Thank you, Padremike,
for your eloquent reminder of the truth written by Jude, the half brother of Jesus, in his admonition to the body of Christ in Jude 3,
"Defend the faith which was handed down once-for-all to the saints."

All believers in Christ need to echo Paul's declaration in 2nd Timothy 4:2: "I must proclaim the word of God..."

Thank you for posting this objective and factual information from Victor Davis Hanson, who is famous for his historical military reporting.

Hysterical demonic lies about Israel have abounded since the day God chose them as His special people.


As God promised Abraham almost 4,000 years ago, He will bless those individuals and nations who bless him and his progeny, born through Sarah, and curse those who curse him.

Thank you, Parky.

What you have reiterated, based on God's Word, is the Gospel of Jesus Christ:

Innately, there are, in His eyes, no "good people," only those who 1) by faith in Christ, give God the glory for the "good deeds" they are empowered to do by the indwelling Holy Spirit,
and 2) the unredeemed, who through self pride and lack of faith, believe they can ascend into heaven through their own good deeds under their own power, - like a dog walking on its hind legs in imitation of its master.

"All have turned away; all alike have become useless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.
Their throat is an open grave; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips."(Roman's 3:12-13)

In John 3:3, Jesus told Nicodemus that no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.

"Jesus replied, 'I assure you: Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'
"If I have told you about things that happen on earth and you don't believe, how will you believe if I tell you about things of heaven?"

"As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;
That whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
"For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
"For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

"Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been
condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God."
(John 3:3,12,14-18)

Thank you, Rose.

David Charles Haddon Hunt (Dave Hunt) (September 30, 1926 - April 5, 2013), the author of the message, "Is God's Punishment Eternal,?" was an internationally known Christian author and lecturer who left this earth and went home at the age of 87.

He authored over 30 books, of which at least 4 million copies have been sold and have been translated into more than 50 languages.

"The Seduction of Christianity," one of his best selling books, was published in 1985 to reveal the deception that was invading the modern Christian church. He wrote to draw Christians back to the fundamental, biblical teachings of their religion, found only in Scripture.

"To avoid the seduction that is at the heart of apostasy, we must be able to distinguish the voice of Christ through His word from the confusing mixture of truth and error that is spoken in His name," Hunt wrote in his book.

He added, "Those who would escape the growing seduction must get back to the Bible and know what they believe and why, rather than succumbing to the temptation of accepting facile answers provided by 'experts.'"

Dave Hunt founded the online outreach publication "The Berean Call" in 1992 to "encourage spiritual discernment among those who are "biblical Christians."

Christians throughout their 2,000 years of history have believed that because the original writings of the Bible in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, have been faithfully preserved, and the translation faithfully rendered, we hold in our hands the very word of God, exactly what the Creator and Ruler of the universe wants us to know. It is a breathtaking affirmation, and an infinitely important reality.

The Bible puts us in touch with God’s thoughts, - about everything that the Bible addresses, of which God has spoken. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of having the word of God in understandable human language.

The reason we believe that there is such a thing as truth is that we believe God exists and has thoughts about everything, and those thoughts are the truth about everything. God understands everything perfectly, and fully, and His understanding is the truth about everything. And when He speaks, that truth is made available to us. And He has spoken — in His written word, the Bible, and, finally, in His incarnate Word, the Living Logos, our Lord Jesus, whom we can only know because of His written word.

God has created us in His image - with minds that can analyze meaning, understand language and so, be understood through language. He created a material and spiritual universe as the theater of His own self-revelation. And in that theater, He reveals himself through nature and history and Scripture, thus, Scripture is unique — and infinitely of greater spiritual value than anything except the unique Triune Godhood (three in one) Himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Scripture is unique, because Scripture is God’s own explanation of the ultimate meaning of nature and history. Nature and history are the voice of God’s glory, - the display of his manifold perfection, and Scripture is God’s infallible and authoritative explanation to mankind, as it chronologically, historically unfolds His eternal plan of redemption.

