We won't mention his name, he's a religious man, yet he reads this blog, go figure.
He'll know we are writing about him and a conversation we had about dying spiritually.
We don't want to target him personally, so we'll keep his identity out of this.
This man said he was troubled about our spiritual welfare because we are straying from God with all this Pagan stuff.
He actually brought out his pocket Bible and quoted Jeremiah 7:28.
“But thou shalt say unto them, this is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.”
He warned that a person never suddenly dies spiritually, it's a slow death, by allowing truth to perish.
He had notes, his Bible and he was ready to baptize us as told us the 5 things that cause spiritual destruction. Apparently our destruction.
Number 1. Having no conscience leads to spiritual decay, suggesting we don't have a conscience.
The next sin we are apparently committing is not having real conviction, and not having a conscience always leads to not having conviction. He actually said that he's tried to share scripture with us and we are never receptive to the scriptures and this will lead to spiritual death.
And then there was the third problem, not responding, also leads to spiritual decay. It is sad that God sent the words of truth, “But they (we) hearkened not…” In other words we weren't harkening enough while reading the scriptures to us.
Next, we don't have rules and boundaries, Pagans just do what they want.
Pagans can use excuses to justify worldly ways, but that doesn't change the truth of Scripture. It's time to start repenting. Without these boundaries we will walk down the road to spiritual decay.
Fifth, no direction leads to spiritual destruction.
When our direction is worldly instead of Godly, looking to the world for your direction, we will wither away.
We are paraphrasing here, but he finished up his sermon with:
"I'm afraid the truth is perishing in your lives my friends."
"Don't let truth perish, keep God as your focus, and repent."
"He reveals your sin through the Scriptures or preaching"
We thanked him for sharing his view on us, but we've heard all this before and frankly it's not convincing or spiritually moving.
No hard feelings, but he folded his tent and left.
After a few days of thinking this over, there's a little more we would like to say.
We don't care what people believe, we have no desire to attack his religion or his God, but since he took target practice at Pagans, we wanted to respond, the nicest way we know how.
Firstly, people are leaving religion in big numbers because they feel their God has failed them.
Nearly a quarter of Americans say they no longer affiliate with a faith tradition. It's the highest share ever recorded in surveys, indicating the stigma for not being religious has eased - even in heavily evangelical areas. Americans who say they have no ties to organized religion, dubbed "nones," now make up about 23 percent of the population, just behind evangelicals, who comprise about 25 percent, according to the Pew Research Center.
Christians who have been only nominally tied to a conservative church are steadily dropping out altogether.
People are looking for truth and this explains why religion is failing and Paganism is growing.
All those assurances and yet churches are still losing believers because this God lacks clarity, a lot of smoke and mirrors with no real answers.
At least Pagans believe in something that we can see, touch and gives us our very substance.
It has been said that there are those who are skeptical, who have not yet learned to open their awareness to all that is possible.
The skeptics of Paganism have their own myths and beliefs to help them in their lives and while it is not our place to mock their faith, we will respond if they scoff disrespectfully at ours.
Hence, one must first believe, before one will really believe. Some are born believing or raised to believe. For others, belief must be learned or developed, as preconceptions and close-minded thoughts are left behind one-by-one.
The truth is there, it's all around us. All one has to do, is pay attention.
