A World of Lies

I'm sick of the lies.  No point in saying it I suppose, but there it is.  Im' sick of the lies about Trump and you never hear anything but lies from the Democrats.  Ever.  All of it is lies.  And half the country abelieve them.  So down we go under a hailstorm of lies.  Down dosn down we go.

And I hate the lies from the worldly religions who appropriate Jesus Christ into their own miserable philosophies.  they think they are spiritual although they can't be becaue the spirit diesd at the Fasll and is only recovered through beliewving in the death of Christ for our sins.  Then you are born again which means your spirit is rebgenerated, or quickened as the King James puts it.  Without thta new birth all based on Christ's crucificxion there is no spiritual life possibl4e.  What is called spirtual is just a refined sort of soulishness.

But they are always saying Christ went to India although there isz no proof eswhatever for such an idea.   And if they knew the biblical portrait of HIm they would have to admit that the idea is reidiculous but they prefer their conc3eit without any shred of knowledge about Him.  He has nothing in common with the big names of Biuddishm or Hinduism, no thing whatever in common, nada.  It is offensive that they tell such lies and don't both ter to say the slightest thing based on knowelxdge.  Well that's becauase they have no knowledge.  The only source of knowledge of Christ is the Bible, and if there were any evidence of their proposterous claims that's where you'd find it but it doesn't exist.  

Incredible condeit.  jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. completely a Jew within the Jewish traditions, the fulfillment of the messianic promises throughout their history.  It is idiotic to try to put him in India or anyplace other than Israel.  Idiotic in the extreme.  Pure idiotic conceit.

hOW ARE WE TO CONSTRUE THE WORKS PASSAES IN THE nEW TESTAMENT?

tHERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN SOMETHING OF A PUZZLE FOR ME AND i THINK FOR OTHER cHRISTIANS ABOUT THE FACT THAT WE ARE TAUGHT THAT SALVATION IS COMPLETELY BY GRACE ALONE WITHOUT WORKS OF ANY SORT, WHILE MUCH OF THE TEACHING IN THE nEW tESTAMENT SEEMS TO REQUIRE SOME KIND OF WORKS OF US.  tHE rFORMED cHURCHES AND FOR THT MATTER MOST CHURCHES TEACH SALVATION AS INCORPORATION ALL THOSE PASSAGES WHERE WE ARE TOLD WE MUCST DENY OURSELVES, MUST BE WORTHY OF cHRIST, MUST BER OUR CROSS AND FOLLOW hIM, MUST BEE POOR IN SPIRIT, AND ALL THAT, ALTHOUGH SUCH REQRUIEMENTS CLEARLY SUGGEST WORKS THAT ARE NEEDED TO QUALIFY US FOR SALVATION.  aND NOBODY i'M AWARE OF INCLUDING jOHN mACaRTHUR MAKES AN INCSTINCTION TO HELP US OUT WITH THIS OBVIOUS APPARENTLY DISCREPANCY.

eXCEPT wATCHMAN nEE, OF ALL THOSE i LISTEN TO.  aND SOME OF WHAT HE SAYS SEEMS TO ME TO BE INDUBITABLY CORRECT 3WHILE SOME SEEMS QUESTIONABLE SO i HAVE A PROBLEM WITH HIS TEACHING TOO.  hE EMHASIZES THE PURE GRACE WITHOUT WORKS REQURIEMENT FOR SALVATION AND GOES ON TO TRY TO EXPLAIN THAT THE PASSAGES THAT IMPLY SORKS ARE REFERRING TO A HIGHER LEVEL OF SPIRUTAL LIFE, WALKING WITH cHRIST AS hIS DEIXCIPTLE , WHICH APPARENTLY SOME GO ON TO PRACCTICE WHILRE MANY REMAIN CONTENT WITH MERE SALVATION.  sALVTION IS THE AVOIDALCE OF hELL, THE ACCEPTALNCE INTO THE nEW jERUSALEM, BUT FOLLOWING cHRIST, DENYING SELF, bEARING THE cROSS AND SO ON TAKE US INTO THE kINGDOM OF gOD SOMEHOW WHILE MERE SALVATION DOESN'T.  tHIS IS VERY HARD TO SORT OUT, ALTHOUGH AT LEAST i APPRECIATIOE HIS OBSERVATION THAT SOME DISTINCTION IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY AND THE IDEA THT ALL THOSE CONDITIONS ARE JUST PART OF BEING SAVED IS CLEARLY A CONTRADITION WITH THE PURE GOSPEL.  

i'M STILL TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF ALL THOSIS SO iREALLY DON'T HAVE MORE TO SAY ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW, JUST WANT TO SNOTE THAT i THINK IT'S A REAL PROBLEM THAT ISN'T SUFFIDCIENTLY ADDRESSED BY EVEN THE BEST TEACHERS TODAY.

