All the mumbo jumbo is above my pay grade.

In three places I have marked with an asterisk the key theological points Jesus is making here. He knows their WORKS, and rewards them for that. And at the end, he says that he who OVERCOMES will have the prize. This is all works,

I would say a prize above salvation. Still not of works lest any man should boast.

That is my take.

Those typos are not typos. I copied and pasted the actual King James Bible. It was written in the English of 1611,. The “King James” Bible in modern English is itself an interpretation of the King James Bible. They are not iidentical except for updated English. Some word meanings are said to have changed.

You wanted the KJV, I am using the actual KJV. If you tell me that some later translation, in the KJV style, is ALSO inerrant, as far as you are concerned, then I will use that specific text. So, you tell me which text you will accept, and I’ll use that one.

The issues here are not issues of translation. They are issues of accepting what Jesus said.

So, tell me which Bible to use. The KJV looks like it’s full of typos to you. So what do you want me to use?

You wanted the KJV, I am using the actual KJV.

Fair enough.

it happens one "puts on the new man" and does not sin again, and starts doing good works

Once you're saved you still sin. You don't never sin again. You repent when you sin.

You're going to lawyer and bury me in paperwork so to speak. But that's ok.

That’s exactly right - once people come to the realization that Jesus is the Son of God, and start listening to him, they know what is right and wrong in a cosmic sense. Now, they may have already known, for God is the God of all, and we do have the example of the society, which is largely Christian. Still, with the knowledge of Jesus’ identity, we then have a greater urge to see what he really said, to learn that. And fuzzy ideas become very clear. But we’re human, we do sin again and, knowing for sure now that we really have sinned, we need forgiveness, and Jesus will give that IF we at least try to stop sinning.

That’s all right and true, and we see the same thing (though no doubt we express that a bit differently, owing to being different people from different places.)

sound like Watchman, and my old girlfriend and her sister.

To her, it was not complicated. She was "born again", and therefore forgiven all her sins. "Once saved, always saved."

I rejoice greatly to be counted among your girlfriend and her sister as once saved always saved.

Praise God that I do not have to hold on to God, but He holds on to me and will not let me go.

Certainly, I may lose my "crown" (rewards) but I will never lose my soul. Jesus said. "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee"

With all that is taking place right now in the ME my attention is fixed on the unfolding of prophecy. I don't have the mindset to discuss all the material you are presenting but will try to follow along with your efforts.

Question: how much failure to do "works" will cause you to lose your salvation? How does one know if he has lost his salvation?

Jesus asked us to do good and do right. He said to follow him and keep his word, and if you do that, you are doing good and doing right. And if you know his word, you know full well when you have stepped off the path and done wrong. It's not hard to know what Jesus wants. Just read him and he repeats it over and over and over again.

if you follow him, which he said meant keeping his word, you're good with him and he with you. So if you happen to die at any given moment, you are in his grace. If you choose not to follow him, to ignore the sick, the poor, the imprisoned, and just not care, he's told everyone that, in the end, he will say "I don't know you", no matter how much you cry out "Lord! Lord!"

'What good does it do you to say you follow me if you don't keep my commandments? He who keeps my commandments loves me.'

So, that's my answer to your question. I don't worry about my salvation, because I am always worried about the poor and how I conduct myself. I use Jesus' word as the standard. So I'm with him, and he with me, exactly as he promised. And to me, that's that.

You have a completely different approach. That's ok, as long as you are actually doing what Jesus said to do. THAT is all that matters, according to him anyway. And given that it's called CHRISTianity, it seems to me that what Christ says is all that matters.

And vnto the Angel of the Church in Sardis write, These things saith he that hath the seuen Spirits of God, & the seuen starres; I know thy workes, that thou hast a name that thou liuest, and art dead. Be watchfull, and strengthen the things which remaine, that are ready to die: for I haue not found thy works perfect before God.*. Remember therefore, how thou hast receiued and heard, and hold fast, and repent.* If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thiefe, and thou shalt not know what houre I will come vpon thee.

Thou hast a few names euen in Sardis, which haue not defiled their garments, and they shall walke with me in white: for they are worthy.

