“Blind Pharisee! First cleanse the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of them may be clean also” (Matthew 23:26).
We received the following unsubscribe request from a professor of Christ who believes that all will be reconciled in Him, as do we:
Victor,
I would like to see where I agreed to be on your mailing list please. I never asked for your emails and to be honest with you I will not read anyone’s material if all they can speak about is how everyone else is wrong.
Remove me from your list please.
Victor’s reply:
Scott, how people in darkness contradict themselves! That is why they follow false teachers and worship false gods. If you don’t like hearing how everyone “else” is wrong, then you have no use for the Bible, because much of the Bible focuses on the very fact that everybody is wrong, and that all mankind needs a savior, namely, the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is what Paul had to say about your letter:
“I would ask this fellow if he reads the Bible, which is God’s record of how everyone is wrong. It would help if he believed what he red. Since he does not, God needs to send someone to tell him, as do these others.
And by the way, did God need to get his permission to bring him into this life? Did God need his agreement to give him the legacy of Adam? Did God ask first before dying for his sin, or sending the apostles to proclaim reconciliation with Him by His blood? Just who is Scott Carpenter anyway, that God needs to check with him first before doing anything?“
According to your request, we will unsubscribe you.
Contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3), and convincing the ungodly of all their ungodly speeches which they have ungodly spoken against God, as Enoch prophesied (Jude 14,15),
Victor
Scott’s response:
Thank you Paul & Victor.
As I stated, I never requested to be on your mailing list. You have looked for ministers who you disagree with in doctrine and you have targeted them with your message.
If you preach Christ as the saviour of all men, but especially to those who believe then go in peace. I will not argue with you. I believe in Christ alone as salvation. In fact He is my salvation. My life is in His hands. In the future I would hope that you first remove the beam from your eye before you attempt to remove the splinter from someone else’s eye. Your knowledge might help others were you to uplift and edify instead of beat down.
May you be blessed,
Scott
Victor’s reply:
Scott, your letter is riddled with misconceptions and false accusations. Such has nothing whatsoever to do with the Lord Jesus Christ, The Truth, in Whom you profess to place your faith. You don’t like to hear this, but bear with me.
First of all, we have not searched out ministers with whom we disagree in doctrine. God has brought us to them and them to us.
Secondly, doctrine, as you know it, is not the primary issue to us. You make foolish and ignorant allegations.
Thirdly, we have not “targeted” any, as though we were after them personally or that we had some kind of “axe to grind.”
Four, we are indeed preaching Christ as the Savior of all men, and we do go in peace, and you do not perceive that we preach such, and you cannot understand therefore that we ought to go in peace. Yet, you make that “if” and bid us go in peace. Which is it going to be?
Five, believe that we preach Christ, and stop arguing. Don’t just claim you will not argue. Your problem is that you do not see the need to empty the glass of filth, and wash it, before it can be refilled with Living Water. The old must be done away to make room for the new. That is all a part of preaching Christ as the Savior of all mankind. You have not discerned the filth, because you are still deceived by, and partaker of it, hence our need for speaking, for those who will receive it.
Six, you write: “In the future I would hope that you first remove the beam from your eye before you attempt to remove the splinter from someone else’s eye.” How can we be preaching Christ and go in peace, as you bid, if we have a beam in our eye? Never mind the future, Scott. The beam’s removal from our eye is in the past, and continues to be a present reality. He has done that in us, being our Savior, and now He, as Lord, commissions us to remove splinters and beams from the eyes of others by confronting them on their errors and telling them their sins. That is what removing splinters of others is all about. Didn’t you know? What else did you think it was?
Seven, removing beams and splinters from others’ eyes is what you unrighteously, foolishly call “beating down.” If telling people their sins, of which they must repent to make straight the paths of the Lord, is “beating down,” then we are definitely guilty, unrepentantly, unapologetically so. What are you doing, Scott? Kissing people into the Kingdom? Show me one passage in Scripture where it says that one “loves” people into the Kingdom and I will show you ten, or more, wherein it says people need to repent, and be told to repent, in order to enter into fellowship with God. In all these things, you greatly err. You are in darkness and are found to be striving against God. And you say Jesus Christ is your salvation? He is your only hope for it, we agree; but to say He is your salvation is stretching it, because until now, He has not been your present, experiential salvation, as He is with us. To that end we preach. How long will you stubbornly take your proud and ignorant way?
Those who are unjust, let them be unjust still; those that are filthy, filthy still, those that are righteous, righteous still, and those that are holy, holy still.
We are blessed, as you bless us, even now, and preach to the end that all will be blessed. Why do you think they killed the prophets?
Victor
Paul’s reply:
Scott, firstly, you lie. Secondly, you call us, who tell you the truth, liars. How then can you say that Christ is your salvation, as though this is accomplished in you? There are no liars in the City of God. A liar believes in himself, not God. That is the essence of lying. It is putting confidence in man’s sight and valuation of matters, spiritual or otherwise. Thus far we cannot help you with any specks in your eye because you refuse to remove the beam that is there, which we have pointed out to you, by the grace of God, Who is our Light.
One of your lies is that we have looked for those who disagree with us in doctrine. If you paid any attention at all to how you got on our list, you would have known that we preach the reconciliation of all things through Christ, as do those on the list that included your name. But we look for neither those who agree nor those who disagree, but those to whom the Father sends us. He is the One doing the targeting. But you do not believe on Him, or that He has sent us.
As with all those who identify themselves by doctrines, you have confidence in your knowledge, not in God. You say our knowledge might help others. If you were speaking of our knowledge of God you would be right, and you would have received help from us yourself. But you talk of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and not the fruit of the Tree of Life. You have rejected our knowledge of Him, though you might have confidence in our knowledge of doctrine. Do you not see that your trust is misplaced?! No, you do not. That is why we are sent to preach to you, and why you have conflict with our preaching. You are in death, as God promised you would be from eating of the Tree of Knowledge, and choose to be so, naturally persecuting those that are alive in Him, the children of God who eat from the Tree of Life.
And what did you expect with the advent of the Kingdom of God? John the Baptist, introducing the Messiah and Lord to His people, said this:
“As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare you the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; And all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3:4-6).
Did you think that the leveling of mountains was “uplifting”? You do not see or know that you sit there as a mountain in your own confidence and knowledge, thinking you have and are something you neither possess nor are. You are not saved, nor do you have the knowledge of the Most High God.
John went on to say more, which surely comes as an offense to your Pharisaical ears:
“Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father; for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire” (Luke 3:7-9).
Before you can be lifted up, Scott, you must be brought down. We are in good company in this work of God, and He will prosper us in what must be done, by His will and foreordained promise by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.
Thankful to be part of His great host, contending for the faith of the fathers,