The Ways of God — Determinism & True Revival
[This is a detailed reply to emails that someone sent me 2 years ago. I have augmented it with a lot of other information, most importantly, an incredible youtube that I will introduce in detail, and I hope that EVERYONE will watch it in its entirety.]
Someone asked:
Can you comment on your statement about the “nations being a drop in the bucket!” Is this part of the reason that so many were slaughtered in Russia under the Jewish Bolsheviks, Mao’s brutal Communist regime, Pol Pot’s Cambodia killing fields and the destruction of so many Israelites in pre- and post-war Germany??? And I Must say that those Germans were for the most part our racial kinsmen! And I don’t know about the Russian peasants but historians say they were Christian also of the Russian Orthodox. But Christian nonetheless. I am struggling with so much blood that was spilled not to mention Korea and Vietnam and you know that the same group of genocidal maniacs still live like parasites and viruses on our midst planning the next bloodbath in their altar of war.
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My reply/comment:
Henry W. Longfellow so eloquently penned:
“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.” (Poems; 1960)
You refer to my quoting, in various books of mine—
“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, He taketh up the isles as a very little thing.” (Isaiah 40:15)
The word translated isles #339 iy means “a habitable spot, dry land, and can mean coastland or isle”. Its root word #183 aw-vaw means, “to wish for, covet, desire”. I don’t see any reason for it to be rendered isle in this passage. I conjecture that it could be rendered “civilization”. The verb translated “taketh up” means, “to lift, bear”. In this passage, it could possibly be rendered “weigheth”. Though the verb does not mean that, it could be an extended meaning of context, since the balances is mentioned, the purpose of God’s “taking them up” is to weigh them. Thus, “isles” is not the intended meaning, since “nations” (or peoples) is what is being discussed. The meaning would be all inhabited regions of the earth. That is hard to express in one word (though one word is not needed and “the inhabited regions of the earth would be a perfectly good translation), and “civilization” does a good job.
While the peoples of Russia and Eastern Europe were Russian Orthodox Christians, sadly, in reality, that means little different than the millions of English who are Anglicans or the millions of Irish or Germans or Lithuanians who are Catholics. The Russian and Greek Orthodox and the Anglican Church are little different than the Catholic, except they do not recognize the Pope as being over them. Sadly, the majority of them, for centuries, have been “Christian” in name only. Only during the height of the Reformation was it different—and those were our Golden Ages. Only briefly was the Anglican Church Reformed Protestant.
We cannot comprehend WHY God has ordained what He has or HOW it can be to His Glory. Of course, the ants in the ant farm can’t comprehend the mind of the person who put them in the ant farm. God says in Daniel 4:35 God declares:
“And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and He doeth according to His Will in the army of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His Hand, or say [authoritatively] unto Him, ‘What doest Thou?’”
All are a drop in the bucket because He is Creator and God, and all else are mere creatures, mere props and actors in His Drama. He is Creator and there is no higher authority than He and He has perfect Right to do whatever He wills with that which is His. If you are a carpenter and build a coffee table, it is your right to serve coffee on it, sell it, give it away, burn it, or glue it to the ceiling if you want. So it is with God and all of creation. Our feelings (emotions) get in the way and we then assume an aire of godhood and that we have the right to tell God what He can and cannot do. Those who resist Him shall be crushed (Matthew 21:44); those who submit to Him in true humility, will be broken of their self-will and humanistic judging of God (Matthew 21:44) and then be exalted (James 4:6,10; I Peter 5:5,6). He is bound only by His Own Will and Nature. He covenanted with His people and He is True and Faithful. That is our hope. What hope do other peoples have? Their only hope is to submit to God’s people. The only hope of the dogs is to behave under the master’s table. Does that help?
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He replied:
A little. Thank you. I need to work on keeping this in my mind, because I know so many of my racial kinsmen were slaughtered in Germany during before and after both World wars.
[I should point out that this person has been reading, avidly, the many books that I send him on the Reformers, and on the “allies” treated conquered Germany, and how between 66 and 180 million Europeans were exterminated by Jewish Bolshevism (within half to three-quarters of a century) and how 240 million Europeans were murdered by Islam over a period of 1,500 years. Note mine. R.A.B.]
So, what is there for me to do? Should I march on Washington and ask an audience before the President? Should I pray for these victims and ask God to deliver us? Should I pray that more of these instances not occur? Should I have prayed for my racial kinsmen in Germany during WWII who were robbed of their lands, businesses, and lives, for young German women who were raped and mutilated while their husbands were forced to watch and then were killed? No more, God, no more, please! I pray Thy Kingdom Come and let God bring His calamity on His people so repentance will come. I don’t know how it will happen, but I am sure He has some DANDY ways of getting it done. I see no other way. Tragedy will come. Wars and rumors of war will happen. The selling out of our nation by traitors will continue and “MY PEOPLE ARE STILL NOT HUMBLING THEMSELVES!” Why...?! —they do not know they are His Very People...!
