Animal idolatry

As my grandmother aged she changed. Something about the aging process changed her from the woman I knew growing up to a different woman while still being the same woman, if that makes sense. Somewhere inside the woman that age was turning her into was still the grandmother I knew all my life. The older she got, the more age got the better of her, the more she changed.

She's in her 80's now and living in a nursing home. But once upon a time, about ten years ago, she lived in that place between being the grandmother I grew up knowing and being the woman that now suffers from Alzheimers and other ailments. And somewhere in that place, between where she is now and what she used to be, she had a dog. One single dog. That was nothing new for her. I'm not sure I can recall a time in my life when my grandparents didn't have at least one dog. They just seemed to be dog people. My grandmother favored Chihuahuas. My grandpa favored whatever dog he had at the moment. My grandmother preferred to keep her dogs at home. She trained them to do two things, 1) stay out of the kitchen and 2) sleep in a dog crate. That was it. Beyond that her dogs had the run of the house to do as they pleased including biting the grandkids. My grandpa preferred to take his dog with him. He taught his dogs to get in his truck, to wait there with the windows down, and he often bought them chicken from restaurants just because 'they like it'.

That was my grandparents and their pets. They often had two dogs. His and hers. That was just...Grandma and Grandpa. They had their dogs and you enjoyed them or put up with them depending on your feelings about dogs because Grandma and Grandpa always had them.

So my grandmother having a dog was nothing new, nothing special. She had her dog. In her mind her dog was well cared for and loved. And maybe it was. But her dog lived in the house, was rarely, if ever, bathed, covered in fleas and barely housebroken. But Grandma loved her dog and well...by that point Grandma lived alone. She needed the companionship of the dog, we all told ourselves and each other. She needed what protection that dog could offer. She needed...whatever she thought that dog could supply. We helped her get flea medicine and bathe the dog.

But somewhere along the line that dog became two dogs. Then three. Then four. Then...I don't know what the final count was before we convinced her she should not have all those dogs. But my poor grandmother loved those dogs. She really and truly loved every one of them. She had one that my uncle bought her as a puppy that once grown would bite her on a regular basis. That dog was the cause of her getting stitches more than once. We couldn't convince her to part with it because by then my uncle had died and in my grandmother's mind that dog was all she had left of her son.

Someone else gave her a very old Chihuahua. That dog had problems. It could barely eat and had had a stroke or something. It had no control over its tongue. That poor dogs tongue hung out of its mouth constantly.

The thing is that somewhere in her time of collecting dogs she lost the ability to see them as dogs. It started with the Chihuahua that couldn't control its tongue. That dog required a whole lot of care. She hand fed it and took to taking it everywhere she went. The dog was grown but she carried it in a purse, even taking it into restaurants because somehow my grandmother had the idea that because the dog could not eat hard food and had a hard time with other types of food that the dog could not be left alone for any reason.

We all dealt with it, trying to encourage her to leave the dog at home for its own good, trying to convince her that there were places she wasn't allowed to take the dog. And in the end Grandma took the dog everywhere until she somehow decided that it was best left at home when she went to town.

Long before that day came my grandmother took to calling that dog her baby and somehow from there that one dog being her baby became all of her dogs being her babies. And in her mind those dogs were truly her babies. I don't think she was able to distinguish between the dogs she called her babies and real babies. I have seen her interrupt strangers in town, strangers that were talking of their children or grandchildren, strangers speaking of brand new babies born into their family, to tell them about her 'babies'. The strangers would think by the way my grandmother spoke that she was talking of real babies and they would join the conversation thinking they were discussing real babies.

When my grandmother told them that her 'baby' was sick, those strangers worried over those babies thinking they were human babies. We tried talking to my grandmother about it to no avail. Strangers that found out she was speaking of dogs and not babies would either smile and extract themselves from the conversation or laugh about how they thought she was speaking of real babies.

But the thing is to my grandmother...she was. In her mind those dogs were babies. Her babies. And she truly could not see the difference in them and in real human babies.

We chalked it up to her age the same way we chalked up other things to her age. It was just one of those things about Grandma now that didn't used to be there.

Up until my grandmother started referring to her dogs as babies I had NEVER heard of anyone calling their animal their baby. I had known many people that loved their animals. Had met and known people that went to great expense and invested lots of time in their animals but somehow all the people I knew or met had PETS not babies. No matter how much they might love their animals they still had PETS.

Back then I did very little online. No social media. No blogging. I had email and did little else beyond some research now and then. As a result I thought this phenomena of calling animals babies was some odd trait my grandmother picked up as she aged and assumed it wasn't something most other sane people did.

Now I know better.

I can't count the number of people I've met in town that spoke of their 'babies', the number of people online that call their animals their 'babies; or 'fur babies' and well...the number of people that just plain speak of animals as if they are somehow kids or at least humans.

Just the other day I saw a post on social media about someone that had seen a dog on their daughters neighbors roof. Apparently the neighbors leave a window open so their dogs can go in and out as they wish but instead of going into the yard they go onto the roof. I have to admit I found the concept a little odd but the pictures were amusing. Who expects to see a dog sitting on a roof?

But it was the comments that bothered me. So many people spoke of how the owners were negligent in letting the dogs get on the roof. Some spoke of animal cruelty.

Really?

This was a dog that appeared well cared for. And yet the fact that the dog willingly went onto the roof meant the owners were cruel and negligent. I just can't make the connection.

There are rules, laws even, about animals of any kind being allowed in businesses where food is sold or served and yet more and more these days I see dogs, and a few other animals, in grocery stores. And no one tells them to remove the animal from the store. Workers pass by the dog like its not there or worse, stop and chat with the owner, talking about or to the dog. What happened to the rules and laws that mean those animals cannot be where food is sold?

I recently was at a doctors office, waiting in the car for a relative to come out, and discovered that another patient had brought their dog to their appointment. They did leave the dog in the car, something the dog was either not used to or did not like because it barked nonstop the entire time I was waiting in the parking lot. When my relative came out of the doctors office they commented on how the dog could be heard inside and how the receptionist was upset because it was disturbing to listen to.

There's nothing, in and of itself, bad about someone taking their dog anywhere and leaving it in their vehicle but this person took a dog that obviously cannot handle being left alone in the car and parked right up next to the front of the doctors office ensuring that everyone around, including patients in extreme pain, had to listen to their beloved pet.

I will be the first person to admit that I am not what the world refers to as an animal person. I can take animals or leave them and if I'm doing the care taking, more often than not I will leave them, but I don't mind a well behaved, well trained animal so long as it's clean and not in the store where I'm buying my groceries. I'm sorry but seeing a dog sitting in the baby seat in a shopping cart and knowing someone is going to place their baby in that same seat later is disturbing. So is the thought of buying food that someone's dog may have licked or even peed on. Yes, I have been in the store when someones dog, while riding in the cart, peed. In the floor. On the food in the shopping cart. What did the owner of the animal do? Hurry away from the evidence that their pet just left on the floor. I have no idea what they did with the things in the cart that were ruined.

But the thing is...animals don't seem to be seen as animals anymore. Somehow they are being elevated to something higher than humans, more akin to some kind of god. Maybe it's always been there and I just never saw it but it seems to me that it's escalating at a rapid pace.

There are contests for animals, usually dogs. There are day cares for dogs. Spa's for dogs. Vacation spots for dogs. There are fancy dresses, life jackets, suits, and Halloween costumes for dogs. You name it, you can probably get it for your dog and a good number of other types of pets too.

Somehow, somewhere along the line animals, especially dogs, followed closely by cats, have become idols in the extreme. And no one seems to see it. I see posts on social media all the time, posts by professing 'Christians', that speak of their 'baby' or their 'fur babies' and no one, not even the other professing 'Christians' correct them. No one says that those animals are pets and not kids. No one asks them if they realize they have made idols of their animals.

Scripture tells us that man is to use animals to serve us. We are shown animals that are used for transportation, animals that are used for food, even animals that were used to show God's wrath. But we are told not to make an idol of anything. And yet, here people are, idolizing animals to a point so far out there that I don't even know how to describe it.

I have a relative that owns a dog that takes food right out of her kids hands, that eats her food while she's eating it. And that's okay because the dog wants it. Ummm...really? This same dog bites her kids for any and every reason and it's okay because this nearly year old dog is just a 'little puppy' and 'needs to chew'. This same dog is referred to as her 'baby', 'kid' and is 'one of the family'. In fact it's one of the family to the point that they take it just about everywhere with them, even to visit friends and family.

Is that not idolatry?

Is that not placing the same, or more, importance on the dog than on the kids? This dog, by the way, was given the real human baby's favorite blanket. It is allowed to chew on all the kids toys because this dog is 'one of the kids' and it is 'Mommy and daddy's baby'.

I wish that these examples I've given in this post were rare and unusual happenings. I really wish they were. But they aren't.

There is an entire television channel dedicated to animals. I had the misfortune of seeing part of a show on that channel recently. It was something about animal rescues and in that episode the police, I don't know if they were actual police or animal enforcement officers, went to a house where they said the owner hadn't been seen for over two or three, I can't remember which, months. They walked around the outside of the house, a house that looked like it was lived in, and were VERY upset to discover a dead dog inside a dog house in the backyard. It seemed that these officers were actually disgusted at the dogs deceased condition.

