Messages

41

Bible Discussion / Before anti-Christ Christian Identification

« on: September 05, 2022, 12:45:06 AM »

There is an interesting section in Revelation that is interesting in that it will allow the Christians in that time before the anti-Christ to easily identify the non-Christians.  It is also proof that the current injections being pushed on people is not associated with the mark of the beast, because this event has not happened yet, but I thought I would post it because it has to do with injections.

This is at the time of the Seven Trumpets.


Revelation 9 King James Version
1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.

6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.


The Christians will happily move about and do the things they need to but the known non-Christians and the false Christians will be living in fear and torment because once they venture outdoors they are a target and are in for some very serious pain and suffering.  No matter how much the false Christians try to claim that they are Christians, their argument will be of no use to them because they will only be asked "If you belong to Christ, then why are you being stung?"

42

Bible Discussion / Re: Friendship

« on: August 25, 2022, 05:19:16 PM »

A thought that I've had on loneliness is that when you are around someone who is not of like mind and spirit, it can sometimes be more lonely than being completely by yourself. Even when you hang out with a few old friends that you might have got on with once, there's no fellowship there anymore (though there might still be some degree of cordiality). You're no longer on the same team as they are. So although it is sad to lose those old friendships, staying in them will ultimately make you miserable when you're no longer of the same mind and spirit as them. However, God is able to provide us with the friends and fellowship that we need, and when He does, it sure is sweet!

Yes, I find that to be true too.  For me at the moment I never see a single person from one month to the next but I'm not lonely. Even the supermarket for ages now gets the Police involved and trespasses for two years anyone who isn't wearing a mask and so I get the groceries delivered once a month and see someone with a mask on who never talks.  The few people I do keep up with by email I can only consider as acquaintances because in the big picture in life we are not on the same page and they would rather that I didn't bring up my "Christian stuff" all the time. It's way more enjoyable being alone than around non-Christians.

43

Introduce Yourself / Re: Brian's introduction

« on: August 19, 2022, 02:40:07 AM »

Thank you Kevin, and good morning on your side of the world. It's easy to recall your name, because I have sibling with that name. Can I try to clarify your last post? You started by saying it's always gone well. And I'm glad you mentioned how it goes with so-called Christians and with non-Christians. Yet both of those examples seem like they haven't gone well. So I'm just a bit confused. Regarding your experiences, though, I can certainly relate!

Hi Brian

What I mean by "gone well" is that they haven't been outlandishly aggressive about it.  Those that use leavened and incorrect "Bibles" don't care and basically they don't want to know.  They commonly use that phrase of "we will just have to agree to disagree" or any other iteration of it. Nothing piques their interest and they don't care. They are quite content in their echo chamber and they have purchased their ticket by tithing.

The non-Christians don't understand and don't want to feel bad about wrong things they have done in their lives and don't want to know what happens to a person when they die and they will cross that bridge when they come to it. Seeds are sown I guess.  Understandably the Bible means nothing to them and I know where they are coming from because before I became a Christian I had no idea at all about what was written in the Bible. The churchianity movement does a great dis-service to the message of the gospel.

44

Introduce Yourself / Re: Brian's introduction

« on: August 18, 2022, 07:31:15 PM »

Thank you Kevin. I appreciate that idea. I suppose if someone asks you why you call it the Holy Bible rather than KJV, it gives you a good opportunity to explain that you prefer to call it that versus after a person's name. Has anyone else asked you that, or have you taken a chance to explain to anyone else why you call it Holy Bible versus KJV?  If so, how has the exchange gone?  I'm hoping it was received well and caused the person to think about this concept of being a respecter of men. Godspeed.

Thanks for your reply Brian.

It has always gone down quite well that I refer to the Bible as the Holy Bible. What I have found though is that when I had been talking with those who considered themselves to be Christians they usually used incorrect materials such as the NIV and even then they obviously seldom read that nor do they think about Biblical concepts anyway. Hence it was continually falling on deaf ears.

For those who weren't Christians and quite correctly never considered themselves to be Christians all that I was saying meant very little to them and basically they couldn't have cared less. Unfortunately often when I was talking, what I was saying was undermined by church-goers and those with a fake churchianity upbringing.