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My reply/comment:
Yes, thinking spiritually from God’s perspective does not come naturally to the carnal mind—if fact, it resists it and it is incapable of it. That is why we need to die to self (be broken). That is why we must continually wash our mind in the Word of God—like bathing an open wound to prevent infection! That is why we must submit our understanding to God and trust Him that He is God and that He knows what He is doing even though we cannot comprehend it. The only true doctrinal perspective is the true, undiluted Reformed Christian faith of God’s Predestination and Determinism. God ordains all. Nothing in His universe came into existence on its own, chooses its own path, or “went bad” on its own.
God is Master of His universe and He did not set it on “autopilot” and go on vacation and miss the train home and have to wait for the next one or take a nap and oversleep. Man indeed has a will and man indeed makes choices, but man’s will is not a “free” will—it is not independent of God’s Will; and man’s will is the means by which God accomplishes His Will.
God does not often operate externally in relation to each individual, in a “mechanistic” form of Determinism, as if we are robots or puppets. He operates from within, and those whose minds He has not renewed are under delusion thinking that they are their own moral “free agents” in this life, choosing their own steps—while Scripture informs us that the very opposite is true. Some verses may “seem” to speak of “free will”—but only to those wallowing in the blindness of self. They cannot see the Big Picture; they cannot reconcile in their minds how two things can be true at the same time. They are not very good problem solvers. Cognitive dissonance causes them to “shut down” and commit juvenile errors of logic and simply choose what suits self and throw the rest out. It is delusion that God has sent them. God orders the steps of a righteous man (and also those of the unrighteous—as Acts 4:27,28 masterfully shows). Jeremiah himself declared, I know it is not within a man to direct his (own) steps. God had Paul clearly express, “It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of His Good Pleasure”. Those who reject this simple truth do not honor their Maker, and are humanists who are deluded into thinking that they are Christians. Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. God uses that pride and hauteur to accomplish His Will within such individuals.
Yes, many of my racial kinsmen were slaughtered, and Goths killed Goths; Vikings killed Vikings; Germanic tribes killed Germanic tribes; Celts killed Celts; Slavs killed Slavs, and all of them killed each other and even were raped, kidnapped, and killed by aliens. From our point of view it is an overwhelming tragedy. Movies / plays have villains and victims, and we realize that those actors are playing a role and no one really dies; though in reality, some are based upon real life and indeed people died and the purpose of the movie is to reveal the truth—to tell their story, so they will not have died in vain, and hopefully to prevent it from happening again. Thus also God’s Drama is to reveal the truth snf teach us lessons—instructive and preventative lessons—that God is Sovereign and that what He ordained and declared stands and nothing can thwart Him. We can’t see HOW it can bring Him glory or how it can even be “moral” in our way of thinking—and that is where faith and trust come in. There is no way that we can comprehend the Omniscient Mind of God, so there is no way that we can understand the reasons behind His Determination (other than it pleased Him to do so)—and that is where faith and trust come in: that even to our feeble, finite, fallen minds, some things that He has ordained and done seem “evil” and “unfair”. It is such thoughts and will that we must then submit to God as we trust Him. Thus, since He has declared that He is Holy and Perfect and Good and Just, we are to trust Him, even when the wind and waves of doubt and fear and uncertainty threaten to sway us otherwise.
Sadly, even if the majority of our people knew that they were the veritable people of GOd, they would not care and not obey... it will take near destruction for the majority of the elect to repent (and truly the elect are elect by God’s Grace and nothing of our own merit—and those who have had their eyes open and have had the stony heart of their own selfish, self-centered, apathetic complacency removed and who have been given a heart of flesh and are indwelled by God’s Holy Spirit to cause them to care and to not act lifeless are only so because of God’s Grace; and those who are truly alive should not have to be coached or shamed to care and pray that God opens the eyes and moves in the heart and takes possession of the soul of the rest of our people so that we can all be saved from destruction).
As that reformed preacher Paris Reidhead (1919-1992) of Minnesota preached with fire (who was a former missionary to Africa) in the youtube that I sent out several years ago* declares with passion (1:02-1:17), paraphrasing the question he asked: Why must man die to self...? he then answered his own question: “—because it is the only way that God can get glory out of a human being”.
[* At the link this video presentation is called “Revival Hymn (FULL)” which is rather odd since this is not a hymn, but a collage of sermons: It includes preaching by A.W. Tozer, Ian Paisley Leonard Ravenhill, Paris Reidhead, Duncan Campbell, and T. Austin Sparks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERgIOM5Bm2A
WOW, this is amazing (the first 50 second intro). I’ve studied the Scots’ revivals and the revivals on the Isle of Lewis (and reprinted several rare titles on true revival**) and other revivals elsewhere. Please continue reading this entire Rumination before going to the youtube link above, as I discuss many pertinent things in relation to it that will be important to know before watching the entire presentation which is about a half hour long.
** All books below are in stock and available.
- Historical Collections Relating to Remarkable Periods of the Success of the Gospel / Historical Collections of Accounts of Revival (1754/revised 1845, ed. updated by Horatius Bonar), Gillies, pb., 8.5x11, 600+pp., 30.00 + P&H.
