Free gift? What about the 10% tithes and offerings and all the suffering Christianity and discrimination it caused/causes? How is that free? You are regurgitating 2000 year old lies that have caused more death than all wars combined. Don't buy that jesus is not religion, Jesus is a religion, the Christian religion. Rebuke that shit out of your life, it's free and pure freedom.
Today is not so different than the time of which you speak. There was the established religion of the day where Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes performed all kinds of rituals in the name of religion. From my perspective there is only one God represented in the physical form by Jesus. I do not subscribe to organized religion which I find repugnant. Every single one that I've ever seen has been money centric. Even the ones who claim to be full gospel still don't follow the bible. I've never witnessed a bona fide occurrence of someone speaking in tongues, only con artists attempting to fleece people for personal gain. Any church who pays people to work in it is not operating biblically. Any church that has females teaching doctrine is not operating biblically.
This is where people become confused between religion and Christianity. Christianity is not a religion which I detest. Religion is a form of classical conditioning where people become trained to believe that they must conform to a behavior set forth by a denomination leading to group think. Different denominations have different doctrines, many times they not only conflict with each other but they are in conflict with biblical doctrine. I will not follow man's rituals such as going to a cookie cutter church where everything is scripted. You know the itinerary is the same:; Sunday school, praise and worship and then a sermon with some offering time somewhere in there if not several times. When I was a kid I saw the merchandizing going on in my church and I've seen it in almost every single church I've ever been to. I watched people making huge ruckuses during service with their church actor antics and I'll never forget them.
The word of faith movement is perhaps the greatest sham every thrust upon people in the modern age. My late wife and her family were into this movement with these pastors fleecing their people out of large sums of money known as "seed faith" to get a huge financial harvest from God. Show me where this doctrine is in the bible? You cannot because it was never taught by Jesus or the disciples. They taught that you should work for a living to provide for yourself. Jesus was a carpenter and the disciples were commercial fishermen. The church didn't pay them to preach. Have you seen that in any church organization lately? The Assemblies of God are incorporated these days. Tax free businesses in the name of God = Religion.
The one thing I do know is that as in the days of Noah so shall it be when the Son of Man comes. People will be busy doing their thing when he comes to get his bride who are actual Christians and not church actors in the physical buildings known as churches. The parable about the 10 virgins is a prime example of how this will play out. 10 people who claim to be ready as in claiming to be Christians yet when the master shows up to the collect them for the ceremony only 5 of the virgins have prepared themselves and are ready to go out and meet him. The other 5 have no oil in their lamps and cannot go with them. The oil is symbolic of the Holy Spirit which is the seal of a real Christian. Almost everyone has heard the gospel and most choose to ignore it as they cannot be bothered with it. Others have convinced themselves that because they go to church every time the doors are open that they'll be okay. Truth is that except a man be born again he cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven. Everyone who rejects the gospel learns the hard way when they draw their last breath in this life and pass on to eternal darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth and the worm dies not.
Where are we in time? People's attitudes tell us a lot about the great falling away from the gospel. I haven't met a genuine Christian in a long time and the last one made me want to puke. A seminary trained pastor who was more interested in pushing his business on me than in hearing anything that I had to say to him. How could a person such as this be effective in reaching the lost when he cannot shut his pie hole long enough to give someone the chance to speak? I've had a hard life and things have not been handed to me like some other people. When my wife passed I had to raise my two sons by myself and because of the things that happened even my youngest son rejects God. I do not believe that things will go on much longer but I absolutely know better than trying to put some hard date on when things will occur. Even Jesus said in Matthew 24:36 "But
of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels
of heaven, but My Father only". These idiots that keep on trying to tell people that Jesus is coming on (insert date) are the equivalent of the boy who cried wolf. Needless to say looking at many things including the condition of the church, people's attitudes and technology it cannot be so far away now.
One passage in the Bible mentions Jesus just sitting on the rolled over stone when talking to Mary Magdalene. I totally picture Jesus having sun glasses there. "deal with it".
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