 

nEE RECOGNIZES THAT THERE ARE THREE PARTS TO THE HUMAN PERSONALITY, BODY , SOU AND SPIRIT, WHILE THE REFORMED TEACHERS SUCH AS jOHN mACaRTHUR AND MOST EVANGELICALS ONLY RECOGNIZE SOUL AND BODY AND SUBSUME SPIRIT UNDER SOUL.  tHERE ARE TWO PASSAGES THAT CLEARLY REFER TO THREE FACULTIES, ONE IN THESALONIANS AND THE OTHER IN hEBREWS.  THERE IS DOUBT, NO DOUBT IN MY MIND THAT THERE ARE THESE THREE PARTS AND IT'S ALWAYS FRUSTRATED ME THAT SUCH GOOD PREACHERS AND AS mACaRTHUR DENY IT.  iT'S RIGHT THERE IN BLACK AND WHITE AND THEY SOMEHOW MANAGE TO GLOSS IT OVER.  iT MAEMAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE TO THIS QUESTION OF THE SEEMING WORKS REQUIREMENTS THAT SHOW UP IN THE GOSPELSZ THAT i'M TALKING ABOUT ABOVE.  iF nEE IS RIGHT, MOST PREACHERS ARE PREACHING A SORT OF CARNAL VERSION OF THE gOSPEL.  i KNOW THAT'S A N OUTRAGEOUS THING TO SAY BUT IT'S UNFORTUNATELY THE ONLY CONDCLUSION i CAN DRAW FROM THESE FACTS.

later:  tHIS IS ALSO RELATED TO ANOTHER FRUSTRATION OF MINE, WHICH i FOUND EXPRESSED BY a q tOZER IN HIS BOOK tHE pURSUIT OF gOD, WHICH IS THAT WE ARE TAUGHT OVER AND OVER AGAIN THE GOSPEL ITSELF AND TAUGHT THAT THIS IS THE SUM TOTAL OF cHRISTIAN TECHING, EXCEPT FOR SOME EXCURSIONS INTO THE TOPIC OF SANCITIFICATION WHICH IS RARE ENOUGH IN ITSELF.sOME OF US HAVE AHAD EXPRERIENCES THAT MAKE US WANT MORE THAN THIS, MORE OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE, FOR EXPERIENCE OF THE GLORIES OF OUR FAITH, OF gOD hIMSELF, AND EWHENEVER WE SAY THIS WE HEAR BACK THAT THERE IS NOTHING MORE TO BE HAD, IT'S THE GOSPEL OF SALVATION AND THAT IS THAT.    

tOZER'S BOOK IS THEREFORE A GREAT RELIEF AND HELP BECAUSE IT ACKNOWLEDGES OUR DESIRE FOR MORE, AND GIVES US SOME KEYS TO PURSUINT IT, ,WHICH IS PURSUING THE EXPERIENCE OIF gOD hIMSELF.  HICH AFTER ALL IS WHAT SALVATION IS ANYWAY, THE KNOWLEDGE OF gOD AS jESUS PUT IT.  kJOWING GOD IS OBVIOUSLY NO QUICK STUDY BUT A LIFETIME PROJECT, OR REALLY A PROJECT FOR ALL OF ETERNITY.   sOME cHRISTIANS DON'T SEEM INTERETASED,.  i NEVER UNDERSTOOD THAT.  fROM THE BEGINNING i HAD ENOUGH EXPERIENCE OF THE GRT PLAEASURES OF SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE TO KNOW THAT THERE IS A BOTTOMLIESS PIT OF MORE MORE MORE TO BE HADN.  aND i'VE HUNGERED FOR TEACHING ON THE SUBJECT.  nEE IS ONE SOURCE, SO IS tOZDER.  THERE ARE A FEW OTHERS, THE OLD ONES FROM A CENTURY BACK OR SO FOR THE MOST PART, THE ONCE WHO TALK ABOUT THOSE THINGS TODAY SOMEWHOEW DON'T SATISFY, AT LEAST NOT WHAT i'M LOOKING FOR.  iT'S ALWAYS THE OLD GUYS WHO KNOW ABOUT IT.  TODAY'S TEPREACHINGS  SIPREACHERS SEEM LIGHT AND FRIVOLOUS AND NOT WORTH LISTENING TO.  mACaRTHUR IS ERIOUS ENOUGH AND A GOOD EXPOSIOR OF THE SCRIPTURE UP TO A POINT, BUT i THINK HE TOO IS MISSING THE REAL STUFF OF THE cHRISTIAN LIFE.

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Judgment Keeps on A Rollin.

