War College
Trumpets W1 - W7

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This page contains the first 7 of the 12 War College Trumpets. To access the War College Index with its description of the contents of all 12 essays, and to access the link to the page containing W8-W12, and to have the option to download the complete War College as a bookmarked PDF document, click the navigation button above.

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W1 Inbreeding, Culling, & the Church

W2 A Review & Rearguard Action

W3 New Testament Warfare Tactics

W4 How to Defend the AV1611

W5 Boot Camp Tactics

W6 Tares Among Us

W7 Illocutionary Effects on the Word

War College Trumpet W1

INBREEDING, CULLING, AND THE CHURCH

If some of you comrades have no interest in animal-husbandry subjects like inbreeding, please bear with me. I’m going to show you that inbreeding is more than just another example of the fallacy of “common knowledge” ...we’re going to see how the truth about inbreeding (“doth not even nature itself teach you”) and the culling that must accompany inbreeding can be applied to Christianity in order to help us avoid apostasy. And that will help us realize why the gates of hell want us to think inbreeding is bad. In retrospect we’ll be able to, once again, marvel at the amazing consistency of God’s creation – all of His truths really do complement each other.

I have made this relatively-minor essay the first in the series of War College Trumpets because I’m going to build upon and apply some of the things revealed herein to subsequent trumpets. In this trumpet I’ll also define certain terms such as “Recessive genes” that will be used later. Let’s begin.

At Canaan Farm many years ago when Robin and I first decided to get livestock, we accepted our responsibility as husbandmen by learning about animals and how to care for them. We selected Horned Dorset sheep, Nubian dairy goats, and Buff Orpington chickens because their traits appealed to us and suited our intended style of husbandry. In most books on caring for animals, we were constantly told inbreeding is bad and dangerous – so stay away from it. Imagine our surprise when we heard from other shepherds in our area about two elderly shepherds who believed in inbreeding their sheep. The amazing thing, we were told, was their sheep were in great demand by other shepherds because the sheep were so consistently flawless and because inbred sheep have a high concentration of good genes. If that were true, I asked, why didn’t everybody inbreed? The answer was that those two men were having some success with their flocks now, but they were “living dangerously” because at any moment their ewes could start having lambs with two heads, three eyes, and three legs.

Along with the fact that the two shepherds were breeding excellent sheep, there were several factors that helped convince me to research inbreeding:

The two inbreeding shepherds were both retired college professors.

As a Bible believer I had already learned to be somewhat skeptical of “common knowledge”, and my continuing studies would eventually result in the quote, “To run with the majority during the race of life is to be mediocre all of the time and wrong most of the time.”

Many of the more successful shepherds were using breeding programs with various names such as “line breeding” that were really inbreeding with a few inconsistencies thrown in.

Adam’s generations, Noah’s generations, and Abraham’s generations inbred. And most old-time animal husbandry involved inbreeding because of geographic isolation and the absence of suitable transport for most poor farmers.

I didn’t just research inbreeding at the library. I phoned the two retired professors (who lived hours away in opposite directions) and set up appointments for Robin and me to visit their farms and discuss inbreeding. They were amazed and delighted that after all these decades somebody wanted to actually sit down and rationally talk specifics. Both professors were intelligent, articulate, most knowledgeable, and very helpful. After fully teaching us that successful breeding (from the standpoint of genetic consistency) must include proper culling, they warned us to be careful about what we said around most shepherds because their retorts would make us no longer respect them as knowledgeable husbandmen…and if we tried to help them learn, we’d be disappointed by their slothful reactions and would only convince them we were “inbreeding weirdoes.” What I learned from my studies and the two visits was fascinating, not merely because – once again – common knowledge was wrong, but because it turns out the Lord knew what He was doing when He (beginning with Abraham’s selecting a wife for his son from among his close relatives) advised the Hebrews to only marry among themselves and to shun pagans.

Inbreeding is incest. It is when you find a stud ram you really like and try to develop a flock that is “made in his image.” You do that by having him breed his sisters and daughters and granddaughters and great-granddaughters for as long as he lives. (You could also inbreed by simply “closing your flock” by never bringing in rams or ewes from other flocks, and by letting your rams and ewes breed each other randomly. But this random method would take longer to produce results.)

Incest has gotten a bad reputation for a reason – it tends to force undesirable genetic characteristics to manifest themselves. For example, let’s say you have a flock of Horned Dorset sheep and you’ve heard inbreeding will give them crumpled horns and spots of dark wool. Undesirable traits are produced by “recessive” genes, which are genes that usually don’t show up, such as crumpled horns in sheep, and perhaps a “history” of diabetes or heart disease in your family. If you do not inbreed, the recessive genes will tend to stay hidden...and you’ll only have a crumpled horn (or heart disease in your family) show up every second or third generation. That’s right, “outcrossing” (the opposite of inbreeding), which means you go buy a stud ram every two or three years from some other flock so he won’t be related to your ewes, will tend to “mask” the recessive genes...and bad traits usually won’t show up. But your flock (and your family) will still have those bad recessive genes in their genetic mix...and in random generations those bad genes will show up.

To review: Outcrossing will tend to avoid having problems with recessive traits like crumpled horns and heart disease. It does so because outcrossing tends to favor the good (dominant) genes and subdue the bad (recessive) genes. But the recessive genes are still there in some sheep and they can be genetically passed to their offspring...and will randomly show up via crumpled horns every now and then.

Inbreeding has the opposite effect on recessive genes; it tends to force the recessive genes to surface. That means initially you’ll have more lambs born with crumpled horns and dark spots in their wool. What are you going to do with those sheep with undesirable characteristics? You’re going to cull them from your flock by turning them into food or selling them. And the lambs that were born looking good (no horn or wool problems) might not have any recessives in their genetic mix – because the inbreeding didn’t force anything bad to appear...this time. So you’ll use them as breeders, but you’ll need patience; it’ll take several generations of inbreeding and culling to expose and eliminate the recessive genes from your flock. When that is accomplished, no matter which rams and ewes mate, all of their lambs will be pure; you have eliminated the recessive genes from your flock. As long as your flock remains closed it will remain genetically pure and have no problems.

But if you one day go out and purchase a big, good-looking ram from another flock so you can use him as a stud, all of your inbreeding and culling will go out the window because the new ram has an unknown genetic mix. For a generation or two you may be pleased. But one day you may have a lamb with hip dysplasia, or a bad under-bite, or something else that shows you’ve now got unknown recessives lurking in your flock. And the only way to eliminate them is to start over by closing your flock, inbreeding, and culling the undesirables.

Interestingly enough, animals have their own way of culling – which tends to preserve their breed traits: It’s called survival of the fittest (which is considered by evolutionists to be a “proof” that The Creation never happened). How do animals cull themselves? They kill the recessive genes. For example, if you buy two dozen mail-order white chicks, the chicken hatchery wants you to fall in love with and buy more breeds of chickens, so they include in the perforated shipping box a “bonus” specimen of a different breed – such as a cute little black chick. When you go out to the barn and check on the chicks, you’ll sometimes notice that when the black chick walks by the white ones, the whities will peck on the black one simply because he is different from the majority. And one day you’ll find the black chick lying face down, dead, feathers messed up, and covered with little specks of blood from the constant barrage of pecks.

Knowledgeable livestock breeders and Bible believers who have studied to shew themselves approved unto God will be distinct minorities that are different from the masses. Bible believers can be compared with the little black chick: the ignorant Christian majority will pick on Bible believers in little “civilized” ways in an unconscious survival-of-the-fittest effort to defend their ignorance, and to spread their Recessive genes. The Bible tells us how to protect ourselves from the fate of those poor picked-on black chicks…it’s called separation – stay away from those in the apostate majority.

One of the shepherd/professors we visited (from whom we bought sheep and bees) actually went to the Isle of Guernsey in the English Channel to visit dairymen: In the old days the Guernsey breed of dairy cows originated because the geographic isolation of the island (difficult to get stud bulls on small boats) forced the farmers on Guernsey to inbreed. Genetics also explains how Noah, with relatively few animals aboard his ark, could have populated the globe with all the different animal breeds we have today: Just a few mongrel dogs, for example, when turned loose on the earth would have eventually through inbreeding and geographic culling produced many dog and wolf breeds. (Now you know why there are so many different breeds of sheep and cows; it’s because of natural inbreeding due to geographic isolation. Just look up a list of sheep breeds and notice that many of the breed names are geographic regions.) Today dog breeders are continually producing new breeds by using inbreeding and culling to first isolate the kinds of genes they want and then to purify the breed until the Kennel Clubs are satisfied with the stability and reliability of the new breed. New strains of corn (and apples, and everything) are developed in the same way: Mix some strains that have qualities you like, and then use inbreeding (manual pollinating) and culling of the results until you have reliable strains.

That’s an abbreviated sketch of inbreeding. It doesn’t tell the whole story, but you’ve got the general idea. Inbreeding is widely understood and used all over the world. In fact, just about the only people who don’t understand how useful and helpful inbreeding can be are the majority!

There are reasons tradition has given inbreeding a bad reputation:

The love of money: It’s cheaper to outcross and sell expensive puppies to people who want good-looking animals (that may or may not end up with hip dysplasia), and also to sell cheap puppies to families that don’t know or care if they’re ugly (that may get hip dysplasia), than it is to take the time to inbreed and cull in order to develop a truly pure, healthy breed. (Most “purebred” animals today are not genetically pure.)

Culling is thought to be “unfair and cruel” by many lightweights.

Outcrossing can initially cause “hybrid vigor”: you’ll get larger animals and crops than normal – so you get to sell more product.

Other info we learned, including how the show rings at our summer county fairs are ruining the purity of our “purebred” livestock; about hybrid vs. open-pollinated crops; what horror the professor learned on the Isle of Guernsey; what the modern agricultural schools were teaching his son; what the huge international seed, chemical fertilizer, and chemical crop spray companies are doing to agriculture; and how the professor’s old-fashioned farm sailed through a recession even as he watched his modern-farm neighbors go bankrupt was all fascinating in the context of this discussion...but I’m going to move on and show how inbreeding and culling apply to the Bible and Christianity.

We’ve seen that inbreeding forces recessive genes to manifest themselves more quickly. I’m going to capitalize Recessive genes whenever I use the term in reference to God’s people/the church. For example, incorrect doctrines and evil ideologies can be hidden among church members for years because Christians do not have the kind of close-knit, intimate, Bible-based relationships and in-depth discussions and studies that would more quickly expose church members who are lazy, uncaring, unmotivated, or believe in doctrines and ideologies that are subversive to Biblical Christianity. These “Recessive genes” would tend to become apparent if Christians “inbred” by having verbal doctrinal intercourse via serious, in-depth, Bible-oriented fellowship.

Since these “Recessive genes” are bad and harmful to the doctrinal wellbeing of the church, they need to be eliminated. That’s where culling comes into play. Culling in the OT eliminated Christians who were polluting the church with Recessive genes / subversive ideologies. Examples of culling include God drowning all the leavened Christians with The Flood; King David executing the young man for harboring a belief in regicide; God executed Hananiah for creating doubt about the inerrancy of the word of God as spoken by Jeremiah; the Jews executed any of their own children who hadn’t grown out of their willfulness and rebelliousness by the age of 16; and the church used stoning to cull members guilty of various infractions of the law.

God also instructed his OT saints to avoid Recessive genes by inbreeding / only marrying other Hebrews. Another facet of inbreeding/culling is separation/shunning. God told His people to separate themselves from pagans and to shun bad Christians and to utilize church discipline if necessary.

The proper use of close Christian fellowship (inbreeding) and church discipline (culling) would have produced good, strong, doctrinally-pure church members whose Biblical outlook on life repelled them from carnal Christians and pagans and made them seek the haven of the company of good Christians.

But, alas, the majority of OT and NT saints are not good, salty Christians who have kept our churches doctrinally pure and spiritually strong. Our churches have become Recessive-gene breeding grounds for born-again, upstanding, morality-worshipping, tithing, hypocritical Pharisees. In other words, the slovenly “deadwood” in our churches you might ordinarily point to as the problem – aren’t...because those slovenly pewsters aren’t really a doctrinal threat (but they should be made to get with the program or get out because, as we say on the farm, they’re taking up room at the feed rack...room that could be used to feed sheep who want to grow and become active salts with savor). The true doctrinal threats in our churches are often the Bible-thumping pillars because they tend to be leaders who can influence and leaven all but the few true Bible-based warriors. The reason modern Pharisees survive and thrive is our churches don’t have enough true warriors (defined as doctrinally-mature Swordbearers) to start and sustain the kind of daily, between-services, doctrine-based fellowship and Bible studies and discussions that will eventually expose the tradition-loving, Bible-hating Pharisees (like Christ did) and cause them to pack up and git! I hate to keep repeating myself, but for Jesus’ sake I’m going to say it again: Just like at the First Coming when the very people who were looked up to as Bible-believing pillars of the church turned out to be the blind who were leading the ignorant slothful majority of pewsters to hell with them; so too is that true today.

Another undeniable truth is a large church isn’t a sign that it’s a good church: A good and effective army isn’t the one with a few seasoned veterans and many unmotivated sloths taking up room at the feed rack; it’s the one with a majority of true warriors and a few motivated, eager, actively-participating-and-growing recruits.

A quick comparison of proper livestock management and proper church fellowship:

LIVESTOCK: Use inbreeding to ensure that the flock remains closely related, thus exposing undesirable traits (recessive genes).

CHURCH: Use separation to ensure close fellowship, thus exposing undesirable traits and doctrines (“Recessive genes”).

LIVESTOCK: Use culling to eliminate animals with undesirable recessive genes for the present and future good of the flock.

CHURCH: Use church discipline to eliminate Recessive genes and enforce proper Biblical doctrine and conduct for the good of the church.

LIVESTOCK: Eventually the flock will be almost free of recessive (undesirable) genes, and it will therefore breed true to form with only minimal culling required to keep it that way – and the breed thrives.

CHURCH: Eventually the church will be populated by dedicated Christians with proper doctrine, which will make it easier to expose and deal with occasional tares and wolves in sheep’s clothing – and the church survives the war.

All of this shows God knows what He’s talking about in the Bible when He advises us to fellowship with those who are believers and doers of the word, to be separated from those that walk in darkness, and to not spare the rod of discipline in the church.

It’s time to get into the meat of this War College material, starting with Trumpet W2.

“Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.”

*****

War College Trumpet W2

A REVIEW OF CHRISTIAN WARFARE

AND THE LORD'S STRATEGY OF REARGUARD ACTION

Lk 14:31 Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?

Satan was not foolish enough to go to war unless he had such huge advantages that convinced him he could win against The Mighty God. You already know from The Age of Reason about the dangerous instinctive appeal of the evil of equality and its offspring of carnality and Reason, but the following verses suggest that the doctrine of devils, equality, is so aggressively potent that it cannot be stopped:

1 Cor 5:6 Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

Lk 13:20,21 Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.

Mat 16:6,12 Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven...Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine...

If the Bible is correct (and we know it is), and the Devil’s leaven will leaven the whole lump, that can only mean the gates of hell will prevail over the church...unless... (Note: This verse does not say the Devil will win the war, it says his leaven cannot be stopped. That fact was crucial when God developed His strategy and tactics.)

In this War College Trumpet I am going to let Biblical history demonstrate just how serious, dangerous, difficult, and deadly this war is, which will show why the Lord has been using a strategy of rearguard action ever since the beginning.

Rearguard action: The utilization of defensive and/or delaying tactics, often

involving heavy casualties, by a retreating army desperately trying to

protect itself from defeat or annihilation by an overwhelming force.

In the next Trumpet, W3, I’ll use Scripture to describe the proper tactics given to us by the Lord that are appropriate for a rearguard action designed to enable the church to endure to the end in spite of heavy casualties.

ADAM AND EVE: The Retreat Begins

Gen 3:22,23 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil...Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden.

In order to win the war, God issued literal instructions to Adam about the forbidden fruit. In a nutshell that’s the pattern we need to follow: God is the Authority, He does the thinking, He tells us what to do, we do it. It could not be simpler.

Satan, in order to prevail, wants to reverse all of that: We are our own authority (not God), we do our own thinking (instead of complying with the literal word), and we do what we think is right (establish by our fruit that we are independent and evil).

When Eve told Satan what God literally said, Satan attacked her literal interpretation by responding with theology’s mantra, “Yea, hath God said...”, and then he offered a “better” interpretation that was more appealing...and Eve accepted it. Satan then overturned Adam’s authority by getting him to carry out the will of his servant, which is the democratic process.

To review, right at the beginning of the war Satan successfully introduced leaven to the lump by:

Using theology’s Reason to undermine faith in the literal accuracy of the word of God.

Using democracy to empower the will of the people.

DAY ONE: The Christian Holocaust of Adam’s Generations

Gen 6&7 God looked upon the earth, and, behold...all flesh had corrupted his way...the waters of the flood were upon the earth... And all flesh died...and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

God told His first patriarch, Adam, to be fruitful and multiply in order to populate the church with soldiers. By the end of the Day, however, Satan had so leavened God’s church that only eight people were put aboard the ark. We are not told how God’s people were leavened, but whatever it was caused God to react with deadly wrath...and He drowned everybody.