45

Introduce Yourself / Re: Brian's introduction

« on: August 17, 2022, 07:58:09 PM »

Hi Brian

A welcome to the forum from me too.

I will always wish the KVJ had been named better and not been associated with that king, since God says we are not to associate with evil or with people of certain character.  I understand some people try to excuse that by saying it’s the Authorized Version, but that name sounds just as snooty and suspect. So I read the KJV with respect, but I hold my nose thinking about the title. To try to use a funny analogy with Chris’ Telegram, naming a bible after the corrupt king seems like a Deep State move, whereas the Geneva maybe could be compared more to the grassroots decentralized version of bitcoin.

When I talk with people I always refer to the Bible as the Holy Bible which is even printed on the front cover and then comment that it is often also referred to as the King James Bible. I do that specifically for the reason that it separates it as much as possible from any person in a political position and as Christians we are not respecters of persons in such a manner.

46

What's New @ CLE / Re: (BOOK) Corruptions of Christianity: Seventh-day Adventism

« on: June 26, 2022, 09:01:35 PM »

When putting some of the files on to the eReader it shows Tim as being the author.  It must pick up the name from who the PDF creation software is registered to.  I was going to mention that in the past but figured you might have known about it or it was of no concern.

Thanks for that information, Kevin. I didn't know about that, and it's good to be aware of.

Meta data cleaners can generally be used for taking your name and any other information you want from files if you wish.  The same goes for sound files and photographs etc.

47

What's New @ CLE / Re: (BOOK) Corruptions of Christianity: Seventh-day Adventism

« on: June 24, 2022, 12:39:12 AM »

Also, I see that there are quite a few articles/books with the PDF option on the website, so I thought it was generally the norm to have this available.

A lot of that work came from Tim. He used to do them for me back when my articles were shorter, but now that they're much longer, and I do frequent small updates, on top of the fact that he got married and had less time, I haven't had any new ones available in years.

When putting some of the files on to the eReader it shows Tim as being the author.  It must pick up the name from who the PDF creation software is registered to.  I was going to mention that in the past but figured you might have known about it or it was of no concern.

48

What's New @ CLE / Re: (BOOK) Corruptions of Christianity: Seventh-day Adventism

« on: June 21, 2022, 08:29:52 PM »

Hi Jeanne

Under Brave or any other browser, go Save As (under the menu of options) and choose Web Page Complete, and it saves the whole web page for offline viewing.  It's a good feature that I use every now and then.

49

What's New @ CLE / Re: (BOOK) Corruptions of Christianity: Seventh-day Adventism

« on: June 20, 2022, 05:36:59 AM »

You're asking me for something that I can't do. Furthermore, for those who can do it, it is FAR more work than I think you understand, which why I think you just asked so casually for it.

Thanks for all the tips, everyone. (And Jeanne, I like to use the ‘Read Aloud’ function on webpages and in Word/PDF documents as I often prefer to listen to things rather than to read them—it also makes it easy to do tasks around the home at the same time .)

My apologies for my naivety—I regularly save Word documents to PDF and it’s a really quick and simple process. Saying that, the files I save are usually quite small in size. It seems I wrongly assumed that this was a simple task, so my apologies for that. Also, I see that there are quite a few articles/books with the PDF option on the website, so I thought it was generally the norm to have this available.

Anyway, thanks for clarifying how things work and for the suggestions.

I saved the page as an HTML Anna and then opened the HTML file with the word processor and exported from there as a PDF and it makes a very good job of it.  You might find it to be quite OK for listening.  Doing the conversions took me less than a minute, so not a lot of time wasted if it's not suitable.

50

What's New @ CLE / Re: (BOOK) Corruptions of Christianity: Seventh-day Adventism

« on: June 19, 2022, 10:10:02 PM »

Another way of saving the article is to just save the website complete as an HTML file.

As a side note, I use the export as PDF file in LibreOffice quite regularly as it is a good feature.  I'm not writing that comment as a suggestion that Chris should do that though.

