Some notes...
Yes, I am anti-Catholic. I am anti-Catholic times infinity. Because there are two kingdoms: the Kingdom of God, and the Kingdom of Satan. If you're not in the one, you're in the other. The Roman Catholic church, with its false doctrine, idol worship, and exaltation of man and man's words to the level of God and God's Word, is of the Kingdom of Satan and exists to keep souls in the darkness and bondage of the devil's power. As a Christian you make no concessions or compromise with the devil's kingdom and the devil's willful ministers who as anti-Christs ensconce themselves in the temple and present themselves as the very church of God (and even as God Himself). Yes, I am anti-Catholic. I am anti-Catholic times infinity. As a regenerate being and follower of the Living God it is an aspect of my very being to be against anti-Christ and to find him abomination. Let the wobbly and watery and weak-kneed Christians make their compromises with the devil for whatever reason the devil puts in their minds for doing it. God's elect...God's very remnant in these end times don't make compromises with the devil.
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Homosexuals (including the subset of homosexuals who are self-identified 'Christians') are fond of justifying their behaviour against the Word of God by saying Jesus said nothing about homosexuality. The fact of Paul's Words having the authority of the Holy Spirit aside, if you hear a homosexual say this tell them Jesus said He didn't come to destroy the law; and then point them to Scripture in the Old Testament law condemning homosexuality. One can then argue law vs. gospel (though, one can't argue Paul's condemnation of homosexuality of course), yet one can't say Jesus said nothing about homosexuality. (Of course homosexuals - and I don't say 'active' homosexuals intentionally - are disingenuous and are not Christians, and of course they have no Scriptural argument; I'm just saying it's not true that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. Jesus is God, afterall, beyond everything else. He is Jehovah. He gave the law.)
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It's funny how when you read Paul straight through you come upon passages where he is speaking directly to the false doctrine of the Roman Beast. Such passages as in Timothy like "forbidding to marry". There are numerous passages that of course have been extracted and put in books and so forth, but the fact is it's right there before everybody's eyes in the Word of God. You have to be able to 'see', though. That's the catch... The nursery-level sophists of the Roman Beast church practice their trade like modern day liberal Democrats: tell lies and fool as many people as you can (and more innocents and fools are being born every day, which is their strength), and then just don't care about the people who know you are lying. I.e. just say anything and be shameless. To what end? The devil's followers are as irrational as the devil himself. They think they can defeat God. (Actually, the devil knows his ultimate fate; but his followers actually think they can defeat God...)
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Prayer at it most basic level and practice is talking to God. As simple and basic and obvious as that sounds. As a new Christian one is curious to find practical instruction for prayer. Something to explain just what prayer actually is, because...it can't just be that simple as talking directly to God, can it? the new Christian wonders. Yet what happens when you genuinely talk directly to God is you recognize God, which is a big thing. A human being in bondage to sin can't recognize God. Refuses to recognize God. God is higher than man. A fallen, sinful, unregenerate man refuses to accept that there is anything higher than him. His vanity, worldly pride, and self-will refuse to recognize anything higher than him. (It is the very death of your vanity, worldly pride, and self-will and their control of you when you begin to recognize that which is real and is higher than you.) So when you compose yourself, and you begin to talk directly to God - though it feel uncomfortable at first, and even maybe somewhat silly...at first - you are doing a very big thing in that you are both assaulting and getting above your vanity, worldly pride, and self-will and recognizing that which is real and which is higher than you. Only God is real and is higher than you. What created you is higher than you. So (to shift this subject to false doctrine) when you shift your target of prayer to a human being, living or dead, as Roman Catholics do, you are doing what your vanity, worldly pride, and self-will want you to do. No human being, living or dead, is above you as God is above you. They become false idols. They are not a threat to your sinful nature (your carnal nature, your vanity, worldly pride, and self-will). Of course your vanity and the devil want you to pray to dead humans instead of God Himself. It's because it keeps the devil alive inside you as represented by your vanity and your worldly pride and your self-will. Of course the devil has developed a false doctrine of praying to dead humans or Mary or angels or anything other than to God Himself...
