A Strong Delusion!

"Could we be warned to not face an angry God with our delusions. Our delusions will melt in the fires of God presence.

The elect of God cannot be ultimately deceived yet Satan desires desperately to deceive them.
The elect can be a part of the end time falling away and they can come under the influence of delusions. These delusions need purging and a constant battle is waged by the elect to resist them. These delusions are not always purged and the elect carry the works produced by these lies into eternity. There they are burned as chaff in the heat of God's judgment.

Jimmy Swaggart was purged of his sin through embarrassing exposure. As a result we have plastered for ever the awful expression of a man crying: "I have sinned." it is better to suffer here for the wrongs done than to stand the exposure of these sins in heaven. Swaggart has suffered the loss of a great ministry and the price has been great! Better here than there!

Now everyone of us will face this judgment. Especially dreadful will be the judgment of ministries. Those who have been entrusted with much will suffer a greater accountability! There will be many cries of Lord, Lord, didn't we preach your Word, didn't we win souls? There will be a division in heaven between those whom God knows and those he did not know. I believe that this refers to relationship and not destiny. There will be the "first" and the "last."
The first will experience preeminence and the last will suffer shame of exclusion. Some will rule over golden estates and others will merely sweep streets of gold. All will be eternally glad they are there!

'I Am At Perfect Peace'

Steve Gaines was at Rogers' bedside the day the ventilator was in place and he would not be able to speak anymore. His last words according to Gaines was "I am at perfect peace."

Gaines could not say the same thing. Perhaps he already knew there were difficult days ahead for him and peace would be the least of the emotions he would experience. From heaven Rogers observed that "he was not at peace" he had a delusion of peace. He sees the situation of his family's reaction and knows there was no peace there. If ever a man could have used another 15 years of life it was Dr Rogers!

When conservative scholars write about depravity they always quote the old adage, "depravity does not mean that every person is as evil as he can possibly be." Everyone does not commit murder or incest but everyone has the potential. Hitler and Stalin become the examples of total depravity. However no one says: "depravity means people cannot be as good as they imagine themselves to be!" "No one can be as good as their friends think they are!" "No one can be as good as their mother thinks they are!"

The full spectrum of total depravity means that from each end we are totally depraved. If we think we are good we are wrong and if we have been all-out evil we are not as bad as we could have been. Paul deals with both ends inRomans 1-3. The worst that a man can be is when God gives him over to vile affections. 1:26 The best that a man can be is unacceptable to God and we see this description of all men bad and good. 3:9-20

Bellevue had this spectrum. I don't know of a man more evil than Paul Williams. God gave Paul Williams up to the vilest of affections. An associate working with Dr Rogers left the natural use his wife provided, burning in his heart a desire for his own young son. He yielded to this desire for 12-18 months about 1987. We yet have no ideal how many victims there were but it is hard to believe there was only one. Qualitatively speaking Bellevue employed a man as vile as Hitler and Stalin. He was a SBC minister.

Bellevue was pastored by the best America had to offer. He and his wife were a model couple dating only each other from grammar school. Together they built a Christian relationship. They built a great church and began an international ministry, Love Worth Finding. He represents the other end of the depraved spectrum. Yes, Adrian Rogers was depraved. He was a born-again believer who was daily being sanctified but still having the present potential for sin.

What is God looking for in His people? Poor, contrite heart and one who trembles at God's word. Isaiah 66:2 Paul Williams' sin is the sort that speaks of delusion. God lifts his hand from a person and they are let go to do their worst! Yet in close proximity was Dr Rogers who apparently had no clue as to what Williams had done.

God says: "the heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?" but God is not impressed with the buildings we have built and the ministries we have established but He is looking for men not buildings. God inhabits the praises of His people. The place of God's rest is a poor, contrite and word-fearing man.

I am but a common man, just another sinner saved by grace, but we have here a man who apparently turned a deaf ear to God at some unknown point. There are lawyers with files that could reveal the truth. There are safe-keeping places where some truth is concealed. Money has been paid to keep people silent. When we make poor choices God will send a delusion to us. He will let us believe a lie and even take that lie to our grave. God will get his rest! He will get His pleasure. If we are corrected here in this life and receive our discipline humbly then God gets his rest and has a habitation. If we are stubborn and vain in our confidence God will get His rest in the judgment We will die in our deception but awake to the truth. We lift up our eyes seeing clearly. We will be ushered to a place of destruction of our works. Fire will consume all our works and our soul will escape the fire.

The beliefs of depravity are not directed toward the sinner, he understand nothing about sin nor righteousness. He is dead in his sin. Depravity is directed toward elect believers. This understanding is the basis for growth in Christ. As a believer you still maintain the ever potential for sin and Satan is a liar and deceiver. He has successfully infiltrated the church with his deceptions. Satan promotes all ideals of human divinity. He said to Eve, "ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." All concepts promoting islands of righteousness and sparks of divinity from which human choices are made are lies. Compromises that make God creating an island for choice is just another synergistic view that falls short of scripture.

God alone saves!

What Must We Do?

What is the first responsibility of the new born believer? John 3:3

Repent and be baptized. Acts 2:38

Now that you have been born and baptized by the Holy Spirit and by a supernatural work you are a part of the body of Christ (I Corinthians 12:13) you now must have remission of sin! Maybe you are surprised by that. You say: "well, if I am born-again then I am sinless."