 It has often struck me that Christians in general don

t think much in terms of God's judgments in this world, on the national scale or in our own lives.  The Old Testmanent was given for our instruction so we could know cuhch things but few seem to have learned it.  Why did so many miss the clear implication of nine eleven that God was bringing judgment against America?  What is this conceit about how God just eouldn't jsodo such a thing?  There it is in the book of the prophet Amos:  If there be evil in a city, will not the Lord have done it?  And somewhere toward the end of Isaiah EGoGod identifies Himself as bringing both good and evil.  Do they just not read the Old Testament?  

Perhaps it has something to do with a misreading of Jesus' teachings, how we aren't to judge the victims of disasters as guitylyty of some sin or other to deserve it and that sort of thing.  But we don't kneed to judge individuals in any of this to know that  God brings the calamities and they cause great sufferings to many people, whether guilty of any particular sins or not, and uffferings to the whole nation in the case of nine eleven... and Katrina and other weather disasters which seem to be increasing lately.  Seem to be, but hen you go back in history you often find that theuy hasd similarly ferocious weather patterns and we easily forget that.  But there is no such thing as a meanglinless disaster if you take the Old testament seriously.  God made the bricks to fall down and the sycamores to be cut down in a wave of punishemtn by Israel's enemies as reported In Isaiah nine ten, and since they didn't acknolwege His act but proudly set about to rebuild with better materials than bricks and plant better trees than sycamores He goes on to say His hand is still outstretched against them, His anger has not been satisfied.  The similarities with nine eleven in New York City are pretty uncanny if you follow Jonathan Cahn's study of them, so since we know the nation certainly did nothing toward repentance of our sincs we can know that God's hand is still outstreched against us too.  

I listened to audio books of the Little House on the Prairies series recently and wonder how people who were Christians, who read the Innle and presumably tried to live by it don't seem to have sought God to protect their crops from the horrific destruction that came against them year after year, from drought to birds to gophers to a plague of locusts two years in a row.  Not a word about prayer for protection or in repentance or anyting of the sort.   

Just ponder for a moment thw conditions we are living through in the country right now, and how they amount to a threat of disaster from amny angles that could hit us at any time.  Foreigners in the millions illegally whoy of whom hate us, universities taken over by forces of even l who are protesting illegally standard US policy in favor of Israel, protesting in favor of vicious murders, runaway spendin which has brought about an inflation that everyone is feeling, the poorest feeling it the hardest.  But all our remedies are merely human.  Elect trump  Well, if God was the one promoting it Trump would be a very effective instrument for righting many of the wrongs we are suffering from, but why should we expect God to be in favor of any such aid when we keep ignoring Him, don't seek hHim for guidance or acknowledge our sins to Himj and ask forgivenemenss or any of the things Christians are supposted to do?

Well, this post is really just a restatement in other words of what I've written below but it can't hurt to restate it.  God MAY let u have trump again, but propably not with a lot of the same harassments his Presidency had to go through the first time.  Good grief Christians, And I mean born again Protestant Christians because those are the only Christians who belong to God and have standing with Him.  We're to be salt and light in this world and rependiting for our nation even though we may not have shared in its sins is our job.  Dniel the Prophet did that for Israel though he was innocent of all the sins he was confessing.  We share in the sins because we are in covenant as a nation wilth all those who have brought about the evil s we are suffering from.

Any hope?  Not a lot.  But I'd like to be wrong.  On the other hand I'm sure God brought all this to mind for me to write about so since few would pay much attention to anything I write I don't have much hope at leat for my constricbution to the topid.  And I haven't herd much from anyuone else.  Protbably John MacArthur has said a few things about it.  I haven't listened to him for a while.  guess I should do thaty.

Later:  Yes, MacArthur has at last one talk on jidmgnet, Will God Abandon America?  and his answer is yes, Aogd has already abandoned us.This is 

This is probably an old teaching but it's a god presentation of the kinds of sin the nation is most defined by these days, sexual sins of every kind.  

Another teaching by AmacArthur on this subject is A Naion Under God?  this one is particularly good.

It's Bigger Than the Election Of Course

I haven't posted for some time, largely due to health issues and a hospitalization, and I think I should explain again why my posts are so badly written, which is that I have macular degenration and it is in afact a miracle that I can write anything at all, but I can't read what I have written.  I'm aware of the mistakes even as I type them but I can't see to correct them and only hope they won't interfere too much with the meaning for aht I'm saying.  Later I can listen to what I've written using the Read Aloud function if I can find it with my magnifier on the menus, and that makes it quite clear that I've written a huge numbers of typeos and some of them do garble what I'm trying to say to some extent.  All I can do is say I'm sorry for that  and wish it weren't so but the Lord doesn't seem to be interested in healing me but in letting things stand as they are.  

