Better to Think about the Future than the Past

A Long Time Ago When We Were Young and Healthy

Barbara Henderson

I was thinking about 'a long time ago when I was well'. I was thinking about before cancer. But with thinking about it a little more I came up with two thoughts that indicate clearer thinking,

First, I was never well. I have had fragile health my entire life. First my doctor bills practically put my parents in the poor house. Then a few good years as a young adult, and then back to sick all the time. No matter what I do or how hard I try to 'feel good' physically I still have health problems. Fortunately, I usually feel good emotionally.

Second, no one is ever actually well. We are all born with the sin nature. We are all born to die. Some have longer life spans than others. There are reports today of people living into their early 100s and still having relatively good health even in this day and time. Some are blessed with a short illness before they pass into eternity. But everyone's body eventually lets them down. It fails to do what the mind wants the body to do. Everyone has limits on what their body will do even from the time of their birth.

So, 'a long time ago when I was well' should be stated like this: 'In eternity I will be completely and eternally well in both mind and body.'

Heaven is for real. Hell is also for real. You can know where you will spend eternity. Let me help you if you are having problems being sure of your future.

First, being saved is not a feeling. It is turning your future over to Jesus Christ. Being saved usually brings about a feeling of relief and joy, but not always. The devil and his angels can copy any emotion. How easy it would be to give people the 'feeling of being saved' when they are still far from Christ.  So, the question is simply to ask yourself if you sincerely turned your life over to Christ.  One indicator is to be baptized.  That isn’t what saves you, but it does tell the world that you have become a follower of Jesus Christ.  Eventually joy in your salvation will come.  As I already said it most likely will come with your initial surrender of your life to Christ.  That is what happened to me, but I was tormented by fear of hell later which caused me to doubt.  Eventually I talked to our preacher who said that since I prayed to be saved several times, perhaps I was saved at a later date than my first prayer.  He suggested that I be rebaptized.  So, I was rebaptized.  I felt wonderful for about a week.  Then doubt hit me again like a ton of bricks.  Then I realized that it was just the devil up to his old tricks. 

If you are having doubts about your salvation you need to talk to a pastor or someone you trust regarding spiritual matters.  You should either decide you are saved and the devil or your own sin nature is tormenting you, or you will decide that you do indeed need to get saved.  Once you have the matter settled you need to determine that you are going to go by faith instead of feelings.  It is very simple.  When doubts arise ask yourself,

‘Do I believe God?’

‘Did I follow His instructions to get myself adopted into His family?’

If you can truly answer ‘YES’ then you are saved.

If you are troubled with doubt:

Confess doubt as sin. 

Pray for faith to grow.

Second being saved opens yourself up to attacks from the devil that are different than attacks previously.  Doubt is just something that everyone experiences.  Temptations of various kinds are also new.  To me and I think most people the two major temptations are

pride about one thing or another and

lying.  Personally, I never was a big liar when it came to lying to others (except my mom as a teenager – and I eventually decided that even that was just too big a burden to carry. I just told the truth and faced the consequences.)  My tendency when lying was/is to lie to myself.  I just twist things slightly in my favor. I know this is wrong.  The Holy Spirit convicts of that being a sin whenever I give it a try. Sometimes I have almost convinced myself that a still small voice said, ‘BARBARA – you KNOW that isn’t exactly how that happened.’  I think that is how people often begin to twist the truth.  They just lie to themselves a tiny bit at a time.  In the course of a few weeks or even years of going over the ‘event’ that ‘wasn’t your fault’ it can go from you being the most innocent of two people to you being a martyr and the other person being a direct tool of the devil.

Far more important than keeping your body healthy is to keep your mind healthy.  I think a key factor in a healthy mind is to tell the truth to yourself.  God gives the gift of a sound mind, but that gift can be sealed away from your thoughts if lies are how you justify wrong doing (sin) on your part.  Don’t shoot yourself in the foot so to speak by lying to yourself.  That is ‘giving place to the devil’. 