They talked about that 'poor' dog. They talked about how could anyone do this to an animal. And all the time I was sitting there watching I wondered when they were going to get around to worrying about where the person or people were that belonged in that house. If they had been missing for two or three months...should the animals have been the number one concern?

But the animals were the number one concern. From that dog house in the back yard the officers continued their look-see around the house then talked about going inside. They spoke of seeing a dog that was still alive through a window and a bird cage that they couldn't tell if it was occupied or not. But they did not wonder where the person or people were that should have been in that home. They worried about what they would find inside that house but it wasn't the worry of finding dead people that concerned them, it was what condition they might find animals in that had them worried.

About the first thing they noticed when they entered the house was several guns propped in a corner. What I noticed was they weren't cheap or old guns. They appeared to be in good condition and they were higher powered rifles. They didn't strike me as the kind of thing a person would just move off and leave. The officers took notice of them but never mentioned that where there are guns like that there should be people. Maybe they know something I don't. Maybe people just up and move off and leave their fancy guns every day but in my experience gun people don't just leave their guns. They might leave everything else but they don't leave their guns. Not without some serious extenuating circumstances anyway.

And yet here these officers were, noting the guns, but giving no thought to where the person was. They just went right on talking about what animals they might find in the house and what condition those animals might be in.

We never did find out where the owners were but the officers were pleased to rescue one living dog from a house where the owner was missing. It was as if the animals were all that mattered.

I can't help but see in that show, in that animal station, the promotion of animal idolatry. There are kids shows that promote dogs as the most important characters, shows that portray dogs as being human like, shows that, well...push dogs.

But it's not all dogs. There are just as many shows about cats. Although that's pretty much where the animal love ends. There's some push of horses and other furry things but very little about lizards, snakes, birds, or any other kind of nonstandard pet.

There are even complete shows about the killing of alligators and snakes. No one seems to care if a snake is captured and cut open while its still alive but let a dog go out on a roof of its own accord and it's animal cruelty. Catch an alligator with some kind of line and hook then shoot it in the head and it's perfectly fine but don't neglect to feed your cat. Let cattle and chickens live in filthy, feces infested muck up to their knees then kill them and eat them and that's okay but don't chain your dog without giving it a place to get out of the sun.

It seems that animal idolatry is everywhere, even in chickens and cattle. There are those that won't eat meat because it's animal cruelty. Those that plaster certain breeds of animals on their clothing and coffee cups. Those that think so highly of their pets that they could care less that they just put their animal in a shopping cart where a child will later be put, a child that could have life threatening allergies.

I know of a family whose young son is so allergic to cats that he goes into anaphalactic shock if a cat has been in their yard and the boy goes outside, even if there is no sign of a cat anywhere around. There are people that are terrified of animals. And yet, people bring their pets into stores despite laws and rules forbidding that very thing.

Is that the reason the Lord put animals on this earth? Are dogs here to have their owners cooking them fancy dinners, buying them wardrobes of clothes and piles of toys or are they here to serve people, providing security, assistance to the disabled, clean up of the earth through eating waste, providing transportation, and search and rescue missions? Dogs can be well cared for while being trained to serve and help the people around them.

Are cats here to be bought fancy canned food, elaborate tree scratching posts (designed to mimic experiences they would have living in the wild), and having their every meow catered to or are they here to hunt mice and other rodents?

Are animals here to serve?

Or to be served?

The Bible is boring

I have heard many times in the past that most ‘Christians’ don’t know the Bible. I’ve heard that they don’t know the basics of what Scripture says, that many don’t know the Ten Commandments. The places I heard those things were the same places I heard that most ‘Christian’ kids will abandon their faith in their teens.

For a good number of years I had no understanding of why those things happened and I took them as they were presented by whoever was telling or writing them. Now I understand. Now I know the difference.

Those ‘Christians’ don’t know the basics of Scripture because they aren’t regenerate. Those ‘Christians’ don’t know the Ten Commandments because they don’t have enough interest in what they believe to want to know them. And those ‘Christian’ kids…were just living out what they’d been taught as children until they got old enough to make their own choices at which point they ‘abandoned’ a faith they never felt and went the way of their heart.

I’ve also heard that a lot of ‘Christians’ don’t know enough about what they believe to be able to defend the belief they hold. Somewhere I read that most atheists know more about the Bible, more about God, more about Christ than most ‘Christians’ do.

What does that say for the ‘Christians’?

At face value it doesn’t say much for them. It presents a sorry excuse of what Christianity is to the world. It presents a sad example of what being a follower of Christ is.

But for those that are truly saved…there is a different picture. It’s one where, even without a complete understanding of the Bible, we can defend our beliefs. We can explain what we believe even long before we fully understand just what it is that makes our faith different.

And as we grow and mature in Christ we begin to understand, to learn, to get to the point where we do know exactly what we believe and our faith is unshakable.

I read something recently that said it is a Christian’s duty to be so acquainted with the Word of God and His plan for mankind that when they encounter deceivers they can defend themselves against any false teaching.

How can a ‘Christian’ that finds the Bible boring come to that kind of acquaintance with the Scriptures? How can they be expected too?

They can’t.

Even the most passionate student of the Bible can’t fully understand Scripture until they are saved by Christ and their eyes are opened to the Word, to the Truth, to the mystery.

And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Matthew 13:11-13

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.  Colossians 2:1-3

To you it has been given to know… Until it is given no one can fully understand the Scriptures. They can read them, memorize them, know the Bible from Genesis to Revelation but until it is ‘given’ to them…they can’t know.

I can remember how I felt when others would tell me I needed to read the Bible and I knew I couldn’t understand it. I remember how my grandmother was a King James only Bible user and I was raised without any knowledge that there were other versions of the Bible. I was grown before I ever encountered anything other than a KJV Bible. I well remember how amazed I was to realize at the age of nineteen that I could read and understand the Bible. At that point I thought it as the version of Bible I had been using that made me unable to understand but long after I had an easier to read version I still found it hard to stick with reading the Bible.

Until the Lord opened my eyes to what was contained within the Scriptures. From that day on I found it fascinating.

When my daughter tells me the Bible is boring my immediate reaction is ‘no, it’s not’. But now I wonder…is that the right response. Just because it’s not boring to me doesn’t mean it isn’t to her. Just because my eyes have been opened, my veil lifted, doesn’t mean hers has.

And as I write this I can’t help thinking of all the ‘Christian’ kids that leave the faith they’ve been raised in. How shamed are they by their families for turning away from a believe they never held? How confused are they because their hearts and minds can no longer hang onto the faith they were raised to believe in?

Those ‘christian’ kids aren’t turning away from being a Christian…they never were one. They may have said the prayer, they may have been raised in ‘church’, may have been baptized but if they turn away they were never a Christian to begin with.

How many times are those kids made to feel like something’s wrong with them because they couldn’t hold onto what they were raised to believe?

My daughter told me…not all that long ago…that she feels as if everything she was raised to believe was a lie. And all because I was once a professing ‘Christian’ and have since been saved by the Lord. Because my eyes were opened and I was able to see the lies in the faith I once followed, in the beliefs I instilled in my children, my daughter thinks it’s all a lie. And it is. But figuring that out shook what faith she did have.

How many other kids are ‘shaken’ as they leave their childhood beliefs behind and follow their hearts into whatever beliefs they hold? How many are made to feel that they are wrong for believing as they do?

How many feel horrible because they have to admit…the Bible is boring?

And what should a Christian say in response to such a statement?

 

False teachers leading false 'churches'

Not that long ago I wrote a post titled Peddling Christ. In that post I spoke about preachers and how they make Christ serve them rather than them serving Christ. Quite honestly this is a subject that I fell into rather than feeling any real need to write about. You see, that post was the result of someone asking me if I could take several verses and make a post out of them. This person did give me a general idea of what they hoped I could convey in that post. The rest…was up to me. It was a challenge but being as how the message they wanted conveyed was a belief I share I was able to actually pull it off.

 

From there I expected to be finished with the topic but found myself writing yet another post almost as soon as I finished that one. Then through discussions in life and comments on my blog I wound up writing even more posts. You see…it isn’t so much that I set out to speak against preachers but that I found myself sucked into a topic that had me doing just that. I have nothing against preachers in and of themselves. It’s what they’re teaching…or not teaching…and the way they’re doing it that bothers me.

 

Today…I was looking something up online and found myself reading someone else’s article on peddling Christ. And once again I got sucked into a topic I never intended to be in the midst of. But I write what’s on my heart and mind. I don’t foreplan anything, don’t usually do any research into what I’m writing about. I generally just sit down, put my fingers on the computer keys and…there’s an article. It’s that easy…and that confounding.

 

I don’t know where these things come from except to say that they’re given by the Lord…or at least the ability to do so is. And so today…I find myself writing on a subject I never thought to follow any further.

 

The more I think of what it means to peddle the Word of God…the more it hurts to even consider it. I don’t remember the days of true peddlers, have had very few encounters with door to door salesmen. I do, however, know the frustration of having people show up on my doorstep…usually when I’m trying to cook or something else that takes my attention…and try to sell me something I don’t want. I know the frustration of having them repeatedly try to convince me to buy what they’re selling despite the fact that I keep saying no. And I’ve learned the art of being rude by saying ‘we’re not interested’ and quickly shutting the door , cutting off their protests as I do so. It’s not ideal but sometimes it’s the only way.

