Addendum 3 So, just what IS the Matrix Reloaded from the Christian standpoint today? IS there "The Matrix" for the true Christian in this world? Yes! I believe so! I believe very much so that there is a religious womb-like mindset that has surrounded today's believers, and for the most part, the majority of us are blinded by it. I have never written these things actually down like this before. Has anyone? I don't know, but let me say quickly that this is not original. These facts I gleaned from one of Gene Edwards messages in the 19 video tape series on a Revelation of Christ before Creation and then I added my own thoughts and experiences. Will this help you in your present times and circumstances? I don't know because I don't know what all you might be going through but that would not be the main point of what I'm sharing anyway, would it? If there was not so much confusion on how the "church" should be or be done there would not be so many different "ways" would there be? I think I wrote before that the real and only pattern for building in the NT is a Person, the Lord Jesus Himself. But that is not clear to us because then our mind can't comprehend because its not good enough to know the "book" you have to know Christ and that takes some time first. I am now, however, in 2018, revisiting this article as I am actually SEEING not just understanding some things about the 2 trees. So does this make a difference in your individual life as well as "church-life"?? YES! The vast majority of earth's problems and miseries are from eating the wrong tree!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT'S IT! THAT'S the problem!!!! It got into man now for almost 6000 years and brings him into the dust. With it the serpent got in and got his teeth in to eat man into death. The more of that tree you get the more ugly dust you taste. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm ... is this part of the roots of many of the life threatening diseases folks get and will this article also benefit your health too? Well, of course! It is being proved that stress is the #1 root to sickness, probably ALL sickness, so yes, this tree also contributes to deep level stress. So it is very much a part of "the body of this death" as Paul puts it. Although I agree with the law of God and totally disagree with lawlessness or lawless living, we must all sooner or later realize (although most of us only realize this through bitter experience) that trying to keep the law on our own by our fallen life will only result in miserable failure. This is surely not the way. So then we may start to see we are dead to sin only IN Christ so we can start to call and call upon the Lord in order to abide in Christ, listen to Christ and be led by the Spirit instead of trying to obey the law ON OUR OWN. Eventually I have realized that even this misses the mark of the high calling we are called to!!!!! Jesus spoke it straight out! Hallelujah for Jesus! He said "He that eats Me shall live BY Me." BY Him!!!!! Wow! So it's not good enough to follow the Spirit and do what He says! We must walk in and according to the Spirit and live BY Christ Who BECAME the LIFE giving Spirit (I Cor. 15:45)(this is zoe or Divine life but is also the life of the THE perfect Man Who resides and lives in His believers!). The Christ is the GOD-life giving Spirit!!! So, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING to fulfill God's purpose is to EAT Christ individually and corporately so we can LIVE BY Him individually and corporately. This would, of course, include drinking Him which, as says the Psalmist: "I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord." Remember also that drinking many times includes eating because milk is both and so is wine. This adds new meaning to Paul's words "to me to live is Christ" as now we know this meant Paul lived Christ out! How did he do this? He ate a lot of Jesus! No wonder he had such an impact on his generation!! And probably this 'living Christ' does not work usually so well without the corporate because His LIFE is a BODY LIFE!! So, instead of this, how do Christians think today? We are "members of one another"and there are just some members that do not work and cannot even function without nearby and even 'other located' members functioning; and so, it is extremely important that each one of us holds the Head as the scripture adjures because there are others depending on you in ways you do not even understand!! What do I mean? Well, in a normal body nutrients travel by the blood from one member to another so this does not work without a body relatedness.
Now some folks may call me legalistic based on certain things I say; but when you say that what do you mean? If you mean it's OK to sin that grace may abound, you are just talking to the wrong guy. And the definition of sin according to the book of I John is that sin is the transgression of the law. Also Paul said the law is spiritual. So if you think any kind of living and moving that is contrary to obediance to God's law is OK, you disagree with Paul. So back to the 2 trees. God created 2 trees in the garden. AFTER He created what He created He called EVERYTHING He made GOOD!! Really???? Yup! ALLLL of it was good! So why did He tell man not to eat the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? (By the way He never said they would never ever eat of that tree but the timing for it was not yet because they were not yet ready for that .... and very very few are ready for it today) In the garden where the tomb of Christ was entered a woman named Mary, the first woman to visit there after the resurrection, (Eve was the first woman to visit the first garden and this word "touch" shows just one connection between these 2 gardens and 2 women and also these two gardens are connected to the garden of Gethsemane) and so Mary was astounded to meet the Risen Lord and was, of course, anxious to embrace Him. But He said a strange thing to her: "touch Me not; for I have not yet ascended to My Father ..." This IS related to Eve's possibly false statement (because God may have never said "don't touch" concerning the knowledge tree)that they were commanded not to touch it or they would die.
So what ARE these 2 trees exactly? The 2 covenants! You could also say the tree of the knowledge of good and evil could be a mature relationship with Father God where you love His law, delight to obey Him and always follow the Lamb wherever He goes. And He has never ever done anything lawless and never will. On the other hand, if you try to do good on your own and avoid evil on your own then this same tree is a killing death. That is why God enjoined unprocessed man to avoid this tree and not to eat it. Processing means we must be processed throught the Life Tree Who is Jesus through His death dealing death, life giving resurrection and ascending ascension which is the only factor of the unsearchable riches of Christ that can raise you above! And the Tree of Life is obviously, if you study carefully all scriptures concerning it, is relatedness to the Son of God as eating Him to take Him in as our LIFE. However, the OK relationship with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil could also mean a person such as Hebrews talks about as follows:
"Hb 5:13 for every one who is partaking of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness--for he is an infant, Hb 5:14 and of perfect men is the strong food, who because of the use are having the senses exercised, unto the discernment both of good and of evil."
So Jesus ascending to the Father means we must ONLY arrive at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil BY and THROUGH CHRIST and His finished work which was prepared fully when He ascended AFTER His cross work and rising work. Of course this work must have it's full way in us.
We can say it like this also: the tree of life is relationship; however, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is righteousness. Now when we 1st come to Christ, God invites us to come to Him just as we are. He ALWAYS bids us come just as we are expecting that THAT will metabolically (in a true spiritual sense) change and transform us. He invites us into an immediate relationship with Himself as some folks say "come just as you are." So Paul writes in Galatians "having begun in the Spirit are you made perfect by the flesh?" Well obviously that is impossible. Only Christ, Who is the life-giving Spirit, can save us, transform us, sanctify us and perfect us. NO one else can do this! Doesn't that make sense? Isn't He the One Who wears the title Saviour? So often, however, we think we got to get some righteousness to obtain relationship, instead of relationship to obtain true righteousness which is Christ in you the hope of glory. So we try to go from the knowledge/rightness tree to get to the relation/lifeness tree, but that NEVER works! Only by starting at the relation/lifeness tree can we ever get to the knowledge/rightness tree. So this explains part of why Jesus said to Mary in the garden "do not touch" as the righteousness of the Father could not be attained until He bridged the gap by ascending there. So we can either start with the Tree of Life (the Son) and travel to the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil (the Father's righteousness inwrought into us) or we can start (like the vast majority of mankind at this point in history) at the tree of the knowlege of good and evil without the inworking of the processing Christ within through the killing of Calvary, the enlivening of resurrection and the ascendency of His overcoming life inwrought and never travel to relationship, (or else maybe you started that way and foolishly left that road) but rather get a mouthful of dust and sand! Why not just come straight to Christ at the foot of the cross! This way we get the Tree of Life ... and eventually the other tree as God writes His law into our hearts and gradually brings us into full agreement with Himself!