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 Everything we are suffering right now is god's judgment against America.  it's all well and good to hear the conservative talk shows identifying the corruptions that have brought it all about, the threat from crimanls coming over the border not to mention the sheer numbers of people that the nation can't support and are illegal anyway, adn the infleation is killoing us, that the Decocrats or at least biden blames on trump instead of on himself who is the one resposnsible for it, and his disastrous foeieign politices that are arming our enemies against us and turning us against Israel, which in igteself exposes us to God's swrath.  Israel is also in violation of God but they are nevedrtheless His people and He has promised to curse those who scurse them as biden is now doing in his politices conscerning the war against Hamas and his tolerance of the protests on behalf of Hamas in this country, of all the outrageous abominations imaginable.  good grief.  But gain, it couldn't be happening if we were in God's favor and obviously we are not.  Our since go back decades and there has been absolution no repentence even mentioned or enacted even by a church that I know of let alone the nation itself.  We used to have Presidents who called for a day of fasting and prayer toward God from time to tome.  Long since we've seen no such thing.  We just go on racking up sins against Him and storing up wrathh against us.

Too many are now on the side of evil for there to be much hope of turning us back.  On the other hand Gideon went to war with a tiny little army at God's command, so if we could muster that pure army of righteous to repent for our sins perhaps we could make some headway against this gallping judgmetn from God.  Sure I'm all for working to get Trum p back into the Presidency, there is nothing else we can do on the human plance at the moment if we are not going to prey and pray and repent, but it can't ammount to much in the end unless we do repent and seek to throw out all the sins we've been committing for the last few decades.  And mayhbe even back to the beginning of the nation for that matter.  I think of Washington's telling the barbary pirates that we aren't a Christian nation.  let's start there then becayuse we ere then and for many years following a Christian nation and that is why God blessed us and p[rospered us.  he isn't going to bless any nation that mixes His truth with other religions which all derive eight her from the uman spirit or from Satah and not from God Himself.  All those have to be given up.  The Pope's visit to Congress a few years ago was a horrendous abomination in the sight of god.  The Pope is the Antichrist as the Protestant Repoformers showed.  nad Giving Islam any say at all in our political life is another abomination.  they are a very effective instrument of God's wrath against us, they are certainly no friend to American.  

Toqueville say the religious nature of america when he visitied and it was a Christian exspression he saw amonth the people, not some generic spirituality.  It is that Christian identity we need to eget back, and that seems impossible right now to tsay the least.  but maybe if we had a gidenon's army of true orthosdox belivers praying and repenting on tbehalf of the nation we could begin the process of turning us back to god.  

Oh but no ecumenical prayers lease.  None of that mixed group thta prays together at prayer breakfsts in Washington.  That is an babomination in itself.  No Catholics, sorry, they do not share the true orthodox Christianity, sorry, no Muslimes, , no native Americans, none obut ture biblical Protestant believers who are born again by the Holy Spirit have the power to rprevail with God on behalf of the antion, 

;If there is evil in a city will not the Lord have done it, the prophet amos says I thinkin chpter three, and My people are destroed for lack of knowledge God says through thrt eprophet Hosea in chapter four I think, meaning lack of knowledg eof Him and His law.  That is what we have lost and that is why there is ivil in our cities and our people are destroyed for lack of knoslwldge of God.

It would be great if we could have a great Awakening such as transformed the nation right before the reevolutionary War and stamped the Christian charatcter on us for a long time to come.  but we are no longer the consistentlyu christian peop[le we ere then and God doeasn't seem at all inclined to ansswer all the prayers for revival that have gone up to Him forf decades now, and that must be because we are inc luding false relgions in our prayers, or that is the conclumsion I cam to some time ago anyway.  I hope god is guiding me in all this and I think He is.

God's Judgment on America Overshadows the Upcoming Election

 Qith the conviction of DonaldTreump on all thirty four of rhte phonyy charges against him, rendering him a felon according to the fphony politically motivatedcorrupted new legal system designed for rhe purose of convicting him of anything, just anything at all, with that conviction a great many Trump suporters are doubling down on their support, sending in money to support his campaign and in general energies d more than ever to rally behind him.  If he is sent to prison for these dcharges this energy is only going to increase.  This is a clear travesty of justice to those who understand it and have been folloiwing it.  Manyh of course haven't heard the truth about it and the are doing to go on with no understnading of what isactuallyh happening to the country, this takeover by Marxism and communism, this overthrow of our Constirtution and of the whole foundtaion of what used to be America.  As many are recognizing this is a watershed moment from which the country many possibly  notot recover.  Given a new regime thta seeks its restortaion, if it has enough logenvity andpopular support, it may be possible to recover it some time in the future but the odds don't look good right now.

So it's clear where I stand on this and I certainly want the good guys to reveail and the country to be rescued from this corruption as soon as possible.

