Planning a Revival

I don't get the mail everyday at the church property.  I look in the mailbox about four out of the seven days.  If there is something important for me, or that interests me, I pull it out.  Once or twice a week, I take everything out and throw most of it away.  I kept the brochure from First Baptist Church of Hammond, titled, "The Great Summer Revival."  A big Billy Sunday in traditional pose silhouettes the background.  It is the 2017 youth conference, occurring July 18-20.

So, revival will occur.  It is planned for July 18-20, not July 16 or June 17.  I saved the brochure because this is a common idea.  Is it a delineating factor for revivalists?  I think so.  Revivalists plan revivals.  You can make that call, revival will occur, because there is a formula to cause it to occur.

You suggest revival will occur, use upbeat music, pack people into a room to polarize the audience, have a certain style of speaking with a particular kind of invitation, and you can guarantee "revival." Revivalism is a set of practices that produce an atmosphere conducive to professions of faith and decisions of dedication.  You can count on revivals to occur with necessary conditions being met.

One of the reasons that the professions and decisions are called "revival" is because they are just professions and decisions.  They aren't actual salvation and sanctification.  They are experiences primed by manufactured, external stimuli, and labeled some type of work of God.  Actual, real results are not expected.  This point is built into their plans of salvation and doctrinal statement.  No real repentance must occur for the revival of revivalism.

You can plan on something that you can make happen.  Since it is you making it happen, know then that it isn't God making it happen.  God will do things that are of Him, characterized by Him.  The planned revivals of revivalism are made by men, using human techniques.  They are not revival.

Revival can occur, but it won't have anything to do with our planning of it.  If it does occur, those with whom it does occur will be fully cognizant, clear thinking people.  They will hear plain, thorough biblical exposition.  They will be good soil, with hearts ready to hear.  If the soil on which the seed is cast isn't good, no other factor will change the result.

God does NOT speak through the Bible

Have you heard--perhaps very frequently--people praying that God would speak to them through the Bible?  Did you know that God actually does not speak through the Bible?  And no--this statement is not false because atheism is true--the Bible is the infallible, inerrant record sent from heaven, and verbal, plenary inspiration is the true doctrine of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16; Matthew 4:4; etc.)  (If you are an atheist or skeptic of Scripture who has happened upon this post, please consider the resources available by clicking here that prove the Bible is God's Word.)  God does not speak through the Bible because that is not the teaching of Scripture, of the Son of God, of His Apostles, or of the first century churches.

False, Neo-Orthodox Position:  God speaks THROUGH the Word

Do you know who teaches that God speaks "through" the Word?  The neo-orthodox heretic and adulterer Karl Barth:  "The Bible is God’s Word to the extent that God causes it to be His Word, to the extent that He speaks through it” (Karl Barth, trans. Geoffrey William Bromiley, and Thomas F. Torrance, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of the Word of God, Part 1, vol. 1 [London; New York: T&T Clark, 2004], 109).  God does not speak through the Bible because the Bible is His Word--He is always speaking in it, not only some of the time.  Asking God to speak through the Bible is a denial that every single Word of the Bible is His speech, all of the time.

True, Biblical position:  The Bible IS God's Word, His Speech, All the Time

The reason nobody from Moses to Isaiah to Peter ever asked God to speak through His Word is because they knew that the entire Book was His Word.  Every single Word in the Bible is as much God speaking as if one were to hear His audible voice from heaven (2 Peter 1:16-21).

So, what should you do?

Stop Asking God to Speak Through the Bible and Help Others to Stop Asking Him to Do This

When you--or someone else--asks God to speak "through" the Bible, you are really denying that the entire Bible is Him speaking, His speech.  This is a grave insult to God, however unintended it may be.

Instead of Asking God to Speak Through the Word, Pray: "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wonderous things out of thy law" (Psalm 119:18).

