When a person believes that there is no God, they become a god unto themselves. They determine what is right and wrong. They set the standards for their life. They live as if they have all the answers for when they die and eternity. Such a person is going to be very unpleasantly surprised. [MacFarlane reveals he knows very little about atheists. Call me, John. You know where I live.]
“And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: (17) And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? (18) And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. (19) And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. (20) But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? (21) So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:16-21)
This April Fool’s Day, be careful not to cross any Biblical lines as you prank someone. And remember those who are fools by the Biblical definition. There’s nothing funny about their day and certainly nothing funny about their future.
— John MacFarlane, pastor of First Baptist Church in Bryan, Ohio, Don’t Be a Fool, April 1, 2021
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
When he [Billy Graham] died, that was something very strategic from heaven’s point of view. I know that before the foundations of the world were laid, Feb. 21, 2018 was the date that God chose to take my father home. Why?
Moses was the great liberator. He brought millions of people out of bondage, slavery, got them to the edge of the promised land, and God took him to heaven.
My father was also a great liberator. He brought millions of people out of bondage to sin, and gets us to the edge of heaven, the edge of the promised land, and God has called him home. And could it be that God is going to bring Joshua [Jesus] into the promised land, lead us into heaven?”
I believe this is a shot across the bow of heaven, and I believe God is saying, ‘Wake up, church! Wake up, world! Wake up, Anne! Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming.
Jesus said that when the gospel is preached to the whole world as it is today in this service, as it is through churches, missionaries, ministries, Jesus said in Matthew 24:14, When the gospel is preached, then the end will come.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Lori Alexander recently wrote a post titled, Awakening the Beast. Alexander stated:
Most teenagers awaken the beast. The beast is not something you want to awaken before marriage. Once it’s awakened, it causes untold damage. You must teach your children to FLEE fornication like Joseph did. If they don’t, they will harm their own bodies. “Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body” (1 Corinthians 6:18).
We live in a highly sexualized culture. Sex sells almost everything. Pornography is rampant and at a click of the finger. It’s all over TV these days. Songs are about it. All of this is used to entice people away from the beauty that God designed sex to be, namely within a marriage. Before marriage, fornication can lead to STDs, infertility, abortion, single motherhood, guilt, comparisons once married, divorce, and a broken relationship with Jesus Christ. Satan’s goal is to kill, steal, and destroy. He loves fornication. You must be completely honest with your teenagers.
Give them boundaries in order to protect themselves. Let them know that boundaries are for their good. If they aren’t given boundaries, they will most likely succumb to fornication, the beast, and the harm it will cause. If you allow them to be alone with a member of the opposite sex, the beast will slowly come out. It will begin innocently enough with a few kisses. Kissing gets the beast going. Then it will lead to petting and then heavy petting. It will feel so good that they won’t want to stop.
Finally, they will have intercourse. It probably won’t be like the movies present themselves. It won’t be this ecstasy that they imagined. No, it will most likely be painful for the girl. Right afterwards, they will be flooded with guilt IF they have been raised with Truth being taught in their homes. They will feel vulnerable and ashamed. Fornication is short term pleasure for long term pain. Once the couple have fornicated once, the beast is out and it’s almost impossible to put it back to sleep.
While missionary sex-pert Alexander didn’t use the word masturbation in her post, several of her readers read between the lines and opined on the evils of spanking the monkey and ringing the Devil’s doorbell:
Masturbation and all sex outside heterosexual marriage weaken the individual and society, and they attack confidence or lead to a false self confidence rooted in pride and arrogance.
Masturbation also severely interferes with the mans ability to lead. A man who masturbates is far more docile and passive in a marriage, or, he can be far more aggressive and abusive. Any human who masturbates is selfish, as the act is one of the most selfish single acts known to man. Rather than selflessly giving pleasure to a spouse in marriage, which is absolutely satisfying long and short term, masturbation severs love.
There has been some theorizing that Gollum from Lord of the Rings, was an allegory for the effects of masturbation on people. He goes from a wonderful young life, to becoming miserable and lonely, with his “precious”, and that exactly exemplifies what masturbation does. It warps the personality. It takes a child who is full of joy, peace, purity, wonder, courage, and love, and transforms them into a child who is morose, disconsolate, cowardly, isolated, fearful, often depressed, and fixated selfishly on themselves and their needs.