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Mainstream Christianity is very confused about what the Bible means by our 'carnal nature' or 'old man' or 'sinful nature' as opposed to the 'new man' or 'spiritual nature'. They think it means literal flesh. And when one talks about getting above one's carnal nature they think you are talking about denying the flesh aspect of the body (as if that is the most horrible thing to do, by the way, because the flesh is so wonderful, especially the way it ages so gracefully, and, anyway, it's supposed to not be 'cool' to not be real high on flesh); and if you talk about engaging in the struggle between the Spirit and the flesh they think you are denying the 'material body' and being 'gnostic'. (Gnostic is the fits-all-sizes name to label anyone who actually talks about the effort aspect of sanctification.) Mainstream Christians want to be comfortable Christians. They want to eat ice cream and go to church and talk about their children and read books about the Bible rather than the Bible itself and so on. Mainstream Christians. Sorry, mainstream Christians. Elect of God won't allow you to slumber like that. If you should ever have the good grace to come into contact with an elect of God that is. No, think of the carnal nature simply as this: it is vanity, worldly pride, and self-will. It's main features are being able to self-justify anything (i.e. lying), resentment, and violence. That's what you attempt to get above, and that is what you are to struggle with, pilgrims. It's not 'gnosticism'. Now go back and tell your seminary professors and your pastors and your elders and your Christian book writers that they steered you wrong. Now you know the truth because you heard it from an elect of the Living God.
15 Comments:
>Now you know the truth because you heard it from an elect of the Living God.
rofl
BTW, I was so happy to see you finished your reading almost on time!
What really knocked me off pace was all the internet writing that suddenly came up. Actually, if I'd have stayed on the pace I'd kept all through the Old Testament I'd have finished in possibly less than 50 days (due to the shorter chapters once you get past the Gospels).
Again (and again and again) I know people think it's shallow to read the Bible as fast as I did, but just read the comments above on that subject. It's something very - very - much worth doing. (And it's never shallow or empty or not profitable to read the Bible complete in any manner in any amount of time.) I only regret I lost my initial momentum and 'containedness' (that's an awkward word, but an aim will be more or less contained as you're doing it) when I got into the New Testament. I became a page-counter. Perhaps inevitable fatigue after 50 straight days of 20 chapters a day. I also was always doing marathon catch-ups since I'd had a family thing explode that required my time and attention in the midst of it all.
But, all the self-flagellation for not coming in under 60 days aside, I did complete my fifth complete reading of the Bible. That is like planting a new crop. The Bible is in influence that grows in you when you make these efforts and then in the harvest you reap from the effort you made in the spring.
Even though "natural justice" have no role in regeneration, does it have value? I mean, if someone succeeds in behaving justly, can it lead them TOWARD God's grace? Can it be a sign that God is working in them? Or do you think it is always an occasion of pride?
I understand the question and all the theological subject matter involved, &c. I just think it's best to put it this way: you're either 'there' or you're not there. And to get 'there' you need the 'effecting agent' that the Word of God is. It's not automatic. You can't do anything to regenerate yourself, yet, God Himself tells you two things: faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God; and also: move close to God, and God will move close to you (He says this in James 4 and also in Deuteronomy and also in other places).
I think when God - the Holy Spirit - starts to be an influence in you it really happens 'above' your linear time (i.e. above your perceived birth to death linear lifetime). In other words, God can act in your life at any point of that linear line. So, in effect, it can have the real appearance that we were being led and guided towards the point of finally being regenerated and consciously converting. But from out point-of-view none of that is in our power any more than the regenerating itself.
So what we need is an outside shock. That shock is evangelism. I recieved it very short and terse from a Christian who rebuked me (when he was drunk even) when I made fun of something Christian. He simply said: "Jesus saves." And said it in a way to communicate that what he was saying was infinitely more important than what was going on around us in that particular environment and event. (We were walking across a college campus looking for an auditorium where a person we knew was giving an acoustic guitar concert. I had stopped to read some of the notices on one of those circular bulletin type stands that campuses have, and one was a student looking for a roommate but 'only a Christian', and I made fun of that in some way and then got blasted by this drunk guy. I didn't become a Christian at the time, but those moments are like planting a seed, and they grow or they don't grow. The fact that I even remember this event shows that it grew.