The problem if you hear very little when you read the Bible, or hear it preached, is not with the Bible or with God failing to speak.  The problem is not Him failing to speak through His Word.  The problem is with you.  The Father, through the Son, must enable you by His Spirit to understand, apply, and obey His Word.  Instead of copying Karl Barth, you would do well to heed the advice (in this matter) of Wilhelmus a Brakel:

For the reading of Scripture to be profitable, there must be preparation, practice, and reflection. . . . Each time when one engages himself to read:(1) He must, with mental concentration, place himself in the presence of God. He must promote a reverent, spiritual frame, being conscious that the Lord shall speak to him. The consciousness of that reality should cause us to tremble with holy reverence. To promote such reverence, reflect upon Isaiah 1:2, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken.”(2) He must lift up his heart to the Lord, beseeching Him who is the Author of this Word for His Spirit, that He may cause us to perceive the truth expressed in God’s Word and apply it to the heart. Our prayer ought to be with Ps 119:18, “Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.”(3) He must also attentively incline the heart to obedience in order to exercise faith, be receptive to comfort, and comply with all that which the Lord shall proclaim, promise, and command, saying, “speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth” (1 Samuel 3:9). . . .As you read, it is essential to do so calmly and attentively rather than to do it hastily with the objective of bringing the exercise of this duty to a conclusion. . . . [W]ith a humble, hungry, and submissive spiritual frame, one places himself before the Lord while reading slowly and thoughtfully as if hearing the voice of God, and subjecting himself to the Holy Spirit to operate upon the heart as he reads. . . . Whenever there is a passage which has a special power upon the heart, such a person pauses in order that this Scripture might have its effect in the heart. Then he prays, gives thanks, rejoices, and is filled with amazement—all of which revive the soul and stimulate it to obedience. Upon concluding these exercises he will continue reading. After having read a chapter, he will meditate upon it, time permitting. When he encounters a remarkable text, he will mark or memorize it. In such a fashion both the learned and the unlearned should read the Word of God. In so doing, one will understand its spiritual meaning with increasing clarity and God’s Word will increasingly become more precious to us. “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God” (John 7:17); “If ye continue in My Word, then are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32). . . .[R]eflection upon reading Scripture consists in[:]
(1) joyfully giving thanks that the Lord has permitted His Word to be recorded, that we may have it in our homes, that we can and were privileged to read it, and that it was applied to our heart;(2) painstakingly striving to preserve this good spiritual frame which is obtained by reading God’s Word;(3) meditating while engaged in one’s occupation upon that which one has read, repeatedly seeking to focus his thoughts upon it;(4) sharing with others what was read, whenever possible, and discussing it;(5) especially striving to comply with what was read by bringing it into practice.If the Holy Scriptures were used in such a fashion, what wondrous progress we would make in both knowledge and godliness! Children would soon become young men, and young men would soon become men in Christ Jesus. (Pgs. 72-81, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, by Wilhelmus á Brakel, Vol. 1.)

In so doing, you would greatly honor and please the holy Triune God whose Word the Bible is, rather than displeasing Him by an implicit denial of His revelation by asking God to speak "through" the Scriptures.

TDR

Real Unity, Biblical Unity, Which Is Required, Versus Fake Unity, The Overwhelmingly Most Common Today -- pt. 2

Like a lot of other biblical words or concepts or doctrines, unity is changed, perverted, morphed, or dumbed down to something it isn't.  What I see is that people in general are completely fine with that. They think it is a good trend.  Thumbs up to having unity mean what they want.

Love is another word that is twisted to something a long ways away from what it actually is.  If you say someone's "love" isn't love, that is a worse violation then corrupting love itself.  Ironically, it is unloving to say someone's love isn't love.  I know this to be true. God, however, is still going to judge us for love based on what He says it is -- the same with unity.

A few years ago, I was asked to preach at a church, which was without a pastor, for all day Sunday and then Wednesday, about four or so times.  The church was far from unified.  It had at least two or three factions in it, that had got along because the church had settled on something less than unity.  To get along, not unify, the former leadership had obviously tolerated the differences, treated them like they were allowable.  He probably said, "For unity's sake," which in fact was "for division's sake." Men don't want to lose anybody, even if the people aren't believing or doing right.  Losing people is the worst thing for them and for varied reasons, I'm going to continue discussing.  The former pastor just kept kicking that can down the road until he either got tired or decided not to put up with it anymore.  Let someone else deal with it.

