Apologists the Art of the Lie
Apologists the Art of the Lie
Contents Directory
Click LinkText to go to Topic
Topic 1: The Three Most Costly Failures of Humankind: LinkText
Topic 2: Apologists Needed to Maintain Error
Dedicated to Their “RELIGION” Not to the Truth LinkText
Topic 3: False Religion Is Easily Discerned for Those That Love the Truth LinkText
Topic 4: Sorting Truth from Error – Origins LinkText
Topic 5: Sorting Truth from Error – Misusing the Scriptures LinkText
Topic 6: Pause to Understand the Correct Meaning of the word Church
Then the Impossibility of Having a Head Other than Christ Can Be Understood LinkText
Topic 7: The Head of the Church as Defined by God LinkText
Topic 8: The Epitome of Evil and How It Grows
How Getting Matthew 16.18 Wrong Led to Massively More Error in Matthew 16.19 LinkText
Topic 9: Helping Overcome the Deceit Through Understanding God’s Revelation LinkText
Topic 10: Godly Principles, Warnings and Beginning to Better Understand God LinkText
Topic 11: God Graciously Reveals a Great Deal About Himself and Warns Us About the Seriousness of Life LinkText
Topic 12: “Listen” to God’s Word Not What Men/Women Say God’s Word Teaches LinkText
Topic 13: Perfection Versus the Apologist Deceit LinkText
Topic 14: The Doctrines of Catholicism and Protestantism are the Opposite of the Truth, Opposite of God’s Perfection LinkText
Topic 15: God’s Way, God’s Purpose Not Aligned with What People Want LinkText
Topic 16: Apologists – Not Thinking/Over-Thinking and What are Their Motives? LinkText
Topic 17: Catholicism – Just Not Believable LinkText
Topic 18: The Audacity of Humankind’s Religions LinkText
Topic 19: The Terrible Abomination of Mary Worship
Just Another Catholic Distraction LinkText
Topic 20: Apologists, Teachers of Error – Your Alive – Wake Up – Avoid the Terror LinkText
Topic 21: The End Result for Protestants Will Be the Same as Catholics LinkText
Topic 22: God Is Consistent from Creation LinkText
Topic 23: Apologists Succeed Because People Rationalize
Something That Sounds Right and is Widely Accepted Must Be Right LinkText
Topic 24: Here Is Where the Apologists Get It All Wrong LinkText
Topic 25: Apologists are Amazingly Ignorant of God and Fail to Make the Key Distinctions LinkText
Topic 26: Baptism Is Spiritual LinkText
Topic 27: Prayer Is Spiritual LinkText
Topic 28: Doing It Your Way Means a Failed Life LinkText
Topic 29: Apologists Defend the Physical Nature of the Church LinkText
Topic 30: How Many People Function as Apologists as a Significant Part of Their Life LinkText
Topic 31: Atheists Get A Lot of Support from Christians and Help from Bad Science LinkText
Topic 32: Understand Worship Correctly and Understand A Great Deal About God LinkText
Topic 33: Science – Out of its League LinkText
Topic 34: Always Helps to Understand God Better LinkText
Topic 35: The Problem with Apologists LinkText
Topic 36: The Catholic Apologist – Beyond Reasonable Thought LinkText
Topic 37: The Logic of Ignorance LinkText
Topic 38: The Wretched, Shameful Apologists LinkText
Topic 39: Conclusions and Consequences LinkText
Topic 40: Beyond Conclusions and Consequences – Ultimate Truth LinkText
Apologists the Art of the Lie
Topic 1: The Three Most Costly Failures of Humankind:
1. Failure to see God in creation
2. Failure to see God in the scriptures
3. Failure to take the scriptures seriously
This page emphasizes the later. In other words, people who see God in creation and see that God is the God of the bible. However, they do not take seriously the word of God and mishandle it to their own destruction. Specifically, we are talking about those who distort, change God’s truth and convince a person of the deceit. These are the apologists or the defenders of and promoters of the greatest evil. Their end is certain and so are those who follow the lies. Those who teach, defend and clarify THE TRUTH are of course serving a good purpose. In general, apologists should not be needed since the truth is simple. They do serve the purpose of converting people from error to truth – but it must be THE TRUTH. In this sense, those preachers of truth become apologists in the mode of teaching as they sort truth from error.
Topic 2: Apologists Needed to Maintain Error
Dedicated to Their “RELIGION” Not to the Truth
Religions have their apologists and they need them to maintain and grow their religious organization. The focus of this page is for those who follow the bible and believe it is the word of God. Of course, it seems all religions have their apologists, and many are not Christian, and they provide reasonable defenses for various religions. It seems Islam has many that fall into the category of apologists and defend and explain the Koran.
We could call these “Christian” apologist’s groups Catholic or Protestant or any other group name that sees the scriptures as the word of God. A skilled apologist can use scripture to teach many different things. Some know the bible very well and the points they make on a given subject may be correct or partially correct or totally in error. In any case, they can convince a person that their interpretation is correct. Recently, I heard an apologist use about eight verses in answering a question in relation to salvation and the way they were used was correct. Unfortunately, he then began to give further explanation without any scripture of how the Catholic Church provides all these things in their sacraments. He claims the directions given by the Catholic Church are truth and additionally only they have the Eucharist, which a person must have to truly receive Christ. Then he uses another verse out of context and completely misunderstood to support their teachings. Apologists often gain credibility as they sprinkle truth with error. Catholic doctrine is exactly the OPPOSITE of the truth on everything. I mentioned this apologist who used about eight verses correctly in relation to the subject of salvation but was only using them to provide apparent credibility for their false teachings. If he just stopped with the verses (correctly used), he would have the truth. He cannot do that because Catholic doctrine is completely different than the scriptures since they have added to and taken away from God’s word everywhere. In the scriptures there are no sacraments, no pope, no universal physical church, no mortal or venial sins, no confession to a priest, no priests in the new testament and on and on and on! It was unacceptable to God that Cain brought the wrong offering and all substitutions are not acceptable. The world would say, Cain had the right attitude – he brought something. Those going to heaven understand God and find no peace in excuses. Ananias and Sapphira provided funds to the church, but in some way lied about their offering and were struck dead. Naaman wanted to dip seven times in some other river than the Jordan and provided some options to the prophet. He would learn that God through the prophet meant what He said. This is the test of life – your obedience to God’s will as opposed to YOUR WAY. God rejects private interpretation. You will not be doing the things God requires unless you follow His directions and His directions are not those of Catholicism, Protestantism or any of the others. It should be obvious that God’s perfection cannot be superseded by the things humankind believes make sense. The following verse condemns the apologists and causes grief for those who believe them. Take God for what He says and not for what someone explains God meant.
2 Peter 1.20,21
20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation,
21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
God brings clarity to this in 1 Peter.
1 Peter 4.11
11 If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.
The oracles of God are God breathed and that means they are from God through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Speak the word of God and don’t add to or take away. Thus, we see what God’s children must do in 2 Timothy.
2 Timothy 4.2
2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
As mentioned, there is a sense where preachers of truth could be referred to as apologists – but it must be THE TRUTH. The distinction is that they preach the word and that is their focus, and questions will come, and they need to be prepared to give an answer of the hope within them. There is no private interpretation or speaking differently than the word of God for those who bring the truth. They are to convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. The apologists of the world-created religions convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine that is, their human-devised doctrines. Their evil is the greatest because it costs the souls of innumerable people – so devastating! Lying is the most condemned thing and apologists appearing to be wonderful people are most dreaded, most destructive – evil personified.
Proverbs 12.22
22 Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord,
But those who deal truthfully are His delight.
Note on apologists:
Apologetic instruction has come to be known as the defense of different human-created religions. It is better if those of the truth not use this term since in 99.9% of the cases apologists are defending error. A more solid idea is that there are those who are children of God, sometimes located preachers, who reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. Every child of God needs to do this and there is no need for a special class name. The name apologist brings confusion and association with the massive number of those who use that title in the support of the propagation of error.
Topic 3: False Religion Is Easily Discerned for Those That Love the Truth
The easiest way to come to grips with the false religions of Catholicism and Protestantism is to understand those religions came out of the world and are filled with worldly ideas. The religion from God is pure – it is spiritual.
James 3.16,17
16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.
17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.
Thus, sorting truth from error involves wisdom from God and that comes from the pure (not-altered) word of God. What God provided is perfect in converting the soul and that is why adding to, taking away or in any way changing the gospel of God results in error. Remove those actions by humankind as they interact with the bible and you have the truth.
Topic 4: Sorting Truth from Error – Origins
Where, when did the doctrine (religion) originate?
All religions are man-made except for one. The one from God is true and with a dedicated effort this can easily be seen. These pages can help”
Religious Comparison Charts
Foundations
Topic 5: Sorting Truth from Error – Misusing the Scripture
Notice how some use verses correctly, but then draw conclusions that are not supported by those verses. Here is a rather significant example that is easily sufficient for the one who loves the truth to move quickly away from Catholicism and/or Protestantism.
In the very well-known set of verses in response to Jesus question in Matthew 16 verse 15.
Matthew 16.15
15 “Who do you say I am?.”
Simon Peter answers:
Matthew 16.16
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Then Jesus replies in verse 17 and 18.
Matthew 16.17
17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.
Jesus goes on to tell the apostles that WHAT was revealed by Peter (from the Father) would be the rock on which He would build His church.
Matthew 16.18
18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
In fact, the church was built on Jesus as the Son of God – That Is What Happened! It was God’s plan (the church) since Genesis 3.15 and was about to occur following Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. The language here does not define much about this idea of church, but Jesus will be providing the apostles with insight and most powerfully give them the comforter. Peter is mentioned because He just gave the right answer (from the Father) by rightly answering Jesus’ question – Jesus was the Son of God. Thus, the rock is what Peter just said that is, Jesus is the Son of God. That would end up being exactly what would differentiate people throughout history in terms of being added to the church by the Lord Himself. This fact is at the center of God’s purpose and that is the significance of this verse.
That is all fine and good and easily understood. Then along comes some who teach that Peter was the one on whom the church was to be built. Of course, Jesus said nothing about the church being built on anyone, but that He would build His church. These verses do not support Peter being the head of the church and in fact in the entirety of the authorized record, Peter or no person heads the church. It is amazing that the Holy Spirit would work with the apostles guiding them into ALL TRUTH for something less than 70 years and Peter is never mentioned as the head of the church.
Topic 6: Pause to Understand the Correct Meaning of the word Church
Then the Impossibility of Having a Head Other than Christ Can Be Understood
Using the word church in relation to Matthew 16.18 can be problematic since today people think of it as an assembly and even more casually as a building. The correct meaning is the “called out.” Thus, Jesus was saying, I will build my “called out” not building an assembly of people or a building. Jesus was going to “call out” certain persons – He would be the only One who could do that, and the basis was going to be those who recognized Him as the Son of God. Since we know that God is not a respecter of persons (no partiality) the “called out” are not randomly or specifically selected. The means for Jesus to “call out” persons would be delivered by the Holy Spirit to the apostles following His death, burial and resurrection. Clearly, the “called out” by the Lord Himself do not have an earthly head, the “called out” are spiritual. Those who are “called out” of course, remain physical in addition to their new spiritual relationship (“in Christ”). God devises local groups of “called out” persons in locations with an organization. We see these groups referred to as (for example) the church (“called-out”) at Ephesus, Corinth, Philippi and in Revelation as the churches at Smyrna, Sardis, Laodicea, at Pergamum and so-on. These local groups consisted of “called out” persons having certain authorized activities and a prime directive of evangelism. This group of “called out” persons in a local area are correctly an assembly.
Thus, there are two senses of the word church (“called out”).
First,
from Matthew 16.18 the “called out” are called by the gospel message. The Holy Spirit guides apostles to bring this “gospel message” to the Jews (first, later to all) and for those that respond in obedience a transformation takes place. Namely, past sins are forgiven, they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the Lord adds them to His body (His spiritual body). This is the essential meaning of the church and the reason Jesus became man to accomplish the reconciliation. This is where past sins are forgiven and this church, kingdom built by Jesus is spiritual. The obedient now have a relationship with Jesus and we can say they are “in Christ.” The only work done by humankind in the process is to preach the word, to provide the gospel message. That message is brought by those already “in Christ.” It is the only message that will ever save and of course should not be added to or taken away from. This is a totally spiritual event as the truth is preached, in response one obeys the truth, sins are forgiven, and Jesus adds them to His body (the church). This is indeed the universal spiritual church.
Second,
the church’s other meaning only exists because it is a support for bringing the message. All of God’s purpose is dependent on the first meaning of the church. During the first century the Holy Spirit reveals how God’s children will work together as a local group. There is a defined organization and purpose for the local church. Again, this is not the church Jesus built, but a place for His body to work together, to be edified so they can be effective in the local church prime directive. This church has a physical character in that they meet together to work together. Even so, they are fundamentally spiritual due to having a relationship, being “in Christ.” The things they do are spiritual as opposed to what might be seen in so-called Christian/Catholic churches.
Their worship is spiritual that is, in Spirit and truth
Their singing is spiritual making melody in the heart
Their giving is spiritual as they purpose in their hearts
Their preaching is spiritual as it is the truth, from God – no changes
Their prayers are spiritual – they follow the pattern of prayers such as addressed to the Father through (by the authority of) the Son. They are in no way frivolous or repetitive, but reverent, from righteous persons (in Christ). See Miracles, Healing, Prayer
All the so-called Christian churches and Catholic churches are physical with physical non-scriptural organizations and practices. They are meaningless because they have NOT been called out, added to the body of Christ. This is because, they define how you “join” their church as opposed to the method defined by the Holy Spirit.
The mechanism of being “called out” is by the gospel message. If you are going to use the common language word “church,” it is important to realize the meaning is the “called out.” It is easier to justify error if you think Jesus was building a physical church needing oversight/direction. The Lord has oversight over His body knowing who INDEED have obeyed the gospel and who are remaining faithful. Once you place humans in the SPIRITUAL PROCESS you end up with all kinds of things that support the loss of souls.
In summary, those “in Christ” preach the truth and people of their own free will obey the gospel and the Lord adds them to His spiritual body. Then they choose to associate with the local group. The letters of Paul were to the local churches of saints, never to a central church, which never existed.
Note: Perhaps the most well-known deception similar to this was changing baptism to be different than the word meaning which is immersion. Not only is immersion the correct definition of the word, but the way it is used in scripture demonstrates the process is immersion. Nonetheless, people accept sprinkling as an acceptable means of baptizing. How can this possibly happen? There are those who change the word of God and there are those who defend the changes – apologists. Yes, it is a little silly to discuss the incorrect mode of baptism in relation to organizations that in no way has a relationship with God. It is done to show just how far people will go in changing God’s word once they have started.
A little more clarity, do you want to be part of what Jesus said He would build? If you understand God, you can see how everything fits perfectly together in His word. When you understand, “I will build My church” means the universal spiritual church, then you can easily reject “churches” by their physical characteristics.
This is what Jesus was referring to in Matthew 16.18, it is the kingdom He came preaching. The physical group of “called out” or the “local called out” consists of those in the universal spiritual church that have a local leadership of elders, who serve having met the qualifications defined very specifically by God. This idea of “calling out” is used throughout the scriptures in relation to salvation, to God’s purpose, to the eternal purpose, to our hope, to being called out of the world, to being called by the gospel among others. It is a spiritual process of calling out. It is spiritual, just as was God’s purpose in sending Jesus and thus relates to your very personal battle with sin. Some physical organization cannot call out people or can such an earthly organization be the universal home of God’s saints – such an organization cannot resolve your problem of sin. Jesus through the Holy Spirit defines the process of having sins forgiven and in obedience the Lord adds those to His spiritual body – the spiritual “called out” and if properly understood the spiritual church. It is truly absurd to have a physical universal church with central head and all that rule-making.
The scriptures refer to this calling from God that is, Jesus statement that He would build His church. Ultimately, it is the gospel call (1 Corinthians 15.1-4). Below are a few verses that use this calling out in relation to God’s people and can be helpful in your understanding.
2 Thessalonians 2:14
14 He CALLED YOU TO THIS THROUGH OUR GOSPEL, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The calling of God is according to God’s purpose.
Romans 8.28
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE.
The calling is not for some, but a correct understanding is that some eliminate themselves by their characters – God designs this perfectly into His plan. These are those who in pride and selfishness cannot see the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1.18,19).
1 Corinthians 1.26
26 For you see YOUR CALLING, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.
Paul is very specific as to those who turned away from HIM (the Lord), who called them by HIS gospel to a different gospel.
Galatians 1.6
6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who CALLED YOU in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel
The church is in the eternal purpose of God. It is the church that Jesus said He would build. Those in the body of Christ would reveal the manifold wisdom of God – no more mystery.
Ephesians 3.9-11
9 and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ;
10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made KNOWN BY THE CHURCH to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,
11 according to the ETERNAL PURPOSE which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord,
These verses below reveal the seven one’s of God and they are tightly knit together. The hope of humankind to succeed is singular and involves their calling.
Ephesians 4.4-6
4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one HOPE OF YOUR CALLING;
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
6 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
Our calling is to holiness, that is to be separated for God and certainly that is not a call to uncleanness. The gospel message of obedience requires repentance (leaving sin) and living a life for Christ and the gospel.
1 Thessalonians 4.7
7 For God did not CALL US to uncleanness, but in holiness.
8 Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.
Jesus called us by glory and virtue. Indeed, Jesus fulfilled Matthew 16.18 when He said, “I will build my church.”
2 Peter 1.3
3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who CALLED US by glory and virtue
Now, for most of the “Christian world, as they refer to themselves” there is knowledge that the word “church” means the “called out.” So, when this is the thought behind the word “church” there is no problem – use the word church. The problem comes when despite that understanding, their organizations corrupt the meaning of Matthew 16.18. The Catholics create a physical church and have a physical leader when the clear meaning was that Jesus would build His church. More correctly, Jesus would call out certain persons to be in His kingdom – spiritual.
Colossians 1.13
13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,
14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
Jesus made it clear that His kingdom, the called-out, the church was not of this world.
John 18:36
36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
We see that after people for the first time obeyed the gospel in Acts 2.38 that the Lord added those to the church (they were called out by the gospel message). So, if we summarize, people respond to the gospel message by obeying it and sins are forgiven and the Lord adds them to His spiritual body – Acts 2.47.
Especially among the Protestants there are those who do not understand the kingdom is the church. Some actually believing God failed to establish the kingdom. Colossians 2.13 would not agree with that or would Mark 9.1 or would the entirety of scripture. You might want to look at “The Kingdom is the Church.”
If Catholicism understood Jesus was building His church in the context of Matthew 16.18 and NOT referencing a physical body, then Catholicism would not exist. Well, they would not and should not exist if truth mattered.
Protestantism also stumbles over Matthew 16.18 inasmuch as they give credence to the Catholic idea of a church as physical and set out only to reform Catholicism. The Protestant churches despite knowing the meaning of “church” end up like Catholicism, believing the “church” Jesus said He would build to be an assembly of persons. In Protestantism a person joins their physical churches. They would in general say you can join if you meet their criteria and that might be accepting Jesus as their savior. Where did they get that idea? Well it must be from their leadership. Their leadership in some way officially adds them to their membership. Interestingly, some of their churches also require a person to be baptized to join their church. Of course, in truth they should be baptized for forgiveness of past sins. The church that Jesus built has Him personally adding those who obey the gospel to His spiritual body. As a Protestant convert you have joined some group of people, a fellowship of people that has no relationship with God and carries some name like Lutheran or Baptist or Presbyterian or endless other names.
Both Catholicism and Protestantism have the most significant problem inasmuch as they understand that Matthew 16.18 is referring to a physical instead of a spiritual entity. They might deny that in word, but indeed they create leaders, central churches, define worship, make rules and so-on. During the first century following the translation of the obedient from the power of darkness to the kingdom of the Son, the Spirit defines a LOCAL church consisting of those in the body of Christ. The organization (elder, deacons and members) and mission (evangelism) are defined by God. This physical local church has no central authority and has worship defined by God and makes no rules. This is NOT the church Jesus was referring to in Matthew 16.18. Indeed, the local church consists ONLY of those who were to be the “called out” in Matthew 16.18. However, Jesus did not die for the local church, but the universal spiritual church. Those saved please God by working within the local church to effectively complete its authorized work.
Note: Someone might say this is very complicated and they would be right, but there is absolutely no complication if the word of God is not changed, not privately interpreted. The simplicity of God’s word is obvious if the 1000’s of additions and subtractions (organizations, rules, ceremonies, honors and on and on) are left out.
So, if we summarize, people respond to the gospel message by obeying it and sins are forgiven and the Lord adds them to His spiritual body – Acts 2.47. That is not complicated and it produced sons of God in the first century and it will do the same today.
Topic 7: The Head of the Church as Defined by God
Jesus Himself is declared to be the head of the body, the church. The church cannot have a person as head. The church that Jesus built is spiritual and only Jesus can be the head. Gradually, a local physical church is revealed during the first century and its organization and purpose. Those in the spiritual body will choose to associate with this local physical body. Jesus and no one else is the head. God in His perfection defines the head and, in the process, eliminates all other heads. As clearly as God defines everything in relation to the church, in relation to salvation how does anyone invent a physical person as head? The very idea of this opposes God’s authority that is, the sovereignty of His word.
Ephesians 1.22,23
22 And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
Ephesians 4.14,15
14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,
15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—
Colossians 1.18
18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
Matthew 28.18
18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
Topic 8: The Epitome of Evil and How It Grows
How Getting Matthew 16.18 Wrong Led to Massively More Error in Matthew 16.19
When you consider all that is built around this false claim of having a human head for the church it is truly astonishing and the epitome of evil. Clearly, Jesus is the head of the church. Apologists might say, Peter is the earthly head. Of course, that is not taught in the scriptures or did Peter ever hold such a position. He was an elder in the church at Jerusalem. Again, if you understand the truth you know there is only one universal church and it is spiritual. The Jews wanted an earthly king. God allowed them a king and the first one was king Saul and it was a disaster. In this “last age” God speaks through His Son, who has sent the Holy Spirit to guide the apostles into all truth and that leads to what God refers to as that which is perfect – the word of God. In this last age God provides the final revelation to humankind and there is no human leadership for what God left as it is in every way perfect/complete.
God did through the Holy Spirit define a local church consisting of those who were added by the Lord to His body (the church). Again, the local group is physical with a defined organization and purpose. There is oversight of each independent local church in terms of elders, who must be qualified as God designates and they are serving the local members, providing help. They make no rules in the spiritual sense and are very aware that the bible is the only rule book. The rules are what God delivered by His Holy Spirit. There are no adds to, and no subtracts from Gods’ will.
You can easily identify adding to and taking away from the word of God – it is different, even creating entirely foreign new ideas and principles. Peter was a fellow elder at Jerusalem and that is what we know – do not take away from that and do not add to that.
Those who claim the right to change the message from God or interpret their way are an abomination. One such group claimed this right and since there has been on-going divergence from the truth. It is the height of dishonor to God to claim you speak for God. Catholicism claims this right to make the rules based on the 19th verse of Matthew 16.
Matthew 16.19
19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
There is no explanation regarding how the loosing and binding will be done in this verse. A reasonable understanding of God from the scriptures will allow you to understand God is not relinquishing the making of the rules to humankind – it would be unknown, and it would be a mess. Of course, those advocating such an idea might say that they were being led by the Holy Spirit. In fact, this is exactly what happened to the apostles as indicated by Jesus. The apostles were guided by the Holy Spirit into all truth (John 13.16). That work was gradual throughout their lives and ended late in the 1st century as indicated by Jude 3, 2 Peter 1.2-4, and 1 Corinthians 13.10.
We have that which is perfect, the word of God completed, and people want more, but God makes it clear that the faith was once delivered to the saints.
Jude 3
3 Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.
Peter writes that we have ALL things that pertain to life and godliness, what more is needed. Apparently, there are those who think we need thousands of more things.
2 Peter 1.2-4
2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,
3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,
4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
As one studies the scriptures there is one thing very clear and that is how God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit have completed their work. The outcome of their work is Jesus fulfilling the promise of the Father and the Holy spirit guiding the apostles into all truth while confirming the truth. Now, God has completed all things leaving humankind with the entire revelation of truth as intended. The message from God is complete. Humankind, of course wants more, wants something different and does not accept the message.
1 Corinthians 13.10
10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
This is where people fail as they reject the clarity from God. They reject God with their inventions – their additions and subtractions. Since the first century we have almost 2000 years of changing God’s word and it is likely that much is believed because it has been around so long. It happens because people do not like the message from God. God however, will get exactly those He wants to share in the divine nature – humble, obedient, selfless persons who are lovers of the truth. There will only be a few, but as always God will have the best. God’s word is still there, and all the changes are hanging around associated with the religions of humankind and there is a lot of complication. How badly do you want to go to heaven?
If you take what God says, it is simple:
- Once for all delivered to the saints – not still being delivered
- We have ALL things that pertain to life and godliness – what is missing when Peter said we have ALL things pertaining to life and godliness?
- All scripture is God inspired and spiritual things come no other way. Can you imagine God not bringing clarity to something so fundamental as a pope, a physical head, a physical leadership, a rule making body? Those who support such things do so without any authority.
- That which is perfect has come and that in part is done away. That which is perfect is the word of God.
Here is what Catholicism teaches:
The faith was NOT once delivered to the saints, that we did NOT have ALL things that pertain to life and godliness, and that the word of God was NOT complete (or perfect). 1 Timothy 3.16,17 says the scriptures were able to make the man of God complete (or perfect), but human teachers say a person needs more. Can someone add to or take away from what God says is complete / perfect?
It is no wonder that they need to make the rules, otherwise they do not exist.
1 Timothy 3.16,17
16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Topic 9: Helping Overcome the Deceit Through Understanding God’s Revelation
The things above are solid and fundamental to your understanding and simply point to God’s thoroughness in providing humankind what they need. Below are some thoughts to help your understanding of God and the scriptures:
1. Everything God delivered in the scriptures fits together perfectly.
God begins with His creation and we start to see His purpose is related to those He created in His image. That idea is supported throughout the scriptures. Humankind (Adam and Eve) are given instructions and they fail and God responds with a solution. He defines that solution in Genesis 3.15 and it is carried out about 4000 years later exactly as He indicated. The details of the solution are revealed after the death of Jesus. Jesus Himself telling how and where that solution was to take place (Luke 24.46-49 and Acts 1.4-8).
One reason everything fits together is the consistency and simplicity of God’s word. Of course, God is perfect and what He left for humankind is perfect (2 Samuel 22.31). God claims He is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14.33). That makes it easy to eliminate the confusing religions of humankind.
2 Samuel 22.31
31 As for God, His way is perfect; The word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.
2. Think about God’s purpose in view of what is being taught and understand God as He has revealed Himself.
One of the easiest ways to differentiate truth from error is in the area of worship. The principle in scripture is to obey God to worship Him. The farthest thing from worship is “worshipping” your way. In worship you submit yourself to God and that is not done when you think, “here God, look at what I am doing for you.” God indicates how He is not worshipped (Acts 17) and how He must be worshipped – John 4.24. False religions typically worship God their way and thus it is easy to reject them.
3.Look at the characteristics of false teachers – does this apologist fit the pattern? Not every false teacher will have these characteristics, but most do. There is a large ego that is seen even though they try to cover it with the appearance of humility. It can be terribly obvious. There is insecurity and there is an ever-increasing attempt to find more ways to defend what they teach. This is because they are defending things that cannot be defended. They can get way off-base in making their points. The problem is the most fundamental teaching of their “religion” is weak, difficult to justify.
4. Look for problems in how one scripture is connected to another and only accept how scriptures are rightly connected being consistent with ALL SCRIPTURE and GOD’s PURPOSE.
5. Look for conclusions that violate basic principles. An example would be using the old law to support what they want to teach/practice as part of New Testament Christianity.
6. Apologists go right from scripture to their private interpretations – There is no need for private interpretation because the scriptures interpret themselves. God means what He says and exactly as He says it.