You can give yourself some of the external shocks you need too, and you do that by intentionally engaging influences that are (a) above your current level of understanding, and (b) outside your current interests. It won't guarantee anything, but I think God notices when individuals begin to move 'vertically' to the mass in this manner. The thing is you can't be filtering everything through vanity and pride, and you can't have purely worldly motivations. You have to be pursuing Wisdom Herself (and Proverbs 8 is also very instructive on this overall subject).
Ulimately for regeneration to happen, though, you need shocks you can't give yourself. You need to be evangelized (directly or indirectly, it doesn't matter, you just need to hear the truth of the Word of God), but most people get more than enough of that... The seed has to grow from that point...only God can make it grow.
Regarding your earilier comment on prayer to dead humans:
Putting aside the question of whether the dead can hear us, do you think it HAS to be worse than, say, my asking another Christian to pray for me?
The most fundatmental false doctrine as well as wrong practice can be justified a thousand different ways, and it can also be justified by soft-pedalling or playing down the significance and result of the doctrine or practice.
In this case you just have to see that there is a reason why a Christian is to have NO mediator between him and God other than the Christain's one and only true High Priest Jesus Christ. Any mark you aim at that falls shorter than Jesus Christ Himself (and God the Father in terms of who you are directing your prayer towards) is a concession to the elements within your inner being that have their allegiance in the devil: namely your vanity, your worldly pride, and your self-will.
When you become born again (regenerated) and you experience conversion you are drawn into the life of the Trinity. You are ABLE to approach the Throne of God because Jesus made it possible and the Holy Spirit gives you the power to do it. When you mix that up with humans, dead or alive, you are just by default not participating as a Christian in anything that is real regarding what a Christian possesses regarding the promises of the Gospel.
Soft-pedaling the significance of false doctrine or practice is a concession to the darkness and bondage of the devil's domain. When you give the devil anything he has all of you.
Well, the puzzling thing for me is that a lot--not ALL--but a LOT of what you are saying makes sense to me and sounds like stuff I know and already experience in the context I am in. And in fact--is REINFORCED by the context I am in. I'm just saying that this is how I experience it. When you describe, or witness to, your own experience of faith, I often find myself saying, Right! or That's me! But then when you describe or testify to what according to you I should be experiencing from the inside of "the Beast", I think, "Huh? What's she talking about?" Now do you think I must be utterly deceived? Or do you think there may be something else going on that isn't completely captured by the "controversial" aspects of the discussion?
You're not being serious in this statement. The 'context' you are experiencing things in has more leaven of false doctrine than any church could have if one were to consciously TRY to set up a false church.
The basic fact of that is this: once you experience regeneration (the absolute foundational, most-important-thing, effected by the Word and the Spirit, when it IS effected) you then have the Spirit of Truth in you which enables you and gives you the desire to know the truth. The conversion process AFTER regeneration involves this learning of the truth (because you have to learn just what you are to have faith in and what you are to repent of). This involves doctrine (a good, biblical word, by the way).
Where you are now is a hall of mirrors and a realm with no standard for truth where soft-pedaling anything, and compromising anything, is possible and encouraged, and where it's very much possible to look pretty much in ANY direction and say: "I experience that in my context too."
But when you focus and look at what your 'context' actually is, and measure and test it by the authority of the Word of God, and you learn how this false doctrine that makes up your relativistic 'context' effects you in your inner being in keeping you in darkness and bondage to the devil's demands and the devil's kingdom you can't then make such blithe statements such as you've written above.
Once a Roman Catholic trully connects with the Word of God and then truly has an interest in learning biblical doctrine, that Roman Catholic is in an untenable position within the Roman Catholic domain. The fact is, Roman Catholics sit in a house they either were born in or that they find as innocent marks or confused discontents (or as wilful rebels to the truth of God). There's then entropy and laziness in staying in the house if you have come to know the truth. You can't be in that house, though, and truly be converted. You may be regenerate and in that house (because you've encountered the Word of God and the Spirit despite your false church), but you havn't converted if you're still in that house. Conversion means you have understanding of biblical doctrine and you value the Word of God as authority.