Today we see half of the USA caught up in Delusionalism.  They have convinced themselves of many lies.  Evolution is a big lie.  It couldn’t possibly be true, yet so many in the world believe it.  It is practically a religion.  Let me change that.  The pseudo-science of Evolutionalism is a religion.  It is an offshoot of Delusionalism.  You have to be able to lie to yourself before you can believe evolution has the slightest hint of truth to it.

People are making up religions:

Wiccan – witch craft for good. 

Mormanism – invented by one delusional man and followed today by many.

Islam – invented by one very evil delusional tool of the devil named Mohamad.

Feminism – not labeled a religion – but still a deeply held belief.

     Within feminism is the worship of abortion – that is the most deeply help belief of feminists, with misandric treatment of all men as a close second, and the ultimate superiority of women over men is the final plank in their belief system.  

Jedi-ism – following a pseudo religion from a movie!  (Think ‘Star Wars’)  This is true – people are following this a legitimate religion.

Jedism (with one i) – worship of Jed Clampet – which makes more sense than following Jedi-ism, and it is has just as much chance of getting a person into heaven as all the other man made religions.

Today very few seek the ultimate truth.  They look for something they like and label that as the truth.  It is really a form of self-worship.

Adherents to these pseudo-religions make up a god that:

requires no sacrafice of them of which they do not approve,

doesn’t see their sin,

and is basically made in their own image.

But as Christians we are to seek ultimate truth.  It isn’t our job to add or subtract any teaching from the Bible. It is best to read and study an entire book of the Bible at the same time. 

Remember the Bible is:

Inerrant – without error

Sufficient – everything necessary to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ is presented in the Bible.  Any other knowledge – no matter how true – is just a human interest story.

Relevant – the problems facing mankind are the same basic things that have faced them from the beginning.  Satan’s lies are presented as the truth by gullible adherents to any silly pseudo-scientific manmade belief.  Mankind falls for these lies because he/she is prideful and often willingly ignorant of the truth.  Galatians 3:1 reminds us in chapter that even the saved can be bewitched or led astray. 

     ‘O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?’

It is much harder to bewitch a Christian, or lead them astray initially if they know sound Bible doctrine.  Even knowing just the basics will allow a believer to spot many lies when initially presented.  They won’t be fooled by new revelations or subject matter that promises personal prosperity or something that may be contrary to what God says.  Sound doctrine doesn’t allow you to break the commandments because ‘God wants you to be happy’, or because ‘it feels right’.  Pay attention to what the Bible does teach.  Believers today are no better or smarter than the foolish Galatians who allowed themselves to be led astray by false teachings/bewitchment.  We are without excuse because we have the Bible in our hands, on line, on cd, and since we have heard so much of the Bible repeatedly much of it should also be in our memory.

‘O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?’  Galatians 3:1

The Bible teaches:

Inerrancy of scripture

Glory to God alone

Deity of Christ

Bodily death and resurrection of Christ

Bodily return of Jesus Christ.

Anything that teaches anything apart from the most basic Bible truths is not going improve over time.  It will only get worse.  So, start your Bible studies with these things in mind.  Then choose a good study Bible.

 I like the Thompson Chain Reference Bible. 

It gives you a lot of information regarding:

who wrote the book,

to whom it was written,

the subject/reason the book was written/ and

an outline of the book/sequence of events in the book

and massive concordances and references. 

Sometimes I read just the outlines of the Bible books.  This will familiarize you with the books when you don’t have the urge for deep Bible study.  This may actually give you the urge to study.

As you begin to study the Bible in depth you begin to see heaven.  You begin to understand that while we don’t have the capacity to understand heaven, we can grasp to some extent that heaven is wonderful beyond our imagination.  As you think about a future that is unimaginably wonderful you start to think about the eternal future that awaits you.  You thank God that your future is so much better than you past, no matter how wonderful your past may have been.  You begin to think about your future where you are eternally healthy in mind and body and with loved ones and friends who are also believers.

‘He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.’  Revelation 22;20

Dear Reader,

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Thank you for reading my article

Barbara

Has Satan fooled you with his lies? Is the unvarnished truth too hard for you to stand?