So the law is good! (AND spiritual according to Paul! That is written in the book of Romans. Is it any wonder that he writes later in the same book that the spiritual mind can please God but the mind set on flesh cannot do so.) That 2nd tree is good - if accessed in communion and dependence upon God. God said all things He made were good. But we must come to that 2nd tree by eating the LIFE tree which is a relationship with Jesus NOT try to come to a relationship with Jesus by eating the other tree (yuk! THAT would be like eating bark but so many many people DO it!) .... So what am I saying here? Many many people today attempt to DO THINGS and NOT do bad things in order to GET a relationship with God, not realizing how fallen they already are. But that will never work. Instead we must accept through the cross a relationship with God RIGHT NOW and then through that He will gradually write His laws upon our hearts as the writers of Hebrews and Jeremiah and the book of Dueteronomy (WHERE THE NEW COVENANT WAS GIVEN,INSTITUTED AND STATED, BY THE WAY!!!!!!!!!!) so plainly state. SOOOOOO: FIRST, we should never agree with sin, but we do sin from time to time so let's admit it and come to Christ for forgiveness. John in 1st John defined sin saying "sin is the transgression of the law" so being disobedient to God's law is NEVER right no matter how you dress it up. SECOND: Even though obeying the law is what we want to do and ought to do the MODUS OPERANDI cannot be trying to attain to the law on our own to make God like us or enter into a relationship with God for that is the Old Covenant related to physical Jerusalem, Hagar and Ishmeal according to Galations chapter 4. This covenant was made when the children of Israel made marriage vows to God saying "all the LORD has spoken to us we will do" at the foot of mount Sinai. This covenant no man can keep. Surely these people did not know themselves and how fallen they were! But neither do we! Because over and over we do the same thing. Isn't that what somebody said the definition of insanity was? Namely doing the same things over and over and expecting different results? Yup! THIRD : Through admiting our sin, believing in Christ, accepting His blood, receiving His grace and entering into the free relationship He offers, we must EAT and DRINK HIM the true Tree of Life and River of Life, and thereby have God's law written on our hearts so that more and more we will come into agreement with Him and will more and more naturally want to obey Him and more and more actually do it! So BY relationship the law will be fulfilled in us by love rather than trying to fulfill the law on our own in order to get relatioinship. So the only way to come to "Tree of the Knowledge ..." is BY the "Tree of Life" not vice versa. Vice versa will never work. As Jesus said "no man comes to the Father but BY Me." Coming straight to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil didn't even work BEFORE the fall! THAT activity, in fact, CAUSED the fall. So how could it work now?? But the Muslims still don't get it. The Jews still don't get it. Hek, even the Christians still don't get it!!!
Well there are a couple of things before I dive into how we got our Western mindset that are important: 1st, Early Saints had an illiteracy rate of 95% among the Jews and even worse among the Gentiles: 98%! This is historical FACT. They did not bring their Bibles to "church" with them! (if they had they would have had to employ a wheel barrow because of the actual size of the scrolls in those days!!) There were no Bibles as we know them. Maybe there was in most cases one copy of OT scriptures in synagogues. Secondly, what we do today is totally different than what they did then and how we justify our present practices and say we are doing things according to the scriptures is the most amazing miracle that's .... well .... simply NOT! Vice-versa. THEY were Christ centered, NOT scripture centered and THAT is scriptural not vice versa!
The last things written in my chapter on "footwashing" was about apostles LEAVING. THAT'S what Jesus did!! He LEFT! He left them on their own. Eventually that's what Paul did when he raised up an assembly. IT'S PART OF THE WAYS OF GOD. We say we follow the Lamb. But can we give so much of Christ that we can with confidence walk out on a people without leaving them with ANY elders, preachers, buildings, Sunday Schools or Bible??? If they had had scriptures, they would not know how to read them. Who has THAT kind of powerful gospel today? And you got to do it all in four months and walk out on them and not see them again for two whole years!!!!! When you go back IF there's someone (someone at all??!!) mature enough to "ordain" as an elder, then maybe you can. By the way, I just summarized Acts 14. They ordained elders in each city where they had raised up an assembly (only one in each city!) AFTER about two years in each of the four assemblies they had raised! By the way, AFTER the elders were ordained, those folks were left alone again and then the REAL tests came when the Judaizer dudes came to their towns. And it went on for quite awhile before Paul even knew about it to deal with it. We dare do things different than these crazy, insane madmen did it. Either they were wrong or we are. Of course I'm talking about the snowy, cold province of Galatia! THAT'S how it was done! Paul of Tarsus, I think you just need a Bible School education cause you missed it, buddy! Anyway ...... it's much worse how far away we've come than you could believe or even conceive of. The Lord knew what He was doing as to the timing of the 1st coming of Christ. No tech devices so folks would "stay connected" ... the apostles were quite limited in how they could protect the young ones. That 1st initial stay with them had better be a good one and it better be Christ and Him crucified and a PURE WAY!!! This is why Paul wrote the Corinthians that he chose to know NOTHING among them save Christ and him crucified. So what did Paul leave them with? JESUS! Just Jesus! He immersed them into the very Being of God and taught them by example how to breath, drink and eat Him so they could live by Him. Then he left them on their own for a couple of years knowing they would face problems, temptations, relationship struggles and then later on after another visit: POSSIBLY false teachers so they could by struggle then develop their spiritual muscle and grow their wings and fly in the ascension of Christ! There is a story of a boy who saw a former caterpillar but who did not understand the path a caterpillar must take to become a butterfly so helped him get out of his cacoon easy, but the poor butterfly, because of the boy's misunderstanding pity did not allow the painful, hard struggle every butterfly must endure to enter his bright heavenly adventure, so because the boy did not understnad this he cut open the cacoon too early allowing easy exit. The result was the poor creature had shriveled up wings and a fat belly and had to crawl the rest of his life and could not ever fly! See the story at this link here: http://www.gauraw.com/story-of-a-butterfly/. This is how soooooooooooo many believers get started cause we are more about our ways than God's ways and care tooooo much about alleviating tribulations for folks and meddling with it NOT in accordance with the REAL leading of the Spirit, instead of caring about the developing of the Zoe life of God through difficulties and trials. This is why it is bad that we have a MAN centered gospel today (men saturated with he independent KOGE tree) instead of the original GOD centered gospel! Anyway, people were left on their own to struggle into zoe life is hard to explain because almost nobody alive understands it because IT IS ALMOST NEVER DONE! Sometimes God will bring trials into some lives way beyond the help of man anyways so He can at least get enough overcomers into His first resurrection that will be a sufficient number for the future count of kings under the King of kings to launch the next new age. Believe me; a sure cure would be for some new apostleship trend with real apostles REALLY taking the Acts 14 way as their modus of operation!!! And when I say leave these young ones in Christ alone I DON'T mean cell phone contact is OK!!!!!!
So what is our most basic intrinsic DEEP problem as to why we are so far off? Simple. It goes back further than Constantine, or Judaism, religion, tradition or Catholicism. It goes waaay back to Eden and the 2 trees. The first tree is "The Tree of Life" ..... simple. Just Christ, not complicated --- no added elements--- just ONE ELEMENT: CHRIST AS LIFE! So, stop here and call "OHHHH Lord Jesus" like I suggest on other pages of my web site and you may begin to see this by real experience. We eat Him, drink Him, breathe Him in and live by His life. By the way following Him can ONLY be done BY His life, NOT yours!!! The principle? Dependence. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil???? It leads to death and separation. The principle? Independence. It has 4 elements: Knowledge, good, evil and death. It is profound. It is complicated. We in Adam ate that tree; took it in..... and ..... it got into man and its been growing in man ever since for 6000 years!!! Well Satan got himself into man along with it and spoiled the old creation. What? You didn't know that doing good can be just as much of an open door to old slewfoot as doing evil?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????? Maybe you need to be slapped to wake you up or some good coffee or something!! What about the new creation? Could Satan mess with that? Well not the pure seed part of it. But there is the SEED and intrinsic DNA part of God's kingdom which is totally organic and there is the outer appearance and trappings of the kingdom that have developed and just hung around through the centeries. Unfortunately he got that same tree (I mean accessed in the independent way)(KOGE) into the kingdom of God ------- not the pure life seed part of that kingdom, but the outward practical expression was ..... well, spoiled. Of course, no one wants to hear about anything how Satan was successful in any of his schemes towards the children of God! But let's face it. Truth is truth and facts are facts and we have GOT to face them sooner or later. It is your destiny! I would rather not find out at the great judgement. I would rather find out now. Have you heard of the woman who put leaven in the three-fold meal? This was one of the parables hidden in a shroud of mystery which our Lord did not explain, partly because it did not pertain to their day, it pertained to future developments and to our day. Now it's a reality. However, when He said "the kingdom of God is like" in that parable He was not talking about the intrinsic pure seed of life within us which is only and purely Jesus Christ Himself, Him crucified, released and lived out, but rather the outward appearance of the kingdom and shape things had taken after awhile. So what's good meal? What's bad meal? We are either one or the other. Our lives are either a fulfillmemnt of the probmise to Abraham to be a blessing to all the earth, or the opposite such as is spoken to the earthly carnal terrorist physicla Jerusalem Zionist element today: "woe to the bloody city" and in another scripture of the prophets that these people became a curse to the earth. How about you? How about the church today? How about those in the church who actually say that such unbelieving people in the so called "holy land" are actually the "chosen ones" and support them with their dollars and cents?? Well, to ask this question is the most important question because YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT! Or rather, you are what you digest. Or should I say WHO? Are you a good guy? Is that all? Good has one too many "o"s. We need God as our good. Do you trust your goodness or God's goodness? Now, what was the FIRST thing of importance God spoke to man about???? Man's diet!!!! The most important thing is how you eat! That is THE important thing!! You are what you eat. By the way "good" is on the same tree as evil!! WHAT????!!???!?!!!!!? Yeah! Sometimes there's a book (actually many!) about the "war" between good and evil and how good can win out. Hmmm ... this is what most all of the movies are based on. Hmmmmm ...... really? How can good win out? There IS no war between good and evil! They are on the same tree and grew out of the same seed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! INDEPENDENCE FROM GOD!!!!!! DOING THINGS ON OUR OWN!!! Whether its good or evil did you do it out of self or out of Christ? Jesus said none are good except God! So ..... Was it flesh or was it the Spirit? Maybe God did task me with something but did I then go out and try to do it on my own or did I do it by and according to and in concert with and through the Spirit?