The bottom line: if you're still in the Roman Catholic domain you are by default in the Kingdom of Satan.
Let me ask in that context what you think is the relationship between "Word of God" meaning scripture and "Word of God" meaning the second person of the Trinity.
Jesus is no longer with us as He was to the 12 disciples and others, but when He was present he, of the three Persons of the Trinity, had the role of communicating God's will and character and message. The written Word of God now is what a Christian has to communicate to us the will and character and message of God.
No man has seen God the Father. Remember that even in the Old Testament it is Jesus that is revealing Himself to, for instance, Moses at Sinai.
The Bible is not just any human language; it is Living Language. It is the Living Word of God. It is what Jesus was in the flesh to His disciples.
When you put something said or written by man at the level of the Word of God you are putting man at the level of God. Tbis is something the devil wants you to do because by default you can't do it or follow along with it without being in the darkness and bondage of the devil's kingdom. If you don't value the Word of God as the very Word of God, then you don't value the Word of God.
I appreciate the personal vignettes a great deal, too. I remember reading about your family situation in a comment and worrying about it a lot. I'm hoping it came to a good conclusion and you're not still suffering the consequences of it. I hope it won't enrage you, but, for what it's worth, you are in my prayers.
I'm always tempted to complain about the ongoing situation that came up again a month or so ago, but I'll refraim. It involves a sibling who is very accomplished in terrorizing everybody in numerous ways. Nothing too terribly serious in terms of violence (other than knife attacks and threats to burn down houses), but, as a social worker who tried to help this person (who is a drug addict) frankly told all of us: "I've never seen anybody this difficult." Yes. Worse than the worse-case-scenarios because the absolute worst human beings end up in prison cells. At least once in a prison cell they no longer can be a problem to anyone on the outside.
This is a person who has had nothing but help for over a decade (and more) and just continually exploits people and bites the hand that tries to help. In the most shamless, ungrateful, evil manner. A purely possessed piece of human garbage. A person who gives you NO angle whatever to approach and try to help. I know what a hellbound individual is like up close. They deserve no sympathy. All they want to do is terrorize and force you down to their level. That's ALL they exist for. I can't describe how repulsive fallen man is when all fear and shame are stripped away and they are able to just be themselves. Of course God will gather and burn them. There's nothing else He or anybody else can do with them. Soon, please...
And by the way: if I had been this bad prior to regeneration, and I had had the amount of help this person has had, and I continued to return evil for good in every way like this person has, I would say: "I deserve to die an eternal death in hell." The bottom line: some people WANT to be in hell. They are called reprobates.
So, I did end up complaining a little there anyway... Well...not too bad...
My family is not saved, I'm unique among them. Yet they are a typical Protestant family. There's actually a conscious self-identification as Protestant while at the same time no real conscious self-identification as Christian.
My presence among them changes the culture of the family though. My vertical development breaks the barriers and blazes the path for the others, maybe not in our time, but in God's time.
The father is a disciplined man with two university degrees, a career officer in the Air Force (pilot) and well-paying jobs out of the Air Force (flying and something having to do with his business degree he got at the University of Maryland. I never quite knew what my dad did after he stopped flying). Really. Something to do with auditing major Air Force contracts. I guess I do know what he's been up to...
My mother grew up in iconic Malibu. Her actual mailing address was Malibu, Ca. It's different today, though, than when she was growing up there... (She was in one of the canyons that catch on fire every now and then...)
No devil worship in my life, by the way.
The drug addict in question actually has spent time in a jail cell. Didn't effect any change. Neither did marriage, or becoming a parent. Nothing. This is a person who is so freaking stupid (expect for doing evil) that there is literally nothing you can do. I was the last family member who didn't write the drug addict off.
The parents are a model of long-suffering, though (if not so much wisdom regarding it all).
My problem with the person in question is the lack of any change at all. Usually drug addicts (a) die; (b) get better; or (c) end up in prison. This one refuses all those options...
So I just say: at least leave people alone. Nobody deserves to have to deal with you. Just go be a filthy, dumb drug addict and leave everybody alone. But no...
It's not a problem currently, though, because the police took care of the latest event, and now the drug addict is back to exploiting the help of the state and various social service outfits. (Always hovering, though... Kind of like the devil and his demons... Always hanging close, waiting for opportunities...)
