God gives people grace in many ways. One of those ways is by communicating His will through the preaching of His word. The hearing of the word imparts faith, which is a gift from God. You're wondering how you believe; when you listen to the word with a good heart God will give you the faith to believe it. He will also confirm His word with supernatural signs and wonders.

I don't know how true your appraisal is of those who have told you about the Lord, but your situation is better than those who have never heard. Plus you have me, newtboy, and I'm sure that makes you feel extremely fortunate. Yet scripture tells us that even if the messenger is bad it doesn't negate your responsibility. Faith and reason are complimentary. I think this quote is true: Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found too difficult and not tried.

I can't speak for the myriad of pretenders but there has only ever been one man who died for your sins. Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah that Moses and the prophets wrote about in the Old Testament. There are exact prophecies like the 70 weeks of Daniel which predict the exact date of His death for our sins. I believe what I believe because I have been changed by His grace. That's my only motivation in telling you or anyone about this, because He is real and you can know that for yourself. You can know that by putting even a slight intellectual effort into understanding the problem. You will find that there are good reasons to believe that God is real and good reasons to believe Jesus is who He said He is. I am a flawed vessel but I serve a God who doesn't need me to prove that He is real. He sends me because He is inviting you to seek Him and be saved.

Romans 10:9-10

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved

When you do that, believing that Jesus died for your sins, God will save you and make you a new person. You're good if you don't care where you are going after you die, if you leave it as you believe up to chance. Yet the evidence that God exists is undeniable, and the coming of His Son Jesus Christ was predicted by prophecies going back thousands of years. So you're not really leaving it up to chance because the scripture tells you that you have no excuse for ignorance.

Romans 1:18-20

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse

You would say, I am sure, that you haven't seen any evidence for God but the scripture says you have and you have suppressed the truth about it. I believe scripture and in our conversations I am sorry to say you are always poisoning the well of reasoned debate with mockery and ridicule. What is behind that is a heavy bias and angst which keeps you from seeing who God is. Being obstinate against the truth of Gods word is foolish. Why not give God the benefit of the doubt and at least ask Him to show you if what I have been telling you all of these years is true?

No, it wasn't Noahs failing. The scripture says he preached righteousness, so the message was endorsed by God. The reason no one was converted was not due to a failure on Noahs part, or Gods. The message wasn't misunderstood, it was rejected by a wicked generation, which was their free will choice to do so. Because they rejected Gods message they weren't prepared when the flood came. The choice to reject God doesn't eliminate the consequences of rejecting God, in this case being unprepared for the impending global flood which you were warned about for 100 years. In the same sense you are unprepared for the impending second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, which you have been warned about your entire life.

When God withholds or suspends judgment out of mercy, ironically it has the opposite effect on the callous hearts of men:

Ecclesiastes 8:11

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil

Because you don't see God out and out punishing people when they do evil, you feel free to live how you want regardless. That is how the pre-flood world felt, and that is why they were swept away. In your ongoing effort to put the worst possible spin on everything in scripture, you neglect to understand the fundamental narrative of the story. The reason for that is your stubborn refusal to say God did something good even when it is integral to the narrative which you use to unfairly discredit Him.

God is love, and that is why He gave us a way to be forgiven and have eternal life.

When you want to paint your own picture, it's helpful to leave out a few details. An important detail that you left out is that it took Noah 100 years to build the Ark. The scripture tells us that Noah was a preacher of righteousness and he pleaded with the people of the pre-flood world to escape the coming judgment. He didn't have a single convert proving the truth of what God had said about that world:

Genesis 6:5

And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually

You also mentioned that you think Gods requirements are impossible. That is true except for one exception; they are not impossible when the Lord Jesus Christ has come into your life and changed you. As a Christian who is far from perfect I meet Gods requirements. His requirement is this, that we believe in His Son Jesus Christ and live for Him.

It's impossible without Christ to do what God wants. If you have Christ in your life you are well able to meet Gods requirements because what God is looking for is faith. He requires that you repent from your sins and receive the forgiveness He has provided for you through Christ. When you do that God will adopt you as His son and give you eternal life. That isn't the MO of a despot.

We here in America like to believe we are good people morally and that is how people present themselves in the public square. Yet we see all of the crime statistics and civil unrest in the country which is the spillover from the greatest character crisis this nation has ever faced. God sees it all, every wicked thing done in the dark and He knows what man is really like. It takes humility to admit that about yourself and realize that God is right about the carnality and futility of what men do in this world. It is only through Christ that men have received light to do what is eternally significant instead of living for their own selfish ends.

There is one thing we can't afford to be wrong about:

John 3:16-18
16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

John 3:3

Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God

Since the time of Christ these things have been well understood. Doctrinally what I am saying has always been orthodox Christianity, not part of the interpretation of a particular sect or denomination.


The one and done theology you're talking about is true in this sense; the true believers will make it whereas the false converts will not. The false converts will always fall away and the true converts will always make it. That's the proof of who is true and who is false. This is why Jesus said let the wheat and tares grow together.

You can believe in God and still go to hell. You have to be saved. Often people are double minded about God and believe in Him one day and deny Him the next, so this isn't surprising. It's not an interesting theological question because the test isn't whether you believe in God, it is whether you are born again.

Van Gogh is my favorite painter. I think I had seen this painting before but definitely didn't understand how that all interplayed

I want to preface this comment by saying that I am a political independent, and something that might help convince you of that is that I didn't vote for Donald Trump. The reason I didn't vote for him is because I had serious reservations about him considering what I knew about his character. Now that he is president I support him because I respect the office of the President and I pray for him just as I did for President Obama. That doesn't mean I agree with a lot of what he does, or that I am under any illusions about his character. It just means that I know God is working in these circumstances for a greater good.