It is impossible to exaggerate the infinite importance of the gift of God's word received in understandable human language. The Bible has often been subjected to distortion, but never has its importance.

Your humble little third monk is speaking forth wisdom accumulated from the Word of God through the ages, Padre.


These ten paragraphs encompass a profound wisdom which I still struggle to absorb and retain after eighty years...

The Biblical admonition to ask God to rebuke Satan on our behalf is the quickest, IMHO, for who does not realize that engaging that foul serpent under our own power will result in being ground into the pavement as by a steam roller.

Whereas the sorrowful "only ifs" and the "why did I not...?" soulful recriminations are very difficult to let discontinue, - even after having thrown all our cares upon His shoulders, as He requests we do.

Human self pride is the hardest vice to forego.

Is Punishment Eternal?


There is a growing movement among professing Christians toward universalism: the belief that everyone will finally be saved. One can empathize with those who hold this opinion. Eternity is forever. No matter how just the penalty, endless punishment seems cruelly excessive. The very thought of the Lake of Fire being the eternal abode of any creature, no matter how evil, is humanly repugnant.


Could God who "is love" (1 John 4:8) really sentence anyone to eternal punishment? Would He not find a way, somehow, for all eventually to be saved? The Bible must be our guide. But does the Bible in fact teach that those who leave this life without Christ are lost forever?


Jesus warned of hell repeatedly, referring to it fourteen times. Peter refers to it three times, James once, and the four times it is mentioned in Revelation make up the balance of the twenty-two times the word "hell" occurs in the New Testament. Jesus referred to hell as a place of torment in a "fire that never shall be quenched" (Mark 9:43-48). That sounds like eternal punishment—but for whom?


With one exception, there are two Greek words translated as hell in the New Testament: hades and geenna (gehenna). The word hades is rendered "hell" eleven times and is the counterpart of the Hebrew sheol, the only word for hell in the entire Old Testament. Sheol was where the souls and spirits of the dead went upon the death of the body. Since the same word is used for the abode of all the dead, sheol/hades must have accommodated both the lost and the saved. That this was indeed the case, and that their condition and experience were drastically different, is clear from biblical usage of these words in both Old and New Testaments.


For example, David's prophetic declaration, "thou wilt not leave my soul in sheol" (Psalms 16:10), was quoted by Peter as referring to the Messiah: "thou wilt not leave my soul in hades" (Acts 2:27-31). Thus, sheol and hades were the same place and must have been occupied by the redeemed since the Messiah was there while His body lay in the grave. That the lost were also there, but in a separate area, is clear from Christ's statement that when the rich man died, "in hades he lift up his eyes, being in torment...." That in his torment he could see Lazarus and Abraham in comfort (Luke 16:19-31) further indicates that the redeemed were also in hades yet distinct from the damned. That part of hades, which Christ referred to as "Abraham's bosom," must have been the "paradise" in which Jesus promised to meet the believing thief on the cross that very day (Luke 23:43).


At His resurrection, Christ emptied "paradise" and took those waiting there to His Father's house of "many mansions" (John 14:2). He is presently in heaven at the Father's right hand (Acts 7:55-56; Hebrews 1:3; 8:1, etc.). The souls and spirits of believers who die today are taken immediately into Christ's presence in heaven rather than to the former "paradise." Paul referred to the state of death as being "absent from the body...present with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8); he spoke of his own desire to leave this body of flesh and to "be with Christ" (Philippians 1:22-24). Moreover, he declared that at the Rapture, when Christ descends from heaven, He brings the souls and spirits of the dead saints "with him" (1 Thessalonians 4:14). They must therefore have been with Him in heaven awaiting the day when they would be reunited with their resurrected bodies raised incorruptible from the grave.