- History of Puritans & Pilgrim Fathers (1888) which incorporates: The Puritans in England (1849) W.H. Stowell, & The Pilgrim Fathers (1849) D. Wilson, 508pp.; with added 230pp. added by me (500 hours of research /writing) of Historical and Theological Introduction to the Reformers, Puritans, Pilgrims, Nonconformists, Covenanters, the Westminster Assembly, the history of the Anglican Church and Presbyterian Church in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, the Anglican Church and monarchs of Britain in their persecution of those Protestants who disagreed with the Anglican Church’s Catholic ritual, and an insightful look at the Great Awakening and revivals in England, Ireland, Scotland (and its Isle of Lewis) Wales, and New England; with over 800 short biographies and over 250 illustrations added; total c.740pp.; 7x8.5, 35.00 + P&H.
- The History of Revivals of Religion (1951) William E. Allen, 84pp., 8.00 + P&H.
- In the Day of Thy Power: The Scriptural Principles of Revival (1956), Arthur Wallis, 297pp., pb., 15 00 + P&H. This is on God moving in His Spirit to bring them to repentance, not a book about “revival meetings.” I don’t print this one but it is an incredible book.
- The Lewis Awakening 1949-1953 (1954) Rev. Duncan Campbell, 44pp., 5.00 + P&H. (the moving of God’s Holy Spirit on the Isle of Lewis off the coast of Scotland).
- The Power of Prayer: The New York Revival of 1858 (1858) Samuel Prime, 237pp., pb,. retypset, notes by R.A. Balaicius; excellent shows moving of God’s Spirit upon His people when they truly seek Him; 16.50 + P&H.
- Sounds From Heaven: The Revival on the Isle of Lewis, 1949-1952, Peckham, 280pp., pb., 15.00 + P&H. (Hebrides, Scotland); I don’t print this one but it is a great book.
- Stories of Great Revivals with Contributions on Revival Work (1906) Henry Johnson, Canon Aitken, F.B. Meyer, Stuart Holden, Gipsy Smith; c.420pp., pb., 25 00 + P&H. Chapters: Evangelical Revival of 18th Century England; Evangelical Revival of 18th Century Scotland; Evangelical Revival of 18th Century Wales; Evangelical Revival of 18th Century Ireland; Awakenings of 1858-1862 England, of 1858-1862 Scotland, of 1858-1862 Wales, of 1858-1862 North of Ireland; Work of Moody & Sankey 1873 - 1875; 1881-1884; Revival in Wales, 1904-1905; Torry-Alexander Mission, 1903-1905.
- For the best book on the Founding of our nation and our Founders, see Faith & Freedom by Benjamin Hart. It is out of print but I have good used pb. and Hb. copies in stock; inquire. After that I can recommend other titles, in stock, as well as numerous good titles of the histories of the nations of Eruope that I reprint. Inquire.
- For a good, small, concise book to cut your teeth with concerning the Reformers, see Twelve Reformation Heroes (1960) Neilson, 96pp., pb., 12 50 + P&H. After reading this one, I can recommend the next to read. Inquire.
- To learn sound Reformed doctrine and the attempts to pervert it, see my: Does God Repent...? Can God Change His Mind...? [And an Utter Demolishment of the Humanistic Myth of Man’s “Free Will” and Arminianism], 506pp., 25.00 + P&H. Dovetails nicely with my God and Evil and The Sovereignty of God, Predestination, “Free” Will, and the Protestant Reformation. Exposes the subversion of true Christian faith in the Counter-Reformation, re-introducing false theology of Origen and Pelagius and corruption of modern church by Jesuits and crypto-jews and terribly deceived humanists such as Scheiermacher, Kierkegaard, Spinoza, Barth, Schweitzer, Erasmus of Rotterdam, and many more, including undermining of Puritan church by Solomon Stoddard, and much more; also dissects the false theology from one chapter of two different books; one by Dr. Normal Geisler and one by Brother Andrew.