Shepherds know how to cull undesirable sheep in order to preserve the integrity of the flock, and the Good Shepherd wisely culled all of the leaven and started over with a new lump/patriarch.

DAY TWO: The Culling of Noah’s Generations

Gen 17:7,9 I will establish my covenant between me and thee...to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee...And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations.

God told His second patriarch, Noah, to be fruitful and multiply in order to repopulate the church with soldiers. By the end of the Day, however, Satan had so leavened the lump of God’s people that He decided to divide the human race and start all over with a new patriarch. We are not told what leaven made God react so dramatically by culling both Adam’s and Noah’s generations, but a little later we’ll get our first clue from what happened to Moses, and another clue from what happened to Christ.

DAYS THREE & FOUR: The Pruning of Abraham’s Generations

Rom 11:11-22 Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles...if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.

Jn 15:1,2,6 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away...and cast them into the fire, and they are burned...because of unbelief they were broken off...

God gave the generations of Abraham, His third patriarch, the Old Commission to be fruitful and multiply in order to repopulate the new lump/church with soldiers. He also gave them the written Old Testament.

Some tactics used during this period include:

Inbreeding. All informed shepherds know how valuable inbreeding is (see Trumpet W1) in order to preserve the integrity of the flock. (Doctrinally, I’m including close Christian fellowship and separation as part of inbreeding. (Again, see Trumpet W1.) God advised His Hebrews to only marry among themselves, to take precautions if they married pagans, and to kill all pagans who lived close to Israel. This was designed to keep leaven out and to expose members of the church who had been leavened (with “Recessive genes”).

Culling. The death penalty (including the up-close-and-personal gruesomeness of stoning) was required for a number of transgressions (including some that were “trivial”) in order to drive home the importance and necessity of obeying the literal word of God.

On AOR page H2-4 we covered The Grapes of Wrath, which describes an attempt by God’s people to dethrone Moses and institute a Christian democracy. An interesting facet of this episode is the fact that God was so angry He came very close to cutting off His people and starting over – again – by making Moses the fourth patriarch (a new lump). Could it be that history repeats itself – especially in the Bible? Could it be that the generations of both patriarchs, Adam and Noah, who also incurred the wrath of God, did so because they were leavened by the principles of democracy as had been done when God’s people turned against Moses? Could it be that the democratic process that toppled Adam in the garden established a pattern that has been repeated in every era and to all patriarchs or to their generations? Possibly, especially if we include the fact that the generations of Abraham had become so leavened by the time of the First Coming that in a democratic action Christians forced Pontius Pilate to release Barabbas and crucify the fourth – and last – patriarch, Christ. And could it be that NT Christians in a democratic action will elect the Antichrist?

Equality-based democratic action also incurred God’s deadly wrath during Korah’s uprising (AOR page H2-5) when He killed 15,000 Christians in an effort to make us zero in on why He culled them so we might not make the same democratic mistake. It seems, though, that equality and democracy are such Naturally-powerful ideologies that, in spite of God’s sudden and dramatic mass cullings, and in spite of all He has put in His Holy Bible (covered in part in AOR D25, Damnable Heresy), today’s NT church/lump has swallowed equality and democracy hook, line, and sinker.

KING SAUL THE SUBVERSIVE VS. KING DAVID THE SINNER

We’ve already noted that by modern Christian standards King Saul’s transgressions (1 Sa 15) made him a Boy Scout when compared with the multiple major sins committed by King David. And yet God quickly dumped Saul and retained David. Any sin, whether it is considered to be major or minor, makes us sinners in need of forgiveness. Even though both Saul and David were sinners, and even though on the surface David seemed to be worse, there was obviously something that made Saul’s sin unforgivable in the Lord’s eyes.

Saul’s confession and request for forgiveness were rejected because what he had done was subversive. The definition of subvert may be applied to allegiance to a government, nation, or sovereign; or it may be applied to a person’s character, values, or faith:

Subvert: To intentionally or unintentionally pervert, corrupt, or undermine at a foundational level, often covertly.

When Saul rejected the authority of the literal word of God and yielded to the democratic voice of the people, he was accepting and unknowingly attempting to spread a type of leaven that Biblical history, God’s deadly reactions, world history, and modern “Christian” beliefs reveal to be an especially dangerous and subversive leaven. Ordinarily we might not pay too much attention to the sin of democracy and its associated principles, but the fact that God Almighty unerringly reacts with swift, uncompromising condemnation makes us put democratic principles on the list of damnable heresies. There is something about democracy that is so diametrically opposed to Godly order and authority and to the welfare of the church, and history reveals democracy to be such an appealing and rapidly-spreading ideology/leaven, that we must accept the fact that God treats democracy and its principles as subversive leaven, and we must incorporate that into our discernment/doctrinal thinking.

David’s sins were fundamentally different from Saul’s (if we look at them from the perspective of authority) because David’s sins were not subversive. When David committed adultery, for example, it wasn’t because he thought adultery was the way life ought to be. In other words, his sin was never any kind of challenge to God’s will and way because David knew it was wrong. He was like a child who hopes he can get away with disobeying his parent, but when caught he confesses and cries and says he won’t do it again. In David’s case, parental authority and rules were never questioned or challenged. I say again, David’s transgressions were not a threat to God’s authority because his sins did not tempt anybody to think adultery and murder were good and should no longer be sins. But Saul not only thought trying to change/“improve” God’s literal word, and accepting the “goodness” of the principles of democracy were good and better than God’s way, he publicly accepted them and therefore was unwittingly subverting authority (similar to Martin Luther’s nailing his Ninety-five Theses to the church door).

While we’re talking about King David, and in case you think I’m making too much of the subversive nature of theology and democracy by highlighting the fact that they undermine Biblical/God’s authority, let’s examine something David did (2 Sam 1 and AOR page H2-7). David never politically or militarily lifted a finger against King Saul. When a young man saw Saul commit suicide, he hoped to gain David’s favor by claiming to have killed Saul himself. Even when David knew the man had not killed Saul, David had him executed “merely” for treating the authority-overthrowing concept of regicide as legitimate or acceptable. I put merely in quotes because you and I have been subverted into focusing on the man’s lie as if that were his main/only sin. I think we can agree that when we’re in “Sunday school” we can see why David and God would execute the man...but in “real life” we probably would not execute him. That means we have a big problem – subversive leaven. We don’t understand and appreciate how critically-important and necessary to this war and to daily life authority is. David didn’t just have a superficial intellectual acceptance of the importance of authority; it was a fundamental part of his character. This incident helps reveal how deep David’s understanding of the Bible (and therefore his relationship with God) was. David actually understood who and what God is, and therefore Godly authority all the way down the chain of command was life and death to him (Rom 13:1,2; Eph 5:22-24; 6:1-7).

HANANIAH AND THEOLOGY

On AOR D22-10,11 and D23-7 we compared Hananiah (who told everybody that Jeremiah’s message from God was not God’s word) to modern Enlightened Christians (who use layman’s aids to spread the heresy that the inspired and inerrant word of God does not exist). How did God react to Hananiah? He killed him. How would David have reacted? How would we have reacted? If we don’t want to be culled we need to understand why God killed Hananiah so we might not make the same mistake via today’s popular heresy of Yea-hath-God-said theology: God killed His servant, Hananiah, for subverting His authority by “correcting” His word/getting people to doubt His word. The kind of Yea, hath God said rebellion that God says Hananiah was teaching must be added to the list of subversive heresies – in spite of the fact that theology’s skepticism about the Bible is so rampantly-popular today. In Sunday school we can easily see why God treats it as rebellion and witchcraft: Theology/philosophy is such a Naturally-powerful ideology that it has not only subverted the necessary foundation for faith (the Bible), but it has blinded Christians to theology’s damnable and undeniably-appalling track record, and blinded them to the fact that they have foolishly emulated Eve by thinking “higher textual criticism” is “a tree to be desired to make one wise, so they partake of the fruit thereof, and do eat, and give also to other Christians with them, and they do eat”...and so the subversive leaven continues to be spread inside the church by modern Hananiahs.

DAYS FIVE & SIX: The New Testament Era

Mt 12:30 He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.

Rev 3:15,16,19 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth...be zealous therefore, and repent.

Lk 18:8 ...when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

I have been told that I’m “making Christ look like a loser” by teaching about His rearguard strategy; that “retreating” and “losing” are distinctions without a difference. I beg to differ: There is a huge difference. To stand and fight a battle when a retreat is tactically and strategically more advantageous would be foolish – especially if the cost of winning the battle caused the war to be lost (a Pyrrhic victory). I grant, however, that the first Four Days of the war were dismal because it looked like the Devil could do nothing but win and the Lord could do nothing but retreat and regroup. But when the New Testament came out on Day Five the Devil suffered massive setbacks and the Lord’s rearguard action was shown to be brilliant, masterfully-complex, and preplanned. Part of the brilliance revealed by the NT was that the OT, which had appeared to be incapable of slowing the Devil’s advances, was actually a brilliant, highly-effective defensive maneuver. The OT turned out to be like a left jab that seems to be ineffective...until the shockingly swift and powerful right cross reveals the left jab to have been a highly-effective feint or setup. Some of the things that changed and that we learned when the NT came out:

The NT revealed that our “vengeful” God is actually loving, merciful, and forgiving.

The NT plainly revealed the doctrine of expediency. And it shewed expediency to have been part of the OT, too – something that was understood by David when he ate the shewbread. (What a great Christian and ensample David was!)

During the time of the First Coming whenever the theologians tried to justify their tradition-based doctrines by tripping up the Word of God and exposing Him as fallible, they failed. The Lord always prevailed by sticking to the literal word of God – thus becoming an example for us. Did the theologians learn and repent? No. It appears they were reprobate, incapable of repentance. That’s why the Lord correctly said they were of their father the devil and were blind leaders making their pewsters twofold more the children of hell than they were themselves. They were subverted...just like Hananiah.

(Today whenever theologians have tried to justify their tradition-based doctrines by claiming to have finally found an error in the AV1611 (and thereby exposing it as fallible like all the modern versions) they have failed. The literal words in the KJV always prevailed by proving to be inerrant. Have theologians learned from the truth and repented? No. It appears they are modern Hananiahs teaching rebellion by subverting faith in God’s holy, infallible word.)

Satan thought he could use the OT law (because the law only condemns) to win the war. After all, he had all good saints in history safely locked up in Abe’s bosom. And the last nail in the coffin (he thought) was crucifying Christ. But the condemning nature of the law was a feint, left jab, a sucker punch – because when Christ died, satisfied the law, and imputed it to His church all prisoners in Abe’s bosom were released. The death penalty (both the crucifixion and the OT law) that had seemed to help Satan’s cause, proved to be a huge setback.

Christ did not restore worldly dominion, so His people are free to concentrate on the doctrinal wellbeing of the church.

God’s people used to be concentrated within the tiny nation of Israel. Today the church exists as unleavened individuals and small groups who are scattered all around the world.

All the previous patriarchs were replaced by The Patriarch, Christ. But Christ was crucified before He could marry and multiply...so I’ll deal with His patriarchy in another section.

The Old Commission was replaced by the Great Commission, which I’ll deal with in another section.

The practice of Inbreeding among God’s people remained, but physical inbreeding vanished (along with the Old Commission) and therefore the emphasis today is on doctrinal intercourse via close Bible-oriented, iron-sharpeneth-iron fellowship. More on this later.

The death penalty part of culling vanished and today the emphasis is on church discipline, separation, and shunning. More later.

THE PATRIARCH

During the OT era the church came from the physical loins of Adam, Noah, and Abraham. I say again, the church grew because those patriarchs had children.

Christ was crucified before He could physically reproduce. That was by design: He no longer wants the tactical predictability of physical reproduction; He gives the new birth to whomsoever He will in whatever corner of the globe He deems fit for the war.

And since for the first time in history we Christians have no idea if the Lord will give the new birth to our children or not, He has advised us to not marry so we can devote more time to the Great Commission in order to find His sheep so we can fellowship, exhort, and grow.

THE GREAT COMMISSION

God got rid of the Old Commission to be fruitful and multiply because He is now producing Christians whenever and wherever He decides. An example of this can be seen on Mars Hill:

In Act 17 Paul at first blush (with his cryptic hath made of one blood all nations of men) seems to be going along with the modern tradition of trying to convert the heathen by getting them to say the sinner’s prayer. But then he goes against modern tradition by saying, That they should seek the Lord, if “haply” they might feel after him, and find him. Notice Paul is not telling anybody to “repent” or “make a decision” to “become a Christian.” He says he is talking to those people who, if they happen to already feel after Christ are then spiritually drawn to Christ by doing two things, 1) seek, and then 2) find. (That goes along with all the Scripture that tells us, “seek, and ye shall find”; “enter ye in at the strait gate: for...narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”) After saying that, Paul walked away...and was later found by those who “happened” to not only feel a supernatural attraction for The Patriarch Who birthed them, but also were not deterred from “seeking” Him by the thorns and cares of the world.

Act 20:28-31 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock...to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that...I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.

Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

IIBREEDING/CLOSE FELLOWSHIP

The only kind of inbreeding we practice today is Bible-oriented intercourse. Not only does this kind of iron-sharpeneth-iron fellowship help us learn and grow into the kind of disciplined warriors who have confidence in each other as true comrades-at-arms, but it also encourages young and weak Christians to study, toe the line, and grow so they can join the ranks of those who are doctrinally-mature doers of the word. This intimate Christian fellowship also forces “Recessive-gene” false doctrine and slovenliness to surface so they can be appropriately dealt with.

CULLING/CHURCH DISCIPLINE/SHUNNING/SEPARATION

The death-penalty type of culling is gone in this NT era, but we are still ordered to use separation, shunning, and church discipline. (I’ll deal with these in Trumpet W3.)

“Pass...in...Review!”

The main points I attempted to make with this historical overview are:

The Devil has been very successful against the church from the very start.

Two of Satan’s most effective doctrines, and the two that have elicited the largest displays of anger from the Lord, are the two that most effectively subvert His authority: theology and democracy.

Because the Devil’s doctrines (his Recessive genes, his subversive leaven) cannot be stopped, the Lord’s strategy has always been a rearguard action/retreat in order to slow the Devil’s unstoppable advance.

The purpose of the rearguard action is an obvious one – win the war. How do we win by retreating? We do so by taking up time. The Devil must prevail against the church, he must leaven the entire lump, within seven Days (seven thousand years). Under each of the patriarchs the Lord has waited as long as He deemed necessary before He stepped in, culled His church, and started anew. I say again: The reason the Lord waited until the church in Noah’s day was completely leavened except for the eight people He put on the ark is obvious – He knows that’s the only way His church can endure all the way to the bitter end of the seven-Day war.

Mat 24:22 except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.

The Lord always waits until the last minute because He must stall as long as possible in order to make it to the end of the seventh Day.

My last reason for writing this overview of the war is perspective. This overview will help you understand why my next trumpet on New Testament tactics makes sense, how those tactics fit into the Lord’s rearguard strategy, and how necessary the tactics are in order to effectively protect ourselves from the irresistible power and appeal of the subversive leaven that now permeates the church.

“Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.”

*****

War College Trumpet W3

TACTICS FOR NEW TESTAMENT WARFARE

“Beware the leaven of the Pharisees”

Loins girt about with the warfare perspective of Trumpet W2, including how dangerously-potent the Devil’s subversive leaven of theology and democracy have been and are, and therefore how appropriate and necessary the Lord’s strategy of rearguard action has been and is, we turn our attention to some important and necessary New Testament tactics the modern church tends to ignore.

Because history repeats itself, and because we’re in the dark last days, the church as a whole is apostate. The most telling and glaring evidence of that is the sad fact that the respectability among Christians of research-based knowledge has displaced the respectability among Christians of Bible-based belief, which has caused widespread acceptance of Yea, hath God said theology and its heretical teaching that God’s inspired, inerrant Scripture no longer exists and we have only corrupt Bible manuscripts and corrupt Bible versions. And this heresy/leaven is so subversive it causes the amazing, Reason-refuting, inescapable, and miraculous inerrancy of the King James Bible to have no effect on these apostates (which is why God says these people are “subverted”).

Being close to the end, and the fact that the church/lump is so full of leaven, should add to our sense of urgency...

Heb 10:22-25 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering...And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works...exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

The urgency of “and so much the more” exists and is given relevance by the amount of leaven in the church in the last days...and we don’t want to be among those that fall by the wayside. In order to introduce the NT tactic of staying away from subverted Christians, I’ll open with these verses (I’ve underlined some things I want to emphasize):

Mt 10:5-17 Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and...And into whatsoever [Christian] city or town ye shall enter, inquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go thence. And when ye come into an [Christian] house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whosoever [Christian] shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that [Christian] city. Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of [Christian] wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of [Christian] men...