This person, by the way, IS possessed. There use to be an unlocateable stink (like of a dead body) in front of the room where this person stayed.
One thing that happened was weird: this latest time when the drug addict was taken away by police, my parents swimming pool went from the most beautiful icy-looking blue to the most foul, stinking yellow overnight. The first time anything like that happened to the swimming pool. It became a smelly swamp-like pool of water. Actaully yellowish-green. I didn't tell my partents my theory, but I think the demons hanging out around the drug addict went into the pool in anger when they 'host' was taken away.
It was striking because the pool had just had a makeover where people came in and cleaned the tile and fixed the heater, and it was all beautiful, and I even remarked the day before how blue and enticing the water looked. Then, overnight...
The smell of a dead body disappeared too...
(This is one of those drug addicts who has to live in filth and garbage too. Every demonic possession trait. I once found a list of traits of demonic possession - in a rather conservative study Bible actually - and this person fit every one.)
Yes I did pray for this person to be given understanding and to get healthy. Over and over. But a reprobate is a reprobate. Maybe God answered the prayer by making the person screw up to the point of getting the police involved and getting taken away...
If you've never been around abject ingratitude (to kind parents, which is similar to ingratitude to God) and wilful returning of evil for good (this defines a satanic person, when they return evil for good) and constant lying and filth and arrogance (the arrogance is a major trait of the reprobate) and breathtaking stupidity and nastiness, all to the degree where it all reaches absolute, then you can't know what I'm talking about.
As I said, an experienced social worker, who has worked with drug addicts for her life said she had never seen a worse case. This is a wicked being. Not mentally deficient, because she can play any role she has to with anybody to get her way. Dumb except to do evil.
Let me give you a little example into the world of this evil piece of garbage: her mother a couple of years ago had a problem with the muscle that surrounds the heart, and had to be taken to an emergency room because she couldn't breathe and didn't know what it was. The drug addict arrived, walked into the emergency room where her mother was on a gurney still, surrounded by other people in various states of injury and illness (an emergency room) and she proceeded to talk and move as if the place was her world and had to conform to her demands, so immediately a guard approached her (after quick glances from the medical people, seeing a bizarre wildcard in the room) and she threw a fit of resentment about how she was being treated (keep in mind: she was IN THE VERY MIDST OF AN EMERGENCY ROOM SURROUNDED BY INJURED AND ILL HUMAN BEINGS, not a hospital room, and emergency room). The level of self-centeredness and selfishness and pure nastiness towards other people this person demonstrates is OFF THE CHARTS. This is a person her own father wishes to be dead (it's the mother that is the problem, i.e. the weak-link).
I have no problem with the doctrine of reprobation. First, because it's biblical, but second, because I've seen evil up close. One would probably have to be in law enforcement or the prison system to witness real evil to a more vicious degree (at least in this country in peace time), and I'll grant that there are certainly more evil people around (serial murderers, people who molest children, people who beat up their wives, I mean actual physical harm and all that), but short of that I've seen real evil that terrorizes just short of actual assault and extreme criminal acts. In a way worse, because if this person were in a prison cell at least the family wouldn't have to deal with her.
(The emergency room story actually makes her sound not so evil, just sort of normally insane, but one thing about evil people is you can't explain them to other people who don't know them. That is one of their strengths. I, for instance, am 'evil' in the eyes of anybody who comes into contact with the drug addict and fills them full of her lies. You can't win with devils. They have all the advantage...for now.)
One way evil people defile your life is to get you complaining about them and thinking about how they're effecting you and all that (actually just infecting you with their negative essence), so I'm going to state this is the last comment I'll make about my evil sister. (And I said murderers are worse? She in effect killed her child by taking extreme drugs and extreme amounts of drugs all through a pregnancy. Another child before that was born with drugs in her system and was taken away at the hospital (later adopted by a Kindergarten teacher). The babies were only conceived with the intent to use them for exploiting her parents for money. And she did spend time in jail for a butcher knife attack on her parents. So, she's up there among nightmare criminal types, she's just yet to step over the Rubicon and poison someone (which she is always threatening) or commit arson (which she is always threatening) or something else. When you're around these people their behaviour is so bad that you become numb to it and you start to accept as 'not so bad' what any other person would see as horror.
