The Story of One Pilgrim's Progress.....
Jesus Christ asked this rhetorical question in Lk 18:8
"Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh,
shall he find faith on the earth?"
Jesus Christ asked this rhetorical question in Lk 18:8
"Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh,
shall he find faith on the earth?"
MY EIGHT STEPS TO GET TO THE REAL GOSPEL!
by
Terrance L. Krueger(Hit Ctrl key and Plus [+] key to make text larger)
by
Terrance L. Krueger(Hit Ctrl key and Plus [+] key to make text larger)
____________________________________________
#1 - AS A PROTESTANT
I am not an ordained minister [ordination being an important doctrinal principle], nor am I a self-proclaimed philosopher. I am simply a Christian who has come of age. I am 69 Years old and have experienced a natural "seeking" migration through several different denominational beliefs since I was catechized as a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran, starting at age five. I am not a literary scholar or a college graduate, so my syntax may be somewhat lacking – but I will try to make my views understandable. Over the years I have gone through a series of changes [Eight Steps] to arrive at the doctrinal belief I have now held for the past 29 years. A bit about my background might be helpful.My name is Terrance L Krueger, Born in Milwaukee on July 23, 1941. As stated, I was raised a Lutheran and was “Confirmed” at age fourteen in St. John’s Lutheran Church in Lake City, Minnesota about 1955. We have lived in Greenville, SC since 1971. I was not a particularly religious person at this age but did experience a shake-up and following gradual catharsis, starting at age sixteen.
#2 - A VERY VIOLENT EXPERIENCE
Upon experiencing a catastrophic accident in which most of my left hand was blown off with a home made rocket, the shock and awe of this had an effect on me spiritually somewhat.... but there was more to come! If you will remember, the mid to late 50’s were a time of exhilarating change for most Americans as the Russians announced the launch and orbiting of Sputnik. Many school children around the U.S. were caught up in a sort of post science fiction infatuation with ‘space’ and it’s possibilities. Many school children also took it upon themselves to experiment, without professional supervision, and ended up just like I did. Hundreds of kids my age, within a two-year period, lost fingers, eyes and even their lives to foolhardy activities that involved the use of dangerous mixes of fairly cheap chemicals that were available to teenagers right over the counter in a Drug Store. Our experience was almost identical to the 1999 movie "October Sky" < [click for 2 minute trailer]There is a lot I could tell about this experience at the age of sixteen but I will confine my discussion to the effects that it had on me spiritually! There was a definite catharsis, [Step Two] but it was not immediate. It started with the shock and celebrity of being an ‘injured junior Astronaut’. As a pretty rough teen-ager, even by today’s standards [rolled up T’s, tight jeans, High Top Engineer Boots, leather jackets, the perfectly combed duck-tail hair do and street fighting] I viewed myself as the antithesis of the proverbial “wimpy” Jock who’s two-toned lettered jackets gave them away. For me, my customized 49 Olds Club Coupe, an 85 cent fifth bottle of Muscatel, and a pack of Camels was good enough satisfy my ego and to get into minor kinds of trouble in the wrong places for the wrong purposes, which minimally affected my conscience on a continuing time line. My parents both worked multiple jobs and we teenage kids were left to pretty much do our own thing. There were no drugs in those days other than the cheap booze we could afford. Marijuana was known about – but had not filtered down to the small towns like Lake City in the 50’s.I graduated high school a year later to attend the William Hood Dunwoody Industrial Institute in Minneapolis, to study in the school's two-year Associate Degree program for Mechanical Drafting. I passed that with flying colors as I worked evenings, Drafting for Remington Rand Univac in St. Paul, after school. I worked until 11:00 P.M. in the Electronics Drafting Department drawing and taping printed circuit boards used in the early computers. I also worked early in the mornings and after lunch in the school cafeteria busing and washing dishes. This work, along with $18.00 per week sent from my previous personally accumulated bank account back home, was enough for me to get through financially for two years. My rent was only $5.00 a week in a shared third floor attic bedroom, that was walking distance from school.It was at this time that my loose life style began to bother my sense of spiritual propriety. I became interested in a way of discovering how I could alleviate my guilt. Where the conscience came from at the time, I had no idea, I only knew that I needed something better in my life. There was a vacuum that needed to be filled. The result was a five-year stint as a Roman Catholic convert! Imagine a Lutheran converting to the ultimate nemesis religion! To my relatives [all Lutherans] this was like treason. This happened because I was searching in the wrong place for relief, and because the Lutherans did not have enough evangelical sense or to reach me with regard to the subject of this paper – GRACE [explained later].
