How Satan aids the cause of false teachers within Christianity

One thing regarding debates between believers and false teachers regarding whether there are errors in the Bible or whether the Bible can be inspired while also containing errors ... and so on; one thing about it all is how Satan has influenced such debates by making Islam mimic unabashed Bible-believing Christians so as to make unabashed Bible-believing Christians *look bad.*

Half of what the Devil does is mimicry. Toxic fake representations of the real thing to draw people away from the real thing or to poison the reputation of the real thing in the minds of the easily influenced (like people who don't even know that Islam came along six centuries after the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and that the Koran - like the Book of Mormon - derives its authority from the Old and new Testaments while denying the truth of the Old and New Testaments, along with adding a lot of Satanic babble; i.e. a moon basking in the light of the Sun while pretending to be generating that light itself, as if the moon - a symbol of Islam - were generating the light you see coming off it.)

In other words, "Oh, look at those Jihadists, cutting people's heads off, blowing themselves up in crowds of people, threatening the entire world with their barbaric thought and actions, do you see how they are also 'true believers' and do you see how they regard their 'holy book' as inerrant? This is why we must call out and condemn Christians who regard the Bible as inerrant. They are being just like Muslims. It is dangerous."

A comment to a letter written by fool Christopher Hitchens to a gathering of fools called atheists

Hitch [Chistopher Hitchens] lived during a time when atheists actually had total political power over one third of the Earth. It resulted in political repression, torture, and genocide to unprecedented levels.

Our basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness come from God. What God gives man can't take away. What man gives man can take away. And will. As the atheists of the last century proved rather definitively, and disgustingly.

Whenever someone tells you man gives you your basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, don't give him any ground. He just wants to keep his ability to take those rights away from you. There is a reason it was England and America that fought atheistic communism and fascism throughout the 20th century, willingly sacrificing blood and treasure. The two preeminent Christian nations. Christians know where basic human rights come from and therefore know they are worth fighting for. And Christians have a motivation to fight for them. What God gives man cannot take away. And will not, if Christians and Christian nations are around to make the stand.

[If you are interested in shallow thoughts and juvenile emotions coming out of the mouth of an old, dying atheist fool here is Christopher Hitchens' rousing letter to a gathering of atheists in America's heartland. (It's being reported, by the way, that somebody made an attempt at humor at this particular atheist gathering. Or, someone heard somebody else report that perhaps something humorous was attempted by somebody that that person's source had heard about. If any phone video surfaces, or any other type of recording of the event of the attempt at humor, I'll pass it along.)]

Sophisticated mystical doctrine

The emotional anger, the mocking, the inability to intellectually grasp apostolic biblical doctrine (that is, the real thing, five solas, doctrines of grace, Classical Covenant - Federal - Theology, which is merely biblical doctrine unwatered-down, un-negotiated down to the demands of fallen man) is interesting when you see it as the inability of vain, prideful worldlings to understand sophisticated mystical doctrine.

Yes: sophisticated mystical doctrine. On-the-mark Christian doctrine is sophisticated mystical doctrine.

Internal reorientation from being man-centered to being God-centered; acting from God's will rather than from self-will; connecting with what is above and negotiating the battlefield that having the Spirit in us puts us on. This is all mystical experience. Real mystical experience. Holding in balance and tension, in humble and grateful and submissive poise the grace of higher understanding of such things as God's sovereignty and man's responsibility and God's drawing, and awakening. Being created at a level we've fallen from, and being drawn back up through higher will. Gratitude over resentment in all things. These are not worldly matters. These are the matter of sophisticated mystical doctrine. Real mystical doctrine.

Ironically atheists and similar shallow and savage defenders of worldly doctrines would claim ownership of 'mystical teachings' (maybe not the militant materialists, but scratch them slightly and beneath the surface you'll find it) while all the while rejecting (and unable to see, or unwilling to see) the real thing.

In their loud shallowness they reject the only real and most truly sophisticated mystical teaching available to man.

What replaces good and evil

When evil is done away with...

I've written this before (about what replaces good and evil when evil is done away with, in other words: why Heaven won't be boring), but along those lines it recently occurs to me that one of the unique aspects of the Homeric epics that impresses under the surface is the 'good vs. good' aspect of the drama. And the replacement of the usual good vs. evil with the vertical levels of being represented. The big vertical division being between the heroes and the Olympian Pantheon. The upper realm isn't evil, yet it creates friction and heat and conflict for the lower level, yet with the purpose of developing being from lower to higher. It also gives inspiration and help. But the heroes have to approach it and be able to approach it.