Hee that ouercommeth, the same shalbe clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the booke of life,* but I will confesse his name before my Father, and before his Angels."

NOTES: * I have starred the same argument again:

(1) I see your works and they are very imperfect.

(2) Remember what I said and turn back - repent! - and do what I said to do.

(3) Or your name, which WAS written in the book of life, I will blot out instead.

This is not once saved, always saved. It's the opposite. It's: you heard me and followed, and so were written in the book of life. But now you're not following, and if you don't go back and do what I told you to do, I will blot out your name from the book of life where it currently is.

This is the gaining of salvation, but then losing it because one does not persevere in doing what Jesus commanded.

Why kick at the goad? Just do what Jesus said to do, and it will go well for you.

Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God.

3 Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent.

Yes nobody has the works to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. It seems to me it says to repent because your works aren't there. It doesn't say get your works better.

"Thou hast a few names euen in Sardis, which haue not defiled their garments, and they shall walke with me in white: for they are worthy."

There are those in Sardis who works ARE good enough, who have NOT done evil. It isn't impossible to follow Jesus' words. He does not demand things that people cannot do, and he often notes those who do them. His yoke is easy and his burden is light.

In Philadelphia, the whole church was walking in his word, and he did not rebuke them. He merely told them to keep doing it.

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Are you born again?

Or your name, which WAS written in the book of life, I will blot out instead.

Your words are error. You have reworded the scripture to fit your argument.

The Chruch at Sardis was a "dead church" full of unsaved people. The "dead" church goers were NEVER written in the book of life. There were a few saved souls, however, who WERE written in the book of life and those are the ones who will never be blotted out...once saved, always saved.

You, Vic, are a dead church goer who goes to a dead church. Your name is not yet written in the book of life.

Your argument is with Jesus, not with me.

See, this is precisely why I do this: I just quote Jesus, nobody else. Your beef is with what Jesus said, because it does not mesh with what you believe.

You're attacking me because you don't like what is written, but those words were dictated by Jesus, not by Stephen.

You can rail at me all you like. I'm sticking with Jesus.

And vnto the Angel of the church in Thyatira, write, These things saith the Sonne of God, who hath his eyes like vnto a flame of fire, and his feete are like fine brasse:

I know thy works,* and charitie, and seruice, and faith, and thy patience, and thy workes,* and the last to bee more then the first.*

Notwithstanding, I haue a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Iezebel, which calleth herselfe a Prophetesse, to teach and to seduce my seruants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed vnto idoles.

And I gaue her space to repent of her fornication, and she repented not.

Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her, into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.

And I will kill her children with death, and all the Churches shall know that I am hee which searcheth the reines and hearts: and I will giue vnto euery one of you according to your workes.*

But vnto you I say, and vnto the rest in Thyatira, as many as haue not this doctrine, and which haue not knowen the depthes of Satan, as they speake, I will put vpon you none other burden: But that which ye haue already, hold fast till I come.*

And hee that ouercommeth, and keepeth my workes* vnto the ende, to him will I giue power ouer the nations:

(And he shall rule them with a rod of yron: as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shiuers:) euen as I receiued of my Father. And I will giue him the morning starre.

He that hath an eare, let him heare what the Spirit saith vnto the Churches.

_________________

NOTES

* Works here, works there, so many works! And he mentions the bad works of a slutty woman, while calling her to repent - to stop doing those works. But the rest of the people? He tells them to keep on doing what they're doing - those works - and endure to the end.

This is very clear and straightforward. I told you what to do, so do it, and if you persevere to the end in doing it, I will give you life eternal. Nothing hard to understand about that.

Do you have to have works to enter Heaven?

Or your name, which WAS written in the book of life

Show me where Jesus said that the "dead" Sardis church goers are written in the book of life.

I will blot

You took out the word "not". Jesus says He will NOT blot out, referring only to those who are alive in Christ

"Hee that ouercommeth, the same shalbe clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the booke of life,"

What is hard to understand about this?

Jesus blots people's name out of the book of life. He won't do so to those in Sardis who overcome - who resist and keep his word. He'll cloth THEM in white raiment and leave their names in the book of life.