Mt 18:15-17 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.

1 Cor 5:6-13 Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?...I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat...Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

2 Cor 6:1,14,17 We then...beseech you...that ye receive not the grace of God in vain...Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?...Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing...

2 Tim 3:1-8 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come...Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away...Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth...men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.

Eph 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

2 Tim 2:24-26 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but...In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth...that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil...

2 Thes 3:14 And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

Tit 3:9-11 But avoid...contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.

FIRST TACTIC: Doctrinal Fellowship

During the Old Testament this would have included inbreeding – marrying only fellow Christians/Hebrews. But God no longer gives the new birth to the offspring of Abraham; His Great Commission has replaced His Old Commission, which means today we have no idea where on earth some (previous) pagan is going to wake up with a new, compelling spiritual hunger for Jesus Christ and the Bible. The fact that in this NT era God isn’t supposed to give the new birth to the people of this nation or that race or that family makes it more difficult for the gates of hell to leaven Christians – because they pop up in unpredictable locations.

When NT Christians, who have been advised by God not to marry, do so anyway and have families they have put themselves outside the protection of Scripture. They may be married to a pagan spouse, an Enlightened Christian spouse, and have pagan kids. And they’ll take those people to church, turn them into “born-again Christians” via the “sinner’s prayer”, and therefore contribute to the leaven in the church by having their unsaved family members (who are therefore 100% carnal...but nice!) more effectively leaven the church because they’re wearing sheep’s clothing and are able to avoid being exposed because the “fellowship” in the church focuses on morality, conservative political and social current events, and other worldly topics.

Ideally, close, Bible-and-doctrinally-oriented “inbreeding”/fellowship would – like physical inbreeding – force the Recessive genes (false doctrine, carnal Reason-and-Enlightenment-based beliefs, lack of interest in Scripture, not believing the inerrant word of God exists, etc.) to reveal themselves so the church could help, discipline, or shun the leavened person. Close fellowship is the best way to find out if church members are pagans, Enlightened Christians, or lazy Christians. It is, therefore, essential.

SECOND TACTIC: Culling

This refers to all methods used to rid the church of leaven, and it includes teaching, rebuking, church discipline, and shunning. These NT methods are supposed to be done by us, and they replace things God did in the OT: The Flood, the division of the human race, fire from heaven and plagues and the earth swallowing bad Christians, stoning, and the death of Hananiah. These methods of culling have always been critically-important parts of the war because they increase the time it’ll take for the leaven to infect the whole lump. Legal, NT methods of ridding the church of leaven must be resurrected because they are essential rearguard tactics.

THIRD TACTIC: Separation

This is your main tactic, comrade. The church is so leavened – indeed, subverted – it is likely you have been unable to find a suitable local congregation. That means you will not use the first tactic above, fellowship, within a church; instead, you’ll use fellowship to identify the doctrinal purity or lack thereof of various Christians you meet. And because you are not part of a congregation the various methods of culling are also largely inapplicable, inappropriate, and unavailable to you. That means you’ll have to be like Paul on Mars Hill and in Tit 3:9-11 above – walk away! In our era of apostasy separation is the most effective way to avoid subversive leaven. I’ve only listed (above) some of the NT verses on the subject of getting away and staying away from leaven-carrying-and-spreading Christians. You need to keep this separation topic in mind when reading the NT.

This is not to say you should not have lunch with a Christian when you meet one in obedience to the Great Commission’s commandment to feed God’s sheep. It means you should utilize doctrinal fellowship during that lunch to find out if he’s leavened or not. If he is, try to help him. For example, if he uses a modern Bible version you’ll suspect him to be either a young ignorant-but-eager-to-learn Christian, an older ignorant-because-he-doesn’t-care Christian, or a subverted Christian. A very short discussion will allow you to identify him. If appropriate, offer him some fundamental truths about the existence of the inerrant word of God in order to see if he reacts with Reason or with faith in God. (Pay attention to the word faith in the NT; it’s everywhere because it must be an integral part of our walks.) If he reacts like he’s hungry for God’s truth, disciple him. If he continually ignores the all-important-and-telling issue of inerrancy by cowardly trying to change the subject to the ERROR manuscripts such as the corrupt Dead Sea Scrolls (which have done nothing to correct the errors in the modern versions); or the slanderous homosexuality of King James and his translation committee; rabbit poop, the word Easter, the name Lucifer, the fact that some scholars think a better translation of the word deep would be “average-sized puddle”;...and other “errors”, patiently try once or twice – in accordance with your orders in Tit 3:9-11 – to get him to remain focused on the Scriptural importance and critical relevance of the KJV’s inerrancy. If he dodges the subject a second time, finish your lunch and politely let him know you do not fellowship with born-again Christians who do not believe God’s inspired, inerrant word – as defined by Him, not by theology – exists in any Bible on earth. I repeat God’s commandment to you again: walk away and do not fellowship with him...no matter how nice and “Christian” he is in other respects.

Whenever people argue with you about the inerrancy of the KJV by referring to the ERROR manuscripts, or by “preferring” the NKJV, or by saying something positive about theologians, their reaction is based upon a deeply-fundamental inability to put faith in what God says about Himself and His word. That lack of faith is all you need to know. It means either 1) they are not born again and cannot have Biblical faith, 2) they are too young and/or weak to stand up against tradition and Reason, or 3) their faith has been subverted. When you and I, for example, first heard about the KJV’s miraculous inerrancy our reaction was to “seek”...and the Good Shepherd rewarded our Bible-based reaction by making sure we “found” His inspired word. I say again, brother, our response was not to balk and bluster and argue against the existence of God’s inerrant word. Our response was not to talk about manuscripts, preferences, or theology – none of which has anything to do with anything God says in His holy word! Our reaction was not to balk at the very idea that God Almighty actually did with His word exactly what He said He’d do. But apostate Christians, because they do not have that invisible foundation of faith do react in those pig-headed ways; their unbelief is revealed by their lack of faith-based fruit. And that is how we know it’s time to stop casting pearls before swine and to politely walk away.

It is telling and important that you and I, when we first heard about God’s inspired, inerrant word actually existing, did not react with the buts and foot-dragging and arguments so prevalent among today’s Christians. It is noteworthy that we reacted with simple, innocent childlike faith that caused us to diligently seek (Heb 11:6) info that quickly revealed the startling difference between the inerrant KJV and the awful errors of all the modern versions. We understood the KJV’s inerrancy was God’s signature, His proof that He really has done what He said He’d do – that He is not the inept bungler theology tries to make Him with all of its Yea, hath God said subversive faith-destroying leaven. Always keep that fact in mind, brother: The faith-based way we reacted is the exact opposite of the unbelief-based way apostate Hananiah Christians react. Nobody had to argue with us, beat us over the head, or shove anything down our throats – because as faith-filled believers we were drawn to the God-glorifying truth of the uniquely-miraculous inerrancy of His word. (He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today!) That difference is important; it epitomizes how we can know when to walk away from NT brethren. Do not let the respectability of theology or the widespread acceptance of error-filled Bible versions lure you into thinking you’re being a hateful jerk when you walk away from seemingly-nice Christians. If they are not supernaturally impressed with the demonstrated fact that God really has preserved His all-important and necessary word they are subverted. Obediently walk away!

The modern church’s doctrinal apostasy has caused it to think you should “lovingly” continue to fellowship with the unfruitful and unrepentant works of darkness in the hopes of bringing light to their lives. But the Bible makes it very clear that you are not to argue, debate, bicker, or politely discuss anything with them after the first and second admonition...unless their hunger makes them come find you and confess they can no longer “kick against the pricks” and want to learn more from you about how the Scriptural trait of inerrancy clarifies and simplifies the Bible version issue, makes the ERROR manuscripts irrelevant, identifies the modern miracle of the true word of God, shows that God is alive and well, glorifies God, affirms and justifies our faith and belief, and bolsters our confidence and joy as we earnestly quarantine ourselves from subversive leaven by obediently declining to fellowship with and steadfastly refraining to cast our pearls before our beloved brethren who are, apparently, casualties of war. Faith in God allows us to believe what He says. Obedience to what He says results in our walking away in order to avoid the invisible subtlety of subversion that will eventually leaven the whole lump and make us casualties (except those days were shortened just in the nick of time by God). According to the Bible we are fighting to preserve the doctrinal purity of a church that is already populated by disease-carriers who do not know they’ve been infected by highly-contagious ideology that they think is right and good and “Christian.” Obediently avoid them like the frighteningly-infectious plague they are, brother! Let them that have ears to hear, hear...and the ones that don’t – shun for the church’s sake! The church cannot endure to the end unless we warriors obediently utilize God’s clearly-worded and necessary rearguard tactics in order to avoid literal annihilation.

There is another reason separation from subverted brethren is important. If we do not obediently separate ourselves we are showing the Lord that fellowship with apostates is so important to us we’re willing to disobey Him in order to do it – even though doing so increases our exposure to infectious leaven He has told us to avoid. In addition to His being offended by our disobedience and hurt by our demonstrated preference to be with His enemies, the Lord may withdraw Himself from us because He so dislikes leaven – such as the harlot-members in 1 Cor 6:15-20. The Lord tells us to come out from among them so we won’t touch the unclean...because if we obey He blesses us with fruit and growth and more of His help in the war. But if we hang around apostates He won’t hang around with us because we offend Him in more ways than we can understand. Therefore in order for us to be holy vessels the Lord can use for the good of the church, we must stay clean by obediently shunning apostate members of His church.

As His selfless soldiers we must not let what we think is right and good cause His literal, plainly-worded orders to be of none effect: Ours is not to Reason why, ours is but to [obediently] do and die [to self] in order to hear Him say, Well done, thou good and faithful servant.

LIST OF DAMNABLE HERESIES

You must obediently carry out your plainly-written orders from God to use polite-but-firmly-unyielding separation and shunning in order to avoid being contaminated by the carnal appeal and inexorable spread of “Recessive leaven.” Do not fellowship with infected Christians. Do not talk, text, or email with them. Do not dine with them. Do not work out with them. Do not attend “Bible” studies with them. Do not disobediently go in among them, but rather obediently shake the dust off your feet and come out from among them. I say again, if you fellowship with NIVers you are giving tacit approval to, and therefore propagating, the worst and most destructive leaven on earth – Satan’s Yea, hath God said teaching that subverts the sole foundation of the holy Christian religion...the existence of the inerrant word of God. No inerrant Bible means faith will die.

Which doctrines should you put on your list of damnable heresies that you use as reasons to break fellowship with born-again Christians who are pleasant people you enjoy being around? You should top your list of subversive heresies with these two dangerous, highly-contagious heresies:

PRO-THEOLOGY/ANTI-KJV ONLY. Study the Bible version issue in depth, understand the supreme importance of the KJV’s inerrancy, and how and why submitting to the KJV as the inspired word of God demonstrates faith, belief, and humility, and how it glorifies God as truthful and all-mighty. And examine what is behind theology’s heresy that says we should redefine word of God because God failed to preserve His inerrant Scripture for us: unbelief, lack of Scriptural faith, acceptance of Reason, and stubborn, prideful refusal to apply to their doctrines the KJV’s inerrancy and Hananiah’s rebellion against God. Over time you’ll understand how Scripturally important the issue is, and your experiences with modern theologian Hananiah-wannabes will show you 1) why God simply killed Hananiah, 2) why the Bible says to avoid subversive leaven like the plague, and 3) why the Bible uses a shocking word like subverted when talking about saints...and why shunning them is so critically necessary to the survival of the church. My use of the term “KJV only” includes taking it literally...which is but another way of saying God gave us Bible study (2 Tim 2:15), and Satan gave us theology (Gen 3:1). Let me try to illustrate the unique authority of the KJV:

Muslims believe in their doctrine and their Allah. Their belief is based on faith in the fallible writings/flawed foundation of the Koran. Verdict: Just another superstitious religion because their faith and belief are baseless.

Non-KJVers believe in their doctrine and their Jesus. Their belief is based on faith in the fallible writings/flawed foundation of the NIV, NWT, BOM, NKJV, NAS, and other ERROR manuscripts. Verdict: Just another superstitious religion because their faith and belief are baseless.

KJVers believe in their doctrine and their Jesus. Their belief is based on faith in the inerrancy/sure foundation of the AV1611. Verdict: The one and only pure religion on earth because it’s the only one whose faith and belief are wholly based on truth.

PRO-EQUALITY/DEMOCRACY. I often lump equality, freedom, and other sacred principles of pagan Greek philosophy under democracy because democracy illustrates how blind and devoted to all of these anti-Bible principles we were before the Lord opened our eyes to the importance of taking His word literally. Democracy helps bring home the dangerously-appealing contagion of Reason-based leaven. And it does so better and more clearly than the KJV issue. I’m not sure why that is, especially since the inerrancy of the literal KJV is the more important issue. I say that with confidence not only because over time my Biblical maturity and understanding showed me how the Scriptures and faith and feeding and doing go together, but also because the inspired, inerrant word of God is of absolute importance because it is the only bedrock and source of our faith and confidence in God and what He says. Acquiring that depth of understanding about the KJV requires time and a certain amount of growth. But my experiences have also shown that understanding the unscriptural nature of democracy is fairly easy to do. I’ve been surprised at how quickly some Christians openly accept democracy as anti-Bible, perhaps because I had to wrestle with the issue. Another reason the KJV is the more important issue is we only learn how evil the principles of democracy are when we accept the literal accuracy and authority of God’s word. And because many Christians readily accept democracy as evil, and because I’ve never known any theology-oriented modern-version-espousing Christians to repent by applying the KJV’s inerrancy in order to identify it as God’s inspired word, I believe the anti-KJV leaven to be much more subversive, dangerous, and possibly permanent/fatal than equality and democracy. So, even though I am definitely and correctly adding equality/democracy to the list because of how dangerously appealing it is, and how subversive it is to authority, and how God has reacted to it with deadly violence, I want to be clear that it’s not even close to being number one on the list.

My published list ends there; you add to your list on your own. Yes, there are other doctrines on my list, such as denying the divinity of Christ, and believing in evolution over Creation, over which I’d break fellowship with Christians. But only the KJV has the authority to teach those truths (and the acceptability of using the name Lucifer and the word Easter, and the existence of the gap, the Deep, unicorns, devils, the lake of fire, etc.) because only the KJV exhibits God’s unique signature of inerrancy. Theology’s futile attempts to use the known corruption of the ERROR manuscripts to justify doctrines such as Christ is not divine, the Deep does not exist, etc., is an ipso facto demonstration of spiritual blindness. And to refer to Dante’s use of the name Lucifer, or to the Latin Vulgate’s use, or to refer to any other ERROR manuscripts (including the Textus Receptus) while cowardly ignoring the authority of the wording in the inerrant KJV is an astonishing demonstration of just how subversive Lucifer’s leaven is. Walk away!

Sins such as murder and adultery are not subversive, so you do not have to break fellowship with any repentant King Davids you may encounter. You may consider other doctrines as damnable heresies and add them to your list, such as that in modern cults that say incomprehensible gibberish is Biblical tongues. I avoid gibberish-talkers not because I think pretending and lying about Almighty God are particularly subversive, but because those are people of low character whose consciences seem to have been seared as with a hot iron.

Speaking of cults, beware of Christians who are also “patriots” who claim the American Constitution and/or the Declaration of Independence are divinely inspired. Technically, such Christians are not a cult because they aren’t religions – they are merely individuals. But because of what the Bible says about Reason and its offspring (democracy, theology, etc.), believing those governmental documents to be sacred and divinely inspired elevates them to a status superior to the Bible because they exalt and “Christianize” philosophy and contradict and nullify/override everything the Bible says.

Accepting and defending the inspiration and inerrancy of the King James Bible is not merely “important”, it is necessary. Christians who think it’s just “important” are the ones who think the KJV is just “better” than the other versions. They need to evaluate all that the KJV’s unique inerrancy means. Its inerrancy establishes it as God’s preserved, inspired truth...which in turn establishes the KJV’s unique and supreme authority...and those two are absolutely necessary if the church is to resist the subversion that is turning Christianity into just another religion. Tolerating Christians who insist on using modern corrupt versions is helping to spread theology’s heresy that God’s word no longer exists, which subverts 1) faith, which is the foundation of everything in Christianity, 2) the Bible as the way God communicates with us, 3) the doctrinal authority of the Bible, and 4) the necessity of Bible study.

I could go on but I think I’ve made my point (repeatedly). Trumpet W2 showed this war is so stacked in the Devil’s favor that he cannot be stopped – his leaven is inexorable. But his leaven can be slowed. That’s why the Lord has used mass cullings and started over with fresh lumps. There will be another new beginning at the Second Coming. But in order for the church – you and me, brother – to survive until then without being leavened we must take the Lord’s NT tactics seriously. I think the fact that the Lord is using rearguard tactics is itself sobering and frightening, but when you add to it how quickly and completely the generations of the various patriarchs were leavened, it takes scary to new levels because it makes it look like the majority of born-again saints in the church have always become casualties. And the NT tactics of retreat/walk away/shun/don’t stand and argue...run/don’t even eat with them all stress the fact that our job as NT vessels is not to live and strive among them hoping to make them better, it’s to come out and stay away in order to preserve our doctrinal purity so we don’t become disease-carriers, too.