But as I ponder all this I'm also aware of a fact that looms behind it all that is so far neever mentioned, a fact I believe the Lord brings to m mind and wants me to recognize and write about.  That fact is that He is in charge.  None of this could happen if He did not will it or allow it.  Why would He allow such evil to overwshelm this country that awas once a force for good in the world?  Why would hHe allow evil men to hve so much power, allow so mny ordinary citizens to be deprived of fatts that might steer them away from such corruption? Why would He give us a corrupt President and corrupt judges and prosecutors and lawyers and Congressmen as He has obviously donte?

Well, what does the bible say about how God oiperates?  He brings evil against a land when it has violated His law and those countries tht had the most light from His Law are the ones who receive the greatest punishemnt.  How can we cdoubt that this is what ois going on now.  It raises a melancholy question.  Will He have mercy on us enough to allow trump to win the election in Novemember andbe able to make some beneficial changes to bring tghe country back to its former prosperity and sanity?  

Well, He might.  We haven't yet used up all our blessings from the timeof our goodness and our general obedience to His law.  Or have e?  He had mercy on us in leteting us have Trump the firsrt time, but he also allowed a constant hanranguing of accusation against him the whole time he was in ocffice including two impeachments of all things, all bsed of course on leftwing poloiticas.   Perhaps we might have enough energy guilt up this time to counter such efforts if he wsins?  I guess wse can hope.

But all tht at only amolunts to a way to circumvent the true cause of our being under God's judgment in the first place.  We have violated God's Law, We have come to ignore god altogeterh.  The only remedy for any of this is to turn back to god and undo the cioviolations we have committed in the past.  It's a form of blaspheny to pray for God's blessings when we are commiting sins aginst Him.  Why shoul.d He bless us?  Why should He let us have Trump again?  Why sholuildn't He continue to allow our border to be overrun by enemies who have our destruction at heart, and allow the spending policies of the Democrats to destroy the economy and deprive the citiziens of enoughj money to live comfortably as we use to be alble to sdo.  Why shouldn't God just stand back and let the country descend into total ruin as long as we are not making efforts to undo what we have done to deserve His judgment against us.

Remember nine eleven.  QAay too many evangelical hchurchers took the position that God wouldn't do such a thing and was of course opposed to it unequivocally.  But a few knew that the attack on the towers was God's judgment itself.  What else could it be.  god is in charge of everything.  destruction can't occur unless there is a cause for it and that couacause inis rejection of god and His Law.   If we have deserved the attack, and it was pretty mild when you consider how bad it ould be and could yet be, we should hacvve had a public confession and repentance of course our sincs to recover our place in god's facvor.  But nothing of the sort happened.  We went on in our selfrighteous certainty that we did not rdeserve this and ihtatit was nothing but unprovoked evil against us.  Well, as far as the human protagonists go, it was unprovoked, but God is th e one who brings about actions no matter what the human protagonists think they are going.  When Israel sinned against Him He brought their enemies Assyria and ABabylon against them.  That doesn't men He approved of the motives of Assyria or Babylon, they wer emerely effective instruments for the punishment of His people.  And in a general sense tghta is how He operates swith all nations as they continue in violation of His law.  Not always pujishing by external enemies, but also by internal enemies like corrupt governments, famines and failed crops anddestructive weather patterns and deteriorating ingfrastructionure and the like.  Any source of destruction could be a method of God's judgment against a nation.

Consider what He says in Isaiah ine ten, which was the basis for Jonathan Cahn's book agbout God's judgment through nine eleven.  He ointed out that the pasage in Isaiah refers to brings that have bfellen while the people vow they will rebuild even stronger than before as a consequence, andthat the sycamore trees were cut dowsn by the attack by their enemies but that they will plant more hardy trees.  As Isaiah goes on to say God is displeased swith this attitude of self sufficiency and efiance of His judgment.  His judgments are mean to to wake people up and turn rthem back to him, but instead the fallen nautre goes on to devise schemes to better tolerate the destruction and ignores god's role in it altogether.    though He smites them, the pasages says, they do not turn aback to hioto Himj, and since they do not turn back to hihim His nad is still outstretched in judgmetn.  That is also the story of nineeleven in America.  We have not repented and His hand is still outstrecrtched against us.  And we have gone ton to accumulated even more sins against Him.  We already had Roe v Wade and despite the msuppremec coutr's turning it bakc to the states it is still in force in the nation and still operates as a sin against god, and to that wee've now added Gay Marriage and this transgeneder abomination.   His outstretched hand can lower the boom any time now.  

jSo what hope is there for this upscoming election?  I don't know but even if He has some mercy on us He isn't going to continue wsilth it for long, we are on the fast track to destruction and it's going to come unless we trun to Him and repent of a long list of violations of His law and seek to restroe the Christian character of America.