It is thus clear what Christ meant when He said, "the gates of hades shall not prevail against it [the church]" (Matthew 16:18). This statement is often misunderstood to mean that the gates of hades are somehow on the move, attacking the church—which hardly makes sense for gates. However, it does make sense if the redeemed were within those gates when Christ made that statement. The "gates of hades" could not keep Christ from emptying "paradise" and bringing the church to heaven after purchasing her with His own blood (Acts 20:28).

The other word rendered "hell" in the New Testament is geenna. That this refers only to that side of hades where the damned were confined, and still are, is also clear. Jesus referred to "geenna fire" (Matthew 5:22) and warned that it would be better to remove a hindering eye or hand and to "enter into" heaven than to have all one's body parts "to be cast into geenna, into the fire that never shall be quenched" (Matthew 18:8-9; Mark 9:43-47, etc.). Clearly, only the damned are ever in geenna, which must therefore be that part of hades where the lost are confined.


"Death and geenna" will be "cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the second death" (Revelation 20:14). There the "devil...the beast and the false prophet...shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever" (Revelation 20:10). There, also, "those who worship the beast and his image" during the reign of Antichrist "shall be tormented with fire and brimstone...And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever" (Revelation 14:9-11). Thus the final fate of the lost who have been geenna's inhabitants awaiting their "resurrection unto damnation" (John 5:29) is "the second death"—i.e., eternal separation from God and from true life.


Hades was emptied of the redeemed when Christ, the forerunner (prodromos, like the lead runner in the Olympics—Hebrews 6:20), ascended into heaven and "led captivity [i.e., captives] captive" (Psalms 68:18; Ephesians 4:8). As the saved are taken to heaven to "ever be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:17), so the lost will be taken to the Lake of Fire to be separated from God forever.


Surely the Lake of Fire must be what Christ referred to as "everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41)—i.e., it was not intended for humans. It is thus the greatest of tragedies that any humans go there. However, those who become the followers of Satan are forever with him in the Lake of Fire just as the followers of Christ are forever with Him in heaven. Inasmuch as these same words are used, if "eternal" only means "temporary" for the damned, then it would have to mean the same for the redeemed. Thus, if there were an escape from the Lake of Fire, heaven would not be permanent either.


Having established that just as the Bible teaches eternal bliss for the redeemed, so it also teaches eternal punishment for the damned, let us consider the question with which we began: Why must this be so, and how could a God who "is love" (1 John 4:8) ever allow it to happen?


The "why," of course, is explained in part because, although the body of man is temporal and subject to deterioration and destruction, the soul and spirit of man exist forever. Of man's creation we read that God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7). The Hebrew for "soul" throughout the entire Old Testament is nephesh, and for "spirit" is rooakh (ruach). In the Greek of the New Testament "soul" is translated from psuche and "spirit" from pneuma. These words have a variety of possible related meanings, but the biblical meaning is clear from the way they are used.


Man is body, soul and spirit, not just body and soul/spirit: "I pray God that your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:23); "piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit" (Hebrews 4:12). Lacking space to distinguish between the soul and the spirit, we must be content with understanding that these together constitute the thinking person as distinct from the inhabited body.


The old materialism with its view that nothing exists but matter is no longer tenable even for secular science. Thoughts and intelligence are demonstrably not physical. The body has only been the means whereby the thinking, nonmaterial person living within has been able to function in the physical universe. When the body dies there is no reason either in logic, science or the Bible to suggest that the soul and spirit cease to exist. The fact that, as a thinking and experiencing being composed of soul and spirit, man is nonmaterial requires an eternal destiny from which there is no escape.


That we are eternally accountable to the God who created us and as sinners are separated from God in His perfect holiness is rational, biblical and clear to every person's conscience. Separation from the only source of life brings both physical and spiritual death. Man's only hope is God's love and grace; there is nothing he could himself do to heal this breach between himself and his Creator.


The question then becomes why God, who revealed Himself to Moses (on the very mount where He gave the Law) as "...merciful and gracious...forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin" (Exodus 34:6-7), doesn't just forgive the whole human race and give everyone a fresh start? That question is especially puzzling in view of the numerous statements in Scripture that God sent His Son "that the world through him might be saved" (John 3:17), that He desires "all men to be saved" (1 Timothy 2:4) and is "not willing that any should perish..." (2 Peter 3:9).