Those who do not read about the Pilgrims, Puritans, historical true Revival, the Reformers and the Reformation, the history of our faith and the history of our nation, and related biographies are spiritually dead and don’t appreciate any of it. It is not self-perpetuating. It does not sustain or defend itself! If “Christians” applied the same dedication to their job as they do to the Christian faith that they claim to believe—they would be jobless and no one would hire them (and God has no “Welfare” programs: Those spiritually bankrupt have their account remanded for collection—which is an Eternal Process!). Our faith and Christendom is dying because the majority of “Christians” are dead and do not care (they all think that they fart cotton candy and that “everyone else” is the problem—and that is a delusion sent to them by God because they are either not of Christ’s sheep or will be the lowest in the Kingdom, and will barely cross the threshhold into the Marriage Feast before the doors close permanently). The Superbowl is more important to them—or any other godless event that is an insult to Christ. They shall answer to God one day, and be called to give an answer as to why they cared more about godless, perverted, immoral savages and traitors in sports and entertainment than they did the builders of our faith and and the founders of our nations—and the doctrine of our faith and the actual form of government that our Founders established. It seems such “Christians” would not care if they purchased a $50,000 diamond and it turned out to be a $10 zirconium; or if they purchased $50,000 in gold and it turned out to be worthless fools gold; or a $50,000 rare pearl and it turned out to be a ball of glue! THAT is how they value our FAITH and our NATION. They have no concept of Holiness or Righteousness and are hedonists and all they care about is “eat, drink, and be merry”. They are not even lukewarm. Their corpses have never been quickened to life. Those who do not read about the founding of our Christian Republic and our Founders don’t deserve freedom. Those who don’t study and learn our Faith and Heritage do not value it and cannot defend it, and that is why our faith is dying out (except among a tiny remnant) and that is why freedom and civilization—Christendom itself is about to fall—after 2,000 years! Revive us again, O Lord—purge us of our own selfishness and corruption and fill us with the desire to learn truth and to love Righteousness and to stand up and defend our Faith and Heritage and Nations! PURGE out from among us the dross, who claim to be “Christians” and purge out from among us all tares that have been sown in among the wheat to choke the life out of Your seed!
While there may have been an emotional content in the Scots Revivals, it was not grounded in emotionalism and its heart and soul was not emotionalism. If the truth be told: If there is no emotional content at all then you are dead. God made us emotive beings. Emotions are not wrong. However, even as God created man to be the head (and any other arrangement is an abomination and blasphemy), so also God made the HEAD to be the head, not the emotions. Emotions are like salt on a good steak or icing on a cake. The substance and nutrients is in the steak and the cake. The salt and the icing give the meal a little zing, make it more enjoyable; and add a little burst of energy and provide needed minerals for the electro-magnetic body. But if you ate mostly icing and salt you would not be very strong or healthy. Likewise, any arrangement of the Home, Church, and State other than what God established is sickly. Likewise, someone ruled by his emotions with a hen-pecked, ignorant, indolent “intellect” is a fool.
The so-called Great Awakening and most modern “revivial meetings” were and are fraudulent. Jonathan Edwards, one of the leaders of the Great Awakening, finally confessed this truth, though he did not want to believe it. Some, like Finney and the Wesleys tried to make it as emotional as possible, once they saw the “fruit” (sort of like yelling “shark” at the beach to get everyone out of the water so they are closer to your hotdog stand where they can make a purchase); but after learning that the fruit was “artificial” (spiritually dead or with no roots) even Charles Wesley made efforts to STOP all emotional outbursts in the meetings by having such persons phyically carried outside and deposited on the sidewalk. Weak minds are easily overcome with emotion (just view a newsreel of women at an Elvis or Beetles concert) and one such outburst can cause a myriad of outbursts, simply based on psychology and group dynamics and the very sound of someone else crying out or sight of them falling on the floor. Some sounds affect the brain in very peculiar ways (the way that the right pitch can shatter a crystal glass or cause a suspension bridge to look like it has turned to rubber and collapse): such as the sound of a large swarm of bees, race cars, and a cat fight (all of which come close to approximating a similar sound). They strike fear, and if directed properly, that fear can turn to giddiness or loss of control and collapse. Satan, of course, will use such “momentum” to circumvent intended true repentance and revival, and have it break down into emotional bedlam, with little-to-no knowledge of sin or repentace; without which there is no revival, only an emotional experience—and when the emotional experience, the “roller coaster ride” is over, life simply returns to normal.
The Scots Presbyterians were different in their revivals that those in the U.S. (which eventually developed into entire spurious denominations of emotionalism which bore no fruit other than emotionalism and then infiltrated other denominations in the U.S. and Europe). They knew true doctrine and the Holy Spirit convicted them of their worldliness and sin. Some preachers were calm and collected (like some of the voices in this youtube) but others were fiery, like the voice in the first and other subsequent segments.
Duncan Campbell, the dedicated Scots Presbyterian Reformed preacher, was DRENCHED in sweat after each sermon during the revivals on the Isle of Lewis and elsewhere in Scotland—he put his all into his sermons (and preached in English and Gaelic). Often there were more people than the church building out in the middle of nowhere, could hold, and people would stand out in the cold and wind and listen as best they could; often several services were held and he preached back-to-back. One time in 24 hours he preached 8 sermons! He then stayed hours into the wee hours of the morning in prayer and counselling as also did the rest of the congregation, and the people prayed and sang hymns with no thought of the time, in private houses near the church. Finally the people then hiked homeward for an hour or two in the dark across the UNFORGIVING WIND-BATTERED moors on the Isle of Lewis off the Scottish coast, get a few hours sleep, wake up, go to work or school, and then come back the next night—and they did that week after week, and the fruit was LASTING.
This puts me in mind of something that William Law (1686-1761), English cleric, divine, theologian, and author, in his, The Power of the Spirit,* wrote:
[* Originally titled, An Affectionate Address to the Clergy (1761); edited by Dave Hunt, 1967, Switzerland; 189pp. pb. 12.00 + P&H.]
