You Shall Know Them by Their Anathemas

 If you are confused about what churches are a the sinful schismatics, you only need look at the anathemas they pronounce.

For instance, anyone who receives Nicea II must believe that all who do not receive icon veneration as a viable and necessary means of worship are anathema. Although, idolatry is a hudge issue, anathematizing those who don't practice it is actually the biggest problem with Nicea II.

The anathemas in Scripture cannot violate what the Apostle John says concerning how one knows he is saved and has eternal life. John states,

And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps God’s commands abides in Him, and He in them. And this is how we know that he abides in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. (1 John 3:23-24)

So one can know that God abides in Him and he in God because he has obeyed the command to believe in the Son and to love the brethren. Any anathema given cannot contradict this. Paul's anathema in Galatians 1:8-9 is due to the Galatians disobeying both of these commands. They were denying the gospel and receiving another one in its place that allowed them to divide the people of God into ritually acceptable and ritually less acceptable Christians. 

Likewise, the only other anathema given in Scripture is also Paul in 1 Corinthians 16:22:

"If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be anathema."

Again, this has to do with not loving the Lord, and hence, deals directly with a rejection of both elements John has mentioned.

If you have a church that anathematizes people who both have believed in the person of the Son, Jesus Christ, and love the brethren in the way that John describes in the epistle, then you have identified your sinful schismatics. 

Eastern Orthodox? Sinful schismatics. Roman Catholics? Sinful schismatics. The Fundamentalist Baptist Minister telling everyone they're damned for not believing in one of his pet issues that don't have anything to do with believing in the person of Jesus and loving the brethren? Sinful schismatic. Dividing over views of Genesis 1-11? Sinful schismatic. Dividing over views of who wrote Daniel, whether Jonah is a parable or literal, whether Joshua actually teaches geocentricism, modes of baptism, classes and expression of classes in the church, etc.? Sinful schismatics.

We should divide over people being in unrepentant sin. We should even divide from unrepentant sinful schismatics. We should divide from every cult and heretic who denies the apostolic teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We should divide from people who unrepentantly remain in sexual immorality, adultery, slander, partial judgments, revilers of authority, those who dishonor their fathers, etc. because these are people who either reject the gospel or do not love fellow believers in some way, and are thus not included as known Christians in John's scheme of things.

These are the truly anathematized churches and inviduals according to the Word of God. Anything else is using ecclesiastical authority to condemn those who Christ does not condemn, and this is to be separated from the mind of Christ and to not love many who are of the brethren. And those who do not love the brethren in such ways, do not love Christ. Be careful what group you align yourself with, so that you do not hear these words applied to you, "I was anathematized and you did not defend Me."

The most frightening irony is that those who sinfully anathematize seem to be the ones who are actually anathematized in Scripture. “ Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him, knowing that such a man is perverted and sinning, being self-condemned.” (Titus 3:10-11)

You Will Know Them by Their Judgments: The Sin of Partiality

 If I were to ask you what the three most prominent sins in the Bible, you might mention idolatry or sexual immorality, and you would be right. However, we tend to have superficial views of these so that we draw small circles for what constitutes idolatry or sexual immorality. Today I want to bring out a form of idolatry that is mentioned throughout scripture in the form of partiality.

Partiality is when one "considers the face" over the type of biblical justice that God has required as a means to worship Him. Sometimes it's just that we like some people over others. Sometimes, one person has something we want and the other person doesn't. Maybe what we want is money, a position, influence, or just to be accepted by a group. These are all sorts of little bribes that tempt us to make unrighteous judgments.

One of the major problems with Israel in the Old Testament and the Jews who contend with Christ is that they think that God is partial toward them. Since they are His people, they have special privileges that allow them to get away with more sin than others. The Bible teaches us that they actually have a smaller leash when it comes to sin than others precisely because they are God's people who need to represent Him in His character to the rest of the world, so God is not partial to His people. 

Since God is not partial, no one who represents Him should be partial. This is why the Bible talks so much about hearing the case of the widow or orphan, groups of people who have no influence in the community, no money, no clout. Hence, crooked judges do not hear their side of things. They automatically render favorable judgments for other people within the nobility, a class to which judges tend to belong. 