This is how God's Kingdom (Heaven) is and will be for glorified man. Heaven will have drama and conflict and goals to achieve and give meaning, but it wont be in the banal theatre of good and evil (original sin and fallen nature). It will be heat and inspiration between vertical levels (or coming down from higher levels), when development approaches new upward thresholds.

Yes, Kingdoms are vertical structures, not flattened out egalitarian hack zones; and when God is King the room for upward movement is infinite.

Evil is indeed banal, and it will be good to move on from it (to make a great understatement) in the great resurrection of believers and the new Heaven and Earth.

Putting my words about Susan Wise Bauer into context

I don't like being snarky about Susan Wise Bauer (and I email her when I write a post about her, so, human nature being what it is, she probably reads what I write, or at least skims it for actionable material), as I was saying, I don't like being snarky to her; she isn't Peter Enns, she isn't an active false teacher, she just currently is not interested enough in biblical doctrine to know what Peter Enns is all about. I emailed her to tell her I write about her like I do to wake her up. She's in an academic bubble (and somewhat of a cult bubble with the homeschooling moms), getting a lot of praise and devotion, and there's a lot of intellectual vanity and 'correct thinking' involved in her environment. A lot of naive appeal to authority as well. Authority being the pieces of paper academics put on their walls, or the resume they accumulate. "Peter Enns graduated from Harvard and has taught at a leading seminary," Susan's husband says. "I would think a Harvard graduate would know best whether the Bible is full of errors or not, and I should think that a modern scholar would be in a better position to determine whether the apostle Paul got things wrong or not." OK, that's not an exact quote, but it's close in spirit. (Her husband also graduated from Westminster Theological Seminary. Are seminaries good for anything? Seriously. If there's a building and a gathering of humans the Devil will be there.)

So I feel a bit uncomfortable writing about Susan Wise Bauer as if she's a comical idiot, but regarding biblical doctrine and false teachers she *is* being a useful idiot.

Hiring Peter Enns to write an intro to the Bible for children is like hiring the Taliban to cater your wedding.

A comment regarding the Iliad and the Odyssey and the Bible

A Commenter said:

Hey, as long as you consider the Greek gods in the Iliad and the Odyssey as real as the gods in the New Testament, that's fine by me.

Epic poetry is fiction. In the case of the Homeric epics very inspired works of art. A deep language. Higher visual language. Kind of like folk tales or legendary stories that arise from the mists of time of an entire culture rather than from the mind of a single person.

The New Testament (as the Old Testament) is the revealed Word of God.

The Homeric epics get at the truth (that the Bible presents pure) only by degree and the host of gods and goddesses probably mirror more the forces of the Heavenly host - angels - and the influence and inspiration that comes down from on high and also present universal archtypes. The two epic poems also overall present a deep language of inner development presented in sophisticated metaphor and their very structure. They're doing a lot of things at once. This type of knowledge coming from General Revelation - as opposed to Special Revelation - touches on inspiration from the only source of truth which is God, yet they are not the Word of God or 100 percent truth, obviously. Nothing other than the revealed Word of God is.

Most Christians wouldn't understand what I've written above, and most would also shallowly condemn it. The English from the Elizabethans on saw the parallels or same feel of inspiration in the Homeric epics and the Bible and commented on it.

As always though any work that is not the Word of God, though is inspired, is like a planet that reflects the light of the Sun rather than being the Sun itself.

ps- Can works of literature be classified as General Revelation? I don't see why not. Especially the great works, thoroughly vetted by Time, if you can discern them. "General revelation is not like a light that lighteth every man, but a light that illumines the pathway of those who are made receptive for the truth by the special operations of the Holy Spirit." Reworded a bit, because there's a typo, but taken from Louis Berkhof's Manual of Christian Doctrine, Eerdmans edition, pg. 25. If General Revelation consists in the general constitution of the human mind (along with the divine thought in the phenomenon of nature, the voice of conscience, and the providential government of the world in general and individuals in particular - again, paraphrasing Berkhof) then inspired works of art and music and literature would probably be associated with the general constitution of the human mind and voice of conscience as conscience can, by degree, discern truth and the constitution of the human mind can receive truth contained in such works created by other human beings and larger collective human forces over time. We speak of the 'muse' for the poet, but truth and beauty and understanding come from one source, ultimately, which is God, and probably in this case the Holy Spirit.