51

Introduce Yourself / Re: Kevin (Anvilhauler's) Testimony

« on: June 14, 2022, 06:46:26 PM »

Kevin your testimony was a breath of fresh air for me. I never had to question if God gave you repentance because it was very evident. Sorry it took me so long to read your testimony but I really enjoyed reading it. I kept thinking as I was reading your well put testimony, that it was like reading a good book. I couldn't stop reading. I am so sad how everything went down with your ex wife and having your children taken from you. Are your children still estranged from you?

Im glad you shared this 

Hi Heather

I'm pleased that you liked reading my testimony and good to read that it was like a breath of fresh air.  As Ellie commented in the past too, it is always interesting and entertaining reading the testimony of others and how they came to repentance.  Yes, my children who are both in their 30's now are still estranged from me and I understand that neither of them are Christians from the communications I have had from them years ago since I last saw them way back then.  I still have hope that one day things will change and they will again be a part of my life and that we will be close friends as much as being family.  Maybe all that is happening in the world at the moment might bring about that change.

Thanks Heather and I pray that things are working out a whole lot better for you too.

52

General Discussion / Re: SSD recommendation?

« on: May 28, 2022, 11:06:23 PM »

Most people on Windows use Etcher to create the bootable thumb drive.

https://www.etcher.net/download/

Run Etcher and choose the source *.iso file you want to image on to the USB drive.  When required, choose correctly the drive you are imaging on to i.e. the USB drive and go ahead with the imaging. 

If you choose the wrong drive to image on to then that drive will be written over and all of the data will be lost.

I'm assuming you have a spare USB drive that you can write over to create the bootable.  If not you might be able to buy one from Staples which is where Michael Sussman buys his.  

The mirror sites for the AntiX Linux download are here
https://antixlinux.com/download/
and I'll let you pick which USA site you want to use.  The file you will be wanting to download and save on to your local hard drive to use as the source file will be
antiX-21_x64-full.iso    and it is 1.4 GB

After setting up on to the USB drive and booting from that
On the live AntiX system, username login = demo, username password = demo

Let me know if any problems.  A pity you took the drive to the tip as it might have still been good.

53

General Discussion / Re: SSD recommendation?

« on: May 28, 2022, 07:30:46 AM »

It might be worth making a bootable copy of a Linux distribution on a thumb drive and booting from that and seeing if it can see your hard drive and recover files.  There are numerous times when I have used Linux to recover files for people from drives that Windows refuses to look at.  One of my 250GB drives is from a Post Grad student years ago that Windows had given up on and I use it all the time and it never misses a beat.

Even if it's chirping, it's still worth a try.  Because I use AntiX Linux, I recommend making a bootable AntiX thumb drive.

54

Introduce Yourself / Re: Kevin (Anvilhauler's) Testimony

« on: April 30, 2022, 08:46:02 PM »

Once I had heard the gospel message there were many times I had sat and spent time with God pouring out my heart about how sorry I was for all of the wrong I had done in my life and thanking him for Jesus Christ  dying on the cross to pay the penalty for my wrong doing.  I truly was of a contrite spirit.

... My conversion certainly wasn't just an intellectual experience but rather a deep intimate experience with God / Jesus Christ.

Hi Kevin

Thanks for your reply. What you’ve written here adds more clarity and depth to your testimony—and in essence, answers the questions I was asking—so thank you for that.

I’m sorry if my posts caused you any unnecessary upset. As I have said, I genuinely wasn’t trying to be contentious. However, though I may be wrong, I suspect/guess that if you had written your testimony as a new person—without anyone knowing you—that others may have stepped in and asked you to clarify a few things. I can understand if the people who know you didn't feel the need to ask you more questions; however, there are a good number of people who engage with this forum who don’t know you, and out of charity to them I think it was important to address this.

Anyway, thanks again for providing more (and heartfelt) detail, Kevin .

Yes, it was certainly a different job writing my testimony when many people already knew me.  The difficult part was also trying to give the best possible account but with keeping the length to something that people were comfortable reading.  There was quite a lot of editing of what to put in and what not to put in and I had to live with the hope that the reader could gain an overview from what was given.  It's good to know that all worked out OK in the end  ....   and it felt to me like doing a written assignment   ......   and I never liked doing written assignments even though this one was different because it was so different and was also an act of charity to others.  At least there wasn't a certain date by which it had to be handed in.