“If you will but stop to ask yourself why your brand of Christianity is hardly recognizable as related to that which primitive Christians knew, your own heart will tell you that it is primarily because you never thoroughly intended to live as they lived and to die as they died. You sing of your devotion to the same Lord, and profess to believe the same New Testament doctrines as the early disciples. You have the same promises from the Lord of the fulness of the Spirit, the divine nature, and all that pertains to life and godliness. You would never hope to get to heaven through a faith any different than theirs, but you have believed Satan’s lie that it is possible to have the same faith as the first Christians without manifesting the same works as they. And if you are honest you will admit that this lie has been gladly received because you have not really had the heart intention to walk as Jesus walked.* Did you but have this intention to please God in all your actions, as being the happiest and best choice for life in this world, you would then find yourself as unwilling to deny Christ with your life as you are now unwilling to deny Him with your lips. And would you but add to this intention a simple faith in the promises of God in Christ, you would find yourself living in the same denial of self and as contrary to the world as fishermen apostles did in their day.”
[* Wow. Amen! So many professed believers today are like the rich young ruler who went away sad, not wanting to sacrifice what he deemed more important in life, in order to truly follow Christ. R.A.B.]
“....the question is not whether gospel perfection can be fully attained, but whether you come as near it as a sincere intention and careful diligence can carry you through faith in Christ. .... Can you really call yourself a follower of Christ without at least intending to follow Him all the way? .... Can a man who has this saving faith then fail to manifest those works which the Scripture so plainly tells us are the direct consequence of the new creation? .... that man who does not so much as intend to manifest in all his ways these works which God has ordained for him has denied the very faith which he otherwise professes. .... Works without faith is the dead and unacceptable offering of the sinful flesh; and faith without works is a fraud, a false profession of that which is dead because it does not have the life of God in it; and this is proven by the lack of fruit of the Spirit. God holds out to our faith the blessing and power of the Holy Spirit as our all in all, filling us with the life of Christ, causing us to overflow with rivers of living water.” (pp. 182-189)
The first voice on this youtube in incredible... I don’t know it if is an actual recording or if it is a re-dramatization, but it should blow your socks off. Watch closely and follow along. WHY is there no revival? Because, “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider” (Isaiah 1:3) ... “My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains [large alien nations]: they have gone from mountain to hill [small alien nation], they have forgotten their Restingplace [God, Who is our life].” (Jeremiah 50:6) There is no revival because God’s people have no concept of His Holiness because they do not know Him. If they knew Him they would fear and obey Him. They believe in a “concept” of God—but they don’t believe in God. God is flooding us with our enemies so that God and His people can get “re-acquainted”—if they will repent before they are destroyed.
Watch it at least, at least to the first 50 second mark. Turn the sound up and pay attention. I must have watched the first 50 seconds 20 times 2 years ago when I first sent this out. I just viewed the first 50 seconds again (4 or 5 times) while refining this Rumination, and it still has the same effect on me every time... shivers and goosebumps all over—but only because of the understanding of the deep spiritual truth and the knowledge of the fact that God’s people are sleeping (or are dead) and only God can wake them up (or revive them).
The music, of course, and the moon in a dark sky followed by what happens next is a dramatic emotional ploy, but it is probably necessary to help capture the electricity of being there in person. The dark sky, moon, and preacher’s gravelly voice and Scots accent makes it almost feel like “the Legend of Sleepy Hollow”* which is quite apropos!
[* I have written upon this short story / essay in the past, in comparison to the main characters of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. Ichabod is a Hebrew name that means “the Glory has departed”. In Scripture, Ichabod was a grandson born to Eli, who had just fallen back in his chair and broke his neck and died, being obese, upon hearing that the Ark of the Covenant of Yahweh had been captured and his immoral sons Hophe and Phinehas had been slain. Indeed, the true remnant of the Christian Church is like sheep without a shepherd, being oppressed by the enemy being led astray by an Apostate Church, through evil and false (or at the very least blind) shepherds. I don’t know if the author, Washington Irving, intended his short story to convey that thought, or if it is coincidental.]
We need such REAL preaching today. People need to be woken up. People need to cry and mourn and fall on their faces before God under the overwhelming weight of the guilt of their sins—and if their hearts are cauterized and hardened by dead tissue and years of calification of their conscience it may take something dramatic to get their attention. Did not God frequently have His Prophets employ such dramatic shock value to get the attention of the apathetic, sinful, calloused people? Such methods are not wrong in and of themselves; but doctrine must be the foundation of a decision of faith and the Christian life itself; not emotionalism. Faith cometh by hearing the facts (doctrine) in the Word of God as the Holy Spirit gives the ability to believe; faith does not come by giddy feelings (delusion does). The entire Protestant Faith which once held to sound Doctrine, is now diluted and polluted—and that happened little by little, by subtle humanism and misunderstanding of the Word of God through false interpretations: interpretations that were based upon human emotions and what sinful people want reality to be, and what sinful people think that God should and should not do; rather than being founded solely upon the Doctrine of the Word of God.
