The color of the below painting "Monkeys Feasting" by the combined efforts of Dutch painters, father and son Jan Brueghel "the elder" and "the younger" is amazing... it would be truly magnificent, were it not for (in real life) the stench, feces, vileness—reality... it is a picture of the modern "Christian" Church... different in form, but little different in nature to the eastern temples to the monkey or rats... how the majority of "Christians" live their lives, operate their "churches" in violation of all that God commanded, in lieu of a "world friendly" humanism, is an offense that stinks to High Heaven even as did the Tower of Babel. God does not change. Morality does not change. Doctrine does not change. What changes is the chaff is separated from the wheat to be revealed as Apostates.
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This is a very good article...
except the very minor quote by the african woman "professor" abominably "teaching" at the Univ. of Penna. Anthea Butler.
She is rabid, blasphemes God, calls him a racist, insults white people, says she can say whatever she wants since she has tenure...
so she really is not a valid source to quote about anything.
[Here is what I reported a year or so ago:
Anthea Butler, “professor” of “religious studies” (voodoo?) who was practically foaming at the mouth in her anti-white racist rant, boasting that she can say what she wants because she has tenure and can’t be fired. What an abomination to have this creature teaching anything at Benjamin Franklin’s university, let alone teaching “religion”. She wrote:
“God ain’t good all of the time. In fact, sometimes, God is not for us. As a black woman in a nation that has taken too many pains to remind me that I am not a white man, and am not capable of taking care of my reproductive rights, or my voting rights, I know that this American god ain’t my god. As a matter of fact, I think he’s a white racist god with a problem. More importantly, he is carrying a gun and stalking young black men.”
She also called fellow-black, Presidential Candidate Ben Carson a “coon” for claiming that people have the right to display Confederate flags on their own private property.]
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An interesting point is also raised by the author in this well-written article (at the link above):
“It may come as a surprise to some that believing false doctrine is sinful. But if it is true, as James tells us, that God, “Of his own will begat us with the word of truth” (James 1:18), does it not follow that believing the lies of Satan, the father of lies, is a sin?”
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My thoughts:
Well, indeed false doctrine is a sin, but I don’t believe that this verse supports that truth. Also, I do not agree, as stated above, that “it follows...”. I believe there is a logical error, a missing middle, in the above. What is missing is the declaration (and supporting evidence) that being deceived is a sin. While indeed the statement is true, it is not valid because the propositions are not equally distributed.
Regardless, I Timothy 2:14 indeed says that being deceived is transgression, or, at least, that it can lead to other transgression.
If you commit an act, your motive (or being deceived) does not change the fact that you committed the act; modern notions of (greatly Talmudic that has replaced God's) law pervert God’s Law and Justice. If one sins through ignorance (or deception) he still sins, still has to repent, pay proper restitution and undergo the the penalty. If a person kills someone with a gun and then claims that he was deceived, because the person who handed him the gun told him it had blanks in it, that does not bring the dead person back to life. Accidental death is still taking life and God demands justice and restitution.
God’s Law says (Deuteronomy 21) if a dead human body was found between two villages, the distance was to be measured and the settlement that was closest to the dead body (potential murder) was to investigate and that even if no criminal could be discovered, a specific sacrifice of a heifer (yearling female cow) that had never been put to the yoke, that is, never used for any form of work, never harnessed for any purpose, whether plowing, pulling a cart, grinding grain, etc. (and presumably a heifer that was a virgin), was to be provided by that town, and its sacrifice was to be performed in a specific manner. God demanded innocent* blood to be covered—and if not done, the magistrates of that town were themselves guilty of the blood and God would send a plague on the entire town.
[* This word innocent is not in reference to a person's overall moral state (none are innocent before God, all are stained by the sin nature at conception), but in reference to the murder. The person may not have been a "saint", but his blood was innocent in regard to the fact that he was not lawfully put to death for any crime. He may have tried to kill someone else and got killed in trying. That would be a different matter, and his blood would not be innocent if someone else had killed him in self-defense. However, if he had just been walking along the countryside and someone robbed him and killed him, his blood in regard to the murder of himself, was innocent of deserving death at the hands of the person who killed him. That is what an investigation was to try to determine.