Rev 18:4 Come out of her, my people...that ye receive not of her plagues.

“Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.”

*****

War College Trumpet W4

HOW TO DEFEND THE AUTHORIZED 1611 KING JAMES BIBLE

The vast majority of Christians who believe in the heresy of evolution have never seriously researched the evolution vs. creation issue, which reveals them to be appallingly stupid. Yes, I deliberately used the word stupid rather than ignorant for a reason. Their near-zero level of knowledge does qualify them as ignorant, but that ignorance is dwarfed by their stupidity...because any Christian who has an appointment to stand before the Lord at Judgment and has “decided” – without looking into it! – to reject what God says and replace it with an unproven theory that is not only rife with major problems and contradictions, but was dreamed up by carnal unbelievers is a very stupid person and a subverted Christian.

But what, you ask, made them accept evolution if they never even read anything about it? Their descent into apostasy was caused by the foundational bedrock of Christianity crumbling away beneath them: their belief in the existence of the inspired word of God was undermined by the widespread acceptance of a plethora of modern versions that – in spite of the fact that they are all full of errors – were exalted and touted by theologians as “more accurate” and “more reliable” than the inerrant King James Bible. That’s why, when you ask Christians how they selected their Bible version they’ll tell you it was because they prefer to sing “My country, this is about you” rather than “My country, ‘tis of thee”; or a friend recommended it; or they liked the maps; or any number of mindless trivialities. Not a single one of them even mentions the author of the Bible, God, or the one distinguishing trait of His holy word, inerrancy!

We King Jamesers are Bible believers. People who use the NIV, NAS, etc., are not Bible believers – they are Bible “correctors” (or, as they like to call themselves, “garbage-can Christians”). I put correctors in quotes because in over 150 years of “correcting” the KJV theologians have only accomplished two things:

They’ve turned out so many corrupt versions (e.g. NIV, NKJV, NAS, RSV, ESV, NLT, CEV, the FUV, and AOV) that most born-again Christians today do not believe inerrancy exists in any Bible version on earth. That has caused most churches, mega churches, and denominations to go down the tubes.

They’ve “validated” and given “respectability” to such a wide range of possible meanings to the dead-language words in old corrupt manuscripts that scores, if not hundreds, of cults have popped up – all basing their “doctrines” on one of the above versions as occasionally modified by one or more layman’s aids. And guess what? All other churches, mega churches, and denominations do the exact same thing!

Why do modern-version-using Christians call themselves “garbage-can Christians”? Because they are blind. They don’t actually use the terms “garbage-can versions”, “garbage-can Christians”, and “dumpster-diving Christians”, but those terms actually do come from one of their own arguments:

Theologians cannot deny the embarrassing fact that every modern version they’ve produced is full of errors. Neither can they deny the embarrassing fact that all of the old Greek and Hebrew manuscripts (including the much-ballyhooed-but-useless Dead Sea scrolls) are full of errors. And theologians cannot deny the embarrassing fact that they’ve been proven wrong every time they’ve claimed to do what no one had ever managed to do before – find an error in the KJV. In an attempt to side-track Christians from those revealing, undeniable facts theologians invented an argument that would (they incorrectly thought) justify the use of their error-filled modern versions. Their brain-dead argument says:

“It is perfectly OK for us to use the ERROR manuscripts and the error-filled modern versions, and it is perfectly OK for us to refer to them as ‘God’s word’...because they contain – somewhere among all the leaven – God’s inspired truth. After all, even garbage cans contain – somewhere among all the trash – food. Therefore we think Christians can find good meals in the ‘garbage cans’ we’ve published and recommend.”

Dumpster-diving Christians are well aware of the above theology-defending argument that likens modern versions to garbage cans...and they frequently use it themselves. In other words, the terms “garbage-can Christians” and “garbage-can versions” originated from theology’s own words when attempting to defend and promote its corrupt fruit. There are three problems with theology’s logical-sounding argument:

Nothing in that argument is based on or agrees with anything God says in His holy word. In fact, that typical argument contradicts everything God says about His word. I say again, nowhere does God ever liken His Holy Bible to a garbage can that – if we scrounge around in the filth long enough – we’ll find the unleavened word He has preserved for us.

If theologians are correct and their “garbage-can versions” (as they label them) are in fact “better, more-reliable meals” than the KJV, and are therefore healthier for Christianity, why hasn’t Christianity gotten better in the last hundred years? The fact is, ever since theology started recommending that its garbage-can versions replace the inerrant KJV, and ever since theology started telling KJVers to use Yea, hath God said layman’s aids to “correct” God’s word, Christianity has fragmented and apostatized into churches and cults filled with pagans and subverted Christians who do not have the faith to believe God’s word (as He defines it) actually exists. I say again, comrades: come out from among subverted Christians and touch not their unclean garbage-can versions.

Even if theologians are correct and their garbage-can versions do “contain” (mixed in with all the trash) the actual words God preserved for us, it’s still up to us to decide which words we think are trash and which are truth: Self is firmly on the throne, which is why so many theologians and layman’s-aid-toting preachers and pewsters “agree to disagree” about the words they “prefer” – which completely destroys the authority of God’s word, undermines faith, breeds false doctrine and rebellion, and defrauds the church...which is fornication and blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.

But don’t you KJVers start patting yourselves on the back. Part of the reason theology and its corrupt Bible versions have succeeded in destroying faith in the existence of God’s word is too many ignorant, half-assed KJVers main “knowledge” consists of their denomination’s party-line pro-KJV rhetoric. These semi-KJVers fellowship with NIVers because they all agree to let each other spout off about their pet doctrines – because none of them cares enough about anything to study, understand, and then stand for the inerrant KJV and stand against the spreading subversion of theology’s modern versions.

There are only two ways to defend God’s Authorized Bible. And, not surprisingly, both of them glorify and exalt Him – not man. The first is inerrancy, and the second is obedience.

1. INERRANCY

There is no other foundation for doctrinal Christianity, and there is no other foundation for our faith, hope, belief, and confidence during our daily walks and struggles than the Bible. (I downsized the foundation of our faith to illustrate how important (not!) God’s word is to most Christians.) The still small voice of the Bible has been obscured by the cacophony of modern stupid distractions such as theology, morality, tradition, Reason, democracy, politics, science, social issues, the pursuit of money, materialism, and Self. That’s one of the reasons the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 4:11 study to be quiet.

Ever since the mid-to-late 1700s when Christians first began to publicly rejoice and acknowledge the unique inerrancy of the KJV, unbelieving theologians (yes, the two words are redundant) have targeted it with the same aggressive, faithless hatred with which Hananiah attacked Jeremiah. But no matter how many hundreds of “errors” they and scientists and historians and archeologists loudly and confidently claimed to have found in God’s Book, and no matter how many born-again Christians were subverted by those false claims, the Authorized 1611 King James Bible miraculously (but very quietly) distinguished itself as the only book or manuscript on earth with God’s mark, or signature, or fingerprints by which His faithful sheep have known His voice – inerrancy!

I say again with pride and awe and humble thanksgiving: God’s preserved, inspired, holy Book that He exalts above His name (Ps 138:2) did something miraculous: With absolutely no help from man’s knowledge and research and scholarship it proved itself to be uniquely inerrant. That is important because inerrancy is the only trait by which we may identify and distinguish God’s Book from all the pretenders recommended by modern, loudmouthed, and obnoxiously-irritating-but-petty born-again Hananiahs. I said petty but I could have said impotent or cowardly – they all apply.

(I’m sure you can identify with the righteous anger, indignation, and contempt that are probably oozing from my words, comrade, because you have had to put up with the same tired tactics from these well-intentioned-but-blindly-faithless unbelieving brothers and sisters whose own impotent frustration when they’re around Bible believers quickly manifests itself when they realize nothing they say or do can move the faithful off of the solid rock of inerrancy. But this parenthetical insert exists because I do not want you to get the idea that I stand toe-to-toe with these subverted apostates screaming and intellectually slugging it out. No. As you already should know from the Bible, and may remember from the previous Trumpet, W3, the NT tells us our enemies are they of our own house; they are apostate born-again Christians attempting to spread their subversive Yea, hath God said leaven. We are commanded not to condemn them, but we are told to know them by their faithless fruits, forgive them, love them, and pray for them because one day they may turn out to be prodigal sons who repent, seek-and-find us (Act 17:27,33,34), and thank us for our Scripture-based love, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness that they might repent and be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works (2 Tim 3:13-17). After one or two admonitions if they have demonstrated no faith-based hungering and thirsting for the manna and milk of God’s word, I politely break fellowship with them – as I am commanded to do (Tit 3:10). I do not, either because I like them and want to help them, or because I’m angry and so full of pride I want to out-argue them, stay and discuss, bicker, or reason with them from the Scriptures. To do so would be disobediently rejecting the wisdom and inerrancy of God’s literal NT commandments. And I have sinned that way: I’ve gotten so wrapped up in the debate and how clearly-brilliant my Scriptural arguments were that I’ve still been at it after 30 admonitions! And none of them worked! (Of course, that’s beside the point: had the 5th admonition worked, I’d still have been a rebellious sinner.) If they are not KJVers and demonstrate their blindness and their lack of faith by being unmoved by the miraculous inerrancy of the KJV, politely walk away! If they lack the basic, fundamental necessity – faith, they will be unable to see and truly believe anything, which is why we are supposed to walk away.

You will find all modern Yea, hath God said Hananiahs will use the same tired and cowardly tactics. Let me summarize some of their responses when they try to equivocate with Bible believers:

When you point out that the man of true Biblical faith accepts God’s definition of His word as inerrant they’ll stupidly ask, “Where does the Bible say the KJV is inspired and inerrant?” You reply, “I could give you a basic ‘here a little, and there a little’ Bible lesson about what God says about His word and how to recognize it, but I’m not going to let you change the subject from the 400-year proven inerrancy of the KJV: Have you managed to do what no man has ever done – find an error in the KJV?”

When he runs from that question by saying, “Yeah, but what about the Dead Sea Scrolls? The King James translators only had a fraction of the old manuscripts we have today, so how can the KJV be better than the modern versions?” You should not waste your breath telling him no recently-found manuscripts, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, have corrected any of the errors in the modern versions. I say that because he already knows that! He doesn’t really want to discuss the crappy Dead Sea Scrolls; he is merely using the same tactic that low-life, lying gibberishers use: he’ll keep throwing different things at you in an effort to find one to which you do not have an answer and therefore rocks you back on your heels. Then he’ll get all smug and act as if your not knowing about the Dead Sea Scrolls somehow means he’s right about...well, about something. Therefore, comrade, don’t waste your breath about the Scrolls – repeat the Bible believers left jab: “I could give you a basic lesson about the subject you just tried to introduce, but that subject is trivial, irrelevant, and unhelpful when trying to identify God’s word. The only thing that has relevance to the Bible version debate is inerrancy, so please don’t try to change the subject from the 400-year proven inerrancy of the KJV: Have you managed to do what no man has ever done – find an error in the KJV?” (By the way, there is no right cross: because these are enemies of our own house – subverted Christians: we are commanded to shun them by lovingly walking away.)

When he replies by saying, “Yeah, but there’s not a single old manuscript we’ve found so far that justifies the KJV’s saying Elhanan killed Goliath’s brother! The reading in the KJV doesn’t exist; the translators made it up, which is why they put it in italics!” You could reply by pointing out that he’s not only trying to change the subject (again!) from the KJV’s inerrancy, but he’s trying to get you to treat old corrupt manuscripts – which disqualifies them from being the word of God – as if they are somehow more authoritative than the miraculously-inerrant KJV. But if you were to say, “Hey, buddy, try to stay focused on the subject of the KJV’s inerrancy instead of shooting yourself in the foot and making yourself look brain-dead by pointing out that we have a CORRUPT MANUSCRIPT that says Elhanan killed Goliath on the one hand, and we have the INERRANT KJV that says Elhanan killed Goliath’s brother on the other hand...and you have chosen to go with the corrupt one!!! Do you have any idea how idiotic and faithless you’re going to look when you stand at Judgment before The Mighty God who exalts His holy word even above His name? I say again, pal, the issue you’re supposed to discuss is the fact that no proven errors have ever been found in the KJV. And lots of proven errors exist in the old manuscripts and the modern versions translated from them. So, as God’s faithful children who are told to know them by their fruit, do we use the inerrant KJV as the standard by which everything is judged, or do we decide to go with known corruption by trying to somehow use those leavened tomes to make the unleavened KJV look bad? Choose you this day whom ye will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord in accordance with His inerrant word.”

He’ll probably respond (using words less obvious than I’ve selected) by saying: “No, no! I’m not claiming the ERROR manuscripts or the modern versions that come from them are inspired and inerrant, I’m just saying scholars have agreed to use the corrupt manuscripts to denigrate the KJV because the KJV must have come from – and therefore must be judged by – the ERROR manuscripts; because if the KJV did not come from man-made ERROR manuscripts it must have come from...well, it’s just not Reasonable to think God made the inerrant KJV pop into existence, or that He would inspire fallible sinners like the KJV translators to produce His inerrant word.” You now know by his own testimony that he is subverted. He does not believe God has preserved His inerrant word for us. He thinks, therefore, that we should – without God’s permission/authority – redefine Holy Bible as “nothing but a corrupt translation”. As you and I walk away from that subverted apostate brother, we’ll shake our heads and discuss the amazing fact that he was, like a wolf confronted with a brightly-burning torch, afraid, unable, and unwilling to do anything but slink away from the topic of the KJV’s inerrancy; he always changed the subject by trying to treat the very manuscripts he knows are rotten to the core as some kind of corrupt “authority”...and then pointing out that when the KJV says Elhanan killed Goliath’s brother, that reading in the KJV is different from the one in all the manuscripts we’ve found so far. Therefore, he makes this “logical” conclusion:

The KJV is not the same as, and is therefore different from the ERROR ms/modern versions...

Therefore the KJV is the same as the ERROR ms/modern versions – corrupt!

While we’re on the subject of inerrancy, let me deal with some “errors” and show why they are not errors. If theologians say rabbit “cud” and “unicorns” are proof that the KJV has errors, I’ll quietly nod my head and admit I’ve never seen a rabbit chew its cud and I’ve never seen a unicorn – but I’ve never seen heaven or hell, either...and I’m going to stick with Thus saith the Lord. If they tell me believing in unicorns makes me look like an idiot, I’ll respond with something like, “Hey, guys, I’m just a chump like you; doing the best I can with whatever smarts God has given me. And since you and everybody else have failed to find any provable errors in the KJV, and since the KJV’s unique inerrancy makes it the issue – not rabbit cud and unicorns – stop wasting everyone’s time talking about things that are not provable and either show me one provable error in the KJV, or admit the KJV’s inerrancy makes it the only manuscript on earth that fits God’s definition of His living word.”

They have never been able to stand up and face that brightly-burning torch. And that inescapable and embarrassing fact really wounds their pride. So they attempt to change the subject by saying history has no evidence that Cain and Able ever existed; astronomers have no evidence that the sun ever went backwards; and one of the “accepted” definitions of the ancient Hebrew word deep is actually “a puddle small enough that a man can step over it.” Yes, they know by now that we aren’t impressed by their unscriptural rejection of the Bible and their illogical logic. For example, they use this “logic”:

The Greek in the corrupt ERROR ms says black.

The KJV says white, therefore the KJV has an error.

You already recognize this “black and white” example uses the same flawed, contradictory “logic” as the earlier “not the same as” argument, but let’s show more ways they’ve gone wrong:

Based on the “a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit” wisdom from God, the good fruit of the inerrant KJV did not come from the corrupt ERROR ms. You do not get inerrancy from corruption.

Another piece of evidence that the KJV did not come from the ERROR ms is the fact that it has a number of readings that do not appear in any of those ms...or any ms on earth. In spite of that fact, theologians still like to claim the KJV was translated from those ms...but those ms themselves have shown theology’s claim to be nothing but the wishful thinking of blind men whose claim that the word of God doesn’t exist has always been refuted by the miraculously-inerrant torch of the AV1611.

The Bible says God’s word is inerrant. The KJV has successfully withstood all of theology’s attempts to prove it has errors. It is therefore, to the best of our knowledge, the only inerrant Bible ms on earth, which makes it, to the man of Biblical faith, the inspired word of God. And that shows why theologians haven’t been able to prove the KJV came from any of the corrupt ms – it didn’t, it came from God!

And that brings us back to the issue of inerrancy: In order to prove the KJV did not come from God, theologians will have to find a provable error in it. And since nobody can prove a negative, trying to prove unicorns never existed is impossible. And trying to prove the KJV really did come from manuscript X and therefore its reading should say black has also proven to be a dead end for theologians because there is no proof that the KJV came from any known ms on earth, including any in the so-called Textus Receptus family. And that’s always the cycle of events when “discussing” the existence of God’s word with issue-dodging wolves in sheep’s clothing.