You Must Be Born Again

 Unless a man be born again he cnnot see the Kingdom of God.  Said Jesus in John Three.  Which he restated a verse or two later Verily verily I say unto you, unless ye be born of water and the aspirit ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.  Can't see, can't enter in, to the Kingdom of God.  And he goes on about how you can't see the Holy Spirit but can see its effects, and that is the way it is with those who are born again of the Spirit.  And after that we get into the familiar verse about how God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoesoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  A line or two before that He says that the Son of Man must be lifted up just as the serpoent was lifted up in Moses' day so that whoever looked upon it would be healed of the bite of the serpent.   Born again of the Spirit in order to e see and enter into the Kingdom of God, believing on the Son of Man as lifted up on the cross in odrder toe receive eternal life.

And what is eternal life, He says in chapter tseventeen, but that they know YOu, the only true living God.  

It isn't said in so many words anywhere in scripture that I fcan think of, but what else can it be saying but that we can only know god if we are born again.  And only those are born again who believe in Christ.  the only people on the planet, in this world, who can know God are those who are born again of the spirt.  And this first with the interpretation of the Fall as the occasion of our losing our faculty of knowing God, or the spiritual faculty itself by which Adam and Even had Known god personally.  What died first at the Fall was this faculty, and it is this faculty which is reborn as it were when we come to believe in Jesus' sacrifice for our salvation.  The restoration of our original connection with God.  And only those who do come to this belief have this resotred connection.  the rest of humanity is fallen humanity, humanity wihich is "but flesh" not having the spirit.  We are boall born into the flesh alone when we are born into this life.  It must be the "born of water" Jesus is talking abourt, all born of water, but only those who believe are also born of the spirit.  

There is some dispute about what Jesus means by the word "water" which He contrasts with the Spirit, some even claiming it means baptism so that being born aagain is associated with that rite.  But because He goes on to the contrast between flesh and spirit it seems pretty clear to me that this is the actual meaning of the previous phrase, so that the water is a word that stands for the flesh.  Perhaps the water that breaks before a baby is born.  That is the wonly water I can think of that is connected with the birth of us into this fallen world.  So we are born of water and spirit or flesh and spirit and that is what it means to be born again.  

Fallen humanity clearly does not know God.  In our fallen state we may be taught about God and come to believe in His existence in one form or another, but wqe can't know Him unless we are born again which is the effect of believing in His death for our salvation.   And \\\\  Whis means rthat Jews and Muslims who believe in he one God cannot actually know Him personally because they don't believe in Jesus' death ofr their sins, and the other reliegions of the world don't even have a clear sense of a one true God at all, but many lesser Gods, some three hundred or so in India for instance.  Demons who present themselves as gods.

Post in progress.

Later.

It used to be more or less generally understood when the country was still culturally Christian that this is a feallen world.  What that means may not have been grasped beyond the main outlines of its being a less than perfect place full of evil as well as good things with sufferings and joys all intermingled according to the notion of the Fall has having been the coveting of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  That is, although it was accepted as the right biblical view of things there was probably not much real concern to live as if it were a reality.  Even in the Christian west people live in this world as THE world, as the normal world, the only possible world.  Not the broken imperfect devious world brought about by the Fall, the first disobeidnece of God by the human race.

For he last couple of years I finally had a more definite idea that in fact I really am living in a fallen world.  I've mentioned it before as stemming from a period in which Hell had become a reality for me.   So did the fallen world.  I really do now thinki of this as not the normal world God created but a broekn deamaged world.  I think of it as transitory, I mean I pretty much FELL it to be transitory as well as broekn and battered and dangerous in a way I hadn't before.  Subtly I suppose but in reality, it is a different world I've been living in for the last two years than I had lived in before.  Oh I always thought of this as a fallen world because of the biblical account of it, but in that way I desribe above, of being aware of it because it was been revealed to be that, but not by experience or feeling.  That is what is different.  I FEEL it to be a different place, and by using the word subtle I just mean to say ithat it's not a big dramatic thing=, but it is definitely a change, a coloration at least but more than that, a real change in how the world feels to me.  It's no longer THE world, it's a way station.

A proving ground in a sense.  But nobody could have an inkling of this who is not a Christian.  Even Christians don't, except in that theoretical sense, or if some do I have no idea how many might.  For me it has been a real change in perspective and I suppose I can't be allone in this but I can't guess how many others might share it.

The main thing it has done is make me aware of the plight of those who don't believe in anything like it, who reject Christianity outright in some scases, or rject it tacitly or don't even reject it in any clear way but simply treat it was some idea they heard from womsomewhere or other that toher people seem to be a part of but which doesn't interest them at all.