If God is so loving why doesn't He universally forgive everyone? Love is only part of God's character. He is also infinitely and perfectly just. How can God forgive someone who admits no guilt? How can He forgive those who insist that there is nothing for which He needs to forgive them? And would it not be the utmost folly to do so? If in His mercy and grace God simply passed over human rebellion, would that not be condoning evil and even encouraging it? Would that not in itself undermine God's control of His universe?


God's laws are essential to governing the physical universe. The moral beings who have the power to act destructively must also be governed by laws, or chaos would reign. If He would go back on His moral laws, who could have any confidence in anything else that God has said or would say?


Christ asked His disciples to pray, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). Surely that fact indicates that all is not as God desires it to be on this earth. Men are in rebellion against Him. Forgiveness can only be in accord with God's justice.


In fact, God has provided and offers pardon and new life to everyone—but it can only be on a righteous basis. God's love cannot nullify His justice, as we have often reminded our readers and as everyone knows in his conscience. God's justice demands a penalty for sin. Only through Christ's payment of the full penalty on the cross has forgiveness been made possible. Pointing forward to this fact, John the Baptist declared of Christ to his own followers: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). Yes, "he is the propitiation [atoning sacrifice]...for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2). The problem is that multitudes are not willing to accept God's pardon on a just basis but want Him to forgive them unjustly.


Moral laws are even more important and impervious to compromise than physical laws. Every miracle such as the Red Sea opening, Christ walking on water or turning water into wine, the sun standing still for Joshua, etc. flies in the face of the laws of physics and chemistry. However, to override the laws that govern physical events does not affect God's moral character. But God himself cannot override His moral laws because it would be contrary to His very character and Being.

Jesus says, "The Word that I have spoken… shall judge him in that day" (John 12:48). God has spoken and cannot go back on His Word. The problem with rebellious man is that he is not willing to let God be God but insists that the Creator should abdicate control of His creation, renounce His moral character and laws and allow man to take over the universe and govern it his way.


But surely love accepts man as he is, does it not? That is the false and destructive humanistic idea of "love" promoted by the secular world. Those who insist that love should "accept" them as they are know nothing either of love or of common sense. A mother's love causes her to care for her child from the moment it is born. It makes no more sense to imagine that a mother's love would be content with a child's remaining in ignorance because it didn't want to learn, or with the child's love for nothing but junk food as it grows up, than that her love would "accept" her child's desire to destroy itself with drugs, prostitution or criminality.


Yet God is expected to "accept" rebellious man just as he is? "Love" that leaves the loved one in a condition of less than the best is not true love. On the contrary, real love desires the best and corrects those who are destroying themselves. Even of those whom He has redeemed and who have believed on Him, Jesus says, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten" (Revelation 3:19).


The words "acceptance" and "tolerance" are abused and have become the mantra of those who want to be left alone to destroy themselves. Such is the desire of multitudes; they want God to leave them alone so they can do their own thing. In the end, that is exactly what God reluctantly does. After pleading with them and trying to persuade them to accept His forgiveness (which can only be given on a righteous basis through Christ's payment of the penalty for their sins), He gives them their desire and leaves them alone—for eternity!


That God did not give in to man, go back on His Word, or change His standards of righteousness and justice, but stood by His Word, will eternally be to His glory. Therefore, God will be glorified even in those in hell. That is a horrible thought but one to which we are driven both by Scripture and reason.


Dave Hunt/Originally published April 1, 2001
The Berean Call

There are three terms used interchangeably in the New Testament to refer to the highest office in a church: elder, overseer, and pastor (which means “shepherd”) all refer to the same office.

They are outlined in two primary New Testament passages, 1 Timothy 3:1–7 and Titus 1:5–9.