Pagan worship is bound up in bribing the gods, so that the gods give to the individual with money, a powerful sacrifice, a king with influence, whatever he desires. Pagan rulers then mimic their demonic gods. But God requires His character displayed back to Him as an act of worship and refuses to honor those who take a bribe, regardless of whether it is monetary or that which gets approval from the crowd, is detested by God because it is a means of demonic worship.

Instead of partiality, a man of God is to listen to the testimony of two or three witnesses, regardless of whether they are of one's group, friends, enemies, rich, poor, etc. Justice demands truth and truth will not be granted to the man who looks to exonerate his friends or benefactors from any crimes they may have committed.

This includes what often happens in Christian circles where some sin is committed by someone considered "godly" so they must be the person in the right, even when multiple witnesses can testify to the contrary. This has the aroma of loyalty and is therefore often received as a form of godliness even though, scripturally speaking, it is a dark demonic offering of worship often given to the individual human in question rather than to God who demands that a judgment be made based on all of the testimony of both parties involved. 

Some of the greatest evils done in the church have been excused because "I know so-and-so is in the right because I know him and he is a godly man." In fact, lots of pretenders know that people are partial and will judge this way, so they will feign a sort of godliness by being the "bigger person" amongst others in sort of Machiavellian effort to control people's thoughts on the matter when in fact he is guilty of the evils of which he is being accused.

We have Lady Justice as a symbol of what justice looks like and why we blindfold her.  Justice is blind. If it isn't, it isn't justice. It's demonic idolatry that seeks to worship God through a demonic partiality. This is what it means to hear the case or judge the poor, the widow, the orphan. It means to be blind to who they are and who your friends are, and to just make a judgment based on the testimony of the witnesses to the crime. Justice is not established by your feelings about someone. It is established by evidence.

Hence, a wicked people are a partial people who do not worship the true God. Indeed, it may be that people judge this way because they have a different god. The God of the Bible has made Himself very clear.

"For YHWH your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the fearsome God who does not show partiality or take a bribe. He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and shows love for the resident alien by giving him food and clothing." (Deut 10:17-18)

"You are not to pervert the judgment of a stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow's garment as a pledge." (Deut 24:17)

All partiality is a crime with which Israel is charged over and over again, and one of the reasons God does not accept any of their other sanctioned worship. In short, idolatry is an act of apostasy, and partiality is idolatry. Hence, partiality is an act of apostasy in the form of demonic worship. 

Those who would claim to be the people of God must repent of their partiality and learn to judge justly through the only just means God has provided: the evidence, including the evidence of two or three witnesses of the crimes alleged. 

This also goes the other way when it comes to slander and gossip. Anyone can make accusations and say they are a witness, but more than one witness is needed, and it needs to be independently received. Any group can suddenly have a supposed feeling or knowledge of someone else because they have been conditioned through gossip and slander rather than actually witnessing concrete actions themselves. 

This is why no accusation is even to be received against an elder unless the accusation is established/confirmed by two or three witnesses. Not even a trial is to come about in the first place if three are not at least two independent witnesses. This is how biblical justice is done, and this is what true worship of the true God looks like. 

Pagans in our culture don't often look like the pagans of old. They don't have literal idols to which they are bowing down, nor do they have different names for their gods. They simply refer to their pagan god as God, and confuse and syncretize the God revealed in Scripture with their gods. You will know them by their judgments. Their partiality or lack thereof will tell you who they worship. Their idolatry is in their character. They are the image of their gods, not only via the decisions they make, but by the way they make those decisions.

And unjust people are a pagan people. I don't care what they name their church or how much they use the name Jesus. Their jesus is a partial one and so not the one who reigns on high. He is a pagan deity who excuses their unrepentant injustices. 

He who receives the word of his friend or benefactor over the plural independent testimony and evidence of others is an idolater, and idolaters will spend eternity with the demonic gods they worship.

In Defense of the Word "Whore"

 It was a word commonly used by the KJV Bible, and therefore, was not a curse word to our general culture. However, some today act like it is. In reality, the word "whore" is seen as a not-so-nice word, so any godly person should simply not use it. Let me push back on that because I use it all of the time, and purposely so.

I don't use it to try and shame the women who have already repented of a lifestyle our wicked culture had convinced them was not as bad as it really is, but rather to show the severity of the crimes committed in the act of having sex with a man who is not your husband, before or after marriage. 