55

Introduce Yourself / Re: Kevin (Anvilhauler's) Testimony

« on: April 27, 2022, 05:50:01 AM »

What's with my online name of Anvilhauler.

In the early 1980's a friend of mine who later went on to marry one of my sisters and become my brother-in-law was an office clerk at the time and I was an engineer.  We used to spend quite a lot of time together and much of our conversation while walking around was often to do with the degradation of New Zealand society.  Anyway, one day we were out walking and talking and solving all of society's problems as we often did and we decided to drop in to the Canterbury Museum which is in Christchurch for a look around on the way past (Canterbury is the province that Christchurch City is in).  One of the first exhibits you come to on the ground floor is a setup of what shops and other general businesses looked like on the streets of Christchurch back in the 1800's.  One was of a blacksmiths shop and a costume period dummy of a farrier with a ususal blacksmithing hammer was depicting the making of a horse shoe on an anvil.  The horse shoe was plastic of course as it had a light bulb in it to give the appearance of the red glow of red hot steel straight from the forge.  Looking at the anvil though, that was the real thing.  I took quite a look at it and I commented to my friend that that was a real anvil and how much of a struggle that must have been to get that there.  Having had to haul anvils around in engineering workshops from time to time I know just how much weight there is in them.  Man, those things are heavy.  My friend commented that the anvil is made of plastic.

Sigh!! He didn't have the experience that I had with things like that and being an office clerk I doubt that he had hardly ever even seen an anvil before and he had certainly never used one.  To the trained eye you know exactly what you're looking for in the differences between a fake anvil and a real one that has actually been used, such as the hammer marks in certain places and the general state of the surface especially around the holes in the top where different fittings can be dropped in for doing certain types of work.  No matter how much I tried to convince him that it was a real anvil and that he should trust me because I'm quite sure I know a real anvil when I see one the more he continued to say "Nah, it's made of plastic".  Ya just can't tell some people, you have to show them.  Understandably, it had a barrier around the exhibit to keep people out to stop them from touching.  The place was very quiet and there were no other people or museum staff around so I told him I would prove it to him.  Quick look around and I stepped over the barrier.  Well, you watch this.  Tap, tap, tap.  Aaarrrgghhh, it was made of plastic, it was hollow.  I can't believe it.  They had made such a good job of the anvil it looked just like the real thing.  And my friend's laughing and telling me that he can tell it's plastic just by looking at it.  Life just isn't fair sometimes.  Meanwhile I'm still trying to convince him of just how real to life that is and all he's saying while laughing at me is "You poor broken anvil hauler".  All I could do was laugh right along with him.

Over time whenever we were having discussions and even after he had married my sister he would always drop in to the discussion that he knows a plastic anvil when he sees one too.  Just hilarious.  The reason I liked the name all these years and kept it was because it taught me a good lesson that I should have known better by that stage anyway.  Just because I think I'm right and it all appears a certain way, that doesn't mean that I am right. 

Just recently when we were having the discussion about diabetes and insulin, it might have seemed like I had decided I was right and there wasn't any more discussion really to be had on the matter, but for me that's not how it is and I still keep a very open mind on discussions like that.  I've been wrong before.  I always think back to the anvil incident.

If I ever have an engineering business, it's going to be called Anvilhauler Engineering or any other business will have Anvilhauler in the name of it.

Sadly I haven't seen that friend for fifteen years now because although my sister claimed to have become a Christian she took a very feminist and totally un-Biblical stance on things and she didn't appreciate me trying to draw her attention to what God had to teach in the Bible.  She is just another one who accepted Christ but it wasn't the result of coming to repentance.  I hope she changes because I used to really like hanging around those two.  Many fun hours spent playing cards and talking.

56

Introduce Yourself / Re: Kevin (Anvilhauler's) Testimony

« on: April 25, 2022, 03:06:57 AM »

If the elders have a problem with my testimony then they can make postings.

re:  BTW, I don't remember you answering my question about what "Anvilhauler" means. Maybe I missed it.