 

I’ve had certain religious groups show up on my door and try to sell me their beliefs in much the same way. With these groups it seems that if you so much as say ‘hello’ they move in for the rest of the day. They tell you there stories, invite you to their worship buildings, give you there reading material, and…as I’ve had happen on one occasion…sit with you and tell you everything they believe and why, all while reading to you from their religious book.

 

As my grandmother is fond of saying ‘you can’t win for losing’ with them. If you’re nice to them in any way they take advantage of it. If you’re not nice to them…they take advantage of that too. And when you’re not nice you’re left feeling bad about whatever reaction you give.

 

As I think of those ‘religious’ people coming to my house peddling their beliefs…at least they aren’t actually trying to get me to buy them…I think of what it would be like to have someone actually come to my door and try to sell me ‘Christ’. I’ve seen the so-called preachers on television that tell you if you’ll just send them money ‘god’ will do x for you. And I can only imagine what my response would be if they were actually standing on my door trying to convince me to buy their ‘god’ and his blessings.

 

But that’s what so many are doing. They may not come to our door, they may not sit in our living rooms, they may not even stand in our presence but they’re doing it just the same. They’re peddling…selling…’Christ’ for their gain with little to no consideration for the souls of the people that buy into their ‘christ’.

 

It’s so easy…for most…to see the peddling that takes place by those television ‘preachers’…although the fact that they’re still on T.V. tells us that many fall prey to their peddling…but how many see the peddling that takes place within ‘church’ buildings every week?

 

Many years ago I was a regular in a ‘church’ that passed an offering plate every Sunday, they taught often on tithing and how it was required, they printed and mailed out little envelopes with your name on it and each weeks date so that you could ‘give’ your ‘offering’, and thy questioned you when they didn’t see your ‘tithes’ in the weekly ‘offering’. They went so far as to say that if you didn’t ‘tithe’ you weren’t ‘right with God’. But they didn’t stop there. Outside of your weekly ‘offering’ they had near weekly missions ‘donations’ where they profiled some organization that they felt the ‘church’ should financially support. And they put much pressure on each person to do just that. I have even seen them tell the congregation that a certain ‘offering’ for a mission organization wasn’t enough and pass around the ‘offering’ plate again, all while telling people to ‘dig deeper’ and ‘give more.’

 

Was that not peddling?

 

Unless it falls into the category of con artists.

 

The thing is…this kind of ‘peddling’ takes place every week, week after week, in ‘church’ after ‘church’.

 

I was a one time visitor in another ‘church’ building this past winter. My husband and I went for the sole purpose of listening to a quest ‘preacher’… that wasn’t really a preacher at all but a speaker…because he speaks Truth. Or mostly speaks it. While we sat on the pew, in the midst of hundreds of others, they passed an ‘offering’ plate. As expected many people put money into those plates. But like with the ‘church’ I attended so many years ago, they didn’t stop there. Once the ‘offering’ plates were collected, they passed around ‘offering’ baskets. This time was supposedly a special ‘offering’ so that the ‘church’ could use it to help their members that were in need. They explained how they used it to help those with financial problems pay bills, get to the doctor, buy medicine, clothes…whatever they may need.

 

And as I sat there watching this ‘offering’ being collected all I could think was…isn’t that what the regular ‘offering’ should be used for? And since it obviously wasn’t…what did they use it for?

 

About a year ago I was told of a preacher that told the members of his ‘church’ to give them the routing number on their checking accounts so that the ‘church’ could pull their tithes out of their account.

 

I have to ask…do any of these so-called preachers sound like men that are serving the Lord? Do any of the things I listed above sound like something Paul would have done? Do they sound like something Christ would have done?

 

Do they sound like men that are serving the Lord?

 

Or do they sound like men that are serving money?

 