I know a lot of Christians voted for Donald Trump because they knew he would side with them in the culture wars. And he has, to a large part. But that isn't the issue with me. I do not fight the culture wars even though I find abortion abhorrent and I lament the deepening darkness that pervades our culture. It is moral and spiritual darkness which will eventually lead to the one world government of the Antichrist.

My issue has to do with the church waking up, and stop thinking the solution is in fixing the culture because the culture is influencing the church more than the church is the culture. The solution is to get right with God and show the love of Christ to a lost and dying world.

So, here is the comment:

It's obvious that the entirety of news media is corrupt; if 2016 didn't make that obvious I don't know what would. They pick winners and losers, as supporters of Bernie Sanders realized. They all have a political agenda and will write either negative or positive coverage based on that agenda. They will present a certain slant to every issue which is favorable to their political aspirations. It is patently obvious and I think most of the country realizes this.

So, this outrage over Fox doing what every other news media company has done in the past, is pretty lame. Maybe Fox is better at it than MSNBC but the point is, they both function as the arm of their respective parties, and manipulate their media coverage to brainwash people into believing their worldview.

There are many different kinds of Satanists. Some are just secular atheists, like Anton Levay. Others literally worship the devil and offer sacrifices to him. These are most likely the former

What do you trust in?

Which human masters are these again?

No

RFlagg, do you realize nearly 1/3 of the worlds population identifies as Christian? I’m not sure why you think the Republican party is the standard bearer for Christ in the world, but the majority of Christians don’t live in Western democracies. About a quarter billion of them face daily persecution from hostile governments. You are grossly mischaracterizing the faith by conflating it with the worst elements of the American church, which actually in many Christian circles is commonly referred to as the church of Laodicia. Have you ever read Christs letter to the church of Laodicia? Its in Revelation chapter 3.

So you may be shocked to find out that a lot of Christians will agree with you that the American church is backslidden. I also agree with you that too many Christians are too political and have said and done things which are morally repugnant.

I support this president, I also supported the president before him. Christians are commanded in Romans 13 to support and pray for our leaders. It doesn’t mean that we have to agree with them. I certainly didn’t agree with how the church as a whole overlooked quite a bit about Trump because of their desire to win a political victory. That doesn’t mean that any Christian who voted for or supports Trump is anything like what you described, so filled with hate. Many of us hate what is happening to the country, but we don’t hate the people who are doing it.

Your testimony about finding Christ revolves around attending church services and watching TBN and Fox News. Your reason for falling away stemmed from your disillusionment and disgust with the republican party. All of that is really the epitome of cultural Christianity. You may have had an experience, or felt some emotions, but you weren’t changed. There are millions of people sitting in pews all across America who are in the same situation; completely lost and thinking they are okay. This is the unfortunate side-effect of post-Christian culture; everyone has heard of Jesus and no one knows how to be saved or even what that means. They just know that if they add Jesus to their life, they will somehow make it to Heaven. So they just slap a Jesus sticker on everything they’re doing. They are still the same old rotten people, but now Jesus is with them and justifies all of their bad behavior. That’s cultural Christianity. Christianity is spiritual, not cultural.

John 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God

You need to be born again, RFlagg, and that didn’t happen to you. It can happen to you if you surrender your life to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Attending church services won’t make that happen for you. Attending church doesn’t make you a Christian. Watching Christian programming on TV, conservative news shows, and agreeing with creation science doesn’t make you a Christian. You become a Christian when you repent of your sin and fully surrender your life to Jesus Christ. It is at that moment that He will make you into a new person. It’s so simple a child could understand it but man has overcomplicated it to the point of totally distorting the message of the gospel.

I think this statement illustrates your issue “If being in Heaven means being around the people who say they will go, Trump supporters, then Hell is a billion times better.”

You’re looking to man instead of God. It’s God that you have to contend with, not man. As a person who has rejected Christ, you are under Gods judgment and that is why you need Christ. It’s easy to say I’d rather be in hell, but I can guarantee you that no one in hell currently feels that way. Rather they are in eternal misery because they forfeited their eternal life with God. What did they forfeit it for? Sin, plain and simple. Your issue is sin and not the many reasons you have come up with to reject the Lord.

"The fact that God doesn't care enough to tell his followers that they are following the literal antichrist system, is telling. "

The Lord has detailed everything to do with that in the scriptures. Jesus railed on the Pharisees for exactly the same thing:

Luke 12:54-56

Then He also said to the multitudes, “Whenever you see a cloud rising out of the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming’; and so it is. And when you see the south wind blow, you say, ‘There will be hot weather’; and there is. Hypocrites! You can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, but how is it you do not discern this time?

The Lord outlined how the end times will proceed in the scriptures. There isn't much excuse for not understanding the times that we are living in. There will be a one world government run by the Antichrist, and the whole world will worship him.

"I do appreciate the higher degree of kindness you tend to show than certain others, and my family... almost all Trump supporters I personally know..."

Thank you, and I appreciate that you are willing to engage and talk about spiritual matters with me without trying to belittle me. That's not typical and I appreciate your civility friend.

Overall I am saying this to you because I care about you, not because I am judging you. I need Christ as much as you do RFlagg. It’s because of that, that I know how much you need Him that I am writing this to you. God bless.