When a preacher preaches on how evil high heels are (ha, what a laugh!! This really happened! But it was not funny to those it happened to), or something ridiculous like that he has proven that he doesn't have much revelation of the glorious unsearchably rich Christ, does he? He is on the wrong tree ministering condemnation and from then on it becomes a bunch of rules, (by the way the poor sisters in that church were very upset and taken away from Christ by the whole thing, not brought towards Him)which either man's law ot God's law, not that I disagree with God's law, but it is something Paul told Timothy was for conversion of a bunch of sinners (see Tim 1) not for saints of God ... or from God .... or IN God! It does have use for us now, however: it is a schoolmaster to show us whether we are abiding in Christ or not. We MUST not be lawless! In fact there are many aspects of the law true men of God are finding out about today and seeing wherein we fall short. Also the law is prophetic which is being discovered more and more and also it is, and always has been, spiritual! These things MUST be addressed! But, like I said, this only goes to show how far we have fallen short from grace. Paul did not only write "all have sinned", he went on to write "and fallen short of the glory of God" and this means we are not really living out Jesus Christ! We need both sides of truth, folks, in order to really get it! What a dark dark age we are in! Folks are surely not ready for the DAY of the LORD that is about to dawn!!!! The LIGHT is gonna hurt their eyes severely and there is gonna be a lot of weeping and wailing! Why? Cause the overcomers are gonna resurrect when He arrives and most Christians are not going to. (The previous link is about the truth concerning the soon coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in glory! DO you already share that glory with Him??? You MUST ALREADY share that glory in order to qualify for the 1st resurrection!!!!!! WHAT A SHOCK IT WILL BE!!!!!).
A brother named Steve Bender and I went to "the oldest church in America" (it was in historic downtown and it was Episcopalian ) for a visit one Sunday in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. It was at a city street corner called "the four corners of the law": namely God, federal, state and city. In that ancient church there were two pillars with winding stair cases inside them up front on both sides. Actually the one from which the sermon was preached was in the middle. Before the sermon on one side the ... who ever ........ went up ( way up ) above the congregation into one of them to read the scripture verses then later the preacher with a backward collar and long choir robe went to the other later on to give the sermon. This started with the pagan Greek orators of the past. They would go to a lectern on one side of the room to read their text from Homer or Aristotle or whomever and then he would go to another lectern and spellbind those people. Or 2 different individuals would do it. I heard there was a little boy once that when he saw this old somber white haired man go so high up into that pillar where the pulpit was he asked his mom in awe and a hushed little voice "mommy, is that God???!" Well to us its kind of cute and funny but can't we see there's an obvious problem??? Of course! Why is this guy above his brethren? Is it cause he clenched his teeth and fought his way into the KOGE tree to get a little more "holier than thou" than the average Joe? Or does he got some kind of secret of "obtaining" more grace that you or me which is so complicated in hidden knowledge, that again, it is still the wrong tree to do these things. So should he be above his brethren? NOT!!!! Hey! Even if you get on a platform one inch above your brothers, it's still wrong! Whether a man steals 10K from a bank or an apple from an old lady, it's still stealing. What happened here?????? A guy......enter one: Chrystotem ......... named Chrystotem ( meaning golden mouth ) got saved in the fourth century and brought his "talent" into the "church" ... huh? He was a Greek Orator. (who, by the way were soaked in the Greek philosophy of Aristotle, Plato and Socrates ) They were "IT" in those days like the movie stars in our day. People went to hear them speak to be entertained. THEY performed the first funerals etc. Well, they would have a ambo (our pulpit or lectern today came from the ambo) and they would take a text from Homer or what ever writing and read from it saying just like this real loud: "I'm reading from Homer chapter so and so, verse so and so" (or maybe another would read it) and then he would "orate" from that text and literally spell bind those people for an hour with the homiletic "art" of rhetoric and oratory. THIS IS WHERE WE GOT OUR MODERN DAY SERMON! It's not what Paul did when he went all night. The problem was this was his natural talent from his natural life not a "charis" or grace talent through the fruit and gifts of the Spirit of God: even THOSE TALENTS, HOWEVER NEED TO BE FILTERED by the cross and Spirit of God to be purified: so we must be careful. The Greek word for what he did WITH those believers is translated discourse. A discourse is back and forth conversation at least somewhat. And it wasn't a performed ritual. Back in that 4th century time their poetic works were divided into chapter and verse for the sake of the orators who would use the writings to do their orations or debates. Guess how our Bible got that way? You got it!! The Greek Orators. Who originated this? The Greek Philosophers starting with Aristotle and Plato etc etc. started this whole oratory thing. It is something of the world and tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not OF God. So this is how Satan got the knowledge tree into the faith!! Not so fast! (And THAT'S MY MAIN POINT: NOT SO FAST: SATAN KNOWS HE'S GOT TIME TO WORK WITH :MAYBE CENTURIES SO HE DOES A LITTLE HERE AND THERE A LITTLE MORE THERE AND HERE AND HE'S GOT MOST OF US DUPED!!! DUPED SOLID AS A ROCK!!! If you put a frog on a pan of heat, he'll jump off. If you try to put him in a boiling pot, he'll jump out, but if you put a frog on a board and put it over gradual heat, he'll become accustomed to it and get warmed up, then sluggish and finally numbed with his senses deadened and soon HIM dead! So…… not so fast (!!!!!!!!) ….. There were many prerequisites to pave the way for this development. There were four centuries before this and it was bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by well I think you get the idea (I HOPE -or maybe you're too dead to get it????) ---it was Satan's idea and he still got most of us saints of God duped today as to what he's done throughout the centuries. Good night man, I got enough problems today than to think about all this, you know what I mean? And the enemy is sure to keep people occupied with their problems instead of finding out the truth. Are you beginning to see how difficult it is to become an overcomer? Satan HATES guys like me who can pull the sheets off his centuries and centuries "buildup operation!!" So why am I or most of us going to be concerned about the centuries???? It's only when it pertains to your life that you'll be likely to care. Most of us don't even care about our neighbor (Hmmm, I wonder why? Was it different when assembly was house to house?) much less the generations to come or what the generations of the past did to help us or hurt us. BUT, our lives have been PROFOUNDLY INFLUENCED by past generations! We have GOT to overcome the "law of the generations" - it is IN you, you know. It is part of the old tree tht has been growing in mankind. Now God is GOING TO ROOT IT OUT! It is NOT going to be easy, but THERE IS NOTHING IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD!!!!!!