God still does so today, but SINFUL MINISTERS who are NOT OF GOD (like rebellious wives who circumvent the discipline of the father on rebellious children) do everything they can to dismiss and deny reality, claim God abolished His Law (a blasphemous, anti-intellectual notion) and that He is "all luv" and that we are "under grace"... and label the Judgment as "just inexplicable tragedy that happens for no reason"—and call it everything and anything other than what it really is. They do so, because to call it what it is (Judgment) they would have to preach against sin—which they will not do, since they are preachers for hire. Thus, they embrace evil and perversion and sin and abominations and bring the entire church, community, nation under Judgment because God does not ignore the bar tab of reckless drinking, as it continues to accrue; God does not ignore the water or electric bill of those who go away on vacation for the rest of their lives and leave the water running and all the lights and appliances on. Just because God does not demand the bill to be paid immediately does not mean that He never will—and Christ did not pay such bills for those who have never repented (and they have never repented because they have never been regenerated; the nature produces the acts; not vice versa). Repentance entails turning from what God forbade and turning to what He commanded (along with confession, asking forgiveness, making restitution if required)... and anything less is not repentance but humanistic, pseudo-spiritual delusion. Thus, the majority of "Christian" ministers are IDOLATORS, as are their congregants... because they worship a false god... not the God of the Bible, but the imaginary god they form in their own mind after their own likeness... one who accepts their sin and even declares it to no longer be sin... and thus Christendom is on its death bed.]
God’s Law knows no such thing as "not guilty by reason of insanity or mental defect" (such a person is like an animal, who, should be put down BECAUSE he is not capable is being responsible, not shield him from the judgment for his crimes because he is damaged; 2 legged or 4-legged, if it commits a certain act, regardless of its capacity to understand, it is to be put down, not only so it can never do it again, but because God commanded it, because God's Image was struck at when His people are struck at and blood is shed).
Death is death. Accidental deaths, if truly accidental, were not equal with murder, but God required specific actions—such as the one guilty of involuntary manslaughter having to live in a city of refuge if the next of kin to the victim did not accept blood money (and here we see that the only legitimate sanctuary city is for GOD’S PEOPLE and only for those of God’s people who killed someone by accident; those who commited outright crimes, and aliens, had no right to those cities and the high priests / judges of those cities would be required to drag the person out to the blood avenger).
Being deceived in matters of what God has declared is indeed a sin.
Eve was deceived—but while the lies were Satan’s fault, believing them was Eve’s fault, for she believed the lies of Satan instead of believing God’s Own Word.
"And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." (I Timothy 2:14)
[This verse does not say that Adam was not also in the transgression; Adam indeed was in the transgression—but he was not deceived; he sinned willfully in not wanting to be separated from Eve. To them, death was an "unknown". They did not know what it was, personally, or by experience of seeing anything else ever die. But Adam chose to enter death with her than be separated from her. He chose rebellion and death and Eve over obedience and Life and God. Eve was fooled; but that was a sin, because all she had to do was remember what God said—and what anyone else said was meaningless!]
Christ’s sheep know His Voice and won’t follow the lies of false doctrine. Christ said, rather, commanded, "THINK NOT that I came to abolish the Law"; and then added that not one jot or tittle (not the smallest letter or slightest pen stroke of even the mechanical writing of the Law) shall pass from the Law. —so why do 99% of Christians think what Christ COMMANDED us not to think? —because they are not of God, they are not His sheep, and they don't know His Voice. They develop all sorts of non sequitur arguments, smokescreens, anti-intellectual, irrelevant, and off point... they cannot think logically about spiritual matters because their minds are carnal, at enmity with God, and cannot receive the things of God and cannot be in submission to the Law of God. They are closet humanists and don't even know it because they don't know sound theology which is built upon logic. Keeping the Law has nothing to do with salvation. Those who use such smokescreen arguments are fools who don't understand the issue and have no business attempting to teach what they don't understand. In the same passage Christ spoke of them—who shall be the LEAST in the Kingdom (that is, if they are even regenerate, because other passages speak of those who don't keep God's Commandments as not even knowing God and the Truth not being in them; and certainly such persons cannot be converted or regenerate). It has nothing to do with "coming back under the law" or "returning to Rome" or any other such nonsense. Dogs have no business trying to teach sheep what the Shepherd's Manuel teaches. They don't understand Paul because their minds have never been enlightened, their spirits never regenerated, because they are not Christ's sheep. The ONLY part of the Law that provided TEMPORARY atonement (a temporary covering until Christ came to provide the eternal covering) for sin was the ONE SPECIFIC form of Ordinances of blood sacrifices. NO OTHER part of the Law had ANYTHING to do with atonement (salvation). All other parts of the Law are the Standard of Morality* that God commanded throughout all our generations forever.