Anyway, my first sermon was an exposition of 1 Corinthians 1:10 on biblical unity in a church.  That church was frozen in utter amazement on just going word by word through that verse in its context. The church was not, never, no way, going to do that.  It's like the Bible at that point was a book for a different species, a different planet, or a different dimension of space and time.  Some people hearing the sermon were all in -- that was obvious.  They wanted it.  Others wanted their present form, where they got to keep believing like and doing like they wanted, just disobeying that verse and all other verses in the Bible that taught the same thing.  They would never have a pastor come, who would promise to enforce such a verse.  Any pastor, who wanted that job, would not and could not mention that he believed that, which is very often how pastors get new pastorates -- by not stepping on that kind of land mine.  Someone might call it more of an art than a science.

To believe 1 Corinthians 1:10 at the church where I preached on unity would have required a split.  A split doesn't sound like unity, but to get to unity, often a split must take place.  Some think the split is worse than not having unity, so they put up with false doctrine and practice.

In part one of this, I started talking about why churches don't get the unity the Bible teaches, reaching only the first of the list I gave.  I move to the second one with this post.

• It requires biblical and doctrinal clarity, which takes preparation, study, and effort, and people aren't sure or they have too many doubts about the Bible.

I want to say just a little more there.  Liberty issues are non-scriptural issues.  The doubtful disputations are concerning issues that the Bible is silent about, or has at least judged to be a liberty issue, like the dietary examples given in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8.  Doctrinal issues are becoming liberty issues now for the sake of getting along.  There is only one teaching in scripture, but churches allow for more than one teaching on various doctrines and practices.  If you don't do that in a church, now you are considered to be violating some definition of love, which is closer to toleration.

So-called "unity" today is often guided by giving liberty to believe and practice differently within the same assembly.  Men are doing that by making doctrinal and practical issues now issues of liberty.  That is a historic change.  In evangelicalism, this means in the same church, premillennial or amillennial, or in other words, 30% different in doctrine right off the bat is unity.  It isn't, but this is by making that a liberty issue.  It isn't, but it is treated as such.

• It requires a lot of work and conflict, because you have to deal with people who don't want to unify and will cause division.

This number two I mentioned in my introduction above.  You have people challenge unity.  They don't like a particular doctrine or practice and they will challenge it through the various steps of church discipline to have their way.  This is where the Titus 3:9-11 section comes in.  The "heretic" is a factious person, who won't unify with the body, which is based upon the truth, agreed upon, believed by, and practiced by the whole rest of the church.  It might be that he just doesn't like submitting to authority.  There are  many of those out there, and you don't help them by allowing them to continue this way.

Very often pastors will defer to a faction.  The whole church sees it one way except for a small faction, and the small faction gets its way.  There are some who think this is some type of humility, to do this.  Humility isn't giving in to a faction, who is wrong.  Humility is dealing with the faction and requiring that it come along with the other church, or be gone.  We humble ourselves before God, not before factions.

Our church takes divisive people to church discipline (see Romans 16:17).  Story.  We had a man in our church, who believed that he was the window czar.  No one could open or close windows on his watch.  He was a self-appointed usher.  We didn't have an office of usher, but he gave himself that label.  He was also mentally slow in a disabled kind of way.  He could function in society, but anyone would know he was slow.

We had another man who really liked to open windows whenever he wanted.  Personally, I didn't mind if he opened a window, when he needed air.  It's not a separating issue (hopefully you smile). He opened a window. The window czar closed.  He opened.  Czar closed.  He opened.  Fight ensues. Neither side gives in.  Several times I sat down with both factions, and a few times with 2 or 3 witnesses.  Each time they resolved, something similar to having second graders shake hands after a fight at recess.

I would lecture the man, who was not intellectually challenged, that he could easily solve it by understanding the mental disability of the one he dealt with.  Perhaps he was socially challenged, which I don't think is a separate category in reality.  However, in the end the window czar wouldn't forgive and we finally disciplined him out of the church.  Both men died at a pretty early age not long after that.  It's hard not to see it as related to what I'm writing about here.

Churches don't have biblical unity, because they are unwilling to do what it takes to have it.  They don't work at it or face the conflict necessary.  Instead, they settle for something that isn't unity, and yet they call it unity.  Whatever isn't biblical unity still isn't unity.  Churches settle for the placebo, when God wants the real thing.