So: back to ORATORY............ what has all this addicting sermonizing (and since you add the anointed scriptures [please see my link and other related articles on this subject of the Word of God] to oratory: (BOY!! Is it ever addicting! ) done for us? Well it encouraged us that we can do it! So we think "we can serve God" ( cough!! cough!!! ) we just know we can do it! Yes we can! I know I can. Oooops! Wrong tree! There's that independence again. But wait!! When was it again? It was Before Christ. We have a "western mindset" its our matrix. In other words the channel of birth with which we are surrounded in coming into life is a good definition of "matrix." Our surrounding thought process or matrix we are literally saturated with by the way is profoundly influenced by superstition, philosophy and witchcraft! (this thought process or surrounding lifestyle etc. is what is meant by "mindset") Big time! How to get away from it? Have your kids be born in the hills of China somewhere where they grow up with an "Eastern" mindset! By the way Christianity is NOT Western, it is EASTERN!! Like it or not that's where it originated. In the East is where Christ was born, like it or not. So what happened before Christ? Hold on to your seat. Before Christ in Greece there were two schools of thought fighting for supremacy ( survival of the fittest, you know ). One was the "Pythagorean School", the other was the "Ionian School" of thought. The Pythagorean was "thinking thinking thinking" (like today's Christianity: if I hear enough sermons, read enough books and think, meditate etc. etc. enough THEN I'll figure out how to be a good Christian! But it does not work! Why? NONE of this will EVER change our "be," our very being; only spiritual transformation INSIDE will change you! Only Christ applied to you works.) and that all problems were basically mathematical and could be solved by formulas or analyzation and even men thought you could use chemistry and if you get the right formula you could even turn lead to gold!! Well THAT theory died with the atomic bomb of course! But this IS where the roots of modern day chemistry DID start so there is some validity to it. Anyway it started out a little more scientific but then it shifted and became "learn to think" NOT experiment. In other words you might as well shut your eyes, go in a closet and learn to think and you do that enough you can solve anything! So then what application comes out of that? Get the point? On the other hand the Ionian school was based on hands on experimentation and this is where we get our word "IMPERICAL," or the practical hands on experimentation. THIS is one of the saddest saddest facts of ALL the history of the world that has happened, but it is a very little known fact. I'll bet you never heard this in Bible school or any school. So what's the fact? That the Pythagorean school of Platonic philosophy won out over the Ionian school. This is a BIG tragedy. How big? Dark Dark Ages, buddy. THAT'S where the Dark Ages came from. Of course this had already taken course even before our Lord was born on this planet and before the dark ages set in. EXAMPLE: During those dark ages they made it against the law to cut open a human body. You couldn't experiment! BUT that's the scriptural way of operating on people: to cut them open! You'd have been burned at the stake for it! Only if someone had an accident and bled could they even find out which way the blood flowed in the human body! Great advance for science!! C'MON GUYS!!!!!!!! Give us a break here!!! So, instead of advancing, men were ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth just as Paul had said and had prophesied that it would be so and they Philosophized and philosophized and got these profound thoughts and exchanged God for bugs (grrreat intelligence! Whoa! Horse! Where's it going???) and idols also and, by the way ---- you can even do this with scripture ..... wind it up baby!! You can get into the word so big time with so much study and theology until you get into this kind of a high and it is not the human spirit contacting the living God in the Word but it is the mind!! Well those guys in Plato's days got into such a high they got conceited but it was not contact with God. But because you could not experiment science died. THAT's why science is now the enemy of religion (!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!) because back then if you question the "thinkers" which by this middle aged Catholic time were mostly "the church" and this philosophy held sway for a thousand years till even now today Eastern Europe's economy is STILL suffering as a result!! YOU are still suffering as a result!! The Western world suffered INTENSELY because of this. By the way, how does the world rotate around the sun or is it vice versa? You can take 2 sticks and experiment with them and figure it out! It's that easy!! But poor Gallileo: (who proposed that the earth actually went around the sun instead of vice versa) MAN did they ever persecute that poor guy! CONSIDER THIS FACT: If the Ionian school had won out over the Pythagorean, we would have had a man on the moon by 600 A. D. and cars on major highways way back then!!!!!! That's right! How can this be proven? Because 600 years ago the 2 Bacons: Francis Bacon and Robert Bacon brought the practical and empirical back to our world again and things have been clicking ever since!!!!!!!!!!! Hey! Now we can write on e-mail! Do you think God knew about that when He created earth?? Sure He did! But we poor humans have only known about electricity less than what? Only 200 years? What other realities exist in our universe that we have not yet discovered????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????? I don't know. But I would think we should have discovered them long before we did. Yes, I know God is and has been control of all this and all times .... stilll t'would have been nice. So these Bacons re-introduced the Ionian way of doing things and took things apart and put them back together. And from that day to the day Neil Anderson stepped on the moon was 600 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE SHOULD HAVE HAD A MAN ON THE MOON IN 600 A. D. !!!!!!!! Or SOONER! WHO DID THIS TERRIBLE THING TO US???? 1st: Socrates, 2nd: Plato his student: 3rd: Aristotle, Plato's favorite student. They taught An introduction a main point and a conclusion after that(HMMM..... sounds liKe a sermon!) and figure out, figure out, and then figure out. School taught you this! The church took this over. They still teach you this by the way things are done!!!! Constantine of course helped with that because he made the church the political favorite and married the Christians to the world system. He did another thing too. He invented Theology!! That's right! When there were problems in beliefs between Christians it was he who brought together opposing doctrinal sides together in an attempt to unite believers under what he invented that day : a Creed!!! Good night, wasn't the Bible enough of a creed for our beliefs. What was the result of his effort to unite the believers? Theology! What was the result of theology? Nothing has caused more division in the Body of Christ than trying to systematize doctrines together and taking a verse from here and a verse from there to do it!! When you have to read a book or a letter of Paul in its historical context without chapters and verses, then, and only then, can you get at their true meaning. (By the way, on my site may be the ONLY place where you can, for free, access an online NT without chapters or verses. See: http://www.lostkeysrevelation.com/youngsntinorder.html)(Chapters and verses should be done away with! Of course here's another thing: the devil waited only about a hundred and sixty two years: actually in 462 by Euthalius who divided it into lines but as yet they were not numbered. Numbering of the "stichoi" or lines did not occur till 1560 in Geneva: however alphabetical letters were used or other punctuation type markings.) So it was after Constantine and he (ye old devil) got chapters and verses into holy writ!! Yes! I said the devil!!! He's the culprit that did this! And with far more intelligence and superior thought and scheming than YOU got or even dreamed of having cause HE'S smarter than you!!! But not wiser. Now I have changed my outlook on this since I first wrote it and have realized that God was in control in even the incidents of the folks who put these chapter and verse divisions in holy writ and many of the numberings are of Him and tell a prophetic story. This is because I have in recent years studied and looked at Biblical numbers. Anyway, these horrible people (Aristotle and his clan) stole the ability to be practical from us!!!! From US! As a result the empire fell. There was no exchange of ideas. Trade stopped as a result of the lack of travel. Thieves took over the roads and there was not much transportation except the monks because the thieves were afraid of hurting monks because superstition reigned over their minds. The R.C.C. (Roman Catholic church) ruled! Commerce stopped, travel stopped, money flow stopped, fresh ideas stopped, trade stopped. Things got dark dark dark and the only real business much had to do with monasteries or certain associated governments -------- these dark ages lasted 1000 years! And you thought this "Ionian-Pythagorean" thing had nothing to do with your life!!! Have we been hurt? You bet! The Catholic Church writers inseminated the neo-platonic writings into their theology. (Also into YOUR university training!) Ever hear of Thomas Aquinas? They say he baptized Aristotle. That's because in his spiritual writings he included the big "A" 's ideas into his theology. So did St. Augustine. Other names were Tertullian, Origen etc. but those names are not as important. Today Eastern European countries are still in poverty because of the influence of the dark ages. The worst damage was on the deep things of God. You can try to tell me that God was not Soveriegn over all these things and I will just note her that these things were planned by him so that certain kinds of Christians would persecute and either emotionally, soulishly, physically or even socially crucify other Christians so that God can gain more overcomers. He has been doing this to gain different kinds of overcomerers in each century. Anyway the philosophical ideas so inseminated themselves into the ideas of those who were truly deep in Christ that later on their ideas were rejected altogether which has caused a great loss. (of spiritual depth for so many - this too was in God's planning forgod's purposes) And this was one reason why Martin Luther rejected contemplative prayer and so did Calvin. So they trew out the baby with the bathwater cause the bathwater was dirty. (Now I am not putting down Luther here: God has a level of blindness for each of His servants. This is for His purposes. Thank God for the things Luther DID reform such as justification by faith, etc.) By the way even though Luther restored just a few things of the New Testament that had been previously lost, remember that even he was a student of Augustine! THAT's why he put the NT books in the order he did!! (thinking as he did that doctrine {KOGE} is the most important thing in Christian life. (What happened to JESUS being ALL in ALL!?! Anyway, he also did not see the importance of historical order of the books.) HE made up the order of the list of our books! And we followed it ever since cause THAT's gospel, man! NOT!!! It's just not so! Martin Luther is not my God. By the way, brother, Martin had just 1% of the education you have got! You see? This was not just lightly pawned off on us ---it took years of