Pen of Iron

I cannot believe this, but then I can for we do live in perilous times.

2 Timothy 3:1 - This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.² For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, ³ Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, ⁴ Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; ⁵ Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

As the Lord would have it, I have decided to move to a bigger home and for that reason I signed a contract on 12 May 06 with a very nice lady, a certain realtor whom I will call Mary (like the virgin Mary). At the time Mary explained to me that it does not serve a purpose to sign for three months only, so how about a six-months contract and her cut would be 7%. And of course I can cancel anytime. No strings attached. The contract is NOT irrevocable.

I agreed and signed the contract ending 30 December 2006. Anyone noticed anything?

Three months into the process I had not received a single offer to buy.
Reason: condo overpriced. We bring the price down, down and down one more time and her commission came down by 1 percent.

Four months into the process, I am getting restless and feeling that Mary was not giving me good service so I e-mailed her a request to cancel my contract. We meet, she gives me a long speel as to how "too-nice she is with clients" and I sign something which confirms that the condo is off the market. Any one noticed anything?

In the meantime I am doing my homework looking for a bigger place, and I stumble over this agent whom I shall call Jael (like Deborah and Sisera). Jael is excellent, and we find a home for me to buy on my first trip with her. So why not have Jael try and sell my condo.

I re-read my contract with Mary and noticed it was NOT irrevocable and I am possibly very safe. I sign with Jael.

Guess what?Jael calls me this morning with the following piece of info. Mary did not effectively CANCEL the contract as I had asked her, instead she just put the condo off the market.

What do I do next?
I got in contact with Mary's broker. She had not act in good faith. Thankfully I had kept a copy of the e-mail exchange specifically requesting her to cancel the CONTRACT. I am awaiting his decision.

Mary did not turn out to be as nice as she looked.

Posted by Consecrated at 12:25 PM | 14 comments    

Ezekiel 8:16 And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.

Yesterday was "No cars day". The city blocked off a good segment of a major street in downtown Montreal, ran long swaths of green grass along the main road and sprinkled them with picnic tables. Where cars used to run to and fro was now used for pedestrians and others who had the opportunity to enjoy their lunch breaks in the middle of St. Catherine Street on what was a beautiful Autumn day.

Two main things struck me. As we walked along my friend noted how lovely it would be if everyday life was like that. No cars in the streets, just man enjoying nature. I replied it will be just that one day when the Lord comes back to reign when technology will be no more based on electricity and computers etc, but will revert to what God always wanted it to be like.

The second thing which caught my attention and this time saddened me was that along these runways (if I can call the swaths of green grass that) were large groups of men and women, all in perfect unison, doing Thai Chi. In very slow motion, all were waiving their hands, legs and moving their bodies, turning around and back again.

In other words, the message that came across was people linking a clean environment with a religious practice from the East.

THAT is what saddened me.
The West, a supposedly Christian world, has been blessed with the availability and easy accessiblity to the Word of God but they cannot link a clean environment to the return of the Lord?

Read up the verse again and notice:
their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.

You can draw your own conclusions.

Posted by Consecrated at 8:22 AM | 6 comments    

A friend of mine, P., died in a car accident this week because another friend was speeding. P. was in his late twenties. The last time I saw him I witnessed to him, he wanted to know more. But I never got to see him again. P. was the kindest one in a bunch of pleasure-driven fools. Unless he had called on the Lord Jesus Christ to save him, he is now burning in hell.
Forever.

Posted by Revelation 2:17 at 6:55 PM | 20 comments    

Since we're on the subject of wisdom of words and fleshly wisdom, I want to show you what an ex-King James Bible believer (at least that's what he claims) answered me when I made the following point in defending ONE perfect Bible.

But before that I need to tell you about Isaiah 9:3 to which I referred. I did not present him what I'm immediately presenting below. I simply referred to the verse as you'll see in the excerpt.

Isaiah 9:3 in the perfect King James Bible says

Thou hast multiplied the nation, and NOT increased the joy:

the ASV, New ASV (evolutionist scholars?), RV, RSV, New RSV (evolutionist scholars?), BBE, CEV, WEB, New IV (evolutionist scholars?) all claim that God did increase the joy, contradicting the King James Bible (which is based on the Antiochian manuscripts, not the corrupt Alexandrian ones as the afore-mentioned translations are). In Isaiah 26:15 God increases the nation, but you don't read about any joy because He is removing the nation far into all the ends of the earth, then they pour out a prayer of rescue to God during the tribulation. You see in Isaiah 9:3 He is increasing them as the sand of the sea BEFORE He judges them during the tribulation, leaving a remnant ( see Isaiah 10:22 !). The column in Isaiah 9:3 seperates the church age and tribulation from the millennium. But the scholars couldn't believe the words and get the prophecy. They couldn't understand how the nation could be increased without the joy being increased, so they followed a favourite rule of theirs
"change the Bible to match the scholar's ignorance".

that said, here's the excerpt.

I said:
-"You can use the euphemism of 'textual variants' all you want but some readings are in clear contradiction like Isaiah 9:3 for example..."

He replied:
-"Perhaps you want to call them a contradiction, but I would just say you have an inaccurate definition of "contradiction" as it applies to the work of textual criticism determining the value of textual variants."

Now you look me straight in the electronic eyeball and tell me that's an honest answer.

Gen 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of EVERY tree of the garden thou mayest FREELY EAT:
Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt SURELY die.

Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, (according to today's most respected scholars, Satan's questioning should here be taken as genuinely inquisitive. Indeed he merely seeks to avail himself of the most accurate rendition of the words of God. To accuse him of casting doubt upon the words of God smacks of unlearned boorishness. After all, did not Confusedius say that the hall-mark of intelligence is the posing of questions? And does not Satan appear in association with the tree of KNOWLEDGE?) Ye shall NOT EAT OF EVERY TREE of the garden? (According to today's most respected scholars, Satan is not contradicting God. He simply plays upon "an inaccurate definition of 'contradiction' as it applies to the work of textual criticism determining the value of textual variants")

Gen 3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat (according to today's most respected scholars, one should not accuse Eve of misquoting God by omitting the word "freely" because here she is in fact quoting the Septuagint which was written in Greek before creation by 72 angels, and which does not contain the word "freely" in Genesis 2:16) of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
Gen 3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, LEST (According to today's scholars Eve here preferred the reading of the MS Pi Beta Kappa n. 5666. In any event "lest" does not deny a possibility of dying and therefore there is no doctrine which is lost, so believers of the King James Bible are flippant conspiracy theorists) ye die.

2 Corinthians 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

Posted by Revelation 2:17 at 4:22 PM | 20 comments    

Please read the verses first, and observe how accurate the Bible remains to this day, yea and will remain, in uncovering the nature of men and predicting their conversation, even believers.

1Corinthians 1:17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.

1Corinthians 2:1 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
1Co 2:2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
1Co 2:3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
1Co 2:4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
1Co 2:5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

1Co 2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual


The following are genuine, random excerpts from Christian blogs. I suggest you ready an Oxford English Dictionary (unabridged), a dictionary of philosophy, an encyclopedia of theology, oh and you might need a Bible, but am not sure about that one.

"a simple act of punctilliar faith in Jesus Christ alone"

Punctilliar folks, punctilliar. How simpler can it get?

"an excellent refutation of the inferential claim of a pretribulation secret rapture. Consider historic premillennialism; it's a more tenable eschatological framework than the dispensational variety"

He's saying: consider taking deciphering courses in non-linear cryptography.

"Regenerate man has a free will that is regulated by two opposing capacities within his ontological being"

I have an ontological being. At least he's logical.

"the context of parabolic structures, and as such, are not to be taken literally, but the accounts within the metaphorical contructs correspond to spiritual truths."

This statement exhibits parables and metaphores and is not to be taken literally.

"What is striking in all of these is not just the typological reference but the nature of the type's realization. In each case there is no mere parallel being drawn: there is an eschatological transcendence ... this in keeping with the Matthean "eschatological transcendence" pattern noted previously, as well as the "Christological ego" in the antitheses themselves"

I wonder if Matthew and Christ knew that.

"In the fifth antithesis (vv.38-39) Jesus proceeds from the lex talionis to non-resistance."

We now know what Jesus was doing from 12 to 30. He was taking courses in Latin in order to rise to the level of modern scholars.

"The verbs "destroy" and "fulfill" (katalusai, plerosai) are both telic, or purpose, infinitives."

They failed to tell you that these verbs also rime.

"The parenetic function of the law and prophets anticipated a "fulfilling" "

To activate the parenetic function, please press simultanesouly ctrl-alt-shit-f11-f3-esc.

"suggests that "these least commandments" is a proleptic reference not to Moses' law but to Jesus' "Nova Lex" "

Not to worry; I can explain "proleptic". It means "for, in agreement with, advocating that which is leptic".

"A counterfactual possibility, not a live possibility. If God exhaustively revealed his plan for the world, then that would set up the conditions for its non-fulfillment. But, of course, that contrary-to-fact condition is not in the cards."

King, Queen, Jack, 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-As. He's right, it ain't in the cards. What a Joker.

"And since infallible certainty can ' t be mediated by rational or evidentiary means, it must be that it is gifted to the elect by God directly. Yes? If in answer to this, one posits a kind of synergistic relationship between the Holy Spirit 's witness and our rational means of inquiry"

That's saying that you can't be sure this same statement is true, because it is mediated by your rational or evidentiary means. As to what the latter are, you'll have to ask your ontological being, if you have one.

"And the way I prove it may take a very different form than the process of learning. There ' s a logical order and a pedagogical order.There ' s the way in which things are metaphysically interconnected, and then there ' s the way in which we discover them."

I'm still working on that one. What came first, the physical or the metaphysical? And how did we discover the difference between the logical and the pedgogical? Logically or pedagogically? Where are Plato and Aristotle when you need ' em?!

"Probability is a relative concept. Probable relative to what is possible, which is, in turn, relative to what is actual."

which in turn is relative to probability, which is relative to what is possible, which is relative to what is actual which is relative to what is probable which is relative to what is possible which is relative to what is actual...

"In other words, the alternative to predestinarian determinism is fatalistic determinism."

Aren't you glad he clarified that one?

"There is also a fatalistic quality to Molinism. It endows the agent a libertarian freewill. But the agent has no control over what possible world is instantiated.Given a choice, he ' d prefer to be instantiated in a world where he goes to heaven rather than hell."

Molinism: the philosophy of H.A. Molin whose adherents are generally undercover agents of the libertarian persuasion. The philosophy is peculiar in its preference of heaven over hell while admitting neither.

"You are evoking categories from Reformed theology, radically redefining them, and then attempting to generate a point of tension. But if you redefine the key terms, then it ceases to be an internal critique. The tension is not generated by the inner logic of Calvinism, but by your semantic subterfuge"

To properly appreciate the gist of the rebuttal, one must be versed in Deformed theology and the cartoon Calvin and Hobbes.

"John was arguing reductio ad absurudum"

Reduction ad absurdum is an argumentative technique which floods the opponent with such a barrage of verbiage that it "reduces him to absurdity."


Job 12:2 No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.

Posted by Revelation 2:17 at 11:21 AM | 7 comments    

Pre-tribulation rapture of the church, part3; Which Gospel?

longest one yet. hope it bears fruit.

Posted by Revelation 2:17 at 11:43 PM | 16 comments