For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ. 2 Corinthians 2:17

Paul clearly separated those that sincerely tried to preach the Word of God from those who were merely selling a product.  The Geneva Bible states that verse as…   For we are not as many, which l corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.   Notice the word corrupt in place of peddlers. The KJV also uses the word corrupt. Either version clearly portrays the message that Paul was giving…these men were taking the gospel and using it to their gain. One implies the selling of it, while the other implies the twisting and changing of it. As I read those two different versions I can’t help but think of what we get if we combine them…Peddlers that corrupt the Word of God…or the corrupt peddling of the Word of God.   Is that not what we have today in the majority of ‘churches’?   Basically Paul was saying that he…and the others…was giving the true gospel, they were speaking Truth with no twisting or changing of it. They weren’t watering it down, they weren’t making it fit man but were giving it so that it might man might fit into it. This was Truth pure and simple. It was Truth as Christ gave it and it was Truth as they delivered it.   And it wasn’t being delivered out of some higher agenda, out of some idea that they might gain from the Word of God. It was being delivered from sincere hearts with the sole desire to deliver the Truth as Christ gave it. Paul said that it was the ‘power of…salvation’ (Romans 1:16).   Paul understood what that meant. He knew what he himself had experienced in his conversion and he sought to deliver the Word of God in Truth and nothing but Truth.   Why?   A question we should ask ourselves anytime anyone seeks to deliver the Word of God is…what motivates this man? Does he stand to gain from what he’s teaching?   Paul’s motivation was to save souls and he gave up everything to do it. He sought no personal gain.   If a preacher delivers a message while being careful what he says so as not to offend his listeners…is he not corrupting the Word of God? If he stands to gain financially in any way…is he not peddling the Word of God? If he leaves out anything of Scripture because it might offend someone or keep them from ‘coming to Christ’…is he not watering down, thereby corrupting, the Word of God?   And if we have a corrupted Word of God…is it truly the Word of God? Is it Truth as Paul taught or is it a mere facsimile of Truth…one that will pull many to the wide path but leave few to find the narrow gate?   What purpose does the wide path have if walking on it makes you run head first into a narrow gate that you can’t get through?   Is this not what the many ‘preachers’ of today’s ‘churches’ are doing? Are they not pulling many onto the wide path by giving them a ‘gospel’ with a ‘God’ they can accept and love, because the ‘Christ’ they’re peddling requires little of them?   And if the ‘gospel’ being given by these ‘preachers’ isn’t the true gospel as Paul preached it…then is it the gospel at all? And what of the preachers that are giving a false gospel…are they not false teachers?   And what happens to the ‘church’ when a false teacher gives them a false gospel?   I know so many people that get every bit of their ‘Christian’ beliefs from the mouth of their ‘preacher’. They say things like ‘my preacher said’ or ‘my preacher believes’, or ‘my preacher teaches’. They put their very souls into what a man is teaching them…and most of those men are false teachers.   What then becomes of the ‘church’ whose pews are filled with people whose very faith rests in the teachings of the preacher on the stage?   Instead of the Church as Scripture defines it we have false ‘churches’ packed with false believers being fed a false gospel by a false teacher. And the Truth that they think they’re getting and believing in is a truth that Paul wouldn’t recognize.   Jesus himself called such false ‘churches’ "synagogues of Satan" (Rev. 2:9; 3:9). Whether or not the ‘churches’ of today would actually fall under that definition wouldn’t any ‘church’ that teaches anything that differs from the Truth as taught in the Scriptures be teaching a lie? And if they’re teaching lies and calling it the gospel…have they not fallen into Satan’s domain? Scripture tells us that Satan is the father of lies. And no matter how you want to look at that we can’t deny that Paul warned many times of false teachers. We’re told that they’re wolves in sheep’s clothing.   These false teachers are peddlers…hucksters…that corrupt the Word of God. Whether they do it for money, for man’s acceptance, to bolster their own numbers of ‘conversions’ and therefore their own pride, or even just for their own (false) sense of security…the end result is the same…a perversion of the Truth. And many of them do it while claiming to be ‘called by God.’ Would God ever ‘call’ anyone to teach and promote anything short of the entire Truth of His Word? Would He ‘call’ them to sell it, whether for monetary gain or some man oriented reasoning? The reality is that most, if not all, of today’s ‘preachers’ aren’t called by God but rather by themselves. They have some interest in preaching and believe that means they have been ‘called’ by God to do that. They then follow their ‘calling’ into expensive seminaries to get man-made certifications that will allow them to send out resume’s to apply for a job and thereby a paycheck to put their ‘calling’ to work.   Does that sound like a calling by the Lord or does it sound like men following their own desires?   Once these preachers have gained their expensive certificates and earned themselves a job through their resume’s they may then begin to preach (and ‘earn’ their paycheck) by leading ‘God’s flock’ through the ‘gospel’ that they have been taught to teach by men. They can use the very Word of God to create and promote a ‘gospel’ that looks nothing like the Truth as its presented within the pages of Scripture. And they preach not the gospel but a ‘gospel’ that is found nowhere in Scripture. Paul himself saw this happening and warned against it.   For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.  2 Corinthians 11:4 But it wasn’t just the false teachers he warned against. He clearly told those that accept it that they are putting up with it. In other words…by listening to it they are actually allowing it to happen. How many Christians sit in the audience of ‘churches’ and listen to a message being delivered that speaks something other than the Truth? How many sit idly by and listen as the very gospel our Lord gave his life for is corrupted and peddled…and do nothing. They put up with it readily enough. They put up with listening to a message being delivered that isn’t the Truth of Scripture. They put up with turning the solemnity of the Word of God into a form of entertainment designed to draw in crowds, to boost numbers, and to keep those crowds entertained so that they aren’t offended and will keep coming back. Was the Truth that Christ died for entertainment? Was it so inoffensive that it appealed to everyone? Was Paul beaten and imprisoned for a Truth that was careful not to offend? What of the many ways ‘churches’ fund their ‘ministries’ through worldly entertainments that are designed to draw in an even bigger crowd so that they can line their pockets for the purpose of continuing the perpetuation of the twisting and perverting of the true gospel? Did Christ die for that gospel? Did He teach that it’s okay to feed the carnal minds and hearts of people…rather lost or saved…at the expense of their pocketbooks to further any form of the gospel? And yet as Paul said…you put up with it readily enough. My husband just showed me a video about televangelists that buy multimillion dollar jets…now I ask…what possible need could anyone that’s supposedly concerned about the souls of the lost need with a high dollar jet. If…and I stress, if…they absolutely had to go somewhere that flight was required why wouldn’t they go by the cheapest flight available so as to put their ill-gotten gains to better use serving the people that they claim to care about? One of the ‘preachers’ in this news video is shown literally bragging of having bought not one but two very expensive jets and paying cash for it. I have to ask what the people that regularly give their money to this man think of his new ‘toys’. But that doesn’t happen in your average ‘church’ some might say. Maybe not in some but I personally know of a ‘church’ in a mid-sized town where the preacher owns multiple high end vehicles and his own airplane. And it was all bought with ‘church’ funds. And what of the ‘church’ that provides the funds for such extravagances? …you put up with it readily enough. These preachers peddle their versions of ‘God’ and the people put up with it. I can understand that when we’re truly talking about wolves in sheep’s clothes…or preachers that teach such subtle differences that a person would have to know the Scriptures well to know that what’s being taught is a lie but what of those that sit in the audience…or their living room…and listen to the blatant blaspheme of the Lord while hearing these men tell of ultra-expensive purchases? Even those that teach subtle lies as Truth are they not men who have a form of godliness while denying its power (2 Timothy 3:5). Are they not wolves in sheep’s clothing? Are they not teaching lies and therefore leading ‘churches’ that have fallen into the hands of the ‘father of lies’? I’ve heard many times…while sitting in the pew of a ‘church’…that Satan will attack the ‘church’ but I must ask…why would he need to attack the ‘church’ when lies are on the menu of every sermon? If anyone is saved out of such a ‘church’ it’s in spite of the ‘church’ and not because of it. The Lord can, and does, use all things to His glory. These false teachers and their false ‘churches’ may be responsible for the true salvation of some but it isn’t because of the false gospel given within its walls…it’s  in spite of it. It’s because that was the method the Lord used to save one of His own. But what of the false gospel being delivered week after week from the very men that claim to be working for the salvation of others?   They are false teachers delivering a false message that has no power to salvation except for that which the Lord gives to those that are his.   There is, in fact, a method to the madness that is preached from the pulpits. While these men are in their expensive schools earning their ‘calling’ they are actually taught to profile their targeted audiences and to tailor the message to those that will be listening.   They are in fact profiling their audiences straight into hearing a fake gospel that sends people straight to hell. But I’m saved, some might say. But I said the prayer, another will say. I chose Jesus is the reply of so many.   And that last part is the worst of all because it completely disregards the fact that Christ said you did not choose me but I chose you.   Even still…the sad reality is that most have no idea that Christ even said that. They don’t know because they’ve been taught the false gospel by the false teachers and they take those false teachers at their words. They lay their entire salvation into the hands of men. And those men hand them straight into hell.   They follow the wolf like slaves following their master. Where the wolf leads, they follow. And sadly enough heaven isn’t where those wolves are leading. They follow their masters (preachers) believing they are being given the gospel for salvation when in fact they are being fed lies that get them nothing but eternal damnation.   There are two very basic problems with what’s happening there…two things that are perpetuating the system. 1) those preachers have been so indoctrinated with the gospel that they preach that they don’t know they’re teaching lies to the very people they believe they’re leading to salvation, and 2) the people they’re leading don’t want to hear the Truth even if the preacher knew how to give it.   If a preacher actually got behind a pulpit and told his audience that the prayer they prayed didn’t save them, that their free will is a lie, that their salvation rests in the hands of the Lord and nowhere else…his audience would quickly disperse. If they made it through the first sermon, they wouldn’t return for a second.   Years ago I was given tickets to go and hear a classical pianist. I knew nothing about the woman but was told that I would love listening to her, that her music was amazing. I went to the concert and barely made it through it. What I had been told would be classical piano...which I don’t care for…was anything but. Rock and roll would have been a better definition. The next time that woman came to town I was once again given tickets to go listen to her. I made sure not to make use of those tickets.   How many people that pack the pews on Sundays would be sure to avoid those same pews if they ever heard the true gospel delivered from the stage they spend so much time in front of?   You see…most of those in the audience don’t want the truth. They want their false teachers giving them a false doctrine through an entertaining program that feeds on their own sinful desires.   They don’t want to be taught a gospel that teaches a saving faith. They want a false gospel that teaches they can have their hearts desires and still have faith. They want to be told that it’s okay that they think of movies and food before they think of Christ. They want to be told that it’s only normal for them to have reacted the way they did to a certain situation. They want to be told that ‘God’ loves the things they love. Because…they put up with it readily enough. Paul warned… For the time is coming when people will not endure sound[a] teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 2 Timothy 4:3-4 People of today have turned away from Truth and have followed myths. The biggest one that I can think of in the ‘church’ is the myth that man ‘chooses’ Christ or that he has the free will to do so. These same people have ‘itching ears’ that want to be give a gospel they can grab onto and because of that they ‘accumulate’ or follow teachers…preachers, authors, speakers, etc…that give them what they want to hear. They have turned away from truth and wouldn’t sit still to listen to it and they sure wouldn’t go back for a second helping. I sat in one such ‘church’ building about a year ago and heard the preacher tell the audience that whatever part of the Bible made them angry was the very part they needed to spend time in. I would have to agree with that preacher on that. But I’d also have to ask the question…why? Why does that part of Scripture make you angry? What is it about that part of Scripture that makes you angry? Are you scared? Threatened? Do you see something there that shakes what you believe? Why? I saw a headline online a few days ago that said a ‘church’ is ordaining homosexual ministers. I have to ask if that really sounds like a ‘church’ but then I would have to ask…is there any part of the Bible that makes those so-called ministers angry? And if so…why does it make them angry? Could those so-called ministers walk into a church of true regenerate believers and be allowed to preach or teach any sort of message? How long would they last before someone interrupted their message to correct them using the very Scriptures that probably inflame their anger? And so there are entire ‘churches’ that meet to support and encourage one another in the very sins that the true church would reject outright. The people that go to those ‘churches’ do so because their false teachers pat them on the back and tell them that what they believe is okay instead of telling them that they’re living in sin and they need to repent and beg the Lord to save them from their very sins. But it isn’t just the obvious things like homosexuality that falls into this category. There are entire ‘churches’ formed around certain lifestyles. The rich go to ritzy  ‘churches’, cowboys go to cowboy ‘churches’, country folks go to country ‘churches’. They all have their catagories and they pretty much stay within the ‘church’ that best supports their lifestyles. A farmer isn’t going to go to a ‘church’ that frowns on dirt getting on their fancy floor more than a time or two if he’s having to go straight from the field to the ‘church’. He will soon find a ‘church’ that welcomes him, dirt and all. Sin is the same way. The sinner is the farmer that’s looking for a ‘church’ that will welcome him sins and all. What does that say of the preacher of the church that welcomes the sin into their midst instead of rebuking the sinner and teaching him the Truth of Scripture? What does it say of the ‘church’ that embraces the sinner and his sins with open arms because ‘God would love him’? They are false ‘churches’ being led by false teachers and being fed a false gospel that caters to their wants instead of to the Truth.

 

Accepting what the Bible condemns

Social media is one of those things that I can’t quite figure out if I like or not. I never intended to be a part of it, was adamantly against it, but wound up joining it because I found myself in a place where there wasn’t much of an option. Now that I’m on it, I’ve discovered that it not only lets me stay in touch with far off family members but it also gives me an outlet for sharing the things I believe in.

And sometimes…

It gives me ideas for things to blog about. That is the case with this post. Someone I really don’t know put something on their social media page that caught my attention. It was one of those articles that could have been so good but wasn’t. Still…I didn’t know what exactly it was about or what the beliefs of the author were when I started reading. I made it all the way through the article but found my interest fading out after the first couple of paragraphs. Why is it that so many so-called ‘Christian’ articles can manage to make the first couple of paragraphs sound good, like maybe they’ll be Biblically sound, only to fall over a cliff about three paragraphs in? At that point some of them really sound like they’re making up stories than trying to convey Biblical truth. Such was the case with this article.