7. It is critical to take seriously God’s word – carelessness in handling God’s word can cost you your soul. False teachers have a pattern of casualness about their teaching. They explain their meaning instead of letting God’s word provide the simple truths.
8. Catholics liberally create new doctrine from some verses while avoiding the obvious meaning. They are consistent in teaching physical meanings of things that clearly have only spiritual significance. They claim that the Lord’s supper is more than a remembrance, a memorial (as the scriptures teach) but the elements are the actual body and blood of Christ. They create a priesthood and they perform in some ways similar to the old testament priests. How many fundamental aspects of scripture do they violate? They justify their every lie by saying God authorized them to make the rules. There is no higher abomination than speaking for God as opposed to speaking as the oracles of God- God breathed speech.
9. Catholics invent doctrine to fit their purposes – Matthew 16.16-19. These verses do not come close to teaching the Catholic meaning, in fact the truth is the opposite of their meaning.
10. The obvious meaning of one mediator is one mediator, but apologists provide reasons there are many.
Topic 10: Godly Principles, Warnings and Beginning to Better Understand God
It is easy to deceive. Yet, it is easier to reveal deception if there is a love of the truth. There are certain Godly principles, which have been revealed. If you look at some of these then you are less likely to “fall” for the lies.
1) God cannot lie, and He makes this clear and this will bring both confidence and terror. As always it will bring those who have a desire to find a contradiction and they will succeed in their minds, but a thorough understanding of all scripture will show they are wrong.
Titus 1.2
2 in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began,
Romans 3.4
4 … let God be true but every man a liar …
2) God is perfect as is His word, not being able to lie would be part of God’s perfection. Think about what it means to be perfect – it is something we cannot understand fully but can appreciate. The verses below describe different aspects of God’s perfection:
Romans 12.1,2
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and PERFECT will of God.
1 Corinthians 13.8-10
8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
10 But when that which is PERFECT has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
Psalm 19:7
7 The law of the LORD is PERFECT, converting the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;
So, we mentioned two, actually three important principles about God – there are many more. They were God cannot lie, God and His word are perfect, and we included that God limits Himself. The limiting is understood by being infinitely good – no evil in Him. This shows up in not being able to lie, being perfect and the limits He placed on Himself as part of His test of humankind – such as providing free will and for one thing that limits His interference in the evil that is done – at least to a large degree. In the days of Noah, evil filled the earth and God did not interfere with people doing evil but did bring an end to those people before all souls were lost – saving just eight of perhaps many millions.
There are various aspects of perfection that can help people’s understanding of God. Due to the importance some will be mentioned here. Honestly, it is implied but not said in so many words – maybe a necessary inference. I mention it with a warning that it seems to me from all scripture to help understand something important about God, about life. Something helpful to the one that says since God can do all things why does He have to go through the test? God limits Himself due to His perfection and His purpose, as just mentioned He cannot lie. If He can do all things why can’t He lie. The answer is that He is perfect and if you look at all scripture you will see He is perfectly good. Even when He may appear to be bad or evil, He is perfectly good – if you understand ………. and you can understand if you love the truth. Helping you to understand God are many pages at “Heaven Coach.” Two of those pages are:
Let us continue this thinking. A great deal can be gleaned from a scriptural understanding of worship. God cannot truly be worshiped by forcing people to worship Him. This seems to be very reasonable – at least it is to me. Worship to have value cannot be faked especially to God who knows the heart, perfectly. God tests the heart of people by giving them choices and thus a free will. In the free will state provided to humankind they can choose to reject God or to follow God. The test to have value must be difficult to display the character of a person. Thus, we have rules designed to challenge a person to either follow the lusts of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life OR choose to follow God in word and deed by rejecting the former. Those who indeed worship God are worthy of sharing in the divine nature. So, it comes back to God’s perfection and needing perfection in those who will share His divine nature. They will do as Christ said and live their lives for Him and the gospel. Humankind never gets it right unless they get it from God’s perfect word.
Jeremiah 10.23
23 O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.
God provides humankind choice, but then tells humankind the right choices to be successful.
There will not be so many saved as a function of how many people there are, or how many people appear to be good, but just those who achieve perfection as defined by God. It would be right to say there will not be many and that would be consistent with the word of God (Matthew 7.13,14). It would also be right to say that because of sin no one will be perfect. Fortunately, it would be right to also say anyone can be perfect because Jesus is the author of eternal salvation to all those who obey Him.
Hebrews 10.14
14 For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
It was God’s plan since sin entered God’s creation to reconcile humankind back to Him in Christ (Genesis 3.15).
Romans 3.25
25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed
If you are wise in the ways of God, you will see how God has fit everything perfectly together, so you can succeed and know this with certainty from that which is perfect.
Note: To apologists, the most important thing in your life is to understand you exist not to defend the truth, but to defend the changes made to the word of God. It is not necessary to defend perfection. The simplicity of the gospel does not need your help. Paul and others of truth did argue against the changes as Paul did in Galatians 1.6-9 when he was so amazed that there were those who had so soon changed the gospel of Christ to a different gospel. We have the distinction here for apologists (evil or good) as they are either defending the changes made or condemning the changes that have been made.
Topic 11: God Graciously Reveals a Great Deal About Himself and Warns Us About the Seriousness of Life
The disobedience of Adam and Eve was the turning point that changed everything for humankind. God explained how things would change in Genesis 3.16-24. Life would now be difficult. Why? Well, because God is perfect. Imperfection in this case was disobedience. In this life there would be some that would overcome and follow after the creator and some that would choose to oppose God’s ways. Sin disqualifies a person from partaking in the divine nature and this would be the apparent fate of all of humankind – since all sin. People in their life will make bad choices violating the laws of God. Interestingly, some learn from their mistakes and could have their sins covered, but how?
The solution was to send Jesus and He would satisfy perfection by covering those who choose to obey Him. It required that Jesus become a man and live a perfect life. Jesus did this by living a sinless life being obedient to the Father (Hebrews 5.8,9). In effect, Jesus would cover the sins of those who choose to follow the creator, demonstrating this by their obedience to the Son. We repeat Romans 3.25 from just above as it was God’s means to pass over sins.
Romans 3.25
25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,
So, to clarify, there is sin and the obedient can have their PAST sins covered and we will learn that if there is further sin they have a means via their advocate to potentially have those future sins covered.
What is missing? The HOW or we might say the process by which past sins will be covered, forgiven, or passed over would not be revealed until after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.
He tells the apostles that the Holy Spirit will come to them and guide them into all truth. The truth revealed how past sins would be forgiven. THE TRUTH is perfect. That means it is complete, it is ALL we need, and God so indicated by inspiration to Peter.
2 Peter 1.2-4
2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,
3 as His divine power has given to us ALL THINGS THAT PERTAIN TO LIFE AND GODLINESS, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,
4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the DIVINE NATURE, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Humankind cannot make the rules for God, it would be wrong, confusing, deceitful and nonetheless many have tried, and it is called religion, more accurately the religions of the world.
When humanity speaks in relation to spiritual matters it is only true if it is the oracles of God. Whenever there is humankind making rules, it is the height of blasphemy. It goes against God’s very purpose. If you want the truth, you need to humbly accept God’s message. God in His perfection did not fail to warn about the false teaching in its various forms that would be coming.
1 Timothy 4.1,2
1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons,
2 speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron,
Paul saw the gospel being changed and marveled that it was occurring so soon.
Galatians 1.6,7
6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel,
7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.
Jesus warned of false prophets.
Matthew 7.15
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.
The efforts of men to change the doctrine of Christ are quite amazing in their dedication to deceit and below are categorized as the trickery of men, as cunning craftiness and deceitful plotting.
Ephesians 4.14
14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,
Indeed, all these warnings represent the predicted error that did come to pass and continues to this day. Behind this well thought out (apologetic style, verse 14 above) are selfish motives related to things like power over others, creating acceptability for certain sins and creating doctrines to support desired beliefs and lifestyle. It should be obvious as pointed out previously that once this begins, errors quickly multiply. Some additional errors are needed to protect earlier errors. What a mess, what confusion and the cost to souls is pathetic. This is inevitable when men/women are involved, and it certainly has come to pass. God, being exceedingly wiser provided perfection in His word and simplicity and consistency and demanded no changes.
Topic 12: “Listen” to God’s Word Not What Men/Women Say God’s Word Teaches
People will find ways to justify what they believe, and they may appear convincing to others – but not to those who love the truth. Catholicism uses Matthew 16.16-19 to justify their existence and their right to make the rules. If that were the case, it violates what God revealed about Himself. It makes a puzzle out of God’s word that requires all sorts of interpretation. It violates the clear meaning of these verses. It also is not followed up with any confirmation in scripture. Peter for instance does not become the pope. Peter was a fellow elder in the church in Jerusalem – that would be a position consistent with the organization defined by God. Peter was a servant in that role and disdained any honor to him. The church as defined by Jesus and discussed as the kingdom during His ministry was spiritual and that is the essential understanding.
People obeyed God and were added to the church beginning in Acts 2. The word of God was gradually delivered by the Holy Spirit throughout much of the first century and it would authorize a defined local group of the “called out.” Those in the body of Christ were first called Christians at Antioch. God’s plan was one of simplicity where there was reconciliation back to God as sins were forgiven and local groups of “saints” would continue to bring the message, the gospel message.
Why would anyone oppose God’s will and create something different to their own destruction? They would do this because they love the world and what this short lifetime has to offer. They would choose to reject the God of the bible because He is harsh, He does not allow what they want and essentially, they are overtaken by pride. They follow the human-made doctrines because they fit their version of life. Such simple things from God and you are turned by the apologists with their cunningly devised lies to believe them. It is your fault, because you did not receive a love of the truth that you might be saved (2 Thessalonians 2.10). You cannot understand God if you are “listening” to what men/women teach about God and His word.
Topic 13: Perfection Versus the Apologist Deceit
The word, “perfect” has been used numerous times on this page and if apologists understood what God was declaring about His word, they might be more careful in their ramblings. Perfect is a word used by all of us from time to time, but the things we describe are not perfect, maybe good, maybe as good as we might expect. God is perfect, and His word is perfect, and it cannot be better. Again, many think of God as human and think of perfect as humankind uses it, which is often is something less, often much less than perfect. God’s word cannot be improved and that includes THE WAY IT WAS DELIVERED. It is perfect in achieving God’s purpose. If you can transition to this realization, then you certainly would not change it. There is no salvation if you change it. Perfect means perfect when speaking of the word of God. God did not leave things out. Where is the pope in the revelation? He is from man. If God left out such a central idea, then God’s word would not be perfect. If God left out something important or made some riddle or mystery, then the message would not be perfect. He left no mystery, but all is revealed in this last age. There was a mystery (essential to God’s purpose) prior to the revelations by the Holy Spirit in the first century, but no longer.
Ephesians 3.9-11
9 and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ;
10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,
11 according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord,
Someone is going to say God delivered His word via the Holy Spirit perfectly. However, in using men to transmit the message going forward the word has been changed and now we no longer have the truth. They are saying there have naturally been errors in transmission, i.e. translations and so-on. You underestimate God and those who love the truth. We have the word of God and although some have made changes, they are easily discerned by those who love the truth. We have the truth! People love to raise issues that claim there are problems with the scriptures but fail to realize who they are dealing with. God creates everything by saying or thinking them into existence and all for His purpose (your success), but somehow cannot assure humankind has His word they need to succeed – how ridiculous. Simply said, God can handle all your concerns so focus on doing your part and succeeding in life.
Topic 14: The Doctrines of Catholicism and Protestantism are the Opposite of the Truth, Opposite of God’s Perfection
Truth produces what God desires – the potential for the fulfillment of His purpose. Error produces the opposite, namely the certain loss of souls. Protestantism ends up being just as spiritually damaging as Catholicism.
Where in the scriptures is the “receive Jesus as your personal savior and be saved?” Where is once saved, always saved? Where is inherited depravity? All these Protestant things came from men and not God – their churches, their worship, their missions. You will find the opposite of each taught in scripture. You are dealing with God when you have His word and changing it is pathetic and then having apologists defend the changes to perpetuate the deceit is soul destructive. God being PERFECT has carefully laid out His purpose and detailed all that has happened from creation until His last communication in His word in the later part of the 1st century. The solution indicated in Genesis 3.15 has been completed and we can achieve what He wants for all of us – eternal life. We stand in the way of ourselves reaching heaven by the decisions we make. There is no excuse, we have that which is perfect, and it describes God and encourages and tells us the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. God’s word tells us not to be conformed to the world and defines sin and indicates those who practice such will not receive the kingdom of God. God carefully details the plan of salvation and it is the gospel message, the truth about what to do and how to live.
God reveals He cannot lie and thus every word from God has value and that means our fate is defined by the things we do, whether good or evil. It means we need to be perfect and God tells us how. It means Christ will return and take His body, the church to be with Him forever and that those remaining will stand before the judgment of seat of Christ – not a good thing!
Who can change God’s word and survive His wrath – no one! It is absurd how people think they will ask God questions or portray some kind of defense for their failure in life. God does not make mistakes and it is very likely when your end has come God’s power, magnificence will be overwhelming and there will be no questions, no excuses. Now is the time to come to grips with truth – while you are alive. In spiritual matters, you cannot afford to be lazy and depend on some person, perhaps some apologist but you need to understand what you believe, and it needs to be your life’s quest. That is because life is about the soul and absolutely about nothing else. This is the realization you will have at the end of your life when everything else is gone. God in His perfect revelation to humankind did not leave you without an understanding of what to do with your life and the consequence of not doing it. Can you see this in Mark 8, below?
Mark 8.35,36
35 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.
36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?
If you are one of those rare teachers of truth, perhaps referred to as an apologist then you have the greatest possible respect of God’s revelation and fear changing it in any way. You teach God’s perfect word and that it should not be changed. God’s word becomes very simple when it has not been changed.
How simple?
• Here is God’s purpose
• Here is God’s plan
• Here is the reconciliation in Christ
• Here is what to do to have a relationship with God and maintain it
• Here is how to live
• Here is the outcome
God is not the author of confusion, but Jesus is the author of eternal salvation to all those who obey Him. You need to understand what God is the author of, and what He is not the author of. However, when people do not see God’s word as perfect, they change it and live confused and in sin and will eventually fail. Apologists are those contributing to the confusion with their defense of changes to the word of God. Apologists need to understand “PERFECT” and respect God’s way.
Topic 15: God’s Way, God’s Purpose Not Aligned with What People Want
There is an art to the way apologists deceive. I have described it above and how to see through it. The difference between truth and error is the difference between night and day. It is easy to tell the difference if you love the truth. These ARE the people God wants, specifically those who love the truth and have certain characteristics like humility. The proud person believes in himself or maybe what he was taught and accepted. Many of the less desirable characteristics (pride being the one noted repeatedly in the scriptures as to its devastating association with losing eternal life) such as selfishness, cowardice, envy, various lusts, and others are not conducive to seeking God and truth. In all these evil things there is self-seeking, self-trust and hurting others if necessary is of little or no consequence. Every person who teaches error in relation to the message of God is a proud and selfish person and does not respect God and His word. The truth is serious and unique and consequently the reason you must not respect the doctrines invented by men/women. As I always say that includes myself, BUT INSTEAD of BELIEVING ANYONE UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU BELIEVE!
It is quite amazing how apologists earn the respect of people. They seem to be so knowledgeable and possess such good verbal and written skills that they can bring a person to believe what they profess. I can see the pride in every apologist and they have a lot of common characteristics like large ego’s. They are highly learned in their considerable studies, but this does not mean they have the truth. In fact, in spiritual matters this extensive learning is often problematic. They fall into the category Paul wrote about in first Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 1.18
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
19 For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”
The apologists of worldly religions will be destroyed as they are the “wisdom of the wise” that is, they think they are wise, so very wise even possessing the wisdom of God. They may appear as wise to the world using the wisdom of the world that is, the things that the world sees as wise perhaps certain clichés, popular ideas or even humorous double meanings to gain agreement. The truly wise speak as the oracles of God and do not add to or take away from God’s word. Apologist’s thrive on their ability to bring together different scriptures (out of context or partially or totally unrelated) to prove their point. Usually they mix their selected verses and add other external sources and anecdotes, human wisdom, admired notions and on and on.
The apologists are well defined as the prudent. Prudence is penetrating consideration before action or before speaking in order to get to the right answer. Being prudent in your considerations of worldly matters would be a good thing. For instance, in an important matter such as where to live or work or go to school deserves close consideration of the options to make the best choice. In matters of God, prudence is condemned, and God will bring the prudent apologist’s understanding to nothing. That should be very interesting – God condemning this process of penetrating consideration. This is because unlike “everything else” God’s word is not to be filtered or over analyzed. When these prudent things occur, God’s word is being changed. The religious universities of the world study, study, study to the point of a lifetime of work in their prudent effort and create garbage. You can see this easily since there are many such institutions all reaching different conclusions. For instance, God indicates certain things are sinful and such will not inherit the kingdom of God. The religious philosophers can find ways to excuse basically all types of sin or lessen their consequences. It may be as simple as saying, “here is what God really meant.” The apologists act prudently on all of God’s word and as mentioned typically arrive at considerably different meanings.
Catholicism is based on their claim to be authorized to change God’s word. They would say they have additional revelation or authority post the first century. This essentially amounts to changing the word of God because invariably their “creations” are adding to or taking away. In addition to the apostles, they consider some contemporary and many post first century person’s writings as authoritative. These persons were not inspired and sometime late in the first century all the revelation from God was completed. We had, as God indicated in 1 Peter, all things that pertain to life and godliness. For some strange reason these Catholic apologists want to use things not inspired as though we need more, even though God says we have all we need.
So many of the religions give respect to persons. In these organizations the one doing the teaching is frequently referred to as reverend. Seemingly, an unimportant thing, but it is terribly wrong. No person is to be revered, only God. The pope would be an example of one who receives extraordinary honor. There would be no honoring Mary as Catholics have perpetuated this idea. Religiously ONLY GOD is to be honored, the creator not the created. If you understand this, then you will not accept what such “honored” people teach – but look to God and His word for truth.
If you are astute you may notice how life passes quickly before us. You planned to do such a thing, and it happened and now is past. We have such Great Plans for our life and at times this may be seen in a certain arrogant and even in boasting way. This seems harmless, but God suggests you should look at life differently due to its brevity and not just in relation to what you want.
James 4.13-16
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”;
14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”
16 But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
You see, some people die tragically well before “their time.” You realize about 100 billion people have lived, but only about 7.5 billion are alive today. About 170,000 people die each day, but more than twice that are born. Many people work hard to keep from looking old, but they are as old as their days and eventually there is nothing they can do to maintain the pretense. God says life is short like a vapor that appears and then is gone. Certainly, those who are approaching death realize their opportunity to succeed is fading. In the case of being old they see life as short – where did my life go? Can you see value in understanding life is short – now, regardless of your age? One thing that should be despised is the lies in relation to what life is all about. You may not understand the treachery of religions that mislead people resulting in the loss of their souls, but you need to. It is not that hard to know this. Yet, it is obvious that those who “seek God in their immaturity” can be easily influenced. Apologists feed on people who are looking for something and provide the lie and it is accepted. Apologists are zealots for their cause and usually trained to believe that they are doing good. Their pride is apparently stronger than their love of the truth. This zeal for their cause comes through in the tenacity of their teaching and helps them be convincing. It does not mean they have the truth. Paul spoke of Israel as having a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
Romans 10.1-4
1 Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.
2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Jesus told His apostles that there would be those who would kill them believing they were doing God service. Unfortunately, the religions of the world followed this trend beginning with Catholicism thinking that by murder and torture they were serving God. The leader in this today is Islam who teach killing the infidels (anyone believing different than them).
John 16.2
2 They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service.
Today, worse than the murderous teachings of Islam, the religious so-called Christian teachers are killing the soul by convincing people in opposition to the truth everyone so badly needs. As Jesus warned:
Matthew 10:28
28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Topic 1: The Three Most Costly Failures of Humankind:
2. Failure to see God in the scriptures
3. Failure to take the scriptures seriously
This page emphasizes the later. In other words, people who see God in creation and see that God is the God of the bible. However, they do not take seriously the word of God and mishandle it to their own destruction. Specifically, we are talking about those who distort, change God’s truth and convince a person of the deceit. These are the apologists or the defenders of and promoters of the greatest evil. Their end is certain and so are those who follow the lies. Those who teach, defend and clarify THE TRUTH are of course serving a good purpose. In general, apologists should not be needed since the truth is simple. They do serve the purpose of converting people from error to truth – but it must be THE TRUTH. In this sense, those preachers of truth become apologists in the mode of teaching as they sort truth from error.
Topic 2: Apologists Needed to Maintain Error
Dedicated to Their “RELIGION” Not to the Truth
We could call these “Christian” apologist’s groups Catholic or Protestant or any other group name that sees the scriptures as the word of God. A skilled apologist can use scripture to teach many different things. Some know the bible very well and the points they make on a given subject may be correct or partially correct or totally in error. In any case, they can convince a person that their interpretation is correct. Recently, I heard an apologist use about eight verses in answering a question in relation to salvation and the way they were used was correct. Unfortunately, he then began to give further explanation without any scripture of how the Catholic Church provides all these things in their sacraments. He claims the directions given by the Catholic Church are truth and additionally only they have the Eucharist, which a person must have to truly receive Christ. Then he uses another verse out of context and completely misunderstood to support their teachings. Apologists often gain credibility as they sprinkle truth with error. Catholic doctrine is exactly the OPPOSITE of the truth on everything. I mentioned this apologist who used about eight verses correctly in relation to the subject of salvation but was only using them to provide apparent credibility for their false teachings. If he just stopped with the verses (correctly used), he would have the truth. He cannot do that because Catholic doctrine is completely different than the scriptures since they have added to and taken away from God’s word everywhere. In the scriptures there are no sacraments, no pope, no universal physical church, no mortal or venial sins, no confession to a priest, no priests in the new testament and on and on and on! It was unacceptable to God that Cain brought the wrong offering and all substitutions are not acceptable. The world would say, Cain had the right attitude – he brought something. Those going to heaven understand God and find no peace in excuses. Ananias and Sapphira provided funds to the church, but in some way lied about their offering and were struck dead. Naaman wanted to dip seven times in some other river than the Jordan and provided some options to the prophet. He would learn that God through the prophet meant what He said. This is the test of life – your obedience to God’s will as opposed to YOUR WAY. God rejects private interpretation. You will not be doing the things God requires unless you follow His directions and His directions are not those of Catholicism, Protestantism or any of the others. It should be obvious that God’s perfection cannot be superseded by the things humankind believes make sense. The following verse condemns the apologists and causes grief for those who believe them. Take God for what He says and not for what someone explains God meant.
21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
God brings clarity to this in 1 Peter.
As mentioned, there is a sense where preachers of truth could be referred to as apologists – but it must be THE TRUTH. The distinction is that they preach the word and that is their focus, and questions will come, and they need to be prepared to give an answer of the hope within them. There is no private interpretation or speaking differently than the word of God for those who bring the truth. They are to convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. The apologists of the world-created religions convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine that is, their human-devised doctrines. Their evil is the greatest because it costs the souls of innumerable people – so devastating! Lying is the most condemned thing and apologists appearing to be wonderful people are most dreaded, most destructive – evil personified.
But those who deal truthfully are His delight.
Apologetic instruction has come to be known as the defense of different human-created religions. It is better if those of the truth not use this term since in 99.9% of the cases apologists are defending error. A more solid idea is that there are those who are children of God, sometimes located preachers, who reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. Every child of God needs to do this and there is no need for a special class name. The name apologist brings confusion and association with the massive number of those who use that title in the support of the propagation of error.
Topic 3: False Religion Is Easily Discerned for Those That Love the Truth
17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.
Thus, sorting truth from error involves wisdom from God and that comes from the pure (not-altered) word of God. What God provided is perfect in converting the soul and that is why adding to, taking away or in any way changing the gospel of God results in error. Remove those actions by humankind as they interact with the bible and you have the truth.
Topic 4: Sorting Truth from Error – Origins
All religions are man-made except for one. The one from God is true and with a dedicated effort this can easily be seen. These pages can help”
Religious Comparison Charts
Foundations
Topic 5: Sorting Truth from Error – Misusing the Scripture
In fact, the church was built on Jesus as the Son of God – That Is What Happened! It was God’s plan (the church) since Genesis 3.15 and was about to occur following Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. The language here does not define much about this idea of church, but Jesus will be providing the apostles with insight and most powerfully give them the comforter. Peter is mentioned because He just gave the right answer (from the Father) by rightly answering Jesus’ question – Jesus was the Son of God. Thus, the rock is what Peter just said that is, Jesus is the Son of God. That would end up being exactly what would differentiate people throughout history in terms of being added to the church by the Lord Himself. This fact is at the center of God’s purpose and that is the significance of this verse.
That is all fine and good and easily understood. Then along comes some who teach that Peter was the one on whom the church was to be built. Of course, Jesus said nothing about the church being built on anyone, but that He would build His church. These verses do not support Peter being the head of the church and in fact in the entirety of the authorized record, Peter or no person heads the church. It is amazing that the Holy Spirit would work with the apostles guiding them into ALL TRUTH for something less than 70 years and Peter is never mentioned as the head of the church.
Topic 6: Pause to Understand the Correct Meaning of the word Church
Then the Impossibility of Having a Head Other than Christ Can Be Understood
Thus, there are two senses of the word church (“called out”).
Their worship is spiritual that is, in Spirit and truth
Their singing is spiritual making melody in the heart
Their giving is spiritual as they purpose in their hearts
Their preaching is spiritual as it is the truth, from God – no changes
Their prayers are spiritual – they follow the pattern of prayers such as addressed to the Father through (by the authority of) the Son. They are in no way frivolous or repetitive, but reverent, from righteous persons (in Christ). See Miracles, Healing, Prayer
The mechanism of being “called out” is by the gospel message. If you are going to use the common language word “church,” it is important to realize the meaning is the “called out.” It is easier to justify error if you think Jesus was building a physical church needing oversight/direction. The Lord has oversight over His body knowing who INDEED have obeyed the gospel and who are remaining faithful. Once you place humans in the SPIRITUAL PROCESS you end up with all kinds of things that support the loss of souls.
In summary, those “in Christ” preach the truth and people of their own free will obey the gospel and the Lord adds them to His spiritual body. Then they choose to associate with the local group. The letters of Paul were to the local churches of saints, never to a central church, which never existed.
A little more clarity, do you want to be part of what Jesus said He would build? If you understand God, you can see how everything fits perfectly together in His word. When you understand, “I will build My church” means the universal spiritual church, then you can easily reject “churches” by their physical characteristics.
This is what Jesus was referring to in Matthew 16.18, it is the kingdom He came preaching. The physical group of “called out” or the “local called out” consists of those in the universal spiritual church that have a local leadership of elders, who serve having met the qualifications defined very specifically by God. This idea of “calling out” is used throughout the scriptures in relation to salvation, to God’s purpose, to the eternal purpose, to our hope, to being called out of the world, to being called by the gospel among others. It is a spiritual process of calling out. It is spiritual, just as was God’s purpose in sending Jesus and thus relates to your very personal battle with sin. Some physical organization cannot call out people or can such an earthly organization be the universal home of God’s saints – such an organization cannot resolve your problem of sin. Jesus through the Holy Spirit defines the process of having sins forgiven and in obedience the Lord adds those to His spiritual body – the spiritual “called out” and if properly understood the spiritual church. It is truly absurd to have a physical universal church with central head and all that rule-making.
The scriptures refer to this calling from God that is, Jesus statement that He would build His church. Ultimately, it is the gospel call (1 Corinthians 15.1-4). Below are a few verses that use this calling out in relation to God’s people and can be helpful in your understanding.
The calling of God is according to God’s purpose.
The calling is not for some, but a correct understanding is that some eliminate themselves by their characters – God designs this perfectly into His plan. These are those who in pride and selfishness cannot see the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1.18,19).