• It requires accepting biblical unity and not a fake kind.
• It might shrink the size of the assembly or, put another way, restrict numerical growth, which is considered to be a primary indicator of success and other future desired opportunities.
• It brings attack from those who accept and practice fake unity and treat it like it is biblical, when it is not.

Real Unity, Biblical Unity, Which Is Required, Versus Fake Unity, The Overwhelmingly Most Common Today

Scripture is very clear on what unity is, what I'm calling real unity as opposed to the fake.  Fake unity poses as unity, but isn't.  Most often, people who say they want unity, want fake unity, which isn't unity at all.  They would reject unity, while calling for it.  People, who either plot for or settle for fake unity, don't actually want unity.  They want some type of credit for unity without even having it.

Biblical Unity

Biblical unity is oneness, the same type of unity that God the Father has with His Son and the Holy Spirit (John 17:11, 21).  These three are one in nature or essence, but also one in purpose (John 10:30).  The unity God expects or requires is to be found in a church, and the following verses describe it.

Romans 12:6, 15:6, "Be of the same mind one toward another. . . . That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."
1 Corinthians 1:10, "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment."
Philippians 1:27, 2:2, 3:16, "Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel. . . . Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. . . . Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing."

This unity is also called no division.

Romans 16:17, "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them."
1 Corinthians 12:25, "That there should be no schism in the body."

Paul wrote to Timothy that this was "no other doctrine."

1 Timothy 1:3, "As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine."

This is not the unity that churches expect, even though it is the only unity in scripture.  It is what is expected and required of churches, but people look for something else, which is in essence, agreeing to disagree.  The scriptural unity could be called as we term it today, unanimity.  Since there is one doctrine and practice in the Bible and scripture is perspicuous, plain and understandable, then we should expect unity.

The New Testament talks about diversity in the body, but that is diversity of gifts or giftedness. There will be variation in gifts in a church, but not variation in doctrine and practice.  There is one doctrine and one practice, like we read in Ephesians 4:3-6:

Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

A church should expect this as unity.  Variation isn't unity.  It is division.  What sometimes people call unity is actually division, real division and not unity.

Fake unity is overlooking differences in doctrine and practice, which amounts to overlooking false doctrine and sin, in order to get along.  Before I write about how people practice fake unity, because it is most typical unity, I want us to consider why it is that people don't practice actual unity, biblical unity.  Rather than someone saying he doesn't believe and practice biblical unity, he replaces it with fake unity and then says he is practicing unity.  Worse, because of fake unity being considered or called real unity, the ones who believe and practice biblical unity are portrayed as the purveyors of division.

Why No Biblical Unity?

In no particular order, I want us to consider the following reasons or possible reasons why people do not practice biblical unity, despite the description of it and requirement of it in scripture.  I will list all of them first and then talk about them within a series of posts.

• It requires biblical and doctrinal clarity, which takes preparation, study, and effort, and people aren't sure or they have too many doubts about the Bible.

To have biblical unity, at least two people must believe there is one God, one truth, and that they can know and understand that truth.  This is how the Bible presents God, truth, and knowledge and understanding of truth.  If someone doesn't even believe that is possible, in a typical way because he has never seen it practiced, he might assume, walking by sight and not by faith, that it can't be done, so shouldn't be expected.  He's going to have to believe the Bible on that.

The last of the above three, knowing and understanding the truth, takes preparation, study, and effort. At least one person needs to know what scripture says to believe and practice and then teach that. Many today are not willing to put in that labor.  They settle on not knowing and so accepting division.

Part of that effort is the courage to stand on the truth that one knows, even though it clashes with the world system.  Avoidance of the hatred of the world, as the world expresses that hatred in various fashions, will allow, accommodate, and then promote division where there is none. This dovetails with the last reason why unity doesn't occur.

What I've observed is that churches fall short of the whole counsel and concentrate on their "core beliefs."  They reduce all of the teaching of scripture to a few points that require agreement, giving latitude to much of scripture.  To come to unity on everything, it takes very thorough teaching, taking everyone through everything, which starts with a biblical view of unity, so that a church doesn't settle for something less than what God says.