Putting the two lists together... are the qualifications of a pastor:

Both passages assume that only men will be pastors. Paul addressed this directly in 1 Timothy 2:12, where women are not allowed to teach or have authority over men in the church. The pastor of a church, by definition, is called to teach men and exercise authority over them.

A pastor must believe in and be able to communicate God’s Word (able to teach, holding firmly to the trustworthy message to encourage others by sound doctrine).

He must be a good husband (faithful to his wife) and a good father (a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)

He must be a person of integrity and worthy of the respect of those both inside and outside the church (above reproach, respectable, blameless, upright, holy, loves what is good, have a good reputation with outsiders).

He must have self-control (be temperate, disciplined). This encompasses many of the things that come later in the list.

He must not misuse alcohol by getting drunk (not given to drunkenness).

He must be hospitable. He must be able and willing to welcome people into his home and his life."

He must be able to deal with people in a respectful way (not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, overbearing, nor quick-tempered).

Source: https://www.gotquestions.org/qualifications-of-a-pastor.html

Reply to: Jesus Was Not K**led By

"Jesus spoke to them using this illustration, but they did not understand what He was telling them.

'I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.

I am the good shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me,

just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father.

And I lay down My life for the sheep.

The reason the Father loves Me is that I lay down My life in order to take it up again.

No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord.

I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.

This charge I have received from My Father.'”

(John 10:6,11,14,15,17,18)

Thank you, Radiance.

My 6th great grandfather also fought in the Continental Army for George Washington in Virginia, True Patriot49, which gave me official membership in the DAR [Daughters of the American Revolution], although I've never attended their meetings.

Those men and their families risked life, limb, and property, and the cruel recriminations of the British - should their cause be lost.

How pitiful and weak we would appear to our forebears, with our creature comforts, our in house non-stop entertainments (TV, Video Player, Movies-on-Demand, Computers, Radios, Mobile Phones) and the front door delivery of prepared foods arriving from giant Super Markets...

and yet, during the decades since WWII, "We The People" had not the time to prevent this nation from descending into the moral decadence and political upheaval which they would clearly find today.

It is, perhaps, an act of mercy that in the Bible, Jesus tells us the dead cannot communicate with the living, or we with them, as there is a great chasm separating us which no one can cross. (Luke 16:26)

DAV,

No idea has been more central to American identity - that is, Americans' conception of themselves as a people and a nation - than freedom. In this we have been united.

"If freedom of speech is taken away," George Washington told a group of military officers in 1783, "then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter."

Historically, "We The People," of this Constitutional Republic have always been united in our love of personal freedom, and we have benefited from a political system in which we have had the freedom to cast a secret b****t, the security of a well enforced system of law and justice, and border protection, rugged freedoms of speech, religious belief and worship, and a vast array of additional civil liberties.

It is true that in recent years our democratic institutions have been deliberately eroded by left leaning advocates of "freedom for me, but not for thee," as reflected in rising political ine******y and extremism, partisan malfeasance of the e*******l process, bias and dysfunction in the criminal justice system, illegal open door policies on immigration, and the indiscriminate admission of millions of i*****l a***ns under the guise of asylum seekers.

Freedom has historically united all America's as their enduring goal and ideal since the Mayflower merchant ship carried 102 passengers, including nearly 40 Protestant Separatists, on a journey from England to the New World in 1620.

Americans, since this country's inception have regarded it as the cradle of liberty, and an example to the world.

The central term in our political vocabulary, freedom - or liberty, with which it is almost always used interchangeably - is deeply embedded in the documentary record of our history and the language of everyday life. The Declaration of Independence lists liberty among mankind's inalienable rights; the Constitution announces as its purpose to secure liberty's blessings. The United States fought the Civil War to bring about a new birth of freedom, World War II for the Four Freedoms, the Cold War to defend the Free World. The war in Iraq had the title “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

All Americans' love of freedom has been represented, celebrated and memorized by fireworks, liberty poles, caps, and statues, and acted out by setting British tea afloat, burning stamps and burning draft cards, individually running away from s***ery, then, as an army, fighting to defeat s***ery, and, as an elected government, outlawing it, and demonstrating for the right to v**e.