Paul is very specific as to those who turned away from HIM (the Lord), who called them by HIS gospel to a different gospel.
The church is in the eternal purpose of God. It is the church that Jesus said He would build. Those in the body of Christ would reveal the manifold wisdom of God – no more mystery.
10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made KNOWN BY THE CHURCH to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,
11 according to the ETERNAL PURPOSE which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord,
These verses below reveal the seven one’s of God and they are tightly knit together. The hope of humankind to succeed is singular and involves their calling.
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
6 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
Our calling is to holiness, that is to be separated for God and certainly that is not a call to uncleanness. The gospel message of obedience requires repentance (leaving sin) and living a life for Christ and the gospel.
8 Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.
Jesus called us by glory and virtue. Indeed, Jesus fulfilled Matthew 16.18 when He said, “I will build my church.”
Now, for most of the “Christian world, as they refer to themselves” there is knowledge that the word “church” means the “called out.” So, when this is the thought behind the word “church” there is no problem – use the word church. The problem comes when despite that understanding, their organizations corrupt the meaning of Matthew 16.18. The Catholics create a physical church and have a physical leader when the clear meaning was that Jesus would build His church. More correctly, Jesus would call out certain persons to be in His kingdom – spiritual.
14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
Jesus made it clear that His kingdom, the called-out, the church was not of this world.
We see that after people for the first time obeyed the gospel in Acts 2.38 that the Lord added those to the church (they were called out by the gospel message). So, if we summarize, people respond to the gospel message by obeying it and sins are forgiven and the Lord adds them to His spiritual body – Acts 2.47.
Especially among the Protestants there are those who do not understand the kingdom is the church. Some actually believing God failed to establish the kingdom. Colossians 2.13 would not agree with that or would Mark 9.1 or would the entirety of scripture. You might want to look at “The Kingdom is the Church.”
If Catholicism understood Jesus was building His church in the context of Matthew 16.18 and NOT referencing a physical body, then Catholicism would not exist. Well, they would not and should not exist if truth mattered.
Protestantism also stumbles over Matthew 16.18 inasmuch as they give credence to the Catholic idea of a church as physical and set out only to reform Catholicism. The Protestant churches despite knowing the meaning of “church” end up like Catholicism, believing the “church” Jesus said He would build to be an assembly of persons. In Protestantism a person joins their physical churches. They would in general say you can join if you meet their criteria and that might be accepting Jesus as their savior. Where did they get that idea? Well it must be from their leadership. Their leadership in some way officially adds them to their membership. Interestingly, some of their churches also require a person to be baptized to join their church. Of course, in truth they should be baptized for forgiveness of past sins. The church that Jesus built has Him personally adding those who obey the gospel to His spiritual body. As a Protestant convert you have joined some group of people, a fellowship of people that has no relationship with God and carries some name like Lutheran or Baptist or Presbyterian or endless other names.
So, if we summarize, people respond to the gospel message by obeying it and sins are forgiven and the Lord adds them to His spiritual body – Acts 2.47. That is not complicated and it produced sons of God in the first century and it will do the same today.
Topic 7: The Head of the Church as Defined by God
23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—
Topic 8: The Epitome of Evil and How It Grows
How Getting Matthew 16.18 Wrong Led to Massively More Error in Matthew 16.19
God did through the Holy Spirit define a local church consisting of those who were added by the Lord to His body (the church). Again, the local group is physical with a defined organization and purpose. There is oversight of each independent local church in terms of elders, who must be qualified as God designates and they are serving the local members, providing help. They make no rules in the spiritual sense and are very aware that the bible is the only rule book. The rules are what God delivered by His Holy Spirit. There are no adds to, and no subtracts from Gods’ will.
You can easily identify adding to and taking away from the word of God – it is different, even creating entirely foreign new ideas and principles. Peter was a fellow elder at Jerusalem and that is what we know – do not take away from that and do not add to that.
Those who claim the right to change the message from God or interpret their way are an abomination. One such group claimed this right and since there has been on-going divergence from the truth. It is the height of dishonor to God to claim you speak for God. Catholicism claims this right to make the rules based on the 19th verse of Matthew 16.
There is no explanation regarding how the loosing and binding will be done in this verse. A reasonable understanding of God from the scriptures will allow you to understand God is not relinquishing the making of the rules to humankind – it would be unknown, and it would be a mess. Of course, those advocating such an idea might say that they were being led by the Holy Spirit. In fact, this is exactly what happened to the apostles as indicated by Jesus. The apostles were guided by the Holy Spirit into all truth (John 13.16). That work was gradual throughout their lives and ended late in the 1st century as indicated by Jude 3, 2 Peter 1.2-4, and 1 Corinthians 13.10.
We have that which is perfect, the word of God completed, and people want more, but God makes it clear that the faith was once delivered to the saints.
Peter writes that we have ALL things that pertain to life and godliness, what more is needed. Apparently, there are those who think we need thousands of more things.
3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,
4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
As one studies the scriptures there is one thing very clear and that is how God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit have completed their work. The outcome of their work is Jesus fulfilling the promise of the Father and the Holy spirit guiding the apostles into all truth while confirming the truth. Now, God has completed all things leaving humankind with the entire revelation of truth as intended. The message from God is complete. Humankind, of course wants more, wants something different and does not accept the message.
This is where people fail as they reject the clarity from God. They reject God with their inventions – their additions and subtractions. Since the first century we have almost 2000 years of changing God’s word and it is likely that much is believed because it has been around so long. It happens because people do not like the message from God. God however, will get exactly those He wants to share in the divine nature – humble, obedient, selfless persons who are lovers of the truth. There will only be a few, but as always God will have the best. God’s word is still there, and all the changes are hanging around associated with the religions of humankind and there is a lot of complication. How badly do you want to go to heaven?
If you take what God says, it is simple:
Here is what Catholicism teaches:
The faith was NOT once delivered to the saints, that we did NOT have ALL things that pertain to life and godliness, and that the word of God was NOT complete (or perfect). 1 Timothy 3.16,17 says the scriptures were able to make the man of God complete (or perfect), but human teachers say a person needs more. Can someone add to or take away from what God says is complete / perfect?
It is no wonder that they need to make the rules, otherwise they do not exist.
17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Topic 9: Helping Overcome the Deceit Through Understanding God’s Revelation
One reason everything fits together is the consistency and simplicity of God’s word. Of course, God is perfect and what He left for humankind is perfect (2 Samuel 22.31). God claims He is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14.33). That makes it easy to eliminate the confusing religions of humankind.
2. Think about God’s purpose in view of what is being taught and understand God as He has revealed Himself.
One of the easiest ways to differentiate truth from error is in the area of worship. The principle in scripture is to obey God to worship Him. The farthest thing from worship is “worshipping” your way. In worship you submit yourself to God and that is not done when you think, “here God, look at what I am doing for you.” God indicates how He is not worshipped (Acts 17) and how He must be worshipped – John 4.24. False religions typically worship God their way and thus it is easy to reject them.
3.Look at the characteristics of false teachers – does this apologist fit the pattern? Not every false teacher will have these characteristics, but most do. There is a large ego that is seen even though they try to cover it with the appearance of humility. It can be terribly obvious. There is insecurity and there is an ever-increasing attempt to find more ways to defend what they teach. This is because they are defending things that cannot be defended. They can get way off-base in making their points. The problem is the most fundamental teaching of their “religion” is weak, difficult to justify.
4. Look for problems in how one scripture is connected to another and only accept how scriptures are rightly connected being consistent with ALL SCRIPTURE and GOD’s PURPOSE.
5. Look for conclusions that violate basic principles. An example would be using the old law to support what they want to teach/practice as part of New Testament Christianity.
6. Apologists go right from scripture to their private interpretations – There is no need for private interpretation because the scriptures interpret themselves. God means what He says and exactly as He says it.
7. It is critical to take seriously God’s word – carelessness in handling God’s word can cost you your soul. False teachers have a pattern of casualness about their teaching. They explain their meaning instead of letting God’s word provide the simple truths.
8. Catholics liberally create new doctrine from some verses while avoiding the obvious meaning. They are consistent in teaching physical meanings of things that clearly have only spiritual significance. They claim that the Lord’s supper is more than a remembrance, a memorial (as the scriptures teach) but the elements are the actual body and blood of Christ. They create a priesthood and they perform in some ways similar to the old testament priests. How many fundamental aspects of scripture do they violate? They justify their every lie by saying God authorized them to make the rules. There is no higher abomination than speaking for God as opposed to speaking as the oracles of God- God breathed speech.
9. Catholics invent doctrine to fit their purposes – Matthew 16.16-19. These verses do not come close to teaching the Catholic meaning, in fact the truth is the opposite of their meaning.
10. The obvious meaning of one mediator is one mediator, but apologists provide reasons there are many.
Topic 10: Godly Principles, Warnings and Beginning to Better Understand God
1) God cannot lie, and He makes this clear and this will bring both confidence and terror. As always it will bring those who have a desire to find a contradiction and they will succeed in their minds, but a thorough understanding of all scripture will show they are wrong.
2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and PERFECT will of God.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
10 But when that which is PERFECT has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
So, we mentioned two, actually three important principles about God – there are many more. They were God cannot lie, God and His word are perfect, and we included that God limits Himself. The limiting is understood by being infinitely good – no evil in Him. This shows up in not being able to lie, being perfect and the limits He placed on Himself as part of His test of humankind – such as providing free will and for one thing that limits His interference in the evil that is done – at least to a large degree. In the days of Noah, evil filled the earth and God did not interfere with people doing evil but did bring an end to those people before all souls were lost – saving just eight of perhaps many millions.
There are various aspects of perfection that can help people’s understanding of God. Due to the importance some will be mentioned here. Honestly, it is implied but not said in so many words – maybe a necessary inference. I mention it with a warning that it seems to me from all scripture to help understand something important about God, about life. Something helpful to the one that says since God can do all things why does He have to go through the test? God limits Himself due to His perfection and His purpose, as just mentioned He cannot lie. If He can do all things why can’t He lie. The answer is that He is perfect and if you look at all scripture you will see He is perfectly good. Even when He may appear to be bad or evil, He is perfectly good – if you understand ………. and you can understand if you love the truth. Helping you to understand God are many pages at “Heaven Coach.” Two of those pages are:
Let us continue this thinking. A great deal can be gleaned from a scriptural understanding of worship. God cannot truly be worshiped by forcing people to worship Him. This seems to be very reasonable – at least it is to me. Worship to have value cannot be faked especially to God who knows the heart, perfectly. God tests the heart of people by giving them choices and thus a free will. In the free will state provided to humankind they can choose to reject God or to follow God. The test to have value must be difficult to display the character of a person. Thus, we have rules designed to challenge a person to either follow the lusts of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life OR choose to follow God in word and deed by rejecting the former. Those who indeed worship God are worthy of sharing in the divine nature. So, it comes back to God’s perfection and needing perfection in those who will share His divine nature. They will do as Christ said and live their lives for Him and the gospel. Humankind never gets it right unless they get it from God’s perfect word.
It was God’s plan since sin entered God’s creation to reconcile humankind back to Him in Christ (Genesis 3.15).
If you are wise in the ways of God, you will see how God has fit everything perfectly together, so you can succeed and know this with certainty from that which is perfect.
Topic 11: God Graciously Reveals a Great Deal About Himself and Warns Us About the Seriousness of Life
The solution was to send Jesus and He would satisfy perfection by covering those who choose to obey Him. It required that Jesus become a man and live a perfect life. Jesus did this by living a sinless life being obedient to the Father (Hebrews 5.8,9). In effect, Jesus would cover the sins of those who choose to follow the creator, demonstrating this by their obedience to the Son. We repeat Romans 3.25 from just above as it was God’s means to pass over sins.
What is missing? The HOW or we might say the process by which past sins will be covered, forgiven, or passed over would not be revealed until after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.
He tells the apostles that the Holy Spirit will come to them and guide them into all truth. The truth revealed how past sins would be forgiven. THE TRUTH is perfect. That means it is complete, it is ALL we need, and God so indicated by inspiration to Peter.
3 as His divine power has given to us ALL THINGS THAT PERTAIN TO LIFE AND GODLINESS, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,
4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the DIVINE NATURE, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Humankind cannot make the rules for God, it would be wrong, confusing, deceitful and nonetheless many have tried, and it is called religion, more accurately the religions of the world.
When humanity speaks in relation to spiritual matters it is only true if it is the oracles of God. Whenever there is humankind making rules, it is the height of blasphemy. It goes against God’s very purpose. If you want the truth, you need to humbly accept God’s message. God in His perfection did not fail to warn about the false teaching in its various forms that would be coming.
2 speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron,
Paul saw the gospel being changed and marveled that it was occurring so soon.
7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.
Jesus warned of false prophets.
The efforts of men to change the doctrine of Christ are quite amazing in their dedication to deceit and below are categorized as the trickery of men, as cunning craftiness and deceitful plotting.
Indeed, all these warnings represent the predicted error that did come to pass and continues to this day. Behind this well thought out (apologetic style, verse 14 above) are selfish motives related to things like power over others, creating acceptability for certain sins and creating doctrines to support desired beliefs and lifestyle. It should be obvious as pointed out previously that once this begins, errors quickly multiply. Some additional errors are needed to protect earlier errors. What a mess, what confusion and the cost to souls is pathetic. This is inevitable when men/women are involved, and it certainly has come to pass. God, being exceedingly wiser provided perfection in His word and simplicity and consistency and demanded no changes.
Topic 12: “Listen” to God’s Word Not What Men/Women Say God’s Word Teaches
People obeyed God and were added to the church beginning in Acts 2. The word of God was gradually delivered by the Holy Spirit throughout much of the first century and it would authorize a defined local group of the “called out.” Those in the body of Christ were first called Christians at Antioch. God’s plan was one of simplicity where there was reconciliation back to God as sins were forgiven and local groups of “saints” would continue to bring the message, the gospel message.
Why would anyone oppose God’s will and create something different to their own destruction? They would do this because they love the world and what this short lifetime has to offer. They would choose to reject the God of the bible because He is harsh, He does not allow what they want and essentially, they are overtaken by pride. They follow the human-made doctrines because they fit their version of life. Such simple things from God and you are turned by the apologists with their cunningly devised lies to believe them. It is your fault, because you did not receive a love of the truth that you might be saved (2 Thessalonians 2.10). You cannot understand God if you are “listening” to what men/women teach about God and His word.
Topic 13: Perfection Versus the Apologist Deceit
10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,
11 according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord,
Someone is going to say God delivered His word via the Holy Spirit perfectly. However, in using men to transmit the message going forward the word has been changed and now we no longer have the truth. They are saying there have naturally been errors in transmission, i.e. translations and so-on. You underestimate God and those who love the truth. We have the word of God and although some have made changes, they are easily discerned by those who love the truth. We have the truth! People love to raise issues that claim there are problems with the scriptures but fail to realize who they are dealing with. God creates everything by saying or thinking them into existence and all for His purpose (your success), but somehow cannot assure humankind has His word they need to succeed – how ridiculous. Simply said, God can handle all your concerns so focus on doing your part and succeeding in life.
Topic 14: The Doctrines of Catholicism and Protestantism are the Opposite of the Truth, Opposite of God’s Perfection
Where in the scriptures is the “receive Jesus as your personal savior and be saved?” Where is once saved, always saved? Where is inherited depravity? All these Protestant things came from men and not God – their churches, their worship, their missions. You will find the opposite of each taught in scripture. You are dealing with God when you have His word and changing it is pathetic and then having apologists defend the changes to perpetuate the deceit is soul destructive. God being PERFECT has carefully laid out His purpose and detailed all that has happened from creation until His last communication in His word in the later part of the 1st century. The solution indicated in Genesis 3.15 has been completed and we can achieve what He wants for all of us – eternal life. We stand in the way of ourselves reaching heaven by the decisions we make. There is no excuse, we have that which is perfect, and it describes God and encourages and tells us the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. God’s word tells us not to be conformed to the world and defines sin and indicates those who practice such will not receive the kingdom of God. God carefully details the plan of salvation and it is the gospel message, the truth about what to do and how to live.
God reveals He cannot lie and thus every word from God has value and that means our fate is defined by the things we do, whether good or evil. It means we need to be perfect and God tells us how. It means Christ will return and take His body, the church to be with Him forever and that those remaining will stand before the judgment of seat of Christ – not a good thing!
Who can change God’s word and survive His wrath – no one! It is absurd how people think they will ask God questions or portray some kind of defense for their failure in life. God does not make mistakes and it is very likely when your end has come God’s power, magnificence will be overwhelming and there will be no questions, no excuses. Now is the time to come to grips with truth – while you are alive. In spiritual matters, you cannot afford to be lazy and depend on some person, perhaps some apologist but you need to understand what you believe, and it needs to be your life’s quest. That is because life is about the soul and absolutely about nothing else. This is the realization you will have at the end of your life when everything else is gone. God in His perfect revelation to humankind did not leave you without an understanding of what to do with your life and the consequence of not doing it. Can you see this in Mark 8, below?
36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?
If you are one of those rare teachers of truth, perhaps referred to as an apologist then you have the greatest possible respect of God’s revelation and fear changing it in any way. You teach God’s perfect word and that it should not be changed. God’s word becomes very simple when it has not been changed.
How simple?
• Here is God’s purpose
• Here is God’s plan
• Here is the reconciliation in Christ
• Here is what to do to have a relationship with God and maintain it
• Here is how to live
• Here is the outcome
God is not the author of confusion, but Jesus is the author of eternal salvation to all those who obey Him. You need to understand what God is the author of, and what He is not the author of. However, when people do not see God’s word as perfect, they change it and live confused and in sin and will eventually fail. Apologists are those contributing to the confusion with their defense of changes to the word of God. Apologists need to understand “PERFECT” and respect God’s way.
Topic 15: God’s Way, God’s Purpose Not Aligned with What People Want
It is quite amazing how apologists earn the respect of people. They seem to be so knowledgeable and possess such good verbal and written skills that they can bring a person to believe what they profess. I can see the pride in every apologist and they have a lot of common characteristics like large ego’s. They are highly learned in their considerable studies, but this does not mean they have the truth. In fact, in spiritual matters this extensive learning is often problematic. They fall into the category Paul wrote about in first Corinthians.
19 For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”
The apologists are well defined as the prudent. Prudence is penetrating consideration before action or before speaking in order to get to the right answer. Being prudent in your considerations of worldly matters would be a good thing. For instance, in an important matter such as where to live or work or go to school deserves close consideration of the options to make the best choice. In matters of God, prudence is condemned, and God will bring the prudent apologist’s understanding to nothing. That should be very interesting – God condemning this process of penetrating consideration. This is because unlike “everything else” God’s word is not to be filtered or over analyzed. When these prudent things occur, God’s word is being changed. The religious universities of the world study, study, study to the point of a lifetime of work in their prudent effort and create garbage. You can see this easily since there are many such institutions all reaching different conclusions. For instance, God indicates certain things are sinful and such will not inherit the kingdom of God. The religious philosophers can find ways to excuse basically all types of sin or lessen their consequences. It may be as simple as saying, “here is what God really meant.” The apologists act prudently on all of God’s word and as mentioned typically arrive at considerably different meanings.
Catholicism is based on their claim to be authorized to change God’s word. They would say they have additional revelation or authority post the first century. This essentially amounts to changing the word of God because invariably their “creations” are adding to or taking away. In addition to the apostles, they consider some contemporary and many post first century person’s writings as authoritative. These persons were not inspired and sometime late in the first century all the revelation from God was completed. We had, as God indicated in 1 Peter, all things that pertain to life and godliness. For some strange reason these Catholic apologists want to use things not inspired as though we need more, even though God says we have all we need.
So many of the religions give respect to persons. In these organizations the one doing the teaching is frequently referred to as reverend. Seemingly, an unimportant thing, but it is terribly wrong. No person is to be revered, only God. The pope would be an example of one who receives extraordinary honor. There would be no honoring Mary as Catholics have perpetuated this idea. Religiously ONLY GOD is to be honored, the creator not the created. If you understand this, then you will not accept what such “honored” people teach – but look to God and His word for truth.
If you are astute you may notice how life passes quickly before us. You planned to do such a thing, and it happened and now is past. We have such Great Plans for our life and at times this may be seen in a certain arrogant and even in boasting way. This seems harmless, but God suggests you should look at life differently due to its brevity and not just in relation to what you want.
14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”
16 But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Today, worse than the murderous teachings of Islam, the religious so-called Christian teachers are killing the soul by convincing people in opposition to the truth everyone so badly needs. As Jesus warned:
This is the result of the work of apologist’s. You will not typically find them to be evil people, but ultimately you will. We put trust in people in relation to eternity and this is a very bad decision. Once again, understand what you believe.
The art of the false teacher is to appear as one with profound knowledge and understanding of things spiritual. God’s word was specifically designed to be easily understood in relation to the basics. Those who twist the scriptures do so to their own destruction and often to many others.
2 Peter 3.16
16 ……. which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures
Topic 16: Apologists – Not Thinking/Over-Thinking and What are Their Motives?
The apologists should be able to recognize the error they teach and were undoubtedly taught. If you understand God and His perfection you will realize that He left us with exactly what we need, and we can differentiate truth from error. God indicates that if any man speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God that is, God breathed speech. He also says the scriptures are of no private interpretation. Thus, with just a little thought and respect for the word of God you can have what you need to succeed. Take a person who speaks this way, rightly dividing the word of God and seriously consider what is being taught. When someone brings new things and changes you should be wary.
The bible has no concept of a pope and certainly no one held such a position. There is no original sin or inherited depravity – these things like so much of false teaching is men and/or women inventing things that in most cases seem plausible, well, humanly plausible. Unfortunately, they change God’s word and even more unfortunately they teach in a way that makes the gospel of no value. It is like Paul said:
Galatians 1.6-9
6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel,
7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.
8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.
9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
Apologetic’s is a job and it might be full time like a pastor or priest or a university theologian, so the motive could be having a good job. There can be prestige, speaking engagements, books and a variety of opportunities. Strangely enough many in their scholarly workings, prudent investigations have come to personally doubt God’s existence. Others, not going that far reject some of the things they do not like, often some of the things God calls sin.
Topic 17: Catholicism – Just Not Believable
Catholic’s changed the gospel by their “violent” and prejudicial interpretation to justify their right to effectively add to God’s word using entirely new and foreign concepts to the word of God. These changes come in the form of their doctrines from Rome in many different forms. Nothing is viler than their private interpretation of Matthew 16.15-19. First, they create their pope and then claim that the apostles were authorized to determine what would be bound and loosed.
Note: The apostles did bind and loose what God delivered through the Holy Spirit.
Of course, they do not stop there, but they continue this past the death of the apostles and authorize their hierarchy the right to effectively “change the scriptures” by their additions/subtractions to this day. The whole of scripture has God alone making the rules. The apostles were to be guided into all truth by the Holy Spirit and these truths were the things they would bind and loose as they brought the gospel message to the world. This binding and loosing was to the people from the apostles, who were themselves guided by the Holy Spirit. It is like God speaking to the prophets (who were “binding and loosing” God’s will) to the people. It is beyond being ridiculous to think that these men could make the rules and then extend that to be continued throughout history. If you love the truth, you can see in the scriptures how speaking as God speaks and no more and no less provided for the salvation of souls. In fact, after the apostles received the Holy Spirit they preached the truth and people were saved and added to the body of Christ by the Lord Himself. Why is anything else needed? When something is added to or taken away from God’s word, it is a lie. Such arrogance, such pride as seen in the apologists, in the pope, in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and all the Protestant churches that follow the teachings of Luther, Calvin, Wesley and others.
We are talking about using the word of God incorrectly and there is just one word for that – PATHETIC.
It seems no matter how much scriptural evidence there is demonstrating the serious error of Catholicism and Protestantism that people still do not just walk away. The reason is the “fine” job of the apologists in convincing people. At least easily convincing people who are lazy in their search for truth. So, we repeat what is mentioned above. Namely, if the concept, if the teaching is not in the bible and if it is not consistent across all scripture then it is not from God. The very idea of a central body or organization such as the Lutheran Church or the Catholic Church or the Methodist Church or the Baptist Church is alien to the scriptures. Once you get to that point you will have rule making, hierarchies and all sorts of complexities and clearly in opposition to what was delivered. Because these organizations use the scriptures and use Jesus name they give the appearance of truth. They are the most significant source of evil in the world. One might say in relation to evils such as cruelties, hatreds and murder, how can they be the worst? That is easy, if you look at what Jesus said:
Matthew 10.28
28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Of course, murder is a terrible thing and those who commit it fall into a category of those that will be lost. If you are the victim of a murderer then you lose your body, but that murderer cannot condemn you to a lost state. If you die in sin that is your fault, your choice. These false religions are true evil inasmuch as they convince you this is what you need, and then can stop your search since you believe you have found the truth.
Topic 18: The Audacity of Humankind’s Religions
Throughout Heaven Coach there are consistent correct explanations of verses that people use wrongly to teach error. Catholics use Matthew 16.16-19 as the basis for their existence and verses from John 6 to justify the creation of their Eucharistic abomination. These are easily shown to be wrong within these verses and within an understanding of all scripture.
Let us take a different view of the audacity of Catholicism and all false religions. It is most basic to understand God and His word when you acknowledge God’s perfection in everything and the outcome is respect for God and His way. When we see that God’s word is perfect in conversion and God is perfect in love and in justice and that He cannot lie we should realize He can assure that His word has been delivered PERFECTLY. It may not seem perfect to those who do not like its message or to those who do not understand His purpose or even more precisely those who do not understand God as He has revealed Himself. God provided His Son for the reconciliation of humankind and He would not in His perfection confuse good hearts in relation to their part in the process. Yet, to fulfill His purpose and ultimately that meant differentiating those worthy from those who were unworthy, He devised a way that PERFECTLY exposed the hearts of people. The humble, selfless, courageous would accept God’s way and the proud, selfish and cowardly would not. These are the general characteristics of those who succeed and those who fail.
note: It is fair and complete in saying those who are humble, selfless and courageous and continue to initial obedience are those who are added to the body of Christ. Nonetheless, they need to continue their faithfulness until their end to achieve the crown of life – heaven.
Catholicism would evolve from power hungry, paranoid men who would make rules by claiming to hold the keys to the kingdom of heaven and eventually would rule much of the world by fear – an example was excommunication, which would mean loss of a person’s soul due to their disconnection from the Roman Catholic Church. Apparently, that was not enough as they set out to destroy (murder, torture) those who opposed. Their cruelty stands as a monument to the evilest of institutions. In more recent times, Catholicism changed because they were forced to do so, and the availability of God’s word had a great deal to do with that change. Catholicism changed from the murderous, tyrannical “religion” to one where peace and concern for people’s well-being is touted. Throughout the early to middle 20th century (as all the previous years) Catholicism did not allow bibles for the people. Some existed with the Catholic imprimatur filled with warnings that only the Catholic church could properly interpret the scriptures. They knew very well that the scriptures did not support their doctrines. Enter more Catholic apologists and in the late 20th century and into the 21st century the bible is not only available but is encouraged in its use. The catholic church has been a survivor with the greatest survival rate in third world countries where their mysticism and ceremonial/emotional aspects still impress.
It is amazing how well evil, paranoia, wealth and power can successfully pretend to be the church belonging to Christ. They do this by having a physical church of strong outward enticements such as magnificent physical buildings, ceremonies, impressive music and singing, statues, incense and teaching Christ is present and personally available to each person. They overcome all the senses. However, they are not able to overcome anyone who loves the truth.
In Catholicism there is an undeserved sense of security that is built on deceit and part of that is their teaching on purgatory. Purgatory of course, is not true neither is it relevant since Catholics are not in the body of Christ. The scriptures have been changed such that no Catholics are saved and the same is true for Protestants. God was serious about not changing His word. The apologists are appropriately those that exalt themselves just as their institutions exalt themselves by changing God’s word. Their exaltation will have its just reward as indeed will those who are humble.