The position of Bible-believing Christians is really very simple: because of our faith in God we actually base our thinking on what the Bible says. We begin by believing the inspired word of God has been preserved for our use today. Therefore, looking around at all available ms in order to see if any manifests itself as divine by its fruit of inerrancy, the KJV is the only one that qualifies in every respect.

And the position of Bible-rejecting Christians is also very simple: because of their self-reliant dependency on Reason, research, and knowledge they don’t begin by believing anything; they wait to see where the evidence leads them. And even though trying to know them by their roots by tracing Bible translations all the way back to the original autographs has huge gaps and abruptly ends 1,500 years too soon, based on the known corruption of every Bible ms they’ve managed to find...except one, they’ve illogically chosen to ignore that miraculous exception, to illogically exalt the ERROR ms, and to illogically use them to illogically conclude the preserved, inspired, inerrant word of God does not exist...even though the inerrant KJV is right under their incredibly-long noses! In other words, in spite of the fact that all versions of the Bible say God’s preserved, inerrant word does exist, and in spite of the fact that the inerrant KJV is proof that God did exactly what He said He’d do, subverted apostates ignore all of that and claim the ERROR ms prove God is either a liar or an incredibly inept bungler. And even though they will not ever come out and word it as plainly as I have, we know that is exactly what they think about God and His word because of their fruits: They refuse to live by thus saith the Lord...as proven in AOR.

In sum, inerrancy is the main way to promote, exalt, and defend the King James Bible. When it comes to the Bible version issue and finding the true word of God, inerrancy is not only the issue, it is the only issue. Never, ever leave God Almighty’s signature trademark of inerrancy out of any discussion with anybody about the amazing truth of His wonderful, inspired, written, living, literal word.

2. OBEDIENCE

The second way to defend the KJV is to obediently reprove/instruct them one or two times (according to the situation and their attitude using some variation of the above blue text) and then (if they have not reacted positively to the existence of the inerrant word of the living God) walk away and politely-but-firmly shun them by letting them know the NT commands you to have no fellowship with Christians who are subverted...and the biggest heresy you know of is attempting to undermine the one and only foundation of Christianity’s faith and doctrine by rejecting the inerrancy of God’s word. And since God is truth, He views the modern versions as abominations because of the falsehoods in them and because those corrupt versions are Yea, hath God said weapons that are subverting faith in Him and His word. Therefore, tell people who stubbornly cling to Bible versions they know are corrupt that you are one of those who obediently submits to and glorifies God by fellowshipping not just with KJVers, but with KJVers whose fruit demonstrates their active, growing relationship with the living Word of God via His living word.

I’ve already covered this NT tactic of shunning subverted Christians in Trumpet W3, so here I’m going to cover some of the reasons behind that tactic of separation.

It turns out the word of God discerns and identifies believers and unbelievers:

Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

The above verse starts out saying it is talking about the living (“quick”) word (which rules out corrupt Bible versions), and it goes on to say it ignores the carnal old-man body by going straight to the soul and spirit in order to discern the true intentions of our hearts. That is why Paul walked away on Mars Hill; that is why God commands us to do the same when we find ourselves in the presence of a subverted apostate: The living word of God is the real evangelist (not us), and if Christians we witness to properly love the Lord, they will seek Him by hungrily gravitating toward His KJV. And no thorns and snares they encounter along the way will stop them because the Good Shepherd has ways to Husband His young devoted wives in order to ensure they find Him via the strait gate.

That means we need to stop using tradition’s method of evangelizing (“Go use clever words and emotions if possible, and beat ‘em over the head if necessary...but get ‘em into the church!); and begin obediently using God’s method (like Paul did on Mars Hill): Plant the Seed of the living word...and then based on their reaction either continue feeding His hungry sheep or walk away. Notice that method is basically the same as how we’re told to deal with subverted Christians (such as non-KJVers): Admonish them once or twice (plant the Seed of the living KJV)...and then based on their reaction either continue feeding His hungry sheep or walk away.

In this NT era we’ve confused God’s job and our job.

God’s job is to use the Holy Spirit and His living word to motivate and guide His faithful sheep who hear His voice. He’ll make sure the Seed of His word bears fruit in the hearts of those who love Him enough and are servant enough to do His word. The Lord can use people and events and His still small voice to train up His children in the way in which they should go. Notice the following Scripture says the same thing: Christianity isn’t based on being persuaded by people, it’s about being persuaded by the Bible:

Lk 16:27-31 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have [the Bible] Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not [the Bible] Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded [by anyone], though one rose from the dead.

Heb 4:2 ...but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.

Our job depends on whom we’re with:

Motivated Christians: Plant the Seed. Then, based on their good reaction, fellowship with and disciple them.

Apostate Christians: Plant the Seed one or two times. Then, based on their (usual) reaction, walk away and have nothing to do with them.

Unknown people: Plant the Seed. Then, based on their reaction, feed or walk.

Do not think our job is to convince/force Christians that the inerrant word of God exists in the KJV. We don’t want to risk the welfare of the church by possibly dragging subverted Christians into our midst. Our job is to show them the difference between the word of God and the word of translators and then step back and let the word of God discern the thoughts and intents of their hearts. If they are faithful, humble believers who are seeking the Truth they will have the same Christ-honoring reaction you and I had – they will simply jettison the modern versions and go with the KJV. But if they “choose” a version that makes Christ a liar and His Book corrupt, they do so because the word choose involves Self…and they want Self to remain on the throne. For you and me there was no “choice” to make: we merely accepted and submitted to what God has obviously provided for us.

Our job is to go through life bearing precious seed...and then be on the lookout to see if we need to feed or to walk. The arm of flesh has failed us, and we need to get back to depending on the Lord to do His job of working in people’s hearts. And we need to keep in mind why He orders us to walk away and shun apostates: The Devil’s subversive leaven is so attractive and so powerful it cannot be stopped, and our job is to stay away from it and pray and fast and be doers of the word in order that we may grow strong and resist being infected by the plague spreading throughout the church and the world around us.

If that means stop attending your church, do it. If that means your only Christian fellowship is with the Lord via His Book, or with one or two others, sobeit.

Heb 11 ...they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth...they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly...Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt...They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

I say again in case you haven’t gotten it yet: The Devil is no longer using swords to slay us; he’s using ideology to subvert us. That does not mean just because you know the Enlightened principles of theology and democracy are evil, and it doesn’t mean just because you know the KJV is the word of God you can disobey the Bible and go in/stay in among them and touch the unclean thing and not be leavened by it. No, soldier; your job is to obey our King whether you like and understand His orders or not.

The issue in the Bible is neither God nor the existence of God. The issue is authority. We learn about authority from the word of God. People who get their “beliefs” from sources other than the inerrant literal word of God have all kinds of different gods they call “Jesus.” That’s why the real Jesus Christ exalts His word (not garbage cans) above His name (Ps 138:2); He and His living word are indistinguishable and inseparable, which is why His Book says the same things about the Word of God as it does about the word of God. Therefore, the key to true Christianity is not “the Lord Jesus Christ” (because there are many false Christs among us); the key to true Christianity is that which He exalts above His name – His Authorized 1611 King James/Jacob (Ps 24:6) Bible – because there is only one inerrant Bible manuscript on earth with the authority to describe and reveal the true Christ. That inerrant Bible is His inspired Sword, and its inerrancy is its own proof that the KJV is the inspired word of God with His authority behind it, which is absolute authority – and to deny that is to subvert His authority and rebel against Him. The KJV’s inerrancy also emphasizes the importance of interpreting it literally, which will lead us in the paths of righteousness and rightly-divided doctrine for His name’s sake. And that miraculously-unique inerrancy gives us the confidence to admonish our brethren who are unintentionally undermining faith in God and the Christian religion by using corrupt Bible versions.

The paragraph above is a fairly good summation of W2, W3, and this trumpet. It shows why I said in W3 that the subversive leaven of equality/democracy was nowhere near as harmful as Christian Enemy Number One: Yea, hath God said pro-theology/anti-KJV only:

“So, even though I am definitely and correctly adding equality/democracy to the list because of how dangerously appealing it is, and how subversive it is to authority, and how God has reacted to it with deadly violence, I want to be clear that it’s not even close to being number one on the list.”

And the paragraph not only shows why the heresy of theology/anti-KJV is number one on the list of subversive leaven, but it shows why Christian fellowship should not be around “Jesus Christ” (which one?), it should be around the inerrant KJV (which reveals the one true Christ, is its own proof that the word of God exists and the KJV is that word, has the authority to teach doctrine, and is exalted by Christ above His name). The bedrock of our faith, therefore, is not “the Bible” (which one?); it is the miraculous AV1611, which, against all odds and against all Logic and theological Reason is a unique original because it is the only manuscript on earth with God’s signature trademark on it – inerrancy.

In sum, our defense of the KJV is not like the baseless, blind allegiance Mormons have to their BOM, and JWs have to their NWT. Our use of the KJV isn’t like the modern Christian churches that use modern Bible versions because they “prefer” them. And our promotion of the KJV isn’t like the idiotic “Logic” theologians use when recommending their favorite modern versions: “I think this version more faithfully preserves the corruption of the ERROR manuscripts than do the other modern versions recommended by many other theologians and scholars.” Our stand is on the KJV for one reason and one reason only – its inerrancy.

“Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.”

*****

War College Trumpet W5

WINNING TACTICS FOR YOUNG SOLDIERS

I often stress that success in this war requires being a doer of the word. But being a doer requires knowing the word so you know what to do, and young Christians may not have mastered the Bible yet. So, in an effort to help new Christians get started I’ll go over some of the things I’ve done over the decades in order to protect myself from distractions, temptations, my deceitful heart, slovenly Christians, etc.

When the Lord gave me spirit life I suddenly had a hunger: I wanted to know about Him. The first thing I did was read my Bible version (RSV) from cover to cover. I didn’t study it; I just wanted to know what it said...and didn’t say. I did it so I’d have a complete foundation; I didn’t want to begin building before I’d read the whole Bible because I thought that might be putting the cart before the horse. I also read a couple of books about Christianity and the historical reliability of the Bible.

I was a Roman Catholic, so I naturally began attending Catholic nighttime “Bible” studies. I was shocked to find out I already knew more about the Bible than the nuns who taught the classes. I was disgusted by the “nothing-is-definite, what’s-your-opinion?” view of the Bible. Any questions I asked produced mushy, frustrating non-answers. Over time this built up until one night as my wife and I were walking out of the church after another “Bible study”, I realized I was almost trembling with some weird feeling that the Roman Catholic Church was evil. I have no idea what it was. I’d never experienced anything like it before or since. It may have been merely a reaction of intense dislike for the mentally undisciplined amateurish floundering of the Bible study, but my revulsion was directed at the RCC as an institution – not just at the Bible classes. I said to my wife, “I don’t know why, but we’re never coming back to the Catholic Church.”

A few days later some independent fundamental Baptists knocked on my door, and I ended up joining their church and being baptized because it was a “Bible believing, Bible preaching, Bible teaching church.” I was hungry, I was looking for food, and I couldn’t get enough.

I had so many questions that I kept a little spiral notebook and pen in my shirt pocket so I could keep track of them. During sermons when the preacher said things, out came the notebook and questions were written down. I researched everything. I went to the library, bought and borrowed books, began studying issues in depth such as creation vs. evolution, and the Bible version issue. I was there for all events every time the doors of my church or other affiliated churches in the region opened. I even helped my church picket a local drive-in theater for showing X-rated movies. I went to Christian seminars in big cities. I went on an archeological dig with a creationist Christian who turned out to be a fraud. The pastor was so delighted to have a young, eager Christian on his hands that he began a “pastor-to-people hour” every Wednesday before the evening service. He’d answer written questions that were passed up to him. Well, I didn’t know Christianity wasn’t all open and above-board; I thought it was OK to ask questions about anything. The week before, the pastor had shocked and offended some pewsters by calling on an older woman during a church service to lead the church in prayer. She did, but she was visibly upset because she and a number of the older Christians thought women were supposed to remain silent in church. Out came my spiral notebook, I researched the issue, and submitted a question about it during pastor-to-people hour. I honestly thought there might be something in the Bible I’d missed and the preacher would teach us about the topic. Wrong! He crumpled up my question, addressed another one, and terminated pastor-to-people sessions. That was one of my earliest lessons that modern Christianity is not open and above board, does some things that are un- and anti-scriptural, and cannot defend itself against what the Bible says.

Two of the most important things I did during my short (less than two years) stay in the church were to master the Bible version issue and gain a wealth of knowledge and experience about modern Christianity – good and bad. The most important thing was not going out and buying a KJV, the most important thing was mastering the Bible version issue. Lots of lousy Christians use the KJV and say it’s the inspired and inerrant word of God. But I wanted to know if they were Scripturally correct or not. Once I understood the Bible version issue, it was thrilling to know the inspired word of God actually exists today. I was also amazed to see that God has preserved it in such a way that faithless Christians can’t see that it exists, but to faithful believers it’s as simple as letting the literal written word of God point out that we find His word by its fruit of inerrancy. I realized I now had a sure foundation upon which to build, and as long as I stuck with what the Bible said, I was sticking with Almighty God Himself.

My wife and I got rid of our TV because we realized it was an unnecessary distraction and time-waster: we needed to master the Bible, and that was our top priority. We were learning rapidly, and that milk and meat was satisfying my need to feed. Unfortunately, other Christians in our church felt a different need – the need to ridicule us for getting rid of our TV. Our pastor even made sarcastic remarks about us from the pulpit! The pastor was increasingly uncomfortable in my presence because of his pastor-to-people embarrassment, his dread whenever he saw me pull out my spiral notebook during sermons, and a number of things I found out that were going on in church. I was vaguely uneasy about all of this because it didn’t seem to be the way Christians were supposed to be. One day while doing volunteer work at the church I asked the preacher a question during a casual conversation. I said people always said we were supposed to “grow spiritually”, but I’d never heard anyone teach how we achieve growth, so could he teach us about it someday during Sunday school or during a sermon? He didn’t say anything. But that Sunday he delivered a red-faced, screaming sermon about how the pastor is God’s man and nobody tells him what to preach! Well, I can be kind of slow sometimes, but I realized he was wasting everybody else’s Sunday simply because he was afraid to say something to me man to man.

The next most helpful thing in that Baptist church was the experience I gained. The Lord allowed me to see, do, and learn an awful lot about modern Christianity. I eventually had to leave because my open, honest, and idealistic belief that Christianity was supposed to be in accordance with the Bible was causing me to be disappointed, disgusted, and offended by what I learned about “reality.” By the time we quit attending that church a short time later, I had learned three things. 1) I needed to master the Bible because I had more questions than modern Christianity had answers. 2) With the inspired word of God as my textbook and the Comforter as my tutor I had all the tools I needed. 3) Modern Christianity was in very bad shape, so I needed to protect myself from leaven and isolate myself from irritants.

We moved to a farm out in the middle of nowhere. This was physical separation. This was my creating an environment for myself that allowed me to dedicate myself to the kind of intensive study I felt driven to do so I could expeditiously master the Bible.

Now I’ll go over some of the daily-routine things that have helped me and have become part of my life. And I’ll make some recommendations I think you should follow in order to protect yourself from well-intentioned mistakes. In no special order:

Boot camp. As a beginning Christian you should be smart enough to know how ignorant – and therefore vulnerable – you are. You should have a disciplined “boot camp” mentality by putting your energy into studying and learning...while deliberately avoiding confrontations and disputes with other Christians. I say again, for all you know I may turn out to be a nutcase and you may be glad later you didn’t go around spouting off at the mouth before you found that out. Children should be seen and not heard, so spend your time studying instead of running your mouth. Suggestions:

Insert a sheet of paper into AOR at every doctrinal chapter, or get a loose-leaf notebook with section dividers labeled with doctrines and topics. Study AOR completely, carefully, twice. Look up all of the Scripture and do any side-studies that may interest you. Take notes, write word definitions, results of word studies in a concordance, Scripture references, reminders, thoughts, questions, and anything else that might help you.

Even if you’ve already read the trumpets, now that you have AOR under your belt, read them again with the Lord slowly and thoughtfully. Christianity is largely cerebral (there’s the rub!) because learning correct doctrine takes time and experience...and those experiences must be Scripturally evaluated in order to make corrections and adjustments along the way. Add to your notes as you see fit.

Putting AOR and the trumpets aside, study the Bible all the way through twice. Keep in mind the doctrines and other things you were taught by the well-intentioned but fallible yours truly so you can build upon the things you confirm and discard the things you can’t. Pay close attention to the exact words God put in His Book. Add to your notes as you see fit. Study dutifully as an obedient soldier should; patiently because when we sit at the Lord’s feet He has His own perfect timing for things; expectantly because the Holy Spirit will answer your prayers for knowledge, growth, understanding, and wisdom; and thanksgiving because...well, because of everything, brother – as you will understand and appreciate more and more as time goes by. Your organized studies will help your learning, and your confidence will grow. And your organized notes can be very helpful over the years when you want to refresh your memory about something, or when you want to share some stuff with other Bible believers.