developments, slow and easy. The enemy would make a move, wait a century or so and make another move, etc. : What a sly dog !!!! I mean this has been dirty dirty play throwing out the rules as if he ever had any. He thinks he's so slick! The problem is he IS slick! The only restriction on this guy is what the Almighty Himself imposes on him. (And though you may or may not believe this, God has set the boundaries on that guy just right according to His sovereign wisdom) So what was the slufoot plan? Satan's plan was to slowly slowly slowly but surely work the tree of the knowledge of good and evil into mankind to make us more and more fallen. I read an article by Witness Lee years ago how Satan won over the people of God. (By the way, Witness Lee's writings in his life studies on the book of Genesis reveal 4 levels of falling mankind went through after the first bite of the fruit. Deep stuff. True stuff!) People do not want to hear it but Satan defeated the Body of Christ (which Body he fears the most because eventually THAT BODY will kick his butt out and finally defeat this foe!! Amen!!!) over a period of time he disengaged Christ's Body. How??? 1st He cut the Head off by replacing Christ with law, philosophy, good works, even the gifts of the Spirit, etc. etc. etc. so folks were being being distracted with the gifts instead of the Giver from the Giver Himself. You can see the beginnings of this by reading the scriptures as THAT was happening THEN in the very 1st century. #2 He disfunctioned many members of the Body with his clergy-laity system getting the one man show going on the platform. #3 then he divided the Body cutting it into pieces with division after division and denominations. He did this through the followings of different leaders with different doctrinal tenants. He was successful. (Ouch!) (Now why would God allow this when the unity of His people would actually bring powerful salvation and whole world could have been turned to God if His people would have united under His Headship? Because God is NOT DOING THAT during this age. He is using believers crucifying other believers to produce overcomers! Also he is using other bad things.) Folks do not want to hear this. He got started in the 1st centry but has not quit. Satan is relentless. The ONLY thing that will defeat him is the MORE relentless God Who lives in you and me but is far more powerful when we come back to the BODY!! (Believe it or not God planned that all of this would happen before the foundation of the world!!! Why? So that different types of overcomers would be developed through different types of ages. They will be multicolored jewels with different aspects of Christ charachteristics for different types of kings He will need as King of kings during the next Millenial age!) So in this case the creep used the Bible itself to bring the death tree of knowledge that is already within man to the forefront, to accomplish so many of these things and to put veils upon our minds to separate us from God and one another. He couldn't succeed at destroying the scriptures (although he tried and was partially sucessful for many centuries) so he did his best to USE IT to make it so mysterious through being out of context and in the wrong order (not to mention we are not in the condition of real Body life which would put us in a position to understand by experience what the New Testament was so obviously expressing) we can hardly get at it in its real meaning. And then we just accept things as they are without questioning it. So how has this affected us? We try to find a set answer in the Bible for everything instead of turning to God for a fresh Word from Him. Of course we need to test that experience by the SCRIPTURES SO THE SCRIPTURES WILL BECOME THE WORD OF GOD TO US BUT how do you do that IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND IT TO BEGIN WITH?? Witness Lee REALLY helped me out on this one guys! He said since the scripture is the breath of God, we should never attempt to contact it in any way UNLESS we are in contact with GOD Himself! Because if we do, we a are separating a Person from His Breath!!! But God is not going to die, YOU ARE!! Most Christians realize they do not understand the scriptures. Well, how could we without the Holy Spirit Who gave it. Also, how could we without the Ephesians 4 relationship with the 5 fold, I mean REAL 5 fold gifting God has ordained for us? Oooops! We got a bigger problem!! We geniuses, or a few of us (I'm not casting blame on Christians today. Most do not know any better) think that we DO understand the Bible!! So now do you see why Jesus word in John is so important when He said "YLT Jn 5:39: 'Ye search the Writings, because ye think in them to have life age-during, and these are they that are testifying concerning me; YLT Jn 5:40 and ye do not will to come unto me, that ye may have life;"? O. K. so besides what happened through Martin Luther, what has been the damage of dividing the Bible into chapters and verses? (so IS there an advantage of being more educated today than Martin Luther? Maybe. It could do us even more harm if we blindly accept his ways!! But if you get educated about the real facts as I'm presenting here …… hmmmn , who knows?) This part of it is easy to see. Anyone can take a verse from here, a verse from there as proof texts from different parts of the Bible. ( The computer makes it even more easy!! ) In this way you can prove anything. So? ..... the multiplication of denominations, sects and even cults is the result. And they all got their "proof texts" not to mention the dividing doctrines of the denominations. The damages have been endless. So now here we are in the year 2018 (I originally wrote this in 2000 but the light has increased since that time). The new creation species from another planet have been in this world for two millenniums almost! Here's a question: What has this havoc wrought for us in the last 100 years? (from 2000: now it has been 118 years) Well, in what year did D.L. Moody die? ( I know you really think and believe he's got NOTHING to do with your life!) In 1901. What about Charles Spurgeon? He also died in 1901. Because of what these 2 men did to us the 20th century has been the century where nothing much has happened. Got to go back in history to explain. 1st I'll take a minute to say what the roots of the Protestant (of course there are many more Catholic traditional roots than Protestant but consider some of the Protestant traditions are Catholic crossovers so Protestants retain Catholic entities) traditions are (these traditions ALLLL come out of the clergy-laity abomination by the way. Now why would this be? 1st, Because there are those tired of trying to think how to live up to God's standard and pleasing God and want the "man of God" to do it for them and figure it out for them. 2nd, Others are the kind that think they can do better than others and want to be honored as the "special" man of God.):
1. Pulpits -- called an ambo from pagan idol worship temples and Greek orator ancient theaters.
2. Church buildings -- the invention of Constantine in 324 A. D. There is no Archeological proof before THAT date -- annnnnnnnddd they do NOT come from Jewish synagogues!! On the other hand Archeology DOES prove there were homes that believers met in before that date and also proves there were no such buildings before that Emperor. The Catholics according to their concepts and prejudices wrote the lies about so-called church history. (whether intentional or not) The archives of these documents are buried in the catacomb vaults of the Vatican with no proof other than those original writings!! (which were invented after 324).
3. Pastors -- no one was called a pastor until after Martin Luther invented the "Protestant Priest", which was a crossover from the Catholic Church and changed the 7 pastoral duties of the clergy or "Protestant Priest" as started by Pope Gregory the great(who was superstitious it was spooky!) as duties for Catholic priests. One of the duties that he changed was the preaching of sermons.
4. Pews -- an invention of the Reformation -- just a long chair, but hey!…how boring! If it were not for the one man-speaking, the rest listening paradigm it would have never been invented!
5. The sermon -- yes! Now there is something scriptural! Don't be so sure! In the Word you see preaching to the lost only (out doors!) and to the believers at certain times only to meet emergent needs and discussion type teaching towards believers (see the all night session of Paul with the believers in the book of Acts for proof of this. It says "he continued his DISCOURSE all night." A discourse is a back and forth conversation although Paul, no doubt, did most of the talking.) but Sunday morning sermons were a transplant of Greek Platonic oratory from the 4th century and it damages the functioning of the members of the Body as far as the functioning of their gifts. I Cor. 14:26 says : "EVERY (emphasis mine) one of you has ………. " and then mentions various gifts that anyone can have as a believer according to scripture. This is the USUAL meeting of the assembly .... or should be.
6. Stained glass window -- invented by Abbott Sujay in 1400 based on the neo-platonic concept of God being "The All" and too awesome to approach. The buildings were built to inspire awe and produce intimidation of noise from Christians who should "worship in silence!" Well, silence before the Lord is great but, if , according to Paul, the unknown tongues (without an interpretation of course) not communicating understanding to the gatherers is useless (unless God brings a meeting to silence to manifest his presence for a little while as He did in the original Quaker meetings in the past: THAT practice was based on Jeanne Guyon's writings and I would have to say THAT kind of silence is definitely kosher, however, let her define that for you so you know the difference) to edify and build the Organism of God, how much more is deathly silence killing of the functioning of the members -- too much death here. Steeples -- same thing.
7. "Sunday morning order of worship" --- John Calvin's boring invention from the 1500s. What a curse! Talk about putting God in a box! Poor God!! He's so constricted by our way of doing things that He can't move through any member He wants! Hmmm ... too many times He can't even move in members outside of church cause He's imprisoned deep within their human spirit anyway as He has not been allowed to make His home in their heart. Seems sometimes He can do more through the unbelievers in the world without their knowledge of what they are doing or saying! Sometimes.
8. Sunday morning worship service being at 11:00 virtually every place the whole wide world! -- this one's funny! It's ALL because Martin Luther used to get drunk on Saturday night and the original "Protestant Mass," as it was originally called, and which was at 5:00 in the morning moved later and later to accommodate Luther's hangovers on Sunday morning so he could get sober enough to preach! He liked his late Sat nitey talks and German beer.
Now here I'm going to take a little time to mention a few more things about pastors because this is one of the most killing things in the Body of Christ today! Show me him in the Bible!!! You just can't do it! OK, maybe just (really just one) one guy is called a pastor in the NT. JESUS is called the Shepherd and Bishop of souls. The title "pastor" equals shepherd. He is the ONLY pastor mentioned in scripture, the one and only Head and only CEO anywhere and that's how it should be today, but we are like the children of Israel who said to God "give us a king" when GOD was their King! They missed it sooo bad and things got messed up as a result.