Matthew 23.12
12 And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
Catholics create a religion with their popes, priests, ceremonies and doctrines without any authority. In their apologetic ways they attempt to make it seem logical. The scriptures represent perfect logic, since God is perfectly logical. Don’t be confused, part of God’s logic is to use faith as He defines it in the process of pleasing Him (Hebrews 11.6). Faith properly understood is perfectly logical and a key element in your salvation. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11.6) and God ties faith directly to His word by indicating Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10.17). Faith in Catholicism comes from the changed word of God and offers all the physical benefits of membership in the institution belonging to humankind’s religions.
Catholicism is responsible for innumerable lost souls and there is an obvious extension to Protestantism and all the lost souls from that system. Certain persons such as Luther in their enthusiasm for moving away from the terrorism of Catholicism rushed to many wrong conclusions as well as keeping pieces of Catholicism. The flaws in Protestantism were continually being discovered and led to the various “denominations.” Religions such as Mormonism came from the Protestant disillusioned John Smith. Even Islam was influenced in its creation of its religion by Catholicism, which was wrongly referred to as Christianity by Mohammed. Long before the time of Mohammed the principles of Christianity had been devoured by evil men. Christianity century after century (from the first century as Paul indicated) was evolving away from what God delivered as truth. Officially, Catholicism appears about 606 AD with their first pope. We might say the first bishop of Rome (Boniface III) to be called the universal bishop over all churches that is, the first pope. There were other bishops that claimed to be the head bishop before this such as Innocent I (402-417) who claimed to be “Ruler of the church of God.” and Leo I (440-461) who claimed to be “Lord of the whole church” and Gregory I (590-604) who is considered by some to be the first pope. Even then there were others who claimed the title of universal bishop such as the bishop of Constantinople during the time of Gregory I. Boniface III was more widely accepted and after this there seems to be more stability in their rule.
Beginning sometime in the first century to about 606 AD, Christianity was evolving to something very different than the word of God. As mentioned, Paul indicated the gospel message was changing during his time in the 1st century. As we march through these early centuries there remained some aspects of Christianity such as bishops (elders), but the qualifications were gradually completely ignored. There was a gradual oversight and rule-making / doctrine creating that came from men with the pinnacle of unrighteousness occurring in 325 AD at the first council of Nicaea. It is called the first ecumenical council of the Christian church and called by the emperor Constantine. Constantine had made Christianity the state religion in 312 AD. Catholics claim this as their first council, even though they or a pope did not exist. This was a time of local churches with bishops and widely varying doctrine. All this history and dates are not all that important, but what is important is that now officially there is an obvious public break with the word of God. Here we have men meeting across different local groups of so-called Christians (their local bishops) coming together to do rule-making. I say so-called Christians because they had undoubtedly long ago left the doctrine of Christ.
Note: “Wasting Your Life Resulting in a Failed Life”
The above discussion about the history of popes, Catholicism with dates and events DOES NOT MATTER. IT IS A WASTE OF TIME because it has no eternal value. There is no such thing as a pope, Peter was not the pope and Catholicism only serves to be a hindrance to humankind. I only provided the above possible if not likely extremely short history of Christianity evolving to Catholicism as an example of vanity in terms of your soul. We could say the same about the road from Catholicism to Protestantism. The distinction you need is truth versus error. This type of waste is also seen as science uses their known laws to prove a non-God way to explain existence. You should seek God, seek truth and focus on succeeding eternally. You can understand your purpose and be 100% convinced by the evidence from God as found in the scriptures.
Note: During the first few centuries, there were many faithful Christians and they suffered incredible persecution and from then until 312 AD there were periods of toleration and persecution. I suspect there were always some faithful Christians, but as they became integrated into different communities especially Rome where idol worship would be mixed into their Christianity the truth, which cannot be compromised was largely lost. Considering a public view, the world in referencing Christianity was seeing something very different than the doctrine of Christ. To this day the world in referencing, talking about Christianity is not talking about those “called out” by the Lord. The Lord’s people still exist and are the ones who have not changed the word of God. Yes, they are a small number.
Catholicism stands as the opposite to Christianity. Mohammed saw the evil in the early hierarchy and cruelty of Catholics actually much of this was pre-Catholic Christianity, especially around Rome. The Christianity of the bible likely existed during this time but was fading quickly. Mohammed, would have had no complaints about the character of Christians, but of course he saw an empire-building paranoid cruel hierarchy. If Mohammed saw Christians, he would not have seen them – that sounds wrong, but they would have existed in relatively small independent communities living by the principles mentioned for instance in Galatians. In todays godless society led by media and academic prejudice they never miss a chance to portray Christianity in a poor light, often as babbling idiots, spewing verses with vile tones, having deep-seeded immoral tendencies, harboring hatred and in screaming in wide-eyed rages. Those in the household of God and maintained in the body of Christ by the Lord Himself are characterized as mentioned below.
Galatians 5.22-25
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
Unlike the cruel hierarchical leadership of those calling themselves Christian, Christian leadership would have humbly been serving those in their local churches. No, Mohammed may not have ever heard of “Christianity” unless someone was carrying the word of God as Paul and others had done centuries before. Such Christians living consistent as they must as Galatians 5.22,23 would have appropriately represented the body of Christ.
The Catholics were the ones who decreed the crusades, long after Mohammed’s death. I mention this because people to this day cannot distinguish between Catholics and Christians and have an even harder time distinguishing between Protestants and Christians. Christians are the ones who have not changed the word of God. Mohammed, was influenced by both Jews and Catholics (pre-Catholicism) but was truly himself the evilest of men.
Calling yourself Christian and being a Christian are not the same thing. The best thing about Protestantism was getting the word of God to the people and that allowed for truth to be more available for those who loved it. The truth to them was more important than what they currently believed – these are the ones who God refers to as those who loved the truth that they might be saved. They had the wisdom to speak where the bible spoke and to be silent where the bible was silent, which is a version of not adding to or taking away or changing God’s word.
Thus, better understanding how Catholicism with all its terror, divisiveness and massive deceit survived and survives has some value especially for those caught in its web. The very sophisticated Catholic apologists of today convince and perpetuate the evil. They generally believe they are doing good and fail to consider the seriousness of God’s word as it has been divinely, thus perfectly delivered.
Topic 19: The Terrible Abomination of Mary Worship
Just Another Catholic Distraction
The Catholics have made Mary a central part of their religion and so much so that it must be defended or the whole of Catholicism would fall. Of course, it falls on every doctrine that exists in their religion. The Catholic doctrines of Mary, the mother of God is much like their invented miracles that exist (were created) to keep and grow their religion. They rather went “overboard” in their doctrines of Mary. It might seem like a very attractive thing to have Jesus honor His mother with such special considerations. It is so potentially emotional to make something spectacular from this relationship. I know many Catholics who have a greater devotion to Mary than Jesus or God. The truth is Jesus did love His mother and there is no reason to believe she was not very close to her Son. She knew before His birth that He was Emmanuel or “God with us.” She knew of His power to some extent as she asked Him to do something at the wedding feast. We are never told to honor her and in fact all such honor belongs only to God. In short this is the Catholic creation of Mary:
- Born without sin … they are talking about original sin (which does not exist)
- She never sinned …… apparently ALL did not include her
- She can be an intermediary with Christ (NO)
- She was miraculously taken to heaven (NO)
- She never had other children, although the scriptures indicate she did
- She appears at various times in various places for obscure reasons and predictions (NO)
- There is honor, upon honor heaped on Mary by Catholics, she is worshiped (this is terribly WRONG)
There are hundreds of honors and all sorts of societies and prayers to Mary. Catholicism, really Catholic apologists have created a scriptural path (a fantasy) of verses that justify this Mary devotion. As always, it is ridiculous and falls under the title of convincing by their much speaking. EVERYTHING in Catholic doctrine is wrong and it is justified by assuming it is right and finding ways to defend it. This is the apologist’s art of the lie. In the case of Mary, they go into all kinds of detail with mysterious connections to many different biblical events. The revelation from God is complete and there is no longer any mystery, no hidden meanings, no secret way that Mary was related to God’s purpose. The story of Mary is plainly described in scripture and is all there is and very straightforward. Regardless if it is Mary or their many miracles, or their specially designated saints, or apparitions, or elaborate buildings there is just one motive and it is related to supporting the deceit at the center of their organization – specifically they are an abomination to God. They focus on developing the details of their pathetic doctrines as opposed to the validity of the doctrine itself.
This Mary doctrine is a good example of a common method of convincing called “it seems right.”
Catholicism includes doctrines totally foreign to the word of God – a human head, ceremonies for everything, special honored persons (their saints documented), confessing sins to a special person (their priests), last chance ceremonies for “death bed salvation,” a way to overcome dying in sin by post life suffering (purgatory), categories of sin, their mass and Eucharist to create a special benefit for their members and the list is very long. These things might seem right but that does not make them right. Yet, “the seem right things” often bring acceptance. The word of God tells us to prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12.2
2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Do not accept what seems right but search the scriptures.
Acts 17.11
11 These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.
God, through the Holy Spirit knows about the onslaught coming to His children. After all they are the only ones who are on the road to heaven. He advises, test all things, hold fast what is good.
1 Thessalonians 5.21
21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.
Topic 20: Apologists, Teachers of Error – Your Alive – Wake Up – Avoid the Terror
Apologists (religious) are believed to have the art of the truth. After all, they are experts in their religion and capable of convincing just about anybody. Yet there are “hundreds” of religions being defended, validated by apologists and they are quite different often teaching the opposite of each other. It should be of concern that we have these bright, often brilliant people reaching entirely different conclusions and able to convince themselves, then others. Such a tremendous amount of study and if we consider Christianity, they all claim to use the same book, the bible. Where does the truth lie? That is easy. Truth comes from God to inspired men and if you respect God’s word, God’s way it is easy to differentiate truth from error.
2 Peter 1.20,21
20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation,
21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
The differences between truth delivered by the Spirit of God and the error taught exist because of deep-seeded prejudices, deeply held desires and other outside influences – maybe a family history of believing a certain way. The truth can be seen only when a person has a love of the truth and an attitude of fearing God and keeping His commands. God’s word is powerful in ways that are not imagined. One might expect God to be accurate, consistent in what He has delivered and that it is exactly at the center of fulfilling His purpose. Indeed, these are the characteristics of God’s word – perfect in every way. The beginning, the creation of God is associated directly to His word.
Psalms 33.6
6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
The central event in salvation is God’s Son’s obedience resulting in His terrible suffering and death followed by His resurrection. The word of God describes salvation’s relationship to this event perfectly beginning with Genesis 3.15. God’s word in its perfection persuades and/or antagonizes a person. God’s word is perfectly designed to reveal truth to those who have good hearts and hide itself from people dominated by certain characteristics. Proud, selfish people will not seek the God of the bible in a serious way.
The apologists for the world’s religions in their pride see their way as better, maybe more understandable, maybe easier, maybe able to increase the numbers of “believers,” maybe more attractive to the masses and on and on. God’s word does not require their expertise. As mentioned, God’s word has a built-in the means to attract people to the truth and built-in means to dissuade certain people from finding it – specifically the people via their persistent stubborn characters will not seek the truth. These are described in Romans as ” but to those who are self-seeking and DO NOT OBEY THE TRUTH, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath.” There is never any favoritism from God, but people choose to obey or not to obey. You might notice that in one case there is patient continuance (a choice) in doing good and in the other case those who have pleasure in unrighteousness (a choice).
Romans 2.7,8
7 eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality;
8 but to those who are self-seeking and DO NOT OBEY THE TRUTH, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath,
The verses below speak of deception and delusion as keeping people from having a successful life. In some way, the thing that alluded them was the truth. The solution is having a love of the truth and that brings obedience to the truth. God even brings strong delusion to those who rejected the truth and chose to have pleasure in unrighteousness.
2 Thessalonians 2.10-12
10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the LOVE OF THE TRUTH, that they might be saved.
11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie,
12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Preachers of truth need to PREACH THE WORD and respond to questions and be helpful and defend if required. The apologists bring in all sorts of complexity as part of overwhelming the listener /reader. Apologists become the perfect evil in terms of destroying souls. The art of the lie for the apologist begins with their credentials, the recognition of their skills defending and convincing and this establishes trust. People being misled by people and never coming to the realization that God left His word, not some men/women to explain His word as they best see fit.
Apologists art of the lie includes many techniques, and some have been mentioned. Much of apologist methods involve getting people to believe certain assumptions, actually bad assumptions and then build on that with details that might SEEM reasonable, even very good things. The foundation is wrong as mentioned at the beginning of this page. The most fundamental thing wrong with Catholicism is its very existence. Everything that follows is equally a lie. Protestantism is built on certain doctrines originated by Martin Luther and John Calvin and others and everything built on that foundation is wrong. In both cases they emphasize helping others, conversions, worshiping God and all those things are wrong because they are not consistent with the truth.
Apologists need to understand the seriousness of handling God’s word as it is perfect, and perfect in conversion.
2 Samuel 22.31
31 As for God, His way is perfect; The word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.
Psalm 19:7
7 The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;
One thing good to know for apologists is that they are hell-bound for their evil works in opposition to God’s word. Jesus made clear the result of those who taught others error in religious matters when He told the Jews of the outcome of their proselytizing.
Matthew 23.15
15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
The Jews long before the arrival of Jesus had butchered the word of God with their tradition. Jesus was also very direct in pointing out the seriousness and how their ways result in useless worship.
Matthew 15.9
9 And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
Paul was constantly aware of the destructive nature of deceit and knows that those bringing error would cheat those they taught from participating in the Divine Nature.
Colossians 2.8
8 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.
There is certainty in the end for apologists and behind it is pride, ego and they will suffer the shock of their foolishness, of their wisdom of the wise, of their prudence in relation to handling the word of God. It is difficult to have sympathy for those who destroy the souls of so many. Yet, each soul is so valuable that there remains hope until death comes. So, we point out evil that it might wake up some.
The visible damage of apologists, or we might just say those who teach error with sufficient skill to mislead is easily recognized. Many people go through life with a devotion towards God and may go to their “churches” with regularity. They may feel a certain comfort, and the years pass. They do not understand God’s purpose and thus their own purpose and have never obeyed the gospel of God. It is typical to suffer “losses” as life goes on and without a foundation in truth many will be devastated. Their often-casual dedication to spiritual things results in a movement away from God. They never had a relationship with God, otherwise they could withstand the difficult times. The truth accepted and lived for Christ and the gospel will not make “physical” life easier and often more difficult. However, the certainty that lies ahead along with the growing better understanding of God allows the child of God to go forward stronger and without bitterness. Life is about the soul and this is the great understanding as you put the physical life in the right perspective. There is sadness with tragedy, but you recover and quickly because you understand life and its purpose. There are two verses in Romans that when understood and are part of your life are helpful for God’s children.
Romans 8.18
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Romans 8.28
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
The apologists provide misery often in life and of course, after life. This says that a person needs to take what God says seriously and how He says it and be very certain that the teaching is consistent with all that God has revealed. Do not trust what men and women teach in relation to spiritual matters. We might say, take seriously what God says in relation to the eternal, in relation to heavenly matters. When God and truth are missing people envision the strangest things about life – such strange conclusions. There is a singular connection with the truth and it is what God has provided in the scriptures. It is not the private interpretation of the scriptures, but the earnest, diligent study of truth and as the scriptures indicate a love of the truth that you might be saved.
Topic 21: The End Result for Protestants Will Be the Same as Catholics
Both of these religions massacre the word of God with their changes and private interpretations.
Note: Just to clarify, when we talk about changing the word of God. It is rare that refers to literally changing the bible verses, although that occasionally happens. We are generally referring to using the verses wrongly or creating other documents that change the meanings. An example might be the thousands of pages of encyclical letters of Catholicism or the equivalent in the “Christian churches’ from their leadership bodies. These could be called private interpretations, but sometimes they are not even related to verses just new teachings.
We have looked at Matthew 16.15-19 and how the Catholics interpret it to justify their existence – truly pathetic.
Protestants honor the teachings of Luther and Calvin and others and some of their verses used to justify their doctrines are:
John 3.16
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Acts 16.31
31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”
Out of verses like those above and a study of certain selected passages in Romans (for example) comes salvation by faith only.
The simple flaw like in John 3.16 and Acts 16.31 is an assumption regarding the word believe as they define it as a mental acceptance only. As is always the case those who are careless with the word of God continue to change God’s word – everywhere. One can see how this can be powerful in creating converts – there is a “nice story” here for those who seek God and heaven. However, apologists should in their study realize all the flaws with such a belief. Honest, truth loving people are able to see the inconsistency with the word of God. There is no integrity with God’s purpose and plan in such a conclusion. Taking liberty with the word of God, actually being careless produced “faith only” and then John Calvin continued to create the five points (TULIP) that became prominent in Protestant beliefs. Every one of those points is seriously wrong and in different ways has resulted in the destruction of souls.
Catholicism fails in Matthew 16.15-19 and have no pope and no authority and because Protestantism is an outgrowth of Catholicism as a result of keeping their idea of church and much of the Catholic’s associated beliefs – they also fail. Their failure is direct in those things, but as could be expected when error seeps in there will be more error. In the case of Protestantism that error was massive, albeit different than the Catholic error. In effect it keeps Protestants from realizing a successful life.
Protestant beliefs can be a complicated subject because of all the changes, private interpretations and the number of different groups. The following pages at Heaven Coach address some of the major issues with Protestantism that keep their believers from having successful lives.
What Believe Means
The Gospel Message
Conversions of the New Testament
The Word of God
Topic 22: God Is Consistent from Creation
Where did Catholicism come from? Where did Protestantism come from. Clearly not from the bible as they are not there in name, principle or doctrine. They reject God by their inventions of religion and in general disdain His counsel and have none of His rebuke. The following is from Proverbs 1 and displays God’s view of those who reject His wisdom, His commands. The old law has been nailed to the cross, but God has not changed, and He reveals His nature in relation to those who disdain His commands. He was no less loving then as today because His attitude has not changed. Do you really think that if He stretches out His hand to humankind in these last days via His Son and they disdain His counsel that you will be acceptable? In the new covenant there is forgiveness if you follow His counsel, if you take seriously His rebuke. In fact, God makes it clear if you love Him you will keep His commands. In these verses you see truth, you see certainty, you see rejection, you see retribution, you see the foolishness of rejecting knowledge, you see God was serious about promoting the fear of the Lord and most of all perhaps you see God’s determination to have no mercy on those who reject Him. Today, it is the rejection of Jesus as Lord because that is where God’s mercy is and no place else.
Proverbs 1.24-30
24 This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.
I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded,
25 Because you disdained all my counsel,
And would have none of my rebuke,
26 I also will laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when your terror comes,
27 When your terror comes like a storm,
And your destruction comes like a whirlwind,
When distress and anguish come upon you.
28 “Then they will call on me, but I will not answer;
They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me.
29 Because they hated knowledge
And did not choose the fear of the LORD,
30 They would have none of my counsel
And despised my every rebuke.
God has not changed. He cannot change His nature because it is already and always has been perfect. There is a time for your obedience and it is during your lifetime. If you think God is vengeful to those who reject His word, to those who change it to the cost of innumerable souls you would be right. God says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. He says, He is a vengeful God. He says He is a loving God and He is perfect in justice, and He cannot lie.
You may not be able to understand all this, but you can if you love the truth.
Romans 12.18,19
18 If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.
19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.
So much of the world is not even in the race for the prize and indeed the apologists are often the reason. God is particularly concerned with those who have obeyed the gospel and the letters to the saints in the churches are to help them remain faithful. His warning and vengeance includes those who are in the household of God as they need to reject sin in their lives per their repentance (a commitment not to sin again) and use their abilities to bring the gospel message to the world. The following verses bring the seriousness of life into a correct perspective for those in the body of Christ (“at the house of God”) and for those who are not (“who do not obey the gospel of God”).
1 Peter 4.17,18
17 For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?
18 Now, “If the righteous one is scarcely saved, Where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?”
This is a common theme in the bible as reaching the point of a relationship with God requires one to continue in faithfulness. Those receiving talents are responsible for increase, those who receive the word of God (parable of the seed) but grow up only to be choked by the things of the world are lost – as was Demas. The tyranny of Calvinist teaching of once saved, always saved is pathetic and ridiculous, additionally in his system they were never saved in the first place.
Hebrews 10.29-31
29 Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?
30 For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The Lord will judge His people.”
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
God does not hold back the result of failing in life and to those who do not understand OBEYING THE GOSPEL; they should be exceedingly distressed.
2 Thessalonians 1.7-9
7 and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels,
8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not OBEY THE GOSPEL of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,
Topic 23: Apologists Succeed Because People Rationalize
Something that Sounds Right and is Widely Accepted Must Be Right
Catholicism is the exact opposite of the truth and yet believed because of their effective apologist efforts in disguising their deceit.
Note: Initially Catholicism was enforced by a cruel, sadistic and paranoid hierarchy and gradually when the world did not accept such things they began more formal defenses – their apologetic’s.
Catholics have Christ in their doctrine, but because it is not the doctrine of Christ they have neither the Father or the Son.
2 John 1.9
9 Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son.
Everything in Catholicism is wrong! Can you squeeze purgatory into the passages that describe the return of Christ, the taking of His body (the church), the end of the world and the judgment? Christ returns and takes vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord. Why? Because they did not know God and obey the gospel – not because they died in mortal sin – what is mortal sin? You should know that God never quantifies sins as the Catholic church. Isn’t it logical that there is a place for those who are judged to live basically good lives, but fall somewhat short? Apparently, some people thought (rationalize) that would be right and invented a place called purgatory – SEEMS right. Opposite, yes there is no place called purgatory instead there is truth and error and sin and sinless and you need to be “in Christ” the way the scriptures indicate. You might grasp the evil of apologists only when your end comes and find out there was no Catholic church, no purgatory but by believing these things you lived “carelessly.” You need the truth because life is about the soul and absolutely about nothing else.
Along with understanding God and His severity you need to have a love of the truth that you might be saved.
2 Thessalonians 2.10-12
10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie,
12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
How evil is it to teach that people can live less than God expects and still eventually after purgatory (or whatever) find heaven? The response in acceptance of such “second chance” philosophies is to want to know just how much I can get away with and still eventually achieve heaven. Indeed, this is the morality of Catholicism – for most. Some Catholics may be more serious about pleasing God, but still live less than they should believing worst case is they will have to spend some time in purgatory. The truth is even worse besides no purgatory, there is no salvation in idolatry, which is the Catholic church. There is nothing in Catholicism that is the truth – not a pope, not Mary honor, not priests, not the Eucharist, not confession of sins to a priest, not their councils, not their sacraments and it is confusing in everything. Yet, there stands their apologists making defense for their teachings and Protestant apologists doing the same. Of course, Catholics like purgatory, of course many Protestants like the rapture, of course both like the liberality they take in God’s message regarding sin.
Topic 24: Here Is Where the Apologists Get It All Wrong
God has not hidden the truth except to those who:
a) Don’t love the truth
b) Are the wise of the world
c) Are the prudent looking for deeper meanings, often things to fit preconceived and/or prejudiced beliefs – they analyze God’s word to the point of changing it
d) Are those who are foolish – cannot see any value beyond their senses
e) Are those who do not believe what God says, although what God says is clear
f) Are those who are perishing – their life is devoted to pride, selfishness, and the lusts of the eyes and flesh
2 Corinthians 4.3,4
3 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,
4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
God will get those He wants, and it will necessarily be a result of their choices. God in His perfection can do this, and He tells us about those who make poor choices that they will not see or understand. It is not that the truth is not available to them, but they may not care, or they may be deceived, and apologists may be part of that deception. They may never see an apologist but see his/her work via some media. Or the apologist may be the one who stands before them every week and teaches – like a pastor or priest and so-on.
Note: For clarity, the gospel, the truth is not hidden randomly or hidden from any specific person or group. The truth is hidden BECAUSE PEOPLE MAKE BAD CHOICES. God is not a respecter of persons, but a person’s choices hide the truth from them. We are back to the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life as what is behind choices to sin. We hide the truth from ourselves in choosing sin and as we go deeper into sin the truth is less discernible.
The list above (a-f) defines some of those who will not come to a knowledge of the truth and it is always their choice. Just to illuminate, there are those who come to a knowledge of the truth – enter the race for heaven and then fall away and usually like Demas because they love the world. God allows those who reject Him to continue down the path of perdition to the loss of their souls. It will usually be their arrogance and pride and God sends them strong delusion that they may believe the lie. I do not know what those strong delusions are, but one delusion might be the apologists who tickle their ears with what they want to hear.
There are different ways to look at why God would send strong delusions, but the best way may be to understand the seriousness of God’s word. The delusion could take many forms, it might be worldly created evidence that convinces people that God does not exist, it might be the force of the apologist argument. There are several things to be considered if we think about God sending strong delusion. First, God is not a respecter of persons and second, He wants all to succeed – come to repentance, to obedience. This allows us to see that God did not initiate the delusion before the problem, but in some way, there was serious rejection of God. God is warning that going down some paths can result in the strong delusion and the apparent conclusion is that it will overcome them. I do not know how this might work and I mention it because it fits the apologist. Unless, the apologist is consistent with scripture this soul destroyer is hated by God (look at the seven things God hates, at least four of them are associated with deceit). The delusion for the apologist is that he/she believes they are right. An apologist would seem to be a person who wants to do good, to help others to a better next life and yet something, maybe pride, maybe the status of an apologist, maybe the inability to face up to the damage they have already done keeps them HOPING what they teach is truth instead of KNOWING it is the truth.
Topic 25: Apologists are Amazingly Ignorant of God and Fail to Make the Key Distinctions
We just pointed out how apologists get it all wrong and of course it is the same place where the religions of the world get it all wrong and out of which they are created. It is where the Jews failed to see Jesus as Messiah. In their mind, they saw Jesus coming to physically overcome their enemies, to put the Jew into a leadership rule over the world or to them the Romans. Jesus came to bring a spiritual solution to a spiritual problem, namely sin. It was a problem that existed between each individual and sin. The religions of the world and the apologists who support those religions are those who miss the most basic things of God just as did the Jews. The religions of the world are primarily physical with claimed spiritual aspects. For example, worship is largely physical, their teachings are largely physical (physical because only “God breathed” doctrine is spiritual), their churches are physical (because the doctrine is incorrect, the people are not spiritual) and on and on.
When we talk about spiritual things, we are taking about the soul and thus about eternity, about heaven or its dreaded counterpart. The spiritual things have eternal value whereas all the physical is temporary. Even the local church designated by God is temporary, but those who are in the body of Christ that associate with the local church await a wonderful eternity with the Lord.
God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit always have the spiritual in mind – in everything. Below are some things to consider that may help you put life in the correct perspective.
1. The creation is a spiritual event as opposed to some sort of physical construction based on laws that were an outcome of the creation and are presently in place.
Psalm 33.6
6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
Although, this is a physical world, universe, consisting of other physical and living components including humankind the creation event was spiritual. Notice how God created by His word, by the breath of His mouth. He uses this same language in Genesis the first chapter. Of course, we cannot understand how “the mighty seemingly infinite universe” can be created by speaking it into existence. This will be a problem for our science as they are limited to the laws built into creation by GOD. This is discussed on various pages of Heaven Coach, but simply said the physical creation is part of God’s test (the physical world being the stage).
2. Adam and Eve sinned and that brought a limited lifetime, ending in physical death. Also, they died spiritually, yet they still had a spirit. Dying spiritually means they were no longer in a relationship with God. There was no way to recover – apparently. God immediately offers a spiritual solution in Genesis 3.15. It is a spiritual solution to a spiritual problem – sin.
