Now a step further, our worship is banned in the name of the public good. It should not have surprised us!

Because we have assimilated a miriad of subtil intrusions, the church has had no difficulty to take this later one, to the point that it seems there are no alternatives.

The worship of the state is paramount, obviously displayed by the posters thanking the NHS as the great saviour.

That we are in HIS hands and that we should be ready to seal our ownership with death if circumstances called for as with the Hebrew children, the early martyrs or the reformation martyrs, it is a given.

But also if we are to pray that we may live peacefully, this is a call to think along what contributes to that.
"... supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks ...
for kings, and for all that are in authority;
that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour"

The shape of a state determines the quality of Christian living which will include witnessing, worship, trading, educating our children, works of charity and so on.

The church is been part of the problem because she has for long embraced statism, which means to believe that the state with our best interest in mind is responsible for all our wellbeing in order to provide solutions, at the expense of individual accountability.

In passively accepting that creed we have contributed to the erosion of critical thinking which feeds state control.

John UK wrote:
Hello sister, no, not at all. All I would like to see is, an alternative. There is plenty of grumbling, which armchair generals are good at, but nothing concrete to go on, what to do, etc.
Again, this is manipulation, getting people all wound up against the guv, yet never giving the plan for the Christian to follow. Chris asks where are the pastors who will give guidance and actually lead. Well, there are very few, if any at all.
People have been watching Mulder and Scully for too long, and have been rewarded with paranoia, seeing every guv in a plot to rule the world by stealth.

The Quiet Christian wrote:
1. I do not completely agree with that the Apsotle John's record is quite so figurative, although there is clearly some. But I didn't see what he saw either. We cannot be sure how things appear from the other side of the Veil ...
2. Concur that saints do not have that mark, but you raise an important distinction in loyality to one's sovereign, I believe, in your point to ponder.

John UK wrote:
Chris, I appreciate your post, but it seems to me that although you responded to mine, you carefully avoided answering the question.
As for Bill Gates' vaccine program, don't worry about me bro, I shall be avoiding it just as skilfully as you avoided answering my question.

"The simple believes every word:
but the prudent man looks well to his going."

The proverbs of Solomon ... were meant to give "subtilty to the simple", Prov. 1:4

Chrisgp from England wrote:
... a compulsory marking vaccine with digital marking tattoo.
Besides ... these media giants have a nasty habit of peremptorily censoring and cutting off those things they don’t like, so churches that get too close to uncomfortable subjects for the globalists can get cut off, censored, blacked out or their app removed.
... a mandatory vaccine for all, combined with a permanent microchip or quantum tattoo which can be scanned for id, and to permit travel, access to goods and services, etc. This has been their desire all along

"The LORD brings the counsel of the heathen to nought:
he makes the devices of the people of none effect"

The Lord took oof the wheels of the Egyptian chariots, so that the evil intended was not ultimetly performed.

"... they intended evil against thee: they imagined a mischievous device, which they are *not able to perform* "

Carl in Asheville wrote:
... Makes you wonder if the Media has become that talking image of the beast in Revelation 13:15 --- Rev 13:15 SOMB It was permitted to give breath to the beast’s image so that the image would even speak and cause all who refused to worship the image of the beast to be killed.

***

Adriel wrote:
""According to the data, roughly 66 percent of hospitalized coronavirus patients within the state were admitted from the safety of their own homes""
So self isolating did not work?
How then does the virus work?
If it can pass to those who are staying away from contact with other people then it must be floating around anywhere and everywhere.

I see you christian wrote:
... All under the banner of ‘safety’ ? Safety from what?
The governments are subservient to the governments and afraid to go against the scientists etc for fear how it will make them look...
Now think about this, there has been no
Consideration of the impact of all this shut down? The harm that it has and is causing , no commons sense and on top of all that they have basically brought in marshal law and criminalized gatherings of human beings?
For a very very small percentage of deaths and that’s a fact..I’ll say it again...your trading all of that for a very small percentage of deaths...

'When the State Seizes Your Millstone'

https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=53201324383204

***

Mike wrote:
No singing allowed over fears that covid19 could be spread more easily that way. How about no breathing? Then the whole congregation would be real safe. And their government could say "we saved them all from the crisis"

'When the State Seizes Your Millstone'

John UK wrote:
Thanks .... It reminded me of a country in Asia where they will often say "the God" whereas we would just say God

Divine wisdom and essential knowledge of Greek is needed to decide renderings for the word spirit, say if it should have articles or capitalization, etc...

E.g. in Jh 4:24 the AV translators provided the verb is and used the article "a" not as deriding the deity status but to indicate the type of the divine essence, say not flesh and blood as it were.

Translation is never easy indeed, but this can be discerned when closely studying the text in Greek.

It has been my personal conviction for a long while that the church should make the knowledge of Greek, Hebrew, apologetics and doctrine or theology an essential part of the training of their young instead of a diet of bible 'stories', which can be read at home, but arrive nowhere regarding convincing faith in adult years.

Mike wrote:
Here's the reasoning- he is not "a" spirit, as though he were one of many, since there are many spirits. He is spirit in its purest essence. "A spirit" suggests limitations, boundaries. Being one is of anything reduces him. This is just my thought, though. Not going to lose sleep over contrary thoughts.

The first words of John 4:24 in the Greek Textus Receptus actually run as:

* πνεuμα ό θεός *

πνεuμα = spirit
á½¹ = the (definite article)
θεός = God

Which if literally transliterated would be,
'Spirit the God'

Without the definite article - á½¹ - then God should be rendered as 'god' without the capitalization.