#3 - AS A ROMAN CATHOLIC
At that time, I started dating a really sharp young lady who was a year my senior. I became so infatuated with her that I agreed to go to visit her priest, [Step Three] who happened to be a Jesuit! As I asked him question after question about life and religion…. he seemed to have all the credible answers. What really sealed my doom [as I view it now] was my interest in singing, as I had already started taking private voice lessons with the son of a famous German opera singer, and was soon auditioned as a tenor with the “Schola Cantorum” at St Olaf Catholic Church, downtown Minneapolis. I was soon accepted into the choir and shortly after that the “SC Choir” made what was their third LP phonograph record of musical Gregorian Chant. After a few months it came to Easter time and the Church was the scene of the most unbelievable and beautiful Easter Sunday ceremony I have ever seen, even to this day! [Of course, I don’t celebrate traditional Easter today] That Sunday morning we, the all male choir, were poised on a three level scaffold behind the rather large alter. We were surrounded by dozens of huge bouquets of flowers. The summer session of the Minneapolis Symphony was seated surrounding the ends of the altar. Two hundred boy choir singers, from churches around the city, in their Red and White gowns were lined up side-by-side all around the surrounding balcony. Incense filled the air as the flowers intoxicated the senses along with our singing supported by the boy’s choir and the symphony… the Bishop came down the aisle from the back, with altar boys carrying his veiled train, his tall Golden Mitre shimmering in the lights, as he shook his “aspergillum” to sprinkle holy water on the crowd when he passed by. The entire event was so breath taking as to bring me to tears, even at my then age of nineteen. From that time on I was hooked on religion [per se] in the guise of Christianity. There in lies the problem at the root of the subject of this Blog. Sacramental religion.It is no secret that man has a propensity to adore pomp and ceremony in religion. Christianity has seemingly cornered the market on this. These auspicious occasions are no grantor of even a spec of true holiness. Most victims of sacramental religion are first the victims of a fleshly experience that titilates the senses. It becomes a spiritually intoxicating modality that is mistaken for true spirituality. Yes, that was a milestone in my spiritual development, but mostly it opened my curiosity and put me on a life long pursuit of “which is the right way”.
#4 - AS A FUNDAMENTALIST
My next level [Step Four] of spiritual growth towards inner satisfaction came on a wintry night in Milwaukee as I was making training rounds with a “Strollo-Chair” [Baby Stroller] salesman, who happened to be a Baptist Minister trying to make a few extra bucks to feed his family! He was a member of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches [GARBC]. This was in 1965; I was 24 years old and had been a practicing Catholic for five years. On this night, in a real blizzard, he parked the car and asked me if he could ask me about my religion. I said sure! He said: “Could you tell me what purgatory is?” I told him what I had learned, about it being a place of temporal punishment for God’s children who needed to be purged from remaining sin, after they die! Well, don’t you know, this young man [about 30 years old] opened his Bible at: 2 Cr 2:5 “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” Also: Rom 6:7 “For he that is dead is freed from sin.” I could clearly see that these passages contradicted the purgatory myth. Then he said: “Could you tell me what the Mass is?” Again, I confidently said that it is the un-bloody sacrifice of Christ every Sunday morning. He simply moved his finger in his Bible down two verses: Rom 6:9-10 “Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.” Then he said: “Doesn’t the Mass kind of make a mockery of Christ’s death, killing him over and over again every week or so?” Wow, that hit me right in the gut! Next he gave me the old Fundamentalist whammy: “How would you like to know for sure that you are saved eternally – right now, with no purgatory?” I bit down hard on this hook, as I bowed my head with him and let him lead me in the sinners prayer: “Jesus, I accept you as my personal savior and I know that from now on I can claim eternal salvation.”
Man, that was easy! Then he had me take a piece of paper and write down the time and date and the location - we were sitting at, 70th and National Avenue. This was so that I could write it in the front of my Bible as a reminder of how and when I got saved by what I had just done. He was from Madison about 80 miles away so he directed me to the fundamentalist non-denominational church in Milwaukee called “The Church of the Open Door”….and told be to go there and tell them that I was recently "saved" and request membership and baptism, which I did the same week. Wham-bam, thank you ma’am, eternal salvation simply by my own decision. That made things a whole lot easier than that confessional thing every Saturday night so I could eat Jesus' actual flesh [transubstantiation] the next morning in the Mass service, with a clean conscience.
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GOD IN HIS MERCY SPARED ME THE PENTECOSTAL CHARISMATIC EXPERIENCERip-off artist Benny Hinn owns an $8M house and lives like a king. Click here ^ also here:Some Televangelists really pop off, in fact one is named "Popoff"^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
GOD IN HIS MERCY SPARED ME THE PENTECOSTAL CHARISMATIC EXPERIENCERip-off artist Benny Hinn owns an $8M house and lives like a king. Click here ^ also here:Some Televangelists really pop off, in fact one is named "Popoff"^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
#5 - AS AN INDEPENDENT BAPTIST
This was my experience thus far - [Lutheran, Rocket Accident, Catholicism, and Fundamentalism] in my pilgrim’s progress. Next [Step Five] I was introduced to a more orthodox form of Fundamentalism, demoninational again.... Faith Baptist Church in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Great people and great fellowship, but still salvation through some “external means” such as making a decision, or to put it simpler – man’s will…. A “do something to get saved” religion. While I was a member there, I failed miserably at being even a nominally obedient member. I also saw many people come forward, after the church sang a dozen intimidating choruses of “Just as I am” in order to get the tougher cases “saved”, only to see them slip back into their old lifestyles. Soon, I took note of the very deceptive practices of the preacher lying in order to get people saved eternally. He would say, “I want every head bowed and every eye closed.” Then he would ask, "if you died tonight, do you know for sure that you would go to heaven – show me by an uplifted hand" – but what he was really doing was looking and counting the hands that did not go up so he could then say – “One more chorus for that pitiful brother who could not raise his hand – c’mon brother – c’mon down to the front, your family wants to see you get saved”
As I began to see how humanistic the methods of Fundamentalism were, by using every sort of pressure and intimidation to get people “Saved eternally” I began to ask myself - is it God that saves or man? Just saying it is God, when you are denying it in practice, seemed to be a horrendous but subtle attack upon the truth. Soon a singing ensemble from Bob Jones University came through town, just like the old time troubadours. They were looking for inheritance money for the school [as they sang] and were accompanied by an impressive speaker who was on the faculty at BJU. His name was Professor George Dollar, history professor and later to become author of “The History of Fundamentalism in America”. Good old George was the one who convinced me that night to leave La Crosse, [I owed everybody money], and move my family to Greenville, SC to attend Bob Jones University. There were other factors that were at the root of my leaving the cold cold North, but it was there that I landed and entered BJU shortly after, as a ministerial day student [off campus] with a wife, three kids and no job. I sold Filter Queen Vacuum cleaners at night and only made it through one semester, with walking pneumonia the whole time. Now I was in, not only the "Bible Belt", but at the very buckle. While I was attending classes at BJU, I was in Mr. Newts‘ class, ‘New Testament Survey’ when a small verbal ruckus broke out between students at the end of a class. It was an argument about Calvinism as opposed to Arminianism, two terms I had never heard before. I saw so much passion in the proponents of each side, that I went to the library right away and checked out four books on the subject.