[* Understand: Morality, despite the constipation of small minds, does not merely refer to things of a sexual nature. Morality refers to everything that is difference between right and wrong. Is stealing "moral"...? What about lying? Those are not sexual sins, but indeed they are matters of morality. Morality was established each and every time that God declared, "Thou shalt not!" or "This shalt thou do!" —and the two never change one to the other. God does not change. His Holiness does not change. His Law is a reflection of and extension of His Holiness and it does not change. Eating that which He forbade, intermingling with aliens, learning the way of the heathen, not keeping the Sabbath are all moral issues. To violate them is sin. Since breaks fellowship and God then refuses to hear any prayer or accept any worship. IS IT ANY SURPRISE, therefore, that Christendom is being destroyed and the handful who recognize that (who deludedly think God abolished His Law) are dumbfounded why God is not hearing their prayers. HE WON'T until the sinner repents, cleanses his ways (by confessing sin and asking for forgiveness, turning from sin and turning to obedience) and changing his double-mindedness by submitting His Mind to the UNCHANGING Word of God. Be Holy as I am Holy. That Standard of Holiness does not change for God because He is IMMUTABLE. The standard for us cannot change or we cannot be Holy as He is. It matters not if the child understands, sees the purpose of, agrees with, or likes the Father's Rules (and the child who does not is DISHONORABLE and FAITHLESS; "disobedience" and "disbelief" are synonyms in the Scripture). They are not 10 "Suggestions" and there are not merely 10 of them, and they never change. See my, Ten Commandments For Youth —For Everyone! For Youth and Young-minded Adults - An Explanation of the Ten Commandments and A Memory System using Bible Numerics; c.440pp., 6.25 x 9.25, pb., 25.00 + P&H. Breaking even the least of God's Commandments is sin. Sinning does not cause a person to lose his salvation—but if his heart is not pained when he sins, if his conscience is not pricked, if it is unimportant to him, if he does not care, if he does not repent—if there is no change of life from living as self wants to submitting to what the LORD OF CREATION commanded, then there never was any conversion / regeneration.]
Those who believe that God abolished His Law are guilty of believing the voice of strangers (even if the stranger is a “trusted pastor”)... because it contradicts Christ’s Voice, which never contradicted God's Word.
Acting upon that false doctrine, then, is additional sin, in the violation of each law that is broken. The Law has nothing to do with earning salvation—obeying it is an evidence of regeneration (new life, the “good works”—which refers to obeying God’s Law; it does not refer to committing generalized, neubulous acts of “charity” or “tolerance” or modernistic notions of the display of “luv”... the "Good Works" of which both the Old and New Testament speak are not decided by man, but by what God commanded: obedience... which are the only "good works" unto which we were before ordained that we should walk therein; as God often said, "THIS is the Way, walk ye in it; turn not to the left hand or the right; walk in My Commandments", etc.). Obeying God’s Law is the by-product of salvation, the work of Sanctification, again, not by our own ability, but by the Presence of the Holy Spirit in the individual believer (to change the nature, change the mind, change the heart, change the will, change the desires, and impart the knowledge of what sin is based upon God;s unchanging Law, and the desire to obey and the shame of not obeying) IF the Holy Spirit is truly in the one who claims to be a “Christian” he will want to obey, he will want to learn so that he can obey; not live casually falsely imagining that nothing matters because he has a "get out of Hell free" card. “This I say then, walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh”. What are the lusts of the flesh? the violation of everything that God commanded. Every tree is known by its FRUIT. If it is not the fruit that God commanded, it is not a tree in God's orchard, it is not a branch on the Tree of Life (Christ).
God told a certain prophet (maybe it was his first mission?) to deliver a certain message and not to deviate from the specific instructions (I Kings 13); another retired prophet, who was carnal, wanted to spend more time in fellowship with this younger prophet and LIED to him and told him that God said that the younger prophet was supposed to alter his plans and stay for lunch with the older prophet... as a result God had a lion kill the younger prophet who departed from what God had specifically told him—but the lion did not kill the older prophet that lied. This does not mean that God did not judge that lying, carnal, older prophet in some way; but his sin had no bearing on the other prophet’s departing from what God clearly commanded him. Each shall suffer for his own sin. Indeed, the Common Law says that the law is on the side of the one being deceived, not on the side of the one doing the deceiving; but again, this has its limitations and refers more specifically, I presume, to contract law (including implied contracts, such in the sale of anything) and obligations between person to person (including the fraud of politicians who lie to get elected and then don't keep their promises—which they never intended to keep; and that is why "laws" have been passed where politicians cannot be held accountable for not keeping campaign promises! Who says crime does not pay? they pocket the campaign money, lie to get elected, then commit treason... and they are not prosecutable... —for now...!). Thus the Common Law Maxim doe not refer to outright crimes committed.