As long as that is realized and kept in perspective, whoever put this video together was a master—at least in the first 50 seconds of this video. The rest is mostly good, but nothing in comparison to the first 50 seconds. However, he was deficient in much of the rest of the video, for various reasons. What is supremely annoying is the dishonest and controlling marketing ploy of cutting out as much empty space between sentences as possible—even overlapping them (which is the equivalent of being slapped in the face) which makes it tedious and hard to understand in some places. It is crooked salemanship using principles of psychology, I imagine, which cause a person to have to strain to pay attention more—but I believe that it is psychological blackmail! and anyone who uses such annoying, manipulative gimmicks is not trusting in God’s Holy Spirit but the power of his own clever manipulation of the listener. I also wish that in more places the creator of this youtube would have added to the subtitles WHO was speaking. Maybe some people like to fly blindly, passively listen without thinking, not care about the details, not care about proper credit being given to the author / speaker. But I am not one of those people and it is neither professional nor conducive to intelligent instruction. It is not supposed to be a flurry of emotion; so there should be normal rest breaths in between sentences and each individual should be identified. Those are major flaws in an otherwise good presentation.
The doctrine of the Scots Presbyterians was far superior to most anything of any demonination... I mean denomination today... it was not perfect, but it was sound. There will be no revival without sound doctrine. Sound doctrine is not what tickles the ears and fluffs the auras of man—THAT IS HUMANISM—doctrine is what God declared. True theology centers around GOD and all else is humanistic fraud. Emotionalism, like hot air in a balloon, does not last.
Later in the video, Paris Reidhead also makes some great statements; however, he errs somewhat when he declares that God sent him to Africa, not for himself, not because those people deserved to hear the Gospel, but because God loves them. This is based upon the false presupposition that God actually wanted him to go to Africa, in violation of Christ’s Command: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you” (Matthew 7:6). Furthermore, it also departs from sound Reformed theology in that God is not doubleminded. Man does not choose. God determines. God does not love whom He hates and God does not damn those whom He loves. Unfortunately, he was an advocate of the economic development in “impoverished” nations. First of all, the notion of “impoverishment” is subjective. “God cursed” would be more accurate. They live the way they lived since the beginning of earth’s history. That is all God intended for them. It is not impoverishment, it is their natural state. It is only impoverishment when viewed from the perspective of God’s children in civilization. Everything that they touch they destroy. That is evidence that they were not intended to have anything that they cannot develop on their own. Furthermore, God commanded us His people to be separate from all other people, all aliens. God forbade us to love or help them; God forbade us to seek their peace and prosperity forever. Rebelling against God is what has caused them to overpopulate their own lands and then flood ours to kill and rape and steal what our ancestors built by Gog’s Blessing. You reap what you sow. Now, since we helped prevent the savages from the natural means of population control—we ourselves are now facing extinction. Christ was not cracking jokes or giving lessons on animal husbandry. He did not speak out of “busy work” or to hear the sound of His Own Voice—but for us to obey!
Despite Reidhead’s misguided (though most-common, albeit, erroneous and rebellious) misinterpretation of the Great Commission*1 he rightfully noted that much of evangelicalism had adopted utilitarian*2 and humanistic*3 philosophies contradictory to Biblical teaching (which is no surprise: When you depart from what God commanded why should you continue to employ godly methods?). The end of all being, he came to believe, was not the happiness of man, but the glorification of God. This, of course, was expressed in the Westminster Confession almost 400 years ago, “The chief end of man is fear God and keep His Commandments,” which slightly muddies the clearer wording of Solomon (after many chapters of folly and madness*4) in Ecclesiastes, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His Commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” (12:13). It is not merely our “chief” end—it is our WHOLE duty.
*1 He gave 4 years of his life to Sudan Interior Missions in Africa, then served on the board. In 1953 he affiliated himself with the Christian and Missionary Alliance,*A and pastored a prominent church in New York City.*B Shamefully, from 1966 onward Third-World development became his full-time committment, even availing himself of the resources of United Nations; he also founded in 1971 the Institute for International Development—which served as the model for the establishment of 90 other foundations!—that used private and taxpayer funds to help Third-world nations’ development—and here we are 45 years later still having our money stolen from us to fund our enemies and they are no better off and we are 100x worse off ourselves. NOWHERE in the Scriptures does Christ even suggest that the sheep lay down their lives for the dogs, pigs, or wolves!
*A an evangelical Protestant denomination within the “Holiness Movement” (which drifted from sound Reformed theology to emotionalism / Pentecostalism) founded by renowned evangelist A. B. Simpson, an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church in Canada.
*B Gospel Tabernacle, founded by A.B. Simpson in 1887.
*2 that is, pragmatic; or “the end justifies the means” or “if it seems to get results it must be right. However, going to a bar and picking up women may get results; it certainly isn’t right.
*3 man-centered, not God-centered.