Yet I know it to be the actual true history of the world.  To say so would get me only a dismissal as taking my own beliefs too seriously as a sort of arrogance.  There are many other religions in the world after all and Christianity is only one of the many.  They have no reason to prefer it to any of the obhters.  In fact Buddhism in particular in some cases, or Taoism, etc. seem to them to be superior in every way to Christianity.  Far more sophsitcated, full of deep wisdom, CHristianity seeming to them to be some kind of picky morality or the world of all those hypocrites that supposedly dominate it.

So I can't prove it to anyone that in fact it is the true history of Planet Earth and much eyhond, I just have to suffer the knowledge quietly to myself.   And the reason I'm now breringing up the need to be born again is that a fallen world sneeds a solution .  It isn't normal, it's a problem to be solved.  If by the Fall we were made inheritors of Hell, then what we need is a redemption from Hell. And this is of coruse what Christianityh claims to offer.  And that is what being born again is all about.  It is onlyh when we are born again that we are reinstated to the original spiritual state of Adam and Eve, and ebeyond that become the inheritors of an even better inheritance through Jesus, an inheritance the Bible doesn'[t present in any great detail but is more or less hinted at as something much better than the lot of our first preearents.  

The other religions can't know God because you have to be born again of the spirit to know God.  We're all fallen we're all but flesh until we are born agains of the spirti and recover the faculty that can know God. Which occurs either as a result of or as concomitant with the belief that Jesus died on the cross to pay for the sins that keep us in the fallen state and destine us for Hell.

U;I'v now formed the habit of hearing and seeing the fallenness in humanity.  I answer wquestions that come from that fallennness through my prervasive awareness of the difference between fallenness and the redeemed state in to which we are born again.  So for instance when someone suggests that maybe Near Death experiences aren't all about the demonic realm as I have usually thought of it, my answer is But you have to be born again to see the kingdom of God, otherwise all you can see is the demonic realms.  I don't think it's a sufficne t answer to that to point out that sometimes people come back from an NDE to become a Christian because they don't know the difference between the apparently supernatural world of the demonic realms and the kingdom of God.  People who have NDEs usually think they've encountered God Himsrelf, or many of them do.  Jesus, God, they think they've talked with them.  But they can't have, and not just because they can't be in the kingdom of God but because there are many contradicitons with what the Bible says with that idea.

NDEs do show that the soul is a reality and not just a metaphor to explain our experience of consciousness.  This soul is a separate entity that can detach from the body and float above it and see things in the room where the body is lying and even see and hear things that are really going aon in that room while being under anesthesia or in some cases dead without functioning heart or brain.  Many such NDEs occur in this sort of state.  The perceiving self is vividly aware during this astate and has observations that can be verified by the epopel in the room observed and so on.  This is real proof that there is such a thing as a soul, a real living entity that is attached to the bodyh but not synonymous with it.

I doubtg that anyohne who is born again could have an NDE or ever has at any rate.  The experience could in taht case include the realm of God, but none of the acocunts I've heard suggest anything more than the sort of illusions demons ofare capable of creating.  

Post in Progress

It goes something like this:  Instead of taking this world for granted as THE world in which we all live and then die, which means we just no longer live in this world, we are gone, we were there and then we are gone, now I've begun to think of people as born into a testing ground that they don't know anything about, they will live as if it were THE world and die just as described above, simply disappearing from the company of the rest who are still living, when in reality they are accumulating the elements that will determine an everlasting existence when they die.  A Christian should see it this way all along but we don'[t.  I had to have an encounter with the real possibility of Hell to start to see things this way.  We aren't taugjt this.  Or notbody I know was ever taught it.  People live their lives heedlessly, maybe striving for good thnings, doing good to others perhnaps., a life they considere to be consequential and well lived, but this Heaven or hell thing is not part of the picture.  xcept now and then and if it is at all in the picture it isn't more than a vague possibility that nobody knows wherther to believe is real or not.

And if you're not a Christian at all, even cultrually, then none of this is going to enter into your understanding of life at all anyway.  TYour own cultural framework may or may not have an afterlife to look forward to but it won't be the Christian adfterlife or built on Christian morality.

So I listen to a podcast, well no it was a talk of some sort at a gathering for somes sort, by a David Brooks, recommended by a friend, and he has bvery high ideals about the life we could or should be living .  A talk titled The Road to Depth.  He is Jewish burt quotes a lot of the Christian bible.  At the end of it I wonder what the point of it was.  I can't see m to keep it in mind.  But whatever his point was it doesn't seem to include anything about the transitoriness of life or any notion of something to come after this life.    And in any case he has no notiong as far as I can gtell that to qualify for the Christian Heaven or Kingdom of God you must be born again, that is, you need to acquire a faculty none of us is born with the first time around as we endter into this fallen world.    Nbody has any such idea except those who ARE Christians and ARE borna agin, or so I think must be the case.  But it's the life that matters to every human being born into this world and nobody knows anything about it except the very few who achieve it.