#6a - AS A CALVINIST
I was about to be introduced to [Step Six] on my journey – “Calvinism”. As I read the arguments pro and con, I came to realize that the only plausible system of theology that made sense with regard to the sovereignty of God was John Calvin’s teachings in his “Institutes of the Christian Religion” in four volumes. I read and read until I knew as much as I could absorb. I found out that Calvin was a mentor to John Knox and Zwingli who founded the Presbyterian Church in Scotland. I also found out that Dr Martin Luther, the reformer of the 16th century, was also a predestinarian, who wrote “The Bondage of the Will”. But, Luther also believed in Infant Baptism and sprinkling instead of immersion. What a conundrum. Here I was a believer in Believers Baptism as opposed to Infant Baptism and also believed in “immersion” and not “aspersion”. So what to do? Maybe start a new Calvinistic Baptist Church [a new denomination] in Greenville, SC. [1972] Perfect, I thought, so I then became part of a foursome to start a new “Reformed Baptist Church”. We needed guidance so we contacted a leader in the American Reformed Baptist movement [not a denomination] at the time, Dr. Al Martin, of Trinity Baptist Church, Essex Falls, NJ. He was well connected with Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones of England. I was an airplane pilot, so me and three others got in a Cherokee 180 [N4448T] and hit the airways for New Jersey to see Dr. Martin personally. That was the time I got in trouble for flying too low over Central Park, The Empire State Building and the new but not quite finished World Trade Towers, on the way out of town.
#6b - AS A REFORMED BAPTIST
Yup, [Step SIX AND A HALF] was as well as done. When we got home we promptly started Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in a little rented storefront on Wade Hampton Boulevard right across the street from the BJU dining common. I had always been the artistic type, so I scaled an Old English calligraphy name of the church up to a 24 foot long sign that pretty well covered the whole width of the building above the awning. There we started a reformed Baptist church with a young ministerial student from Mexico [of pure Spaniard decent] named Joel Granados, who claimed that he had already been ordained. I mean we were so Green, who’s going to check his credentials right? We later found out that he was a Presbyterian whose father was also a Presbyterian minister in Chihuahua, Mexico. I smelled a rat when it turned out that he wanted the whole church to change from our use of the King James Bible, at the recommendation of one of his mentors, a Presbyterian minister in Greenville named Dr. Cross, the founder of Mitchell Road Presbyterian Church. Well, we are getting close to my seventh and final step [theologically anyway]. One night, I told Granados that I had a problem with my understanding of the difference between Regeneration and Conversion. He told me that they were the same thing, but a close friend of his was standing next to him and nudged him, at which he changed his tune and said: “Well, regeneration and conversion are technically different but they happen at the same time.” Now I did smell a rat! It wasn’t long before I decided that I had to find new ground to stand upon.