• It requires a lot of work and conflict, because you have to deal with people who don't want to unify and will cause division.
• It requires accepting biblical unity and not a fake kind.
• It might shrink the size of the assembly or, put another way, restrict numerical growth, which is considered to be a primary indicator of success and other future desired opportunities.
• It brings attack from those who accept and practice fake unity and treat it like it is biblical, when it is not.

Andrew Murray, Mystical Quietist and Higher Life / Keswick Writer, part 1 of 7

The content of this post has now been moved to:

 

"Andrew Murray, Keswick / Higher Life Leader: a Biographical Sketch."

 

Please click on the link above to read the complete form of parts 1-7 that used to be in the posts here at What is Truth?.

Bondage and Fear: Not the Result of a Higher or "Stricter" Standard

In Romans 8 the Apostle Paul explains his victory over the body of death about which he had described his exasperation in chapter 7.  The righteousness of the law was fulfilled in Paul and every other believer through the indwelling Holy Spirit.  This brought life, peace, and freedom that is the reality for a son of God.  A son of God does not live the life of bondage of a slave, motivated by an external fright.  The implication is the love of a child, who is intimate with his Father.  Paul writes in 8:14-16:

14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. 16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.

The "spirit of bondage again to fear" describes existence under the law or one of legalism.

The distinguishing factor between the misery of bondage to fear and one of "life and peace" (8:5) is not degree of difficulty.  Paul is not saying that life gets harder when you raise the standard.  It is the means by which someone functions.

A believer, who Paul says in 8:1, "walks after the Spirit," "not after the flesh," lives like a son of God, which is to be internally empowered and motivated.  This is a loving, intimate life with God.  He's in relations with God as a son and wants to please Him like he's in the family and God is His Father, different than a slave, intimated by the bondage and fear.  He is "led by the Spirit of God" (8:14), so it's happening from the inside out.

Legalism is the outside-in life.  Legalism isn't the number of or degree of difficulty of the standards, the right things to do.  Legalism can be lowering the standard, because you are doing outside-in. Very often, today especially, people operate in the flesh, so their way of "succeeding" is to lower the standards.  That's what the Pharisees did.  They ranked laws so they could reduce everything to what they deemed most important.  Raising the standard doesn't make it more spiritual either.  Adding more laws than what the Bible even teaches is bondage and fear. However, one would expect something better if someone was doing it out of love with internal motivation.

When someone does what he does out of love, because He is a son, because he has intimacy, for the Father, he isn't looking to reduce or lower.  He wants to increase.  He wants it to be better.  That's how it looks.  And that is directly connected to the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.  When actions are internally motivated and empowered by the Spirit, they will be loving, which is striving for more.

I've contended for a while that evangelicals with the low standards, the worldly lifestyles, are the legalists.  They are left-winged legalists.  Jesus said that the world hates believers because they are not of this world.  They don't fit into the system.  The lasciviousness of the left winged legalists is the lowering of standards to fit into the system.  They don't have to be hated that way.  They're "still Christians," and yet they lower the standards to conform to the world.  Those who don't lower their standards, they call legalists.  Legalism doesn't have to do with lowering the standard.  Someone will do better if he's doing it out of love.

The Sword of the Lord, Really The Scoop Shovel of Revivalism

John R. Rice started The Sword of the Lord (TSTL) on September 28, 1934.  At present it is a bi-week twenty-four page tabloid.  I first became aware of TSTL sometime around my jr. high years, when John R. Rice was still alive.  I didn't know what it was, just that it was somewhat promoted in those days within my circle of independent Baptists.  In general now, I would characterize the TSTL as a vehicle to spread revivalism of revivalistic fundamentalism.  At present it doesn't even represent a true gospel.

If you are supporting TSTL or placing advertisements therein, then you are helping to promote a false gospel. On purpose, TSTL leaves out biblical repentance as a necessary prerequisite for justification or salvation.  Even if some of the participants of TSTL believe in a scriptural view of repentance, the paper itself leaves it out in part because many of its supporters would oppose repentance. Someone can't really believe in biblical repentance and still support TSTL in any way.  You can say you believe in it, but when you continue supporting in any way those who don't, then you don't believe it either.