During boot camp (which may take two years, more or less), you may elect to continue going to your church if you attend one. You may elect to continue fellowshipping with other Christians you know. And you may decide to continue friendships with pagans. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, that’s a lot better than shoving your throttles up into full afterburner and going to war with people over some of the stuff you’ve learned. You will probably benefit from some gentle discussions with Christians about some issues you care about. For example, you may want to discuss the KJV’s inerrancy and other Bible version issues with people in order to see for yourself how they react and what they say. But I say again, be very careful to make your first two years meditatively, academically, and quietly cerebral; do not try to become an action hero who goes out and tries to “improve” Christianity by kicking ass. Keep your mouth shut, your eyes and ears open, and carefully evaluate some of the Scriptural wisdom of the rearguard tactics discussed in these trumpets.

When you finish boot camp you’ll find that not much will change. Boot camp is merely the beginning of a Bible-based relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and that will never end. The direction of your life will depend on what gates and trials the Lord puts before you, and how you respond to them will depend on how mature and pure your inner sanctum (the Lord, His Book, and you) is. For example, if fear or lust or pride get the better of you at times, respond like David did by honestly repenting, learning, and making sure you’ll never repeat that sin. The fact is, the road to becoming a mature Christian warrior is no different from the road walked by mature Christian warriors: Daily Bible study, constant fellowship with the Lord, and using your inner sanctum to evaluate any and every situation in your life. That’s all I’m doing right now: I’m trying to serve and glorify God and edify my fellow servants in accordance with His Instruction Manual. As we mature our daily routine of tending to the Lord remains the same. But as we learn, falter, repent, grow...and mature our decisions get better and our service more selfless. And eventually we realize we’ve increasingly developed a burden to help our comrades, so we begin ministering to the needs of the church.

“Action addicts” and “learning junkies”: Eph 2:1-3: And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind... (1 Thes 4:11): And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; Because you learned a lot in a short time by studying AOR, you may now experience “learning withdrawal”. The mental stimulation, the excitement of learning as you went through AOR the first few times may cause you to now – as boring day after boring day rolls by – feel restless. Some people are action addicts, and they wrongly crave the excitement of constantly debating doctrine by going in among apostate Christians. Some people are learning junkies, and they hope to duplicate the high they had when studying AOR, so they begin looking for more knowledge. I can’t say learning is bad...but be careful not to get sidetracked by trivialities in the “ever learning” rut, and be careful not to put well-intentioned Christian authors like me between you and the Lord and His Book. Concentrate on your relationship with the Lord (day after week after month after year after decade of daily time with Him during Bible study/reading, and 24/7 with Him in your inner sanctum) so He can shape you into the kind of vessel He wants you to be. Train yourself to quietly and patiently and faithfully sit at His feet via endless sessions in His Book accompanied by confessions, thanksgivings, questions, praise, word studies, note-taking, essay writing, etc. That is exactly what His Book tells you to do...and it really does work, and it really is worth it. One way to read study to be quiet is: “If you spend your time studying the Bible, it will keep you in life’s slow lane away from the constant time-wasting barrage of worldly distractions that appeal to the desires of the flesh and of the mind.” Looking back I wish I’d avoided some of the distractions along the way that I now realize were nothing but well-intentioned trivial wastes of time. I was spiritually young and ignorant and had no big brother to disciple me, so with this ministry I’m trying to be an help who is meet for you. Bottom line: It may sound trite, but only what’s done with and for the Lord is satisfying in the long run.

“Practice daily with the guns.” You are training for spiritual warfare. The Bible is your weapon. Read and/or study it every day. Without fail. It is your daily bread. You need it. Just do it. It is an extremely important part of your relationship with the Lord. It gives Him opportunities to increase your knowledge, understanding, and strength. Do not let Him and yourself down: read the Bible every single day for the rest of your life. If a day ever comes when you decide to skip your Bible reading, you must first commune with the Lord and let Him know what it is on your agenda that is so important that you won’t have time for His Book today. Yes, some days your reading will be boring. But some days your reading will unexpectedly turn into a feast, and you may spend many hours feeding. Even if you don’t feel motivated to read, do it anyway out of a sense of duty. The Lord will note your unflagging dedication and your obedience, and He will reward you.

“Pick out the biggest and commence firing!” The best way to master the Bible (after you’ve read it straight through a couple of times) is to master specific doctrines one by one. Pick the big ones, the important ones, and the ones that most interest you first. Take notes. Write down things as you run across them that you want to look into someday. As you go through the Bible make side lists of “here a little, and there a little” verses that deal with various topics so you can group them by subject and therefore easily find them later. Use a concordance to do word studies and find verses. Make lists of helpful verses. (Study habits like these made it a lot quicker when I wrote AOR to know which verses to reference.)

Come out of the closet. When having normal everyday conversations with people, saved or not, I encourage you to mention the Bible or the Lord. Don’t force it. Let it be a natural reference having to do with whatever you’re talking about. It can be something as simple as, “Well, we know we all go back through Noah”; or “The Lord hasn’t given us any rain in quite a while”; or “I happen to know about that because I’m a Bible believer”; or it may be something more in-depth depending on the circumstances. As your Bible knowledge and Christian experiences that result from being a doer of the word increase, you’ll be amazed at how many times Biblical stuff comes to mind. By speaking up you’ll learn there’s nothing and nobody to be afraid of. And sometimes you may be delighted that you’ve just met a fellow Bible believer.

If lukewarm Christians or pagans think you’re a wild-eyed, drooling fanatic, you’ll gradually learn it doesn’t matter and you don’t care! And if somebody ever says something derogatory about you or Christianity or the Bible (they usually say nothing), you’ll quickly realize they’re not a threat: they’re lightweight airheads firing blanks...and they probably already know that and therefore have no desire to match wits with a Swordbearing front-line Christian warrior. But if they actually do get all emotional and attack Bible believers and the word of God do not stick around and cast your pearls before swine – walk away. If you’ll resist those urges to stay and argue and defend yourself and the Bible, and if you’ll subdue self by obediently walking away you’ll realize later that what they think really doesn’t matter and you really don’t care.

Be increasingly picky with your social life (it’ll automatically happen as you mature and walk more closely with the Lord). Be polite and casually friendly with everybody, but don’t fellowship with pagans who can’t resist badmouthing Christians, and don’t fellowship with Christians who aren’t interested in the inerrant Bible. Make your socializing routinely include the Bible. If that causes you to end up with no friends, it’s only because they’ve turned out to be the kind of people you do not want to be around. People are dangerous because peer pressure is a powerful force. Be very careful with people; they can be very bad for you. This is not to say you won’t maintain good relationships with job bosses and fellow employees – you will, and you should. But do not get your back up when they say the kinds of stupid, carnal, Enlightened stuff they typically say. Remember, some dogs bark a lot. It’s a nuisance, but it’s not a big deal. It isn’t your job to shut them up, your job is to “study to be quiet” by coming out from among them so you can be in a Biblical environment of peaceful green pastures and still waters. Be disciplined; be in control of yourself at all times and in all environments, and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall be with you.

If you have a pagan spouse and children, or if you have a pagan girlfriend, or if your parents and brothers and sisters are unsaved you may find that it can sometimes be easier getting along with pagans than with tradition-bound loudmouthed opinionated Christians. If that is so, and your unsaved loved ones – like your loyal and beloved pet dog – want to be around you (1 Cor 7:13) and are content with your being a Bible believer you do not have to avoid them; it is perfectly OK to have pagans in your life and to love them – as long as they cheerfully accept you as a Bible believer.

Develop a 24-7-365 relationship with the Lord. Talk with Him about everything. Think about His word and about matters Christian. Thank Him for times when a cloudbank, or fall leaves, or falling snow, or a cool breeze that billows your sweat-soaked shirt out from your back, etc., make you have one of those timeless moments that stick with you forever. If you’re carrying a bucket of gravel up to the barn and you stumble and spill it in the deep lush grass by the spring, and you feel your fatigue spilling over into senseless anger...fast (as in not eating) from your impatience. Tell the Lord you’re tired, you hate little detailed penny-ante work, but you’re going to get down on your hands and knees and pick the gravel, one by one, out of the grass and refill the bucket. And you’re doing it for Him because you want it to symbolize the kind of servant you want to be for Him: patient, humble, disciplined, and happy to do whatever task no matter how distasteful you may think it is. Just be with Him. You’ll find out He’s good to be with.

Pray. Ask Him to help you love Him, serve Him, learn His word, and be more patient. Everything. Prayer is just a more specific talk with Him – as opposed to the constant communing with Him every day such as above when picking up gravel. Be careful when you pray not to be selfish. Pray for the church. Be strong: admit to times when you fret or falter, but tell Him you’ll never quit on Him. Be honest and humble in your prayers. Don’t BS Him with “Christian rhetoric” because He’s way ahead of you and will not be fooled or pleased. Use your prayer time to honestly and objectively review how you’ve been performing. Thank Him for growth, and ask for more. Don’t be afraid to talk honestly about the possibility that He may want you to suffer horribly one day – like Job. Yes, you’re afraid to bring up stuff like that because you don’t want to give Him any ideas. But He doesn’t work that way. Your prayers should be part of your relationship, and your relationship is a journey whose objective is your becoming the kind of faithful servant He delights in and can count on for anything...forever. Quick example: As a young Christian I wanted to know what tongues is. So I Naturally and carnally conferred with flesh and blood by asking preachers and reading books about it – and all of them danced around without properly pointing to Bible verses that actually described miraculous tongues. Finally one day, frustrated and at my wits’ end, as a last resort (!) I took it to the Lord in prayer: 1 Cor 14:34,35 Let your women keep silence in the churches...And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home. I knelt at a chair in my living room, confessed my lack of faith, told the Lord I couldn’t find the answer, and asked Him to help me. And then I waited. Ps 27:14 Wait, I say, on the LORD. A few days later while studying the subject in the Bible (again), the Lord opened my eyes to the fact that His truth is revealed by paying close attention to what His literal word actually says...as well as what it doesn’t say. By opening my eyes to the necessity of taking Him literally at His word, the Lord taught me about tongues...and about how to avoid being blinded by tradition from then on.

In addition to paying attention to the exact words God put in His Book, keep in mind cause and effect when studying the Bible. Many people incorrectly treat the Bible as if it’s merely a collection of “Sunday-school stories” whose inconsistencies with Enlightened doctrines should be ignored. But the Bible is 100% true, and it talks about real people in real situations. Keeping that in mind as you study will help you pay attention to cause and effect. For example:

God really did get so upset that He killed Korah, Dathan, and Abiram when they tried to “reform” Moses and his brother. Why? And God really did get so upset with King Saul that He rejected him as king for “merely” heeding the voice of the people. Why? When using cause and effect to figure out why, you’ll find the events have something in common, authority: Korah wanted to overthrow Moses’ autocratic authority and create a democratic government; and Saul wanted to surrender his autocratic authority by creating a de facto democracy. By treating these and other events in the Bible as real we find they were caused by threats to the absolute authority of single-headed rule, which resulted in God’s seemingly over-the-top anger. Upon examination you’ll realize the literal word makes it look like God wants His people to submit to their rulers no matter what those rulers say! You’ll find that to be interesting, and will tuck it away in your mind to see what else you might come across in the Bible (such as Mt 23:1-3 and 1 Pet 2:13-18) that supports this idea that is so offensive to modern “Christianity” and society. You’ll add the above Scripture to your Bible study notes under a growing section called “authority” or “government”. After you’ve carefully, patiently gone through the Bible a few times and verified your doctrinal lists are complete, you’ll be forced into deciding if you’re going to live by the traditions of men or if you’re going to live by Thus saith the Lord.

God really did get so upset that He killed Hananiah when he used Satan’s Yea, hath God said theological skepticism to undermine the authority of the word of God. That, too, is added to study notes concerning theology, faith, belief, the truth of every word of God, the subject of inerrancy and how it requires taking the Bible literally, the topic of rebellion/witchcraft (as applied to Saul in 1 Sam 15:22,23 and to Hananiah in Jer 28:16; 29:32), and other topics that bear on the Bible version issue in order to see if believing Bible study by taking God’s inerrant King James Bible literally will result in seeing more of God’s truth as revealed, supported, and verified by the wonderful Comforting consistency of the Bible.

Cause and effect also help us eventually build upon our framework of increasingly-correct doctrine (which makes us jettison tradition’s incorrect doctrines) in order to better and more clearly understand how and why, at a fundamental level, theology, modern Bible versions, layman’s aids, etc. are subversive: they undermine faith in God and His word by attacking the inspiration, literal inerrancy, reliability, and authority of the Holy Bible, which makes Christians think believing Bible study is folly because God’s word no longer exists. And our growing understanding makes us increasingly aware of the fact that Satan has successfully used theology as a Trojan horse to bring Reason into the church. And then we look at cause and effect again: How has this happened and why are most Christians so unaware of all of this? The answer: It’s because our tactics have not been Biblical; instead of letting modern dumpster-diving Christians know they are subverted, and instead shunning them because the Bible literally says to come out from among them by walking away, we have continued to fellowship with them...which allowed them to remain unaware that we believe them to be apostates who lack the foundational faith to believe God’s word exists, and are therefore blind to the meaning of the miraculously-unique inerrancy of the KJV. I say again, instead of politely and lovingly shunning the Hananiahs in our midst, we have befriended/defrauded them!

Get up early. If you get up early you’ll always have time to read and study the Bible – because the rest of the world will be asleep and therefore won’t interrupt you. I got up today at 0430 in order to write this trumpet. Sometimes I get up earlier, sometimes I don’t get up until 0600. But the Bible is always the first thing I do every day. A good side benefit of getting up early is it’ll help you become more disciplined.

Cultivate the soil of your heart and humble your soul with fasting. Do things that will eliminate distractions and temptations. Establish habits and routines that are good for you. Just make up your mind and do them. They may seem like big deals at first, but when you do them you’ll realize how screwed up we are by not having a deeper understanding of the “all is vanity” in Ecclesiastes. When you fast, ask the Lord to help you translate the fasting into the kind of dedicated discipline that will help you avoid temptations, be a faithful doer, and endure trials. No, you don’t really understand how “cultivating” things like fasting positively impact our hearts and souls any more than I do. But do ‘em anyway, soldier, because they’re in our Weapons Manual and we believe He’s looking for warriors who promptly carry out His orders – whether we understand everything about them or not. Faith is the victory.

Get your life and your household under control. Don’t be enslaved by debt, be an expert who’s known for dependability at work, and rule well your own house.

More on study to be quiet (1 Th 4:11): Make sure you have times when you are surrounded by peaceful order and quiet. So many people these days spend their days in noisy chaotic hustle and bustle. They’ve got the TV always on as “background noise”, or the radio, or some modern music device, and they often can’t hear you because they’ve got ear buds in their ears. They also have so many activities, hobbies, and pastimes that they simply have no time to sit in a quiet place and just let their minds rest. I routinely sit quietly and let my mind wander: daily tasks, worries, memories, people, Scripture, Christianity, and – always – my relationship with the Lord. It is not unusual for good things to “occur to me” during these quiet times. I often attribute those thoughts to the still small voice of the Comforter, which is also common during Bible study and Bible-oriented discussions with Christians. That suggests these “study to be quiet” sessions can be fruitful parts of our daily walks. My main point: The busy, chaotic, noise-filled lives so many people seem to have these days may be harmful if we don’t deliberately take the time to “study to be quiet” in order to mull things over with the Lord so His still small voice has an opportunity to shepherd those with ears that hear.

Make “disciplined” your middle name. Do not allow or tolerate laziness, slovenliness, or procrastinating in your life. Reading the Bible every day, getting up early, and fasting are good ways to make self-discipline part of your character. Be on time and in other ways be dependable. Stand up straight, tuck in your shirttail, pull up your pants, comb your hair, don’t drag your feet, look people in the eye, be honest and truthful. Look like the squared-away, elite Christian soldier you are or are in training to be. Be proud of your Christian character, and live and walk and talk in such a way that you can stand unashamed and unafraid before a mirror, your comrades, and your enemies – like Christ did before Pontius Pilate. I say again, be disciplined.

Be strong. You’ll need to be strong if you’re going to be a doer. The best way to be a doer is to address your fears. Are you afraid to turn down your neighbor’s dinner invitation because he and his wife are low-life scumbags and you’ve been afraid to openly be a Bible believer around them? Get off your butt and go tell him. It doesn’t matter if you’re humble with him and confess that you feel bad about the kind of Christian you’ve been and are in the process of repenting, or if you curtly decline his invitation and don’t care if his feelings are hurt or not. Your personality isn’t important; getting your life in order so you can quickly grow into a strong and dependable warrior is. The best way to grow stronger is be a doer of the word.