THE REAL BEGINNING
Now comes the story of how I discovered how people really get saved eternally. As a Pilot I used to hang around the Greenville Downtown Airport a lot. While there one day, I recognized a man working on his Bonanza V-Tail. He was actually a professor at Bob Jones University and the Dean of the Business School there, that I had seen speak in Chapel Services, Dr. Stuart Crane…. Or so I thought. I found out from him that he had been defrocked [fired] by Bob Jones Jr., for speaking at the BJU mountain resort, called the “Wilds”, against Freemasonry. I asked him why would that bother them. It turnes out, Crane said, that every member of the Board of Directors, including Bob Jones, Sr. was either a 32nd or 33rd degree member of the Freemasons! Ughhh! At any rate, Dr. Crane had been a leader in the John Birch Society before coming to BJU, and he had a regular 14 hour lecture entitled “The History of Conspiracy” that he was, by now, pretty famous for, all across the country. Being an instrument pilot allowed him to fly the Beechcraft Bonanza anywhere he was invited to speak. This lecture included the now famous "Wheat Receipts" [a humorous allegory about the Federal Reserve] and also criticism of Freemasonry as one of the latter stage organizations of a continuous six thousand year old Luciferian [Satanic] conspiracy against God and His kingdom. The tapes of this lecture series are notoriously well known [is that redundant?]. At any rate, I was talking to him about election while he worked on his airplane, and he was talking to me about this conspiracy thing. We bantered back and forth until he said, ‘Hey Terry, I’ll give you one unfettered hour if you will listen to me without interruption first.” I said I would - so for one hour I got all 14 hours crammed into one hour. Wow! Could all that be true? It was coming from a fairly credible source, a PhD in Economics and Dean of the Business school, so I listened. Then I started on him with election and predestination [Calvinism], which was all I knew at that time, but was on fire for. I had memorized all 14 verses of Romans 9:10-24 and could deliver it with machine gun precision. I must have been persuasive because he then came to a small house church meeting with me, and afterwards we sat in his new Cougar until 2:00 A.M., as I tried to talk him out of starting a new Christian Political party. Upon splitting up that night, he said he was flying his plane to Minneapolis for one of his seminars at a hotel and a church later, and asked if I would like to fly his plane up there 1,200 miles, while he slept. I said sure, and we agreed upon the departure time. We did make that trip, and as I flew his plane, on a full moon lit night, atop an endless field of luminous white puffy clouds, I talked the whole 7 hours about Calvinistic doctrine. While he was doing his thing in Minneapolis, I dropped down and visited with my family in Lake City, MN 65 miles to the South. When we came home two days later, to Greenville, he got the treatment again. He was sold [excuse the expression] completely!
OPEN YOUR MIND
Here comes a near final catharsis, [Step Seven] and final belief which I have followed to this day, 29 years later. I did not see Stewart for about two months. I stopped by his home one day and he was doing some repairs, in his garage, to his car. The first thing out of his mouth was: “You know Terry, you have a lot of the truth but you are missing something. I said: “What is that?” Stuart then began to tell me of a recent meeting he had with one Conrad Jarrell of Augusta, Georgia. That Jarrell, an ordained Primitive Baptist Elder, and a state leader in Georgia for the John Birch Society - had been enlisted by the society to talk to Dr. Crane and persuade him to cease and desist in his attacks upon the society, because the founder, Robert Welch was a 32nd Degree Freemason. He explained that they had agreed to go into a locked room together with no telephones or interruption [sounds like Crane] and hammer out their opposing views. As legend has it, they went into that room at 8:00 PM and didn’t come out until 8:00 A.M. When they emerged guess what? Stuart Crane had convinced Elder Jarrell that Robert Welch, founder and leader of the John Birch Society, was actually a 32nd Degree Freemason and part of the very conspiracies the society was supposed to be fighting. Now, guess what else? Jarrell was able to take the foundation of election and predestination [Reformed Theology], that I had led Stuart to, and lead him on to see the real Gospel and it's true purpose. This was the reason that Dr. Crane could say to me, that day in his garage, that there will be people in heaven who have never even heard the name of Christ or been converted to the Gospel? Huh??? That’s right, he was making a very bold assertion to me that, yes eternal salvation is for God's elect alone, but it is always totally independent of any human means what-so-ever. THIS IS THE SUBJECT OF THIS BLOG. It did take a while to get here, but a foundation was in order. What occurred next was that Conrad Jarrell and Dr. Stewart Crane convinced several of us, in the Greenville area, that we needed to start a church that would teach the doctrinal truths which have been lost to the public over the past several decades. This would be a church that was wholly independent of any denomination and would strive to uphold the "Old School Baptist" beliefs that deny Calvinism and Arminianism [two theological polar opposites that infect 99% of all churches], and would follow only the traditional practices of the earliest churches of Jesus Christ as initiated by His apostle Paul of Tarsus. Paul would be our pattern in doctrine and practice as opposed to the plethora of Judaized or sacramental type Christian denominations and their many offshoots.
#7 - ANOTHER NEW CHURCH IS FORMED
We were introduced to a young independent ex-Primitive baptist elder name Benjamin Mott of Detroit, MI who had recently started the "Detroit Church" after leaving a church in Birmingham, AL. It is customary to name a church after it's community name, hence "Detroit" and our own newly established church would [eventually*] become the "Greenville Church" - after the New Testament pattern of doing the same. Subsequently the Greenville Church [third name] was founded by Elder Mott, who would fly down to Greenville once a month to preach and serve communion and supervise the traditional "Foot Washing" of the saints present.
* As was common in the Bible, we first started to meet in our home at 118 Oak Park Drive in Maulding, SC [1980]. We first called the church the "Golden Strip Church" after the popular tri-city name for Fountain Inn, Simpsonville and Mauldin. It was soon decided that this name was a little too risque, so the name was changed to The Mauldin Church. After a while we out grew my living room and moved to a motel conference room on Motor Mile [Laurens Rd.] right behind the old Shoney's Restaurant, [1982] or behind today's Century BMW. The name was then changed to "The Greenville Church" to reflect the new location. Pastor Ben Mott was of necessity, our founder and part time pastor, living at such a great distance. After a few months He ordained a young man, to take the pulpit, who moved from Detroit to Greenville with His family. [1983] Everything went well for a few years and then the new pastor got in trouble [unspecified here] which became public knowledge [1991] and he was necessarily removed from membership temporarily and was defrocked [laicized permanently] by the congregation and the ordaining elder, Ben Mott.
