knowledgeofgoodandevil

Biblical truth for a modern world

Sympathy for the Devil

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The devil made me do it.” Ever hear that line? We don’t like to take responsibility for our actions, so what better excuse than to say, “the devil made me do it.” I didn’t do it. We put our hands up in the air as if to surrender…I didn’t do it, the devil made me do it. Calvinism takes all the responsibility for EVERYONE’S actions and puts it all on God. Instead of saying, “The devil made me do it,” a Calvinist says, “God made me do it.” That is truly what John Calvin wrote. We only have God to blame for ALL of this mess according to John Calvin.

Yikes! What a concept! To say God controls everything and chooses who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. To say God chose Adam and Eve to sin in the garden of Eden. Their fall was part of God’s plan. God chose Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. God chose David to sin with Bathsheba and then kill her husband. All of it – God’s plan. Nobody has a say in these matters. We’re merely puppets on God’s great stage. Whoa! And the greatest error of Calvin – God made the devil rebel against God and then get himself kicked out of heaven. When you look at it that way, you would have to sympathize with the devil. He has no responsibility in the matter. Wow! Wow! Wow! Calvinism is sympathy for the devil. Who’s the bully now in the scenario? Well God is. He decided the devil was going to be the devil.

Many of you are saying, “WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” I’m talking about what you just read, Calvinism is sympathy for the Devil. Calvinism DOESN’T  say, “the Devil made me do it!” Calvinism says God made me do it. None of us has a choice or say in anything in our lives, again, according to Calvinism. God, like the big bully Calvin says he is, has predetermined all our lives and what they will be. So the Devil is thrown into the lot with the rest of us hapless victims of the playbook of Calvin’s God. The Devil get’s a hall pass. He’s free to be the enemy that He is, because he never chose this for himself, God chose it for him. He is to be pitied just like the rest of us poor saps. We are at the mercy of Calvin’s bully God.

You might be saying, “I can’t believe people believe this.” Well believe it. This IS what Calvin says. This IS the belief of CALVINISM. CALVINISM IS SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL. Most Calvinists have never read John Calvin’s writings. Most often they hear it from a pastor’s lips. AND a Calvinist pastor/teacher is NOT going to tell you all this. People would run, screaming from the building. Pure Calvinism is so bad, a pastor/teacher really won’t go deep into the teaching. Like I said, otherwise people would run screaming from the building. You get bits and pieces from a Calvinist preacher/teacher.

Like these gems:

* God is sovereign

* Man is too depraved to come to God

* God chose you (they won’t finish the sentence and say God chose who is going to heaven and who is going to hell)

* Because of God’s good pleasure

These are Calvinist phrases. According to a Calvinist, these phrases are ripe with meaning. Think like a good Calvinist. On the surface these phrases seem to not be too bad, but they come from Calvinism and John Calvin’s twisted teaching. There are more phrases, but these are the common ones you hear thrown around by Calvinists.

Do you see why Calvinism is a cancer of the church? Calvinism is a CHARACTER ASSASSINATION of God. The true God, the God that I know IS NOT LIKE THIS. My God is not the bully God John Calvin describes. Just spend time in the Bible and you will get a completely different picture of the One True God. The One who loves us so much, He gave His Son, that WHOEVER believes on Him will be saved. My friend who hates Calvinism says when he reads Calvin’s writings, often he can’t tell if Calvin is talking about God or talking about the devil. My friend also read someone else who said the same thing. You can’t tell the difference between God and the devil? What does that tell you? They should never be so alike you can’t tell the difference. Do you see why Calvinism is sympathy for the devil? Wouldn’t that be exactly what the devil wants us to believe? Wouldn’t he want us to sympathize with him? Pity him? And when we don’t suspect him, the enemy will go in for the kill.

When my sister was little, we were playing at a friend’s house. The friend’s had this great big German shepherd dog chained up in the yard. Every time we walked by the dog, he would start barking like a maniac and pull on his chain like he wanted to bite us. We would go way around the dog so he couldn’t get to us. Well my sister got lulled into thinking the dog was okay. She went outside for some reason and spotted the dog not pulling on his chain and barking. So she went over to him to pet him. Bad move. Right when she went to pet him, the dog leaped up and bit her in the lip. She came into the house crying with blood pouring down her shirt. She ended up with seven stitches on her lip. Calvinism makes you think the devil isn’t so bad. It makes you think God is. Wouldn’t the enemy want you to think that way?

Copycat Christianity

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sea picIn some of the activities I do, I have the opportunity to hear women’s testimonies. Lot’s of women’s testimonies. It never fails, as I’m listening to someone’s testimony, one person will give a dramatic story that happened in their life. Something so dramatic, that it changed their life. They usually don’t mention Jesus, or He’s a small detail in their story. But the story is always about them and this very dramatic event. It’s about how they came through this event and now they are happy and that much stronger because of it. What they fail to mention is how they came in contact with Jesus Christ. That’s what a Christian testimony is supposed to be about. But many of these stories don’t have that. We all have dramatic stories to tell. But when a person gives their testimony, they should be telling us all about that point when they came in contact with Jesus Christ as their Savior. That moment in time when a transaction occurred. That moment, that day, that time when they let go of their own life and accepted Christ.

One day I was listening to some women’s testimonies. After several women had shared when they accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, one woman started questioning herself. She wanted to know why she didn’t have the testimony everybody else seemed to have. She wondered why she didn’t seem to have the power of God in her life like the other women had. Another woman turned to her and told her to never let ANYONE question her testimony! She told her to not let anyone tell her she wasn’t a Christian. That wasn’t right, this woman said. She kept saying it over and over again to all the ladies, to not let anyone ever tell you you aren’t a Christian or to question your Christianity. What?!?