The word pastor is found in the New Testament ONCE! (once only : there is more evidence for the word priest) So, does that mean the present day pastor is scriptural?? Well, the word priest is found in the New Testament also. Does that mean today's Catholic preists are scriptural? Of course not! And that "priest" word is found even more often but that does not mean the Catholic tradition is OK! Jesus Himself said "call no man father, OR lord, OR Rabbi"!!!!!! Sounds like the Lord is not too much into titles! Also sounds like no brother or sister should have command say so over another brother or sister. Or control. Hmmmn!! Now what about those 7 pastoral duties Martin Luther re-hashed for the former Catholic preists who came over or converted to Martin's group over from the Catholic Church and still wanted a "clergy" (a word that comes straight from idolatrous paganism by the way) "job"? OK then:
Show me a man in the NT that dedicates babies!You will not find THAT MAN!!! Because that man is NOT in the New Testament!! There was no such animal (please excuse the expression) in even ANY first century writings, much less the NT. So where did that man come from if he did not come from the New Testament time? He certainly did not come from Jesus Christ! Neither from His era, His generation or His time-frame! And for a fact I know for SURE he didn't come from Christ's eternity-frame!!!! No Way!! The modern pastor came from the Reformation time frame which was when he was invented. Now, where did that man come from? He came from the evolution of the Catholic Church to the Protestant. When the Protestant Church was born: pioneered by a former Nicene monk in Wittenburg, Germany. He took the former priests that converted over and said 'OK now we need to change some things.' For one thing he dropped the word "priest" because he believed in the scriptural truth (YES!! At least he did restore some things) of the priesthood of all believers. (Actually, we have to understand the truth about this though. This did not happen right away or it may not have been accepted. When the former Catholic clergymen ached for their type of position of a type they were used to before, at first they were called "Protestant priests" and after a time then Luther saw the title to be contrary to the scriptural teaching of the priesthood of all believers, so he changed it to the word pastor in the German language whatever that sounds like. Now was Luther totally blind to the fact he did not restore book of Acts practices in all areas of practice? NO! He DOES admit in some of his writings that he should have gone further in changing things than he did. But he did not know how to do it!) Also he changed or altered some of the "seven pastoral duties" of a priest which was invented by Pope Gregory the Great who was a very superstitious, medieval type of guy. Some of these duties were to bless civic events (pray over a football game or a presidential inauguration? Maybe? ), also baptize the dead, hear confessions, etc. So one of the ones Luther replaced was that of hearing confessions to preaching sermons. Now guess what this "not priest anymore guy" was called? Not right away of course. But eventually …… the pastor. And he became the center of events and functions, so forth. He became the center of the what was called (and still is called )the "service" or church service and man's concepts of "church". So then: how did Martin get rid of the mass, the Catholic mass? He got rid of the altar and replaced it with the pulpit (this is a man doing this folks, not God although the Sovereign was TOTALLY in control!). Then he got rid of the Eucharist and replaced that with the sermon. And the priest was no longer the priest, he was the pastor. The point is very little changed and much of Catholicism remained in this scenario. Especially the clergy-laity system remains, which is what REALLY still undermines the true functioning of the priesthood of all believers. It was the same drama on a different stage. It was still something based on the traditions of men, and so, there is a killing element in it still. SO .... the SERMON is the CENTER of the Protestant Christian meeting today instead of CHRIST being the CENTER! What tree is this????????????????????????????? And this is many of today's Christians definition of being fed?????????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????????????????????? No wonder we're in such a mess!!
Today the pastor is the equivalent of the 'local church'. If you remove the pastor from Protestant Christianity then Protestant Christianity collapses. Kapoof!! It stands or falls with the pastor. And that is a contradiction to the NT because the real pastors (I have met only TWO in my whole life!!!!) then played a low-key role and when Paul wrote he hardly mentioned the leaders. There are books where they were written to assemblies with HEAVY problems and any kind of leaders were NEVER mentioned such as I Corinthians!!!! AND II Corinthians!!!! WOW folks, WOW!!!!! Paul in writing those 2 letters NEVER EVER mentioned elders or leadership as being an answer to their dilemas even ONCE! Nor was there ANY mention of them! And there are some more letters in the NT where there were problems and leadership is not mentioned!!!!! They obviously had a different mindset than we do today! Of course the name pastor is never spoken as a title of any person in the NT except Jesus! BUT TODAY???? The pastor is the center of the local church. (Now I DID actually observe these things firsthand when i lived in Guam. I actually went back to chruch fro awhile to figure things out and I saw twice that when the pastor of that church went away on vacation and some other preachers preached which wasn't a problem, not that part anyway, but the pastor not being there was a hole in one for the devil because of that poor poor situation that caused all sorts of problems for those folks: they almost fell apart at the seams! I saw this twice!) So if the pastor was not the exhorting factor in the 1st century, and not center stage for taking care of affairs, etc., then what was? Well in Paul's writings there is a term used over and over: "Eleeron" or something like that and it means "one another." They were to exhort one another, love one another, admonish one another etc. etc. etc. It was written over and over. Of course, that is not without the factor of Christ in us: the hope of glory. Also his letters were written to the "assembly" in Corinth or Ephesus, etc. It was those who were the "church" or Ekklesia, who did things, took charge or dealt with the situation. Clergy-laity relationships were unheard of back then!! That is until the late writings of John and you can only dicipher it from 3rd John and Revelation that such a clergy-laity situation was beginning to raise it's ugly head.
There were definitely more traditions through the centuries but you get an idea. (If you want a complete lest of this please see my 2nd book online: Lost! NT Realities Made of None Effect due to the Traditions of Men at http://www.lostkeysrevelation.com/tradcon.html) Seems to me the root of all man-made traditions were the clergy-laity system. So, in the 17th century as a result of all of this clergy laity death of the reality of the BODY there was little concern by the ministers of that day about the "assembly life" -- they cared only about saving sinners --- they thought "church" was boring and so it was and that's why if you wanted to be ( it's still like this in too too many circles ) a functioning member of Christ and loved the Lord you would "go to work for Him" ---- they simply had no concept of the corporate expression of Christ as a shining lampstand, Body or Dwelling for his glory -- a Temple built together with living stones. (By the way I am back to Spurgeon and Moody both born in 1901) If you wanted excitement for the Lord and of the Lord you need to be in the work of the Lord. This is why so many men today who feel a call to serve the Lord don't know what to do so they become a pastor because they don't know or can't find any other pathway to do this. I really cannot blame them. How do you find another outlet? So to be a functioning one enjoying the moving of the Spirit through you there seems to be only 3 options: a "pastor", an evangelist or join a para-church organization. I shall explain.
Such a one who wanted to function (and boy! Did he ever!)was George Whitfield. What an anointing on that man! Thousands were saved but no building (!!! WHAT?!!!) ….. just a gathering of materials into .... piles?? Piles od living stones???? But living stones are also supposed to be members of His Body so if they aren't built together how is there gonna be ongoing life? That man had NO concept of the assembly. He had an orphanage where he kept lots of kids. ( yes I know George Mueller did the same thing in the 1800's a hundred years later and had a much bigger and more famous orphanage with lots of prayer miracles documented, but Whitefield was first at it.) He would get his kids in front of his audiences and they would cry crocodile tears and tell the stories of God's miracles in providing for the orphanage etc. and the money just rolled in! THIS was the catalyst for our American Christianity and our countless para-church organizations! We send our young people for summer before college to a mission organization like YWAM etc. sometimes to overseas, then bring them to denomination church services back home to tell their stories and the better stories that are told (there's that platform again! Let's burn the stupid thing down!!! ) the more the money flows. And the more the money flows, the more young people are encouraged to go back and get more stories. What mankind forgot was that the ecclesia was doing a FAR BETTER job of this in 1st century. Naturally according to the divine nature within. The problem was and is this came out of traditional non-all members functioning meeting life and flowed right back into the same kind of meetings usually due to the traditions of men and so there was not much Building of God or Bride of God or Body of God.
The weird, but not so weird thing about all this is that some of an actual taste of what some outside the organized church call "church-life" or Body-life occurs as a result of young people spending time together in prayer and fellowship and the flowing of the Spirit between them as they are together a lot in their mission with other young people etc. Well this started with George and now it goes through billions of dollars and they drain people for these things that have nothing much to do (except by accident on occasion) with the assembling of God's building ( His rib! ) so they can go back and get more stories (good ones too! But then isn't good the biggest distraction from God? Isn't it a distraction from the tree of life to the tree of knowledge? Well maybe. It can be.), then they go out and "do a work" and yes! I'm sure things are done to save people and cure some sick ones and feed some hungry children etc. BUT ...... ( I'll comment on that a little later ) .....gathering stones without building them??? Or causing the disasembled stones to sit in rows looking at the back of people's heads? Generally speaking this was the majority result.