Many of us felt that the church's name had been so negatively affected, that the church split. After about seven years, this offending pastor was re-instated to the pulpit, which we could not agree to. We went out and tried for several years to find a man to help us start a new work in Greenville. Happily, this finally occurred on April 27th, 2008 with a recently ordained Elder, Herbert A. Newsome, of Snellville, Ga. [Step Eight] Newsome, a previous member of the original Greenville group in the 1980's, completed his ministerial training with Elder Conrad Jarrell [four years] in the Las Vegas church and preaching apprenticeship [five years] at Rock Springs Primitive Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga. [see the left hand panel at the top of this page]
#8 - Destination
This is a good place to advance the understanding of how people get saved eternally. I always qualify which salvation I am talking about, Eternal or Temporal. Without making this distinction there is naturally a huge problem created in the minds of God's people, when using the word "salvation". We are to seek God and love Him "with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment." [Mar 12:30]. When we discuss anything, we have to know what we are talking about in the first place. Many people make a comment about: "so-and-so just got saved at the Sunday night service.", when what they meant to say or should have said, more accurately, is that "so-and-so got converted. "Got Saved" is technically right if we are of the proper doctrinal mind set, for then we know that the person who made a profession of faith in Christ, did not actually "procure" Eternal Salvation at that time, but rather was giving evidence that a work of Grace had already taken place in his life! Life, Eternal Life, [spiritual life] must always precede the ability to act as though one was alive spiritually. [1Cr 2:14] Eternal Life can be synonymous with terms like regeneration, quickening, justification - while Temporal Salvation equates with conversion, obedience, submission, time salvation, earthly salvation, and following or discipleship. Eternal Salvation is always the work of God alone, without any human assistance or input, while conversion is a co-operative work with man's will being enabled by the inner life already imparted to the individual by the voice of Jesus in an instant known only to Himself. This is pretty easy to understand unless one has an agenda, as the disciples of Jesus had in the sixth chapter of John. They wanted nothing to do with an eternal salvation that excluded their cooperation. These were mostly Jews, who had their own idea of how salvation comes - works [circumcision and keeping the Law of Moses]
WHAT IS.... "NO-MEANS"
What is the doctrine of “No-Means” [or “anti-means”]? In the very well written article by Elder Michael L. Gowens, Lexington Primitive Baptist Church, one can see the actual history of who did and who did not hold to this doctrinal belief over the past centuries. If this subject is new to you, trust me, please, it is worth your time to hear this out. Go to > "Christ The Only Mediator". It gives an accurate picture of the difference between the first Six Steps and Steps Seven and Eight that begins to open the case for understanding how God saves HIS people from their sins! I know from my long and arduous 22 years search and my subsequent 29 year adherence to and study of this “Old Baptist” doctrine that it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that modern Christianity is absolutely against what the Bible teaches about eternal Salvation. A second article, written by this same Elder Gowens is very scholarly and goes into detail about the logical and hermeneutical basis for understanding that it is God alone, through his Son, that saves eternally! Go here > Temporal Salvation
Great Video Sermons [X]
JESUS DRAWS A LINE IN THE SAND AT - 666
I ask you now, what was the problem with what Jesus said to His disciples, in John Chapter 6 and verse 66, that turned them against following Him any more? Huh! Take a look at verses 37, 44, 63 and 65. They all say essentially the same thing. It must have been important for Jesus to have to nearly cram it down their unbelieving throats! I will tell you pure and simple if you can't figure it out yourself. THEY WANTED NO PART OF A RELIGION THAT EXCLUDED THEIR OWN WILL IN ETERNAL SALVATION! Read it! What else could it be? Remember that disciples and apostles are different things. The Apostles were 12 in number and, as eye witnesses of Christ, served at His personal choice, while disciples [which were many devotees, 120 in number immediately after His ascension on Mt. Olivet] followed Jesus of their own choice. If there were 120 left, as faithful then, how many might there have been had MANY not become deserters. How many true Christians would we have today, following Christ's and Paul's doctrines of Sovereign Grace and Election without external means of Grace - in stead of these comical jack-in-the-box entertainment addicts who go to some so-called Christian assemblies to listen to rock bands [some full orchestras] and music along with preaching that is as shallow as any deceived heart can muster?
WHAT WILL IT BE LIKE WHEN HE RETURNS?
Jesus made an interesting statement in Luke 18:8 “I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” This is a rhetorical question.... what kind of answer is possible? We know from another passage that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church [Mat 16:18]…. But it is painfully evident that Jesus did not expect His churches to be inoculated from Satan’s primary objective of substituting his own religion for true and Godly religion down through history and in the last days before His return.