What does the Bible say about this? Does the Bible tell us to protect our stories and our title of Christian? Are we to go around defending ourselves to everyone who comes along and asks us when we became a Christian?

2 Corinthians 13:5 “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you-unless indeed you fail the test?”

What is this verse saying? It tells us to test ourselves. It tells us to examine ourselves. Are we in the faith? And how do you become “in the faith?” Going back to what I talked about before, we need to see if there was a point in time, when we accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior. Is there? Was there? Question yourself. Let someone question your Christianity. It is that important. Examine yourself. Do you know Jesus Christ as Savior? We all have stories to tell. Does YOUR testimony have the point in time when YOU accepted Jesus Christ as Savior? Make sure you do and tell others about it. If you don’t have a testimony, you can get one. You can do it right now, right at this moment. And then your testimony will be sure. You will be sure.

I think what happens to women nowadays is that they get caught up in the Christian culture. They have family or friends who are truly Christian, so they start copying those people. They may start going to church. They may start going to a Bible study. They may start home schooling their kids. As they go along in these activities, they began to learn the lingo. The “Christianese,” as I call it. So these people sound like Christians. They look like Christians on the outside. But truly they are NOT Christians. The longer they go, and the deeper they get, they began to believe they ARE Christians. They lack the power of God in their lives. They are mere copycats. Every once in awhile, the true Christian tangles up with the copycats. The true Christian wonders what’s up with this? How come I can’t get along with this “sister in Christ?” How come there seems to be something missing? That’s because THERE IS! They are missing JESUS CHRIST!!!

So dear reader, question yourself. See if you really are in the faith. Question yourself. Look back in your life and try to remember that point in time when you accepted Jesus Christ as YOUR Savior. Let someone question your Christianity. They are doing you a HUGE favor. We should insure ourselves that we truly are in the faith. Has that transaction occurred? Do have have a time and place? If not, do it now. You don’t have to live without the power of God in your life and the HOLY SPIRIT living in you. Time is running out. Do it now. Accept Jesus Christ as your Savior.

If you find these words speaking to you don’t be a copycat. Become the real thing. Don’t deprive yourself of the POWER of God in your life. You don’t have to pretend anymore. Jesus told us He came to give us life and life more abundantly. Come get and experience that life. The copy is never as good as the read thing.

A Sad Story

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1mountain photo

I just returned from a conference this last weekend. It wasn’t a Christian conference, it was a blogging conference. What I didn’t know, until after I attended the conference, was that it was a heavily Mormon conference. My first clue should have been the fact that it was held in Salt Lake City. But it wasn’t advertised as such. My second clue should have been the group that was sponsoring the conference were Mormon. I came to find out that all the workshops I went to were run by Mormons as well. My third clue came in the keynote speaker at the very beginning of the conference.

The keynote speaker had a very sad story to tell. He started blogging to document the journey with his son who was diagnosed with a horrible genetic disorder that would lead to an early death. This father talked about the illness some and documented the whole journey with thousands of pictures. Pictures of his son at the hospital, pictures of his son with doctors, pictures of this son with the family. As the speaker spoke about his son, my mind kept trying to catch ways this man and his family coped with this difficulty. The man said nothing. He showed us more pictures of his son. He showed us great video montages of his son battling the disease. He made one mention of the power of family. He didn’t mention God. He didn’t mention God and the hope God provides. He didn’t mention prayer.

As the son was dying, the family took the boy home, which they heavily documented with more pictures. By the end of the keynote speaker’s story, I don’t think there was a dry eye in the room. People jumped up to give him a standing ovation. I wasn’t effected by this story. All the speaker gave us was a sad, sad story of his son dying. No credit was given to God. He never mentioned God. There was no hope in the story. It was hopeless. People jumped up and applauded this speaker because the story was so sad. But he left the audience with NOTHING. He left the audience with no hope, nothing to look to, except the power of family.

I thought of my friend who is a very recent young widow. It hasn’t been a year since her husband passed away, leaving her with three kids, whom she home schooled. She is a Christian. I won’t tell you her life is all roses and sunshine. She struggles day by day with the loss of her husband and what her future holds for her. There is something that confuses her as she walks through this valley. People keep telling her she seems happy, so content. She questions herself and ask, “I do?” She confides in me that many times she is not happy. Many times she is angry.

We talk often about how she is doing. I’ve told her I’m here for her and I will walk along side her as she makes this journey through the valley of the shadow of death. When I listened to this sad sad story of a father losing his son, I thought of my friend. I compared the two in my head. This speaker gave us a sad story. And that was it, nothing more. It was just something to cry about. My friend has the Holy Spirit in her. There is hope. She exudes hopefulness. People keep telling her she seems so happy and content because they see the hope within her. She talks about God all the time. She talks about praying to Him, crying out to Him. Hers is not just a sad story, hers is a testimony of the hope all us Christians have within us. When we face trials and tribulations, we can turn to God. God has told us to.

“Cast your cares upon Me for I care for you.” We aren’t asked to journey alone. He tells us to allow Him to carry us. And then give a reason for the hope that is in us when people ask.

I went away from the keynote session sad. I was sad for this family who doesn’t know the truth. They believe in the power of family (whatever that means). Yet they have no hope. God is our hope, and they don’t know God. They don’t know the true God.

My friend knows the true God. The Holy Spirit lives in her because she has accepted Jesus Christ as her Savior. She can tell you the date and time she accepted Him. She knows the truth. She’s not offering a sad story for people to be sad with her. She hasn’t curled up in a corner hoping the world will just go away. She is coping with the death of her husband by continuing to love God. She knows God loves her. She has hope. She has much hope.