My attention was snagged with the headline. It was about Christians accepting what the Bible condemns. That should have been good, right?

Should have been was the operative description because in truth it wasn’t good. I wanted it to be though. I wanted it to be one of those articles that you start reading and you find you can not only identify with what the author is saying but that you’re encouraged and edified at the same time. That’s what I wanted. It wasn’t what I got.

Now I find myself thinking on the original question, the title of the article.

Why do Christians accept what the Bible condemnss?

Why do Christians accept what the Christ died for?

The answer is we don’t. There are Christians and then there are ‘Christians’. There are true regenerate followers of Christ that have been transformed by the Lord into what He wants them to be and then there are those that claim to follow Christ while following the world instead.

According to the article I read 70% of Americans are ‘Christians’. I can’t seem to find an accurate number on just what percentage of Americans claim to be Christians. Everything I read seems to give a different number. Since the article I just read gave a percentage of 70%, and because that is the lowest number I’ve seen, I’m going to use that number for this post.

So…70% of Americans identify themselves as Christians. Presumably that means they believe in the Bible and what it teaches. Why then, do so many Americans openly support things which the Bible clearly says is wrong? Why do these ‘Christians’ accept and even promote what the Bible clearly teaches against?

Because they aren’t Christians. They’re ‘Christians’, or professing ‘Christians’, and there’s a big difference.

I know very few regenerate Christians but the one’s I do know would no more promote the things the article spoke of than they would deny Christ.

The article I read said that nearly ¾ of the ‘Christians’ polled said that sex outside marriage was okay and that being homosexual was okay.

Sexual immorality is clearly spoken against in the Bible. Over and over again. How then can a ‘Christian’ be okay with it in any form?

After giving those statistics the article went on to say that many of the Christians didn’t know their Bible.

I have to ask…does a person have to be well read Biblically to know that the Bible opposes sexual immorality? It’s kind of like lying and murder. Most people seem to understand, seem to have absorbed through our culture, that God is against those things, that Christians aren’t supposed to do them.

The summer before I went into the second grade my mother enrolled me in a Christian school. After I was enrolled but before school started a friend told me to say something that wasn’t bad but wasn’t nice either…maybe it was the word stupid…I really don’t remember exactly what it was but know it wasn’t what I knew to be a bad word. I told that friend that I couldn’t say that because I was about to go to a Christian school and saying things like that would be wrong.

No one had told me I wasn’t allowed to talk like that. No one had said that saying such a word went against God or the Bible. I just inherently knew it to be true. In my seven year old mind that was something that Christians didn’t do.

Everyone I’ve ever been around seemed to inherently know that sexual sin was wrong from a Christian perspective. They may have been okay with it, may have participated in it, may have promoted it, but when it came right down to it they understood that it was wrong.

And yet a poll said that almost ¾ of those questioned were okay with it.

And the person writing the article wrote their responses off as the fact that most ‘Christians’ don’t know their Bibles.

It doesn’t take knowing your Bible to know that sexual sin goes against Christianity. That’s something we just seem to absorb.

But it gets worse. I think I could more easily accept the first excuse than the second.

Christians are rejecting Biblical morals.

What?!!!!!!

Really?

A ‘Christian’ that rejects Biblical morals is rejecting the God they claim to follow. That wasn’t a new revelation for me. I’ve known it was happening for some time. I’ve seen it in people I know. What got me was the way it was written off as an easy explanation by the author of this article. The author as easily wrote off the fact that ‘Christians’ are doing these things as the ‘Christians’ that are accepting what the Bible condemnss. The author didn’t reject unacceptable explanations, they accepted them as fact and being the reason that ‘Christians’ are accepting that which is Biblically wrong. Never once did the author question whether or not the ‘christians’ were in fact Christians. Never once did they wonder if maybe some of these people may not be what they thought they were, what they claimed to be.

Can you reject the morals of the Bible and still be a Christian? Can you reject the rules the Lord put into place for us and still belong to Christ?

The Bible tells us…

Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! 2 Corinthians 13:5

Should we say something?

I’ll be the first person to admit there are lots of things I don’t understand in Scripture. Or maybe a better way of putting it is there are lots of things I don’t yet know from Scripture. My husband proves this to me almost daily. His knowledge of the Scriptures so far surpasses mine that it often amazes me.

I love to sit and listen to him talk about Scripture.

There is very little I find as enjoyable as being able to hear him talk about Scripture. I love to do Bible study with him for that very reason.

In my extended family I am now considered the person to go to when someone has a question about Scripture. It’s commonly understood that I will know the answer. Even if I don’t. I understand that reasoning because I feel the same way about my husband. I must admit to being a bit surprised the first time he told me he didn’t know the answer to some question about Scripture. I simply wasn’t used to him not knowing.

The problem…for me…with my family looking to me for Scriptural answers is that they don’t see Scripture the same way I do. And that can…and does…pose problems. I had to tell my sister not all that long ago that I would try and help her with a bulletin for her ‘church’ building but that I may not be able to do it because the very nature of what she was asking me to make went against how I see Scripture and how I believe.

But she was my sister and she needed my help.

The best I could do was a basic invitation to their services. It wasn’t what my sister wanted. She wanted something saying how much God loves everyone and when they’re feeling alone all they have to do is believe. Then she wanted the sinner’s prayer.

And I couldn’t do any of that.

In the end we were both satisfied, if not happy, with the bulletin I was able to make for her. She got what she needed even if it didn’t say what she wanted it to and I was able to help her.

I recently found myself in the same spot but for a different reason. Someone was telling me about how her preacher came to see her and her new baby in the hospital. How that preacher had prayed over the baby.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think all of that is great. The fact that he went to the hospital showed he cared about the people he’s supposed to be serving. And prayer is always a good thing. What I found I had trouble with was the way this woman talked about it. Like her baby had been blessed because this preacher came and prayed over it.

And I found myself wondering when it’s better to just keep quiet…which is my standard response to situations like that…and when it’s best to speak up. I’ve found myself wondering the same thing on social media here lately. There’s someone that’s very big into the name it and claim it type belief that is friends with me online. I used to mostly just ignore the posts from this person but here lately I’ve found myself wondering if I’m failing as a true follower of Christ if I just ignore those situations.

I don’t want to speak up and I sure don’t want to be drawn into some kind of online debate but…is there a point when we really should say something?

The person I’m friends with online that posts all the name it and claim it type of posts is someone I don’t know. I’ve never spoken to this person in real life or online. We’re simply friends because we had a number of common friends. I know nothing about this person except that she seems to believe strongly in what she believes and that she not only seems to take comfort in what she’s posting but from the nature of some of her posts I get the impression she truly believes she can bless other people by posting things online, things that include prayers with requests for blessings for the person reading them.

For the most part I have no problem not saying anything, not responding, to those posts. I’m glad that she seems to find comfort in something. But then I wonder where does my place as a Christian come in? Even then I am able to leave her with her beliefs and not get involved. I have enough posts online that if she looks at what I’ve posted she will see a different side of things. Whether or not she believes it is in the Lord’s hands.

But what about family? I have family members that profess a belief in Christ that have no idea what I believe. Those are the people that truly leave me wondering when it’s time to say something and when it’s time to keep quiet. I do not think that those family members would believe any differently if I shared my beliefs with them but who am I to know that?

When is it time to share those beliefs? And when is it best to keep quiet?

How sad

In our modern society so many people see ‘church’ as something that must be attended every Sunday. I saw online where someone asked ‘do you think it’s wrong to play hooky from Church?’ When I saw that my mind immediate answered ‘no’ but then there came one after another responses I could have given.

I wanted to ask her why she would see not attending a service in a worship building as playing hooky from ‘church’. I wanted to say that to even ask such a question was to put too much emphasis on the building and the service. I wanted to say a lot. Instead I said nothing.

But I’m still left with the surprise, amazement, and sadness that came from knowing that this woman put so much importance on ‘church’ that she needed to ask the question. And although I say it was a surprise, it really wasn’t all that surprising. I know of people that equate being a ‘Christian’ with whether or not they go to ‘church’.

It is a product of the lessons taught in so many ‘churches’ even in reformed ‘churches’, so I hear. In a recent blog post I spoke of ‘church’ as being an institution that depends on the people in it falling in line with what is expected of them. That is very much what it is. ‘Church’ buildings depend on member to be there Sunday after Sunday. Preachers depend on the congregation to quietly listen.

They don’t want empty pews and they don’t want their audience asking questions and pointing out where they are wrong. And many of them don’t want you missing a service unless you are deathly ill. They tell you that you need to be in ‘church’ but in reality they need you to be there.

And ‘Christians’ fall for that kind of teaching. They succumb to what they are taught because it’s what the preacher says they need to do and the preacher knows more than they do, right? They think that if a preacher says it, it must be right. They believe what they are taught over what the Bible says because they often don’t know what the Bible says and if they do they assume that they must not know enough of what the Bible says.

They have been raised in the institution of ‘church’ and they fall in line with the teachings it contains much the way a child in elementary schools learns to form their letters a certain way because the teacher tells them they are wrong if they form them a different way. The teacher must know what they’re talking about so the child changes what comes naturally to them to do what the teacher says is the right way. The ‘Christian’ in the ‘church’ does the same thing. They accept what the ‘teacher’ says as the gospel because they assume that that man, being a preacher, knows what he’s talking about. And many times what he’s talking about isn’t from Scripture but from what he thinks is in Scripture or what he’s been told is in there.