This final step was, for me, God’s providential plan to bring one more of His elect children into the Glorious Light of the True Gospel! It was the result of His everlasting mercy to those who are seeking to know Him as He really is! God’s known consonant name, in the Old Testament, was/is YHWY. or “I am Who I Am” , which indicated self existence: literally “The Self Existing One”. God mentions in Ex 6:3 that His name Jehovah was not originally known to Abram. If we look into the Old Testament we see His name expressed also as 'elohiym [masculine plural] “let us make man in our image” Gen 1:26. We then see the name Joshua or Jehoshua = "Jehovah is salvation" …and we know that the name Jesus comes from this Jehoshua or the Greek Yeshua. So then, it is Jesus’ very name that means “Savior”. Salvation is in Him, not in our accepting Him. The concept that salvation was in God and not in outward observances, or a human decision, has been stated over and over again in the scriptures. I will make a statement – a defining statement of how one gets saved eternally! It is by: Jesus Christ, as the only creator, speaking with His own voice, in a singular creative act, to an individual soul, thereby quickening that person, implanting eternal life, by Himself alone! Jo 5:25 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.” ….and one chapter later: Jo 6:63 "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." If this is too hard for someone to understand…. if so, how will he understand anything in the scriptures? Jesus does not need you to accept Him as your personal savior in order to save you eternally – nor does He want your help at all! He does this work of Grace totally independent of man’s will, decisions or obedience! The reason we pass over or neglect the import of these two verses above is because we have had the scales [cataracts] of "human means" taught to us from the time we could understand language. Modern Christianity has been blinded to the reality of God's independent everlasting mercy freely given to His elect through His Son Jesus the Christ ["savior the anointed"]
MODERN CHRISTIANITY
Modern Christianity is mostly the product of centuries of Satan’s old corrupting [Judaizing] influence and efforts, every bit as much as the Judaizers who were angering the Apostle Paul enough to force him to go down to Jerusalem and tell Peter, James and John to knock it off – in other words stop sending your Judaizing converts up to the Gentiles churches in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. Then they wrote letters to be sent back with Paul and Barnabas; and others namely, Judas surnamed Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren. These letters admitted that: “certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment:” Even though Peter, James, Judas-Barsabas and John-Mark say they gave no such commandment, this meeting is taking place a full 20 years after the resurrection. It is hard for me to believe that some of these original apostles and disciples, called by Paul. "pillars in the church" - Gal.2:9.... were not still infected with the “Do something to get saved religion” that Jesus was opposing and that we see so prevalent today in nearly all of the churches of professing Christianity! No emissaries of these "pillars" could have gone out from them without them knowing what they were advocating! In Galatians Ch. 2, Paul is very disgusted and pays no homage or respect to the “somewhat's" [leaders] that were at that meeting. Read it for yourself!
This Judaizing influence is seen everywhere today from the counterfeited paraphernalia of the many different Catholic type churches, such as Temples, Altars, Sensors, Candlesticks, Robes, Scapulars, Vestments, Relics, Sacrifices, Miters, and much more. These are seen in the Coptic Churches, The Ethiopian Catholic, The Greek Orthodox Churches, The Russian Orthodox Churches, the Anglican Churches, The Episcopal Churches, The Lutheran Churches, etc.. But external [or human will] means of Grace, like the seven sacraments of Rome, are found in veiled form - even when a church claims that one must be converted to the Gospel or "accept Christ" in order to go to heaven. Stop and think! The following verses should alert you to the fact that there will be some elect people in heaven who never heard the name of Christ or the audible gospel.
GOD’S RECKONING IS SUFFICIENT
[The word "all" occurs 5621 times in 4664 verses in the KJV
- many times a whole doctrine is determined by a single word]
[The word "every" occurs 1238 times in 1060 verses in the KJV
- many times a whole doctrine is determined by a single word]
- many times a whole doctrine is determined by a single word]
[The word "every" occurs 1238 times in 1060 verses in the KJV
- many times a whole doctrine is determined by a single word]
1) 1 Co 10:1-4 Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; 2 And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 3 And did all eat the same spiritual meat; 4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
Not one of these 2 million some odd Hebrews ever saw or heard the Gospel or heard the name of Christ, but God reckoned them ALL in Christ before the foundation of the world – Eph. 1:4. How many all’s does it take in this passage to get your attention? You can type and shadow all you want, but the observance of Passover never saved anyone eternally. The blood shed and the spotless lamb eaten on the 14th of Nissan was an observance of faith by God's elect who were already saved eternally.... this passage says they were ALL baptized and that they ALL drank of Christ [were in Christ].
2) Rev 5:9 And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;
[What does “every” mean in this verse?]
3) Rev 7: 9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;
[Here is another “all”. These people were from how many nations? How many kindreds [families]? How many peoples? How many tongues [languages]?] Did you know that modern archeology says that there are hundreds of nations that have gone extinct – along with their languages, thousands of years before Christ was born? Have you ever taken the time to ask yourself, “How did these people get into heaven?” Here it is again…..