[—such, as I mentioned earlier, as a person killing someone but having thought that the gun only had blanks in it. Or like a rebellious youth setting off firecrackers in the alps, which causes an avalanche that destroys a whole village. He may not have intended to destroy the village, but his acts were no different than those of an invading army and he should pay the same penalty. While sad, one rebellious person’s life should never even be considered as more important than the entire village. Fools who hate God will say putting the one to death will not bring back the others. That is a smokescreen, anti-intellectual, and entirely irrelevant and off point. The point is that sin must be adjudicated and the execution of justice will serve as a warning to others TO BE RESPONSIBLE and not be reckless and disobedient. Our society is not responsible because God's Law* is not enforced; what is taught is that whoever has the slickest, highest-priced, unethical Jewish lawyer is all that matters.
* Those false shepherds who have caused God's sheep to go astray have lied, or taught out of profound ignorance—a stoning offense, saying "Thus saith the Lord" when the Lord has NOT said are responsible for the evil in society; for that evil is the only possible result of turning from God's Law.]
What about Christians who believe lies taught to them by their pastors and teachers? It is no different. If they never heard God’s Word, it may be different; but they DO have God’s Word and if they don’t read it, and if they don’t see that what their pastor says violates what God says, then indeed, they are culpable. We are commanded to study, read, and meditate ON GOD’S LAW, day and night; to search the Scriptures to see whether it be so—to see if what any pastor teaches is true; we are commanded to prove all things; to know the Will of God (obedience to all He commanded). To not do so is to choose ignorance; and therefore, to choose rebellion against the command to study and know and hold to sound doctrine, as well as the command to obey all the other individual Commands of God.
So, returning to the above quotation...
God begat us with the Word of Truth. This sounds like regeneration, and therefore, Christ is that Word of Truth, it would seem. Is this Word of Truth Doctrine? Is that what saves (regenerates) us? Certainly not. Therefore, it seems that this verse is not a support as claimed.
Many other verses should be used instead: the many verses that speak of continuing in sound doctrine, abiding Christ’s Word, obeying His Sayings, bearing HIS Fruit, OBEYING the Gospel (the Gospel is the Full Counsel of the Word of God, not merely the bumper sticker that says, “Jesus Saves”; that the Gospel is merely "Jesus saves" is the sad result of generations of Kindergarten Theology; those who not only have never outgrown the milk of the Word and progressed to meat—but who still blow theological milk bubbles and leave theological stinkers in their diapers), verses about knowing Christ’s Voice, following (obeying) Him, abiding in Christ, doing all that God commanded, maintaining and holding to and defending the faith once delivered, not giving heed to seducing doctrines, excommunicating apostates and heretics (not "tolerating" them), preserving and persevering in the truth (the "patience" of the saints), etc.
Thus, begat by the Word of Truth refers to regeneration (and also God’s Sovereignty and Predestination, and rebukes the humanistic notion of “free will”—nonexistent fetuses do not conceive themselves, nor choose to be conceived).
Believing sound doctrine, obeying God, not believing false doctrine, not being deceived by Satan’s lies, not disobeying what God commanded are all matters of sanctification, and require other passages as their support texts.
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Regardless, my comments are not intended to detract from the value of this article. The author did a great job researching many facts and tying them all together—unashamedly holding to sound doctrine and throwing down the gauntlet to pseudo-Christians and pseudo-pastors who are humanists, paganists, and perverts, who violate Scripture in nearly all they do, in their sins and their covering of their sins (and using MILLIONS or BILLIONS of dollars of money donated by congregants to God—to "pay off" the ABOMINABLE SINS of priests!*) and in so doing, blaspheming God and also showing that like the Edomite Pharisees of old, they are the children of Hell, cannot enter into the Kingdom, and because they cannot, their psychopathology and depraved nature, in filling up God's Wrath, do all they can to keep from entering those who actually can—and in so doing, make them two-fold more the children of Hell that they are.
[* The church should not pay a penny, even as the U.S. government should not pay a penny when Congressmen or any politician commits acts of perversion or offense (whether real or imagined)—but immorally and illegally, both the church and Congress have "slush funds" with which they pay off the "victims" (real or imagined) of the clergy and politicians. If clergy or politicians (or any elected or appointed official) commits a crime—THAT WAS NOT IN HIS JOB DESCRIPTION! It is not the church's or Congress's (that is the congregants' or taxpayers' who are the only source of money for the church or state) obligation to pay a penny—the full brunt of any lawsuit or judgment or settlement should fall on THE CRIMINAL... and then he should go to jail or be executed, not given a promotion or like a perverse hot potato passed on to the next unsuspecting congregation / district.]