History repeats...Trump emulates Constatine

RE: /// Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees...///

The Pharisees where full of comparative righteousness, I point that out because :
As I read many of your comments in the other thread, that is the impression that I got : Boasting of yourself and showing disdain for others.

When Jesus returns presumably persecution will end.

Will that be a good or bad thing?

Just because something may have good effects does not mean the thing itself is good.

Brother Bear,

May I ask a few sincere questions? I want to try and better understand the intent of your posts, since they have been weighing heavy on your heart.

1. What do you want to see happen now?

2. Do you feel it would have been better for all Christians to abstain from voting and just pray for the Lord to have His way? (honest question)

3. How can the community at SI glean from your warnings and what can we do practically now that God has seen fit (whether through the Christian vote or not) to place Mr. Trump as the new POTUS.

Thanks Brother. God bless you.

With kind affection,

Dear Bear,
sometimes I have the impression you can't wait until persecution happens or the antichrist will show up.

It will come, for sure, but I think we better take hold the opportunities of today. Living amidst a lethargic church may be more difficult than to face persecution.

Should we be like unruly children who only behave well under a cruel taskmaster?

Isn't it better to behave well while not under threat of severe chastisement?

Maybe the Lord is looking for those who like the good housekeeper maintains loyalty to the Master even when they could take it easy without facing immediate consequences.

The other test of the end times is described in the parable of the virgin waiting for her bridegroom fighting sleepiness. If she were really excited about her soon coming bridegroom she would surely not fall asleep.

Wow! and I thought all the protesters were in the streets, guess next we should just omit Romans 8:28 out of the Bible to make folks feel better. Or just change it to "some" things happen for the good.

Every greeting in the Apostle Paul’s letters to the Church is something like this: "Grace be unto you and peace from the God our Father , and from our Lord Jesus Christ.” You will not find a prayer in the New Testament where the Apostles are praying for persecution to come on the Church. However the Apostle Paul in writing to the Church at Thessalonica is requesting the brethren in that Church to "Pray for us that the Word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you: AND THAT WE MAY BE DELIVERED FROM UNREASONABLE AND WICKED MEN, for all men have not faith. ” (2 Thess. 3:1-2). The Lord does and has used persecution to grow the Church as He did in the early church and the persecuted church in many nations. The Word of God exhorts us so that we would pray for those in authority, and the reason being ”that we might live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and holiness.” (1Timothy 2:2). To live a quiet and peaceable life is written in the context of praying for our leaders, and ungodly leaders that would persecute the church would certainly not be the answer to this prayer request.

Persecution will come to all that live godly in Christ Jesus. Trials are an inescapable aspect of the Christian life, but we don’t pray that the Lord would give us more trials. It is difficult for me to understand why anyone would want Hillary Clinton to be elected because she would bring the Church into persecution much quicker than Donald Trump would.

Maybe God has decided to have mercy on the Church at this time instead of judgment. Maybe God has allowed Donald Trump to be elected because it is His will to put an end to abortion, and He is exposing and bringing down evil leaders that are destroying this nation. Maybe it is God’s will to send revival and awakening to this nation so that His righteous judgment would not be poured out and there would be death and destruction throughout the land. God would not have destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for 10 righteous men. God has always looked for someone to stand in the gap and make up the hedge so that He would not destroy the land.

It is the work of the devil to kill, steal, and to destroy. Jesus came so that we might have life and have it more abundantly.

bearmaster wrote:
To keep American evangelicalusm powerless the devil has inserted Donald Trump. Under him, the American church will be lulled into a false sense of prosperity and security.

The church being powerless has nothing to do with Donald Trump. The church was powerless way before Obama got into office!

In my humble opinion, the church became powerless when it began to deny the gifts and calling of God that they are not for this day and age and that has absolutely nothing to do with Donald Trump but that's just me, of course! :) :) :)

God bless ya, Bro Blaine!!
Your sister, Lisa

It seems there is thought by some on the forum that because the church can thrive under persecution that it should therefore SEEK persecution.

Persecution is a bad thing. But good can come of it. But also much bad can come of it- such as torture and martyrdom. I wouldn't want loved ones tortured. However i would hope they would have grace to withstand same if it came to that.