The vast majorities of today’s problems with youth have their roots in masturbation. All these pseudo mental illnesses I.e. ADHD, ADD, and much more, can be traced back to the folly and attack on the intellect of masturbation.
This is why so many kids have such a hard time learning today, because a kid who masturbates will have a very hard tim concentrating, without which genius and the cultivation of the intellect are nearly impossible.
I am a woman (don’t even get me started on the stigma of women struggling with porn and masturbation) and I have been masturbating as long as I can remember and it has ruined my life. I can remember being six years old and doing it. I knew of another girl my age who indulged as well and as the world progresses in it’s wickedness, it’s becoming much easier for children to indulge in masturbation. There are even some secular schools who are teaching children as young as kindergarten about masturbation as part of their “sex ed program”. All it takes is for a child to stumble upon one image to awaken the beast. It is a myth that children’s minds and bodies are not developed enough to masturbate or experience sexually immoral thoughts and feelings. It has had detrimental effects on my life and to be honest with you, the most damaging part are the comments and mindsets like yours that think “young children are hardly going to be masturbating”.
Yes, masturbation is bad. The Bible itself tells us that. It’s not rocket science. It is sinful, because it leads to more sin, and becomes an addiction some can’t control.
— KaK
Escape, a lot of issues with masturbation are about escape. Children are trying to escape into a fantasy world were they can drown out parents fighting, dad being a loud drunk, mom screaming mean things at them or just parents who are emotionally distant etc. That’s what led my husband down that path. He was raised in an abusive, neglectful home and had no one to help him navigate his emotions, his pain and his fears. So he learned to escape through fantasy and masturbation. Then he stumbled on porn and that led to a 23 year addiction to that. He also had several one night stands with strangers during really stressful times while traveling for work. As a wife this is so painful to work through and heal from. But, as a mother my heart breaks for the little boy my husband was and all he endured with no one to protect and guide him. The perpetrators of his pain were his own parents. I don’t want to demonize his parents I do believe they did the best they could. There is hope for anyone caught up in all this. My husband has been in recovery for 3 years and with the help of a Christian counselor who specializes in sex addiction is learning the tools to navigate emotions in a healthy, godly way.
There is research that does show that compulsive porn use coupled with masturbation does actually change the brain. It creates new neural pathways for dealing with stress. For example, you get yelled at by your boss and your brain says “Hey the last time this happened we watched porn, masturbated and felt better, lets do that again.”
— AMW
Children should not be taught to masturbate as it can be an addictive habit and lead to sexual sin.
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The problem with masturbation is that it takes the sexual desire outside marriage. In a child, it is not sinful, but can lead to bad habits.
Lindsay Harold
On the contrary Lindsay, I am the woman from the post above and I can tell you that what you are saying is just simply not true. I was watching porn and sexually fantasizing at age 6 and possibly younger as I don’t even remember a time when I didn’t do it. I can remember being in 2nd grade and seeing images of nude statues in a history book and being triggered, watching movies with suggestive scenes and being triggered, even images in magazines in waiting rooms.
As a child, I knew it was wrong. Even at that young age, I always knew it was wrong. I knew it was wrong before my mother ever found out and that’s why I hid it from her. Because I was ashamed without ever having to be told to be ashamed. And I think it is important to feel shame when you sin no matter how old you are. Masturbation is not wrong because it “leads to sin”, masturbation is wrong because it IS sin. It’s a sin whether you’re six or sixty-six. Not everybody has the same experience as me but I know that I’m also not alone either. I don’t think any of this is an “overreaction” and I appreciate Lori spreading awareness.
— Anonymous
At least no one said jerking off will make you blind, or suggested women boycott battery manufacturers due to the connection between batteries and vibrators.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints. Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 14:33-37)
These are “commandments of the Lord” and they are for “all the churches of the saints.” Women are to be silent in the churches. These verses have nothing to do with women teaching/preaching in the churches specifically. They have to do with women being silent in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak and it is a shame for women to speak in the church. Are you silent in the church? Are you careful to not speak in the church? Of course, you can sing with the congregation. Singing is not speaking. I say this since some people will ask as if they don’t know that there is a difference.
Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression (1 Timothy 2:11-14)
In these verses, women are once again reminded to be in silence in the churches. We are also told that women are not to teach nor usurp authority over men in the churches. Then we told the reasons why. Adam was created first, therefore, this was God’s authority structure was from the beginning (Patriarchy), and Eve was deceived.
These verses are as clear as day for all who want to hear. Many don’t want to hear, and this is why there are so many female preachers/teachers in the churches and no one seems to care. Women are breaking God’s clear commands and “preaching” His Word in the churches. They are in sin. Do not be deceived by them and if you have a female on the elder or deacon board, I encourage you to find a new church.
When I was growing up, no women spoke in the churches that I attended. There weren’t female worship leaders who gave little mini-sermons and prayed in between the songs, essentially being in authority over the men. There weren’t even women giving announcements. It was all done by the men, and no one thought anything of it since most churches were this way.
We must live according to God’s principles no matter how out of date that they appear to be. They are good and perfect for us, women. Trust that His ways are best and obey Him. Find a church that obeys His Word without compromise.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
“Consensus science is the first refuge of scoundrels … invoked only in situations where there is a political, social, financial agenda but no scientific support.”
Here’s the key, friends, this is the real deal. Legitimate science recognizes a close correlation between sunspots and climate change … The sun is the source of temperature changes because of its infrared variations. … There is absolutely no evidence that CO₂ contributes to warming. On the contrary the opposite is true. Warming produces CO₂ … It’s the other way round.
By the way, plants produce CO₂. What man produces is marginal … Industry doesn’t affect CO₂ in the environment or atmosphere.
This is all political [and] financial agendas, class warfare, class envy … By the way, US$100 billion has been spent to make a case for global warming … driven by the socialist mentality … even some of the feminist mentality that resents male success.
God intended us to use this planet, to fill this planet for the benefit of man. Never was it intended to be a permanent planet. It is a disposable planet. Christians ought to know that.
Why do some people [Bruce Gerencser] apostatize, who at one time professed faith in Jesus Christ, even those who were pastors, ended up leaving Jesus Christ? These false converts even believed that they had the Holy Spirit before they fell away from the faith.
An apostate [Bruce Gerencser] shows us that they never understood the Holy Scriptures because to understand the Bible, they had to have the Holy Spirit living inside of them in the first place. [According to Evangelical orthodoxy, only Christians have the Holy Spirit living inside of them. Yet, Spaniard VIII says unbelievers must have the Holy Spirit inside of them to understand the Bible. Which is it? Talk about circular reasoning.]
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If an atheist [Bruce Gerencser] ever says to you that he knows more than you, referring to the Bible, or that he once had the Holy Spirit, it just shows how deluded they are and continues to be. Unless they humble themselves in the sight of Christ, they will continue to walk in darkness straight to the multiple pathways to hell. Atheists are one of the proudest people you will ever encounter. The reason for this is that they went through a traumatic situation that got them so bitter towards God that all they can do is curse at Him and His followers. People like that make me feel sorry for them. Only prayer can break their hardness.
Marques Jeffries left the following comment on Spaniard VIII’s post:
Amen, brother! Bruce [Gerencser], Andrea, John Arthur, and the rest of their Atheist friends’ angry words against God are just a cover-up for either a panful event from their past, or because there is a sin that they are committing that they don’t want to let go of. [Yes, I love fucking space aliens.]
The Holy Spirit allows us to see through all of their angry words, and know that it is Satan manipulating them to behave in this manner. The God that they reject is the only One who can supply the pure love that every person longs for.
Like you said, all we can do is witness to them, and pray that they will have a life experience that softens their heart to enable the Holy Spirit to come in and do a loving work within them…But salvation is a choice that God leaves to each of us.
Personally, accepting Jesus is the best thing that ever happened to me. (Marques needs to get out more often.]