After the other stuff I thought that maybe I should just give this a miss.  I'm glad the other stuff got cleared up and as time allows I will write this up. 

57

Introduce Yourself / Re: Kevin (Anvilhauler's) Testimony

« on: April 24, 2022, 08:19:21 PM »

I'm sorry, I'm getting lost in the shuffle here. I didn't have the problem that Anna and Rowan are having, so I wonder if they could be SUMMARIZE what their contention is? (i.e. put it in as few words as possible, so I can understand it)

Also, has anyone else had issue with Kevin's testimony that they would like to raise? If anyone else is seeing what Rowan and Anna are seeing, please speak up and help explain it.

I am not seeing what you guys are seeing. Maybe it's because I've known Kevin longer; that might be the issue. I don't know. I briefly reviewed things he had written this morning, and my conclusion is that either I'm blind to a problem, or others have misunderstood something. I can't tell yet.

Hi Christopher

In simplicity, I just think Kevin needs to identify/clarify when he was born again.

I do appreciate that I don’t have a long relational history with Kevin, so there may be salient information about his life and faith that I’m not aware of.

However, as someone with the ‘fresh eyes’ of not knowing him, based solely on the information that he has provided in his story, I don’t see any evidence that he is born again.

I see the workshop experience as an important step in the process of him finding God. However, in and of itself, being convicted of sin against God, or having a repentant heart, doesn’t make someone born again.

And years later, when he heard the proper gospel message, it sounds very much like he just gave intellectual consent to the message, which doesn’t make someone born again either.

Both Rowan and I have asked Kevin for the details of when he actually became born again (in three separate posts) and this question has never been answered.

Kevin may well be born again—and I hope that he is. It’s just that he didn’t actually mention when this happened in his story, and he hasn’t clarified it since.

I think this is an essential part of his story for him to clarify, not only for himself, but also for the many people who engage with this forum. As it stands, I believe his current testimony—without additional information provided—could cause confusion to unsaved people about what it means to be born again.

I can see more clearly now the depth that might not have become apparent.  Once I had heard the gospel message there were many times I had sat and spent time with God pouring out my heart about how sorry I was for all of the wrong I had done in my life and thanking him for Jesus Christ  dying on the cross to pay the penalty for my wrong doing.  I truly was of a contrite spirit.  There was a time frame between my being saved as mentioned and "going to church" because I didn't feel like I could turn up to something like that because I didn't know anything.  It took a while for me to make that step because I feared being asked why I was there if I didn't know anything.  I was from a completely "un-churched" background and I didn't even have any idea what people did in "churches" on Sunday mornings   ......   absolutely no idea at all.  My conversion certainly wasn't just an intellectual experience but rather a deep intimate experience with God / Jesus Christ.

A part of what made this whole conversation more difficult is as I wrote some time back about a guy I used to work with who was a narcissist (One of two major narcissists).  In any interaction I would have with him he would think it was acceptable to just bombard me with questions.  If I would answer a question then he would just immediately come back with more.  Because I'm a fairly easy going sort of a person and friendly and get along with people, he obviously thought he was going to take advantage of that for his twisted little ways.  This is the guy who I mentioned that he obviously had no idea and couldn't pick up either body language or facial expressions or self awareness or social awareness that he was just being irritating and that he was going to get himself written off.  When in the end I did write him off he immediately had a complete mental breakdown and ended up in the mental hospital for about a year.

Hence, I do find it uncomfortable when there are a whole lot of questions asked which I thought the answers might have easily been picked up on.  My feeling ill from being in pain certainly didn't help things.  I'm also from a background where as a soldier and as an engineer, when training, those teaching you can only meet you part way and the rest is up to the individual to keep their eyes open and watch and think and learn.  In both of those jobs I had seen people get a bollocking for asking questions about things they should have known the answers to or if they were switched on they should have been able to work out the answers or gone and found out things for themselves.  I'm not saying this as a bad thing for others in the forum, but this is the first forum I have ever been a part of and it's the first time I have ever put down my testimony in writing. 

