A Voice in the Wilderness |
*** PORTIONS *** Re: "Correct" - but Wrong "But what I do, I will also do, that I may cut off the opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the things of which they boast. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works." (2Cor11:12-15) Many complain that we so frequently label "[c]hristians" as being -unsaved-. That we "..cut off the opportunity.." of the pretenders. A short little object lesson this time: A couple of you already know about this... please bear with me for the sake of everybody else. My main computer is not particularly high-tech. By today's standards, a 233Mhz is "slow". But it does everything I need from it. I'm also running on Windows 95. I don't need/want all the bells and whistles of the newer operating systems. But, it had one very annoying problem, the solution to which eluded me for the longest time. With Internet Explorer, if I viewed any graphic that was larger than the screen, requiring 'scrolling' to see the whole thing (like photos from NASA), anything that had been 'under' the edge of the screen became 'erased' once I scrolled it back out. Netscape, Opera or any other graphics programs did not have this problem. This was the problem. The solution, and 'understanding' of the reason for the problem came after doing a complete rebuild of the main hard drive, and reinstalling Windows 'fresh'. Without getting all technical here, I have two drivers (software) available to me for the computer's video card. One that comes with Window's setup files. The other, that comes on the CD that accompanied the video card. While they are both listed as being for the same video chip, the drivers are of different versions and dates. Question: If you didn't know any better, 'which' driver would you suppose would be the 'preferred' driver to use? Well, any reasonable person would assume that when a CD accompanies a video card, and it's driver is also newer, 'that' is the preferred driver. Right? I thought so, too. But I was WRONG!! I won't bore you with the details of how I came to discover this matter. (It's a long story, and many wasted hours!) Needless to say, the Windows driver causes Internet Explorer to display the large graphics correctly. The newer "correct" driver from the CD does not. My video driver CD is a perfect example of what we continually harp on regarding the label "C/christian". The CD (by association) 'claims' to be the correct driver for my video card. But it messes up. There are -MANY- who "..desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the things of which they boast.." (2Cor11:12) In other words, there are many who claim to be "Christian". They make their "boasts" of having various "gifts", powers, visions, and miracles in spiritual matters; claiming it to be of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. They conduct meetings, and have large crowds following them from stadium to arena. My "correct" (CD) video driver did 'most' (99.999%) things right. If I had never wanted to use Internet Explorer, I would never have known anything was amiss. In similar fashion, these "false apostles" and "deceitful workers" appear to be "ministers of righteousness". (vs13,15) They do not proclaim sin and debauchery. They proclaim living decent moral lives, etc. They even talk about "faith in Christ". But when I would go to a website with large graphics, things would just start disappearing off the screen once I would do a little scrolling up and down. I would come to a given website and think I had 'arrived'... the status bar would declare, "Done"... scroll down and look around at the content, and back up... and it was all "gone". Poof! There are many "[c]hristians" who think they have arrived at "Heaven" through all that they are following. These "ministers of righteousness" introduce them to "Heaven"... They spend a lot of time being "spirit-filled"... but without the right [Holy] Spirit 'driving' them (Rom8:9), they will scroll around down in this world, and then when the time comes to scroll back up to meet the Lord in the air, looking for the "Heaven" they thought they had seen earlier... Poof! It's all gone! "Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of Heaven...many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord...have we not done many works of power in Your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you; depart from Me, you who work out lawlessness!" (Mt7:21-23) Amen!Beginning of this mini-series - Q/A -Pagan Christendom: a discussion - Where will you Spend Eternity? ![]() |