The ‘church’ I sometimes attend has a preacher that is fond of quoting James 4:2…You do not have, because you do not ask… I’ve heard him say that many times, in many different sermons. It seems like everytime I visit that ‘church’ he works that verse into the sermon. And yet he fails to read the next part. He stands before a thousand people and tells them ‘you do not have because you do not ask’ and that is where he stops. I have never heard him go any further with that verse…

You do not have, because you do not ask. ³ You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. ⁴ You adulterous people!^[c] Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. James 4:2-4

Where is the rest of the verse? Where is the rest of the teaching? Where is the part that might teach his listeners, his followers, to believe in more than their own wants and desires?

And so sermon after sermon this preacher teaches a half-truth that tells those he teaches that all they need to do is ask to receive. And his listeners put stock in what he says because he is the preacher.

And that is only one example of things preachers teach that don’t portray what Scripture says. And so the false teachings continue. Week after week. ‘Church’ after ‘church’.

And the people that fill the pews don’t suspect that they are being led wrong. They don’t realize that they are placing their faith in the teachings of man and not in the true Christ.

One of the biggest false teachings in the modern ‘church’ is that man must come to Christ, that he must find Christ, that he must ‘choose’ to believe in Jesus, ask Jesus into his heart. Nowhere in Scripture is that taught. Nowhere within the pages of the Bible…except in those added notes and introductions…will you find that. It is a system of working for salvation that in no way supports the true way to salvation.

You did not choose me, but I chose you…John 15:16

Man does not find Christ. Christ draws us to Him and through Him we are saved. But so many ‘Christians’ believe that they must ask Jesus into their hearts to be saved, they believe in the false teaching of the sinners prayer and they place their lives, their salvation in that belief. They are essentially playing Russian roulette with a loaded gun. There is no salvation in a prayer that comes from what man does.

Yet it is a false teaching that is taught in ‘church’ after ‘church’. There are huge mission organizations that spend millions of dollars to further that teaching. They go into foreign countries and teach it to people desperate for a way out of the life they live every day. They teach it to the rich, the poor, and the desperate. They teach it to anyone that will listen then they speak of how many have been saved.

They spread the false gospel that man can save himself by what he does and by what he believes. They are taught that man chooses of his own accord to come to salvation. It is on their own merit that they make the choice to believe in Jesus. It is his decision alone that saves him and only after he makes that decision does he receive grace.

It is a teaching that goes against Scripture.

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast… Ephesians 2:8-9

That false teaching has such a strong hold that trying to dissuade anyone of that belief is pretty much like trying to pick up the ocean and move it. It simply can’t be done. There are those, I’m sure, that will listen to Truth but they are few and far between among the I-said-the-prayer-I’m-saved believers.

Despite the fact that so much of what is being taught in the modern ‘church’ people flock to it in large numbers. They accept what is being taught as gospel. So much so that they wind up asking questions like ‘is it okay to play hooky from ‘church?’

They need permission, confirmation, acceptance to be able to stay home from a physical building that labels itself as ‘the church’.

How sad.

 

The 'God' of Arminianism

There was a time when I thought that idols were the little gold statues, or big statues, that are worshipped in other religions. I know now that idols are much more than that. Those are idols, sure, but so are the many, many other things both physical and mental that are put before God.

I was recently in a large city where there stood on every street corner…or so it seemed…large ‘church’ buildings. These buildings were look-at-me buildings. They may or may not have been designed with the intent to draw a person’s attention but the sheer size of them made sure that they caught your attention.

I’ve driven through neighborhoods with houses made on the same scale. Whatever the owner’s reason for building or buying such a huge house it’s quite impossible to drive past one and not notice that it’s there.

And that’s just houses.

            I’ve seen cars that you couldn’t pass without looking at them, whether you liked them or not there was something…the color, the size, the number of toys in the window, the bumper stickers plastered on it…something that drew your attention. How about stores? Playgrounds? Restaurants? The list goes on and on. As you drive through any town, any area, there will be something that draws your attention. On an old country road with no buildings in sight your attention may be drawn to the biggest tree, the brightest flower, or the deepest pothole, but whatever it is…your attention will go to something.

In nature your focus is at least on that which the Lord created. A Christian might drive down that country road or walk through those woods and think about the One who created such a display. But even a Christian is hard pressed to find the Lord in the midst of the look-at-me everything’s that our society has built.

My mind goes time and again to those large ‘church’ buildings. I’ve written of them before and will probably write of them again. They simply stand out in such an extreme way that it’s hard not to think of them.

There’s no doubt in my mind that those huge ‘church’ buildings are idols or at least a place to worship an idol. The building wasn’t built to worship the Christ that was born into this world in a barn. They weren’t put there to worship the God that hates the wicked.

The God I spoke of could care less about big buildings. He’s more concerned with the condition of hearts than of outward appearances. He’d rather have one of His true Children worship him from a cardboard box than a million idolaters from inside a monstrous building.

There is no building that can get anyone closer to Christ.

But it isn’t just buildings that serve as idols in the eyes of those that claim to worship Him. I could probably write a blog post every day for a year on a different something that is worshipped, that’s an idol, and I’d still have so many more things to write about that I could fill another year with daily posts.

The other day my husband said that our country has reached the point of being lovers of pleasure.

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. ² For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, ⁴ treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵ having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. 2 Timothy 3:1-5

            They will become lovers of pleasure… What in our society hasn’t come to the point of pleasure? What hasn’t moved from serving a purpose in our life to being pleasure? Hunting has gone from a way to feed ones family to a sport. Fishing has done the same thing. Cars have gone from a means of getting from one place to another to a hobby. Clothes are collected to the point of overflowing closets and dressers rather than having just enough to clothe us. And the list goes on.

            I was surprised to discover the other day that there is…at least one…entire website complete with forums dedicated to a certain kind of ink pen. I knew there were websites with forums for flashlights, cloth diapers, parenting, fertility, child raising… But a pen? What can anyone find to talk about a pen enough to dedicate a whole website to it? But there it was before me. When I stumbled on it I took the time to look around. Who wouldn’t? What is there to say about a pen?

            As it turned out…pretty much what you’d expect. Designs, colors, types of ink, colors of ink, ways to use the pen…

            If that’s anything short of idolatry I’m not sure I want to know what it is. Basically if your mind is captured by something…anything…you can probably find a website, and mega store, to support it.

            But it isn’t just things that become idols. It can be a person, a place, or even the way you worship.

            I recently wrote a post on Arminianism. I don’t mind admitting that I felt ill equipped to write that post. I simply didn’t know enough about Arminianism to feel like I could adequately cover it but the need to write on that topic was there and with research I learned what I needed to know to turn out that post.

            It wasn’t until after I finished the post that I began to think of something else. I wrote the facts and my thoughts in that post but I failed to take note of a rather large…rather glaring…detail.

            The Arminian belief is idolatry.

Yes, I said it. It is idolatry. I grew up with that belief, have written many times of how I was taught to believe as a child. I know that other people hold different beliefs than my family did. I know that they practice those beliefs in different ways.

But I’ve noticed something among those that hold to the Arminian belief system. Some of them hold so fast to what they believe that they simply won’t accept correction. Not even if it’s delivered straight from the pages of the Bible.

 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 2 Timothy 3:16

How does a person that professes to believe in the Bible refuse to take correction straight from the pages of the Book they claim to base their most basic beliefs on, claim to learn from?

I’m not saying all Arminian’s are this way, I’m saying some of them are. I know there are others that are easily swayed from one type of belief to another and yet they all hold fast to the same basic belief that if you accept Christ then you are saved. I don’t know enough about the various denominations to be able to give examples of how they all do it but the general consensus seems to be that you must accept Christ to be saved.

That belief puts the individual and their decision, their choice, their free will, above God. And that becomes idolatry.

2 Timothy 3:6-7 goes on to say…

For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, ⁷ always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

Something I learned while I was reading about Arminianism was how Arminius started it. He accepted a position to teach at a University that held to reformed beliefs. He pledged that he believed the same way. Then while teaching what was required in his classes he turned around and handed out private…confidential…papers that taught Arminianism.

He was a sneak. He didn’t just stand up and admit what he believed then try to teach it to those that wanted to hear it. He crept into a University teaching reformed faith and secretly taught something that went against, not only his job, but the very Bible he supposedly believed. He led students that trusted what he said was truth astray by teaching them a different doctrine than the one they were supposed to hear at the University.

He poisoned their minds under cover.

And today the things he taught are the number one type of Christianity in America. What he taught under cover in the late 1500’s is now being openly taught in ‘churches’ across the country. It’s filling books and movies. It’s even infiltrated the Bible to the point that one must be careful when buying a Bible with any kind of manmade notes in it lest they get one filled with the same heresy written within its pages.

That is idolatry.

 Arminianism has become synonymous with Christianity. When a person hears the term Christian they think of the Arminian belief. When most people hear the name God they think of the ‘God’ of Arminianism.

And anytime we think of anything higher than we think of God…it’s idolatry.