58

Introduce Yourself / Re: Kevin (Anvilhauler's) Testimony

« on: April 24, 2022, 04:16:37 AM »

In my previous post I mentioned that I chose to “surrender” to Jesus. I think the more Biblical way of wording this is that I came to “call upon” the Lord. I called out for Him. I cried out to Him. I wanted Him. I was yearning and longing for Him from the depth of my being. I didn’t want to live my life any longer without Him.
 
“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13).
 
So, if I may re-word my question using more Biblical language, I wonder if you’d like to share when you called upon the name of the Lord Jesus Himself?

For doctrinal clarity, I thought it best to add this brief postscript to my above message.

In hindsight, I think it would have been more edifying if my third paragraph had been written more succinctly. I believe this would have been better wording:

“In my previous post I mentioned that I chose to “surrender” to Jesus. I think the more Biblical way of wording this is that I came to “call upon” the Lord with a heart of faith and repentance. I called out for Him. I cried out to Him.”

(The above correction also removes the unnecessary focus on my own personal experience, which, because of how I worded it, could have potentially distracted people from the essential doctrine that needs to be discussed. My apologies for this.)

Additionally, I think it would have been better for me to have added a second question at the end, for clarity. I believe this would have been better wording:

"... I wonder if you’d like to share when you called upon the name of the Lord Jesus Himself? When did you take your heart of faith and repentance directly to the Lord Jesus?"

These may appear to be minor changes, but I think they are needed to avoid unnecessary confusion.

I'm putting a stop to this right here.

If the elders have a problem with my testimony then they can make postings.

59

What's New @ CLE / Re: (WEEKLY TEACHING) Wolves in Costume: Kent Hovind p1

« on: April 19, 2022, 05:41:48 PM »

Those who work in the field of narcissism and help others come to terms with what has happened to them and how to move forward have no hesitation in telling that all of the mythical rubbish about some guy looking in to water and seeing his reflection blah blah blah is just rubbish and should be ignored. 

They also point out that most "psychologists" don't understand narcissism and therefore rather than being of any use to those who have been affected by it, they actually make the problem much much worse by their lack of understanding and the stupid things they say.  And just to make it even worse many "psychologists" can be classified as being narcissists themselves.  That would explain their lack of insight.

From all that I have seen, those who work to heal the lives of others make it quite clear there is no such thing as "psychology" and what there really is is people who make decisions and they don't care about the effect those decisions have on the lives and well being of other people.

A number of years back I actually met a "psychiatrist" at the pool and he works for the hospital here in Dunedin.  I talked with him not long after I learned there was this collection of evil behaviours called narcissism.  A part of his job was evaluating criminal offenders before they faced trial for their crimes.  I quizzed him about "narcissists" and commented to him that he must have come across quite a few in his time, and his answer was 'yes' he certainly has.  When I asked further about their communication he commented that they are people you can just never engage with.  These are people who at some stage in their life have decided that they will do whatever they want and none of it is open to scrutiny or any examination.  They are just a complete waste of time and there is really no place for them in society.  I liked all that he was saying because I could relate all of it to my ex-wife.

60

What's New @ CLE / Re: (WEEKLY TEACHING) Wolves in Costume: Kent Hovind p1

« on: April 19, 2022, 05:54:30 AM »

I just finished listening to the teaching and the word 'narcissism' came up.  'Narcissism' actually isn't some "psychology" term and those who teach about narcissism stress that all the time and quite often advise people never to use the word unless the person you're talking with knows very well what narcissism is.  Numerous times they have advised that people should use the description of the individual factors that are collectively called narcissism instead. 

Those factors typically are
lack of empathy,
lack of remorse,
lack of guilt,
arrogance,
lying,
stealing,
selfishness,
entitlement,
being difficult etc etc.

A "psychologist" never diagnoses people as having these traits and these traits are observed by the people who have the misfortune of having to tolerate those who behave in such a manner.  The traits are described as being sinful acts and those who do such things are fully aware of what they are doing but have no intention of dealing with their behaviour.  Typically it seems these people have come to the conclusion in their life at some stage that they are going to look after number one, and they are number one.

If narcissism was a psychology term then unfortunately that would make the Bible a psychology textbook.

Often people will get just as angry when listing the individual attributes.