3. God would select faithful Abraham such that via His seed all nations would be blessed. The blessing, the solution would not be correctly understood until after the death of Christ. Then, not until that which Jesus promised to the apostles occurred in Acts 2. Some would receive the long-waited blessing from Genesis 3.15 when they were told what they must do (Acts 2) and responded. In Acts 10, finally all nations we would be blessed as the first Gentile was forgiven. The promise to Abraham was fulfilled and is the reason all peoples from that point forward can achieve heaven. God ties this all together perfectly and four verses in Galatians associate faith, obedience, forgiveness, and the inclusion of all those in Christ Jesus as heirs according to the promise.
Galatians 3.26-29
26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
4. Jesus came through the Jewish lineage as indicated to bring a spiritual solution. HE was the spiritual solution – the Messiah. The Jews were looking for a physical answer in the Messiah that would restore their nation to greatness. They did not see this in Jesus. They were so removed from the truth that they murdered their Messiah at the hands of Pilate’s Roman soldiers. One may say that the Jews missed out on the central focus of their religion – how sad. Amazingly, the world following the delivery of that which is perfect continue to seek physical benefits from God. It is even worse today because there is no longer a mystery. The religions of Catholicism and so-called Christianity by their slaying of God’s word cripple the work done by the Holy Spirit to allow the benefit of Jesus death to flow to humankind. There is still truth and there are still those who will share in the divine nature, but their impediment is at the cost of “countless” souls.
5. During the days of the Jews before Christ there were many physical processes in relation to what God required. One of those things was bringing certain animal sacrifices and this always meant the best, unblemished animal sacrifices. Sins could be “forgiven” for a year. Jesus would be a perfect spiritual sacrifice, yes, His physical body would be taken and to the burial, but then He would rise from the dead. His sacrifice carried with it the reconciliation of humankind to all those who obey Him – a spiritual outcome.
Hebrews 5.9
9 And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him
6. Jesus said He would build His church. Do you think that He would build a physical church, with a physical leader? What would be the value? Would He create another imperfect, physical order for humankind as God did for the Jews? The old law was an imperfect physical law written on tablets and used the best animals for sacrifice. It is important to understand God’s view of the old law and the new.
One of the most graphic ways God uses to show the difference and how the old law was removed is in the verse below:
Colossians 2.14
14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
7. God gradually revealed a physical local church. The nature of that church was defined before the end of the 1st century. It was NOT the church that Jesus built as a result of His death, burial and resurrection. The local church contains only those who are part of His spiritual church. That is, it comprises those Jesus added to His body when they obeyed His death, burial and resurrection. Truly, this is how Jesus was building His church (“I will build My church”). Its members are called saints and they have qualified elders who provide oversight. Elders stipulate no spiritual rules (and present no private interpretations) as God’s word is complete/perfect and can be referred to as the bible or the scriptures. God’s people in effect have the word of God contained in their heart – a spiritual understanding of truth to the point of obedience. The local church may meet in a physical location for convenience, but the church is not a building. One distinction is that the universal church consists of individuals added to the spiritual body of Christ and the local church is a GROUP of those individuals. God saves individuals based on their relationship to His Son, not a group – not the local church. In the local church they do not tithe as many of the humankind “Christian” religions who follow the old covenant, but provide their offering as purposed in their heart (a spiritual aspect). On each first day of the week they remember the death of Jesus by partaking of the bread and taking of the fruit of the vine. It is a spiritual remembrance each week as by the elements the saints recall His death until He comes again.
The question for this section was how can an apologist fail to make the key distinctions in their field – considering for many this is their life’s work? The word of God is different than any other study. It is not the intensive study that brings truth, but the good heart of an open-minded humble person. It seems to be part of God’s perfect word; perfect fairness and I only understand this somewhat. I do not believe it is mysterious in any way. Think about the person who loves the truth and as that person finds things in God’s word that are problematic for them they just say OK that is part of God’s way and I fully accept it and embrace it. On the other hand, some look into the scriptures and the things they see they cannot accept and soon find problems everywhere and may even discredit God’s word and change it. Anyway, I would just be guessing about the mechanisms, because God does not matter-of-factually reveal how that works. God does say seeing they shall not see and hearing they do not hear or understand in relation to speaking in parables. The keys to truth will always be having a love of the truth and making godly choices. Sharing in the divine nature is always a question of how badly you want to succeed. It is your choice.
Topic 26: Baptism Is Spiritual
Baptism is a spiritual entity. There is a physical aspect in the action of being baptized. Those being baptized hear the reason for baptism and decide to act to bring them to the state where baptism is allowed.
Acts 8.35-37
35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.
36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”
37 Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”
It might help to look at “Conversions of the New Testament”
A person needs to accept Jesus as God’s Son (Peters answer to who Jesus was), repent of their sins (requires a decision not to sin), be willing to publicly acknowledge Jesus for who He is and then they can be baptized. Specifically going down into the watery grave for the reason given – namely the forgiveness of sins. It is not a ritual, but a one-time response to God’s command – that is obedience.
It is difficult to conceive of a eviler teaching than that of Catholic’s baptism. Essentially, they take the spiritual nature of baptism and make it a physical event. They begin by defining something called original sin – something the bible knows nothing about.
They baptize babies, who cannot believe or repent or confess Jesus, which are the critical elements before baptism.
- There were no babies baptized in the new testament as they are not fit recipients, or do they have any sin
- Only adults were baptized in the bible
- In the process of baptizing babies, they say original sin (non-existent) was forgiven and never do any adult baptisms for the scriptural reason – the forgiveness of past sins.
- Then they also change the meaning of the word baptism to sprinkling instead of immersing, which is consistent with the word definition and the examples in the new testament.
So, how do they get away with this, while claiming they follow the scriptures? It is easy, they use apologists to argue every point, while claiming the right to change the word of God.
Protestantism or the protest against Catholicism unfortunately maintained many aspects of the Catholic church doctrines. Luther never understood that all Catholic doctrine had to go. He wrongly saw the Catholic church as ONLY corrupt, but not that their very existence was an abomination to God. So, he and others kept various pieces of Catholicism. Such things as some of the Catholic sacraments, and although they rejected original sin they replaced it with something called inherited depravity. Some kept statues, most kept the hierarchical organization concept with some sort of central control over local churches. Some of them kept the idea of baptizing babies. Like Catholicism they did not understand the fundamental spiritual nature of the church Jesus built, their churches are physical in nature. That would mean central authority, impressive physical buildings where God could be found, the making of rules that is, changing the word of God. God through the Holy Spirit provided authority for the local church in terms of organization and worship. Protestants, beginning with Luther handled God’s word carelessly and although different than Catholicism they acted in ways to essentially add to and take away from scripture – while claiming they never did so.
Their means of adding to or taking away consisted of private interpretation of scripture. They invent a doctrine for the salvation that might be called, “by faith alone” and to make this all the more damnable they condemn the God defined path for salvation and in effect destroy the souls seeking a relationship with God. It was mentioned that Catholicism was the opposite of the truth and the same is true of Protestantism. The Protestants are less obvious compared to the brash, ridiculous, hierarchies, miracles, rules and so-on of Catholicism. Nonetheless, Protestantism most surely destroys billions of souls.
Topic 27: Prayer Is Spiritual
Prayer is spiritual and requires a spiritual person or as the scriptures indicate a righteous person. This would be one “in Christ,” added to the body of Christ by the Lord Himself. Prayer is to the Father and must be through the one and only mediator – Jesus. Any person can pray to God, but they will not be heard in a way that God responds. If you understand God, this is clear. The subject of prayer correctly understood is provided on one post of Heaven Coach called, “Miracles, Healing and Prayer.”
In short, not just anyone can go to God that is, address God and expect Him to “be there for them.” God has promised to be not far off from everyone and wants you to seek Him with your whole heart. Your thoughts and “prayers” in seeking God can allow you to find Him. You will be able to find and obey Him, thus establishing a relationship with His Son. It might help to clarify by saying God only hears the prayers of the righteous, but in some cases, in some way also acknowledges those with a good heart who are seeking Him as the case of Cornelius.
In reference to Christians sinning after they had their past sins forgiven, the Holy Spirit reveals that they have we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. In their baptism past sins were forgiven and they were placed into a relationship with the Son and thus providing His advocacy. That relationship can be lost due to unfaithfulness and moving swiftly to restore it by praying God (now possible to reach the Father) that the thought of a person’s heart or actions MIGHT be forgiven.
Prayer is very spiritual and not the travesty created by humankind’s religion with their invented ceremonies involving prayers. Protestants, but especially Catholics invented repetitive prayers despite the scriptures rejecting this form of prayer. It is amazing how Catholics and Protestants talk about how they have a calling usually coming out of prayer where God is individually directing them. Usually they say they have been contacted by the Holy Spirit to do “this or that.” The reality is that they made it up, have wishful thinking or interpret something in their life that then has them telling others of their special relationship with God. Interestingly, they often come to believe what they profess. They do not understand God, understand the scriptures and specifically do not understand prayer. They are not children of God, so they cannot go to God in prayer and they should understand God is not going to respond to their requests. As mentioned for those not in Christ, seeking God, seeking truth for instance by prayer is valuable if done consistently and done in sincerity. If you indeed establish a relationship with God’s Son in the only way possible by obedience, then you have opened the door of prayer to God through His Son.
Prayer is a form of worship inasmuch as you reach God through God’s Son. Prayer is a holy thing and set aside for God and those holy as He is holy. All worship must be in Spirit and truth. The Lords people in the local church give (as previously mentioned), not according to the physical sense like the old law of tithing (meaning 10%), but as they purpose in their heart. The Lord’s people sing and make melody in their hearts (no new covenant physical instruments). The law of God is written on their hearts, in other words they internalize it not just meaning they are capable of remembering it, but they live the truth God has revealed. The point is, God is a Spirit and those that worship Him must do so in Spirit and truth. You are only in Spirit if you are “in Christ.” The things you do in prayer, in singing, in giving, in remembrance and in preaching the word are all of a spiritual nature. If you are not in the body of Christ, you need to be and can be by doing what God requires in His word.
Topic 28: Doing It Your Way Means a Failed Life
You see men and women wanting to honor God their way and they envision various physical things that will please God like statues, great buildings, ceremonies, singing as entertainment, speaking on every subject that can be thought of and the list is as long as one’s imagination. God did provide one observance and that is the Lord’s supper and it is each first day of the week. It is a remembrance (spiritual, with elements for recalling the event) that has each child of God recalling Jesus death inasmuch as the bread reminds us the body of Christ was broken for humankind and the fruit of the vine reminds us the blood of Christ was shed and is the blood of the new covenant. Nothing more is needed or is anything else in terms of an observance authorized. The local church has some freedom in terms of authorized activities and thus the time they meet, the frequency/number/character of songs, prayers (when) and preaching (when) would be things the elders could direct, but always in the framework of God’s directions. The work is always consistent with the word of God, and the prime authorized work of the local church is evangelism. It was the purpose of the savior that is, to seek and save that which was lost.
There is authorization by direct commands, apostolic example and/or necessary inference for the local church to edify the saints in their knowledge of truth, so they can perform the work of evangelism. The local church is authorized to show benevolence to THEIR needy members, again so they can bring the message. The local church, unlike churches of the world does not have other activities that might serve the world such as feeding the poor, building hospitals, starting universities and all the very many good things that make people feel good about themselves. WHY NOT? Because in THE WISDOM OF GOD, the local church very well might do those things, but lose focus and fail to bring the truth. This is exactly what has happened whenever people think their mission can include things not authorized. The Catholic churches, the Protestant churches have wonderful programs of helping the needy. They do not teach the truth and in their much giving they also convert many and as Jesus told the Jews in their proselytizing that they made converts twice the child of hell as themselves.
Now, WAIT A MINUTE this sounds all wrong. You need to make the distinction between the local church and the God given direction and responsibility of each person in the body of Christ. Individual Christians in the spiritual body of Christ are under the MOST SEVERE SCRUTINY to help those in need. The verses in Matthew 25.35-45 describe this very well as do the fruits of the spirit define the character of those in Christ. How, those individual Christians do this and who they do this with (if anyone) is up to that child of God. Clearly failing to follow Jesus directive will cost a child of God their soul. THIS, HOWEVER, IS NOT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE LOCAL PHYSICAL CHURCH. This is God’s way, and few can accept it – in effect, the churches of the world are better than God when it comes to helping. They change the word of God in order to be effective in their physical growth – people like to think they are helping people physically. The job of the local church is evangelism, spiritual help. God, Jesus and The Holy Spirit were focused on souls as they each completed their part of the reconciliation. The Lords people of the local church need to also be focused on souls and not anything that suits their appearance to others.
Catholics, Protestants want to build their church into some massive institution for good and this is “always” the case, at the cost of the truth. They might as well be a secular organization and in fact they are just that.
Yet, just one thing honors God and it is doing His will, doing things His way. Paul made this clear when he was in Athens and their means of worship is identical in concept to those of Catholic and Protestant churches throughout history.
Acts 17.24-27
24 “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.
25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.
26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,
27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
God needs nothing, but with your free will you can choose to obey Him and that is truly honor/worship to Him. Men and women do not seem to be able to do that – they have a better way and in God’s view that is idolatry because you certainly are not following the truth but in effect worshipping yourself.
Topic 29: Apologists Defend the Physical Nature of the Church
The apologists defense of the various human-devised religions is mostly defending the physical character of the “church.” There may be a spiritual “ring” to their defenses, but their defenses are without the fundamental understanding of the church that Jesus built. Error is never spiritual. To be spiritual it must come from God and that means it is the truth. An example might help. Let’s look at a Catholic apologist defending their claim to pray through persons other than Jesus to communicate with God, let’s say Mary or some Catholic saint. The scriptures indicate there is one mediator between God and man and it is Jesus.
1 Timothy 2.5
5 For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,
That closes the subject. God does not have to list all the persons who cannot make intercession to God. They are all eliminated when Jesus is the one mediator. Yes, the apologists can make up many stories, many excuses, many ways to get around the problem, but it is not the truth. The foundation for these religions is deceit and then the things built on such a foundation are also of course, deceitful.
Obviously, there has been a history of people living quite profitably from the defense of erroneous beliefs, including the defenders, the apologists. These can be the “clergy,” professors at religious institutions, religious writers and what can be called career apologists among others. In most cases they have few other skills and the commitment is great involving that most essential factor, self-preservation. Since they cannot think differently, they do not have a love of the truth and never consider their soul “hangs in the balance.”
One of the difficulties in writing so negatively about apologists is that “this writing itself” can be considered the work of an apologist. This is undeniable, but the difference is truth versus error. Every apologist will tell you what they say is true. The following things differentiate an apologist of truth from one of error. These things need to be thought of as EACH being important for you to accept their teaching as true.
1) Needs to be true and you need to understand. Of course, they all claim truth, but many accept what is taught at the insistence of the apologist – bad reason!
2) Their teaching needs to be consistent with all scripture and some will claim this. You are responsible to understand if their claim is true.
3) Must not violate any of the basic principles of God as He has revealed them.
4) How does this “teacher” profit (in an earthly manner) from being an apologist?
5) Where was the apologist trained? This is important to understanding their potential prejudice.
6) Realize once you “buy into” what some apologist is teaching, you can more easily accept more of their teachings. Realize they mix truth with error to “win you over.”
7) Most, actually all religions crumble because of their origins, except the one that is the truth.
8) Does the apologist strongly encourage you to understand what you believe and study on your own? This is important, but many false teachers will suggest this in order to increase their credibility.
9) Are you impressed by the number of people who believe, by the organization, by some of the music, by the building, by the professionalism or seemingly moral character of the teacher, or by their good works? All these things are the wrong reasons for believing something religiously – you need to ask yourself how much did these things influence me?
10) It might help to realize that the truth is simple and the complexity of doctrine, of organization, and the vagueness and long explanations should be worrisome. There is a lot of material on this page, but it is long because it is addressing the many changes made by various groups to the word of God. Remove the changes and you have simplicity – God’s message to humankind that allows them to succeed.
One might say this is a lot of work, but this is the most important thing in your life – you need to discover the truth about life and live correctly. The sad part is that you will know this was the most important thing in your life when your life is over.
It would be fair to say (once again) the subject of this page; largely rebuking apologists is in itself from an apologist. Here is the key, there is truth and there is error. Indeed, there would be no need for apologists if God’s word was properly handled. That will never be the case, Paul in the 1st century spent two years in the school of Tyrannus doing the things Timothy wrote of in 2 Timothy.
2 Timothy 4.2
2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
Error is everywhere and thus God’s children in the process of teaching the word, bringing the gospel message will face those errors and need to be able to give an answer to the hope that is in them. Thus, the scriptures are full of examples of the work of the Christians of the first century preaching the word and convincing, rebuking, exhorting with all longsuffering and doctrine. The distinction is, are you defending the truth or error? If it is the truth, then the apologist is justified, and you are pleasing God. If you are defending error, then the wrath of God falls upon you and you are destroying the souls of many. It is an eternally serious business to be an apologist. The condemnation for teaching, defending error is something that God hates. See Proverbs 6.16-19 and notice how this sin of deceit is something most condemned. The whole of God’s plan depends on bringing the truth to humankind by the children of God. Now with the growth of error there has grown up the defense of error. Sadly, many will be surprised. They were assured eternal life was in their future only to find the horror of a failed life. The apologists in their pride believe they are serving God but are very much doing the opposite. All you need to be a truthful apologist is to respect God by not changing His word. In most cases, what you defend has already been changed by someone. Nonetheless, it is still your responsibility to get it right. All the changes are easily seen as changes. Earlier on this page, sorting truth from error was discussed and with an honest heart you can “easily” make the distinction. Admittedly, as you have allowed yourself to accept mountains of error you have dug a deep hole and perhaps many have followed you. You need to seek truth and be willing to accept it giving up what you currently believe even if it will be exceedingly difficult. It is the most serious thing in the world – treat it that way!
Topic 30: How Many People Function as Apologists as a Significant Part of Their Life
How many apologists are there in the world? If we just look at the Christian apologists and consider a study that indicated there were 33,000 denominations of Christianity, then the number of apologists would be very large. Let’s say there are 2.2 billion Christians (Catholics and so-called Christians) and all numbers like these are at best reasonable numbers and always changing every decade. In any case, we will NOT guess the number of apologists. The number is very large since most every priest of Catholicism (or pastor in Protestantism) has reasonably good apologetic skills and are specifically trained to defend their beliefs. The numbers do not matter except that they are very large and to some extent the number of divisions in Christianity (so-called) provide an idea of the different things taught and defended by these persons. One could reasonably conclude that no one has it right – they would be understandably wrong (so few have the truth). There is truth and there is error! The difference is due to those who violate the basic principle from God (Deuteronomy 4.2, 12.32, Revelation 22.18), namely adding to or taking away from the word of God. Those who violate that principle do not have the truth. That eliminates all Catholics and Protestants from the truth and that means their souls are in jeopardy. This is very serious.
Debates can be helpful, although there have been a few done with the truth. They seldom move many/any people to the truth, because people hold to what they and family and friends have always believed. Yet every soul has great value. The other factor keeping people from believing differently is the requirement to live their life for Christ and the gospel versus living life for themselves. This is a requirement of the truth and many will look for something more moderate. Thus, the standard disease, they do not have a love of the truth – easy targets for the apologist. One point here is that in the world of all these “physical churches” with so many different beliefs (even within Catholicism) there are various attempts at “believing alike.” This leads to compromise, which provides some progress in the minds of different religions but does nothing for helping people to the truth. The root cause must be found if people of world religions are going to succeed. That root cause is the most basic inception of the religions themselves. Start with there is no validity in Catholicism and none with Protestant religions and go from there and look at God’s word independent of the doctrines of those religions.
Topic 31: Atheists Get A Lot of Support from Christians and Help from Bad Science
We began by saying this page is primarily for those who believe in God and believe that God is the God of the bible. Just a word about Atheists and their interactions with so-called Christian apologists. Seldom has there been a debate with the “TRUTH” versus an Atheist.
Such a debate would be quite different. It would not necessarily involve detailed scientific “discussion,” although the TRUTH has no problem with good science. All the scientific arguments against God’s existence are frivolous and do not address the point of God’s existence and the creation. They all begin by placing God into humankind’s science – the science God provided in the creation for humankind to eventually discover and provide potentially good things for humanity. They limit and explain God by “their science.” They fail to see God in creation – everywhere. They fail to see the evidence of God in his word, namely in its perfection in every way. Everything fits perfectly together from “the beginning” to accomplish His purpose. His design of the physical world is no more than a stage where His creation of those in His image can succeed or fail. Some will fail because they spent all their time avoiding the possibility of God, perhaps proving to themselves that there is no God. They really desire no responsibility for how they live and certainly no post death existence. It turns out that God differentiates success from failure based on a person’s attitude. Clearly, Atheists seek a “no God” answer and that prejudice is hardly conducive to finding truth.
Most Atheists like the support of science but rely on a variety of social arguments. One of their favorite arguments is the problem of human suffering. They argue that God cannot be good and all powerful because people suffer (for instance) from natural disasters and thus God is not good since He built such terrible things into existence.
Many Atheists as well as Religionists like to define HOW GOD MUST BE and if God differs from their perception, then “this” is not God or God does not exist. This is quite ridiculous and points to who really is important – themselves.
Atheist Apologists easily devour people who are desperate to find an answer other than God. If you understand the scriptures and thus have a reasonable understanding of God, you know He is the absence of evil. You also know that God is all powerful and He creates all things by ‘saying” them – at least that is the process He uses to explain the simplicity (for Him) of creation. Then if you study human suffering you see that behind human suffering is usually sin. Sin brings suffering to the individual as well as to many others. In the case of the natural disaster these things are in the nature of creation and there can be suffering – it is not targeted suffering. Clearly God allows suffering and it plays a part in God’s purpose, but this in no way makes God evil. God opened the door to suffering following the sin of Adam and Eve and in that sense all suffering is “tied” to sin. God mentions how a woman would suffer in childbearing as an example of a world previously without suffering. Suffering would now be commonplace. Innocent persons are often the victims of suffering caused by the sin of others. It might be one person striking another or a person or group of persons in their self-seeking or evil nature starting a war where huge number of innocent persons suffer. It is fair to say that suffering plays an integral part in God’s purpose. Suffering arrived with sin (Adam and Eve) and it would be suffering that occurred in the absence of sin as Jesus would suffer the terrible death. Indeed, in many different ways suffering is involved in the fulfillment of God’s purpose.
Note: There are several pages/posts devoted to Atheism at Heaven Coach and/or Catholics Question and they go into more detail about the serious error of denying God’s existence.
Topic 32: Understand Worship Correctly and Understand A Great Deal About God
If you go just a little deeper into an understanding of God and His purpose of sharing in the Divine Nature, you can understand that in worship there must be a free will choice. In other words, it is not worship if it is forced and during your test on earth you make choices that define your character in a very definitive way. The most important choice will be to choose to honor God’s Son by your obedience. Your obedience on earth means you have a good heart. Your obedience sets you free from sin and your on-going faithfulness qualifies you for the crown of life – eternal life. It is relatively easy to see God’s perfect plan qualifying and disqualifying people by their choices. We can be more specific by mentioning the characteristics that define the separation process. There will be no proud, selfish, envious and “the like” who qualify for eternal life. It is those developed characteristics that keep people from obeying God and such people “automatically” disqualify themselves. For instance, the proud person sees their way as best and holds human wisdom over God’s. On the other hand, the humble, selfless, kind person seeks God and truth and is willing to obey. Those enter the race for heaven, but still have a long way to go in terms of the challenges of faithfulness. This gives an indication of just how far those are who reject God. They are not even in the race. However, some get into the race as they change their attitude, find and obey God and will achieve eternal life. It just turns out that many dig a hole for themselves and build a support structure encouraging their lifestyle and time passes and life ends.
God stipulates HOW WORSHIP MUST BE ACCOMPLISHED. If you are beginning to understand God, you might see the connection between having a relationship with Him and obedience. God declares the requirements for worship in John.
John 4.24
24 “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
You should understand that as a child of God (in Christ) you have an advocate with God through Jesus and that happens when Jesus adds you to His body. You should see that prayer is limited to the righteous (in Christ). It should not be surprising that worship is not FROM just anyone, but only comes from those who are in the spirit, that is spiritual (in Christ). Also, it should not be a surprise that worship must be in truth, everything related to God is spiritual. Has God defined worship? Yes, of course, and deviating from that would not be worship. Such man-made worship turns out to be the opposite of worship – an abomination. We have seen in Acts 17, how Paul says God needs nothing in opposition to the created gods of the Athenians to whom THEY provide worship. It is hard to miss the point contained throughout all scripture that the one thing that pleases God is obedience. Worship consists of those “in Christ” obeying God. We worship God every day by living in obedience to God as it says, “presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice.” God has set aside a time for His saints to worship Him, that is as a group – local church. The command is every first day of the week. The command is singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in your heart. The command is to provide funds to the local/physical church as you purpose in your heart. There is a general theme for God’s children to be prayerful and it is for those in the body of Christ. The local church has a mission of evangelism, which they need to carry out within the framework of God’s commands. The local church is to edify their members and instruction in the scriptures fulfills this need. The local church is to show benevolence to the body of Christ and this is associated with the mission of evangelism.
The qualified elders are to be sure there is orderly worship and define things to be sure that happens, while being certain the prime mission is being accomplished.
Now, if God defined worship is ignored then what is being done in terms of worship is indeed an abomination. Notice, the worship God defines is simple with no honor for men/women. There is no hierarchy and no non-scriptural concepts of New Testament worship – no pretentiousness, no complexity. The elders are overseers, but not rule-makers. The rule is the scriptures. It is interesting if one studies to see that there must be more than one elder in each local church (or no elders until there are two qualified men).
Topic 33: Science – Out of its League
Science is not the problem as previously discussed in Topic 31, above. At best science is a distraction and a serious one for the souls of humankind. Meandering back and forth between science and scripture is futile, because the physical origin of all things is not important – life is about the soul. God’s purpose is related to the sharing of His divine nature and His physical creation is only the stage being used for the test. God created the stage for testing those created in His image. In the beginning God (Genesis 1.1) created the stage for humankind and in the end, He will destroy the stage. Your success or failure in life is what is important.
The history of failing in life whether it was Adam and Eve, Cain, Nadab and Abihu, King Saul, Demas, Naaman, Ananias and Sapphira or the innumerable others was due to their choice to disobey God. Science offers nothing but confusion to humankind and thus contributes to the failure of many.
Science will always be changing and will never get it right. They will never answer why anything exists – nothing should exist. Time certainly should not exist. Here is the worst thing for the lost, namely to spend eternity realizing this very thing – that is, nothing makes sense without God. Science is no more than “wishful thinking” as they try to explain existence without God. God did not intend humankind to understand creation (it is not important to their success) but told them how He did it outside the laws designed into the creation. God has a purpose and that was His focus and it needs to be understood by humankind, so they can succeed.
Those who reject God’s existence are not thinking. God has an infinitely higher intellect, is infinitely wiser and is perfect in every way. God is rejected because He is not as apparent as people would like (part of His test) and rejected because of what people see in life like human suffering, which provides a cry of this cannot be God or if it is God they do not want anything to do with God. They are not thinking, and their weak human logic supports what they in pride want to believe. They have these one-liner explanations and leave out everything else they should be considering. Things like their position relative to the creator in terms of intellect and any consideration of why we exist. Does God have a purpose, should I understand God’s purpose?
Science deserves respect along with engineering for all the modern things of life. However, when they step into the things beyond their ability to validate they damage their credibility. They work with the things, laws that are part of the existence we know and extend them to provide reasonable alternatives to God. God by definition is beyond the laws He created, so in this realm science should say this is what we know from our science, e.g. the universe is expanding, there is order everywhere and billions of universes. God created all things exactly as He indicated – everything physical, everything living. There should be no denial of God based on humankind’s limited science. Science knows they will never fully understand existence but will never lack ideas. Unfortunately, in this area science in pride feels the necessity to promote teaching young minds their conclusions as the likely answer to our existence – that is pathetic. Science should be as they have always been, theory and proof, but in this area it is theory, new theory and suggested possible proof, which is just another theory. The best scientists see order, design everywhere but all too often do not want a moral God like the God of the bible. They want a life without ultimate accountability and what they promote are generations of young people who have no accountability. The unfortunate part is that there is a God and He is the God of the bible and thus ultimate accountability. The world has become very liberal and anti-God and it shows in the media and especially in most universities. Science should be above this prejudice, but due to the close association and pressures within academia they relent. Over time we have godless science leadership, which promotes an anti-God agenda.