As it stands, TSTL avoids preaching a true gospel and doesn't care that it proclaims a false one.  If you read TSTL and you can't tell that it preaches a false gospel, then you either don't understand the gospel well enough or you don't care about the gospel enough. TSTL sends a free copy to me every two weeks.  Sometimes I don't look at it at all.  Other times I leaf through it to see if there is anything I might want to read.  The most recent of the latter was the February 24, 2017 edition and its top fold, p. 1, sermon by Oliver B. Greene, entitled, "God's Plan of Salvation."  I wondered, what would TSTL be willing to publish (if Greene preached a true gospel)?  I've never heard Greene on the radio, but for a long time, he had a national radio program called the Gospel Hour.  So I also wondered, was the gospel preached in that hour?  My conclusion, not always, at least.

I'm going to move to the end of Greene's presentation on p. 21 of TSTL.  He prints the heading: Salvation Is God's Gift to the Sinner.  To explain that, he writes, "Salvation is bestowed upon the Hell-deserving sinner when that sinner believes on Jesus and trusts in His shed blood.  The only possible way to come into possession of a gift is to receive it from the giver."  All of that might be true, depending upon how it is explained.

Greene's next heading reads, Three Things Make a Gift Possible.  "First, there must be someone who is able to purchase the gift to be given, which means that he must also be unselfish and willing to give the gift."  God "provided enough grace and supplied enough blood to save the entire world if the world would receive Him by faith."

Greene continues.  "Second, to make a gift possible, there must be a gift to give; and Jesus was that Gift -- the only Gift God could give to settle the sin question."  "Third, before giving can be complete, there must be someone to receive the gift; and that is where man comes in.  Man is the recipient of God's gift."

The crux of Green's message comes in the last paragraph of the section:

We need only receive the finished work of Jesus, and God will save us for Jesus' sake.  The only way for any sinner to be saved is to accept God's gift, the salvation purchased at the cost of the precious blood of God's only begotten Son.

Is what Greene preached correct?  There is no doubt that our salvation, justification, depends on the finished work of Jesus and His precious blood.  However, nowhere does the Bible teach that justification or salvation comes by receiving those two things.  They are necessary for salvation, but salvation will not result from receiving them.  Someone must believe in Jesus Christ or receive Jesus Christ, which is to "believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God."  When someone receives Jesus Christ, He receives Jesus Christ for Who He is, Lord and God and Savior.  When someone receives Jesus Christ, he turns from his way to the Lord's way, from his sin to the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

TSTL adds a final section to Greene's article, entitled, Receive God's Free Gift, which reads:

You have just read "God's Plan of Salvation" by Oliver B. Greene.  He has very carefully explained God's plan, showing why salvation must be a free gift and how God can justly offer it as a gift. 

Will you call upon Him now?  From your heart say this prayer sincerely and with a repentant spirit. 

Dear God, I'm a sinner headed for Hell, and I need to be saved.  I cannot save myself, but I know You can do it for me.  I do believe that Jesus in His death, burial, and resurrection paid my sin debt and purchased salvation for me.  I believe it, and right now I submit myself in full trust to Him.  Please, God, forgive my sin and save me. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. 

If you have at this moment turned to Christ in faith and received Him as Saviour, would you fill out the decision form and mail it to me so that I can pray for your success in your new Christian life?

TSTL uses the words "repentant spirit," as its only representation of repentance, which is in tune with its regular understanding of repentance being merely a change of mind about belief.  Greene himself doesn't use the word repentance in his sermon.  He doesn't include it at all.  By the time someone finishes reading his article, he wouldn't know what it is to receive Jesus Christ or to believe in Jesus Christ.  From what I've read of TSTL, it doesn't understand that itself.

Salvation is characterized as a free gift in scripture, but if you get wrong how that gift is received, then you still don't have the gospel.  TSTL gets it wrong again and again.

