December 22, 2013 ©Homer Kizer
Commentary — From the Margins
A Reflection on APA Volume 1
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I received a telephone call late Friday afternoon: a person who had not previously contacted us was calling to inform us that a website was down. Indeed it was, but was up shortly later. The problem was a mistake on our part … we have nineteen “sites” up, with different content (same message said differently) on each site. An old back injury has restricted the number of hours I can now spend typing; so keeping current but different content on smaller sites with less traffic had given rise to consideration of not continuing these sites that represent fiscal obligations that figuratively nickel and dime us not quite to death. So the combination of older content, little traffic, financial obligation, and hacking so that we have been prevented from getting stats from these sites for some months—all together led to consideration of abandoning some sites. Our larger sites are well able to handle our web traffic, and keeping fresh material on these larger sites is a fulltime job.
But the Friday afternoon call turned logic on its head.
The person calling had bookmarked one of the smaller sites and had been, for a few weeks, reading its contents. When the site was unavailable to the person, the person became mildly alarmed and curious enough—after all, we’re not Obamacare so our sites aren’t supposed to be down—to call, which in turn prompted us to go to a different program and pull stats from the particular site.
Not a large number but quite a few people have been visiting the site, with most of the visits coming through European servers. The site was much more popular in Europe than here in the States. So over the next few weeks, fresh articles/commentaries will be posted to the site.
The website isn’t, however, the reason for this short Commentary … in speaking to the person who called Friday, I suggested the person read A Philadelphia Apologetic (APA), Volumes One and Two, available free on my main website as .pdf texts, or available from booksellers as e-books for a couple of dollars each (as close to free as possible). And after suggesting that the person read APA V. 1 & 2, I thought that maybe I ought to reread what I wrote more than a year and a half ago. And while I have not reread V. 2, I completed V. 1, a short while ago and still don’t like how “wordy,” how redundant the first chapter is—and I still don’t know how to edit the text, removing 25% (or more) of its words with only a 5% (or less) loss of meaning; for what APA attempts is overturning, overwriting the mindset of greater Christendom, transforming centuries of Christian lawlessness into Christians walking-in-this-world-as-Jesus-walked; for once the Second Passover liberation of circumcised-of-heart Israel occurs, Christian lawlessness will send Christians into the lake of fire for these Christians will commit blasphemy against the spirit with which they were filled when they were liberated from indwelling sin and death.
How can I not repeatedly hit the same theological point as was made fifty thousand words earlier … it’s like fishing, taking that one more cast before quitting a stretch of water. It is what the Apostle Paul did in his epistle of the Galatians when he crafted a very good Aristotelian argument in chapters one and two before realizing that he hadn’t said enough to change behavior then figuratively throwing the kitchen sink at the wall to see what would stick.
Maybe the person should start APA V 1 with chapter three.
One long spiritual night began at Calvary, with the midnight hour of this one long night seeing the slaughter of uncovered [by the blood of the Passover Lamb of God, Christ Jesus] firstborns in the heaven and on earth. But there is no way to discern when this midnight hour—when humanity can get no farther away from God—occurs until humanity “turns” back to God.
Last week, the controversy Phil Robertson of A & E’s Duck Dynasty reality television series initiated with his biblically based comments (crudely put) about homosexuality might well signify that a turn back to God has begun. Despite how far away from God, Father and Son, Evangelical Christendom is, the Evangelical has been pushed even farther away from God by the secularism of political liberals and progressives. Evangelicals have been pushed, and pushed, and pushed, whereas Muslims routinely have religious allowances carved out for them because of their known refusal to compromise with secular humanism … Christians are no more able to compromise with evil than are Muslims, and homosexuality is a theological abomination for all people of the Book.
A human person is not born with indwelling eternal life: eternal life is the gift of God in Christ Jesus (Rom 6:23), with eternal life being the “glory of God,” the bright fire that sustains life outside of the physical creation, the “glory” Jesus asked to have returned to Him: “‘And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed’” (John 17:5).
The bright fire that is the glory of God (see Ezek 1:26–28) would consume a human person if this bright fire where not “contained” in a vessel that has also come from heaven, with this vessel being the spirit of Christ [pneuma Christou]. Therefore, only through the indwelling of Christ Jesus in the form of His breath, His spirit, does any human person have indwelling eternal life; so the Muslim, the Jew, the Gentile, and most of Christendom are spiritually dead—the “dead” that are to bury the “dead of themselves” (Matt 8:22).
But the world changes the day of the Second Passover.
It is not my desire that anyone perishes either in the Second Passover liberation of Israel, or during the following 1260 days, identified by John the Revelator as the Affliction (see John 1:9) … to follow the Affliction are the 1260 days of the Endurance of Jesus. It is the message about this Endurance of Jesus that Philadelphia keeps and delivers to the whole world as a warning-to and a witness against all peoples.
Some few individuals have joined with me in proclaiming the endtime gospel [good news] that all who endure to the end shall be saved (Matt 10:22; 24:13), and “saved” because first greater Christendom in the Affliction followed by the remainder of humanity in the Endurance will be filled-with and empowered by the spirit of God through being baptized in spirit, with this baptism in spirit being unto life as baptism in water is unto death … the Flood of Noah’s day and the pouring out of the spirit at the end of this age form enantiomorphs (that is, they are chiral images of each other as a person’s left hand is the non-symmetrical mirror image of the person’s right hand). And these few individuals form The Philadelphia Church.
Many more individuals read what I write and even believe what I proclaim than have joined with me to become Philadelphia, only one of seven endtime congregations. Most who read will never contact me, which is as it ought to be. However, because I cannot keep fresh articles on the websites that we have up, I am hereby announcing that we have an e-mail list of interested readers that receive web postings whenever and on whichever site the posting is made.
Inclusion on this e-mail list is by request only … if you do not request to be placed on this list, you are not on the list even if you contact us about other matters. You are not automatically included on the list that is not shared with anyone or any agency.
The person who telephoned Friday afternoon didn’t know new/fresh commentaries were being posted to other websites. If this person didn’t, many others also don’t know. So at this time I want to invite whoever is interested to request that the person’s name be added to the list.
Your name will be removed if you request that it is.
Inclusion on the list places no obligation on the person. In fact, except to send out web-postings, no contact will be made with persons on the list.
A few people presently on the list forward the web-postings to others. They are free to do so although we don’t recommend that a posting be sent to anyone not requesting the posting. I/we certainly don’t send out postings that might be considered spam by the person who receives them.
In rereading APA V. 1, I realized how much I have said and why I find myself repeating myself, now inching understanding of the mysteries of God forward in small steps rather than in long leaps … recovery of the 1st-Century CE oral gospel history will have me speaking more to other disciples one-to-one than writing additional treatises, not that I will cease writing.
Without being an alarmist but only reasonable prudent, it might well be time that a Sabbatarian Christian mentally prepares to endure tough times ahead. The general pacifist nature of modern Christendom has concealed the savagery embodied in the Cross, savagery that saw both Reform Christians and Roman Christians hunt down and martyr my Anabaptist ancestors over relatively minor theological differences.
I want to thank those who have extended support this past year. Without that support, much less would get done than has been the case. And with that support, a minor website on a Canadian server has been regularly visited by many in France and Belgium.
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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."