Satan’s Deceptions Revealed by Unvarnished Truths

Barbara Henderson

Have you ever been deceived?  Well of course you have.  And I bet you were not too thrilled when you found out about the deception either.  A deception is really a lie.  A big deception may have a lot of little lies all bound up together.  And the father of lies is Satan who is called by many names.  He isn’t omnipresent, omnipotent, or omniscient, but he is very powerful.  And he has help.  He has lots of help considering that one third of the angels followed him in his rebellion against God.  Many people of earth are aiders and abettors of Satan right now. There is a day of judgment coming for Satan and his followers.  Satan knows his eternal destination.  Some of his followers are currently delusional about their eternal destination.  They think they are going somewhere other than hell.  When they stand at the judgment they will realize they have been deceived.  But it will be too late. 

Then there are true Christians, individuals who have gone to God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son.  They have gone with a truly repentant heart and with full willingness to change how they do things.  They want to be more like Christ.  Some of these people are being deceived as well.

Satan has the world divided into two groups for the purpose of deceptions.

Group number one consists of people who are lost, not saved, separated from God by their sins.  He handles this group in a huge variety of ways, but the common thread in everything is a lie. Three common lies are:

All roads lead to heaven.

Everyone can be/already is god.

Good or mighty acts by an individual guarantee entrance into ‘heaven’.

Group number two consists of people who are truly saved.  Satan handles this group more with things like small lies, small variants on the truth, feelings, mystical experiences, materialism, and other things that aren’t so apparently evil in the beginning.

Satan’s deceptions are revealed by the truth.  That means it is VERY important that individual believers make a strong effort to know the truth.  Most of the garbage passing for evangelism on television and even in many pulpits around the world can be filtered out as lies and partial truths by even a beginner Bible student.  When in doubt about anything it is important to go the Bible for the truth.  You want the unvarnished truth no matter how harsh it may seem at the moment.

Unvarnished truths include:

The Bible is inerrant – it has no errors – it has the final say on every subject.

The Bible is complete – there are no ‘new revelations’ – and no traditions of man supersede Biblical authority.

The Bible is sufficient – it gives mankind the necessary information to restore fellowship with God through Jesus Christ.

The Bible is relevant to every person in every generation – it never goes out of date.

These are the concrete and unchangeable parameters or boundaries from which everything else is evaluated.  That is how it works.  You can’t stay a step ahead of the devil on his latest scheme, trickery, deception, religion, social do-good, scientific terror, mother-earth’s hurt feelings, or anything else.  Instead of spending time trying to figure out what Satan’s latest deception is spend time learning what the Bible teaches as truth.  What eventually happens is you wind up spotting error simply because it doesn’t align with the truth according to God Almighty.

                                                      

The Bible is a book of truth revealing the love of God, God’s mercy, the plan of salvation, the history of creation, and all things necessary for the individual to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. 

The Bible is also a book of ‘unvarnished truth’ or ‘dark sayings of old’.  This means it just tells the truth.  It doesn’t sugar coat it.  It doesn’t spin the truth to make it more acceptable to the general population.  It doesn’t do anything except tell the truth.  Something much harder than a ‘hard truth’ is finding out about a lie when it is too late to do anything about it.  Remember that if the Bible makes a clear statement regarding something, that is exactly what it means regardless of social or political ideas of a specific people or generation.  Deep and true compassion for others will not allow you to accept or ignore a lie that will cause you to fail to warn someone of the danger of hell in his/her future. 

False teachers are in every religion and ideology. 

You can spot these false teachers through their:

Lack of sincerity.  They preach or teach one thing but they do something else.  They may expect/coerce followers to make sacrifices and do things in a particular way, but they don’t actually follow their own teachings.  You see this in religion and politics.  Leaders don’t live the truth they preach. A secular example of this is in the global warming community.  A noted global warming fear monger is Al Gore, former VP of the USA.  And what does this man do about global warming?  He makes a fortune peddling his ideology. He applies political pressure to crush people under changes he claims necessary to ‘save the planet’. He has no regard for the individual.  In spite of his stated concern for the wastefulness of mankind and the danger of the destroying the planet, Al Gore lives in a giant house that uses massive amounts of energy.  He justifies this by saying his ‘carbon footprint’ is ok.  That is supposed to mean he is putting more good stuff back into the environment than he is taking out.  In truth it means he is a very rich man. In my opinion he is also a hypocrite.