4) Rev 14:6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
ANCIENT SUMERIAN SCRIPT
Here is a link showing that the oldest known language and writing is the ancient Sumerian Script which dates from 3,300 B.C. [5,300 years ago] and CEASED to be used at least 100 years before Christ [B.C.] The following link, marked with an X, shows the whole family of various languages that dominated the planet in the Semitic areas from Eastern Europe to Asia long before Christ, many of which ceased to be used hundreds of years before Christ. Click > [X]. Why is this important to our understanding of the verses shown in the book of Revelation above? Simply because of the words used - "EVERY". "every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people," There were obviously people seen, by the writer, from times when they could not possibly have known the Old or New Testament Gospels - or even a single iota, of type or shadow, about salvation by faith in Christ. Some of these "tongues" were extinct before the Old Testament was written. So much for the "types and shadows" of the Old Testament being the cause of eternal salvation of then, after or now!. The angel, preaching "the everlasting gospel", in Rev. 14:6, is the only occurrence that would give us an answer as to how these people got into heaven. The receiving of this "everlasting gospel" had to be an internal, involuntary and spiritual assent to the truth that would evidence itself in people like the Roman centurion soldier named Cornelius, in Acts chapter ten, whose prayers and alms came up before God as a memorial. In fact, on this occasion Peter makes the astounding statement in verses 34-35 "......Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.
NOAH'S ARK
Again, have you never heard of Noah’s Ark and the fact that “ALL” nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples drowned. Every person on the planet, except the eight that were in the ark, died within 377 days? How long was that before the Gospel was canonized in 325 A.D.? Or, how about this…. How did God save Adam and Eve? Did He just kill an animal, thereby shedding blood, and make skins for them to wear…. [and just leave them on a rock and say: “Here, put these on when you feel led by my Spirit?” Gen 3:21] thereby providing a free gift of salvation, that had to be acknowledged and received or accepted – NO, GOD DID NOT LEAVE IT TO FALLEN ADAM AND EVE, WITH THEIR CORRUPTED MINDS AND CORRUPTED WILLS TO CHOOSE TO PUT THOSE COATS ON - "HE CHOSE" [NOT THEM] TO CLOTHE THEM HIMSELF WITH NO ASSISTANCE FROM THEM AT ALL…. AND THEY WERE SAVED ETERNALLY AS A RESULT, LONG BEFORE THERE WAS AN EARTHLY MESSIAH. There is a great defense of this position written by Samuel Richardson in the year 1647 A.D. entitled “Justification by Christ Alone”. If you go here to this link and read the entire sermon, the LORD may open your eyes to see this sadly neglected truth. Richardson was a signer of the Baptist confessions of 1644 and 1646 [London Confessions]. He was an absolute supporter of the doctrine of "No-Means", meaning that there are no sacraments or external means of Grace that can contribute at all to one's eternal salvation.... not even the Baptist mourner's bench. Not even accepting Jesus as your personal Savior! John the baptist got it while he was still in his mother's womb! [Luk 1:15]
HOW SAVED?
Above we saw my seven steps to understanding how to see the truth through the fog that Satan has blown up around Christianity throughout the centuries. Now I will give you something that is not original with me, but has been a valuable tool in understanding "how God saves His people". Salvation - remember we have to define which salvation we are talking about, Eternal or Temporal - Regeneration or Conversion, can be described in a way that makes it much easier to know God and His mercy, through what we call "The Five Phases of Salvation". Later, further down this page, I will outline these for the reader below.
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN "CAUSE" AND "EFFECT"
He have all heard these two terms which have a natural correlation. "Cause" is what makes something happen or is the initiator, while "effect" is the result of that something happening. If we as Christians apply these two terms to the Christian Doctrine of "soteriology" [The study of Eternal Salvation] we are confronted with two possibilities. One is that man's profession of faith in Christ [his conversion to the truth] is the result of something, and the other is that man's profession of faith in Christ is the cause of something itself. 1.) The quickening unto spiritual life is the result of an act of Christ, speaking creatively to an individual soul, thereby giving man the ability to answer the Gospel's call, 2.) The life that is created, through this act of Christ, in a dead alien sinner, results in an outward change, in that person, that is noticeably observable to self and associates within proximity. This change takes the form of an instinctive desire to live differently concerning the moral laws of God, whether one has heard the gospel of not [Acs 10-34-45] This is emphatically stated in the book of Romans. Rom. 8:5-10 "For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." Please notice that "not in the flesh......if so be that the spirit of God dwell IN YOU" - is totally passive. One must have the Spirit of God dwelling in him in order to be declared "not in the flesh". Also notice in verse fourteen of this same chapter: " For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. In II John verse 9, we can see the definitive answer as to who is a son of God. It will give us the obvious distinction between "cause" and "effect" in this process and it's result. II Jo. v.9 "Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. Abiding in the doctrines of Christ does not cause one to have the Father and Son, rather believing, following and obeying sound doctrine is evidence of this fact! This is exactly where we are left every time we are looking for empiracle evidence of someone's status as a child of God. The closest that we can come to knowing if someone else is in possession of the Spirit of Christ is their "doctrine of Christ". Listen to the apostle Paul in Galatians chapter one: Gal 1:6-9 "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." A drastic statement you say? This statement implies that there are false teachers, and false doctrines. Bad doctrine is a body of spiritual teaching that is infected with glaring errors and also seemingly small