But what about those in the Church of Sardis who DON'T overcome, who DON'T keep his word?

They will not wear the white raiment, and he will blot their names out.

That is the implication of saying he WON'T blot out those who do as he says, that whoever DOESN'T, DOES get blotted out of the book of life. Their names are there because they are in the Church, but their behavior causes him to blot them out.

How can this be read any other way? Seriously.

I said before that you have a reading comprehension problem, and I really think you do.

Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy.

Christ differentiates between those who are "dead", and those (few) who are "worthy" (saved).

"He who overcomes" is an invitation to those who are "dead" to become saved, to have their names written in the book of life.

"I will not blot out" does not imply that He has, or will ever, blot out someone's name. It is merely away of stating an assurance of salvation.

Revelation mentions the Book of Life seven times with one other mention in Philippians:

Philippians 4:3 And I intreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellowlabourers, whose names are in the book of life.

Revelation 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.

Revelation 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Revelation 17:8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

Revelation 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

Revelation 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Revelation 21:27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Revelation 22:19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

Note on Revelation 22:19:

God shall take away his part out of the book of life - Perhaps there is here an intimation that this would be most likely to be done by those who professed to be Christians, and who supposed that their names were in the book of life. In fact, most of the corruptions of the sacred Scriptures have been attempted by those who have professed some form of Christianity. Infidels have but little interest in attempting such changes, and but little influence to make them received by the church. It is most convenient for them, as it is most agreeable to their feelings, to reject the Bible altogether. When it said here that "God would take away his part out of the book of life," the meaning is not that his name had been written in that book, but that he would take away the part which he might have had, or which he professed to have in that book. Such corruption of the divine oracles would show that they had no true religion, and would be excluded from heaven. (Barnes)

The note addresses your condition...one who merely professes Christianity. But even more, that you took a word out of the Holy Scripture (the word "not") which changed the whole truth of God's saving grace.

You say he never could. He says otherwise.

I'll stick with.the plain reading of Jesus.

Vnto the Angel of the church of Ephesus, write, These things saith he that holdeth the seuen starres in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seuen golden Candlesticks:

I know thy workes, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not beare them which are euil, and thou hast tried them which say they are Apostles, and are not, and hast found them lyers:

And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my Names sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.

Neuerthelesse, I haue somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first loue.

Remember therfore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and doe the first workes, or else I will come vnto thee quickly, and will remoue thy Candlesticke out of his place, except thou repent*

But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

Hee that hath an eare, let him heare what the Spirit saith vnto the Churches: To him that ouercommeth will I giue to eate of the tree of life, which is in the middest of the Paradise of God.*

NOTES

* It's the same thing as already noted: Jesus is talking to a church again - believers - and he acknowledges their works, faith, endurance. But he notes their loss of love, and warns them that he will remove their "candlestick", which he describes in Chapter One, unless they turn back - repent.

And again he notes that those who overcome will be in Paradise.

Same message: you are a church, you believe in me, but I said to follow me by keeping all of my commandments, but you have stopped doing that. Unless you repent, I will throw you out. Those who do keep my commandments and overcome will join me in Paradise.

Same message, expressed once again. This is not "Once saved, always saved." These people are already a church, a community of believers. Rather, this is Jesus saying, as we've seen him say to the other churches: Keep my commandments, do what I say to the end, and you will be with me in Paradise. And if you don't, I will throw you down. It's direct and simple, and plain as day.

Revelation 22 v19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

I was curious about what you were on about, so I went back and looked at the passage. It is this:

"Hee that ouercommeth, the same shalbe clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the booke of life,"

What is hard to understand about this?

Jesus blots people's name out of the book of life. He won't do so to those in Sardis who overcome - who resist and keep his word. He'll cloth THEM in white raiment and leave their names in the book of life.

But what about those in the Church of Sardis who DON'T overcome, who DON'T keep his word?

Here is what AI says

The verse you are referring to is Revelation 3:5, which states, “The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels” 1. This verse is often interpreted to mean that those who remain faithful to Jesus will not have their names removed from the book of life. However, it does not necessarily imply that Jesus would remove the names of those who did not keep their garments and continued to follow him. Rather, it emphasizes the importance of remaining faithful to Jesus and persevering in one’s faith 1.