Next? Enter: in the 1800's D.L. Moody who actually made George Whitefield's way of doing things to be set in stone. He invented the para-church organization. The name of the first para-church organization was the YMCA: Young Men's Christian Association. These are organizations that are like a vaccination barring people from real assembly life which I've experienced by the way and real assembly life is like rivers of living water, not just flowing in you individually but through many people corporately, deeply and connectedly! THIS IS THE FULL BLESSING OF ETERNAL LIFE. A vaccination is enough of the virus to keep you from catching the real thing, but young people trip into real assembly life experience in communing together on the beach, in the dorm etc. and trip into it but then trip out just as easy and don't know how it happened or why it slipped away so easy. Therein is its appeal and its testimony. Therein is a big problem and frustration. There are thousands of these organizations today. People have NO IDEA how AWFUL this is to the heart of God!!!!!!!!!! Unknowingly they have replaced the assembly ( Ekklesia ) of Christ. There are literally thousands of so-called ministries that are like my pencil scratching the back (see my footwashing article) to "do what the church has failed to do." So why did George Whitefield and Moody etc. do all this? I don't really blame them. It was because they were bored with church! And they were looking for something exciting to do! So they "did the work of God" so they could get excited! And I prasie God for the good results of it. But there is something more exciting!!!!!!!! AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It has been mentioned that Moody died in 1901 and so did Spurgeon the great expositor. Dwight L. Moody gave us the para-church organization. Charles Spurgeon gave us the expository sermon and since then nothing has happened. Oh there was this great great revival in the early 1900's especially 1904 but there was no leak free container or NT wineskin to contain and keep that new wine and most of places where the revivals took place though they were turned upside down and in some cases the whole nation would be turned to God. …. But …..TEN YEARS LATER THEY WERE JUST THE SAME AS THEY HAD BEEN BEFORE THE REVIVAL! Why?????? Please tell me? Oh! That's easy. The wineskin was wrong kind of holy: it was full of holes! There were births but no growths, just births, births, births. How can fish survive out of their natural habitat of water and how can we survive outside of being built together with others as God's Habitat where His table and His food, drink, tender nurturing and all his thousand other riches for our growth in the DNA of God to make us exactly like His Son through feeding, transformation and conformation exist in plentification? So then there were deaths deaths deaths. YOU, yes I mean YOU!!! ... YOU HAVE NO IDEA OF THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES EXPERIENCED BY THE FIRST CENTURY GATHERINGS OF BELIEVERS IN THE LIFE-GIVING DNA OF GOD BECAUSE THINGS ARE SOOOOO DIFFERENT TODAY!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!
NowNow …. in THIS last century (the 20th) things have REALLY been done black blindness. This time by someone outside the organized church!!! (they can still be under the Western Mindset influence ) Enter: John Nelson Darby who was big in the beginnings of the Plymouth Brethren. But the things he did that took such root in the 20th century were things he did in the 19th century cause that's when he lived. He had true assembly-life among the Plymouth Brethren for awhile, but held to some doctrines that (having come from the Episcopalian church as a background) perpetuated the clergy-laity system somewhat. All it takes, folks, is a little leaven to leaven the whole lump. Also he stressed Bible study. Believe me when I say this, but the world has been so illiterate for 19 centuries (of course THAT boosted the clergy laity situation too I'll have to admit, because emphasis or importance was put on those who "know doctrine" and who had the "best theology" and THIS was another thing Constantine had done by making the "Counsels" for inventing the creeds, i.e. The Nicene Creed, etc. It gave Christians the attitude: you got good doctrine "God likes you", but if you don't "God doesn't like you" and this is how many still think! Because the platonic theory is if you can read and think and you're smarter you're a first class Christian and maybe better than the other "non-thinker" because you got "theology.") that this (this Bible study thing) could not have got to us before this more literate (Bible study could never have happened before literacy became widespread because it COULD NOT have happened) century which has just passed away 6 days ago. (Remember I first wrote this in the year 2000 on January the 6th) It's the thing now that has happened to us within these last hundred (118 at this point) years: "you need to get in the Word." This thing of "getting into the Word" (which I've proved since is not REALLY the Word of God but merely the letters of the scriptures) is not even 118 years old, but it is put out as the answer to life!!! People now actually believe that in the written scriptures is actually the answer for your life! What has that old knowledge tree done to us!!! We are being eaten alive by it! Or is it eaten dead from within? So Darby's influence along with John R. Mott invented the home Bible Study! Now, you're going to say "don't tell me you're gonna knock the home Bible study? C'mon, brother!" Well, yep!! I don't even have to think twice about knocking it cause the book of Acts never even mentions such a thing!!! You won't find it there because those dear brothers gathered around the Person, the dear dear Person of Christ, not the book! The answer is not in the book!!!! The book points you TO the Answer Who is Jesus! So THAT would be the OK use for it's study. Just remember the scriptures should not be contacted without contacting the Lord! But what did they do now? They then began to take a verse from here and a verse from there ( from different books of the NT of course ) and proved, mind you,that the most important thing in there is twofold: #1: you got to get saved ( a man centered gospel of course ); and #2: after you get saved the most important thing is to get others saved. (by this cut and paste method you can prove ANYTHING! Now there actually IS a time and place where it is OK for some in the five-fold ministry to do this but only as led by the Spirit as Paul was) And now we have a Bible that says exactly that and that is what has been drummed into our heads through proof texts by taking a verse from here and a verse from there, etc. You have been made to feel guilty and bear the weight of the salvation of the whole world upon your shoulders! It also seems like its so hard to get people saved and somehow its my fault as if Jesus was not still a mighty Savior Who can save people at the flip of a dime and THAT's the truth!!!!! He is still AN ALMIGHTY ALL POWERFUL AWESOME SAVIOR and NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM! HALLELUJAH !!!!!!!! Anyway, the above scenario described is our present day scenario and it's soooooo shallow and poor it's sickening.
So here now in 2018 I have seen that there are a few more elements that make up Satan's Christian matrix system that will blind you to the true inheritance and unsearchably rich good land of Christ's Being so you can hopefully by his plans remain systematized. So here they are: (and before I get to them, I was once deceived that chruch practices are the only real problems, however, their doctrines are OK, however, that is not so):
#1. The doctrine of an eternal burning hell. This is soooo related to the knowledge tree, it is not funny. (OK, so there may be a little humor) This is one of worst curses that ever took place. It has turned off more people away from Christ than anything, I do believe. The first result of the eating the wrong tree was turning from God to self, seeing the wrong they did, then guilt, then shame. So the feeling leading to cover up action. The devil has a heyday in adding in his spirit of hell-fire fear into the mix. What a demonic doctrine is this!? Now it is true if people believe it they may give lip service to God and "get saved" to avoid this "hell", but how could that be a valid turning to God when their concept of God is not the correct one? And does this lead to love for God? I will include only one proof that the teaching is not true here: there are true versions translated truly such as Young's Literal Translation for one example, but the 2 words in the OT and the other one which is a translation of the word in the OT to the NT are translated errantly many times as eternal when it should be translated "to an age" or "agelong" etc. etc. This is a misleading mistranslation of these words and lends folks ears to what is mostly preached today that God punishes finite creatures for finite sins ENDLESSLY. However, a God of just weights and measures Who said "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" would not alter His scales of true justice nor break His Own law! Also His laws of jubilee demand a final jubilee forgiving all debts once all are corrected and cleansed thouroughly. Don't disbeleive God can accomplish this. He most certainly can! Again remember "there is nothing impossible with God"!!! Another thing that bothers me about this foolish, fear mongering doctrine is that it defaces the true face of God. It not only misrepresents His justice and love, but contradicts His saving power. If you want the real Biblical truth on this, I recommend the following web sites: (NOW I may not agree with everything they teach on those sites, but the main thing is to see the enlightenment concerning the doctrine of eternal hell as to whether it is true or untrue.) .. so here goes: 1. https://www.godfire.net/ 2. https://www.gods-kingdom-ministries.net/ (for a story how God through angel time travel backed up this brother's book "Creation's Jubilee" like no other book has ever been backed up see: https://gods-kingdom-ministries.net/daily-weblogs/2005/12-2005/creations-jubilee-a-book-before-its-time/ ... this brother hardly has ever even mentioned this episode ever since he wrote it: amazing humility.) 3. https://www.tentmaker.org/ and I'll leave it at that. There are tons more sites, but this last one points to so many other sites, books and resources written by godly men for the last 200 years or even more on the subject that just this last site alone would take a lifetime possibly to review it all. What I believe about all this is that our main attention should be on Christ, not these periferal doctrines as Christ is the Tree of Life.