Emotional adoration.  They place emotions and feelings above scripture or sound knowledge.  It is easier to go with feelings instead of written truth.  You just have to ‘feel’ it.  You don’t actually have to spend the time studying to learn.

Attacks on the authority of the Bible.  The unvarnished truths of the Bible are attacked viciously.  The pre-existence of Jesus Christ is denied.  The Genesis account of creation is denied.  Christ’s bodily resurrection is denied.  Things called sin by God are accepted.  These arrogant teachers give to themselves authority to change the message of God Almighty in order to say what the itching ears of some people want to hear.  They have no authority to do this.  To those who know the truth of the Bible such teachers reveal themselves as Satan’s mouth piece when they speak such heresy.  They are revealed as deceivers when measured by the truth of the Bible.  Any so-called preacher of the gospel who teaches anything that goes against the unvarnished truth of the Bible is an apostate and a worker of evil.

Hatred and/or trivialization of Jesus Christ.  Jesus is not given His rightful place as King of kings and Lord of lords.  They may speak of Him as someone who is noteworthy, but NOT as the ONLY way to heaven.

Persecution and hatred of the truth.  As you make a consistent effort to know more of the truth of the Bible, to know more about Jesus Christ and His teachings, you will notice a growing global hatred of the truth.  This is fast becoming one of the easiest ways to spot deceivers.  They hate anything to do with Biblical truth.  They hate those and belittle those who speak the truth of the Bible.  They marginalize those who believe the truth, and marginalize them as ignorant and unimportant. Look around you.  Fundamental Bible believers are thought of as something from the dark ages.  They are always portrayed as ignorant people who just don’t know any better.  Yet a fundamentalist simply believes simple fundamentals clearly taught in the Bible.  Haters of the truth hate Bible fundamentals.

It really doesn’t seem to matter where a person begins. 

Those who reject the truth of the Bible reject Jesus Christ.  Without the transforming power of Christ they have no God given help to transform their lives.  It is much harder for them to sincerely follow any ideology or teaching.  They are insincere meaning they are hypocrites.  They don’t adhere to their own teachings or ideas, but they firmly expect their followers to adhere to their teachings.

They are more prone to emotionalism than to sound teaching of any sort.  They love to stir up emotions in their followers instead of teaching solid truth.  Actually they don’t have solid truths, so they can’t teach truth.

They grow to hate the Bible because it condemns certain behaviors and actions.

They grow to hate the truth.

They eventually persecute followers of the truth.  We are seeing that now in Islam which persecutes Christians. 

Satan’s deceptions use people who assist him in the deceptions.  These people don’t have horns, carry a pitchfork, and wear a red cape.  In order to spot these deceivers you have to be personally aware and cautious.  It isn’t that you want to go around paranoid and expect the worst from everyone, but neither do you want to be fooled by wolves in sheep’s clothing. 

Satan’s deceptions will be revealed by the actions of the deceivers themselves. If you are looking for actions and teachings that signal deceptions a recap is:

Insincerity or hypocrisy of the teacher

Trivialization of the truth

Hatred of the truth

Persecution of the truth

If you would be one to whom Satan’s deceptions are revealed you must be one who accepts all the truth and rejects all of the lies.  You cannot keep parts of a false belief system and simply mix Christian theology in with the lies.  If you find yourself in a religious system that puts emotionalism, the traditions of man, or so-called newly revealed prophecy above the Bible itself you are being deceived.  If you are in a religious system that teaches you can be a god, you are already a god, or that good works have power to get you into heaven you are being deceived.  Satan’s deceptions are revealed by the truth.  The truth is in the Bible, and it is available.

Barbara Henderson

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