Old World Protestant and Beyond

By Tom Ogren

A number of us have been raised in this nation and, to some existent, in the churches that this nation has fostered. Each church has its story to tell that we have traditionally come to accept in the stories handed down as we listened. Much of the knowledge that we have accepted concerning this nation of churches is, for the most part, presumptuous; meaning, we know some of what constitutes the truth, but a lot of what we have acquired to be reliable history of our church has been preempted by what is considered more acceptable version of what's considered to be true of the church. When this happens in the church, it also spills over in the knowledge of what formed our nation. The Bible is a precise biography of God's church and its history, giving each of us a view of God's church and those that desired to be a part of that church by faith and those that sought it on their own terms. The examples are many, as we read through these pages that spell out to us the sad ending of those that thought that their way was something that God should accept, seeming sufficient in the eyes of each beholder. In the reading of God's Word are examples of faithfulness along with what some considered faith but was lacking in one meaningful way, love to God as their creator while manifesting love to man. This was missing. Something that each of us in our fallen state easily loses sight of. This we do naturally, but what comes naturally to us is not the kingdom that Jesus came to establish when coming to this earth and His church. The short essays that are contained in these pages are to broaden our knowledge of Bible content, while it portrays the life story of those that struggled in one way or another to be, by faith, recipients of that Spirit that reflects the love that Jesus submitted to while selflessly going to the cross. Leaving us His example of what true love will do for those they love, in the name of Jesus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781647019099

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Taste and See

Many of us were raised in families where the concept of hell and purgatory was openly spoken of and was something our children had questions about. This subject is most likely something that gets asked in all homes no matter the religion or the lack thereof. It’s a topic of discussion, depending on the age and workings of particular minds, where children and older ones alike have a hard time understanding what seems to be the reality of thought with most in our world and many churches. If truth be told, like the incident that compelled a young man to take his life because of nonstop persuasions that came from one of his peers, similarly, there are churches pushing the Hell button, getting the youth and older alike to conjure up suicidal tendencies. Same thing with purgatory. Purgatory is the figment of dark age theology and is one of those teachings that the church doesn’t want to let go of because it fits so well with the subject of a burning hell, which is mentioned in the Bible as something that has some validity. If we take the Bible as a whole, here a little and there a little (Isa. 28:10), something that most churches recognize as essential and something the Bible tells us we must do, then we can come away from this subject with better understanding and, most of all, ease of mind. Collectively, as revealed in the Bible, hell seems to be a place that we go to. Jesus, our example, experienced hell/death and now enjoys the presence of His Father.

Jesus experienced hell in more ways than one, as He suffered on the cross as a man and also as being fully God, separated from His Father, not knowing if His sacrifice would be sufficient for the sins of all humanity. Also not knowing if He would ever be reunited with the perfect love He had experienced with His Father. In our life experience, we may have gotten a whiff of what this separation was like. Our love, not being perfect, is as filthy rags (Isa. 64:6); we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as something that could be described in its best light as tainted with self. But in our formed relationships through marriage and family, and even very close friendships, our Creator is allowing us to taste what love and its separation feel like in our heart, which has been created to love, love that originates in the heavens.

Our Father in heaven relates to us with some similar words we communicate with our intimate partner. O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsittings and mine uprising, thou undestandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or wither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me…I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well…How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them (Ps. 1–10, 14, 17). If we had not the preconceived idea in connection to what has been taught to us in what hell must be, we would come away from reading these verses thinking that the one that spoke these words to us that come from the Bible would have our best interest and was our closest friend and lover. Here is the good news: our Creator is inviting us intimately to learn of that love, by tasting as to taste and see that the Lord is good (Ps. 34:8). There is no denying that the Bible has some very descriptive terminology in using the word that we have very frequently ejected off the tip of our tongue, giving this word a life of its own. Each one of us, at one time or another, may have given life to this word, but that life God did not create. Man and his imagination have taken this word, and the life of its own spread like wildfire. The source of that fire was a spirit-filled system of worship, but with these worshippers there was no testing and trying the spirits to see whether they are from God (1 John 4:1).

Literally Spiritual

In the book of Joel, there are verses that give an account as to what to expect in the days leading up to the return of our Lord. And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call (Joel 2:28–32). These verses paint a picture of destruction leading to the time of Christ’s return. As we in our day experience more frequent forest devastation from fire, we have seen how the sun’s rays are easily blocked by the dense smoke during the day and the moon turning a tainted color at night.