Weekend Observations: What I Think Is the True Narrative on the 2016 Presidential Election and the Russia Connection

The media lies more than ever.  Trump is the first Republican president to fight against its lies like the media itself fights, and the lies are at a greater magnitude, so his fight also looks like something we've never seen.  For myself and maybe another 20% (could be more) of all Americans, we know the story told by the mainstream of the media is false.  Most of it is in cahoots to defeat Trump right now. Talk radio, the Drudgereport, other conservative online news outlets, a few mid-major papers, and Fox News push back.  The main story right now involves how Trump won the election and what was done to stop him.  That is still the major news of the United States, bigger than healthcare, bigger than North Korea, bigger than the Supreme Court, and bigger than radical Islamic terrorism.

The Democrat, left-wing, blue state, and media complex says Trump is an illegitimate president, because he would not have won the national election without the help of Vladimir Putin and Russia. That is a lie, a big whopper lie, but it is the lie of choice for the above complex, to use to discredit Trump, even impeach him if it could.

Before I move along to the main point, it's very funny for me to watch the left label Trump as an unstable loony, who they don't want with his hands on the nuclear codes.  He can build gigantic skyscrapers all over the world.  Lots could go wrong there and it hasn't.  More than that, how could the left call anything loony?  The left has the most loony people on earth, the craziest.  Look at their protest crowds and tell me that you would want to be around those people.  They're sick.  I live in California and they are demented like you will never see except from them, including our governor. This does go right along with their Russian story.  They can count on their people believing it. 

So what really has happened?  What is the true story?  Here's what I think it is.

As the general election began, Russia was one of many various possible avenues to discredit Trump. The cabal of the left could build a possible negative story line using his positive statements about Putin in answer to questions, the Paul Manafort connection, and Trump's perceived softness on Russia.  The dossier done by the former British spy showed they were looking for tidbits within that angle to add more depth and detail to the story.  When Podestas emails were published by Wikileaks, Russia was a distraction.  I believe they never stepped on the Russian accelerator because they saw almost no possibility of losing.

Once Hillary lost, in a short time Russia looked good as an excuse for the election and a means to discredit Trump's victory.  Every possible asset for the left began to look for information to support a Russia narrative.  They used illegal surveillance of the Trump transition, which did include what someone might call wiretaps.  Now almost everyone's phone can be monitored by the government, calls recorded, transcribed, and filed for future possible use.

The Obama government used the Russian concoction to justify listening into multiple Russian figures with the purpose of eavesdropping on Trump team members.  A Russian conspiracy provided deniability.  It was "incidental" monitoring.  They were looking for two things. One, they wanted everything that might work to frame Trump as colluding with the Russian to throw the election.  They knew he wasn't colluding, but they needed everything they could use to make him look like he was. Two, they were listening to find anything else they could use to embarrass Trump.  Obama loyalists or even just anti-Trumpers worked behind the scenes to undermine Trump's transition and then presidency, gunk up the gears or even remove him from office with a cloud of guilt.

Major leftist newspapers mentioned the wiretapping of Trump, unwittingly validating the surveillance. They were so honed in on the Russian angle that it never occurred that someone might pay attention to the illegal way they received their information.  Stories were disseminated around the government and leaked to the press, what looks like under the influence of Obama's leadership. He had signed an executive order in the last days of his presidency to encourage it.  These stories could have only come from those within the government with wiretapping capacity.  The final step of a wiretap is the unmasking of a name.  Someone or a group of ones unmasked and in so doing conspired politically against the president elect and violated privacy law.

I believe that several government intelligence officers broke the law as a form of opposition or protest as some form of civil disobedience.  They justified it as some type of pro-American act to save America for political or personal reasons.  They thought they might get away with it, but they were willing to suffer the consequences, perhaps not seeing a political will in this country any more to punish them. They may have seen Trump as too incompetent to catch them, even as Trump had been underestimated during most of the election.

I don't think these intelligence officers found any illegality for Trump.  They couldn't find useful information, not enough to frame him.  The best they could do was use their transcribed surveillance to catch Michael Flynn in a lie to Mike Pence, that disrupted the Trump transition. If there was anything else, I believe we would have already heard about it.  The real story is the surveillance. There is no illegal Russian connection with Trump.  Hillary Clinton easily more likely has illegal Russian connections.  Trump doesn't.  However, Trump was illegally monitored by the Obama administration at a level of corruption that surpasses Nixon and Watergate.

The above, I believe, is what has occurred.  I will await to see the story unfold.