You can't confuse regeneration, new birth, with glorification. Glorification takes place after you leave this world. What the Holy Spirit starts, regeneration and sanctification, Christ completes when you leave this earth. You were reborn in a moment and the twinkling of an eye and your final change shall come in a moment and the twinkling of an eye.

Your rebirth was just the start. You are a part of the invisible spiritual body of Christ and now you need to belong to the physical body on earth. All this is following Christ's teachings. To enter the earthly body it is necessary to confess your need of Christ and be baptized in water.

You are saved and you have a ticket to heaven. But you need to belong to the earthly body. The earthly body has a common foundation, it is a community of sinners who are walking time bombs ready to explode with transgressions! I'll bet that is the first time you have read that definition of the church. If you have been in church long enough you will know how true that is. If you join this body thinking too highly of yourself you will be the fault in the next explosion. Quite often thinking too highly of yourself stems from a misunderstanding of who you were when you were born again. Greatness in the church goes to him who thinks the lowest of himself. Your first impression of yourself when you were born again is the impression that will last.

More than lightly if you got saved in America you got bad teaching from the beginning. You cannot rise above your teacher! Your mentor's sky is your sky. The Holy Spirit did a good work as usual! The church has failed you. WHAT! Charles, are you nuts!

The church has abandoned the old fashion belief in original sin and there goes two hundred years down the toilet. I have got to go to work!

What a way to end a post!

Free Will

Does repentance lead to the new birth (John 3:3)? NO

Does repentance lead to remission of sins (Acts 2:38) YES

Free Will

Do you have any choice in your own salvation?

No

"England Swings Like A Pendulum Do"

2 Thessalonians 2:7-12 KJV
For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Any serious student of scripture knows that there is an end times scheme to draw religions into a unified system to serve the Antichrist's interest. The present turmoil in the SBC over Calvinism is a part of this scheme.

Mega church pastors want a people who are gentle meek and mild so that common goals can be obtained. To accomplish this the pastors present themselves as loving compassionate and tender. A large church thrives on a pool of supporters.

Satan wants for his church a gentle, mild and meek Jesus. The Antichrist wants to have a pool of supporters. He too will present himself as tender, loving and compassionate.

Is the SBC part of this shift? Is Adrian Rogers' gospel a part of the Antichrist's end time scheme?
He was a factor in the conservative resurgence. He played a major role. Could he have been a puppet for Satan to draw a denomination away from what it once believed? What the SBC once believed was not compatible with end time schemes. Rogers' stance on the Bibles as the Word of God was apparently compatible with the Antichrist's scheme. What was not compatible was what the word of God had to say about soteriology.

What Satan fears is a strong trinitarian salvific formula! Rogers' "come to Jesus" theology was music in Satan's ears. He was lured and wooed toward a dysfunctional trinity and a unitarian appeal. Of course the untrained followers were lured by Rogers' boisterous support of the inspiration of Scripture. "If you have the word for a thing you have the thing itself." If you have God's Word then naturally you have His gospel formula. Satan didn't buy that mantra, though everyone else did!

Is it coincidental that in 1925 the SBC held to the "whole Gospel," in 1963 they surrendered that for the "whole man" and in 2000 no one knew what the SBC believe? They can not qualify SBC loyal missionaries because they don't know what they believe. Everyone makes their own rules and ultimately the money determines who makes the rules. Is it coincidental that in 1987 there was a new age "Harmonic Convergence?" 1987 was Adrian Rogers peak year. Though evolving over time a final gospel convergence emerged, a synergistic message of various scriptural interpretations surfaced. A swing toward a pragmatic humanistic evangelism. There was a dislike of dogmatism, hatred of controversy and a call to "close our ranks."

Little did Rogers know but He had just led his denomination into a one world evangelical spirit of ecumenism and his signature was forever stamped on a "purpose driven movement".

And in 1987, there abouts, Paul Williams sodomized his own son and it remained hidden for 17 long painful years. No one but me sees a connection! I see the hand of God restraining in strange ways anyone being able to go to Dr Rogers and say, "sir, we have a problem." Is there a strong delusion here?

Sinners Saved By Grace!!

Paul never said, "O wretched man, that I am! How am I ever going to live the overcoming life?"
He did say, "who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

It is not a question of self-discipline but a question of God's deliverance. Paul is saying that the remains of corruption after regeneration and being joined with Christ are like a dry tender box and one spark of temptation could set it afire. It is not an exaggeration to say we are walking a mind field and we have to have the leading of the Holy Spirit to navigate our way.

If the Holy Spirit takes his hand off us we are certain to step on a trap and be blown to bits. "Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil."

We are sinners saved by grace! That statement has been the leaven in my life from the year of my rebirth. I was raised in a church that pronounced one a saint instead of a sinner. Our saint hood was determined by self-discipline and overcoming formulas requiring vigorous ascetic practices.

I knew myself to be a sinner "saved by grace." Self mastery has not got me where I am now! God is undoubtedly the source of my deliverance! Self mastery has its rewards. It does profit some! Some can boast of their rewards but for me the lack of rewards is my boast! I am decreasing as He increases!

I am saved by grace. I am sustained by grace. Grace will lead me home!