A drunken abusive father is bad. A child in that environment might be inspired to break that cycle, study hard, and become a great success. That doesn't make the drunken abusive father a good thing.

I know many people who voted for Donald Trump -- including many believers. Yet, I don't know a single believer who "trusts" in Donald Trump. I don't know anyone who thinks that Trump is some sort of catalyst for a move of God in this country.

I think that this election was a rejection of the prospect of electing Hillary Clinton as much as it was any sort of endorsement of Donald Trump (the man).

In other words, it wasn't a "lesser of two evils" prospect. Rather, it was people voting for the potential good that could seemingly come by keeping Hillary Clinton out of the White House (and any of her judicial nominees in the Supreme Court).

There is nothing wrong with warning believers to not put their faith in a politician. I get that. In fact, I'm glad that people are willing to mention this (as it is certainly important). However, I just don't know anyone -- let alone a large number of believers -- who seem to be putting their trust in Donald Trump.

I also don't know people who will be "lulled into a false sense of prosperity and security" either. I don't know anyone who "worships America." In fact, even most "patriotic" believers in America always tend to rank things in order of importance: God, family and then country.

We know that the Bible makes it clear that we WILL have persecution in this world. This world will hate us because of Christ. In fact, there are many people who already hate us because of Christ -- or the views about morality and immorality that we adhere to as defined in the Word of God.

Has anyone had a different experience than I have had? Does anyone know believers who are putting their trust in Trump, worshiping America or on the verge of going "apostate" out of that "worship of America?"

It seems to me that if someone is in danger of "worshiping America" then they have probably already gone "apostate" (or never known true faith in Christ in the first place).

bearmaster wrote:
The word "trump" means to deceive.

I am not trying to jump on the bandwagon against you but this response is to your quote and nothing else. Where you found your definition of "trump?"

Merriam-Webster states:

Definition of trump
1
a : a card of a suit any of whose cards will win over a card that is not of this suit ””called also trump card
b : the suit whose cards are trumps for a particular hand ””often used in plural
2
: a decisive overriding factor or final resource ””called also trump card
3
: a dependable and exemplary person

That's all I wanted to take note of, brother.

God bless you,
Sister Lisa

CBN News - 10-06-16

Pastor Saeed and Naghmeh Abedini announced on social media that they are divorcing.

------------------------

We're not to believe anything this man prophesies!

Let's stop being so gullible!

I think her husband has gone off the deep end, don't know if thats a reason for divorce, but no one should be forced to live in a abusive mental or physical relationship.

Mr. Bear, what does Bill mean?

It seems to me that to prophesy that Donald Trump would be our next president would be rather risky seeing that the news media was predominantly against him, the polls indicated that Hillary Clinton would be elected, and even some leaders in the Republican Party, and very few experts were giving him much of a chance to win. To prophesy that Hillary Clinton would be our next president would have been a much safer bet. I agree with Chris that I do not know of a single Christian that voted for Trump that was putting their trust in Trump and not in God. The main issue for most of us, and I am talking about devoted Christians that put God first in their lives was the selection of Supreme Court Justices.

William Branham thought maybe Hillary would win.

Vision Six:
Then there arose in the United States a most beautiful woman clothed in splendor, and great power was given to her. She was lovely of feature but there was a hardness about her that defied description. Beautiful as she was, she was yet cruel, wicked and cunning. She dominated the land with her authority, she had complete power over the people. The vision indicated that either such a woman would literally arise or that this woman of the vision was merely a type of an organization which is scripturally characterized by a female. Though the voice did not speak out and reveal who she was, he felt in his heart that this woman represented the rising Roman Catholic Church, and he inserted in parenthesis beside at the end of this vision which he had written out, (perhaps the Catholic church).

Hi bearmaster,

Thank you for your reply. I wasn't sure if that was from one person (Saeed Abedini) or something from an article.

In statistics, there is something called an "outlier." It is defined as "an observation that lies an abnormal distance from other values in a random sample from a population." In polls, outliers are typically discarded because they represent the views of people who are considered decidedly outside of the population.

