Dear John -
First, welcome back. I'm sure
you would not have taken this "vacation" from FiveDoves
unless you were absolutely forced to, and I hope your work
situation has been resolved.
I also hope Renee is right, and I will
be seeing you in about ten days.
Of interest to all your readers, I
would expect, would be a recent presentation by William
Males which I featured on my program yesterday. We
all know the temptation to focus on the signs of the times
and various sub-topics, such as "who is the antichrist" or
"how much are the Illuminati really running
things from behind the scenes," or "what about Nibiru?"
I believe there is a sort of
"negative" sign that isn't discussed much. It's easy
to point the finger at other believers or other churches
and accuse them of being Laodicean, but the other side --
personal holiness -- is an often-neglected topic. I
appreciate the posthumous postings of Paul N.F. and I
think that both Paul and A.W. Tozer whom he often cited,
were aware of the power of distraction that these many
things can leverage against us.
Our knowledge of eschatology, our
guesses regarding the 10-nation confederacy, the
AntiChrist, or the timing of the War of Magog won't
come up at the Bema seat. What will
come up is personal holiness. We need to be
primarily focussed on becoming that pure and spotless
bride that Jesus Christ DESERVES.
Satan, I believe, distracts us into
thinking that all these other things should command our
attention, even to the point that some thing theories and
speculations are worth fighting about. He buttresses
his little scheme with pop theology that says, "God
doesn't expect you to be holy. He just expects you
to believe in Jesus." Or "we all have a sin nature,
so holiness is an unattainable ideal."
William clearly addresses the core
issue. He begins by explaining some of the occult
symbolism of the recent Olympic Games, but then segues
into his appeal for personal holiness.
Very best,
Steve