I hope this helps clarify your question.

It’s not hard to see why this is so. Those who followed Jesus during his public ministry spoke about and eventually wrote down testimony about Jesus’s life and teachings. Whatever one’s view of the shape of oral tradition and theological reflection among the first Christians, their decision to put what they witnessed in writing is the only reason we have the gospels at all, and it is undoubtedly the reason we have four of them. Luke, for example, discusses his investigative work of compiling eyewitness testimony in the prologue to his gospel, and, as Richard Bauckham demonstrated in his book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, all four of the gospels base their authoritative accounts on the information provided by eyewitnesses.

Unlike the Qur’an or the Book of Mormon, the Bible does not claim to have been dictated by God to an isolated individual through a series of visions or any other non-public experience. The Bible did not fall from heaven. In the testimonies about Jesus, including even the resurrection itself, we are confronted with irreducibly public events, things quite a few people personally claimed to have seen.

Eyewitnesses, especially the Apostles themselves, attempted to relay not only the particular words Jesus spoke, but also his deeds, his ethical teachings and the context and meaning of it all to those who came after them. In other words, we cannot separate the words of Jesus from the other eyewitness testimony, as if his words could simply be detached from their context and applied to our lives in whatever way seems right to us. Instead, we are totally dependent, whether for the words Jesus spoke or for the content of our faith, upon the eyewitness testimony of those who first believed.

There are at least three connected reasons why this is the case. First, the apostles and those who wrote the New Testament were in a better position to understand the context for Jesus’s preaching, sayings and commands than we are. They were Jesus’s friends and students, and they knew Aramaic and koine Greek better than anyone alive today. However positively we feel about the advances of biblical criticism, science and culture, it would be foolhardy to simply subordinate what they wrote about Jesus to our interpretation of Jesus’s words.

Second, we don’t possess every word Jesus ever said. The four gospels, though they give us what we need to follow Jesus, only tell us about a tiny part of his life and teachings. As John recognised, if the apostles and eyewitnesses had tried to write down everything they had experienced with Jesus, “the whole world couldn’t contain the books” (John 21:25). One cannot help but think that Jesus further elucidated the teachings that make up the Sermon on the Mount for his disciples, told parables we know nothing about, and gave further instruction on topics relevant to the disciples’ lives. Undoubtedly, Jesus also laughed, joked, ate with and encouraged scores of people who followed him, people who from our limited perspective are lost to history. Therefore, we should never think that we today have a clearer, more comprehensive understanding of Jesus’s will for us than his first followers. They simply had more to go on than we do.

Finally, the fact is that we only know about Jesus’s life, death and resurrection through the testimony of the apostles and first Christians. God did not choose to give Western Christians living in 2020 unmediated access to those events, which happened in a very different time and place. The witness of the Spirit alone, apart from the proclamation of the gospel by other humans, is not how God chose to reveal himself to us. Rather, it seems fair to say that if God had not moved the apostles and first Christians to write, to testify to what they had seen and heard, we would know nothing about Jesus. We simply don’t have unmediated access to Jesus’s words apart from those who first walked with him and apart from the Church that now proclaims him.

Red Letter Christians, including Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne, are rightly troubled when evangelicals and other Christians seem to lose sight of who Christ is or downplay the significance of Jesus’s explicit commands. Claiborne, for example, gets at this central concern in a video where he says:

When we lose the centrality of Jesus, we end up talking a whole lot about things Jesus didn’t say anything about, and we don’t say much about the things Jesus had a whole lot to say about. So Red Letter Christians is about a movement that wants a Christianity that looks like Jesus again and is known for love again.

Notice, however, that here Claiborne is doing more than gently exhorting us to heed the red letters in our Bibles. He seems to be asking his hearers to pay less attention or perhaps even ignore the black letters, including the testimony of those eyewitnesses who “saw his glory” (John 1:14). In a post on 1 April 2011, Campolo made this move explicitly:

As the Red Letter Christian movement came to be known, I realized it would never be accepted. This is because many Christians don’t really like the God that is revealed in Jesus Christ. They want the God that is in the black letters.