The danger of utilizing outliers is that they can skew results. They can skew results and cause decisions to be made that aren't accurate. Outliers can be very dangerous if used as the basis for medical diagnoses.

In certain DNA tests, there might be contaminated DNA on a garment that doesn't even belong to the individual in question. All of the other DNA points to the owner of a shirt but other DNA might have been found on it. That DNA could have come from someone who bumped into the owner of the shirt, someone who laundered it or even DNA from someone involved in the manufacturing process. The point is that the data is an outlier -- not belonging to the owner or a family member.

Even entire scientific opinion polls with large samples can be dismissed. During the months leading up to the election, there were polls dismissed because they had either candidate leading or losing by margins far outside of what were deemed probable.

I remember seeing one poll's "raw data" which had Hillary Clinton favored by a margin of 80% of voters. Another had Trump favored by 75% of the country. There is no doubt that the individuals in that pool of voters indicated their choice for president, but they didn't accurately represent a sample of the population accurately. So, those results would be dropped and other polls would be used (or the outlier data in that particular poll dropped).

Why am I bringing this up?

As believers in Christ, we are "outliers" in this world. We stand apart. We believe apart. We are different from the world in every aspect of our lives because we are motivated by the honor of God. The world will hate us because we are separated from it.

I always appreciated the visualization of this in John Bunyan's allegory Pilgrim's Progress. There is a scene in which the characters of "Christian" and "Faithful" pass through the city of "Vanity Fair." The people of that town hated them because they didn't buy their products. They looked and talked differently. At one point, a person asked them, "What will you buy?" Faithful replied, "We buy the truth!" It ended with their arrest, trial, imprisonment and, ultimately, Faithful's execution. However, he was "faithful" unto death.

So, we are outliers from the ideas of this world. That doesn't mean that our views change. A Muslim man might love his children or help a stranger that he sees in distress. That doesn't mean that Christians are wrong in doing likewise. I might like to eat "butter chicken," but that doesn't mean that I favor the views of Northern India (from which that dish originates).

At the same time, we sometimes have a habit of lumping believers together incorrectly. In your instance, that "Pastor Saeed" may have said things about Trump and the election that aren't held by the overwhelming majority of Christians -- including those who might have voted for Trump. That would make those who felt that way as "outliers among Christians.

The interesting thing about all of this is that Trump is strongly despised by the media and many people around the world. Some of that angst is rooted in things that Trump may have said or done. However, some of the hatred directed at him is due to things like opposition to abortion, the notion that churches should not be penalized for preaching against things like abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, drugs, sex education in schools, etc. that are deemed "political" in this day and age.

While it is good to tell believers that they should not put their faith in Trump, it is also good that we don't assume that this is widespread among believers who truly know and fellowship with the Lord. Even among those that said that they voted for Trump, I still don't know any believers who are such fans of him that they see him as some sort of messiah figure or even a figure that will bring about any sort of godly transfiguration of a nation. Rather, like some here on SermonIndex have pondered, most seem to see this as -- possibly -- a temporary "time out" from the type of ungodliness and persecution that we are told we should expect in this world.

I know a believer from the former Soviet Union. He said that they would often pray for new leaders to allow religious freedom. They may not have been fans of Gorbachev, but he said that they celebrated when he began implementing his glasnost and perestroika that eased the suffering of believers under the yoke of government oppression and persecution.

Quote: "I know a believer from the former Soviet Union. He said that they would often pray for new leaders to allow religious freedom. They may not have been fans of Gorbachev, but he said that they celebrated when he began implementing his glasnost and perestroika that eased the suffering of believers under the yoke of government oppression and persecution."

Shame on them. They should have prayed for a despot many times as bad as Stalin to assure that as many christians as possible were tortured and killed. Only then would God be satisfied with the church in Russia.

Mr Bill, I don't know who Branham saw or thought he saw. I do know ain't nothin' beautiful about Hillary.

Amen Brother Tim, on that doesn't describe Hillary. :-)

I said that my grandmother used to say that sarcasm was the weapon of the weak. I must have been having a weak moment.

But my sarcasm below is just barely sarcasm, because there are those on SI who truly believe what I wrote.

I always liked a dry wit.

for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought:
39 But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.