Consider New England’s experience on May 19, 1780, through this poem:

Let us adore, and bow before,

The sovereign Lord of might;

Who turns away the shining day,

Into the shades of night.

All nature stands, when He commands,

Or changes in its course;

His mighty hand rules sea and land,

He is the Lord of Host.

Nineteenth of May, a gloomy day,

When darkness veil’d the sky;

The sun’s decline may be a sign,

Some great event is nigh.

Let us remark, how black and dark,

Was the ensuing night;

And for a time the moon decline,

And did not give her light.

This entire lengthy poem can be found by searching May 19, 1780. Joel 3:14–15 also speaks to what the writer of this poem and those that went through this event were thinking. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall withdraw their shining. Similar to what Joel 2:32 reveals, this time Joel 3:16 says, The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of His people, and the strength of the children of Israel. These words were spoken and/or put to print hundreds of years before the destruction of Jerusalem, in the year AD 70. Neither Jerusalem nor the temple on the mount proved to be a place of deliverance for those that considered themselves God’s people. Jesus spoke of this time when He said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children (Luke 23:28). What Jesus was saying to those that witnessed His crucifixion was that their unfaithful children were going to perish in the destruction of Jerusalem in not heeding the warning signs (Luke 21:20) that Jesus had given. Today, a similar deception is being listened to and entertained as truth. Millions of Christians have been raised in the faith hearing the often-repeated words of Zechariah 14:4, not recognizing their spiritual condition or deciphering literal Israel from spiritual Israel:

And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.

This verse speaks to what is to take place and prophesied to happen. But the question is, Does this verse speak of the second coming of Jesus, or will this take place following the thousand years after His second coming? Here, Jesus is preparing to pass judgment on all that take part in the second resurrection (Rev. 20:1–15). At the time of Jesus and His sacrifice, Israel was God’s church. True to His character, God suffered long for the church of His choosing and the people of His pasture. In AD 70, God’s presence completely withdrew from the city and the church Jesus wept over (John 11:35), leaving the city wide-open to the final destruction that followed. From that time on, there was literal Israel and spiritual Israel, placing each one of us, including Israelis if faithful, of that group counted in the remnant whom the Lord shall call. Literal Israel and the prominence of her has no more standing in the sight of God, where spiritual Israel now stands in the fulness of His promise.

Closeness in Suffering

The contrast between King Saul and King David is vast, and yet they are similar in the struggles that played out in their reign as divinely chosen kings of Israel. God’s abiding presence was with both of them, and yet one experience turned out far different from the other. What was it that caused David to take the path of submission after committing sin (2 Sam. 12:1–14) in contrast to King Saul’s repeated opportunity to do the same when confronted with his sin of disobedience? Saul’s spiritual disobedience might have been overlooked and not possibly questioned by those of his administration, but not Samuel. The faithfulness of Samuel in speaking to God’s vicegerent in times of unfaithfulness brought clearer understanding to this king’s heart, and it was unwelcome. (For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God [Rom. 3:23].) It is true; we are all sinners, and David’s sin was right up there with the chief of sinners. The word that came to him as it had come to King Saul through the faithfulness of God’s servants brought submission, as David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, the Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die (2 Sam. 12:13). From this time on, even though David acknowledged his sin, his life was one of sorrow for what played out in the life of his offspring and of his wife’s. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised Me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah…Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine house (2 Sam. 12:10, 11).

His sin would follow him for the rest of his life, but he understood and accepted that his sin was forgiven. David was not discouraged in his Lord, as the child that Uriah’s wife bare David…was very sick (v. 15). David therefore besought God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the earth. And the elders of his house arose, and went to him, to raise him up from the earth: but he would not, neither did he eat bread with them. And it came to pass on the seventh day, that the child died. And the servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead: for they said, behold, while the child was yet alive, we spake unto him, and he would not hearken unto our voice: how will he then vex himself, if we tell him that the child is dead? But when David saw that his servants whispered, David perceived that the child was dead: therefore David said unto his servants, is the child dead? And they said, he is dead. Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Lord, and worshipped; then he came to his own house; and when required, they set bread before him, and he did eat. Then said the servants unto him, what thing is this that thou done? Thou didst fast and weep for the child, while it was alive; but when the child was dead, thou didst rise and eat. And he said, while the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live. But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. (To finish this story out) And David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay with her: and she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon; and the Lord loved him (vv. 16–24). Our Father in heaven and the God of David could have intervened in this child’s life and healed him, and David understood this and was hopeful, but God did not.