The logical problem with this position is that the words of Jesus, like the rest of the New Testament, were filtered, contextualised and interpreted by the eyewitnesses and the New Testament writers. We simply cannot get back behind the text. Thus we cannot understand the red letters or the centrality of Jesus without also heeding the black letters, the words of those who walked and talked with him, ate with him and sat under his teaching, the words of those whom Jesus entrusted with the gospel. Claiborne’s exhortation and Campolo’s lament both imply that we don’t need those first witnesses and that, once we have the words of Jesus, we somehow have unmediated access to Christ’s teaching apart from their testimony.

Why would Red Letter Christians stake out what seems to be a logically untenable position? Two weeks after the election in 2016, Campolo and Claiborne wrote an op-ed in the New York Times that offers some clues. In the wake of President Trump’s victory, they wrote, “much of the good that went by the name ‘evangelicalism’ has been clouded over; now a new movement is needed to replace it.” Evangelicalism used to have moral credibility, the authors argue, but after more than 80 per cent of white evangelicals who voted in the presidential election backed a candidate unrepentant of several significant moral failings, its reputation is in tatters.

As Campolo and Claiborne would have it, however, Trump’s election was only the dramatic conclusion to evangelicalism’s moral fall, not its beginning. One can discern traces of the bad reputation evangelicalism would develop in the broader culture after evangelical leaders aligned themselves with the Republican Party. Many Americans, they write, “came to see Christians — and evangelicals in particular — as anti-women, anti-gay, anti-environment and anti-immigrant and as the champions of guns and war.” In particular, evangelicals now have the reputation as a movement that cares about only two issues, abortion and gay marriage. On both counts, many Americans might also employ the prefix Campolo and Claiborne used to describe evangelicals: “anti-.”

Since Jesus never explicitly addressed either abortion or gay marriage in the gospel accounts, Red Letter Christians often think it better to downplay, ignore, or even oppose the typical evangelical and Catholic stances on these issues. After all, Christians have sometimes been implicated in homophobia. We have at times lost sight human experiences unlike ours even as we fought for the human rights of the unborn. The implications of Claiborne’s programmatic statement for Red Letter Christians are, we must confess, at least partially true: the Christianity of evangelicals has not always looked like Jesus.

But by trimming inconvenient or difficult parts of the testimony of the first Christians, Red Letter Christians have not succeeded in offering us a way to make our Christianity more like Jesus. Instead, they tacitly reject the very words that provide the necessary context for the words in red. To the degree that they set aside the words of Paul and Peter, the Pentateuch and the Apocalypse, Red Letter Christians not only make a logical — or, perhaps, an epistemological — error. They also risk leading evangelicals and other Protestants toward a Christianity that looks less like the Jesus the first Christians knew and more like a Jesus fashioned in our own image.

www.abc.net.au/religion/j...-logical-and-theological- problem-with-red-letter/12215602

IS PASSED FROM DEATH UNTO LIFE

Not saying you aren't saved. Not saying you are satan. Just saying you seem to have PRIDE because you pick and choose which Bible verses you believe.

You're seriously smart no doubt you have a good education.

If you forget to repent about something or don't get a chance to and you get hit by a car does that mean you go to hell?

If not how many sins would you have to not repent for?

Or is there some other basis that you can explain.

Thanks.

"All the Churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reines (kidneys) and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works."

"Remember therfore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and doe the first workes, or else I will come vnto thee quickly, and will remoue thy Candlesticke out of his place, except thou repent."

"And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works to the end, to him will I give power ouer the nations:"

"Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God."

"I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my Name."

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot, I would thou wert cold or hot.

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth:"

He is not addressing crowds, as during his life, and these words are not the remembered words of years ago, spoken in parables to various non-believers and believers alike as are contained in the Gospels.

No, THESE words are dictated by Jesus, resurrected and ascended to heaven, and speaking from the throne room of God, to John whom he has brought there. And the dictated words are not addressed to unbelievers. They are addressed directly to the churches themselves, to the assemblies of believers all across Asia Minor. And in case there is any doubt, Jesus, from Heaven, spoke the words to seven separate Churches. The words are consistent.