There are things in the Bible that I won’t mention to you. They aren’t big enough deals for me to preach them. But they have become part of my relationship with the Lord. In a way they’re personal; they’re things I came across in His Book that I made part of my life because I think my Husband appreciates them and I want to please Him. I could open the Bible and show you why I do them, but I won’t. I want you to develop your own relationship with Him based on whatever things in the Bible impress themselves upon you. Don’t be afraid to develop your relationship. Don’t be afraid to be different from me.

Fear is a big impediment to Christian growth. And many Christians increase their fear and timidity by trying to conform to some “image” of what a Christian should be. The way they dress, their vocabulary, their tone of voice, and their personalities are all calculated to project that mythical “Christian image.” But they end up being insecure and shallow because they know they’re phonies putting on a pious act. Don’t get sucked into that trap, brother. If you’ll take the above actions to heart in order to preserve and protect your environment so you can avoid or overcome the temptations, pitfalls, and trials that are part of our Christian walks, you’ll grow rapidly. Humility will help. Be yourself. Let your daily relationship with Christ shape you. Have the personality and the character He gives you via the experiences and trials and temptations He deems fit to put into your life. Being yourself will help you during those times when standing alone on Scripture becomes necessary. And it will become necessary. How will being yourself help? Because being a humble, submissively-obedient, no-BS Bible believer every day in every way will gradually become more and more entrenched into your character, into who you are. And therefore when temptations and fears try to get you to stray, the selfless love for the Lord that is the foundation of your Christian character and that grew every time you served Him, will keep you in line. I say again: Being the kind of Christian I’ve described above will quietly result in your relationship with – and love for – the Lord to deepen. And as you mature you’ll be able to see that love manifest itself...well, in so many ways I can’t even begin to list them.

You are a child of God Almighty in a weed- and leaven-infested, pitfall-filled, dangerous war. Your job is to mature and bear fruit. Part of your job includes taking the above steps to protect your flanks and cover your six so your little environment can be a fertile, weed-free, peaceful garden of Eden where you won’t have to spend all your time and energy fighting barbs and arrows. If you don’t successfully get through training/childhood you’ll never be a good combat soldier/adult. So take your training seriously and help it be fruitful by doing the above steps. One day you’ll be glad you did.

“Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.”

*****

War College Trumpet W6

A TALE OF TARES AMONG US

Much of this essay is conjecture, therefore I’m not dogmatic about it. But even though the Bible does not come right out and say some of this stuff, it does fit with and explain much of Scripture. And because this narrative helps us get a glimpse at how desperate this war is, I want it to make you think about how important you and your submissive obedience to the literal word of God are to the welfare of the church. I’m going to draw upon the info covered in earlier trumpets in order to paint a broad picture of the war and why certain things happened. This topic goes along with the fact that the Lord knew a rearguard action was the only way the church could endure to the end and win the war, and it not only gives a possible explanation to some perplexing wording in the Bible, but the explanation – because it makes sense – is but another indication that we are to use a literal interpretation of the Bible.

Since you take the Bible literally and realize the Lord carefully selected each word, have you ever wondered why the Lord chose a specific “three measures of meal” rather than a more general “a measure” or something similar, and how it might apply to both the KOG and the KOH?

Lk 13:20,21 Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.

Mt 13:33 Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.

In my narrative I’m also going to draw upon some of the stranger things in the following verses:

Gen 6:2-4 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose...There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

1 Jn 3:12 Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one...

Gen 19:1-7 And there came two angels to Sodom at even...and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them...And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night...But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom...called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them. And Lot...said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.

Jn 8:41,44,47 Ye do the deeds of your father...Ye are of your father the devil...He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.

Mt 13:24-40 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn...He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.

Mt 10:16,17 Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men...

Mt 7:15,16 ...which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.

Jn 2:24,25 But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.

Lk 18:8 ...when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

Mt 24:22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.

Let’s begin.

What if the Devil really did consummate his union with Eve (as we discussed in AOR), and thereby introduced some kind of “fallen seed” to the physical genetic mix of the human race that makes or tends to make us more receptive to ideology that is pro-theology and anti-God/authority? Would that mean the Lord meant it literally when He told the evil Pharisees they were “of their father the devil”? Could the Bible be referring to the Devil’s “recessive genes” in Cain when it says Cain was “of that wicked one”? And could more “wicked seed” have been added to our human gene pools when the devils took human wives?

Obviously, there are other ways to explain “recessive genes” and “leaven” and “of your father the devil.” For example, those things could simply mean “doctrinally corrupt”, or “subverted with Reason, theology, equality, democracy, etc.”, or they could be referring to some unmentioned spiritual corruption. That gives us four possible explanations...but I’m going to explore only one of them – a physical genetic “recessive gene” implanted in Eve by the Devil. The Bible does make it clear, after all, that somehow the physical kingdom of heaven and the spiritual kingdom of God can and do interact with and affect each other.

Why did Cain go bad? Did he inherit that recessive gene from his parents? Is that why he received a “mark”? We don’t know, the Bible doesn’t say. But we do know some form of evil leaven quickly spread until all of the first patriarch’s generations were corrupted, which caused God, for the good of the church, to step in and use the Flood to cull everybody.

God then told the second patriarch, Noah to be fruitful and multiply. The generations of Noah were also quickly leavened, causing God to step in and divide the human race into saints and ain’ts.

God gave the third patriarch, Abraham, the Old Commission to be fruitful and multiply. And via Moses He also began giving Abraham’s generations the Old Testament. In order to protect His people from the corrupting recessive genes that infected so many of Noah’s generations, God told Abe to inbreed. That would not only prevent His people from bringing more recessive genes into Israel via infected pagans, but the recessives already there would be exposed by inbreeding and close fellowship. That’s one reason God gave His people the death penalty – it would cut off recessive genes. And that’s why God told parents to carefully watch their children: If any of them weren’t bearing proper fruit by the time they were 16 those recessive-gene-carrying children were to be executed to prevent them from spreading that leaven via ideology and physical reproduction.

And that’s why God had His people annihilate so many pagans who lived near Israel; He was eradicating recessive genes that could infect his people.

When Christ showed up He pointed out that some of the Pharisees (and therefore others among the Hebrews) had inherited this recessive gene and therefore could not heed the word of God and be good Christians. In fact, so many Christians of Abraham’s generations had been infected by their parent’s marrying pagans and by not culling among themselves properly that the Lord saw it was necessary for the good of the church and the war to cull His leavened people and start over with the New Testament and with Himself as the fourth – and True – Patriarch.

Did you catch it? The generations of the first three physical patriarchs were so completely leavened they had to be cut off. That’s where the “three” measures of meal came from. And they had the leaven initially introduced to them by a “woman” – Eve.

When the Fourth Patriarch looked around at the whole world He saw that there were not enough people left who weren’t infected with recessive genes. That meant He could not win the war if He selected somebody new to be a physical patriarch. If He did that His new church would – because you cannot tell people are “of the Devil” by looking at them – actually hurt itself if it tried to use the Old Commission by marrying people who had a much higher chance of carrying the Devil’s genes. That meant the Lord had to not only get rid of the Old Commission’s mandate to have children, He had to – for the good of the longevity of the church – advise His NT saints to not marry anybody, “Christian” or pagan, because the odds were they were carrying recessive genes. That would prevent His NT saints from unintentionally populating their churches with the invisible genes of that Wicked One. That’s why God told us not to marry and have kids – there are way too many infected people and way too few uninfected people on earth to safely marry anybody and physically reproduce.

We cannot tell who these infected people are, but they’re everywhere. We are sheep among wolves...and many of the wolves are in our churches wearing sheep’s clothing. That means the Devil’s recessive genes pollute human beings in such a way that the Lord either cannot give them the new birth or if He does those tainted saints are more prone to subversive ideologies. And infected people do not know they’re infected: That’s why many of today’s “Christian” tares/children of the Devil are just as enthusiastic about “Christianity” and “Bible” study as are Muslims about their religion.

But the Lord does know who’s infected and who’s not. That’s why He took over as Patriarch – He will select individuals anywhere on earth who are “clean” and give them the new birth. And if His people live in accordance with the Bible they probably won’t get married. And that obedience to the Bible helps the church because it avoids the high probability that we’re going to marry pagans (no matter how many times they said the sinner’s prayer, made a profession of faith, or were baptized) and unknowingly add modern Pharisees to the church who will further subvert it.

This underscores how absolutely necessary it is for us to obediently implement the Lord’s NT warfare tactics of inbreeding (close doctrine-oriented fellowship) in order to expose infected people by their fruit; culling (church discipline, rebuking, shunning); and separation (using the Great Commission’s mandate to use the word to find and feed God’s sheep...and have no fellowship with pagans and subverted Christians). And this also highlights the fact that these tactics must be used if the Lord’s strategy of rearguard action is to succeed. I say again, brother, obedience on our part is essential if the church is to endure to the end. In fact, even the very elect among us will not make it if the Lord doesn’t step in (like He did with the Flood, the Division, and the NT) and “shorten” the last days...because the leaven cannot be stopped.

JONAH AND THE WISE MEN

Is there Biblical precedence for the Lord giving the new birth to anybody He chooses around the world? Yes. He apparently gave the new birth to a number of Gentiles in Nineveh. And then – foreshadowing the NT’s Great Commission – He sent Jonah there to preach the gospel to “feed my sheep.” And if the “wise men” are any indication, the seed of the word Jonah planted in Nineveh accomplished God’s will and produced faithful saints who played an important role in Jerusalem and Bethlehem at the First Coming.

Other born-again Gentiles in the Bible such as Lot, the Roman centurion, and the Syrophenician woman indicate that the True Patriarch always knew one day He’d have to open the gospel to the whole world in order to find enough unleavened people who could stand in the gaps.

THE MILLENNIAL REIGN

Just before the Second Coming the Lord will step in and “shorten those days” in order to rescue the few remaining faithful from being leavened. And at that point the whole population of the earth will be so polluted with the Devil’s recessive genes that the Lord will be unable to find enough saints to carry on the war during the final thousand years. But He has already planned for that...which is why He is going to resurrect His faithful from earlier in history whose obediently-submissive lives enabled them to “keep the Sabbath.”

The Devil will be locked up for most of those thousand years. How that might affect the spread of his recessive genes is irrelevant because our job of submissive obedience will remain the same. It seems likely, however, that Reason, carnality, Yea, hath God said theology, equality, freedom, and democracy will still bring some of us down, and those leavened saints will rally around Satan when he is released.

The final cleansing, the final culling, the Final Solution will be by fire. At that point we’ll have no more leaven, recessive genes, or equality to worry about.

But that’s more than a thousand years away, and if we’re going to safely endure to the end we’re going to have to get serious about the deadly contagion of whatever kinds of leaven are out there. In practice it does not matter if this narrative is pretty close to the truth or if the only leaven out there is equality and doctrinal related – because 1) it’s still highly contagious and deadly, 2) the only way to identify it is to be Bible-expert enough to correctly “know them by their fruits”, and 3) be submissively obedient enough to walk away.

This is a huge, involved, and deep subject. And it requires some Biblical maturity because it takes some things in nature and compares them with some seemingly-strange things in Scripture...so we can marvel at the apparent consistency of it all. As you well know, I believe we should take the Bible literally. Yes, there are valid figurative applications for some of the above verses. But those figurative applications, unlike the literal applications, haven’t even come close to explaining and tying a number of things in Scripture together. As a result most of those verses are swept under the rug by today’s churches. I think that’s a mistake. Even if we don’t accept the above as a proper application of the literal word of God, we should still profit from it by talking with the Lord about how this war may be a lot more involved and may be going a lot worse than we thought. And then we need to gird our loins because the Tribulation is coming, and some of the things that happen then are going to be weirder than the above...because this war really does involve both spiritual and physical beings.

We are at war! And it doesn’t look to me like it’s going very well.

Let them that have ears that hear, hear.

“Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.”

*****

War College Trumpet W7

MAKING THE WORD OF NONE EFFECT

Mk 7:13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition,

Heb 4:2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.

Ac 15:24 Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls...

2 Tim 2:14,17 ...charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. And their word will eat as doth a canker...

The above verses illustrate something important about the word of God: It can be made unprofitable and of none effect because it is not a magic, all-powerful fix. With that in mind, I’m going to talk about one facet of the battle of words that has me worried.

The Lord has chosen to communicate with us through His written and spoken word (Bible reading/study and preaching/fellowshipping around the word). Words are important because they go into our brains and combine to gradually form and instill the invisible building blocks of character (who we are, beliefs, doctrine, faith, etc).

When we hear or read carnal words of the world, those evil words are evaluated in our brains, compared with what we’ve learned from the Bible, and rejected. In other words, the word-evaluation process that goes on inside our brains is an important defense against the onslaughts of the world. But “progress” in our modern society is helping the Devil use subtlety to subvert us.

The Appalachian Mountain region of the United States was home to the classic “hillbillies.” These men and women tended to reject change from the “outside world”, and therefore remained the way they’d always been. When they were hired by local employers their managers found it was difficult to change them...because they didn’t go to Shakespearean plays. (Bear with me.)

Before Queen Elizabeth’s reign in England, public plays had religious themes in order to help reinforce proper Christian ways of thinking and living. But Queen Elizabeth wanted to secularize society by introducing people to the new Enlightened ways of thought. So, among other things, she allowed the content of plays to become carnal, to be about secular human feelings of right and wrong and love and fairness and justice. In other words, even back then, intellectuals understood that there were a number of tools with which society could be programmed, manipulated, propagandized, and brainwashed. Social results of the secular plays weren’t very impressive, but every little bit “helped.”

The Appalachian hillbillies could not be re-programmed by plays because plays weren’t available. But when the radio came along it was believed it would modernize hillbillies by entering their homes and minds. However, the effectiveness of the radio at reprogramming people was found to be – like plays – minimal.

And then television was invented. (Fasten your seatbelt, brother.)

The appeal and success of television was phenomenal. Even among the hillbillies TV antennas began sprouting from the old busses, trailers, and cabins they lived in. And with dramatic speed hillbillies conformed to the modern world. They bought toothpaste (“You’ll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!”); got haircuts and bought hair tonic (“Brylcreme: She’ll love to run her fingers through your hair.”); saw the girls flocking around the guy with a sea bag over his shoulder, so they shaved and bought Old Spice or Burma Shave; etc. They saw the beautiful people on TV and wanted to look like them, talk like them, and have the things they had.

In the 1950s Walt Disney revolutionized TV and marketing with its TV series (and then movies) about Davy Crockett. Stores were suddenly inundated with consumers clamoring for coonskin caps and other Crockett items. It was impossible for Disney and the stores to keep up with demand – everything sold out as soon as it went onto the shelves. (Today marketing schools still study the phenomenal demand for consumer goods the Crockett series created.)

In 1960 Richard Nixon and underdog John Kennedy debated on TV during the presidential campaign. Kennedy had a fresh shave and wore clothing that looked better with the stage backdrop than those worn by Nixon. Kennedy won the debate and election because he looked better on TV than Nixon.

Sociologists were intrigued by the fact that hillbillies’ resistance to social change was penetrated by TV – but not radio; they were intrigued by the avalanche of sales created by the Crockett TV shows; and they were intrigued by the Kennedy TV debate success based on appearance rather than content.

They found out that when people read (books) or hear (radio) words, their brains deal primarily with words; our brains must process/analyze the words in order for us to understand their meaning. During that process pre-existing belief and value systems are involved in the analysis...which allows people to filter out and reject content that conflicts with their beliefs. Something similar happens in real life (plays): our natural aloofness from strangers makes us tend to be more critical of what they say. But when people see and hear something on TV, the “on-guard effect” of real life is relaxed, which allows other powerful subliminal forces to dilute, bypass, or nullify the brain’s value system filters. The meaning and evaluation of words takes a back seat to gut reactions based mostly on what is seen, somewhat on tone of voice, and little on the actual meaning of the spoken words. That’s why TV did to hillbillies what radio had failed to do. That’s why people suddenly became brainwashed zombies who had to rush out and buy coonskin caps, and Air Jordan sneakers, and old yeller dogs, and bikinis, etc: They didn’t decide to do those things; they were socially programmed to do them.

When information got out about visual images having the ability to subconsciously program people, conspiracy theorists came out of the woodwork: Drive-in theaters were accused of brainwashing people into buying food and drink by inserting single-frame pictures of beverages and food into the movies; liquor ads were thought to insert naked-women shapes into the photo patterns of ice cubes in drinks in order to make men like the advertized brand of booze. But that’s not how TV and movies affect people. They do so with content and appearances: The husband and father is made to look like and act like a brutish, heavy-handed thug. The wife and daughter are nice-looking people who fearfully cower in the presence of the dad. And when he beats the daughter it is for dumb reasons and it is brutally mean...and we instinctively – little by little – side with the no-spanking crowd because of our Natural affinity for what we think is right and good.