We’re warned time and again in Scripture to have no other gods, that our God is a jealous God, that idolatry is punishable by eternity in hell and yet…Arminianism is taught as the way to Christ. Those that hold to the Arminian beliefs scoff at those that see the Bible as it is really written. They call the regenerate Christians that try to teach them the dangers of their erroneous beliefs all sorts of names and often kick them out of their ‘church’ buildings.

If their beliefs are the right ones according to Scripture then why do they need to remove those that are using Scripture to point out something other than what they believe? Why can’t they simply use the Bible to contradict the reformed belief being presented to them?

Because idolatry isn’t easily given up. No idol is. And because most of them don’t know the Bible well enough to be able to use it to contradict anything.

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians 5:19-21

The Arminian belief in ‘God’ is an idol that gets them no closer to Christ than does total disbelief. What’s worse is that in all their certainty…many are still going to hell.

What would the Armenians say about any religion that believed something that went against the Bible? What would they say about a person that believed their salvation lay in anything other than Jesus? And yet they believe strongly in a system of religion that is based on

a gospel that isn’t taught in the Bible. The gospel that was once taught by Arminius and is now so widely accepted and believed was easily seen as being something other than the true Gospel in the 1500’s. Today it is what is considered by most to be the gospel of the Bible.

Arminius’ beliefs catered to the flesh and became popular with in the secular world but was seen by the Church as a heresy, as false doctrine. Arminius was very much a wolf in sheeps clothing. He slipped into a University where only reformed faith was taught, lied about his beliefs to secure a position there, then quietly and secretly set about spreading his beliefs.

These were brand new beliefs, beliefs that Arminius himself held and wanted to share. Like a burgler in the night he snuck into places he wasn’t wanted and took what wasn’t his. He spread lies and gained believers.

How?

Because the belief he shared was something that the secular mind could grab onto. It was a ‘god’ that anyone could have. It was a ‘god’ that man need only to accept to gain acceptance by. Where the reformed church taught the Truth which stated that man can only be saved by God and that unless God saved him he had no way of attaining salvation, Arminius changed all that with a ‘god’ that man need only accept and choose to follow.

No wonder the Arminian belief is so popular today. No wonder it has thousands, millions, of followers. The modern day ‘church’ in America has not only embraced the Arminian belief they have grabbed onto it with both hands and refused to let go. It’s a life raft for a drowning person. It’s hope when there is no hope.

The modern American ‘church’ has not only grabbed onto the Arminian belief…they are chasing after it in large crowds. They’re selling books, movies, and music that promote the belief’s they hold dear. They have conferences and conventions that uplift and encourage, they have revivals, they have Bible studies, schools, colleges, that all promote the Arminian belief.

And they promote a belief that is an idol and not the real Gospel. They promote a ‘God’ that isn’t the God of the Bible.

People that hold to the Arminian belief go into countries where people are desperate for help, they promote the same ‘gospel’ that Arminius did so many years ago, and they ‘convert’ hundreds and thousands of people to a belief system that’s false. Then they report on the vast number of people that have been reached ‘for Christ’.

All this is done because the Lord allows it to happen. It’s done for reasons we can’t know. I have no doubt that the Lord is using the Arminian system to save some of His elect…I’m proof of that.

But it’s still a religious system that not only believes in a false doctrine…they try and share it with as many people as they possibly can.

Years ago mothers used to take their children to what was known as chicken pox parties. The idea behind those parties was that children needed to catch the chicken pox while they were young so when one child came down with them other parents deliberately exposed their child to them in the hope that they would catch them and get them over with.

Arminianism is much like a chicken pox party only most of them don’t realize they’re spreading a false gospel. They ‘catch’ Jesus and then want to spread to it as many people as they possibly can. So they go from house to house trying to share their gospel, they go into impoverished countries offering to help the people there but in exchange those people have to listen to the beliefs they hold dear. They share their ‘Jesus’ and count the number of converts that ‘catch’ him.

And it’s a success because the numbers keep climbing. Their brand of chicken pox has reached epidemic proportion and they keep spreading it.

Never knowing that they’re spreading lies to millions of people. What they believe in gives them hope on earth and they want others to have it. There’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone needs something to hope in. The problem comes in that what they hope in isn’t there. And when you hope in something that isn’t there…there is no hope.

It’s all a smokescreen that serves no purpose.

‘Here is my ‘Jesus’, accept Him and you will go to heaven with me. We’ll be together in eternity.’ Only their ‘Jesus’ doesn’t save people. He can’t save people because he must wait for them to save themselves. The heaven they think they’ve bought into isn’t waiting for them because it’s being set aside for those that Christ has saved.

The same ‘Jesus’ that they’re sharing with anyone and everyone is so sought after because he supports the secular mind. He allows them to live as they want, to continue to chase after bigger and better things. Their ‘Jesus’ is proud of their big tabernacles they call ‘churches’ and he applauds the sheer numbers of converts that ‘catch’ him. Their ‘Jesus’ is a god of the flesh that puts few if any demands on how they live their lives.

And he is happy when they sell him in their ‘Christian’ books. Happy when they portray him in their movies. Happy when they sing about him in their music.

Whole stores have been opened dedicated to selling the ‘Christianity’ of Arminius. Walk into one of those stores and you must look long and hard to find anything that promotes the true Gospel. Where in that store filled with ‘Christian’ materials is the real Christ? ‘Christians’ are turning out books and other materials sold in those stores at a rate that nearly rivals those in the secular world. ‘Christians’ are making millions off their ‘Christian’ bookstores and the things that are sold there. They’re making millions off false teachings that are spreading heresy.

And the ‘Jesus’ of Arminianism thinks it’s wonderful.

Hollywood, and its miniature versions coming from wherever they come from, have discovered that there’s money to be made in ‘Christian’ movies and they’re turning them out. Some of the more recent so-called ‘Christian’ movies are nearly impossible to find any form of God in them. But people are making millions off these ‘Christian’ films and ‘Christians’ are flocking to them.

And the ‘Jesus’ of Arminianism is thrilled because he is being sold to so many people.

The Arminian ‘Jesus’ is being taught in the seminaries, new preachers are being turned out ready to spread their ‘Jesus’ to anyone that will listen. They’ve been taught where to find their ‘Jesus’ in the Bible and how to teach him to the masses. New ministers are ready to go out and spread ‘Jesus’ far and wide. They’re ready to teach him from their pulpits to people that trust everything they say to be true. They’re ready to push him further by instructing the children they encounter by teaching them ‘Jesus loves you’.

And the ‘Jesus’ of Arminianism loves it.

Arminius taught a religion that the secular mind could grasp and grab onto. The modern day preacher teaches the same religion. It was a religion based on the work of man when Arminius taught it and it is a religion based on the works of man today.

Arminianism has been called many things from great to ‘deep darkness’ (Johnathan Edwards). I think I like the term deep darkness best. There are many people out there that believe in nearly anything but Christ. They chase their ‘gods’, and their beliefs that there is no God but I think for me the saddest part is when they come so close. Some Arminians have a deep belief in their ‘Jesus’. Some of them change their lives for him.

I heard a reformed preacher once say…they will get to heaven and say I was so close. It was there before me.

Armenians are so close. They know that Jesus is the Son of God. They believe that He is. And yet their belief is not in the Jesus that the Bible teaches it’s in a Jesus that they’ve made up in their own minds.

It’s in a ‘Jesus’ that is nothing sort of an idol that stands in the place of Christ. Their ‘Jesus’ hangs on their walls, speaks on their shirts, walls, and cars. Their ‘Jesus’ encourages the spreading of him to as many uninfected people as they can reach.

Let me ask you something…Does that sound like the Jesus of the Bible? It is the Christ that taught that he came not to bring peace but a sword? Is it the Christ that said if they hated me they will hate you?

Christians are told not to worship idols…

Do not turn to idols, nor make for yourselves molded gods: I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 19:4

That hasn’t changed. God’s people have always been forbidden from worshipping idols. Idols are anything that are placed as more important than Christ in our lives. They are things that take His place in our hearts and minds and lives. They are what we seek after, what we chase after.

There are gods for just about anything man can think up. ‘Gods’ of fertility, gods of the stars, gods of prosperity. There are gods of money, gods of things, gods of loved ones…dead and alive.

Their land is also full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made. Isaiah 2:8

Arminianism is just as much idolatry as the worshipping of golden statues. It’s idolatry because it is worshipping a god that doesn’t exist. It’s idolatry because it’s being spread like a disease to those that are desperate for hope in a depraved world. It’s idolatry because it takes the place of Christ and gives credit to a ‘God’ that isn’t the God of the Bible.

Scriptures warns that idols are not to be worshipped. Anything that is worshipped in the place of the one true God is an idol and should be seen as such. But the Arminian ‘God’ can’t be seen that way because he is promoted as being the God of the Bible.

This ‘God’ isn’t the God of the Bible. He holds little resembalence to the God of the Bible even though that ‘God’ did many of the same things that God did. That ‘God’ created the earth. That ‘God’ sent His Son to earth to die for sins. That God can be learned about in the pages of the same Bible that the real God can be.