Atheists, the Homeric epics, and the Bible

I often say to atheists that if the Bible is just too much (or too 'stupid') for them then read the Homeric epics (the Iliad and the Odyssey). If they then say the Homeric epics are stupid too then you just tell them they are commonly shallow and they shouldn't be talking about things they have no interest in and don't value. I.e. you can't be a common, no-effort dope and understand the Bible.

But now look at that from another angle. Imagine an atheist reading the Iliad and the Odyssey *the same way* they read the Bible. "Oh, ha, ha, so Athena is all pro-Odysseus all through the war, but the moment he leaves for home she is slamming and breaking up his ships! They couldn't even keep that contradiction out of it!! Ha, ha!!!"

Rather than seeing the subtle, inspired relations between the gods and goddesses and the heroes of the two epics; rather than looking for the cause of Athena's actions; rather than attempting to tune into something that is higher than them and their current level of understanding, the atheist chooses to remain a common, shallow dope mocking what he can't understand or refuses to attempt to understand. So when you see the atheist doing this with great and inspired epic poems and you see that it is the *exact* same approach they take to the Bible you really see how the atheist is exposed as a shallow dope. Then when the same atheist lectures you you look at him and realize this is somebody who couldn't follow - or appreciate - the action in Pride and Prejudice let alone understand the genre and the content of the prophets of the Old Testament.

This is the deepest subject

This is the deepest subject; don't know if I'll articulate it; but I've been driven, driven, driven by literature (the themes and subjects of good and great novels) - and also by reading good literary criticism - towards the content of the book Human Nature in its Fourfold State. Why? Because HNFS presents every theme and subject one finds in such works at the rock bed foundational level. On each page of HNFS you can see a theme an entire great novel can be composed on. (And the secular literary critics will sense it and see the power and meaningfulness, even while missing - or denying - the Biblical truth connection. I.e. the human condition as the Bible explains it and as it is manifested in life. In fact, these are the very themes critics *look for* in works of literature to distinguish such works from what they deem more middlebrow works.) Even in the rebellion from those truths in great and good literature are those truths manifested.

Human Nature in its Fourfold State is unique as a doctrinal work in presenting these Biblical truths in a way where we see the power and reality in them just as they manifest in all great literature, under the surface.

So when I see the literary critic struggling with determining the worth of one writer or another and grappling with themes and so on I'm driven to the foundational raw material it all manifests from and Human Nature in its Fourfold State is the unique work of Biblical doctrine that captures it. (Again, this should go without saying, but... I'm not saying Boston's great work has material in it other works of on-the-mark Christian doctrine don't have, just that it is unique in presenting biblical doctrine and understanding in a context and in a way that enables one to see such themes in other realms such as great literature. You read it and you 'see' this is the raw material of Shakespeare.)

For instance (a small, trivial example) think of how a secular or atheist critic can write an entire book on Kafka or Samuel Beckett writing on the theme that their mother is unclean (I just made that up). Or maybe an actual example, perhaps a Faulkner depicting the dead mother rotting and stinking in her coffin in As I Lay Dying.

So on page 65 of Human Nature in its Fourfold State Boston quotes Job 14:4 and talking of Adam's sin asks who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. If the root be corrupt, so must the branches be. It is such as makes man's days full of trouble. Every person that is born of the course of nature is born unclean. Man is born of a woman.

Would Kafka or Beckett (or Faulkner) understand the theme? Not necessarily. Just hitting on it and writing around it without totally snuffing it out is enough for what they are doing. Inspired writers will touch on or penetrate the theme and expose it in different ways to differing levels of truth and vision and power. Some writers will be perverse and take the Devil's side. "Mother is clean." The atheist Thomas Hardy did this with his fiction (presenting antagonists as the hero, which is not the same thing as creating an anti-hero). This is why his novels are strangely 'off', and without life, despite his skill in depicting nature and so on.

Did Isaiah get it wrong too?

Peter Enns is currently writing a series of posts appropriating John Calvin into his false teaching. This is basic activity for the modern day false teacher. False teachers go where the truth is.

Susan Wise Bauer is no doubt breathlessly reading each post of Enns, thinking something along these lines: "I always thought Calvin was evil, but now that he's associated with Peter Enns I'm gunna have tuh rethink that."