Though it is a gift and not a n  achievement so let's be clear about that much.  Still, what is the point of living at all if this is the truth about it, that at the end there is only heaven or hell and although it does have to do with how good a life you live morally speaking, in the end you have to recognize thta you can't deal with your own sin nature at all, yoyu ra stuck with it even if you live the best moral life you can, and you need a Savior from it.  then if you embrace the Savior, receiving the eternal life of knowing that He paid for your sins, then you are born again and can see and enter into the Kingdom of God.  And not otherwise.

It may sound like I'm complaining about how God aranged thisgs but I'm not.  I'm sjust scared for people.  I want them to know and I know they don't.  

And I know a lot of them wouldn't no mater how hard tI worldk to confvince them of it.  

People think they are spiritual when they are not.  You can't be spiritual if you can't see or enter into the Kingdom of God and the kind of spiroituality people think is spirituality doesn't do that at all.  It may lead into spuupernatural experiences of one sort or another, Near Death Experiences in some cases, ghosts and voices and apparitioins and so on, but all that is just the outskirts of this fallen life and not true spirituality.  And it's demonic.  It's the realm of the fallen angels.  Sometimes theyu teach nice things, like being good to other people.  That's a big one in Near death Expereinces.  But they never teah the gospel.  they never teach that you need to be saved.  Theymjust lull people into thinking everything is jut fine, they have no more rfear of tdeath etc etc.

 listening to some audio books of old classics lately, mostly Jane Austen and a bit of Bronte's Wuthering Heights.  Withering Heights is a gothis madness and it teaches a view of the afterlife that is not at all Christian.  Emily Bronte grew up in an Anglican parsonable, why doesn't she have a Chtidyian Vhtidyisn birCHristian fview of the afterlife?   She's got demonic impersonations she treats as dead humans.  but scripture is clear.  Huamns doen't come back to this life.  Ghosts and all that are demonic imperosonalitions of people.

Jane Austen also grew up in a Christian home but there's not a world in anything she wrote to suggest that life is anything more than get through it on its own terms here.  I noted a couple of places where a charatcer mentions religion as something to get involved in beyond the orgdinary as a sort of alternative to the normal means of life, but nothing is said about what that might mean, and one character is shown with his head down on a tabletop with the suggestion that he's probably praying.  And that's all.  In four of her books so far.

What good is Christian culture if it doesn't each the basics about ewhat human olife is all about?

You can't see god or know god because you were born without the facultty for knowing od.  So Buddhists don't beleive there is a God and Tthey are even rather arrogant about their supposed superiority in this sophisticated understanding, since to them it's just an anthropomorphism to believe in God when all there is is all that can be reached by either the senses or by deep meditation.  That is supposed to reveal the whole of reality.  The idea that there is anything outside the reach of those mental experiences just can't occur because that's the limit of experience from their point of view, that's all that humanity can do to known anything.  That's the end of it.  But we're born without a faculty.  No way would that enter into the thought aof any fallen bcreature without the revelation of God, and trhat revelation, the Bible, is scorned by them.  Fairy tale or some such.

jUST ANOTHER LEFTIST LIE: tRUMP SMEARED AS USUAL.

 tHIS DRIVES ME CRAZY.  aS DO MANY OTHER SIMILAR THINGS THESE DAYS OF COURSE.  bUT WHAT i'M TALKING ABOUT HERE IS THAT THEY KEEP DESCRIBING tRUMP AS SEEKING TO "OVERTURN THE ELECTION" WHICH IS NUTS ON TOP OF NUTS.  tRUMP BELIEVED THE ELECTION WAS FRAUDULENT.  wHETHER HE IS RIGHT OR WRONG ABOUT THAT, IT IS NOT THE SAME THING AS SEEKING TO "OVERTURN" IT, THAT'S JUST ONE OF THOSE LEFTIST GARBAGE WORDS THEY USE TO DISCREDIT THEIR OPPONENTS.   yOU HAVE TO REGARD THE ELECTION AS LEGITIMATE IN ORDER TO TRY TO "OVERTURN" IT.  iF YOU DON'T REGARD IT AS LEGITIMATE THEN YOU ARE PROTESTING ITS LEGITIMATCY NOT TRYING TO OVERTURN IT.  wHAT IS THE MATTER WITH EVERYBODY THESE DAYS?  oH, CORRUPTION.  yEAH, CORRUPTION.

iT'S REALLY AMAZING HOW THE lEFT MANAGEDS TO INSERT ITS POLITICAL WILL INTO EVERYTHING WHICH IS SUPPOSED TO BE OBJECTIVE AND NEUTRAL.