and inconsequential errors. It is these small, less detectable errors, that is the leaven that sours the whole. Throughout the New Testament, God uses leaven as a symbol of sin. Jesus warns, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy" (Luke 12:1). In discussing the danger of sin spreading, Paul uses the phrase "a little leaven leavens the whole lump" on two separate occasions (I Corinthians 5:6; Galatians 5:9). Today we see a lack of desire for perfection in doctrinal teaching and practice. The "Purpose Driven Theology" of Rick Warren, is described by him as an "effective strategy and the necessary tools" to bring balance to the church. His ultimate definition of the results of this balance are numbers. With Warren's followers, Doctrinal accuracy is optional to the principle of numbers for numbers sake! When Jesus gave the "Great Commission" He said to: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." Jesus was not referring to "every" creature, as in Squirrels or Elephants, which are both creatures [living created things] but rather he used the word κτίσις, [ktē'-sēs] according to 'Strong's' lexicon, is "after a rabbinical usage (by which a man converted from idolatry to Judaism)". It is the very same term used in: 2Cr 5:17 "Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." When Jesus gave the great commission, He knew he was sending is followers out to reach His unknown regenerate elect, who could be any where and any time. He was not telling them to use Rick Warren's ....methods to scoop any and all onto the rolls of heaven, especially not with Warren's 5th avenue marketing tools that are being used by 12,000 churches in the US and nineteen foreign countries to supply 1.5 million pastors and "lay-pastors" the "tools" needed to now reach 117 countries. We must decide once and for all, if Jesus knew what He was talking about when he said: Mat 7:14 "Because strait [is] the gate, and narrow [is] the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." In closing this section, God is the only Cause of our eternal salvation, and the effect will be a changed life that is seen if following sound doctrine! If you hear some preacher, with questionable credentials and even worse, questionable teachings [doctrine], run. Exercise you option to use the remote and switch to something less dangerous to your soul's well being!
IS DOCTRINE IMPORTANT?
Note that there is good doctrine and there is bad doctrine! The word "doctrine" is mentioned in the Bible 51 times. Doctrine is not just knowledge.... good doctrine, from God, Christ and the apostle Paul is a patterned set of teachings that are un-alterable. They are based upon eternal truth that never changes. The word "doctrine" comes from the same root word as "dogma" or "dogmatic". Have you ever know someone who was dogmatic? He was a person who thought he was right on every point and was un-moveable on his position. Hello, Jesus Christ - who said His doctrine was from the Father: Luk 4:32 "And they were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power." Jhn 7:16 Jesus answered them, and said: "My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me." Hello, Paul - Tts 2:1 "But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine:" There are many Christian denominations and groups that speak against doctrine. They say that doctrine is divisive. It cramps the style. "It limits what we can do, as Christians, and it limits what we cannot do!" STOP! THINK! Jesus said: Mat 10:34-36 “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. and a man's foes [shall be] they of his own household.” What do you think he was referring to if it was not His very divisive doctrines - doctrines that would forever divide people over what He wanted us to believe and practice. His doctrines are very much in question today by some 3000 various so-called Christian denominations around the world. Are the Catholics right? Are the Lutherans right? Are the Methodists right? Are the Presbyterians right? Are the Baptists right? They can't all be right, because most of their beliefs are emphatically opposed to all the others! So which one is right? Who is right? You know.... it's me! That's right, I am like Paul in two ways. First I follow HIS doctrine to a "T".... and second I am dogmatic like he was! If you recoil at the principle of "doctrine" you are probably believing and practicing the wrong religion.... it is not Christianity. You can call it Christianity - anybody can call any thing what ever he wants, but it doesn't make it so. The problem with doctrine is that is it an iconoclastic system of belief cast in immutable bronze, defined by canonical scriptures that can never be changed. It is a monument of belief that must be preserved by the writings and words of men who have credentials in perpetutious ordination. Men who do not invent things like the Catholic's celebration of the Mass, or Luther's consubstantiation, or John Knox's covenant pedo-baptism, or John Calvin's perseverance, or Campbell's baptismal regeneration, or Brigham Young's Masonic Mormonism, or Charles Stanley's decisional regeneration. I could go on for hours but the true Gospel is based upon "sound doctrine" and the undistinguished "old line baptists" have passed the mantle down to the present. Their churches are scant, small and remote. Why? Because their gospel is devisive and rubs the cat's fur the wrong way. It chafes. it does not soothe in a culture that demands ear candy when attending to worship and preaching. There is a reason why Jesus said: Luk 18:8 "I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?"
Before departing this column, I would like to leave the reader with an excellent reference booklet on "How one gets Saved", in .pdf format, that is directly readable by just clicking here: > [X] It is by one, Tom Hagler, Jr., Augusta, GA, a mighty writer on the subject of salvation. An introduction to Tom and His website is here:> http://www.basicbibledoctrines.com/about.html
BECAUSE OF THE STRUCTURAL SYNTAX ["Add a Page Element"] OF THIS BLOG FORM.... I WILL, OF NECESSITY, REFER THE READER, HERE IN THE MAIN BODY, TO A SUBJECT AND THEN SHOW IT BELOW IN ANOTHER SECTION. "THE FIVE PHASES OF SALVATION", HYMNS, ELDER GOWENS' ARTICLES, HISTORICAL CHART, BE PATIENT, IT IS WORTH IT! CONTINUE BELOW!
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*[The writer of the above material is T.K. Krueger, P.O. Box 100, Fountain Inn, SC 29644]
Contact: krueger1010@bellsouth.net
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