Title: 13
Author: Joe G
Last saved by: Auth User
Company: GDC

Clanking Chains		06-06-13.CC02-619

Paul’s Campaign against Incipient Christianity Is the Prototype for Today’s Islamic Jihad; Progressive Are Its 5th Column; Believers Must Stand Fast

		30.	Were it not for the Lord’s perfect patience toward Saul He would not have been able to use him as a demonstration of His grace.
		31.	Christians today face an extremely important test: the very acts of Saul toward the first-century church are beginning to emerge in twenty-first century America.  Progressives view their ideology as the morally superior replacement for Christian theology.  In extreme intellectual arrogance they have decreed that the Bible is far too politically incorrect by its categorizing certain behaviors as sins that need restraint from society, culture, and law.  Instead Progressives denounce the Bible, diminish Christ, debase the church, and denigrate believers.  In the absence of a biblical moral code that is designed to “hold the centre,” Progressives insist on substituting their own ideologies which view people as so much clay which they can mold if only left alone to do so.
		32.	The propaganda of the Progressives used to be presented behind rhetorical veils which were designed to conceal while advancing their hidden agenda: the destruction of Western European heritage, Anglo-Saxon culture, and Judeo-Christian ethics.  Now they unabashedly just tell bold-faced lies and repeat them incessantly until “tha Peepul” accept them as the truth.
		33.	“Tha Peepul” are defenseless to identify the lie because of fifty years of Progressive indoctrination in the Federal Schools.  The only voices crying in the wilderness are doctrinally oriented believers who are shouted down as radicals and extremists in the same fashion as Islamic radicals. 
		34.	The twenty-first century challenge for these doctrinally oriented believers is: “Are you willing to stand fast against an increasingly maniacal establishment that is out to suppress you, your beliefs, and your church?”
		35.	This remains to be seen but make no mistake—proponents of Progressive ideology are reincarnations of Saul and their intents are the same: Operation Lumainomai: an ongoing campaign to destroy the church.
		36.	Whether they will be successful or not is dependent upon whether the Pivot can hold which means believers are going to require a source of courage that can sustain their confidence in God under pressure.  This courage is founded on absolute confidence that you have eternal life, that you are secure in this fact, and that you will go to heaven when you die. 
Titus 1:2 -		In the confidence of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago.
37.	It is the Lord’s perfect patience that allows mankind the opportunity to believe in Christ and receive this promised eternal life:
1 Timothy 1:16 -		Nevertheless, because of this I received mercy that in me, as worst of all sinners, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience …
		38.	The purpose of the Lord’s sacrifice on the cross was “to save sinful ones” (v. 15)  Paul asserts under the ministry of the Holy Spirit that he was the most sinful person in all of human history.
		39.	Saul was a demonically inspired terrorist whose religious arrogance was expressed by a maniacal hatred of Christians whom he intimidated, imprisoned, and signed off on their executions.
		40.	Since the Lord was judged for all sinners, and since Saul held the all-time record for sinning, then the fact Paul is saved became the source of another purpose: if the Lord showed patience with Saul until he believed in Christ, then Paul is the foremost example to other unbelievers of God’s perfect patience toward them.
		41.	This second purpose is expressed by the prepositional phrase:
			prÒj, pros -	with the accusative, it marks the object toward which something is directed.  It is used here figuratively to express the end, aim, or purpose of an action: to use Paul as a “prototype,” the accusative of purpose from the noun:
			ØpotÚpwsij, hupotupōsis -	 “a delineation: a portrayal that sets forth with accuracy and in detail; a pattern, example, or prototype.”

© 2006 by Joe Griffin Media Ministries.  All rights reserved.	www.joegriffin.org