In the current state many scientists serve to destroy their own souls and mislead many who will also pay the price. Those of science who provide THEORY AS TRUTH and even if they avoid involvement in conclusions about God’s existence are nonetheless misleading many. Life is about the soul and it is not trivial to lie – THEORY AS TRUTH IS A LIE, unless it is truth. I suspect every scientist in this field knows the big bang theory and the theory of organic evolution is not or may not be the truth. They could say it is the best science has done within their laws – the laws built into the creation. In any case they cannot dispute that God did as indicated and speaks everything into existence – just because it does not fit the science available to them. God is beyond the science of humankind. Who is the creation (humankind) to question the creator?
Understand this about God.
Isaiah 55.9
9 “For the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
Einstein, believed in God, but not a moral God. Einstein was too independent, too proud to accept a God who could limit his moral choices and could not accept the punishment held out for those who opposed God. He did see God as creator and wanted to ask God many questions. Einstein holds no special place with God or does any person – except those who have a relationship with His Son. Wasting your life trying to understand our existence is truly wasting your life. The “existence science” of humankind is not of any consequence and there will be no discussion with God. There will be judgment based on the word of God, just as promised.
John 12.48
48 He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.
Topic 34: Always Helps to Understand God Better
Clarifying a few things in the big picture may be helpful. Atheists, but also religious persons conclude religion is responsible for much of the violence, cruelty and many of the wars. There are indeed so many inhumane things that have happened in the name of religion. A child of God would totally agree with this line of thinking but would ask if these things had anything to do with God. The crusades were wars between Muslims and Christians – but not really. They were wars between Muslims and Catholics. Who called the Crusades? It was the pope of the Catholic church. Very close to 99.99% of those who say they are Christians are not and were not through much of history. You become a Christian NOT but saying you are one, NOT by saying you accept Jesus as your personal savior, NOT by joining some church, but by obeying the gospel and the Lord (Himself) adds you to the church. The kingdom, the church, the body of Christ is spiritual – not of this world. Also, you are only a Christian if you live faithfully in obedience to God’s word. The world looks at the actions of those who appear to be Christians and reject God who has nothing to do with those who claim Christianity.
A person who does not understand how God divided the ages and why, can reach a bad conclusion. God refers to this as the last age (sometimes last days) and that is because His revelation to humankind is complete and the promise of reconciliation was completed in Christ. Only one prophetic thing remains and that is the end of all things and the judgment. The previous age could be called the Mosaic age and its rule was the Law of Moses. That law has been nailed to the cross. The central event of that age was bringing Jesus through the lineage of Abraham so all nations could be blessed. Although men had a free will, God did interact directly at times to assure the process of bringing Jesus would occur. Obviously, on the other side was Satan who needed to thwart God’s plan and since God gave up control to humankind it seemed possible that evil might prevail. God, for instance made sure Israel would bring Jesus and in the wisdom of God that meant different things needed to happen. One of those things was bringing the Jews out of Egyptian bondage and so we see God’s actions like the ten plagues and how the Red Sea was used for their escape. Throughout the Mosaic age God did certain things to keep the path clear for the coming of Jesus. Satan must have thought that he had won as Jesus was going to His death. However, this was God’s plan to bruise the heel of Jesus and bruise the head of Satan. Some of those actions might be seen by some as indicators that God was not good. That would be wrong. God was not interfering with the choices people made but was doing things to fulfill Genesis 3.15 in a world where free will choices could be made. Jesus would suffer and die, and the doors of heaven would be opened to those who obeyed the author of eternal salvation.
Topic 35: The Problem with Apologists+
People believe the apologists are experts in their field, where expert implies you can get the truth from them. That is, of course impossible unless all believe the same and the same is the truth. Apologists are really the ones that convince you of what they and their organization believe, and they exist to convince you. Apologists are thus categorized by their “brand” thus for instance an Atheist, Christian, Protestant, Mormon or Muslim apologist are going to believe much differently. In fact, two in the same category will likely believe differently on many subjects. You ought to be aware that getting the truth from any of these is highly unlikely. Yet, there is truth and there is error. God in His wisdom knows this and did not leave men/women in the hands of “apologists.” He left something that can be understood and is not confusing. He even makes the point that He is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14.33).
God’s word is truth and if you do not change it, you will have the truth. As religions are conceived and represent teaching that changed the word of God or were completely new and invented (like Islam or Mormonism – using portions of the bible) they need apologists to justify and convince people they are valid.
Paul in Athens found the Athenians worshipping many gods and just in case they missed one they had an altar to an unknown god to assure they “were covered.” Paul addresses the error in Acts 17.
Acts 17.22-34
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious;
23 for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:
TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:
24 “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.
25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.
26 And He has made from one blood[c] every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,
27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’
29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.
30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,
31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.”
33 So Paul departed from among them.
34 However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
Paul, effectively addressed the problem, that is, their errors in religious beliefs. A great deal of Paul’s activities could be summed up in three categories:
1) Preaching the gospel
2) Pointing out error and
3) Providing answers to questions often involving the religious errors of the day
Because, Paul did not change the gospel, he provided people with the truth. The truth he received from Jesus Christ.
Galatians 1.11,12
11 But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.
12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
It is a rare thing today that people receive the truth from religion. There is no truth in a changed gospel and I suspect the importance of this escapes the “casual person of religion.” That is, those who do not take seriously the word of God – they may be numb due to the lackadaisical teaching of the world’s religions. God means what He says and carefully, accurately delivered it through His Holy Spirit. What are people missing? They are missing out on a successful life. They are missing out on heaven. It is very serious, nothing is more serious. God oversees all things from creation regarding how men/women would be reconciled back to Him as indicated in Genesis 3.15. God oversees Jesus’ arrival as a baby boy, and through to His death, burial and resurrection. Jesus after His resurrection is raised to the Father’s right side and the Holy Spirit now guides the apostles into all truth. God the Father did His part, Jesus has completed His part and now the Holy spirit would bring the message of salvation and confirm it. The scriptures fit everything perfectly together and the Holy Spirit will finish the work given before the end of the first century. NOW, God’s work is done, and man has that which is perfect, the completed word of God.
What will humankind do with God’s perfection to them? Of course, they will change it.
The message is changed and changed and changed and becomes ineffective in terms of its saving power back at the first change. Some have not changed it and to them who respect God there is truth and salvation and heaven. The apologists represent a destructive force for the souls of billions of people. The end will not be like they “explain” either for themselves or those who they convinced. It will be exactly as God has indicated in His word, His unchanged word.
Topic 36: The Catholic Apologist – Beyond Reasonable Thought
The error for Catholic Apologists is right there in Matthew 16.18 and you would think with reasonable thought it would be seen. Matthew 16.15-19 has been discussed in detail on this page. The correct understanding of who will build the church, who is the head of the church and how this happened should be plenty to realize Catholicism and their pope are not God’s intent. A point made throughout Heaven Coach on this subject is even more straightforward and should be obvious to every apologist. Jesus says I will build My church and, in that verse, He says that you are Peter and upon this rock, I will build My church. Since Genesis 3.15 Jesus was pointed to as the one who would open the way for reconciliation back to God. Those who claim Peter as the rock on which Jesus would build the church need to somehow have human rule to justify their existence, namely Roman Catholicism. How could Jesus build His church on Peter, why? This most important of all events has a basis on a man, when the answer was always in the Messiah. The church must be built on Jesus and that is what is meant by building it on the rock. It is the rock that Peter just learned from the Father that Jesus is the Son of God. That is exactly the only thing that approaches logic and consistency with the word of God. It is exactly what was taught as necessary for salvation, namely belief in Jesus as the Son of God. It was not all that was required to receive forgiveness of sins, but it is the necessary basis for what would follow. The church, the “called out” Jesus would build was based on obedience – Jesus being the author of eternal salvation to all those who obey Him (Hebrews 5.9). The gospel is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15.1-4). A person obeys the gospel that is, they obey the death, burial and resurrection in baptism. Jesus came to solve the spiritual problem of sin and in baptism they go into the process with sin and emerge without sin – past sins forgiven. Jesus then adds each person to His body, the church. Where is Peter? The church is spiritual, not the physical entity with a human head and all the rule-making. This is all very basic, yet trained persons acting as Catholic apologists defend the changes and private interpretations of centuries before. How can there be any respect for such persons?
Peter had a role as did the other apostles and that is well defined. In Matthew 16.15-19 that role is indicated in principle and then later more details are given. There are even more details given by Jesus after His death just before His resurrection to heaven. If we look at Peter’s role as the scriptures provide the information we have the truth. Peter was an elder at the local church in Jerusalem. He preached the first gospel message under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2, people responded, and the first souls were saved and added to the church by the Lord. Peter was also summoned to Cornelius who was the first Gentile to enter the kingdom. People ought to look at the record for Peter and not the things without validation, or reason.
It is amazing how much you can do with nothing. It is possible to build a large building on a very poor foundation, but it will need many repairs and eventually will collapse. The apologists work to patch the problems and it requires lies built on lies. Finally, there is nothing but deceit and there is such complacency and the truth is so distant that it no longer matters. Here are some observations about Catholic defenders:
- Apologists must internally realize they are lying. They keep themselves encouraged by the remote possibility that they might be right. They twist every scripture and seek validity in the writings of uninspired men. It brings them consolation as they tie together various remote and truly unconnected information to validate the silliness from centuries before. They ignore the most insane of cruelties, persecutions and murders and ultimate destruction of those who opposed Catholicism whether a person, a group of persons or an entire religious group like the Huguenots, Waldenses and Albigenses.
- In conversations between “Christian” apologists and Catholic apologists there is comfort in the lies they share, thinking maybe we are right. Both to a large degree accept each other and just agree they have different routes to heaven.
- As suggested above it is the foundation of their beliefs that are the problem. They defend the teachings built on a bad foundation.
- Catholic theology is so complicated and indeed you need these apologists to explain many things. Complication encourages members to follow versus trying to understand. The truth from God is not complicated.
- The sad thing about apologists is their commitment to a failed life. Unless they are totally delusional they must realize that the big picture does not support their defenses of Catholicism. Doesn’t it bother them that their religion is different than the doctrine of the first century. The doctrine that Paul said was another gospel. Think about the fact that there were no popes during the time when we know the Holy Spirit was operating in the first century. None of the teachings of Catholicism are found during the time of God’s final revelation. None of their teachings are consistent with God’s purpose and all violate the principles of God. They satisfy themselves saying we have the right to make the rules and justify it in their apologetic’s.
We have these apologists condemned to eternal loss and many suspect the weakness of their position and know they are in opposition to the scriptures. It is not unusual for them to believe they are better off than most because of their “zeal for God.” They fail to understand that there is truth and there is error and just being more interested and devoted to God than others means nothing. Paul said the Jews had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
Romans 10.1-3
1 Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.
2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
This is a good description of the apologist as they go about to establish their own righteousness having not submitted to the righteousness of God. They establish their righteousness by converting others to their beliefs and with each conversion they feel more justified – “I must be right.” Instead, they make converts twice as much a son of hell as themselves.
Their apologist’s pride will cost them eternally and the pain of their pride will be unbearable. The sheer obviousness of truth combined with their much learning and belief in their superiority will be dreaded yokes around their necks for eternity. Their end will be terrifying, and to think they to some degree knew of the value of heaven, of eternal things and could not hold to the fundamental principle not to add to or take away from God’s word. Their pride shuts their eyes and ears and as always it was their choice.
The “Christian – so-called” apologists are not needed for truth. The truth has been carefully delivered and independent of those who have created a different gospel, there is simplicity. Whenever there is something in addition to the bible used for rule making like the Catholic catechism or their thousands of other rule-making letters and documents there is devastation for souls. There are apologists like Paul, who teach truth and point out the differences between the scriptures and the invented doctrines of humankind. It is obvious that the “Christian so-called” apologists are the problem. It is amazing the organizations and teachings that are so far from God are defended. If an apologist were to realize how far they were from the truth it would be devastating. Remove all the things brought in by men and women and the “Christianity” they know and defend would be unrecognizable – but it would be the truth and that would be defend-able. Devastating – all the buildings, all the sermons, all the ceremonies and all the people thinking they have a relationship with God and all is just vanity, wishful thinking, wasted time. Solomon had it right and it was simple.
Ecclesiastes 12.13,14
13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man’s all.
14 For God will bring every work into judgment, Including every secret thing, Whether good or evil.
Solomon was also wise enough to finally realize the value of everything other than fear God and keep His commandments.
Ecclesiastes 14.1
14 I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.
The message from God, from Jesus carefully delivered by the Holy Spirit has a singular focus and it is the soul and not the things that fill our earthly life. They are temporary and thus Solomon correctly sees them as useless, vanity and compares them to grasping for the wind. Every apologist is grasping for the wind because they certainly are not fearing God, or they would not dare to teach different than His commands. Apparently, they cannot differentiate between the commands of men and the commands of God.
Topic 37: The Logic of Ignorance
God never intended to have His creation to make the rules. Life was a test for humankind and according to the rules of God. Jeremiah 10.23 is a principle from God.
Jeremiah 10.23
23 O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.
Catholics step by this, saying God works through the Catholic church via His Holy Spirit to make rules and rules and rules. Yet, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to the apostles to the guide them into all truth (John 16.13). Jesus told them in Luke 24 about the coming revelation.
Luke 24.46-49
46 Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day,
47 and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
48 And you are witnesses of these things.
49 Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”
This comes to pass, and the reconciliation promised from Genesis 3.15 was fulfilled in Acts 2. Sometime in the latter part of the first century the revelation is completed. The work of the Holy Spirit is complete. Humankind can now succeed and indeed people were added to the body of Christ by the Lord Himself.
The work of the Holy Spirit was one of revelation and confirmation and was completed. There is no need for more and in fact more means a changing of God’s word.
Peter says, “His divine power has given to us ALL things that pertain to life and godliness.”
Jude says, “to contend earnestly for the faith which was ONCE for all delivered to the saints.”
Paul in 1 Corinthians 13.8-10 indicates when that which is perfect has come those things which were in part will be done away. Those things in part were the things the Holy Spirit working with the apostles were doing that is, presenting and confirming the word with “signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit.” Now, humankind was left with that which was perfect – the word of God. During the first century the local church was established with a mission and organization. The elements were spiritual in nature. The gospel was opened to all nations when Cornelius was added to the body of Christ – fulfilling the promise to Abraham that all nations would be blessed through His seed.
Galatians 3.26-29
26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
People believe the Holy spirit is active today and He is but not how people want to make Him active. As mentioned His work is complete, but what He left remains. He is active through that which is perfect, that which He delivered that is, through the word of God. Once again people want something more than that which is perfect, they like the Jews want a sign like the Holy Spirit personally guiding them, they want that which has ceased, for instance they want miracles. Consider all the gifts of the Holy Spirit in confirming the word of God and then consider God left us with that which is perfect – better than miracles and almost no one believes Him.
We have the entire revelation from God – it is better than God opening the waters of the Red Sea to have the Israelites escape. It is better than the many miracles of Jesus. It is what God intended for the last age and it better because it removed the mystery, it is complete and finished and it brings salvation and the wisdom of God to humankind. It provides perfect evidence to know God is the God of the bible. It is the one way for you to succeed and is valid for all of humankind. Miracles confirm who God is as it did for Pharaoh, as it verified Jesus, as the Holy Spirit used them to confirm the word of God.
Hebrews 2.3,4
3 how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him,
4 God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will?
The next thing coming in terms of being foretold will be end and the judgment. Tongues had seized as miracles and all the things referred to as the gifts of the Holy Spirit in this time of revelation were over – the work of the Holy Spirit was complete.
Note: This idea of the Holy Spirit being active today is taken from verses mentioning the Holy Spirit, but they can all be understood consistent with all scripture as being associated with the work He has completed. Specifically, the word of God which is perfect, completed. The Spirit revealed, inspired and confirmed the word of God. Today, He convicts the world of sin through the word, which He delivered. We walk in the Spirit through the word of God. It is the Spirit’s work, the Word of God, that purifies us (1 Peter 2.22-25). The Holy Spirit dwells in us through the word of God as we consistently live by God’s commands, which were delivered by the Spirit. The scriptures are clear that God’s children are “in Christ” and if you are in Christ then the Spirit dwells in you and if you follow the doctrine of Christ you also have the Father.
There are at least five reasons people claim the Holy Spirit is active in some way other than through the word and they are:
- People want something miraculous
- Some people want to justify their teachings by saying the Holy Spirit led them
- They believe God’s way of using His word (inspired and written) could be flawed – they need direct contact from God
- They are careless in handling the word of God and essentially once again change it, but use the Holy Spirit as their justification
- In some cases people use the Holy Spirit as one who overpowers them, moves them in some way often beyond their control.
People will not accept God’s way. To be more precise those who fail in life will not accept God’s way. Those who love the truth – the few – will find God, obey him and live faithfully and not change anything that was delivered. Again, God’s test is perfect in making the division (your success or your failure). At a high level the determination is based on pride versus humility. More specifically, pride is always my way and humility is always as the Lord directs to the point of obedience and a life living for Christ and the gospel.
Proverbs 16.18
18 Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.
This verse defines those who fail, and the apologists are the worst in their disrespect for God, for God’s word. Their pride, arrogance and conceited attitude are the opposite of those God seeks and those attitudes drive them to demonstrate their superiority and consequently bring many souls to the worst possible end.
On the other hand, a humble person is like Jesus described in Matthew 5.3, specifically the poor in Spirit as they are not the haughty, but those who see their part in the necessity of Jesus going to the cross. Thus, they are poor in Spirit and a humble person.
Matthew 5.3
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Ecclesiastes 7.2,3 is thought provoking in terms of a lifestyle quite different than people want, namely that it is better to be in the house of mourning than feasting, and sorrow is better than laughter. How can this be? Very simply this is because life is about the soul. These are comparative things as God wants you to be happy as much as possible, but in view of your ultimate fate it would be BETTER to avoid the feasting and laughter than be lost. God’s children see the wisdom in moderation, in avoiding bad companions, in avoiding every appearance of evil and make the correspondingly correct decisions.
Ecclesiastes 7.2,3
2 Better to go to the house of mourning, Than to go to the house of feasting, For that is the end of all men; And the living will take it to heart.
3 Sorrow is better than laughter, For by a sad countenance the heart is made better.
If you understand God, you see His focus is on your soul-success and one should follow His direction although contradictory (as it might be) to what YOU WANT out of life.
Philippians 2.3
3 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself
How very different is how the world looks at life versus how God emphasizes something much different than the selfish way people want to live. God provides help to those who will listen leading to the very best thing for each person – eternal life.
James 4.10
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
There is quite a contrast in terms of being lifted up by God and being resisted by God. These invented and defended religions are wasting your short time on earth. If you consider being successful in life requires the truth (something hidden to most and much of that has to do with the deceit of religion). The verse below is so basic that it is sad that you may not know it and take it seriously. If you go to root cause for failing it might very well be those who have disrespected the word of God and changed it. Out of those changes various religions of humankind have evolved. Atheists are often drawn to reject God by the religions of the world but they have no idea that what they see is not God, but the religions built on the corruption of God’s word.
1 Peter 5.5,6
5 ……… “God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”
6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God ………
God points to the necessity of humility and how does one demonstrate this humility? There are some obvious ways, but the one clear way would be to submit to God and certainly that would include not changing His word.
Topic 38: The Wretched, Shameful Apologists
These vile adjectives are justified and will be validated by all who were influenced on their account. In the present time apologists might be admired. Despite their much-learning they are not very bright. They seem to be without common sense and without thinking. They focus on defense and never question, “could I be wrong.” I have come to believe they do not take truth all that serious. The truth is serious and cannot be compromised yet there is an acceptance even of things they do not believe as if variability in truth will not ultimately be a problem for souls.
Let me explain wretched, shameful and their inability to get to the truth.
Apologists can and will defend anything and everything associated with their beliefs or the beliefs of their benefactors. They are trained to respond in certain ways to questions to agree with the doctrines of their institution. A Baptist trained theologian or pastor or apologist defends Baptist doctrine. You cannot expect to get the truth from a person with such indoctrination. You would be closer to the truth if the “apologist” never received any formal training by the organization he/she now defends. If the person ONLY learned from reading God’s word, your chances of getting to the truth would be much better. Although you will find that many people trained exclusively by the word of God will nonetheless add their own inventions. There is no way to escape the conclusion that what is needed is a love of the truth.
Apologists can and will defend anything and this is how their “adjectives (wretched, shameful)” are justified. A Catholic apologist will defend the history of murder, burning at the stake, the inquisition as well as all the ridiculous unfounded teachings. They will detest the acts, but not connect those things with the illegitimacy of the laws made during those periods. One apparent aspect of the art of the lie used by apologists/false religions is to move away from the most fundamental issues – like the origins of their beliefs.
A human head of the church, new testament priests, confession of sins to a priest, worship of Mary, purgatory, Eucharist, the gross sexual abuse of children and a man or men standing in the place of God making rules and none of these things (and the many more) can be defended. Apologists find a way to make it all seem acceptable – truly their consciences are seared with a hot iron. They are the Baal priests of Elijah’s time pulling people away from the truth they so badly need. God will likewise, as the magnificent display of God versus Baal at the altar have Jesus return in the air and then the lies will be revealed and despised simply by the fact that you failed in life. It is incredible that apologists do not understand that the church Jesus built is spiritual, but they put in place an obscenest, crass, disgusting and abominable physical church.
After such a vile description of apologists and equally so for the false human devised religions, what is the conclusion? You might understand the evil associated with the media in relation to God and science lost in its pursuits, yet you might expect people devoted to truth might have the truth. Apologists for the world’s religions are every bit as dangerous to your soul as the others, more so since you “settle-in” to believing them. Life passes and with their assurances you will be shocked at your ending. It will be of no consolation that the apologists are as shocked if not more so than you. There is no substitute for the truth because it is what you need.
Topic 39: Conclusions and Consequences
Apologists of course are not the root cause, but just support the changing of the word of God and the associated private interpretations. Obviously, the cost is the souls of countless of humankind.
The world, especially the world of religion does not take seriously the word of God. Some think God’s word is like a guideline and others believe it has not been delivered with any accuracy. Both are wrong as God is behind the accurate delivery of truth and it is more critical than the creation itself and there were no mistakes in creation. Jesus accomplished His mission, and all would be futile if there were not the ability for people to respond. God designates His word as perfect in every way. The flaws come in when people change it – no changes! Nonetheless, we have massive changes in the teachings often by private interpretation and two names for this would be Catholicism and Protestantism. Those doctrines are not the doctrine of Christ and both have demolished the gospel message, and none can be saved in those teachings. It appears both will defend their errors until the bitter end at the cost of souls. Pride rules and until their end they will not relent in stubbornness.
Even so, we preach the truth as those deceived are still alive and thus have hope. The truth is easy to see, and the doctrines of Catholicism and Protestantism are easy to expose in their pathetic disguises of truth. Losing your soul is the most devastating of all things and I do not know all that entails except its anguish. One thing that crosses my mind would be how obvious the lies of Catholicism and Protestantism will be if God allows those memories. The truth in its simplicity versus the manipulation done that in some way ensnared you will be crystal clear. The result is you died in your sins failing to take advantage of the love of God through Christ. You may have been devoted to Christ IN YOUR OWN WAY, maybe how you were taught but never obeyed the gospel and your worship was in vain. Your prayers were not heard, and it is likely you supported the errors you were taught – misleading others. You need to believe only what you understand, and then it is not that hard to differentiate truth from error. Two questions:
1) How badly do you want to go to heaven?
2) Do you have a love of the truth?
Topic 40: Beyond Conclusions and Consequences – Ultimate Truth
I have created an analogy with some trepidation because it must carefully consider all scripture, while helping people understand at a high level “where they are.” I have used pieces of this before, but here it is, and it is rather soul-shaking. There is a giant stadium and it contains a field for competition. Outside the stadium are all the people who do not believe in God or are agnostic. Inside the stadium and in the stands are all those who believe in God and many of which associate with some religion. They may be Catholic, “so-called Christians,” Muslims, Buddhists, Mormons and any of the other human created religions. On the field are those in the competition, we might say in the race for the crown of life, for heaven. These are the people who respect and have not changed the word of God.
ON THE FIELD
ON THE FIELD competing for the crown of life are those “in Christ.” They remain in the race as long as they are faithful and at the end of their life they can receive the crown of life.
2 Timothy 4.7,8
7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
8 Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.
The idea of a race is used in scripture in describing the trial before the children of God.
Hebrews 12.1
1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
The success of those in the race is far from secure and as pointed out in 1 Peter as they will be scarcely saved. God’s expectations are high for the Sons of God. The people that succeed are of the highest quality as God views quality and this means humility, selflessness, kindness, courageous, a love of the truth, and perseverance in fulfilling the mission left for God’s children. They please God and they are the kind of people one would like to be around. These people see beyond this earthly life and see what was done for them by Christ, demonstrating God’s love. There are not a lot of these people and as Jesus said, a few. The characteristics of people in the race are “being of the truth” and “being spiritual.” One thing the world overlooks is that the standards for eternal success for humankind are exceedingly high. The world we live in is full of people with selfish, proud characters and truly evil people and often hidden. There many others that are quite good persons as judged by others and some held in high esteem and let’s say these things are justified. The society also accepts excuses and even allows appeals for crimes and tries to provide second chances and these things seem to be the norm. People also judge themselves relative to others and find themselves “statistically in their mind” to be better or much better than average. All these ways of accounting are quite different than how God does accounting.< /em>For God there is sin and sinless and not forgiven and forgiven and God’s laws are not negotiable, and judgment is perfect, fair and final. Those “ON THE FIELD” get there only one way and must continue to live to the highest standards. Paul, was certainly dedicated to the gospel and describes the many ordeals during the time of His preaching and his deep love for the brethren. Yet, with his continuous diligent efforts he pointed out that he had to always be alert lest he fall and miss out on the prize.
1 Corinthians 9.27
27 But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
The whole of scripture points out the high standard of God for success, for sharing in the divine nature. First, get into the race by your obedience then live your life for Christ and the gospel. If you are “IN THE STANDS” it is likely because you do not have a love of the truth.
Those “IN THE STANDS” will in no way be acceptable and more than 65%(guess) of the world may be in that category. Something over 34%(guess) may be outside the stadium. Success is not some percentage, but for those who meet the high uncompromising standards of God. God would like that to be 100%, only a few of humankind demonstrate the character God absolutely requires. Indeed, God has made the road difficult and that was to bring out the best.
Anyone “IN THE STANDS” or “OUTSIDE THE STADIUM” can get into the race and those in the race are dedicated to bringing the word of the truth of the gospel to all.
IN THE STANDS
Some “IN THE STANDS” will go through life believing they are in the race. They are not because Jesus has not added them to His body. Those “IN THE STANDS” need to obey the gospel and their organization does not believe this is necessary. So, are all those “IN THE STANDS” going to be lost? Yes! It is all very simple, God cannot lie. God is perfect in what He delivered, and that unchanged word is what you need, but it is not available “IN THE STANDS”. Those organizations provide complication, rules and their apologists focus on defending the lies that each has created. Much of their defense involves defending secondary lies whereas the problem is that their organizations are fundamentally in opposition to God. The creation of these organizations (religions) are an abomination and effectively soul destroying. Many people “IN THE STANDS” have become casual about their beliefs and live in both what they consider a spiritual existence and a physical worldly existence. There is a lack of seriousness for those who proclaim a belief in Christ in terms of following the scriptures. They are satisfied with picking and choosing from the scriptures to define their life as opposed to doing all God requires and for the reason He indicates. They usually honor the teachings of their leaders and trust their judgments when they should understand what they believe. Their oversight consists of rule-making hierarchies as opposed to living only by the scriptures. Some of those “IN THE STANDS” such as many Protestant groups are much less hierarchal and are much more conservative in their private interpretations. Catholics are the extreme in both hierarchal character and rule-making. Neither provide the thing people want, namely a successful life – heaven. Only God provides that outcome and not these man-made physical religions. Indeed, Jesus built His church (spiritual) and these physical organizations are “IN THE STANDS” trying to claim they represent Jesus’ church. Of course, they have no way to add people to the church Jesus built and any hope they have of doing that they destroy inasmuch as they changed the word of God.