The damage such an act does is overwhelming, and likely has far reaching implications that we have never even thought of before. When someone puts up a fence, only an idiot takes it down before he knows why it was put there. How much more are we the idiots for thinking we know better and taking down a fence God put up?

An example of a possible consequence we have never thought of is the ancient and sometimes modern idea that the children of your husband will never fully be his because you slept with another guy at some point in your life. Ever heard of telegony? It's considered pseudoscience by the mainstream and it may be, but there are a lot of questions surrounding how it exists in other species. Gene drift is certainly a thing, and it would make sense that if the two become one flesh, and the Bible talks about the child and the womb being spoiled when a woman lets another man in it, then there could be something beyond what we even know. I'm not a scientist and I don't frankly know (it could all be garbage science but our culture will never allow it to be anything but that because of their constant need to be an apologetic for the sexual revolution), but what I do know is that this is considered a horrible crime by God against the husband, far more horrible than our culture would ever want to admit or know about. 

Either way, a harsher word is likely needed for a horrible crime, not a softer one.

But there is even more to my use of the word than that, and it is bound up in how translations often translate the Hebrew word זונה and the Greek word πόρνη, often translated as "prostitute." The words actually don't mean "prostitute" in the Bible, although contextually, they can refer to a prostitute. That's a big difference. What they mean divorced of any further referent in the context is far more stripped down than that. They simply refer to a woman who has sex with a man outside of being married to him. This can be a prostitute, but it can also just refer to a woman who does not take money for sex.

This is made clear in a few different passages. The first is Deuteronomy 22:13-21, where the girl is called a זונה for "not being a virgin." And, of course, the common discussion about whether בְּתוּלָה means "virgin" here is obvious as the test is checking whether she has bled or not.

Likewise, God charges Israel with being a זונה in Ezekiel 16, where He does reference the idea that a זונה in the sense of a "prostitute" always takes gifts in exchange for sex, but here, the adulterous wife is called a זונה even though she refused to take gifts, gave herself away for free, and even gave gifts to her lovers instead. 

This is why some translate it as "played the harlot" or "acted like a prostitute," but this softens the blow a bit because it makes the woman "like" something, but not really that thing. Instead, God declares that she is that thing whether she took gifts for it or not. 

It is also interesting that the sacrifice of children is brought up once again in this discussion in Ezekiel 16 because it seems to indicate that the act of זונה is an act that sacrifices a husband's children in some way, as Leviticus 18:20, which reads "You will not lie with the wife of your neighbor for offspring to be defiled in her." 

It's interesting that the prohibition against sacrificing children follows this command in verse 21.

"Prostitute" connotes in our culture the idea that a woman is trading sex for money. That is why so many women don't think they are guilty of this horrible crime. However, if they knew that the Bible was talking about their sexual activity with any guy other than their future/present husband, and that it is labeled with a horrible word so that it is understood as a horrible crime, perhaps it would give at least some pause, and help future generations from casually committing this crime against the husband.

Ergo, I use the word "whore" because it is what we have become, a nation of whores and pimps that receive no money for these crimes, only the fleeting pleasure to be paid for by the pain and loss of the husband.

Catechism through Song

 I’ve been trying to figure out a way to catechize kids with songs that would get stuck in their heads (and some for parents too). Hymns don’t really accomplish this for our generation. Anyway, these two channels are my first attempts at it. The first is for little children and the second for young adults.

KidCat

time4atalk

Be Aware of the Misandric Cult We Are In

 The Brainwashing of Married Women

August Music

 A composer wanted to write a particular song. The problem is that the entire orchestra had damaged their instruments to the point that the notes that those instruments now played were all off. When an A should have been played, a G was played instead. When an E was to be played, a B was played. On top of this, the individuals of the orchestra wanted to play these off notes all day long. 

So the composer decided to write his song by including the off notes of the ruined instruments, not by forcing the instruments to play the notes he wanted them to play but rather to restrict when the notes were played in the song. In this way, those with the off instruments would play a G when an A was called for but the composer had written the A into the music, so that even though a G was required, he knew an A would be played and he composed his music in such a way so that the A would make the music he had now written. 