Meanwhile to rebuke these Christians who deny the Word of God and who deny the Creator in His work of creation, to rebuke them from the Word of God itself, it's tempting to go to the Epistles, but if you really want to put them in their place rebuke them with Isaiah 40:12-31. Isaiah comes at it from a high perspective and from eternity. And he uses a very large gun.

Just call it like it is

Notice a Peter Enns and his current friend-in-intellectual-bondage Susan Wise Bauer both say they believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus - a supernatural event - but all that creation account in Genesis? Well that is just too hard for a smart, modern person to swallow.

Do you really think they believe in *anything* supernatural?

We know they're shallow. In the case of Enns we also know he's dishonest, and in the case of Bauer we know she's also afraid (of pretty much everything...that Ivy League environment being similar to 20th century communist regimes where everybody was kept on edge that they could get a bullet in the back of their head at any given time for any given reason), but when they deny the authority of Scripture, when they blatantly - even jokingly - state that the apostle Paul 'got things wrong', or that the hermeneutic of Paul was inferior to modern day academics, then these are people who don't believe *anything* that falls under the heading of Christianity.

Some things are supernatural

What do shallow, liberal Christian academics, fake Reformed Christian academics, and atheists really have a problem with? The supernatural. The supernatural in creation, for instance. This is why they adopt so eagerly the theory that fish turn into race horses. Wait a minute...

Also, this is why they adopt so eagerly the theory of the survival of the fittest. Because if you look at the average Christian academic they look like the result of billions of years of a battle in nature of the survival of the fittest. Atheists too. Wait a minute...

Here's some wild speculation: devolution! Look around you, Peter Enns and Susan Wise Bauer. What you see is devolution. Not evolution. Devolution! Christopher Hitchens is the result of devolution, not evolution. From the Garden until now man and nature has devolved.

For you politicians who believe in supernaturalism and catastrophism in creation (in the biblical account), and you need an answer for when Matt Damon ambushes you with: "Do you believe in evolution, yes or no?" Here's the answer: "Do I think micro evolution is real? Yes, and so did dog breeders in Mesopotamia. Do I think that fish turn into race horses? No, next question."

Matt Damon will be seething. Intensely seething.

Evolutionists actually want the micro/macro distinction in evolution stricken from public discourse. And they also want the word devolution stricken from the dictionary. They are just short of donning tall, funny hats and issuing magisterial warrant for the death by fire of anyone using such language.

A thanks to modern day Christian academics

Every time I hear a modern day Christian academic, Reformed or not, fake Reformed or not, conservative or liberal, it makes me want to read the Bible. Good work, Christian academics! (Oh, but, I should add, that I don't read the 'bibles' they want me to read. You know, the ones with the authority of scholars in them rather than the authority of God. No, I read the pure and whole, received text in the rather remarkable and sound translation called the Authorized - King James - Version. This they either mock or counsel 'caution' regarding. Oh, dear.)

Anyway, modern day Christian academics, thanks for driving me towards the pure and whole Word of God every time you open your mouths!

False teachers and the 'year zero' syndrome

It's funny how false teachers just make broad statements that not only deny the Bible but deny history and the collective work and discernment and understanding of theologians throughout history. To do this they have to sort of step into what I'll call an aetheric lying zone. Just say anything, because you're in the aetheric lying zone.

Leftists in the political realm do the same when they get some momentum in radicalizing a population and moving them towards 'Year Zero.' "Families aren't needed." "Free markets must be done away with. Don't worry, comrade Lev will take care of pricing goods and services." "We will no longer produce power. The Earth is getting too warm. Some of you will freeze to death, but not if you live in a really cool temperate area. Anyhow, you won't be allowed to have families or to keep yourselves warm." "Also, all agriculture is now outlawed."

The theological false teacher is similar. "All this Christian culture and civilization and tradition and doctrine and belief based on the Word of God you see around you? It's all wrong. It has now come to an end. I, Peter, have brought it to an end. OK?"

OK, Peter.

As in the political realm we can expect there to be devils attempting to lead people astray. They're devils. Reprobates. It's the useful idiots who enable them that are in a less forgivable category.

[This post inspired by the Peter Enns, Susan Wise Bauer liberal theology assault on home schooled children.]