That ‘God’ takes what God is and changes Him into some idea of what ‘God’ should be based on man’s ideas. The God of the Bible is pushed aside, ignored, laughed at…forgotten…to make way for the ‘God’ of man, the ‘God’ of Arminianism.

Because My people have forgotten Me, They have burned incense to worthless idols. Jeremiah 18:15

They have forgotten God.

When Arminianism was first being taught Arminius was investigated. His beliefs were seen as lies, they were seen as the heresy that they are. Today most people in the American ‘church’ don’t know that there’s any other God than the one that’s being taught from their pulpits.

I grew up in ‘church’ buildings, surrounded by ‘Christians’, even went to a ‘Christian’ school and yet I had no idea that the ‘God’ I was taught loved me was a ‘God’ that others said wasn’t the God of the Bible. I never knew until long after the Lord had changed the way I understood Scripture that the ‘God’ I had grown up believing in didn’t exist. I’ve known many other ‘Christians’ in the Arminian system that don’t know there’s any other God than the one that they’ve been taught. Though they hold the Word of God in their hands they simply have no idea that what they’ve essentially been brainwashed to believe doesn’t exist within the pages of the very Book they base their entire belief on.

Most of them wouldn’t know the term Arminian if you asked them what it meant. It was a term I never heard uttered in the many years, the many ‘churches’, I was a part of that system.

The ‘Jesus’ of Arminianism is a well guarded idol  and most of his followers have no idea that he is nothing more than an imaginary idol created hundreds of years ago by a man that promoted him in secret.

Those who regard worthless idols forsake their own Mercy. Jonah 2:8

How many people lose all hope of mercy when they believe in this ‘Jesus’ that doesn’t exist? How many place their faith in a ‘God’ that will do nothing for them? How many ‘Christians’ that spent their lives believing in, teaching about, ‘Jesus’ are in hell right now?

How many of them cry from the depths of torture ‘I was so close’?

What of the ‘God’ that wants only good things for you? What of the ‘God’ that allows you to claim all the blessings of this life? What of the ‘God’ that encourages chasing the things of the world?

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul… Matthew 16:26

Does that sound like a God that wants you to have prosperity on earth? Does it sound like a God that wants to give man the many blessings this earth has to offer? Or is it a god made up in the secular mind of man? A god that has been created to cater to the earthly desires of man?

What profit is the image, that its maker should carve it, the molded image, a teacher of lies, that the maker of its mold should trust in it, to make mute idols? Habakkuk 2:18

What profit is an image of god that isn’t God? What good does it do to have a god that can’t save the people he supposedly loves? How powerful is a god who sits back with tied hands awaiting man to come to him before he can act on their behalf?

But more than that, notice the words in the middle of the above verse… a teacher of lies. That is exactly what Arminius was…a teacher of lies…and it is what those that continue to teach the Arminian belief are. They are teachers of lies.

Teachers of half-truths, deceptions, outright lies, that they go around teaching to others, filling their heads with those things until they can’t see that there’s any mistruth to them.

Where does such a deception come from?

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. John 8:44

I have heard many a preacher tell his audience that if the devil isn’t afflicting them then they aren’t ‘right with God’ because the devil doesn’t need to try to tempt those that aren’t ‘right with God’. Based off that statement…I have to ask…does the devil even need to mess with the ‘church’ in America today? His lies were spread far and wide and the many believers have fallen victim to them, they worship a god that doesn’t exist, they hold to doctrines that aren’t true, and they refuse to believe the ‘lies’ of people that try and show them the God of the Bible.

Idolatry is rampant in what is commonly believed to be ‘God’s’ people. They worship a god that doesn’t exist and because their god allows it…they worship many of the things of the world. Their god is a god of the secular mind, a god that lets them live as they want to and hold fast to ‘god’ at the same time.

People study the Bible, think on its verses, interpret them with their ideas of what they should be instead of seeing them for what they are, they write it in books, put it in movies, teach it as gospel…and other people grab onto it like it’s a rope thrown to a drowning man.

Christians are to keep themselves from idols…

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. 1 John 5:21

We are to keep ourselves from idols whether they are physical idols or mental, real or imaginary. God hates idolatry. He specifically spoke against it in the Ten Commandments, warned against it time and again in Scripture, gave examples of what it is.

Idols are imaginary gods made up by man’s deprived mind to give the sinner something to focus on because he can’t focus on Christ. No matter what the idol is, what form it takes, it is simply something that takes the place of Christ. Idols are useless things that serve no purpose beyond the need that the unregenerate place on them. They have one purpose…that of leading people far from Christ. Sinners minds and hearts are so busy following after their idols that they have no room for Christ.

Arminianism is an idol that pulls people far away from the real God and gives them a ‘god’ that they can grab onto.  It gives them a ‘god’ that has no real value, a ‘god’ that is held captive by the will of man, a ‘god’ that can do nothing unless man allows him to. A ‘god’ that serves the whims of man, a ‘god’ that caters to his desires, a ‘god’ that is what man wants him to be.

You can find this ‘god’ in just about any place that you see the term ‘christian’. If you don’t like the ‘god’ that’s in one ‘Christian’ establishment you can shop around until you find the kind of ‘god’ that you like.

That ‘god’ has no value beyond what man places on him. That ‘god’ does nothing for man’s soul. That ‘god’ gets his believers no closer to salvation than they were when they caught him.

Years ago while attending an Arminian ‘church’ I was taught that the earth is only a battle ground where souls are tested so that it can be figured out which ones follow Satan and which ones follow Jesus. That isn’t what I believe now but it was widely taught in that ‘church’ building. Earth was essentially seen as a war zone between Jesus and the devil. People were put here so that Jesus could know who followed Him that way only those that believed in Him would make it into heaven.

Let me say…I do not believe that way, I’m not sure I ever did, but it was taught in a ‘church’ I went to.

But…if a person subscribed to that philosophy…why would the devil need to do anything in the modern American ‘church’? The battle for souls has already been won there…if it were a battle…because the masses of people that flock to their buildings, that fill their pews, believe in a ‘god’ that doesn’t exist. There’s no need to fight over something you already own.

The truth of why man was put on earth is far different than the reason that was given in that ‘church’. There is no battle because God doesn’t need to fight for those that are His.

But if things were as that ‘church’ said…why would the devil have to battle when he’s already won?

The Bible is clear that idolaters will go to hell. Those in the idolatry of the Arminian belief are already lost. If earth were a battle ground the war for those souls is over.

Sadly, that’s just one of many of the false teachings served up in the Arminian ‘church’. The ‘deep darkness’ of the Arminian belief system perpetuates that which does not come from Scripture and they do so at an alarming pace, converting as many as they can to their belief.

And many of them do so in ignorance.

Will ignorance save them from condemnation from the God that they don’t serve? Scripture says it won’t.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. Hosea 4:6

Week after week, service after service, the ‘god’ of Arminianism is worshipped, often in ignorance. He’s perpetuated far and wide. He’s accepted and revered while the true God of the Bible is forgotten.

I don’t know about you but I find the verses about God forgetting our children, or visiting the iniquity of the fathers onto the children… I don’t know what it makes me feel exactly other than the fact that it is a vivid reminder of the power of God and how far He will go in His wrath against the wicked.

He will forget the children because the parents forgot Him. While Arminians believe they are worshipping God, they have…instead…no knowledge of Him. The ‘God’ they worship is not the God of the Bible.

You shall have no other gods before^[me. Exodus 20:3         

… for I the Lord your God am a jealous God…Exodus 20:5

If you read through Exodus 20:3-5 you get a very clear picture of what God thinks of idolatry…

You shall have no other gods before me. ⁴ “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ⁵ You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me

Those verses pretty much spell out the whole of idolatry. Have no gods before me. Do not bow down to serve them. I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children…of those who hate me.

God equates idolatry with hating him and the punishment doesn’t stop with the person that commits it but is passed onto the children for three and four generations.

Arminianism is serving a ‘god’ that isn’t the God of the Bible. It’s idolatry. It’s worshipping a ‘god’ that doesn’t exisit. And it’s being taught to people in a repetitious cycle that is passed from parent to child.

Does that sound like a god that loves his people or does it sound like the wrath of a God that is punishing not only the parents but the children too?

As I write this post I find myself thinking of what I wrote toward the beginning. The god of Arminianism was created in the mind of a man, he was taught to others through deceit and lies, through sneaking. He crept into the minds of young people that were deceived by lies. That ‘god’ is now considered to be the living ‘God’ of ‘Christianity.’ He lives in the hearts and minds of people that claim to put their faith in Christ. He is taught from their pulpits, in their movies, in their books, in their songs, and in their Bibles.

Stop and think about that for a brief moment. The Arminian ‘God’ was created in the mind of a man.

That ‘God’ must be happy about that.

The Arminian ‘God’ has taken over the God of the Bible as the ‘God’ of ‘Christianity’.

Their ‘God’ must be happy about that.

The Arminian ‘God’ lives in the hearts and minds of people that claim to seek God.

Their ‘God’ must be happy about that.

The Arminian ‘God’ is taught from their pulpits and in their entertainment.

Their ‘God’ must be happy about that.

Now I ask you…Does their ‘God’ sound like God…or does it sound like lies that have been fed to people. Does it sound like God or does it sound like a warped version of God? Does it sound like God or…

Satan?