't live with out her. And that day she went into remission which gave them all some happy years. He was ten at the time.


tgeb U found the movie "Shadowlands" about Lewis' life with Joy and I've watching it. But I'm disappointed in it. The character of Joy doesn't come across as the vibrant witty genius Joy Gresham was in reality, which does come across more in other accounts of their life together. By the time they fall in love I don't see that much ground for it has been established. In life she was a tr4ue genius who had written poetry and books herself, someone Lewis later described as his intellectual equal in a way he hadn't found in any of his men friends. In the movie she comes ac5ross as ordinary and a bit forlorn, at least in the first pat of it. I'm hoping for better to come from the point of his marrying her during her hospitalization and the cancer's going into remission. the movie has also left out the boy's praying for her which is no doubt the reason for the remission. I love the actors, Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger, but although Douglas Gresham recommended it I'm not happy with the movie yet. Nevertheless here's the link:


Well, I finished it and it didn't get any better. She spends most of her time in the movie sick. What about those almost four years of remission we'e heard about in which they had a passionate happy marriage. What about the endless wit at the dinner table they exchanged wsith each other according to her son> What about their happy trip to Greece just beffore she died, when she behaved "impishly" in the restaurant, flicking pieces of bread at the members of the very bad Greek band. No no no. This movie is not what their lives as they've been recounted elsewhere would lead us to respect. Not this unrelieved sadness. No no no.

More on Delusions About the Afterlife and Other Things Occultic and Paranormal

If I hadn't become a Christian I suppose I'd be in the same position these people who get deep into the paranormal and the occult. If I'd had similar experiences anyway, otherwise I'd just have remained an atheist assumjing death is just a lights-out and all the other supernatural claims aren't to be b4eleived. But they've had experiences that congince them of life after death and supernatural events and whatnot. All entirely without AGod or any religious implications at all.
At least not the God of the Bible, mayube a sort of generic God. It distresses me to hear people carry on about their experiences that have proved to them there is an afterlife, of course a happy afterlife, or that they are in communication with loved ones who have died and so on. I want to warn them, I want to make them look at the Bible and realize it's not just another metaphysical text but the actual word of the God who made them, but even finding quotes from the Bible has become almost impossible for me these days. and they'd dismiss it anyway, or most of them would.

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There certainly is an afterlife. We' re immortal souls. Once conceived we live forever in one state or another. And there are only two states, 4either in Hell or in Heaven. And the only way we can get to heaven is through the death and resurrection of Jedsus Christ. That's it. That's all. But that had to be revealed, there is no way fallen humanity would ever come to such a view of things. All that is possible to fallen humanity is impressions from our broken spirikt that was broken at the Fall, and the exertions of demons in their neverneding plots to dec4eive us and lead us away from the truth. they can fabricate lovely visions and otherworldl.yl places, all sorts of strange machinery that they make us bvelieve come from other planets or galaxies or maybe other dimensions to "help" us or the like. theyh impersonate people who have diedand show up in seances to reassure their families that they are in a good place, or they haunt houses or whatever.


Gosh what a downer al these realities are though. tHEY'D MUCH RATHER HAVE THEIR PRETTY IDEAS, THEY WANT TO BE ENCOURAGED THAT THEY WIKLL HAVE A HAPPY AFTERLIFE, THAT THEIR LOVED ONES WHO DIED BEOFRE THEM ARE HAPPY WHERE THEY ARE AND SO ON. iT SEEMS ALMOST CRUEL TO TRY TO DISSUADE THEM FROM SUCH IDEAS. lET THEM BE HAPPY, THEY'LL BE UNHAPPY ENOUGH EVRDNTUALLY.

bUT TBut that doesn't give them a cvhance to find the true happiness of eternal life in Christ. They may reject it but shouldn't they begiven the chance? Would they really prefer the primrose path the demons concoct for them if they had any idea that it's all a deception that is only going to lead them to a miserable eternity?

It's all "doctrines of demons,

Well, what the world's general descent into evil of all sorts these days, the insanities and absurdities we're being told are realities, such as that a biological male is really a female if he so wills it and tht sort of thing , it's all piling up around us and a massive increase in occultic and paranormal interest is just another trend toward total breakdown of all the structures of life we depend on. Surely this must mean that Jesus is coming back soon. I hope. But I suppose it's going to have to get worse before that.

Prayers Against a Radical Leftist Getting a Seat on the Supreme Court Are Bearing Fruit So Far

Been praying my heart out that a radical leftist would not be confirmed for the Supreme Court, that the interrogators woujld be focused on her record with determination to expose her lack of qualifications for the job, that they wouldn't be wishy washy but focus like a laser on the issues. Mark Levin on Monday came on strong about the need for the Republicans to fight hard against her and that got me praying. I prayed with the biblical fervor we're told "avails much" and I keep praying in the same vein.

And this morning Dan Bongino is reporting that the hearing isn't going well for her with all kinds of examples. Thank You thank You LORD. He cautiously says it may not change the owhich are expected to be in her favor, but that just means I'm praying harder about that. Let Tthe two Democrats who have been fighting Biden's economic position come through on this one with the same sanity, and let the two or three RINO Senators who to9o often go with the Democrats come through on the sane side this time too. tHAT'S HOW i'M PRAYING.

Don't give in, sane people, and let the frequently insane wake up.

I hope there are thousands, even millions, of us praying along these lines.