*4 See my, Sacred Truth Expository Commentary on Ecclesiastes, 554pp., pb,. 30.00 + P&H.]
It should be noted that “it is the only way that God can get glory out of a human being” needs to be understood in theological context. God is not limited. It is the only method by which God has determined to get glory out of a human being, that is, under the current Post-Fall conditions in which we exist. God will not share His Glory with another and the carnal human nature resists—blanketly rejects—giving glory to God (except upon sinful man’s own terms, like Cain, or like Ananias and Sapphira, who held back what they had vowed—and then also lied about it to God’s representatives). Sinful “Christians”, still operating with, controlled by the carnal mind imagine that they are in charge; that they don’t need to do things the way that God has commanded; that “all that” was ‘abolished’ and that man himself can decide how he wants to do anything and everything and God should just consider Himself so “gosh-darn” lucky to have them “on His side” and just be tickled pink and happily accept whatever they deign to offer to God (even if it is violates everything that is Holy). Worship itself can be a sin, if the elements are wrong, if the method is wrong, if the doctrine is wrong, if the motive is wrong, if the heart is wrong. It is no mystery. We are not merely a ball in a Cosmic Pin-Ball Machine being batted around randomly without reason. God says that we reap what we sow. He gave us His unchanging Word. Those who believe that 5/6ths of it is “obsolete” one day will face Judgment without Mercy.
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In continued reponse to the person who had emailed:
Yes, we should pray—without ceasing! Prayer is a battle of faith. As I write in my yet-unpublished book on Prayer, Faith, and Deliverance, the German leader of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther (1483-1546) once described prayer as follows:
“The hardest work of all—a labour above all labours, since he who prays must wage almighty warfare against the doubt and murmuring excited by the faint-heartedness and unworthiness we feel within us... that unutterable and powerful groaning with which the godly rouse themselves against despair, the struggle in which they call mightily upon their faith. .... Audacious prayer, which perseveres unflinchingly and ceases not through fear, is well pleasing unto God. .... As a shoe maker makes a shoe, or a tailor makes a coat, so ought a Christian to pray. Prayer is the daily business of a Christian.”
—and Luther pulled “all nighters” in prayer!
We are to “pray for the peace of Israel” (not the geographic dirt in the Middle East or the imposters inhabiting the land, but for God’s true people)... and the only way that peace will come is through true repentance, which does not exist without obedience. Repentance is turning from what God forbade, confessing sin, asking forgiveness—and turning to what God commanded. Anything less is a pseudospiritual delusion. Christ once forgave sins and then said, “Go and sin no more”. That meant obey. Peace is not merely the notion of living in a tranquil society. That is the result, not the cause. The peace that is referred to is peace with God! Sinful man is at war with God. God is at war with sinful man. Christ’s Death on the behalf of the elect of His people propitiated God’s Wrath and established our Peace with God—Peace, no longer having the threat of Eternal Judgment over us. However, once again we are in the cycle of National Judgment and we are suffering because we turned from what God commanded to live as man thought “felt” better to his sinful desires. Thus, God is once more shaking heaven and earth. While those who are truly converted have Eternal Peace with God fully secured—in terms of the rest of our life here on earth, Scripture declares that God is against the foolish and false prophets who have “seduced My people, saying, ‘Peace’; and there was no peace” (Ezekiel 13:10). Wars and rumors of war is the cycle we are now in. I literally cry, with tears, daily, and pray, “God, save Your people! How many rapes is enough? How many murders is enough? How many adulteries, homoperversions, delusions by atheism and evolution, how much immorality, corruption, injustice, socialist oppression, invasion of the savages, invasion of Islam, the pollution of Christendom from coast to coast with aliens, false gods, false temples, and violence and the mongrelization of a brainwashed populace? How much is enough? How many centuries, how many millennia is enough? God have Mercy and save Your people! Pour out Your Holy Spirit on all flesh of Your people and pour out a pestilence on the rest. Give me at least a firstfruits of my faith. Cause the earth to help the woman and her child, as you promised, to receive the immediate overflow of the flood that the Dragon has spewed out of His Mouth to drown us! Let the whole earth see the True God in action and let them tremble in fear! Where is the God of Elijah! Please, answer my prayers. I have been praying this, nearly hourly for seven and a half years, and also many years before that, though not as intensely. Sadly, the majority whom I entreat will not even agree in prayer. Apparently they do not realize the stakes that are involved, or they do not care. Just for the record, God is keeping score.
God wants His people unified in prayer. If they refuse to humble themselves and obey—then we all must suffer with them! (or they shall be revealed to be the chaff which the wind driveth away, if their hearts and minds and consciences are so dead that they will not pray with a brother who asks them to). Those who hunger after righteousness, like Jacob, will cry out, “I cannot let Thee go except Thou bless me!” and like leader of the Scottish Reformation and founder of the Presbyterian Church, John Knox, who wrestled with God in prayer and cried out, “Give me Scotland or I die!” and like the English Reformer-martyr William Tyndale, who was burned at the stake (though mercifully strangled first—many, many other martyrs were not so graciously dispatched*) who cried out as his last word, “Lord open the King of England’s eies!” If we are sunken and marinated in such godless apathy that we will not so cry out then tell me why should God deliver us?