Attention: false teacher scores big! and way too easy! (a post about Susan Wise Bauer)

Wolf in sheep's clothing heretical false teacher (Peter Enns) performs vile and bloody cunnilingus and sodomy on doctrinally shallow and of little discernment Christian lady (Susan Wise Bauer). Turn away !

It's hard to link this one, but here's the gist: Susan Wise Bauer has a little home schooling publishing mini-empire going, and a (former, finally kicked out) professor from the seminary (Westminster Theological Seminary) she graduated from has been allowed by her to be published on an offshoot of her Peace Hill Press. He's been allowed to publish a series of books he's written for children no less. The professor is Peter Enns, heir apparent to Shelby Spong in the category of attention whore "I'm a Christian, I teach Christians, and I'm a practical atheist, oh, did I say that? only others who think they can know truth have said it? how does one define atheist? the bible is full of errors, oh but I believe the bible! did you know, children, that there are many 'messiahs' and Jesus is but one, oh, did I say that? but what is the context? are you anti-semitic? a racist perhaps? children must be taught gently, and that apostle Paul guy? he got things wrong, oh, did I say that? but did you hear the academic nuance? if not you can't complain, just give me your children...and by the way Adam never existed, it's all a myth, because Evolution (Peace Be Upon It) is the Truth and your children will not be allowed to live in a fantasy world where your fantasies of sin will disturb them, oh, did I say 'your' children?"

Susan Wise Bauer is a nice woman, perhaps, but she is a shallow woman. I believe she fears biblical doctrine for the same reasons she fears expressing any - any - political opinion, because she fears man more than she fears God, and doesn't even really know what that means. She works in an Ivy League environment. Basically she's scared shitless.

To be so naive, though, as to be the easy victim of a false teacher creep so obvious as a Peter Enns (who is also now a child brain predator) has now put Susan Wise Bauer in a new category. She's now allowing harm to be done, to the most vulnerable among us no less, through her enabling.

Susan, if you had a school girl crush on Professor Enns way back when, just get over it.

Susan's contribution to the doctrinal debate regarding Enns' work is basically this: "Who cares what anybody believes about Genesis? Christianity is about Jesus Christ!" OK, Susan, easy to see how Enns got a job at Westminster Theological Seminary in the first place if you're a graduate and you are spouting half-masticated Ramen like that.

My advice: moth ball the Enns books, and make a public apology (with a promise that you will actually study apostolic biblical doctrine sometime at least in the near future). You know about public apologies, Susan! (She wrote a book on them...)

Ten Biblical reasons to be part of a local church -- hmm

Ten Biblical reasons to be part of a local church

#1-7 adapted from Blest be the Tie that Binds Don Kistler on Church Membership – from “Protestants Affirm the Church”, a Soli Deo Gloria publication

We know that the church is not a new invention. The Greek word often translated “church” referred to God’s people in the Old Testament as well. Acts 7:38 speaks of “the church in the wilderness” (KJV) during the time of Moses and the exodus. However a new way of referring to God’s people was introduced in Paul’s epistles. We are the body of Christ. According to Eph. 5:30 “we are members of His body.” Today we speak of the church in two ways: visible or invisible. The invisible church consists of all true believers throughout all of history. Membership to this is known only by God. The visible church is the covenant community that is recognized as Christians who gather together as local bodies. There is good reason and inference from Scripture that God expects professing believers to hold their membership in a local body:

1. The New Testament churches were local, visible churches. They met in specific places. – Acts 11:26 tells us that the church in Antioch, where the disciples were first called
“Christians,” assembled together for the purpose of being taught. They were gathered together as a church. – Paul wrote his epistles to specific churches in specific locations, with pastors and elders shepherding their flocks. E.g. 1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1, Gal 1:2; 1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:1.

This says nothing about the man-fearing demand that Christians submit themselves to 'churches' (whatever they mean by that word, they surely don't know because they refuse to specify *because if they do they know they step into a morass*). The Bible defines 'church' in numerous ways giving leave for each era of the plan of redemption to see fit how best it is to see what a church is.

2. The local church is God’s tool for bringing His people to full maturity in knowledge and faith. Eph. 4:11-13: “He gave some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and to the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man” (NASB). These are actual pastors and teachers who are equipping believers. Acts 14:21-23 says that “The apostles taught, and appointed elders for every church.” See also Titus 1:5.