Against Jesus, what do I have? 20th and 21st Century men on an AI site carping in defense of their doctrines, and suggesting that I am picking and choosing? Well, they could pick and choose, from Revelation itself, to show me that I am wrong. Or rather, they can't, because I've quoted Jesus EXTENSIVELY from Revelation, to make the point he clearly made. They have not. They have said, effectively, that his words don't matter because of some "totality".

I'm not done yet. I'm going to go through all of the Gospels too, and extensively quote Jesus.

And they will still carp because I'm not quoting some prophesy in the Old Testament, which says something different. The effect of what they do is to nullify whatever Jesus said, however extensively, at every turn. They don't quote Jesus, but draw themselves up in their scholarship.

That don't impress me much. If you want to argue with me, then quote Jesus back at me.

Nobody ever does that, because they CAN'T.

That is why I know that I am right, and they are full of it.

I'm not discarding the Bible, I am going for the gold in the Bible, what Jesus said.

Are you saying that was God Incarnate said directly from Heaven, in Resurrection, is of equal importance to what somebody else said somewhere else in the Bible, even where they contradict?

So, then, the Bible is God, and Jesus is not? And God is a God of contradictions? I reject this. It is presumptuous in the extreme. Modern scholars don't know better than Jesus.

Moses: Eating pork and shellfish makes you unclean, and you shall be cut off from the people.

Jesus: Nothing that a man puts in his mouth makes him unclean, but what comes out of his mouth.

This is a contradiction. I say Jesus trumps, because he's God's Son.

You? Scholars will impose a THIRD thing, not in the Bible, made up 1900 years later because they don't like some things Jesus said, and prefer the old wine. They say that not eating shellfish and pork was merely CEREMONIAL law, and does not count as a moral precept. God never said that in either testament. "Christian" scholars make it up.

Why?

Because they want to eat pork and shelfish, but they want to judge (Jesus says no), and they don't want to do all of that economic giving that Jesus demanded.

In short, all of the scholarship that seeks to diminish and dissolve what Christ said is anti-Christ. Obviously.

I do think this though. I think if you are saved you are probably going to have some works. Since you are a new creature. But your salvation isn't because of the works, the works just show that you are changed.

If you forget to repent about something or don't get a chance to and you get hit by a car does that mean you go to hell?

If not how many sins would you have to not repent for?

Or is there some other basis that you can explain.

Thanks.

Here is the problem. I am going to really try to do this as gently as possible, because I see you are really seeking and struggling with this. Unfortunately, I am a clumsy man and I may wound with what I say. It is not my intent at all.

I see your question this way: there is a great structure in your mind of how things work, built up by years of Church and reinforcement by people who believe a certain way, and see a certain way, and who see certain things as problems that have to be addressed, because you all have been taught to think like that, and even think that thinking a different way is sinful.

This is parallel to the priests, scribes and Pharisees who went to Jesus - not the bad ones trying to kill him, but true seekers, like Nicodemus, who went to visit Jesus outside of the walls of the city and who admitted that Jesus was doing things that could only be explained by the power of God. but Nicodemus could not understand, he could not grasp it, because some of the things that Jesus was saying were not in his tradition, and some things contradicted it. And yet Nicodemus believed that Jesus was doing things with divine power, not with the power of Satan, as other harsher priests said.

Part of Jesus' explanation was to ask Nicodemus rather pointedly 'You are a teacher of Israel, yet you do not know these things?' Jesus then basically explained how the Holy Spirit works. It was difficult for Nicodemus. And yet we see that, at the end, Nicodemus, understanding only dimly and incompletely, came to follow Jesus, for he was the priest that gave the death rites to Jesus in his tomb after this crucifixion, when almost all others had run away and abandoned him.

I am not being harsh to you. I see you struggling against this framework you have been taught and believed most of your life, and defended against attackers.

I am not an attacker. Not at all. And I can't teach you. I don't really have answers to some of your questions, because I find myself arguing against centuries of tradition, and who am I?