He then decided to give a portion of the orchestra new instruments so that they would play the right notes at the right time. Sometimes the orchestra would return to their broken instruments and play the wrong notes but he had also anticipated when this would happen and incorporated those notes into his music as well.

In this way, all played the notes that they wanted and the notes that the composer wanted, even though the composer did not force anyone to play a particular note at all. One could see that his act to replace the broken instruments for some of the orchestra had a direct impact on what notes were played, but the incorporation of the off notes could not be said to be directly impacted by any actions of the composer. Yet, the music he wrote has been written.

The music was played. It was tragic but ultimately beautiful. 

Crocodile Tears

Crocodiles can't chew up their victims. They have to tear off chunks from their prey and this is hard to do unless the prey is somehow stationary. The croc can do a death roll and take off limbs here and there because the body provides a counterweight but most often what is needed is other crocs to grab onto the victim in order to position the prey in a way so that they can be fully devoured.

We have a contagion in this culture where we have become apologists for people who do evil rather than a defenders of the innocent where empathy is for the victim or victims. I've seen this in and outside the church. Those who do the evil are constantly excused under the guise of forgiveness and grace, and then the victims are often blamed or dismissed as bitter obstacles of Christlikeness, as though Jesus would justify the perpetrator and condemn the victim.

Let us be clear, Christ condemns the perpetrator and vindicates the victim. The perpetrator is condemned and must repent, not just say sorry, but cease from his evil and make amends in whatever way he can. If he has committed a violent crime, amends means execution, even if he is forgiven. If it's a pastor who has committed an equivalent spiritual crime, amends means being removed from his position, even if he is forgiven. 

There aren't a lot of people with whom Christ interacts in the Gospels who we see as repenting from a particular sin where restitution is needed but a huge example comes to us in the form of Zachaeus. It is interesting to note here that Christ does not pronounce salvation has come to Zachaeus and his household when he believes and asks Christ to dinner. He does not pronounce it as He walks through the door. He announces it only after Zachaeus promises to return what he has stolen from others sevenfold and to sell his securities and give the money to the poor. That is when Christ says that salvation has come to his household. Until then, Zachaeus was damned even though he had Christ in his house because his repentance needed to include amends.

But why amends? Because Christ is on the side of the victim, not the perpetrator. Until the perpetrator of an evil makes amends, Christ is against him. Grace and forgiveness do not remove the need to make amends, they come as a response to it. 

But this isn't merely a literary speculation. Christ actually says it outright. In Matthew 5:21-26, Christ states that unless amends is made with a brother against whom an individual has committed an evil, specifically here, the evil of attacking him even verbally in anger, no forgiveness will be offered by God and his worship is in vain.

Why? Because God is on the side of the victim, not the perpetrator.

So why are we defense attorneys for the perpetrators rather than prosecutors for victims like God and His Christ are? Because we're criminals trying to justify ourselves by turning grace into a license to excuse evil. We see ourselves as sinners so we don't want to condemn others who are sinners (as long as we aren't the victims of course--then we're all about the victims). That's where you get all the pronouncements, "I am Lindsay Clancy." 

Others do so out of partiality because the perpetrators are liked by them better than the victims. Hence, the perpetrators, their family or friends, must have had some good reason to do what they did, and even if not, they should just be forgiven without a repentance that makes amends. 

But both of these are actually the sin of partiality because both emphathize with the perpetrator due to some personal connection rather than seeking righteous judgment, which is the judgment of God upon the perpetrator for the vindication and restoration of the victim.

But only God can justify, so self-justification is the path to Hell for both those who do evil against the innocent and those who justify the wicked and condemn the innocent or those who represent them for daring to pursue amends from those who have harmed them. 

In other words, it is not merely those who do the evil who are damned without true repentance but also those who would proclaim them innocent or forgiven when no true repentance with amends has been made. These are they who "loose" the Law and the Prophets for others whether they do these things themselves or not (Matt 5:17-20). 

It is true. They are Lindsay Clancy. They are the murderers who justify other murderers, and they shall share her condemnation. They also forge a path for other murderers since now murder has been excused. As it is here, so also in the church. Those who excuse the unrepentant guilty because of partiality have joined them in their damnable sins and shall share in their judgment.

After all, it takes a group of crocodiles to rip apart the prey caught by the jaws of only one of them. They have all taken a piece out of the victims. They shall all share the same end.