Let me word that differently: When we read about how brutally mean God was to huge numbers of men, women, and children in His Old Testament, we tend to give Him the benefit of the doubt. But when we see a similar scenario in a movie, we tend to blame the brute no matter how Scriptural his actions may be. TV and movies tend to brainwash us because our eyes tend to feed our gut reactions, which then tends to overpower/bypass our normal ability to intellectually analyze the words and principles involved. This process is more pronounced in people who tend to be more emotional (usually women, but men are becoming more like women these days), and in people whose value systems aren’t yet fully developed (usually children and teens, but adults are becoming more like kids these days), and in people with poor reading skills.

This process of bypassing value systems even in many adults is made clear when, after the movie, people are asked to judge what they saw. And when the scenes are played back so the dialog can be analyzed, these adults are often surprised not just that they reverse their judgments, but that they had no idea what the dialog actually said and meant during the movie!

Because we are all affected by our fallen, carnal natures, we instinctively identify with and like resisting authorities in movies – especially when the actor is told to pretend to be a brutish dad. This instinctive resistance to authority is why all young children automatically backtalk and sass their parents (TV or no TV). But spanking has always (in the past) taught children to subdue their carnal instincts and respect authority. Therefore, early TV black-and-white shows reflected societal values, such as Father Knows Best and The Ozzie and Harriet Show. Today’s TV shows reflect how authority has been reduced to the point that it is actually despised, which symbolizes how people treat God: Either there is no father on the show (symbolizing atheists) or he is a brute (people think God is harshly unfair) or the dad is a humorous bumbler manipulated by his wife and kids (representing the “loving God” of modern apostate Christianity).

This change in society was hastened when transistor radios and music records leavened children right under their parents’ noses. The themes of rebellion against authority, premarital sex, and illegal drugs instinctively appealed to immature children and hormone-driven teens whose inner value systems hadn’t yet matured and therefore couldn’t effectively and completely filter out that musical propaganda with its catchy beat and rhyme. In 1962, for example, a hit song, He’s A Rebel, reached #1 on the charts. Some lyrics:

See the way he walks down the street ;

Watch the way he shuffles his feet .

My, he holds his head up high

When he goes walking by, he’s my guy.

He’s a rebel and he’ll never ever be any good.

He’s a rebel ‘cause he never ever does what he should.

But just because he doesn’t do what everybody else does,

That’s no reason why I can’t give him all my love.

Forty-two years later, in 2004, that brainwashing bullshit was ranked #263 on a list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

Oh, how things have changed. Today you can’t find a TV show in which the kids treat their parents (and therefore God) with anything but sullen, disrespectful contempt. That filth goes straight into who our children are by bypassing their still-developing value filters, and it makes them think submissive obedience isn’t “cool.” Today you can’t find a show that isn’t about messed-up, rebellious, promiscuous kids, drug addicts, alcoholics, homos, criminals, etc. The bad guys are so popular today that not only have they become huge hero-stars in movies, but there are even shows in which the main characters are married parent/mafia bosses...or school teacher/parents who are lying, murdering, low-life manufacturers of illegal drugs.

Young people today grew up with all of those influences easily bypassing their almost non-existent value filters. And because their moronic parents learned from – nowhere authoritative! – that the spanking commanded by God in His Bible is “cruel and wrong”, young people never had respect for authority (including God Almighty) become part of their inner makeup. Etc., etc., etc. Therefore, young people today look, and dress, and mark their bodies in such ways that they look like airheaded ghoul-wannabes. The bottom line: Society is gone, brother. And it isn’t going to get better.

I have realized over the decades that people used to “do what they were supposed to.” For example, people went to church because they were supposed to. People disciplined/spanked their kids because they were supposed to. Kids treated adults in general and authorities in particular with respect because they were supposed to. Today “supposed to” has vanished. Why did it exist more when I was young than it does now? That’s easy: authority existed and was respected back then. But as authority has been subverted, “supposed to” has crumbled away because without authority chaos reigns. I say again, “supposed to” gets its supposed from authority. The gates of hell haven’t just been subverting Christians – everybody is being liberated from authoritarianism in society; we’re free to do what we want, which is covetousness. “Supposed to” is gone, and it isn’t coming back.

Another facet of modern society that somewhat hinders Christians’ ability to effectively study the Bible is the fact that in recent decades reading skills have diminished greatly. I say somewhat because the Holy Spirit still helps sincere Christians when they study His word. But because many Christians are poor readers and have poor reading comprehension, they are less inclined to study the Bible. Today if people with poor reading comprehension do read, they usually read for entertainment rather than to learn. The U.S. Army years ago even had to hire comic book publishers to draw comic-book tank manuals because our modern American soldiers can no longer read and comprehend arms manuals.

Also, Christians with poor reading comprehension who need and should spend more time in the word are likely to hurt themselves by spending less time in the Bible, and more time being “entertained” by TV and the Internet.

As noted above, the word of God is not magic, and it can be and is made of none effect every day in many ways in the lives of many Christians. There is a war going on. There are casualties in war. If Christians don’t wake up they will fall by the wayside. They need to cull some of their activities and begin reading and studying the Bible every day. But most Christians can’t do that! And even if they could, studying and mastering the Bible is just the preparation for the mandatory second part – being a doer of the Bible. The test of our Christianity, our duty as Christian soldiers, isn’t to learn the Bible – it’s to do the Bible.

As the above info (that only scratches the surface) shows, modern spiritual warfare has gotten sophisticated. Today there are high-tech ways the world can penetrate our defenses and turn us into carnal, conservative, church-going, morality-worshipping casualties. Serious Christians need to do whatever things are necessary (such as control their environment) in order to make the Bible their life, their world, and their reality. If they don’t, the word of God will remain of none effect in their lives.

If you think I’ve been too biased in presenting the above info, read this: It is a compilation of quotes from a long, well-written, in-depth treatise on the mechanics of how pictures can bypass and subvert our value systems without our conscious awareness/participation:

“Words (spoken, heard, written, and read) require conscious, deliberate analytical thought. But pictures (of all kinds) have the ability to cause perceptions that are seldom the result of conscious, deliberate thought; these perceptions simply happen, and are the unsolicited result of prolonged or repeated exposure to pictures that are depicted in certain ways. It is not what is depicted that gives pictures the power to influence our perceptions of the world, but how they are depicted. In fact, pictures have the capability to

enlist or erode loyalties,
reinforce or undermine our values,
and strengthen, create, or even destroy existing beliefs, convictions, and attitudes.

“These picture-induced perceptions work by lingering on the periphery of attention where they quietly prey on our belief systems by nibbling away at and eventually seducing the senses without ever having been subjected to direct attention and critical thought. That is how and why the subliminal illocutionary [Remember this word; I had to look it up in the dictionary, and I’ll use it again in other trumpets.] impact and effect of pictures – even those which depict radically different values from those currently held by the viewers – can cause gradual revolutionary changes: they do so stealthily, implicitly, and without the conscious participation of the audience. These are usually not deliberate attempts at subversion on the part of the picture creators; they are often merely unconscious side-effects or manifestations of their own existing belief systems. In other words, the subversive effects of pictures aren’t the result of malicious or deliberate acts on the part of the picture creators, they merely happen because they subconsciously come from who they are.”

History shows it has always been fairly easy to program Christians into doing the exact opposite of Scripture. For example, because the issue in this War is authority...not right and wrong, God’s people used to believe the Lord requires us to submit to all authority, even froward authority. The Bible has always been very clear about that:

1 Pet 2:18 Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear;

not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.

They had also been taught that even “minor” displays of rebellion such as clamoring is a sin:

Eph 4:31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour,

and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

But British Christians in the American colonies before the American Revolution, based partly on Paul Revere’s engraving of Sam Adam’s incorrect depiction of the “Boston Massacre”, decided to reject 1 Pet 2:18 and Eph 4:31 by rising up against their own government that they’d been told was froward, and they began clamoring for a revolution. Why did they ignore their Bible-based values? Largely because of a picture (and a Tea Party and a brain-dead essay called Common Sense)! In fact, if you do some research, you’ll find that Paul Revere’s highly-inaccurate engraving is today admired as the most successful piece of propaganda in American history. That picture “validated” Sam Adams’ “news account” and helped bypass Christian value filters and convince God’s people it was now OK to ignore certain things He plainly says in His holy and inerrant word and to make clamoring against and rebelling against froward governments a modern “Christian” tradition that has made parts of the Bible of none effect. That’s why you’ve never heard a single sermon telling you clamoring and rebelling against evil governments is a sin against God. ( ! I say again, !! ) And that’s why when you read those verses (and others like them) those commandments of God have absolutely no impact! Tradition/brainwashing/peer pressure are extremely effective weapons against holy Scripture – to see living proof you have only to look in a mirror: Are you looking at someone who used to not only believe in the “sacred” principles of democracy but also thought they were Scriptural?

Visual images, particularly TV and movies, have the ability to reprogram people...as is summarized here:

TV and movies, by utilizing appealing and unappealing clothing, facial expressions, body language, music, dialog, tone of voice, etc., and by scripting situations in order to make audiences like and accept or dislike and reject things, can actually bypass the analytical thought processes by which our brains normally analyze words in order to understand their meaning and see if those words agree with or offend the value systems we’ve built up over time via parental upbringing, church sermons, Bible study, etc. In other words, TV and movies have the ability to make us “emote” – to have gut-level reactions that are based on a combination of emotions, visual and auditory inputs (auditory does not include words, it refers primarily to music, tone of voice (aggressive, pleasant, screaming, pleading), crying, laughing, etc.) that produce responses inside of us in areas of our minds that are past (beyond) our mental value-system filters. In this way visual images can be used to quickly program/influence us without having to intellectually prove or disprove anything by interacting with our value-system filters.

And then there’s this quote about current trends in delivering information using TV and the Internet:

Video and graphics are replacing the printed and spoken word in news and advertising because the printed word is no longer the best, the most efficient, or the most effective way to get your message across in this world where so much information is coming at us. Graphics and video convey more information more quickly and more convincingly.

Knowing the above info and the info in Trumpet W9, and taking into consideration the decreasing level of literacy in society, religions today have decided these image-based brainwashing techniques should be used to teach religion and values. To this end they have begun utilizing movies with religious themes and flash-card-like still pictures with storylines. They do not have malicious intentions. They are merely reacting to a number of facts:

Many people today are almost functionally illiterate: they have a hard time comprehending both written and spoken words, and have difficulty trying to pay attention even to short sermons.

Using words to teach takes time because of the above bullet and because words (written and spoken) must first be interpreted, analyzed, understood, and evaluated before they are accepted and incorporated into our value systems.

Time is money. And the love of money is the...

Using visual images is quick and efficient: In short order we can have lots of people (even functional illiterates) in our pews who are social and religious activists clamoring against the government and demanding a return to traditional morality.

Having read AOR you know why clamoring makes the last bullet bad. But I’m going to show why I think the bullet-4 technique is also bad.

The Lord is the Word of God. His holy Book is the word of God. He has ordered us to read, study, learn, eat, meditate on, obey, do, and live the Bible. And He has told us to use His word, in both written and spoken form, to teach others. Armed with what you’ve read above and in the previous trumpet, you now understand that the preceding sentences in this paragraph involve intellectual interacting with the value filters in our brains – rather than gut-level emoting. Let me show you why that may not only be important, but crucial, and necessary. Carefully read this Scripture. It is the apostle trying to earnestly convince us (almost pleading) that he actually, really and truly did see and hear with his own eyes and ears the amazing things that are written in the New Testament. I have added underlining as emphasis, but I want you to slowly and carefully read the Scripture and add your own vocal intensity and emphasis as if John is speaking directly to you and he thinks or suspects that you may be a little bit skeptical about some of the amazing things about the Lord in the Bible. It may help if you mentally insert the emphatic word, really, before each underlined word:

1 Jn 1:1-5 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you...

When the Bible says word it is referring to both written and spoken Scripture. But when the Bible capitalizes Word it is referring to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Notice how similar the first few verses in 1 John 1 above and John 1 below are:

Jn 1:1-14 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not...He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

(They are wonderful verses. And powerful. Amen.) Now I want you to think about the interesting wording in 1 John 1:1. John says they actually saw Christ the Word with their eyes (as in reading the Bible); they actually heard Christ the Word with their ears, and they actually “handled” Christ the Word with their hands. John is saying those three things convinced them that all the stuff in the Bible is true. Could it be that our Creator and Saviour calls Himself the “Word of God”, and calls His Book the “word of God” for a reason? Could it be partly because He wants us to get to know Him like His apostles did – by “handling” Him?

Jn 20:27-31 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

And could “handling” Him include eating His flesh and drinking His blood, which are actually learning and doing the words in the Bible? Of course it could. Now, you’ve already learned some of this in AOR chapter D9, How To Grow, but I’m going to bring in this modern stuff about using TV and movies to bypass our brain’s value-analyzing filters.

Let’s say two guys, Mutt and Jeff, get saved. Mutt is a wannabe Christian (as defined in Trumpet B8), and Jeff is an idealistic Christian (B8). Neither of them is well-educated; their reading and verbal comprehension is limited, which curtails much of the intellectual stimulation they could ordinarily have via reading. Therefore they forego intellectual stimulation by turning to TV, movies, and the Internet so they can “emote” on a gut level. But now that they are saved and want to serve the Lord they look for a church. They end up in a mega church because it has a new program that uses big, full-color story cards and Christian films to teach them “doctrine” and how “good” Christians should live. Very quickly our two heroes stop “cussing”, get haircuts, tithe, buy jackets and ties, wear patriotic lapel pins, begin attending all kinds of “Christian activities”, become social and political activists, etc.

Mutt is happier’n a pig in puke. But Jeff isn’t content; he’s...well, he’s hungry. But he has no idea how to explain his discontent or what he wants. And he has no idea the Holy Spirit also tried to make Mutt discontent – but for various reasons Mutt ignored the still small voice, returned to his vomit, and says to his fellow pewsters, “Stay in the picture, bra!”

To make a long road to real Christian growth short, Jeff does the right thing by either 1) studying the Bible (because in spite of his poor reading skills he finds that somehow he’s finding the peace that passeth all understanding – he’s being fed); or, 2) he joins a good Bible-preaching, Bible-teaching church (for the same reason); or, 3) he begins fellowshipping and studying the Bible with a couple of other idealistic Christians (for the same reason). He goes on to master the Bible and become a lifelong doer of the word who says to his fellow pewsters, “Stay in the word, brother!”

Jeff responded to the subtle promptings of the Holy Spirit because he loved the Lord more than he loved self. Could it be that the Lord wanted Jeff (and us) to – like the apostles – get to know Him personally by “handling” the word of life? Could it be that by reading and hearing the words in God’s Book, we are somehow in our brains’ intellectual value-analyzing centers not only getting to know the Lord but also incorporating Him (eating His flesh/bread/manna and drinking His blood/milk/water) into who we are so we gain the strength to endure to the end no matter what trials and tribulations we may suffer along the way? Yes, because we already know that by doing the written word we are actually following Christ Himself.

Could it be that, because the image-and-emotion-based brainwashing programs used by modern churches bypass that vital “word-handling” process, those programs actually make us nothing but clean-living followers of self/men who lack the spiritual strength to endure to the end?

Could it be that God designed His word to be a two-edged sword that He uses to reveal the thoughts and intents of our hearts? Could it be that carnal Christians like Mutt prefer churches with emotional soap-opera sermons because their god is their belly and emotion-based feel-good sermons feed their self-oriented flesh; but good Christians like Jeff prefer Scripture-based sermons because they feed the spiritual new man rather than the flesh of the old man?

I think so, brother. I think there are good reasons our Creator chose to hide Himself from insincere Christians behind words they don’t/can’t quite get. But with sincere Christians who feed on His written words He not only reveals Himself, but somehow when those Christians interact with and do His word they are getting hands-on experience that gives them the same passionate confidence John has in the Scriptures above.

And that’s why when the Lord’s prayer says, “Give us this day our daily bread”, it isn’t really referring to physical food – because that would contradict the Scriptures that tell us to spend some days fasting from physical food. I say again, we are never told to fast from the mental and spiritual fellowship we have when we feed on the word/Word of God. If we lazily and disobediently try to get to know the “picture of God” rather than the “word of God”, we are not feeding, fellowshipping, or growing.

“Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.”

*****

Have ears that hear...

and endure to the end, comrades!

War College Trumpets W1 - W7

War College Trumpet W1

INBREEDING, CULLING, AND THE CHURCH

War College Trumpet W2

A REVIEW OF CHRISTIAN WARFARE

AND THE LORD'S STRATEGY OF REARGUARD ACTION

War College Trumpet W3

TACTICS FOR NEW TESTAMENT WARFARE

“Beware the leaven of the Pharisees”

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War College Trumpet W4

HOW TO DEFEND THE AUTHORIZED 1611 KING JAMES BIBLE

War College Trumpet W5

WINNING TACTICS FOR YOUNG SOLDIERS

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War College Trumpet W6

A TALE OF TARES AMONG US

War College Trumpet W7

MAKING THE WORD OF NONE EFFECT

War College
Trumpets W1 - W7