Hi Mike,

You close the Strong Delusion article with the following:

Don’t fall for this strong delusion. You will never overcome as long as you fail to see God’s Word as anything less than the demonstration of the spirit. You can make war with the beast (Rev 13:4); and [ you] can do all things through Christ which strengthens [ you] (Php 4:13). You can refuse to worship the beast (Rev 13:8). You can cast him out of the temple (2Th 2:4)!

We can do these things… but we only can do these things if God gives us eyes to see and ears to hear, correct? We can only do these things if it is after the counsel of His will… correct?

Your brother in Christ,

R____

Hi R____,

When I say “You can…” do anything, it is understood by all with the mind of Christ, that I am saying “You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.” My detractors are always accusing me of contradicting myself when I simply quote the writers of the New Testament. Here is how “You can…” is to be understood:

Gal 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live” is not a contradiction. It is but a complement of the fact that “the life that I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me,” that He might live His life of “dying daily,” within me. All who deny that Christ is not in living in our sinful flesh and overcoming it just as He was in sinful flesh, being tempted and overcoming His own fleshly pulls when He was on this earth in that same flesh, are antichrist:

1Jn 4:3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh i s not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

“Is come in the flesh” means ‘Is living in and filling up that which is behind of his afflictions in our flesh, for His body’s sake which is the church.

Col 1:24 Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

You will never hear a sermon preached in the orthodox church on Col 1:24 because they cannot understand how the afflictions of the Christ is lacking. It is not given to them to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. It is hidden from them right out in plain sight. It is in parables which compare spiritual with spiritual.

1Co 2:13  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

If we spiritually discern the things of the spirit then, yes, you are right, it is not us doing so, it is only done IF we are given to do so by the mind of Christ in us.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike