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| PentecostalTheology.com
As we approach the time of the end, it would be prudent for all Christians to examine themselves to ensure that they are in the faith. As in the parable of the ten virgins, we must ensure that we are fully awake and our lamps are trimmed so that we are ready for Christ’s return.
We do not need mystical knowledge to know that we are approaching a time when humanity is about to exhaust the patience of God. Instead of relying on the supernatural, it may be possible to learn this with greater certainty using the scientific method.
In Psychology, we make observations about human behavior, gather evidence to support our observations, form a theory of what we are observing, then publish our findings so that our colleagues can either build upon our theories or discredit them.
It is not all that difficult to determine that there is a strong relationship between two significant variables:
Variable 1: We are in the midst of ‘a’ great falling away from the faith.
Variable 2: We are fast approaching the 2000th year of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
In regard to variable 1, there is more than sufficient evidence that the faith of the people of this country is weak or nonexistent. In my previous articles, I have recorded my observations of the visible church and have shown that our most popular churches refuse to preach the Gospel. We also know that their congregations are perfectly happy with this arrangement. These people seem to be ashamed of the Gospel, and this is how we know that we are in a period of ‘falling away.’
What we do not know for certain is if this is ‘the’ great falling away that was prophesized by scripture. However, there is certainly a correlation between these two variables that requires further examination.
The purpose of this theory is to help explain the horrors that we are experiencing at this point in history.
What we are witnessing is unprecedented, at least in the last 2,000 years, and requires further exploration. As we patiently wait for Christ’s return, we can work towards the creation of a tool that will help us to identify those who have not yet received the gift of faith.
This will not only help us to gauge where we are at in God’s timeline but help us identify those who desperately need to hear the Gospel.
It is clear from Scripture that many who call themselves Christians in the end times will have no faith at all. This sort of self-delusion will be rampant among those in the Laodicean church as they will have a form of godliness but deny the power of the Gospel. Although they have very high self-esteem, they are actually wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked.
In the field of Psychology, there is a tool that is designed to examine one’s personality traits and psychopathology to determine if any mental disorders exist. This tool is called the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and is considered to be over 70% effective in detecting ‘dysfunctional’ thinking. The test consists of over 567 true-false questions (MMPI-2) and is considered a valid and reliable tool that organizations can use to evaluate the personalities of their candidates. This instrument can be used by employers to help determine if their applicants are fit for employment.
So how can we use this knowledge to assist the Laodiceans in this modern day to help them determine if they are in the faith? Can we come up with an evaluative tool that will help us establish if these people are fit for the kingdom of heaven?
The first step we need to take is to begin to develop a test that will assist deluded Christians in taking the initiative to examine themselves. First, we will need a set of questions that we can use to easily evaluate whether or not someone is firmly established in the faith and that God has granted them repentance.
We will call our new assessment instrument the Kansas Multiphasic Reprobate Identifier (KMRI).
Each of the following questions should be answered true-false-not sure.
1. Aborting unborn children for the convenience of sexually irresponsible people (a.k.a. fornicators) should be celebrated as an act of courage.
2. The LGBT is an important civil rights group that works for the good of humanity and has no interest whatsoever in preying on our children.
3. Learning words such as cisgender and intersectionality advance our knowledge of human sexuality and should never be considered as useless as learning Klingon.
4. Common people who have children, are seeking a better life for themselves, and are opposed to living in a mud hut are poor citizens who hate the planet.
5. If you are a white person and you complain about the constant attacks on your ethnicity, you are suffering from white fragility.
6. Since cow flatulence is such a terrible threat to the planet, the moral thing for the majority of people to do is to eat bugs instead of beef.
7. Abortion is a reasonable form of health care provided to the mother to alleviate the disease of pregnancy, especially if the child is healthy.
8. The message of the church that is of first importance is that God loves them.
9. A person’s gender is determined by their feelings rather than genetics.
10. Under no circumstances should unbelievers be called to repent and be forgiven in the name of Jesus because the proclaimer is just being self-righteous (and is probably a member of the Westboro Baptist ‘Church’).
