Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, How Does Your Denomination Grow?

My oh my, one Bible, and so many denominations and divisions! Quite understandable, they say. Individual interpretations, you know. After all, the Bible is so complex, and who really knows?

And "It won't make heaven any prettier, the way we believe." Let's just find something we can all agree on, and let it go at that. And while we're at it, let's include all religions under one umbrella. And let's include atheists, too.

It's really a matter for individuals to decide, and one opinion is as good as another. We don't want to exclude anyone. I mean, just because God does. I mean the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He can be so narrow sometimes.

All this talk of a chosen nation. Luckily we no longer believe that do we? Everybody is chosen. Everybody is elect. Some people are so picky, it's almost like they're choosing a bride for their son!

So we have gone from original Bible truth to various religious denominations and the desire for reconciliation. One by one we ignore doctrines that are easily proven as Bible based, in our progress towards a mishmash of church confusion.

Ever wonder if church goers know what the doctrines of the Bible church are? They really are not so complicated. It is in private agendas and personal psychologies that complications arise. Old age has taught me that such agendas have produced these different variations, not an honest search for Biblical truth.

This honest search, usually by lone individuals, has produced an agreement across the ages. The key is to close your eyes to church doctrines and study the Bible. When you do, you will join great people throughout the ages who are united by Biblical truth, even when they stand alone. They believe the old maxim, "God follows the dictates of no church."

God Will Not Forget You

O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! Job 14:13

If Job had a favorite flower I'll bet it was the Forget Me Not. For Job expected to be dead and in his grave until after the great tribulation. I believe that is what he meant by "until thy wrath be past", because that is the greatest wrath of God in the future for him, or for anyone else.

After this wrath, God will resurrect Job and other saints--those not made alive in the Rapture. We find a perfect description of this resurrection in Daniel 12:2. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

For Job, like David--and even like me--knew that in this present life we all are mortal. We die completely, until God brings us back to life in a series of resurrections.

Almost all people believe we have a separate, immortal soul that peels off when we die. My beloved Baptists use this concept in witnessing. "Do you know where you'll be fifteen minutes after you die?" I have a rough idea where. Probably in this apartment. Hopefully in bed, maybe in the kitchen. I almost died there in the "peanut butter incident".

But I am certain that my immortal soul will not have traveled alone and gone to heaven. I don't have one. I have this certainty from studying the Bible. There simply is no such an idea in the Bible. If anyone knows where there is, please tell me in the comment section and I will print it.

How miserable a heretic I must be, think some. I think they are death deniers. Their natural minds cannot conceive the idea that they will die. It's an old controversy. It began in Eden. God said that man would return to the dust. Satan denied it.

Someday soon I will die. Fifteen minutes later I will still be dead. I will be hidden in a grave next to my wife in Centralia, Missouri. No newspaper notice, no funeral, just an unmarked grave. I may soon be forgotten. But I am sure God will remember me, just as He will remember you.

When Did the Trouble Begin?

For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Acts 20:29

We are all familiar with enemies of the faith--skeptics, doubters, and mockers. To many of us they are "out there" and easily identified. But Paul warns of a different threat--those who "enter in among you".

My friend Joy told of one way this could happen. She spoke of Christian literature written for children. "It is advertised as approved by L. Nelson Bell, Billy Graham's father-in-law. To many this was a good reference for authenticity. But it was actually written by a little lady who was filled with goofy ideas."

To remove false teaching, like legalism, from the minds of children once taught, can be a lifelong struggle. Early learning seems to stay with you and haunt you. Some are turned away from church altogether.

My mother told me of her experience as a little child in church. The preacher was shouting about the fires of hell, and she was so frightened she hid behind her mother.

Paul says these wolves will be inside the church.

During wartime we were all aware of agents who could harm the war effort. I remember riding past a local reservoir and seeing a sign that said, "Anyone past this point will be shot". Very scary for a kid to see. It was explained to me that it referred to those who would poison our water. No one ever tried and no one was shot. It was all part of a very conscious mind set of caution.

In my last attendance in a Methodist church I read in the literature that one of the Psalms was really a hymn to Baal! How I wish that the caution concerning our drinking water applied equally to what is taught in churches. The lambs must be aware of the wolves in their midst.

You Never Know Where Mass Killers Will Strike Next

It's impossible to escape the story of a young man who shot a number of people in California. He was questioned three times by police, but was said to be ok because he was "polite".

Statistically, these tragic deaths cannot compare to the major causes of death in the USA, but are considered extremely important by the government-controlled media because they are used to try to convince people to give up their guns. The number of shootings can be increased at will by creating more shooters through MK-Ultra, so you can expect more.

People continue to buy guns at record rates. The history of weapons control goes back as early as the control of iron weapons by a government that had Israel under slave-control.

Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel: for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears. 1 Samuel 13:19

Mass killings will continue, some of them even committed by people not taking psycho-active drugs. But the ones you can predict are far, far greater. They are the product of the number one killing nation on earth, the United States. They would have you concentrate on one-man crimes, while they fight endless undeclared wars, destroy our crops with genetic modification, pollute the atmosphere with chemtrails, and let radiation roll over our land unoted--much of it of domestic origin.

Amazing the number of killings that take place to "protect" us from others. But who will protect us from the real mass murderers?

The United States West Ghost

First, I should apologize for even bringing the subject up. I mean radiation streaming into the U.S. Although it is killing us slowly, it is not that important. The really important things are politics and politicians. After all, we owe our lives to them. Sure they make mistakes, but then who doesn't? If they err, they'll get us out of it. Kind of like the old saying, "Arsonists start fires, but they also put them out."

I've tried to adopt a casual attitude about deadly radiation in our air, food, and water. I was doing pretty good too. Until I started reading about the "Petkau effect". I read a whole book on it, just to help me relax before I went to sleep. Big mistake though. It turns out it did not help me sleep at all.

Imagine someone saying that low doses of radiation over a period of time are more deadly than big surges of high intensity radioactivity! People who tell us there is nothing to worry about, and to ignore a "pet cow" effect, try to reassure me.

What if no one in the U.S. is monitoring the radiation from Fukushima, or at least not telling us if they are? If you can't trust TEPCO, then who can you trust? And the U.S. government, would they lie? Would they do anything but lie?

So, though I am constantly reassured that all is well, I have my doubts. Maybe I shouldn't have read that doggone book? I should not read ENEnews. They and their commentators just upset people. The animal deaths on our West Ghost, are caused by some bad algae, that's all. I'm sure that such findings make it a lot easier for them to suffer and die.

But before you believe any scientists, it's a good idea to find out who pays them.

Watch Dr Helen Caldicott - Fukushima Nuclear Disaster- You won't hear this on the Main Stream News.

My Shell is Broken!

Our family used to raise chickens. My father brought home a box of fertilized eggs and carefully warmed and turned them under a light bulb. As a child I watched and listened as they began to peck their way out of the shells. It must be hunger that drives them to break their shells and emerge, blinking, into the light.

After a brief time drying their yellow, fuzzy bodies, they became animated and began to run about. While I consider kittens the cutest of all baby animals, I vote chicks as the most active and entertaining. I made a pen for them, with a big sheet of plywood for a floor. I put a flat rock in the center so the more dominant could scamper atop and look down upon their fellows. Soon you could hear the patter of their little feet as they ran around.

I placed a bug on the floor and the game was on! One of them picked it up and ran with it, while the others chased him. It was baby chicken super bowl time. I marveled at these brave little guys, but I mourn for my fellow Christians who are afraid to leave their cramped little shells.

I was once such a one. I had a great awe for science. To me it was omnipotent. Though I had become a Christian in high school, I feared that a Christian's faith could not stand against the great "truth seekers", the "only the facts, ma'am" impartial science proponents.

That was long before I learned that the great men of scientific renown in the past were Christians. I'll mention just one, Sir Isaac Newton. That was a time before the Liars took over.

I felt the stories in the Bible were largely myths and dared not be examined. Boy, did I have a long way to go! But slowly I realized that it was science, so-called, that dare not enter the arena against the Bible. For God owned the arena, and he also owned the earth where it resided, and the solar system, galaxy, and universe that contained them.

While people study the Bible to arm for the battle, it is not this study alone which is the remedy in this fight. It is science that we really need to examine. So at least read the ones who have done so. Never be afraid, as I was, to combat worldly lies of any type. In the words of the ineffable George Bush, spoken in an age when gods strode the earth, "Bring 'em on."

Must Everything Be About Salvation?

Such a thing to ask! Salvation is how we begin our Christian lives. How can anything be more important? But my question is about the many things God has in his Word that are about our actions after we have been born again.

A father, of course, is overjoyed by the birth of his child. But he would not admonish his son that he must so conduct himself that he will be born or would stay born. Birth is a starting point not a goal.

I had lunch once a week with a very genial and earnest young man. He was very well versed in Covenant theology. Being of a different persuasion, I mentioned that many believe every covenant of God is treated as soteriological. My friend did not like this, though he offered no scripture to the contrary.

To many, God keeps offering different ways for us to be saved. You may have heard that "We used to be saved under the law, but now we are saved by grace." The law--and this is not so complicated--saved NO ONE. An animal's blood saved no one. Only the blood of Jesus saves.

So what is the purpose of the law? I would say much. It reveals God's nature and his righteous demands. It was never meant to save, but to instruct and to judge.

By the way, what covenant was Abraham under? Paul tells us that Abraham is the father of all who believe, yet he lived hundreds of years before the law was given. Quickly we see that Abraham was saved by Faith, as are all.

God does and will do many wonderful things, but they are not all about salvation.