This is the pure demand for man-fearing and respecting of persons. We all know you won't find more ignorant jackasses (and worse) than in leadership positions in churches. Ignorant jackasses (and worse) gravitate towards those positions. Sort of like congress. The key is the Word of God. Do you have it? If I lived in a time where it was only available by word, or by copy within a physical church, I'd be the first in line sitting in the front row everyday, dealing with the human element as a practical necessity. That is not our situation, though, is it? Different needs for different eras of God's plan of redemption.

3. The Great Commission points to church membership (Matt. 28:18-20). Baptism, a sacrament of the church, is administered by one who is commissioned by a church body. Discipling and teaching to be obedient are also properly done in the context of a church with an ordained leader (elder) and a duly constituted church body.

The Bible gives no rule that baptism can only be administered by somebody 'commissioned'. This is a lie. An often told lie by clerics who are looking at their daily living expenses and not at the Bible. As for obedience... Christians are not to be obedient to man. Obedience used this way itself is from the sick vocabulary of man-fearers and those who demand man-fearing and who police their environments to maintain man-fearing.

4. Christ said that He would build His Church (Matt. 16:18). This is the only thing Jesus said He would build – not a seminary, high school, hospital, or baseball field. Yes, He is speaking about the true Church, comprised of all true members of Christ’s mystical body, but those members meet somewhere; they are taught somewhere; they worship together somewhere; and when they do so they are a local manifestation of the larger reality of Christ’s Church, His Body. True Christians want to be a part of what Christ is building. Believers want to manifest their association with Christ and His Church in any and every way possible.

You said it yourself: "Yes, He is speaking about the true Church, comprised of all true members of Christ’s mystical body..." Yet you just had to go beyond that. Because you demand what you demand whether the Word of God gives you warrant or not. Christians find other Christians in the natural course of having the Holy Spirit in them. Those who demand man-fearing and respecting of persons and 'obedience' to clerics don't have the market cornered on Christian fellowship.

5. The Church is one of two organisms divinely instituted by God for the spreading of His love and His gospel. One is the church; the other is the family. Membership is not optional in either one. By virtue of being physically alive, we are members of a particular family. We are not simply members of ‘the family of man,’ but we are also members of an individual, specific, local family. By virtue of being spiritually alive – born again or regenerated – we are members of the invisible Church, the family of God, and therefore must join ourselves with the actual reality of that concept, namely the local church. The Old Testament practice of membership certainly shows the importance of this affiliation. Being an Israelite was not simply an issue of race and nationality, but an issue of being in covenant bond with God. Romans 9:6: “For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.” What made someone a true Israelite was his relationship with the living God. God commanded circumcision as the sign of acceptance into the covenant community (Gen. 17:7-10). In fact, God nearly killed Moses for not circumcising his male child. Abraham was not a Jew by birth, but by circumcision. Baptism is now the New Testament sign of acceptance into the covenant community (Col. 2:11). There was not only to be an inward reality, a circumcision of the heart, but an outward sign of that invisible reality. Time and time again God calls for an outward show of what has happened internally. Good works do not save, but they are visible evidence that a work of grace has taken place in the heart.

>The Church is one of two organisms divinely instituted by God for the spreading of His love and
His gospel. One is the church; the other is the family.

So why does God put so many of His elect in non-churchgoing families? Perhaps it's to protect us from the inanity and damage that can and does occur in such vain, man-fearing and shallow environments.

>Membership is not optional in either one.

I say get thee behind me, Satan. Police fools. Christians are strangers in this world. In this world, not of this world. They are not defined by 'family.' Or what building they attend. (I'm starting to look for my horse whip...)

As for the rest of this point #5, the invisible church of which Christ is King is not your local church. (And let's state it here: which local church, pilgrim? Yours? But of course! So what about all those Christians in wrong local churches? Can they all fit into your building? No? But then they must recognize you are their leader they must be 'obedient' to and thus make clones of your little church building all over the world? Maybe they better just learn from and conform themselves to the Word and the Spirit like real Christians. As for the correlation of ritual water baptism and circumcision... You infant-baptists lose that debate every time you attempt it. And you lose it on the ground of and before the tribunal of something called the Word of God. I'll be obedient to the Word of God, not to the word and demands of man.