#2. The doctrine that man has free will. This goes with the above mentioned doctrine. There IS no scripture saying man has free will! Now man has some authority over his will and this is why God holds men responsible for their choices, but only God has absolute sovereignty and His will is farrrr more tha TEN MILLION TIMES HIGHER than man's puny little will!!!!!! Look at the case of Pharoah who more than once tried to repent, but God wouldn't let him!!!! Whoa! But I thought it was God's WILL that ALL come to repentance? YES! IT IS! But the word errantly translated in the KJV and several other versions from Rom. 9:17-19 where one statement says "who has resisted His will?" was translated differently in the YLT using the word "counsel" instead. It should be translated PLAN. People resist God's will MOST of the time, but NEVER His plan which controls ALL things in all times! Go read Acts 4:23-28 as to the united prayer of the early Christians! They knew Who was really in charge! I mean think about it! If even one shoelace or attitude was out of place in that whole scene leading to the crucifixion of Christ and it resulted in Him not being crucified where would be our salvation and our only hope? Could God risk any such existing factors that would have resulted in such results? Would God play with our eternal salvation leaving any such contradicting attitudes or actions altering that awesome event in ANY way? NO WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No POSSIBLE WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! God was not only in control of ALL things there, He was in ABSOLUTE control!!!!! He ABSOLUTELY set all the actors and all their voices in their exact locations. He not only set the stage for play ball, but controlled ALLLLL the actors and their actions!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not that He does any sin, but He DOES say in Isaiah 45: "I the LORD create evil." Now that does not mean any sin against His Own law, but it means calamity. Calamities are in His control for His eternal purpose. Adn NO ONE can resist His counsel concerning what that means or His plan. Eventually no one will resist His will either because "the eyes of the blind shall be opened." Compare that prophesy with what God told Moses in Exodus 4: "And Jehovah saith unto him, 'Who appointed a mouth for man? or who appointeth the dumb, or deaf, or open, or blind? is it not I, Jehovah?'" Indeed! THIS means God has to save all men! Why? Cause His Own law says if there is a slave and His master has caused blindness or some other disability in the slave, he must free him on account of his eye or whatever happened and God has blinded spiritually ALL of us on some level to a greater or lesser degree, so there must be a jubilee set on some date! No matter how much control you think you have over your will and choices, I would say the infinite will and power of God is INFINTELY above your will (and far BIGGER too): your tiny little limited will, concepts and understanding. So yeah! He's definitely in control. No matter how chaotic things look, He is at the reigns. HE DOES REIGN.
The resulting untruth that the most important thing is serving God rather than God Himself! Why? Cause we got to go get people saved before it is too late. What a distraction from the Person and Being of Jesus Christ! This includes the false doctrine that after one dies the die is cast and you can't ever repent or turn to God after that point. So this teaching says death is the point of no return. Now WHERE do you find that devil doctrine in the scriptures?????? It is NO WHERE in there!!! If it is, find it for me and email me back. Well, thank God! It is a false doctrine and not there! I expect no emails with that question or "enlightenment"!!!
The false doctrine of the futuristic view of the book of Revelation. This one is not easy to understand. You have to do the research. Now there are 3 main views of Revelation. (1)The futuristic view is the most prevalent belief among Christians today which causes endless false prophecies (especially on Youtube)and is an open door to evil spirits of fear(by the way, if you want to make some headway in your life against the deceptions of evil spirits, I recommend the book "War on the Saints" by Jessie Penn-Lewis. I am not in total agreement with her on all points, but you must realize that the supernatural world has 2 sides.) The other 2 views are: (2)The spiritual view. This view was held by Jeanne Guyon and is also held today by J. Preston Eby. Do a search and you will find his web site. I agree with this view because that book claims that it IS a revelation of Jesus Christ. So it IS about HIM! (3) The 3rd view HAS been proven to be totally accurate: the historic view: the definition is that although it is symbolic, it started to be fulfilled by historical events right away after it was written and over the centuries, item by item by item HAS come to pass!!! This, folks, is proven FACT! If you don't believe me, read Stephen Jones books on Revelation athttps://godskingdom.org/ .. you'll find them in his books section. By the way he agrees that the spiritual view is also accurate! So the 2nd and 3rd view is accurate, the 1st is a false doctrine.
Now, how is the futuristic view related to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Simple: it is FEAR based! Vast amounts of money and precious time have been wasted on this outlook, for example: the "Left Behind" series. How much wasted money and time does that represent?!!!!? So what about today's concept of the "rapture"? To understand where it came from point your browser to https://www.godfire.net/Elwin/The_Rapture_Question.htm ... to sum it up: the origin of the future view was the Council of Trent. And what was that? It was the Roman Catholic Church's counter reformation to fight against the reformation. One of the problems they were dealing with is that Martin Luther, Calvin and all the rest of the reformers pointed their finger at the pope as being the fulfillment of that guy talked about in Daniel and Revelation although neither book mentions the title antichrist (believe it or not!!!) pertaining to him. Of course, if you read Stephen Jones you will discover that those guys were right! Jones is right. NO ONE believed or wrote of a future antichrist before 400 years ago!!!! NO ONE!!! The POPE is talked about in both Daniel and Revelation and the hot seat was getting too hot! So who started this false futuristic doctrine? A Jesuit priest from the CATHOLIC church! Yeah! Now, are you gonna base your beliefs on THAT! Jus finding that out right there should influence you to REJECT THAT FALSE TEACHING knowing the ROOT of it! Now that you know the roots of this theory are you gonna keep listening to all this nonsense? Not me! So then another guy (also a Jesuit priest but pretending to be somebody else!)who falsely named himself "Rabbi Ben Ezra" (his real name was Emmanuel Lacunza) wrote a book called "The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty." What a sham scam FORGERY! But Christians in those days (published 1812) respected converted Jews so the book got onto many shelves and slowly became the chosen doctrine to interpret the book of Revelation. The nonsense and false flag visions and dreams, etc. etc. ad nauseum on Youtube these days is endless!! The result? More fear, guilt, religion and legalistic self effort. Do you see that this is also a part of a systematized system of error?
BUT THAT IS NOT THE MAIN SUBJECT OF THE SCRIPTURES: IT IS CHRIST AND THE ECCLESIA AND THE FINAL GOAL IS THE LAMB'S MARRIAGE TO HIS SWEET BRIDE, WHICH IS US!!!! THE FINAL 2 CHAPTERS IN THE BIBLE ARE ABOUT THE FINAL GOAL OF THE BIBLE AND THAT IS US: THE NEW JERUSALEM, THE WIFE OF THE LAMB !!!!! Get THAT channel , get THAT kind of assembly back and you got a Body once again walking upon this earth that will do what Jesus did through us in the first century when men said "they that have turned the world upside down have come here!" He'll be able to once more shake the earth and defeat His enemy under foot!!!! And we'll see men with greater anointing than John Wesley or even George Whitefield had! OUR TOO MUCH EMPHASIS ON EVANGELISM BECAUSE OF OUR WESTERN EVANGELICAL MINDSET IS WHY THE WORLD IS NOT EVANGELIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PUT THAT IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Put the ecclesia 1st by putting love for Jesus Christ corporately first and eating the right tree and you'll see BOTH the building up of God's House with His living stones AND the evangelization of this earth happen through every member of his Body! Today's ways of evangelism are a HINDRANCE to the true gospel of Christ!!!!!!!!! I said a HINDRANCE!!!!! He wants to do things through His Body not us trying to accomplish what flesh and blood can merely do for Him as mere individuals. So ...... whew! Wipe the sweat off, man! Even before I wrote this I felt as if what I wrote here was just to give the Lord a small chance to put a hairline crack if possible ( for Him it is, but I don't know if I even got a crack half that big in my own thickly veiled Western Evangelical mind!! ) in your Western mindset so he can pour in light. My brothers and sisters, whoever of you may read this: please come back to the Tree of Life!! In the end of the Bible this Tree has 12 manner of fruits. When it first began it was only the good fig tree, but then others besides Jews got grafted in and there were apples and oranges and plums etc. etc. It has always and STILL is a Judean Tree with Jesus as the Judean King, however ALL men shall eventually be baptized INTO Him as their ROOT and LIFE and SOURCE. This is inevitable, but why not YOU dear reader, why shouldn't you get the blessing of being the FIRST FRUITS of this TREE of LIFE to the world!!! There is an awesome reward for volunteering for this! Now I don't feel that what I wrote is really what is needed for bringing in enough light. Rather I would point you to brother Frank Viola from whom I have learned much about these things. Possibly the best book on the eternal purpose is the book "From Eternity to Here" and the web site for this is https://frankviola.org/frometernitytohere/ ... (now my book Revelation of the Lost Keys may prove to be just as good or almost as good, I don't know). There is also an article another brother wrote where he talks about the problems and heartaches of his past as a young pastor and why he's quit that and went on to become a departing church planter. It's in an article called "A Plea for Church Life." Another site which will soon point to the best on these particular topics is on one of Frank Viola's sites at http://frankviola.org/church/ There is a book by Frank (called "Pagan Christianity?") on that site which has for the first time actually provided references to the historical facts of some or most of the things I'm writing about here. Hopefully this will be major breakthrough for the truth and the kingdom of God on this earth!!!
Addendum 1
| The Revelation of the Lost Keys |