The indoctrination and propaganda vary for those “IN THE STANDS,” but all “experience the pressure” brought by their “organization” and generally promoted by their peers. The characteristics of those “Christian so-called” religions “IN THE STANDS” are private interpretations of God’s word and the physical nature of their religions. Perhaps, one of the most damaging lies told or implied to those “IN THE STANDS” is the much less than outstanding effort they need to achieve heaven. The single most damaging lie is providing a changed gospel message that keeps them from being in the body of Christ.
OUTSIDE THE STADIUM
Those “OUTSIDE THE STADIUM” are very far from success. They are not even “IN THE STANDS” and they have chosen to live entirely in the world. They deny God’s existence or doubt God’s existence. There is not much difference since both are very far from succeeding in life. They can move into the stadium and onto the field if they have a love of the truth and that likely means overcoming many things they have come to believe and perhaps have been heavily indoctrinated into certain beliefs. They tend to dislike those in the stadium and typically do not even know there are people on the field in a competition. They have difficulty seeing past the ‘advertising” of the religions of the world (”IN THE STANDS”). By this I mean their histories, their diverse beliefs, their involvement in the world outside religion and a belief that they are behind the world’s problems. Like Mohammed, they see Christianity as represented by those “IN THE STANDS” and not by those “ON THE FIELD”. They distance themselves from the people “IN THE STANDS” and if approached by someone “ON THE FIELD,” they think they represent those “IN THE STANDS.” The characteristics of those “OUTSIDE THE STADIUM” are animosity toward religion and what they think is thoughtful (with evidence) reasoning for denying God’s existence.
This little analogy about the stadium and the contest is meant to help a person understand the seriousness of life. Life seems to be about all the things that so fill our lives and in the busyness of living and all the apparent time we have left we never understand life’s purpose. We settle into a position either outside the stadium or in the stands and life has no other meaning. Those outside likely believe they will go out of existence, while those in the stands think with their effort and lifestyle in relation to God somehow, they will eventually arrive in heaven. Success requires considerably more effort and specifically to seek God and truth, get into the race and live for Christ and the gospel instead of living for yourself. Those that do this know that life is about the soul, about a very personal battle between themselves and sin. A true battle between good and evil.
One thing you should consider regardless of where you are in the stadium analogy. God cannot lie and among the things you might think of are the following verses.
These will not inherit the kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 6.9-11
9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,
10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Another group of qualities that will result in a failed life are mentioned in Revelation 21.
Revelation 21.8
8 “But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
These are some fearsome things you should understand, but there can be forgiveness and just as surely as God warns does He provide assurance of success to those who love the truth and live that way. He tells those on the field of competition how to live to succeed. He is their advocate, but not for those who reject Him outside the stadium or in the stands. He certainly wants those to get into the race and give them the crown of life. When you consider all that God has provided in His perfect revelation, it is a wealth of love for you even when it is a warning. The only reason you will never enter the race is because you choose to reject God’s offer. You may see a wealth of beauty in many things in the earth and in the universe, but it does not compare to the beauty and peace you could find in the word of God.
It is amazing how well evil, paranoia, wealth and power can successfully pretend to be the church belonging to Christ. They do this by having a physical church of strong outward enticements such as magnificent physical buildings, ceremonies, impressive music and singing, statues, incense and teaching Christ is present and personally available to each person. They overcome all the senses. However, they are not able to overcome anyone who loves the truth.
In Catholicism there is an undeserved sense of security that is built on deceit and part of that is their teaching on purgatory. Purgatory of course, is not true neither is it relevant since Catholics are not in the body of Christ. The scriptures have been changed such that no Catholics are saved and the same is true for Protestants. God was serious about not changing His word. The apologists are appropriately those that exalt themselves just as their institutions exalt themselves by changing God’s word. Their exaltation will have its just reward as indeed will those who are humble.
Catholics create a religion with their popes, priests, ceremonies and doctrines without any authority. In their apologetic ways they attempt to make it seem logical. The scriptures represent perfect logic, since God is perfectly logical. Don’t be confused, part of God’s logic is to use faith as He defines it in the process of pleasing Him (Hebrews 11.6). Faith properly understood is perfectly logical and a key element in your salvation. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11.6) and God ties faith directly to His word by indicating Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10.17). Faith in Catholicism comes from the changed word of God and offers all the physical benefits of membership in the institution belonging to humankind’s religions.
Catholicism is responsible for innumerable lost souls and there is an obvious extension to Protestantism and all the lost souls from that system. Certain persons such as Luther in their enthusiasm for moving away from the terrorism of Catholicism rushed to many wrong conclusions as well as keeping pieces of Catholicism. The flaws in Protestantism were continually being discovered and led to the various “denominations.” Religions such as Mormonism came from the Protestant disillusioned John Smith. Even Islam was influenced in its creation of its religion by Catholicism, which was wrongly referred to as Christianity by Mohammed. Long before the time of Mohammed the principles of Christianity had been devoured by evil men. Christianity century after century (from the first century as Paul indicated) was evolving away from what God delivered as truth. Officially, Catholicism appears about 606 AD with their first pope. We might say the first bishop of Rome (Boniface III) to be called the universal bishop over all churches that is, the first pope. There were other bishops that claimed to be the head bishop before this such as Innocent I (402-417) who claimed to be “Ruler of the church of God.” and Leo I (440-461) who claimed to be “Lord of the whole church” and Gregory I (590-604) who is considered by some to be the first pope. Even then there were others who claimed the title of universal bishop such as the bishop of Constantinople during the time of Gregory I. Boniface III was more widely accepted and after this there seems to be more stability in their rule.
Beginning sometime in the first century to about 606 AD, Christianity was evolving to something very different than the word of God. As mentioned, Paul indicated the gospel message was changing during his time in the 1st century. As we march through these early centuries there remained some aspects of Christianity such as bishops (elders), but the qualifications were gradually completely ignored. There was a gradual oversight and rule-making / doctrine creating that came from men with the pinnacle of unrighteousness occurring in 325 AD at the first council of Nicaea. It is called the first ecumenical council of the Christian church and called by the emperor Constantine. Constantine had made Christianity the state religion in 312 AD. Catholics claim this as their first council, even though they or a pope did not exist. This was a time of local churches with bishops and widely varying doctrine. All this history and dates are not all that important, but what is important is that now officially there is an obvious public break with the word of God. Here we have men meeting across different local groups of so-called Christians (their local bishops) coming together to do rule-making. I say so-called Christians because they had undoubtedly long ago left the doctrine of Christ.
The above discussion about the history of popes, Catholicism with dates and events DOES NOT MATTER. IT IS A WASTE OF TIME because it has no eternal value. There is no such thing as a pope, Peter was not the pope and Catholicism only serves to be a hindrance to humankind. I only provided the above possible if not likely extremely short history of Christianity evolving to Catholicism as an example of vanity in terms of your soul. We could say the same about the road from Catholicism to Protestantism. The distinction you need is truth versus error. This type of waste is also seen as science uses their known laws to prove a non-God way to explain existence. You should seek God, seek truth and focus on succeeding eternally. You can understand your purpose and be 100% convinced by the evidence from God as found in the scriptures.
Catholicism stands as the opposite to Christianity. Mohammed saw the evil in the early hierarchy and cruelty of Catholics actually much of this was pre-Catholic Christianity, especially around Rome. The Christianity of the bible likely existed during this time but was fading quickly. Mohammed, would have had no complaints about the character of Christians, but of course he saw an empire-building paranoid cruel hierarchy. If Mohammed saw Christians, he would not have seen them – that sounds wrong, but they would have existed in relatively small independent communities living by the principles mentioned for instance in Galatians. In todays godless society led by media and academic prejudice they never miss a chance to portray Christianity in a poor light, often as babbling idiots, spewing verses with vile tones, having deep-seeded immoral tendencies, harboring hatred and in screaming in wide-eyed rages. Those in the household of God and maintained in the body of Christ by the Lord Himself are characterized as mentioned below.
23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
Unlike the cruel hierarchical leadership of those calling themselves Christian, Christian leadership would have humbly been serving those in their local churches. No, Mohammed may not have ever heard of “Christianity” unless someone was carrying the word of God as Paul and others had done centuries before. Such Christians living consistent as they must as Galatians 5.22,23 would have appropriately represented the body of Christ.
The Catholics were the ones who decreed the crusades, long after Mohammed’s death. I mention this because people to this day cannot distinguish between Catholics and Christians and have an even harder time distinguishing between Protestants and Christians. Christians are the ones who have not changed the word of God. Mohammed, was influenced by both Jews and Catholics (pre-Catholicism) but was truly himself the evilest of men.
Calling yourself Christian and being a Christian are not the same thing. The best thing about Protestantism was getting the word of God to the people and that allowed for truth to be more available for those who loved it. The truth to them was more important than what they currently believed – these are the ones who God refers to as those who loved the truth that they might be saved. They had the wisdom to speak where the bible spoke and to be silent where the bible was silent, which is a version of not adding to or taking away or changing God’s word.
Thus, better understanding how Catholicism with all its terror, divisiveness and massive deceit survived and survives has some value especially for those caught in its web. The very sophisticated Catholic apologists of today convince and perpetuate the evil. They generally believe they are doing good and fail to consider the seriousness of God’s word as it has been divinely, thus perfectly delivered.
Topic 19: The Terrible Abomination of Mary Worship
Just Another Catholic Distraction
This Mary doctrine is a good example of a common method of convincing called “it seems right.”
Catholicism includes doctrines totally foreign to the word of God – a human head, ceremonies for everything, special honored persons (their saints documented), confessing sins to a special person (their priests), last chance ceremonies for “death bed salvation,” a way to overcome dying in sin by post life suffering (purgatory), categories of sin, their mass and Eucharist to create a special benefit for their members and the list is very long. These things might seem right but that does not make them right. Yet, “the seem right things” often bring acceptance. The word of God tells us to prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Do not accept what seems right but search the scriptures.
God, through the Holy Spirit knows about the onslaught coming to His children. After all they are the only ones who are on the road to heaven. He advises, test all things, hold fast what is good.
Topic 20: Apologists, Teachers of Error – Your Alive – Wake Up – Avoid the Terror
21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
The central event in salvation is God’s Son’s obedience resulting in His terrible suffering and death followed by His resurrection. The word of God describes salvation’s relationship to this event perfectly beginning with Genesis 3.15. God’s word in its perfection persuades and/or antagonizes a person. God’s word is perfectly designed to reveal truth to those who have good hearts and hide itself from people dominated by certain characteristics. Proud, selfish people will not seek the God of the bible in a serious way.
8 but to those who are self-seeking and DO NOT OBEY THE TRUTH, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath,
The verses below speak of deception and delusion as keeping people from having a successful life. In some way, the thing that alluded them was the truth. The solution is having a love of the truth and that brings obedience to the truth. God even brings strong delusion to those who rejected the truth and chose to have pleasure in unrighteousness.
11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie,
12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Preachers of truth need to PREACH THE WORD and respond to questions and be helpful and defend if required. The apologists bring in all sorts of complexity as part of overwhelming the listener /reader. Apologists become the perfect evil in terms of destroying souls. The art of the lie for the apologist begins with their credentials, the recognition of their skills defending and convincing and this establishes trust. People being misled by people and never coming to the realization that God left His word, not some men/women to explain His word as they best see fit.
Apologists art of the lie includes many techniques, and some have been mentioned. Much of apologist methods involve getting people to believe certain assumptions, actually bad assumptions and then build on that with details that might SEEM reasonable, even very good things. The foundation is wrong as mentioned at the beginning of this page. The most fundamental thing wrong with Catholicism is its very existence. Everything that follows is equally a lie. Protestantism is built on certain doctrines originated by Martin Luther and John Calvin and others and everything built on that foundation is wrong. In both cases they emphasize helping others, conversions, worshiping God and all those things are wrong because they are not consistent with the truth.
Apologists need to understand the seriousness of handling God’s word as it is perfect, and perfect in conversion.
One thing good to know for apologists is that they are hell-bound for their evil works in opposition to God’s word. Jesus made clear the result of those who taught others error in religious matters when He told the Jews of the outcome of their proselytizing.
The Jews long before the arrival of Jesus had butchered the word of God with their tradition. Jesus was also very direct in pointing out the seriousness and how their ways result in useless worship.
Paul was constantly aware of the destructive nature of deceit and knows that those bringing error would cheat those they taught from participating in the Divine Nature.
The apologists provide misery often in life and of course, after life. This says that a person needs to take what God says seriously and how He says it and be very certain that the teaching is consistent with all that God has revealed. Do not trust what men and women teach in relation to spiritual matters. We might say, take seriously what God says in relation to the eternal, in relation to heavenly matters. When God and truth are missing people envision the strangest things about life – such strange conclusions. There is a singular connection with the truth and it is what God has provided in the scriptures. It is not the private interpretation of the scriptures, but the earnest, diligent study of truth and as the scriptures indicate a love of the truth that you might be saved.
Topic 21: The End Result for Protestants Will Be the Same as Catholics
Protestants honor the teachings of Luther and Calvin and others and some of their verses used to justify their doctrines are:
The simple flaw like in John 3.16 and Acts 16.31 is an assumption regarding the word believe as they define it as a mental acceptance only. As is always the case those who are careless with the word of God continue to change God’s word – everywhere. One can see how this can be powerful in creating converts – there is a “nice story” here for those who seek God and heaven. However, apologists should in their study realize all the flaws with such a belief. Honest, truth loving people are able to see the inconsistency with the word of God. There is no integrity with God’s purpose and plan in such a conclusion. Taking liberty with the word of God, actually being careless produced “faith only” and then John Calvin continued to create the five points (TULIP) that became prominent in Protestant beliefs. Every one of those points is seriously wrong and in different ways has resulted in the destruction of souls.
Catholicism fails in Matthew 16.15-19 and have no pope and no authority and because Protestantism is an outgrowth of Catholicism as a result of keeping their idea of church and much of the Catholic’s associated beliefs – they also fail. Their failure is direct in those things, but as could be expected when error seeps in there will be more error. In the case of Protestantism that error was massive, albeit different than the Catholic error. In effect it keeps Protestants from realizing a successful life.
The Gospel Message
Conversions of the New Testament
The Word of God
Topic 22: God Is Consistent from Creation
I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded,
25 Because you disdained all my counsel,
And would have none of my rebuke,
26 I also will laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when your terror comes,
27 When your terror comes like a storm,
And your destruction comes like a whirlwind,
When distress and anguish come upon you.
28 “Then they will call on me, but I will not answer;
They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me.
29 Because they hated knowledge
And did not choose the fear of the LORD,
30 They would have none of my counsel
And despised my every rebuke.
God has not changed. He cannot change His nature because it is already and always has been perfect. There is a time for your obedience and it is during your lifetime. If you think God is vengeful to those who reject His word, to those who change it to the cost of innumerable souls you would be right. God says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. He says, He is a vengeful God. He says He is a loving God and He is perfect in justice, and He cannot lie.
You may not be able to understand all this, but you can if you love the truth.
19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.
So much of the world is not even in the race for the prize and indeed the apologists are often the reason. God is particularly concerned with those who have obeyed the gospel and the letters to the saints in the churches are to help them remain faithful. His warning and vengeance includes those who are in the household of God as they need to reject sin in their lives per their repentance (a commitment not to sin again) and use their abilities to bring the gospel message to the world. The following verses bring the seriousness of life into a correct perspective for those in the body of Christ (“at the house of God”) and for those who are not (“who do not obey the gospel of God”).
18 Now, “If the righteous one is scarcely saved, Where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?”
This is a common theme in the bible as reaching the point of a relationship with God requires one to continue in faithfulness. Those receiving talents are responsible for increase, those who receive the word of God (parable of the seed) but grow up only to be choked by the things of the world are lost – as was Demas. The tyranny of Calvinist teaching of once saved, always saved is pathetic and ridiculous, additionally in his system they were never saved in the first place.
30 For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The Lord will judge His people.”
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
God does not hold back the result of failing in life and to those who do not understand OBEYING THE GOSPEL; they should be exceedingly distressed.
8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not OBEY THE GOSPEL of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,
Topic 23: Apologists Succeed Because People Rationalize
Something that Sounds Right and is Widely Accepted Must Be Right
Catholics have Christ in their doctrine, but because it is not the doctrine of Christ they have neither the Father or the Son.
Everything in Catholicism is wrong! Can you squeeze purgatory into the passages that describe the return of Christ, the taking of His body (the church), the end of the world and the judgment? Christ returns and takes vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord. Why? Because they did not know God and obey the gospel – not because they died in mortal sin – what is mortal sin? You should know that God never quantifies sins as the Catholic church. Isn’t it logical that there is a place for those who are judged to live basically good lives, but fall somewhat short? Apparently, some people thought (rationalize) that would be right and invented a place called purgatory – SEEMS right. Opposite, yes there is no place called purgatory instead there is truth and error and sin and sinless and you need to be “in Christ” the way the scriptures indicate. You might grasp the evil of apologists only when your end comes and find out there was no Catholic church, no purgatory but by believing these things you lived “carelessly.” You need the truth because life is about the soul and absolutely about nothing else.
Along with understanding God and His severity you need to have a love of the truth that you might be saved.
11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie,
12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
How evil is it to teach that people can live less than God expects and still eventually after purgatory (or whatever) find heaven? The response in acceptance of such “second chance” philosophies is to want to know just how much I can get away with and still eventually achieve heaven. Indeed, this is the morality of Catholicism – for most. Some Catholics may be more serious about pleasing God, but still live less than they should believing worst case is they will have to spend some time in purgatory. The truth is even worse besides no purgatory, there is no salvation in idolatry, which is the Catholic church. There is nothing in Catholicism that is the truth – not a pope, not Mary honor, not priests, not the Eucharist, not confession of sins to a priest, not their councils, not their sacraments and it is confusing in everything. Yet, there stands their apologists making defense for their teachings and Protestant apologists doing the same. Of course, Catholics like purgatory, of course many Protestants like the rapture, of course both like the liberality they take in God’s message regarding sin.
Topic 24: Here Is Where the Apologists Get It All Wrong
a) Don’t love the truth
b) Are the wise of the world
c) Are the prudent looking for deeper meanings, often things to fit preconceived and/or prejudiced beliefs – they analyze God’s word to the point of changing it
d) Are those who are foolish – cannot see any value beyond their senses
e) Are those who do not believe what God says, although what God says is clear
f) Are those who are perishing – their life is devoted to pride, selfishness, and the lusts of the eyes and flesh
4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
God will get those He wants, and it will necessarily be a result of their choices. God in His perfection can do this, and He tells us about those who make poor choices that they will not see or understand. It is not that the truth is not available to them, but they may not care, or they may be deceived, and apologists may be part of that deception. They may never see an apologist but see his/her work via some media. Or the apologist may be the one who stands before them every week and teaches – like a pastor or priest and so-on.
There are different ways to look at why God would send strong delusions, but the best way may be to understand the seriousness of God’s word. The delusion could take many forms, it might be worldly created evidence that convinces people that God does not exist, it might be the force of the apologist argument. There are several things to be considered if we think about God sending strong delusion. First, God is not a respecter of persons and second, He wants all to succeed – come to repentance, to obedience. This allows us to see that God did not initiate the delusion before the problem, but in some way, there was serious rejection of God. God is warning that going down some paths can result in the strong delusion and the apparent conclusion is that it will overcome them. I do not know how this might work and I mention it because it fits the apologist. Unless, the apologist is consistent with scripture this soul destroyer is hated by God (look at the seven things God hates, at least four of them are associated with deceit). The delusion for the apologist is that he/she believes they are right. An apologist would seem to be a person who wants to do good, to help others to a better next life and yet something, maybe pride, maybe the status of an apologist, maybe the inability to face up to the damage they have already done keeps them HOPING what they teach is truth instead of KNOWING it is the truth.
Topic 25: Apologists are Amazingly Ignorant of God and Fail to Make the Key Distinctions
God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit always have the spiritual in mind – in everything. Below are some things to consider that may help you put life in the correct perspective.
And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
Although, this is a physical world, universe, consisting of other physical and living components including humankind the creation event was spiritual. Notice how God created by His word, by the breath of His mouth. He uses this same language in Genesis the first chapter. Of course, we cannot understand how “the mighty seemingly infinite universe” can be created by speaking it into existence. This will be a problem for our science as they are limited to the laws built into creation by GOD. This is discussed on various pages of Heaven Coach, but simply said the physical creation is part of God’s test (the physical world being the stage).
2. Adam and Eve sinned and that brought a limited lifetime, ending in physical death. Also, they died spiritually, yet they still had a spirit. Dying spiritually means they were no longer in a relationship with God. There was no way to recover – apparently. God immediately offers a spiritual solution in Genesis 3.15. It is a spiritual solution to a spiritual problem – sin.
3. God would select faithful Abraham such that via His seed all nations would be blessed. The blessing, the solution would not be correctly understood until after the death of Christ. Then, not until that which Jesus promised to the apostles occurred in Acts 2. Some would receive the long-waited blessing from Genesis 3.15 when they were told what they must do (Acts 2) and responded. In Acts 10, finally all nations we would be blessed as the first Gentile was forgiven. The promise to Abraham was fulfilled and is the reason all peoples from that point forward can achieve heaven. God ties this all together perfectly and four verses in Galatians associate faith, obedience, forgiveness, and the inclusion of all those in Christ Jesus as heirs according to the promise.
27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
5. During the days of the Jews before Christ there were many physical processes in relation to what God required. One of those things was bringing certain animal sacrifices and this always meant the best, unblemished animal sacrifices. Sins could be “forgiven” for a year. Jesus would be a perfect spiritual sacrifice, yes, His physical body would be taken and to the burial, but then He would rise from the dead. His sacrifice carried with it the reconciliation of humankind to all those who obey Him – a spiritual outcome.
6. Jesus said He would build His church. Do you think that He would build a physical church, with a physical leader? What would be the value? Would He create another imperfect, physical order for humankind as God did for the Jews? The old law was an imperfect physical law written on tablets and used the best animals for sacrifice. It is important to understand God’s view of the old law and the new.
One of the most graphic ways God uses to show the difference and how the old law was removed is in the verse below:
The question for this section was how can an apologist fail to make the key distinctions in their field – considering for many this is their life’s work? The word of God is different than any other study. It is not the intensive study that brings truth, but the good heart of an open-minded humble person. It seems to be part of God’s perfect word; perfect fairness and I only understand this somewhat. I do not believe it is mysterious in any way. Think about the person who loves the truth and as that person finds things in God’s word that are problematic for them they just say OK that is part of God’s way and I fully accept it and embrace it. On the other hand, some look into the scriptures and the things they see they cannot accept and soon find problems everywhere and may even discredit God’s word and change it. Anyway, I would just be guessing about the mechanisms, because God does not matter-of-factually reveal how that works. God does say seeing they shall not see and hearing they do not hear or understand in relation to speaking in parables. The keys to truth will always be having a love of the truth and making godly choices. Sharing in the divine nature is always a question of how badly you want to succeed. It is your choice.
Topic 26: Baptism Is Spiritual
36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”
37 Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”
It might help to look at “Conversions of the New Testament”
A person needs to accept Jesus as God’s Son (Peters answer to who Jesus was), repent of their sins (requires a decision not to sin), be willing to publicly acknowledge Jesus for who He is and then they can be baptized. Specifically going down into the watery grave for the reason given – namely the forgiveness of sins. It is not a ritual, but a one-time response to God’s command – that is obedience.
It is difficult to conceive of a eviler teaching than that of Catholic’s baptism. Essentially, they take the spiritual nature of baptism and make it a physical event. They begin by defining something called original sin – something the bible knows nothing about.
They baptize babies, who cannot believe or repent or confess Jesus, which are the critical elements before baptism.
Protestantism or the protest against Catholicism unfortunately maintained many aspects of the Catholic church doctrines. Luther never understood that all Catholic doctrine had to go. He wrongly saw the Catholic church as ONLY corrupt, but not that their very existence was an abomination to God. So, he and others kept various pieces of Catholicism. Such things as some of the Catholic sacraments, and although they rejected original sin they replaced it with something called inherited depravity. Some kept statues, most kept the hierarchical organization concept with some sort of central control over local churches. Some of them kept the idea of baptizing babies. Like Catholicism they did not understand the fundamental spiritual nature of the church Jesus built, their churches are physical in nature. That would mean central authority, impressive physical buildings where God could be found, the making of rules that is, changing the word of God. God through the Holy Spirit provided authority for the local church in terms of organization and worship. Protestants, beginning with Luther handled God’s word carelessly and although different than Catholicism they acted in ways to essentially add to and take away from scripture – while claiming they never did so.
Their means of adding to or taking away consisted of private interpretation of scripture. They invent a doctrine for the salvation that might be called, “by faith alone” and to make this all the more damnable they condemn the God defined path for salvation and in effect destroy the souls seeking a relationship with God. It was mentioned that Catholicism was the opposite of the truth and the same is true of Protestantism. The Protestants are less obvious compared to the brash, ridiculous, hierarchies, miracles, rules and so-on of Catholicism. Nonetheless, Protestantism most surely destroys billions of souls.
Topic 27: Prayer Is Spiritual
In short, not just anyone can go to God that is, address God and expect Him to “be there for them.” God has promised to be not far off from everyone and wants you to seek Him with your whole heart. Your thoughts and “prayers” in seeking God can allow you to find Him. You will be able to find and obey Him, thus establishing a relationship with His Son. It might help to clarify by saying God only hears the prayers of the righteous, but in some cases, in some way also acknowledges those with a good heart who are seeking Him as the case of Cornelius.
In reference to Christians sinning after they had their past sins forgiven, the Holy Spirit reveals that they have we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. In their baptism past sins were forgiven and they were placed into a relationship with the Son and thus providing His advocacy. That relationship can be lost due to unfaithfulness and moving swiftly to restore it by praying God (now possible to reach the Father) that the thought of a person’s heart or actions MIGHT be forgiven.
Prayer is very spiritual and not the travesty created by humankind’s religion with their invented ceremonies involving prayers. Protestants, but especially Catholics invented repetitive prayers despite the scriptures rejecting this form of prayer. It is amazing how Catholics and Protestants talk about how they have a calling usually coming out of prayer where God is individually directing them. Usually they say they have been contacted by the Holy Spirit to do “this or that.” The reality is that they made it up, have wishful thinking or interpret something in their life that then has them telling others of their special relationship with God. Interestingly, they often come to believe what they profess. They do not understand God, understand the scriptures and specifically do not understand prayer. They are not children of God, so they cannot go to God in prayer and they should understand God is not going to respond to their requests. As mentioned for those not in Christ, seeking God, seeking truth for instance by prayer is valuable if done consistently and done in sincerity. If you indeed establish a relationship with God’s Son in the only way possible by obedience, then you have opened the door of prayer to God through His Son.
Prayer is a form of worship inasmuch as you reach God through God’s Son. Prayer is a holy thing and set aside for God and those holy as He is holy. All worship must be in Spirit and truth. The Lords people in the local church give (as previously mentioned), not according to the physical sense like the old law of tithing (meaning 10%), but as they purpose in their heart. The Lord’s people sing and make melody in their hearts (no new covenant physical instruments). The law of God is written on their hearts, in other words they internalize it not just meaning they are capable of remembering it, but they live the truth God has revealed. The point is, God is a Spirit and those that worship Him must do so in Spirit and truth. You are only in Spirit if you are “in Christ.” The things you do in prayer, in singing, in giving, in remembrance and in preaching the word are all of a spiritual nature. If you are not in the body of Christ, you need to be and can be by doing what God requires in His word.