Well, I don't have to deal with her anymore, and her parents currently have a restraining order (like the three others they've had before the latest)... Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord, I will repay. God has to repay people who return evil for good. Especially when they continue to do it beyond the point when they have matured enough and know what they're doing. Beyond the point where they've been helped ad nauseum, and all they can think of doing is attacking and exploiting those who help them. Beyond the point where people have confronted them with their behaviour and awakened them to it. To hell with them.
Oh, I complain every now and then about it. It actually is not a bad thing to talk about problems in a family (five children, by the way). Alot of people have family problems and think they're the only ones. I actually see my sister's 'type' if not often, at least somewhat often out and about in the world. Keep in mind though that my sister is remarkably adept at putting up different personalities. I suspect when you see seemingly normal looking people they can be the same. Drug abuse, afterall, is not uncommon these days. But these are girls who never mature, never read a book (for instance) are sponges for every media stream of nonsense and evil that arrives at a television or radio or movie theater. They get drawn into the lifestyle as teenagers and then just develop into these strangely arrogant ignoramuses, totally shameless in doing anything to get their way, always demanding every environment come down to their level, and totally - seemingly - incurable and unable to be educated about themselves or anything else in the extreme.
You become like Stalin when you observe her: "The only solution to this problem is death."
There are no redeeming qualities in this person. She'll ask a favor from you, get it, and then knife you in the back the next moment. And then laugh at you. It gets to the point where people just look at her like they're not even looking at another human being.
She's way into PETA too. For the record... Maybe drugs have so damaged her she is now going through life with the inner being and point-of-view of a vicious animal.
It's not talked about enough what a powerful weapon illicit (and now even prescribed) drugs are for the devil...
That's another thing. This girl is so nauseatingly ignorant and dumb (seriously dumb), yet she is able to run scams on numerous pharmacies and through numerous doctors to get any kind and any amount of prescription drug she desires. (The corruption of the pharmacies and doctors of course facilitates this, yet still...)
It's all much, much more tragic than I've described, because she's had four children, and that is the real connection between her and her family. We all, of course, see the babies and toddlers and children and have to help them, and that is her hook. In her own way she tortures children (and kills them) and that too is very typically satanic.
When the scales fall from your eyes and you are able to see the devil's kingdom as it really is it's difficult to endure. It's easy to go through life only seeing what you want to see, but the devil has a grip on this nation (and the world of course) from so many angles. It's all one way trip to hell for all the people facilitating it (and blindly following) though...good riddance. What else can a follower of God say after we give you the truth...
People might wonder why I didn't - or don't - try to educate this person, etc.
These devils have a thing about them that protects them from anything like that. First of all they only want to exploit you. So if you approach her to help her she sees: "Mark." So, if you counter that and are direct with her and use common-sense and you state I'll help you but I won't allow you to play any games, etc., etc., she, in devilish fashion, will try another angle, and another and another and another, and if you counter them all, directly, using language that pins her down, she, in devil fashion, will just explode in violence.
I.e. these people give you NO angle to approach them that isn't on their terms. (And their terms always involve helping them get drugs, drive them places, talk to them only about the dumb, shallow subjects they want to talk about, etc.)
The explosion will usually be very witch-like, and even cinematic 'possessed'. Knives, blood, screaming, attempts to frighten with bizarre gestures and sounds. Totally shameless in not caring what others think of these actions. But the point is, there's nothing one can do. This is why I say this particular person is the worst of the worst. She's actually worse than those who are in supermax prisons, because they at least aren't free to terrorize and have more kids and do their whole cycle of terror over and over and over.
Other people might say: why not just cut her off. Let her live in a gutter for awhile, she'll straighten up.
The problem with that was always the children. To make that decision you also have to give up on the kids. Because the kids go where the mother goes, or they go into government hands and foster care (which is a nightmare) and adoption and so on. As I said, this devil uses kids (or did, she hasn't had any more for awhile) as her hook into her family. An unsolvable problem.