What I would say, instead of trying to answer your questions directly, is to simply tell you to read Jesus, all of Jesus. If Jesus doesn't persuade you, then just walk away from the religion, because it cannot be true. If Jesus himself, the bright morning star at the center of it all, is unpersuasive, who can persuade you? Some minister? No.

But if you focus on Jesus, Just Jesus, you will find answers to the things important to him. Many of the demands of your own framework will fall away, because they were not put there by Jesus in the first place, but by men, and you are not answerable to men. You are only answerable to him.

I would say truly that if you immerse yourself completely in Jesus, just Jesus, that the answers will come to you from the Holy Spirit, and that part of the answers is that Jesus didn't say that, so the complicated questions of men, that derive from their starting positions, really just don't apply, because Jesus didn't talk about those things.

That is the answer. I could try to go through and answer every challenge of your religion, but who am I? I think the better answer is to focus on Jesus, HE is the teacher.

Of course, then, when I read somebody say that focusing on the "red-letter words", on what Jesus said, is wrong, I think "Blind Pharisee! What are you AFRAID of? That Jesus will teach things that don't fit your doctrine?" Yep.

So, until things get too hot in here, too abusive to me, I will keep on quoting Jesus. I'm not quoting every single word, because some of what he says doesn't address what we are talking about (none of it contradicts, however). Jesus is good enough for me, and has to be good enough for anybody I'm talking to.

If I were just encountering people like Watchman - so hysterical in his abuse, unable to read well or listen to anything - I would just shake the dust off my sandals and leave. But where there is sincere questioning, there is hope.

I think Jesus answers your question about sins, and does so in a way that is so much pithier and better than me. I would just say: read him, let him tell you. It will become obvious.

In my own mind, I would say that the upshot of Jesus is that you don't count the sins, or worry about them. If you're following Jesus, you will know immediately when you are moving into bad territory. He gave us a list of things that will end in the lake of fire: murder, lying, sexual immorality, cowardice, idolatry, pharmakeia. I don't worry about the whole list, because there are many things on that list that are not me and never were. Lying and sexual immorality? Yeah, those are definitely traps I have fallen into. Jesus says to change my mind, to turn back, "repent". So that's the whole answer for me. He didn't ask for more. He positively asks for a life devoted to helping others. I do what I can. That's how I see it.

I would tell you to just read Jesus, let HIM teach you. If you do that, you will probably end up very close to where I am, and you will begin to see starkly the sheer anger and rage roaring in these other theologies that claim to be Christian, but that blot out Christ with virtually anything else, because Christ alone doesn't say what they want to do.

That is all.

'He who gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones will not go without his reward.'

The Good Samaritan.

One does not have to overtly believe in God to do good works, and be credited by Jesus for it.

Jesus judges based on what you do. Remember those who cry out "Lord, Lord", but who did not heal the sick, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, feed the poor. Jesus sent them into the Lake of Fire. It is simply not enough to believe something about Jesus. He said he would judge you by what you do right there in Revelation: 'I judge each by his works.' Believing in Jesus should make you do good things, because that's what he teaches you to do. But if you don't do good things, knowing that Jesus is God won't do you any good. The demons know that too, and tremble.

In the end, once all of the mental gymnastics are done, what matters is what you DO with it - your works. If you don't do anything with it, or do bad things, or - inspired by power - do WORSE things (medieval Christians deciding to burn people as witches in the name of God), you are screwed. Jesus wants you to believe in him in order to be able to hear his word and do it. His word is all about doing good things for people.

Unless you are a hopeless cripple, the works are inextricable from the belief.

I have gotten pulled off the main track, which was to present Jesus in his own words, over into many sidebars. While some of those are interesting my point here to present what JESUS said, not me. Where there are questions, I should answer with Jesus.

Jesus is pithy.

I am much less so, and who cares what I think? Why would they?

If Jesus' own words don't convince you, mine won't either.

So, going forward, my intention is for there to be a lot less of me, and a lot more of Jesus. He is the Lord, after all.

encountering people like Watchman - so hysterical in his abuse

Now I know why people cross to the other side of the road when they see me.