Topic 28: Doing It Your Way Means a Failed Life
There is authorization by direct commands, apostolic example and/or necessary inference for the local church to edify the saints in their knowledge of truth, so they can perform the work of evangelism. The local church is authorized to show benevolence to THEIR needy members, again so they can bring the message. The local church, unlike churches of the world does not have other activities that might serve the world such as feeding the poor, building hospitals, starting universities and all the very many good things that make people feel good about themselves. WHY NOT? Because in THE WISDOM OF GOD, the local church very well might do those things, but lose focus and fail to bring the truth. This is exactly what has happened whenever people think their mission can include things not authorized. The Catholic churches, the Protestant churches have wonderful programs of helping the needy. They do not teach the truth and in their much giving they also convert many and as Jesus told the Jews in their proselytizing that they made converts twice the child of hell as themselves.
Now, WAIT A MINUTE this sounds all wrong. You need to make the distinction between the local church and the God given direction and responsibility of each person in the body of Christ. Individual Christians in the spiritual body of Christ are under the MOST SEVERE SCRUTINY to help those in need. The verses in Matthew 25.35-45 describe this very well as do the fruits of the spirit define the character of those in Christ. How, those individual Christians do this and who they do this with (if anyone) is up to that child of God. Clearly failing to follow Jesus directive will cost a child of God their soul. THIS, HOWEVER, IS NOT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE LOCAL PHYSICAL CHURCH. This is God’s way, and few can accept it – in effect, the churches of the world are better than God when it comes to helping. They change the word of God in order to be effective in their physical growth – people like to think they are helping people physically. The job of the local church is evangelism, spiritual help. God, Jesus and The Holy Spirit were focused on souls as they each completed their part of the reconciliation. The Lords people of the local church need to also be focused on souls and not anything that suits their appearance to others.
Catholics, Protestants want to build their church into some massive institution for good and this is “always” the case, at the cost of the truth. They might as well be a secular organization and in fact they are just that.
Yet, just one thing honors God and it is doing His will, doing things His way. Paul made this clear when he was in Athens and their means of worship is identical in concept to those of Catholic and Protestant churches throughout history.
25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.
26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,
27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
Topic 29: Apologists Defend the Physical Nature of the Church
That closes the subject. God does not have to list all the persons who cannot make intercession to God. They are all eliminated when Jesus is the one mediator. Yes, the apologists can make up many stories, many excuses, many ways to get around the problem, but it is not the truth. The foundation for these religions is deceit and then the things built on such a foundation are also of course, deceitful.
Obviously, there has been a history of people living quite profitably from the defense of erroneous beliefs, including the defenders, the apologists. These can be the “clergy,” professors at religious institutions, religious writers and what can be called career apologists among others. In most cases they have few other skills and the commitment is great involving that most essential factor, self-preservation. Since they cannot think differently, they do not have a love of the truth and never consider their soul “hangs in the balance.”
1) Needs to be true and you need to understand. Of course, they all claim truth, but many accept what is taught at the insistence of the apologist – bad reason!
2) Their teaching needs to be consistent with all scripture and some will claim this. You are responsible to understand if their claim is true.
3) Must not violate any of the basic principles of God as He has revealed them.
4) How does this “teacher” profit (in an earthly manner) from being an apologist?
5) Where was the apologist trained? This is important to understanding their potential prejudice.
6) Realize once you “buy into” what some apologist is teaching, you can more easily accept more of their teachings. Realize they mix truth with error to “win you over.”
7) Most, actually all religions crumble because of their origins, except the one that is the truth.
8) Does the apologist strongly encourage you to understand what you believe and study on your own? This is important, but many false teachers will suggest this in order to increase their credibility.
9) Are you impressed by the number of people who believe, by the organization, by some of the music, by the building, by the professionalism or seemingly moral character of the teacher, or by their good works? All these things are the wrong reasons for believing something religiously – you need to ask yourself how much did these things influence me?
10) It might help to realize that the truth is simple and the complexity of doctrine, of organization, and the vagueness and long explanations should be worrisome. There is a lot of material on this page, but it is long because it is addressing the many changes made by various groups to the word of God. Remove the changes and you have simplicity – God’s message to humankind that allows them to succeed.
One might say this is a lot of work, but this is the most important thing in your life – you need to discover the truth about life and live correctly. The sad part is that you will know this was the most important thing in your life when your life is over.
Error is everywhere and thus God’s children in the process of teaching the word, bringing the gospel message will face those errors and need to be able to give an answer to the hope that is in them. Thus, the scriptures are full of examples of the work of the Christians of the first century preaching the word and convincing, rebuking, exhorting with all longsuffering and doctrine. The distinction is, are you defending the truth or error? If it is the truth, then the apologist is justified, and you are pleasing God. If you are defending error, then the wrath of God falls upon you and you are destroying the souls of many. It is an eternally serious business to be an apologist. The condemnation for teaching, defending error is something that God hates. See Proverbs 6.16-19 and notice how this sin of deceit is something most condemned. The whole of God’s plan depends on bringing the truth to humankind by the children of God. Now with the growth of error there has grown up the defense of error. Sadly, many will be surprised. They were assured eternal life was in their future only to find the horror of a failed life. The apologists in their pride believe they are serving God but are very much doing the opposite. All you need to be a truthful apologist is to respect God by not changing His word. In most cases, what you defend has already been changed by someone. Nonetheless, it is still your responsibility to get it right. All the changes are easily seen as changes. Earlier on this page, sorting truth from error was discussed and with an honest heart you can “easily” make the distinction. Admittedly, as you have allowed yourself to accept mountains of error you have dug a deep hole and perhaps many have followed you. You need to seek truth and be willing to accept it giving up what you currently believe even if it will be exceedingly difficult. It is the most serious thing in the world – treat it that way!
Topic 30: How Many People Function as Apologists as a Significant Part of Their Life
Debates can be helpful, although there have been a few done with the truth. They seldom move many/any people to the truth, because people hold to what they and family and friends have always believed. Yet every soul has great value. The other factor keeping people from believing differently is the requirement to live their life for Christ and the gospel versus living life for themselves. This is a requirement of the truth and many will look for something more moderate. Thus, the standard disease, they do not have a love of the truth – easy targets for the apologist. One point here is that in the world of all these “physical churches” with so many different beliefs (even within Catholicism) there are various attempts at “believing alike.” This leads to compromise, which provides some progress in the minds of different religions but does nothing for helping people to the truth. The root cause must be found if people of world religions are going to succeed. That root cause is the most basic inception of the religions themselves. Start with there is no validity in Catholicism and none with Protestant religions and go from there and look at God’s word independent of the doctrines of those religions.
Topic 31: Atheists Get A Lot of Support from Christians and Help from Bad Science
Such a debate would be quite different. It would not necessarily involve detailed scientific “discussion,” although the TRUTH has no problem with good science. All the scientific arguments against God’s existence are frivolous and do not address the point of God’s existence and the creation. They all begin by placing God into humankind’s science – the science God provided in the creation for humankind to eventually discover and provide potentially good things for humanity. They limit and explain God by “their science.” They fail to see God in creation – everywhere. They fail to see the evidence of God in his word, namely in its perfection in every way. Everything fits perfectly together from “the beginning” to accomplish His purpose. His design of the physical world is no more than a stage where His creation of those in His image can succeed or fail. Some will fail because they spent all their time avoiding the possibility of God, perhaps proving to themselves that there is no God. They really desire no responsibility for how they live and certainly no post death existence. It turns out that God differentiates success from failure based on a person’s attitude. Clearly, Atheists seek a “no God” answer and that prejudice is hardly conducive to finding truth.
Most Atheists like the support of science but rely on a variety of social arguments. One of their favorite arguments is the problem of human suffering. They argue that God cannot be good and all powerful because people suffer (for instance) from natural disasters and thus God is not good since He built such terrible things into existence.
Many Atheists as well as Religionists like to define HOW GOD MUST BE and if God differs from their perception, then “this” is not God or God does not exist. This is quite ridiculous and points to who really is important – themselves.
Atheist Apologists easily devour people who are desperate to find an answer other than God. If you understand the scriptures and thus have a reasonable understanding of God, you know He is the absence of evil. You also know that God is all powerful and He creates all things by ‘saying” them – at least that is the process He uses to explain the simplicity (for Him) of creation. Then if you study human suffering you see that behind human suffering is usually sin. Sin brings suffering to the individual as well as to many others. In the case of the natural disaster these things are in the nature of creation and there can be suffering – it is not targeted suffering. Clearly God allows suffering and it plays a part in God’s purpose, but this in no way makes God evil. God opened the door to suffering following the sin of Adam and Eve and in that sense all suffering is “tied” to sin. God mentions how a woman would suffer in childbearing as an example of a world previously without suffering. Suffering would now be commonplace. Innocent persons are often the victims of suffering caused by the sin of others. It might be one person striking another or a person or group of persons in their self-seeking or evil nature starting a war where huge number of innocent persons suffer. It is fair to say that suffering plays an integral part in God’s purpose. Suffering arrived with sin (Adam and Eve) and it would be suffering that occurred in the absence of sin as Jesus would suffer the terrible death. Indeed, in many different ways suffering is involved in the fulfillment of God’s purpose.
Topic 32: Understand Worship Correctly and Understand A Great Deal About God
God stipulates HOW WORSHIP MUST BE ACCOMPLISHED. If you are beginning to understand God, you might see the connection between having a relationship with Him and obedience. God declares the requirements for worship in John.
The qualified elders are to be sure there is orderly worship and define things to be sure that happens, while being certain the prime mission is being accomplished.
Topic 33: Science – Out of its League
The history of failing in life whether it was Adam and Eve, Cain, Nadab and Abihu, King Saul, Demas, Naaman, Ananias and Sapphira or the innumerable others was due to their choice to disobey God. Science offers nothing but confusion to humankind and thus contributes to the failure of many.
Science will always be changing and will never get it right. They will never answer why anything exists – nothing should exist. Time certainly should not exist. Here is the worst thing for the lost, namely to spend eternity realizing this very thing – that is, nothing makes sense without God. Science is no more than “wishful thinking” as they try to explain existence without God. God did not intend humankind to understand creation (it is not important to their success) but told them how He did it outside the laws designed into the creation. God has a purpose and that was His focus and it needs to be understood by humankind, so they can succeed.
Those who reject God’s existence are not thinking. God has an infinitely higher intellect, is infinitely wiser and is perfect in every way. God is rejected because He is not as apparent as people would like (part of His test) and rejected because of what people see in life like human suffering, which provides a cry of this cannot be God or if it is God they do not want anything to do with God. They are not thinking, and their weak human logic supports what they in pride want to believe. They have these one-liner explanations and leave out everything else they should be considering. Things like their position relative to the creator in terms of intellect and any consideration of why we exist. Does God have a purpose, should I understand God’s purpose?
Science deserves respect along with engineering for all the modern things of life. However, when they step into the things beyond their ability to validate they damage their credibility. They work with the things, laws that are part of the existence we know and extend them to provide reasonable alternatives to God. God by definition is beyond the laws He created, so in this realm science should say this is what we know from our science, e.g. the universe is expanding, there is order everywhere and billions of universes. God created all things exactly as He indicated – everything physical, everything living. There should be no denial of God based on humankind’s limited science. Science knows they will never fully understand existence but will never lack ideas. Unfortunately, in this area science in pride feels the necessity to promote teaching young minds their conclusions as the likely answer to our existence – that is pathetic. Science should be as they have always been, theory and proof, but in this area it is theory, new theory and suggested possible proof, which is just another theory. The best scientists see order, design everywhere but all too often do not want a moral God like the God of the bible. They want a life without ultimate accountability and what they promote are generations of young people who have no accountability. The unfortunate part is that there is a God and He is the God of the bible and thus ultimate accountability. The world has become very liberal and anti-God and it shows in the media and especially in most universities. Science should be above this prejudice, but due to the close association and pressures within academia they relent. Over time we have godless science leadership, which promotes an anti-God agenda.
In the current state many scientists serve to destroy their own souls and mislead many who will also pay the price. Those of science who provide THEORY AS TRUTH and even if they avoid involvement in conclusions about God’s existence are nonetheless misleading many. Life is about the soul and it is not trivial to lie – THEORY AS TRUTH IS A LIE, unless it is truth. I suspect every scientist in this field knows the big bang theory and the theory of organic evolution is not or may not be the truth. They could say it is the best science has done within their laws – the laws built into the creation. In any case they cannot dispute that God did as indicated and speaks everything into existence – just because it does not fit the science available to them. God is beyond the science of humankind. Who is the creation (humankind) to question the creator?
Understand this about God.
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
Einstein, believed in God, but not a moral God. Einstein was too independent, too proud to accept a God who could limit his moral choices and could not accept the punishment held out for those who opposed God. He did see God as creator and wanted to ask God many questions. Einstein holds no special place with God or does any person – except those who have a relationship with His Son. Wasting your life trying to understand our existence is truly wasting your life. The “existence science” of humankind is not of any consequence and there will be no discussion with God. There will be judgment based on the word of God, just as promised.
Topic 34: Always Helps to Understand God Better
A person who does not understand how God divided the ages and why, can reach a bad conclusion. God refers to this as the last age (sometimes last days) and that is because His revelation to humankind is complete and the promise of reconciliation was completed in Christ. Only one prophetic thing remains and that is the end of all things and the judgment. The previous age could be called the Mosaic age and its rule was the Law of Moses. That law has been nailed to the cross. The central event of that age was bringing Jesus through the lineage of Abraham so all nations could be blessed. Although men had a free will, God did interact directly at times to assure the process of bringing Jesus would occur. Obviously, on the other side was Satan who needed to thwart God’s plan and since God gave up control to humankind it seemed possible that evil might prevail. God, for instance made sure Israel would bring Jesus and in the wisdom of God that meant different things needed to happen. One of those things was bringing the Jews out of Egyptian bondage and so we see God’s actions like the ten plagues and how the Red Sea was used for their escape. Throughout the Mosaic age God did certain things to keep the path clear for the coming of Jesus. Satan must have thought that he had won as Jesus was going to His death. However, this was God’s plan to bruise the heel of Jesus and bruise the head of Satan. Some of those actions might be seen by some as indicators that God was not good. That would be wrong. God was not interfering with the choices people made but was doing things to fulfill Genesis 3.15 in a world where free will choices could be made. Jesus would suffer and die, and the doors of heaven would be opened to those who obeyed the author of eternal salvation.
Topic 35: The Problem with Apologists+
God’s word is truth and if you do not change it, you will have the truth. As religions are conceived and represent teaching that changed the word of God or were completely new and invented (like Islam or Mormonism – using portions of the bible) they need apologists to justify and convince people they are valid.
Paul in Athens found the Athenians worshipping many gods and just in case they missed one they had an altar to an unknown god to assure they “were covered.” Paul addresses the error in Acts 17.
23 for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:
TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:
24 “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.
25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.
26 And He has made from one blood[c] every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,
27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’
29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.
30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,
31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.”
33 So Paul departed from among them.
34 However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
Paul, effectively addressed the problem, that is, their errors in religious beliefs. A great deal of Paul’s activities could be summed up in three categories:
1) Preaching the gospel
2) Pointing out error and
3) Providing answers to questions often involving the religious errors of the day
Because, Paul did not change the gospel, he provided people with the truth. The truth he received from Jesus Christ.
12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
What will humankind do with God’s perfection to them? Of course, they will change it.
The message is changed and changed and changed and becomes ineffective in terms of its saving power back at the first change. Some have not changed it and to them who respect God there is truth and salvation and heaven. The apologists represent a destructive force for the souls of billions of people. The end will not be like they “explain” either for themselves or those who they convinced. It will be exactly as God has indicated in His word, His unchanged word.
Topic 36: The Catholic Apologist – Beyond Reasonable Thought
Peter had a role as did the other apostles and that is well defined. In Matthew 16.15-19 that role is indicated in principle and then later more details are given. There are even more details given by Jesus after His death just before His resurrection to heaven. If we look at Peter’s role as the scriptures provide the information we have the truth. Peter was an elder at the local church in Jerusalem. He preached the first gospel message under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2, people responded, and the first souls were saved and added to the church by the Lord. Peter was also summoned to Cornelius who was the first Gentile to enter the kingdom. People ought to look at the record for Peter and not the things without validation, or reason.
It is amazing how much you can do with nothing. It is possible to build a large building on a very poor foundation, but it will need many repairs and eventually will collapse. The apologists work to patch the problems and it requires lies built on lies. Finally, there is nothing but deceit and there is such complacency and the truth is so distant that it no longer matters. Here are some observations about Catholic defenders:
We have these apologists condemned to eternal loss and many suspect the weakness of their position and know they are in opposition to the scriptures. It is not unusual for them to believe they are better off than most because of their “zeal for God.” They fail to understand that there is truth and there is error and just being more interested and devoted to God than others means nothing. Paul said the Jews had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
This is a good description of the apologist as they go about to establish their own righteousness having not submitted to the righteousness of God. They establish their righteousness by converting others to their beliefs and with each conversion they feel more justified – “I must be right.” Instead, they make converts twice as much a son of hell as themselves.
Their apologist’s pride will cost them eternally and the pain of their pride will be unbearable. The sheer obviousness of truth combined with their much learning and belief in their superiority will be dreaded yokes around their necks for eternity. Their end will be terrifying, and to think they to some degree knew of the value of heaven, of eternal things and could not hold to the fundamental principle not to add to or take away from God’s word. Their pride shuts their eyes and ears and as always it was their choice.
14 For God will bring every work into judgment, Including every secret thing, Whether good or evil.
Solomon was also wise enough to finally realize the value of everything other than fear God and keep His commandments.
The message from God, from Jesus carefully delivered by the Holy Spirit has a singular focus and it is the soul and not the things that fill our earthly life. They are temporary and thus Solomon correctly sees them as useless, vanity and compares them to grasping for the wind. Every apologist is grasping for the wind because they certainly are not fearing God, or they would not dare to teach different than His commands. Apparently, they cannot differentiate between the commands of men and the commands of God.
Topic 37: The Logic of Ignorance
47 and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
48 And you are witnesses of these things.
49 Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”
This comes to pass, and the reconciliation promised from Genesis 3.15 was fulfilled in Acts 2. Sometime in the latter part of the first century the revelation is completed. The work of the Holy Spirit is complete. Humankind can now succeed and indeed people were added to the body of Christ by the Lord Himself.
The work of the Holy Spirit was one of revelation and confirmation and was completed. There is no need for more and in fact more means a changing of God’s word.
Peter says, “His divine power has given to us ALL things that pertain to life and godliness.”
Jude says, “to contend earnestly for the faith which was ONCE for all delivered to the saints.”
Paul in 1 Corinthians 13.8-10 indicates when that which is perfect has come those things which were in part will be done away. Those things in part were the things the Holy Spirit working with the apostles were doing that is, presenting and confirming the word with “signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit.” Now, humankind was left with that which was perfect – the word of God. During the first century the local church was established with a mission and organization. The elements were spiritual in nature. The gospel was opened to all nations when Cornelius was added to the body of Christ – fulfilling the promise to Abraham that all nations would be blessed through His seed.
27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
People believe the Holy spirit is active today and He is but not how people want to make Him active. As mentioned His work is complete, but what He left remains. He is active through that which is perfect, that which He delivered that is, through the word of God. Once again people want something more than that which is perfect, they like the Jews want a sign like the Holy Spirit personally guiding them, they want that which has ceased, for instance they want miracles. Consider all the gifts of the Holy Spirit in confirming the word of God and then consider God left us with that which is perfect – better than miracles and almost no one believes Him.
We have the entire revelation from God – it is better than God opening the waters of the Red Sea to have the Israelites escape. It is better than the many miracles of Jesus. It is what God intended for the last age and it better because it removed the mystery, it is complete and finished and it brings salvation and the wisdom of God to humankind. It provides perfect evidence to know God is the God of the bible. It is the one way for you to succeed and is valid for all of humankind. Miracles confirm who God is as it did for Pharaoh, as it verified Jesus, as the Holy Spirit used them to confirm the word of God.
4 God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will?
There are at least five reasons people claim the Holy Spirit is active in some way other than through the word and they are:
- People want something miraculous
- Some people want to justify their teachings by saying the Holy Spirit led them
- They believe God’s way of using His word (inspired and written) could be flawed – they need direct contact from God
- They are careless in handling the word of God and essentially once again change it, but use the Holy Spirit as their justification
- In some cases people use the Holy Spirit as one who overpowers them, moves them in some way often beyond their control.
On the other hand, a humble person is like Jesus described in Matthew 5.3, specifically the poor in Spirit as they are not the haughty, but those who see their part in the necessity of Jesus going to the cross. Thus, they are poor in Spirit and a humble person.
Ecclesiastes 7.2,3 is thought provoking in terms of a lifestyle quite different than people want, namely that it is better to be in the house of mourning than feasting, and sorrow is better than laughter. How can this be? Very simply this is because life is about the soul. These are comparative things as God wants you to be happy as much as possible, but in view of your ultimate fate it would be BETTER to avoid the feasting and laughter than be lost. God’s children see the wisdom in moderation, in avoiding bad companions, in avoiding every appearance of evil and make the correspondingly correct decisions.
3 Sorrow is better than laughter, For by a sad countenance the heart is made better.
If you understand God, you see His focus is on your soul-success and one should follow His direction although contradictory (as it might be) to what YOU WANT out of life.
How very different is how the world looks at life versus how God emphasizes something much different than the selfish way people want to live. God provides help to those who will listen leading to the very best thing for each person – eternal life.
There is quite a contrast in terms of being lifted up by God and being resisted by God. These invented and defended religions are wasting your short time on earth. If you consider being successful in life requires the truth (something hidden to most and much of that has to do with the deceit of religion). The verse below is so basic that it is sad that you may not know it and take it seriously. If you go to root cause for failing it might very well be those who have disrespected the word of God and changed it. Out of those changes various religions of humankind have evolved. Atheists are often drawn to reject God by the religions of the world but they have no idea that what they see is not God, but the religions built on the corruption of God’s word.
But gives grace to the humble.”
6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God ………
Topic 38: The Wretched, Shameful Apologists
Let me explain wretched, shameful and their inability to get to the truth.
Apologists can and will defend anything and everything associated with their beliefs or the beliefs of their benefactors. They are trained to respond in certain ways to questions to agree with the doctrines of their institution. A Baptist trained theologian or pastor or apologist defends Baptist doctrine. You cannot expect to get the truth from a person with such indoctrination. You would be closer to the truth if the “apologist” never received any formal training by the organization he/she now defends. If the person ONLY learned from reading God’s word, your chances of getting to the truth would be much better. Although you will find that many people trained exclusively by the word of God will nonetheless add their own inventions. There is no way to escape the conclusion that what is needed is a love of the truth.
Apologists can and will defend anything and this is how their “adjectives (wretched, shameful)” are justified. A Catholic apologist will defend the history of murder, burning at the stake, the inquisition as well as all the ridiculous unfounded teachings. They will detest the acts, but not connect those things with the illegitimacy of the laws made during those periods. One apparent aspect of the art of the lie used by apologists/false religions is to move away from the most fundamental issues – like the origins of their beliefs.
A human head of the church, new testament priests, confession of sins to a priest, worship of Mary, purgatory, Eucharist, the gross sexual abuse of children and a man or men standing in the place of God making rules and none of these things (and the many more) can be defended. Apologists find a way to make it all seem acceptable – truly their consciences are seared with a hot iron. They are the Baal priests of Elijah’s time pulling people away from the truth they so badly need. God will likewise, as the magnificent display of God versus Baal at the altar have Jesus return in the air and then the lies will be revealed and despised simply by the fact that you failed in life. It is incredible that apologists do not understand that the church Jesus built is spiritual, but they put in place an obscenest, crass, disgusting and abominable physical church.
After such a vile description of apologists and equally so for the false human devised religions, what is the conclusion? You might understand the evil associated with the media in relation to God and science lost in its pursuits, yet you might expect people devoted to truth might have the truth. Apologists for the world’s religions are every bit as dangerous to your soul as the others, more so since you “settle-in” to believing them. Life passes and with their assurances you will be shocked at your ending. It will be of no consolation that the apologists are as shocked if not more so than you. There is no substitute for the truth because it is what you need.
Topic 39: Conclusions and Consequences
The world, especially the world of religion does not take seriously the word of God. Some think God’s word is like a guideline and others believe it has not been delivered with any accuracy. Both are wrong as God is behind the accurate delivery of truth and it is more critical than the creation itself and there were no mistakes in creation. Jesus accomplished His mission, and all would be futile if there were not the ability for people to respond. God designates His word as perfect in every way. The flaws come in when people change it – no changes! Nonetheless, we have massive changes in the teachings often by private interpretation and two names for this would be Catholicism and Protestantism. Those doctrines are not the doctrine of Christ and both have demolished the gospel message, and none can be saved in those teachings. It appears both will defend their errors until the bitter end at the cost of souls. Pride rules and until their end they will not relent in stubbornness.
Even so, we preach the truth as those deceived are still alive and thus have hope. The truth is easy to see, and the doctrines of Catholicism and Protestantism are easy to expose in their pathetic disguises of truth. Losing your soul is the most devastating of all things and I do not know all that entails except its anguish. One thing that crosses my mind would be how obvious the lies of Catholicism and Protestantism will be if God allows those memories. The truth in its simplicity versus the manipulation done that in some way ensnared you will be crystal clear. The result is you died in your sins failing to take advantage of the love of God through Christ. You may have been devoted to Christ IN YOUR OWN WAY, maybe how you were taught but never obeyed the gospel and your worship was in vain. Your prayers were not heard, and it is likely you supported the errors you were taught – misleading others. You need to believe only what you understand, and then it is not that hard to differentiate truth from error. Two questions:
1) How badly do you want to go to heaven?
2) Do you have a love of the truth?
Topic 40: Beyond Conclusions and Consequences – Ultimate Truth
The idea of a race is used in scripture in describing the trial before the children of God.
The whole of scripture points out the high standard of God for success, for sharing in the divine nature. First, get into the race by your obedience then live your life for Christ and the gospel. If you are “IN THE STANDS” it is likely because you do not have a love of the truth.
Those “IN THE STANDS” will in no way be acceptable and more than 65%(guess) of the world may be in that category. Something over 34%(guess) may be outside the stadium. Success is not some percentage, but for those who meet the high uncompromising standards of God. God would like that to be 100%, only a few of humankind demonstrate the character God absolutely requires. Indeed, God has made the road difficult and that was to bring out the best.
The indoctrination and propaganda vary for those “IN THE STANDS,” but all “experience the pressure” brought by their “organization” and generally promoted by their peers. The characteristics of those “Christian so-called” religions “IN THE STANDS” are private interpretations of God’s word and the physical nature of their religions. Perhaps, one of the most damaging lies told or implied to those “IN THE STANDS” is the much less than outstanding effort they need to achieve heaven. The single most damaging lie is providing a changed gospel message that keeps them from being in the body of Christ.
This little analogy about the stadium and the contest is meant to help a person understand the seriousness of life. Life seems to be about all the things that so fill our lives and in the busyness of living and all the apparent time we have left we never understand life’s purpose. We settle into a position either outside the stadium or in the stands and life has no other meaning. Those outside likely believe they will go out of existence, while those in the stands think with their effort and lifestyle in relation to God somehow, they will eventually arrive in heaven. Success requires considerably more effort and specifically to seek God and truth, get into the race and live for Christ and the gospel instead of living for yourself. Those that do this know that life is about the soul, about a very personal battle between themselves and sin. A true battle between good and evil.
One thing you should consider regardless of where you are in the stadium analogy. God cannot lie and among the things you might think of are the following verses.
These will not inherit the kingdom of God.
10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Another group of qualities that will result in a failed life are mentioned in Revelation 21.