This devil would actually, from the day of her children's birth, get her family emotionally connected with the children. For instance, if I hadn't taken her first child to the park and to places kids go with their parents he would never have gone anywhere and been stuck in a filthy drug addict's apartment. So of course I was always going over there and picking him up and taking him places and taking him to his grandparents house and all this plays into the devil's hand, because you obviously become attached and she exploits that.
The second child was similar. The third child was taken from her at birth, at the hospital, because she was born with drugs in her system (whe was eventually adopted by her foster mother, a kindergarten teacher, as aforementioned). The fourth child was the worse off. He was born with even more drugs in his system but because my sister and her new husband had learned to scam and work the government at this point the drugs in the baby's body could be claimed to be the drugs the state was giving my sister to bring her down from her addiction. I later learned from her equally reprobate husband that she'd been taking "handfuls" of drugs ALL THROUGH her pregnancy. Not to mention smoking. This child had all the background to die of SIDS which happened (or he was killed by neglect in foster care). My sister one day got in a fight with her husband, rushed over to my partents house, stabbed herself in her arms, blood gushed out and she ran all over the house leaving pools of blood everywhere. They called an ambulance. The ambulance had to notify the police. This made the state take the child away. Two days in the care of a foster family the child died.
My parents are educated. The rest of the family are educated. We don't have tatoos or piercing or listen to horrible music or care about anything but having a quiet life. See how the devil and his own can disrupt life on this planet? See why I'm not a liberal? See why I make no compromises or concessions whatsoever to the devil? I see it up close. I'm amazed liberal social workers can see such things up close and stay dumb liberals. They just aren't able to see the Kingdom of Satan in action... (Actually the dumb liberals are followers of the devil and they revel in seeing such things...)
I'll shut up on this subject.
It's actually not the most central thing in my life. I can be separate from it now since the first two kids now live with their father (he settled down), and the other two are adopted and deceased.
It's not an unrelated subject to this blog, though. A Christian who doesn't have a clear understanding of the devil and his kingdom is not an awakened Christian...
John Paul II maybe believed in the devil, unfortunately he couldn't recognize him. Or he could and he took orders from him.
I don't want to give the impression I live in a screwed up family. I have two sisters and two brothers. One of them is a drug addict. (The others are: nurse, high school principal, and real estate mini-mogul.)
I'm an ocean nymph. I'm actually as out-of-line, in the eyes of my family, as the drug addict is to them. I'm a cultist (using that word generally for someone who separates from family and society seeking, and perhaps finding, what can generally and universally be called - even in a Christain sense - school knowledge and practice).
Yes, I do think my sister can be zapped with regeneration. She hasn't, though, experienced any famine regarding the Word of God. Churches are among her list of victims she has exploited.
Notice I'm not like the apologists (I don't have the patience for constructing long arguments concerning things that have been said - and said much better and clearer - for centuries). Though I see positive things in their efforts. I say simply: read the Bible. That is all really you can say to a person who has yet to awaken out of sleep.
Arguing doctrine with a person who doesn't even yet have the Spirit of Truth in them is empty activity.
Take my case: I brought alot of non-orthodox theology and doctrine to Reformed Theology, and in the process of running into good teachers (whether of the past or still living) their arguments actually had effect in me. They turned me in numerous cases. Because I have the Spirit of Truth in me to begin with. You're not given understanding of on-the-mark doctrine when regenerated, you have to make the effort to develop that understanding. But you need the Spirit of Truth in you to even begin to be able to discern and know - and accept - the truth.
That starts with engaging the Bible in a serious way.
Regeneration is the most important thing and that is effected, when it is effected, by the Word and the Spirit... Read the Bible complete.
You can't match a high school principal, a nurse, and a real estate mini-mogul for middleclass accomplishment...
I generally keep away from holidays. I had a good childhood, but the worldly traditions are not something I'm in tune with...
"Does grace build upon nature?"
Suffice to say: God is sovereign in creation, providence, and grace.
God's sovereignty in creation, providence and grace answers your question.
The way you are asking the question, regarding your motives, proclaiming the truth of God's sovereignty regarding grace answers your question.
For further understanding on this subject I direct you to William Tyndale:
Something difficult to see... To see and accept.
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