11. Donald Trump was a corrupt fascist who was being legally resisted by saintly and patriotic bureaucrats in the federal government.
12. White supremacy is a great threat to humanity.
13. Tearing a fetus from the mother’s womb is a completely natural and healthful act.
14. The Christian walk requires that we find our purpose so we can have our best lives now.
15. Accusing people of racism due to their skin color is the best way to improve interpersonal relations and make a country great.
16. The 2020 election was the most legitimate election in American history, and to state otherwise means you are an insurrectionist who needs to be investigated by the FBI (You can question ad nauseum any election that a Republican wins, however).
17. Our strength is in our diversity, not our faith.
18. The World Economic Forum (WEF) and the wealthy billionaires who fund it care deeply for humanity and are in no way driven by greed and lust for power.
19. Dr. Fauci is science.
20. Medically altering a child’s sexuality so that he/she will never be able to procreate and ultimately loses his/her sexuality is a great way to improve someone’s mental health.
21. Removing all references to God from a certain political party’s platform does not mean that the members of that party will become futile in their thinking, and they will certainly never make really bad public policy decisions (so Christians should have no qualms about voting for them).
22. The purpose of the press has always been to do the bidding of globalists, billionaires, and their minions who want to take away the freedom of the weak and who may even have genocidal inclinations.
23. Adding the term ‘social’ to the term ‘justice’ helps society to truly understand how to achieve justice since God’s law is completely inadequate for this purpose.
24. Preaching a different Gospel than the one Paul preached shows incredible creativity and initiative which is greatly valued by God.
25. There are more than two sexes. (We do not know exactly how many sexes there are. We must patiently wait until the left tells us how many there are, and then, after they ruin enough of the lives of those who disagree and the rest of society capitulates, we will finally have a scientific analysis of exactly how many sexes there are).
The guiding theory behind this tool is that the best way to examine our faith is to ascertain if we have the ability to:
- Distinguish truth from falsehood.
- Distinguish right from wrong.
If you answered ‘true’ to any of these questions, there is cause for alarm regarding your faith. It means you are having difficulty distinguishing between truth and falsehood and right from wrong. For instance, let us take a person who claims to be a mathematician with all the proper academic credentials. If we ask him what 2 + 2 equals, and he responds 47, then we can rightly assume he is a fraud.
The same principle can be followed when examining those who call themselves Christians. When the Christian is confronted with moral questions that should be easily answered correctly but fails to do so, then his faith is brought into question. If he cannot properly evaluate really bad doctrine, ideology or behavior, this is a red flag that this person is not obeying the Gospel of Christ. Even if he can answer rock-solid theological questions correctly, there still exists the possibility that his faith does not match his intellect.
Anyone can answer theological questions, but we must carefully examine any Christian who cannot distinguish right from wrong or truth from falsehood.
Therefore, regarding scoring, the proper answer to each question is ‘false.’ The number of questions that are answered ‘true’ gives us a good indication of a person’s spiritual condition. The more questions that are answered ‘true,’ the weaker that person’s faith.
The following can serve as a guide for the Christian to use in scoring the results of their test:
- Three or fewer true answers: You are easily deluded and need to increase your faith.
- Six or fewer true answers: You are an evildoer and are dead in your sins. Repent now and receive the gift of faith in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.
- Seven or more true answers: You are demonic and a son of the devil. You are likely lost for eternity.
Those who repeatedly choose the ‘not sure’ option are lacking in the wisdom that should have come with their faith. They are double-minded and unstable in all their ways. The number of ‘not sure’ options that are chosen should give us a strong statistical calculation of one’s spiritual instability.
This test has not been put through the scientific rigors that are necessary to ensure that it is a valid and reliable examination of one’s faith. However, if we repeatedly ask simple math questions of our imaginary mathematician mentioned above, and he makes even three errors, we can then assume he is not a mathematician.
We are now on the road to developing a peer-reviewed, valid test of whether someone is truly in the faith.
We could continue to add more questions until we reach that coveted 567 number achieved by the MMPI. That will almost certainly ensure that our results will be at least 70% accurate.
For our purposes, however, that might just be overkill.
gospelist.net
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