Spaniard VIII replied:
Their hatred is pure evidence that they are full of bitterness towards Jesus Christ. Bruce has been reblogging me because I have been saying the truth [No, I have been quoting you to show that you are a Liar for Jesus®.], regarding atheism and it hurts him and the rest his blind followers, sadly. [Yes, your words have really, really, really hurt me.] The more they talk about me, the more blessed I feel. When you get slandered for the sake of Christ by these atheists, you will have treasure in heaven. I welcome it. Win-win for me.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I got to thinking about being slaves of Christ. A believer’s true position in Christ has been diluted by the Bible translators’ choice of the word servant and bond-servant for the Greek word doulos. That word has consistently been translated as servant, when it really means slave. Doesn’t that change the flavor of service to the Lord? Being a servant indicates that we can and do serve Him at our own will and pleasure, and slave means we submit our will to an alien will and then the matter is out of our hands.
The Bible is clear in its description that believers are slaves, not servants. In every case where the word doulos is used it means slave, and the New Testament uses it 130 times. We are not servants of Christ, we’re his slaves.
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I am reading the Bible through and I notice that a well-known phenomenon that will happen at the end of days also happened from the beginning. In the end, Revelation tells us the antichrist will place a mark on the hand or forehead of all who worship him. (Revelation 13:15-17). The mark allows people to buy and sell, but its reason for being is not the economy, it is a mark of allegiance and worship of the beast. That the mark allows a person to also participate in the economy is a by-product of its placement on the person.
Jesus also sends an angel to place a mark on the forehead of His 144,000 who evangelize the world. (Revelation 7:3-4).
Who brands his slaves? The master. Who puts a mark of ownership on his slaves? The master. Jesus is the ultimate Master and we are His ultimate slaves. That He puts a mark on us should not be surprising.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Somebody says, ‘Oh, but this homosexual matter—people are made that way.’ No. Everybody is made a sinner. Everybody has some sex drive. Everybody would like to satisfy it some way, particularly men. Whether through a woman, or whether it is with a beast, or whether it is with a man, the truth is, it is all the same sin. God has ways for men to have control over themselves and do right! You need not call it sickness; it is wicked sin.
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Note this: sodomite—that is the sin of those men of Sodom, that is homosexual sin, and it is clearly forbidden, like the sin of the harlot.”
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They Are Perverts
Such people are not safe as teachers. I wouldn’t want to hire a man as a teacher if he is likely to lead one of the high school girls into immorality and sin. He is not safe. Such a teacher is likely to lead the boys into sex perversion. So he is not a good teacher and he ought not be hired. We have a right to make laws to safeguard the schools and churches and others from sex perverts. They are not good citizens. They are not safe.
Now when people are married, they have children. But sex perverts—men with men and women with women—don’t have children, but they are always out to solicit, to involve somebody else in sin, to grow up some more homosexuals and sex perverts. And that is wicked.
— John R. Rice, editor of the Sword of the Lord, Adultery and Sex Perversion, 1978
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
It’s no surprise that rioters in Portland burned Bibles this past weekend. As I’ve said for weeks now, the spirit behind the riots is the spirit of lawlessness. It is anti-God and anti-Christ, and that’s why synagogues and churches have also been targets.
When it comes to the Bible, for some, it is the ultimate symbol of oppression. Of religious tyranny. Of abusive authority.
It is the evil book on which America was founded, and it should be burned, along with the American flag. It is racist, homophobic and misogynist. It supports genocide and apartheid, and it the divinely sanctioned manual for slave owners. To the flames!
Such is the mentality of the radical left, as reflected in groups like antifa and Black Lives Matter (speaking, again, of the organization, in distinction from the truth that Black lives matter).
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There is something else that is animating these rioters and, as we have argued before, it is not from above but from below. And, just as an ideological line can be traced from Saul Alinsky to the leadership of Black Lives Matter, an ideological line can be traced from Alinsky to Satan.
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What we are seeing, then, in these riots, is ultimately an attempt to cast off the rulership of God. In the words of the rebellious kings in Psalm 2:3 (NIV) (speaking against the Lord and the Davidic monarch who ruled over them): “Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.” We will not have God rule over us!
That’s why Bibles are being burned. It is an open expression of hostility to the Judeo-Christian God and Judeo-Christian values. It is the thumbing of the nose to divine authority. It is overt rebellion.