Other peoples in other nations have cherished freedom, but "We the People" as evidenced in both our public and private discourse as a citizenry, have historically united more prominently, across this United States on this one issue than anyone anywhere else on earth.

Commenting on this common unity, “Every man in the street, white, black, red or yellow,” wrote the educator and statesman Ralph Bunche in 1940, “knows that this is ‘the land of the free’… [and] ‘the cradle of liberty.’”

Addendum: We must now individually determine the amount of time, energy, anxiety and personal inconvenience we are willing and able to expend, in prayer and supplication to our Creator God, and in yanking the chains of our mostly inactive state and federal senators and representatives, to prevent the liberty and freedom by which we have all been so blessed, from permanently slipping out the wide open door of the southern border which "We The People," have, for the most part over the last three and one half years, silently watched take form.

The Mayflower Merchant Ship enroute from England to the New World with 102 passengers in 1620

TruePatriot49,

amend that last phrase of your last sentence to "...banning firearms, and attempts to confiscate them(!)," - and I am in complete agreement with your sentiment.

Manning,

I applaud your sentiment as you well articulate our beliefs and values, as well as the necessity of resisting and defeating the demonic ideology and perversions now gripping this land and the degradation it is imposing upon our youth.

The predicament in which "We The People" now find ourselves in this once great nation is doubly bitter for those of us who fought and triumphed over those who would have turned our nation and our world into unrelenting darkness in the mid 20th century, had we not encountered God's favor.

Those of our age, retired seventy, eighty and ninety year olds, who had the great privilege of growing to maturity in the greatest, most productive, most inventive country the world had ever seen, who through the grace of God, rescued the civilized world not once, but twice, from catastrophic World Wars I and II, only to watch in horror as every value we were ever taught in our youth, is now rejected and spit upon.

Your manifesto [public declaration of principles, policies, intentions, and beliefs] is a welcome reminder that in this United States, it is in The Constitution of the United States that the supreme law of the United States legally rests.

This is solely because "We The People," with faith in the righteousness of our cause, and in full assurance of the support of our Creator, fought and bled for our freedom, and ultimately triumphed over a despotic Dictator-King.

Superseding the original seven Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789, the U.S. Constitution delineates the national frame of the federal government, and, when legally and lawfully adhered to, constrains the powers thereof.

it is in "We, The People" as screened through our ratified Constitution that all governmental power rightfully, legally and supremely resides, whether being manifested on-our-behalf by an appointed and confirmed administrative governmental official or department head, or a duly elected congress, or president.

Just as you say, all citizens do have the duty and the privilege to provide for themselves and their families; as the Scriptures proclaim in 1 Timothy 5:8: "But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own household, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel."

Although having within our own lives, for the most part personally rejected the evils, both private and public, that you have so aptly enunciated as destroying this nation (principally through the federal government's Department of Education which should never have been created); we, as a free, well clothed, well fed, well entertained and comfortable citizenry, have for the most part, minded our own business for decades, closing our eyes and our minds to the nation's educational system, as the knowledge of values has ceased being taught and the practice of virtue has been systematically drained from succeeding generations of our materially pampered and privileged youth, our own most precious responsibility, and this tottering nation's future hope.

It well may be, and is my fervent desire that God will spare this nation from further decline, and that there will be found sufficient numbers of unwoke, God fearing, mentally heads-on-straight, patriotic, twenty, thirty and forty year old citizens willing to do the physical hard work of rebuilding, as well as fighting militarily for this nation.

Only if God chooses to raise up Donald J. Trump, or a similar leader with his work ethic, sk**ls of negotiation, determination, and love of this nation and its citizens, will this nation ever thrive again.

Finally, if we continue to turn our back upon Israel, as the Biden administration is now doing, God will turn His back upon us.