Thanks to all who responded.

Postmillennialism is a cancer that changes the church's focus:

From saving souls to saving the nation,
From an eternal focus to a temporal focus,
From heavenly citizenship first to earthly citizenship first,
From the heaven-n-hell gospel to the social gospel,
From discipleship to patriotism,
From Satan on the rampage to Satan bound,
From a kingdom in a day to a kingdom over time,
From a kingdom by Jesus in person to one by Jesus absent,
From a kingdom by crisis to a kingdom by increments,
From apostasy coming to revival coming,
From faith to sight.

This message is intentional departure from the Jesus of the Bible and the Bible of Jesus.

Biblical signs of the last times:
The rebirth of Israel as a nation.
All the nations will hate Israel.
The rise of the Russian juggernaut.
The Russia, Turkey, Iran triad.
The return of dominant Sodomite morality.
The rise of evolution and the denial of creation.
A generation with a form of godliness.
The NWO agenda to undermine meat and marriage.
The world governments throwing aside God's ways.
The rise of one-world religion.
The rise of a one-world economic system.
The rise of one-world government.
The rise of the technology to dominate the world.
The rise of the Nephilim spirit in transhumanism.
I could keep going.

Psalm 138:2, "For You have magnified your word above all your name."

Don't embrace departure from Scripture on the basis of pleas for the honor or glory or name of God. Ditto for Jesus or the Holy Spirit. The acid test of honoring God is conformity to the word of God—the word interpreted by the word.

One of the hardest things for believers to do is balance love for the word with love for the brethren. What do we do when our Christian brethren walk a path wider than what we are comfortable with? Or teach doctrines we disagree with? Even doctrines we believe are pretty serious error? If we are inclined toward pride, we will harshly judge men that Jesus doesn't harshly judge, maybe even regard them as heretics, though Jesus will receive them into heaven.

If we write and preach with harshness, we may win the accolades of men who themselves harshly judge those they disagree with, but such harshness actually reduces the odds that we will win straying brethren to sounder views or help those who are sitting on the fence or standing confused at the crossroads.

These comments should not be taken as a slam against discernment ministry. Some of my dearest friends and ministry associates are engaged in discernment ministry. Some of them, in fact, have challenged the doctrine of men that I have shared the platform with or cooperated with. I do not fault them for this. Facts are facts. Truth is truth. Indeed, I have addressed some of the same errors. But, we will get better mileage in our discernment ministry if love is infused into our discernment, our presentation, and our application. As Richard Baxter said, "I can as willingly be a martyr for love as for any article of the creed."

Christ was made an offering for sin, the sin of the whole world, but He willingly went to the Cross as a freewill offering of love for his friends who are His Body, the Church. And Christ loved and cherished the Church so dearly that He gave Himself for it: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down His life for His friends."
We are to abide in Him, reflect His love, and to love others in the same way that He loved us. It is only as we experience a deepening love for Jesus and all that He has done for us, that we can begin to allow His love to flow into us and through us to others. And then, in His power and strength, we too may lay down our lives in service to Him as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, in Jesus' name.

Carli • Saved by Grace

Join Lee live tomorrow at 8pm CST

https://www.youtube.com/live/rcQx2OhfBZk?si=gvrR_MaHVvCzY-tT

Let us draw near to God, catching hold of His eternal perspective and trusting in His unfailing love with all of our hearts. Let us not allow the circumstances that surround us and the apparent successes of the ungodly to cause us to doubt the goodness of God. But rather, let us declare the wonderful works of Him Who has saved us by grace through faith in Christ, adopted us into His own family, and covered us in Christ's royal robe of righteousness.

Carli • Saved by Grace

May we come to a deeper understanding that the self~contained, eternally existent LIFE of Christ which is poured into the hearts of all who are redeemed by His blood, declared righteous through faith, indwelt by His Spirit, and made into a new creation so that we can walk in His eternal light, wisdom, holiness, and love.

Carli • Saved by Grace

Yesterday, I attended the most amazing funeral I have ever attended, the memorial for a dear brother who had 40-plus years in effective evangelism. The memorial service was 2.75 hours long from start to finish. We sang a lot. This was the most worship-filled, praise-filled, joy-filled funeral I have ever attended. It seemed like everyone was excited that our dear brother had received his home-call, and that soon (and very soon) we will all join him in the courts above. It seemed less like "goodbye" and more like "see you tomorrow." Get tears in my eyes just thinking about the service.

We are all saved by grace through faith, and God's Holy Spirit has individually and selectively conferred different and individually selected gifts and graces on all His children so that we are enabled to live by grace and serve Him in newness of life, by grace. And the heavenly grace that we receive has been given to each one, in proportion to the measure of Christ's immeasurable riches and His eternal bounty. Jesus gave HIMSELF willingly for us. Should not we give ourselves rejoicingly to Him?

Carli • Saved by Grace

John 1:1-3
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

My two cents worth on the election. While I do believe that abortion is murder, I have never made that my primary voting issue. I don't vote for a Christian platform. It doesn't exist. We have never had a Christian platform in the Republican party (though it was historically more molded and informed by Christian values).

I only vote for two issues: freedom and economics. Which candidate and which party is going to give me the most freedom and the most economic blessing in the next four years?

Voting this way has been, by default, a vote against abortion for a few decades now. But there are now many signals that the train has come and gone for Christian values in the Republican party, that most of the professing Christians in the Republican party don't hold biblical values consistently, that the Republicans are migrating to a Centrist position to win more of the middle, that most Evangelicals and Catholics are going to join the compromise, and that the Republicans are going to put the consistent Evangelicals and Catholics out to dry.

Because of the abortion issue, many are now choosing to either not vote or write-in vote, a practice which benefits the Marxists who dominate the Democrat party. The pragmatic vote would vote for freedom, to give us another four years (if the Lord tarries that long) of a half-tolerable America. This country will rapidly descend into moral, economic, societal, and foreign policy chaos if the Democrats win the election.

May we seek to display the same godly characteristics of Timothy and like him, have a teachable spirit that seeks to honour the Lord in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, and may we show ourselves to be a godly example of those who believe.

Carli • Saved by Grace

2 Cor 7:1, "Therefore, having these promises beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."

What promises? The holiness teaching at the end of the 6th chapter. How do we perfect holiness? By submitting to the teaching of the word and the prompting of the Spirit.

"If private revelations agree with Scriptures, they are needless; and if they disagree, they are false."
(summary of John Owen via J.I. Packer)

We who were once living in the kingdom of darkness, enslaved to sin, and steeped in shame, have been forever transported into His kingdom of light and received life, grace, glory, forgiveness, and hope. How important that we should all walk in a manner worthy of our Father Who calls us into His own kingdom and glory, to the praise of His holy name.

Carli • Saved by Grace

https://www.youtube.com/live/A5gQFa0vuGA?si=eZ50FAJh0pm6u1zB

Livestream tonight (Tues, Sept 3) at 8 pm Central.

So glad we are nearing the end of the race. Looking forward to thousands of summers of hiking in the mountains and canoeing in the north woods.