6. God’s people are repeatedly called to a visible place throughout Scripture. Nehemiah 1:8-9: “I will gather them from there and will bring them to the place where I have chosen to cause My name to dwell.” The people He is gathering are His servants and the people whom He redeemed by His great power and His strong hand (Neh. 1:10). This was not a rote, empty religious practice, but it was a joy for those involved.
– Psalm 26:8 “O LORD, I love the habitation of Your house and the place where Your
glory dwells.”
– Psalm 27:4 “One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell
in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD and
to meditate in His temple.”
– Psalm 84:1 “How lovely are Your dwelling places, O LORD of hosts!”

This has to do with providence. Now notice how the person who wrote this would no doubt mock endlessly if you told him that God bringing Christians to the New World and America is God providentially gathering His people together. Mock away. There will be mockers in the end times. And very ignorant and ungrateful self-identified Christians.

7. Much of the Bible cannot be obeyed without belonging to a church as a member. Appreciating those who have charge over you (1 Thess. 5:13) is not possible if you are not in some official way under someone. Hebrews 13:17: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls.”

And here we have the key verse used by Romanists to demand Christians come under the power of the Beast. Good work, Protestant cleric. To counter the devil here always go back to Hebrews 13:7 for the context of Hebrews 13:17. "Remember them which have the rule over you, *who have spoken unto you the word of God.* I.e. they have the Word of God. In that era it was rare to have the actual Word of God. We have it now. (And notice the churchians will do anything and everything in their churches *other than proclaim the actual Word of God, word-for-word.*) The churchians who demand in you to fear man rather than God don't want you to know that context. Again, in that era the Word of God was not as available to all in printed editions as it has been in subsequent eras and certainly our own era. Remember, the Bible gives warrant to see church as it practically needs to be seen in any given era of the history of redemption. House churches? Perhaps, if that is what is needed. Cathedrals? Perhaps if that is what is called for. Elijah in a cave (with the internet) because in that time there were only 7000 who had not bowed their knee to false idols? Perhaps if that is what is called for. Either way God's elect have the Spirit and value the actual Word of God which is the foundation of the invisible church of which Christ is King.

8. When I asked my students if they had any input into this topic Matt Fields replied, “chicks.” It is true that the directive “Don’t be unequally yoked” (2 Cor. 6:14) becomes a lot more feasible if you spend time with like-minded believers. You are much more likely to find a godly, churchgoing companion, who has learned the pattern for marriage from the ideal of Christ and the church (see Eph. 5:22-33), by getting to know those who actually see it as a priority to belong to a church.

Yes, and when you exalt ritual and man above the Word and the Spirit there is the necessity to grow your church by means other than calling and regeneration. Marriage within the church and children and hence...infant baptism! And we're all still making money. Not a lot, but it beats teaching junior high school. You get to feel so much more powerful, with all those 'obedient' people 'under' you and what not.

9. Belong to a church because it is commanded by God. Heb. 10:24-25 “Don’t give up meeting together.” How did they meet together? As mentioned above they met together with pastors and elders who faithfully guarded knowledge and instruct people (see also Malachi 2:7-9; 2 Tim.
1:11,14)

Wow, God says to his own, don't give up meeting together with other of my children, and the churchian twists it as God saying fear man more than God and know that man has the truth 'faithfully guarded' and not the Holy Spirit and the Bible (a King James Version at that!) you are holding in your hands.

10. We should generally have the same view of things as Jesus. Eph. 5:25 says that “Christ loves the church.” So should we. How can we demonstrate this without being part of a local
congregation? Love the church because Christ does. He bought the church with His own blood (Acts 20:28). He gave up his life for the church (Eph. 5:25). We ought not speak derogatorily of something God has so highly esteemed.

I love the church so much that I refuse to take part in any kind of counterfeit of it. We live in times when the devil has his tail up all the churches you know what, and his tongue down their throats. In this era of the history of redemption I stand with the Word and the Spirit and not with ritual and man. Today's leaders of churches can't even recognize the pure and whole - received - Word of God, let alone value it. They mock it. They mock it while at the same time they are demanding their 'laypeople' fear them more than God. I say, get thee behind me, Satan.

Now if a person feels a local church is something they need, then so be it. Each Christian is different and in different stages of development and understanding of the faith. For one a local congregation might be just what they need, yet for another that same congregation might be death to their development. Fallen man, on this subject, demands the same kind of uniformity and policing of human beings that collectivists in the secular political world demand. No, it's not under your control, fallen man. It is, though, in God's control.