[* Here we also see the Power of God as well as the Sovereign Determinism of God. As hard as it is for us to fathom, if you read the lives of the Reformers as I suggest—you know, those men who suffered and died so that you could read the Gospel in your own language, with your own eyes, with your own copy of the Bible!—you will learn that some of the martyrs who were burned alive at the stake sang hymns of praise as they were being burned alive and showed no signs of discomfort whatsoever! THAT is the POWER of God, even as God delivered the three young Hebrew men from the fiery furnace without even the smell of smoke being upon them! even as according to historical tradition the Apostle John was first boiled in a pot of oil and when they realized they could not kill him they banished him to the Isle of Patmos! However, tragically, horrifically, from our human perspective, there were too many Reformers who suffered unimagineable agony—all day long, as the wood was wet or green and would not burn properly and they suffered incredibly, screaming out, for many hours as their hands and feet burned off but their organs did not shut down! Read the lives of the Reformers! Read their doctrine. Not all of them suffered death. Some did. HONOR THEM and READ THEM! I descend from one of the first English Christian martyrs, Sir John Oldcastle (and from his uncle). Martin Luther was a cousin of mine, possibly 3 or more times. HOWEVER, I did not have a clue about this until about 3 decades after I began to read about the the Reformers and about 2 decades after I began reprinting books in their honor! Honor God and He will honor you! Ignore God and your duty before Him and... well, we’ll just leave it at that.]
Yes, “Thy Will be done...”—but it IS His Will that His people repent. WHY have so many suffered and died?, as you ask. Only HE knows how it brings Him glory. Solomon sacrificed as a peace offering 120,000 sheep and 22,000 oxen when the Temple was dedicated! How does that glorify God? Only God knows, but it does not change the fact that it does and God commanded it, and God commands us to believe, and God commands us to pray, and God commands us to pray prayers of faith in the face of the impossible—otherwise, prayer is meaningless.
Furthermore, any person who hears of the slaughter of 142,000 animals for the dedication of God’s Temple and thinks, “what a wastes” or “how barbaric” needs to fall on his face before God and beg him to forgive him for his presumptous humanistic arrogant sin! “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and all they that dwell therein.” God has every right to do whatever He determine and He is Holy and Just and Good and Right regardless of what you think. Submit your mind to God and ask for forgiveness and understanding of His Holiness and His Sovereignty.
While God determines who will be saved, when someone is reborn he still has to take his first breath or there is no life. That first breath is where God spanks us by the conviction of the Holy Spirit and we then cry out in repentance unto life, turning from our sins, confessing them, confessing Christ, and asking God to forgive us for our sins applying the Blood of Christ as the propitiation for our sin-debt and coming under Covenant through His Sacrifice. If you’ve racked up a debt with someone, a debt so vast you can never repay it, you can’t just “assume” that the debt has been forgiven without your having actually asked the person to whom you owe the debt, if he will forgive the debt. Until there is a new contract (forgiveness of the debt), the old contract (indebtedness) is still in full force. Furthermore, someone who just assumes a debt is forgiven without ever asking, demonstrates the height of arrogant presumption and an attitude of entitlement, rather than shame, remorse, and repentance.
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I watched this entire youtube again (though with dial up it took about 5 hours). Please, everyone, watch the entire youtube attentively, from start to finish. It confirms what I have read—amazing things that are hard to believe. Like in the U.S. over 100 years ago, there was a revival going on in a port city on the east coast. The Holy Spirit was so moving in that area, that as merchant or fishing vessels pulled into that harbor, hardened sailors, who had no knowledge that a revival was going on, without hearing a word of a sermon—spontaneously on different ships, throughout different parts and levels of the ships began falling on their faces and crying out to God for Mercy...! This is hard to believe—but that is because Christians have their minds polluted with humanism in thinking that man is in charge! Now, those sailors were not converted without hearing a sermon—but God convicted them of their vileness and of His Judgment to the point that they would humble themselves; and then once they got to town seek God and hear the Gospel and truly repent. Remember, God causes even the wrath of men to praise Him. The wicked King Saul, after having sent several squadrons of soldiers to arrest David (because of Saul’s Satan jealously) from the School of the Prophets in Bethel with Samuel, just coming into the presence of those prophets who were moved by the Spirit of God—Saul himself was subdued and began to preach and humble himself before God, and left without David. God is in charge. We are each guilty before Him of many things. If we truly repent and implore Him to pour out His Holy Spirit upon all flesh of His people—just imagine what could happen. Please now view this entire youtube, and consider ordering some of the excellent books I have recommended. Paris Reidhead again speaks eloquently (around 12:00), with some interjections by I believe Leonard Ravenhill, and masterfully as the background music, the producer of this video has chosen the superb piece Canon, by German Classical Composer Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706), who lived a little over a century after Martin Luther.