This was the beginning of sorrows for David, where God did not alter or change or work in any way to change the outcome in his children’s life choices. David’s example after losing one that was loved is not how we deal with loss as we lose loved ones in death. Here David was also showing a submission to the Word as variably as it had been spoken to him by Nathan the prophet. This is something that is hard for all of us to understand, but it is true, and we can see a glimpse of it as we read these verses in this story.

David was experiencing a closeness with his Creator that up till now he had not had in all his time spent conversing with God while in his youth tending to his father’s sheep. David’s sorrow for what he had done that got him to where he was, was deep and heartfelt, bringing him to a closer relation to the One that forgives and forgets.

Socialism: Good, Bad, or Otherwise

And at that time shall Michael stand up, the Great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book (Dan. 12:1). This verse has a lot in it. It is speaking of Jesus as He is the One that has gone all in for the redemption of His people, and now He, in this verse, stands for the children of those who accepted the call into His love.

Jesus voluntarily laid down His life and arose, that He might be the One that would stand between the sentence pronounced in the garden of Eden to the parents of our origin. The sentence was eternal death, never to live again, never to have any form of future existence in any manner, totally and forever gone, mind, soul, and body. This would have been our nonexistence; none of us would have ever known what had taken place when God brought life to this planet the Bible calls Earth. The wicked, the ones that would like to forget God, like referring to this planet as their Mother Earth. The God of our creation has, in His Word, told us what to call this planet that we have grown to love, and for the past six thousand years, the name is still somewhat intact. Not so much with the marriage arrangement of male and female, which comes to us as a living heritage from our Creator, showing what union He desires each of us to experience in Him in the reading of His Word. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 6:23). In the Old Testament, the examples are many in how the God of creation dealt with the wicked inside the church and the wicked of the world. These revelations of history, brought to us not by the will of man but by the will of God, are showing us in a most loving way that the One that created us knows how to put an end to sin and sinners. If we are paying attention, we will notice that the church and those outside the church are involved in something that is to make it appear that a compassionate God would not destroy and bring to naught His creation as recorded in the Word, as in the antediluvian flood.

The church and the world are at work in perfect harmony; this is not something that’s understood in most churches because of a developed mind-set. But through the Bible, the examples are there for us to place our minds around so that we may recognize the replaying of history inside and outside the church. The mind that the church would like us to slip on is the thinking that the wicked are those that have rejected God’s message of love to them. Strange as it may be, the Bible teaches that if they will be faithful attendees on the appointed day of worship and still be in rebellion to the law of love, then forever they are also considered of that camp that makes up the wicked (1 Sam. 15:20–23). The sentiments of love, void of the law spoken inside the church and outside through marketing and business, are meant to put a pretty halo over everything man touches, regardless of sin. And there will come a day where Michael will stand up and say, He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still (Rev. 22:11).

Another mind-set that is being offered to those in the pew is the promise of the rapture. This term describes a time when the faithful will be taken out of this world while the remaining get to continue their nine-to-five occupations, in hopes that they will make better choices that will place them in a much better position to be saved after the thousand-year theory. There are verses in the Bible that can get us to where this does seem to be the case, and there are verses that suggest that if this is something that we want to hang our pipe dream on, we will be disappointed. The pipe dream in AD 70 was to stay in Jerusalem and God would save us from the surrounding armies. The end was total annihilation (Mic. 3:12).

Our nation, by supplying us with all that we socially need, is trying its best to prolong a time of trouble. Trouble we don’t like, but it is God’s way of preparing us. Socialism stands in the way of preparing a people.

Questioning the Love in Discipline

When we remember Paul Harvey’s news and comment programs when we listened to him over the radio, a comment that might have caught our attention during his long career might be this: Self-government won’t work without self-discipline. As many of us know, this country, these United States of America, is in the midst of an experiment that has brought freedom to the masses, where the governing body comes from any individual voted within its citizenry. Many of us that have been raised in the free United States are not totally aware of the ways people are governed in various countries throughout the world, or of the conflicts fought covering the global surface of this planet that got us our USA where it is today. We have no concept of lives lost to a cause that those fighters of freedom experienced but very little, never totally