15. I should have Picked up a Knife.

The Need to Rightly Divide the Political Truth.

My head is in a whizz at the moment. Right-wing media are congratulating Reform's rise to power in the local elections, while its leader, Nigel Farage, gloats over our Labour Prime Minister's decline in national trust and popularity.

Our present PM, Keir Starmer, after winning power in 2024, made commitments to cut the State Pension and top up benefits for in-work and low-paid workers, along with cuts to disability benefits. All that was to fill in the "massive budget hole" left by the preceding Tory Government. Immediately, his national support and popularity plummeted, and he never recovered. So serious was his fall that his own party had to persuade him to U-turn on these matters.  

And so he did. Then, at present, came the by-elections, and the electorate gladly chose Farage's Reform Party members to chair local council administration across England. What would be his main manifesto, should he win the next general election? To deport all those illegal immigrants who have taken over our hotels. This included restarting the Rwanda scheme and making Britain great again. 

However, what our media has kept very quiet about is that when Farage attended Dulwich College as a teenage student, he was a racist bully who held disdain for any student who was non-Caucasian, that is, black or brown-skinned. Dulwich College was not a comprehensive school. It was a posh public school, attended by boys whose parents could afford the extortionate fees. It was very much like Eton, Harrow, or Winchester.

Furthermore, what our media is not saying is that the ambitions of Reform, should it ever gain national power, are to privatise the National Health Service from the taxpayer-funded free-at-the-point-of-use to the American-style billing system, where private insurance companies are set to make massive profits from the ill and infirm. Like Starmer originally, he too wants to tighten pensions and benefits. At the same time, follow Liz Truss' agenda of lowering taxes for the rich and removing workers' rights. This also includes doing away with holiday pay and other workers' benefits, hard-earned over the decades, so employers and businesses could maximise their profits without the need to declare them for appropriate taxation.

Nigel Farage.

Two different political parties, both with similar policies. One was criticised by the media, the other was kept hidden from the electorate. Yet, both declared themselves to be friends of the working employee, the one who gets his hands dirty in his struggle to house and feed his family.

Failure to rightly divide the political truth. Instead, only one side is presented, the side that appeals to the electorate. Their manifesto to deport illegal immigrants and return Britain as a home for the white indigenous is well presented. But within their agenda is to pander to the rich and the wealthy, to the billionaires who own big corporations, at the expense of the common working family, the unemployed, and the disabled. Therefore, every voter should rightly divide Reform's political agenda before voting them into power.

Dulwich College, London.

Dividing Biblical Truth.

So I ask, where is the similarity between rightly dividing the political truth and rightly dividing the Word of Truth as instructed by the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 2:15?

In my testimony, I have already described what this dividing, or a lack of it, has affected my life after conversion. At the time of conversion, I was told that I was a sinner and had fallen short of the glory of God. As a result, I was to face judgment and be eternally condemned. But the Son of God, Jesus Christ, came to die for my sins, was buried, and on the third day, he rose from the dead, and by believing this, I received eternal life. That is the Gospel. A glorious Gospel! Thus, if the Atonement made by Christ on the cross took away all my sins and imputed his righteousness into me, then it follows that I could never be lost or condemned again. In short, once saved, always saved (OSAS). This is wonderful news.

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However, it wasn't long before I was challenged by Arminians. These Christians are followers of Jacob Arminius, a 16th-century Dutch theologian who disputed the doctrine of free grace and insisted that salvation must be kept by works of faithfulness, or the believer ends up lost again.

This false doctrine of forfeitable salvation robbed me of assurance, and with it, the peace of God. And so I lived in this spiritual state for nearly five decades! Only yesterday, on Facebook, there was a post advocating once saved, always saved. In the comments forum beneath the poster were many responses from unhappy deniers who insisted that salvation is forfeitable. As a result, they did not rightly divide the Word of Truth. Three main Bible verses were quoted to support their assertion. They were Hebrews 6:4-6, Matthew 24:13, and James 2:20. Those verses deeply troubled me in the past, before I learned to rightly divide the Word of Truth. That is cutting straight, like a knife cutting through a cake. This was when I should have picked up the knife.

The death of Christ took away all my sins.

Failure to rightly divide the Word of Truth leads to contradictions and confusion. It also robs the believer of peace and assurance. Therefore, as this comes under my testimony, I will show what these verses are and what I had to go through.

Hebrews 6:4-6. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost. And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them unto repentance; seeing that they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

This passage of Scripture is the most quoted. It was thrown to my face, even angrily, when I said that I believed in OSAS. Yet, there are three possible interpretations:

1. That it says what the Arminian says. If a believer decides not to believe any more, then he loses his salvation, his heart becomes hardened, and it will be impossible to bring him back to his faith. I saw that this presents a problem. It contradicts John 10:28, which says that he (Jesus) gives eternal life to his sheep, and they will never perish. If the believer cannot perish, a fact further endorsed by Paul in Romans 8:38-39, it can only mean that he is kept by God, and not by the believer's own faithfulness.

2. The second interpretation is the one I held for a long time. The title of the letter is "To the Hebrews"; that is, the whole book was written to Jewish believers rather than the present Gentile Body of Christ. Many were true believers and forever saved. But among the assembly were interested Jewish enquirers. Just by being among true believers, they too were made partakers of the Holy Spirit and gained knowledge and experience. But instead of trusting the Gospel, they decided to return to the Temple and continued to seek their own righteousness by offering sacrifices. Their rejection of Jesus as their Messiah became absolute.

3. There is a third interpretation I have recently learned. All here referred are true believers. However, some of them decided to return to the Temple and offer sacrifices. Yet, they remained saved, although they will lose their rewards at the Judgment Seat of Christ. As believers, they remain kept by God. Losing their salvation was an impossibility, as this would have meant Jesus being crucified all over again. To me, this is a valid interpretation and worthy of consideration in the light of eternal security.

Another verse thrown at us was Matthew 24:13, which reads, But he that endures to the end, the same shall be saved.

This was spoken during his Olivet Discourse, describing the last days immediately before his second coming. It will be a time of the Great Tribulation, including the Temptation. The coming Antichrist will issue an order to the whole world. Accept his mark or starve to death. In those days, no one will be able to buy or sell unless he has this mark. Only the faithful who refuse to accept the Mark of the Beast and either starve to death, are imprisoned, or executed are saved. Here is where rightly dividing the Word of Truth kicks in, as I had recently learned. The Tribulation saints are not the present Body of Christ. If they are still alive after the Tribulation, then they will inherit an earthly Messianic Kingdom.

3. Then the third quote, James 2:20, Faith without works is dead.

I have heard this repeated like a mantra when OSAS is preached:

Faith without works is dead.

Faith without works is dead.

Faith without works is dead.

Saving faith for salvation is invisible to mankind. Only God can see it. But for someone to see whether the referred person has faith, he can only see it through his works. If I see a good, generous person, I may wonder whether he is a Christian. But if I encounter a churchgoer who is selfish, inconsiderate, and even short-tempered, I would doubt his Christian profession. His faith would be dead to me even if still genuine before God.

To sum up, an evangelist or preacher may present the saving grace of the Gospel of Christ, and this would bring peace and joy to the new believer. But at this stage, he wouldn't know how to rightly divide the Word of Truth. The evangelist will most likely preach on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ to a group of enquiring unbelievers, but because of his unbelief in OSAS, he would withhold any thought that salvation is forfeitable, and each Christian believer must keep the Law of Moses to remain saved. He knows that wouldn't go down very well, at least for the time being.

Exactly like Nigel Farage and his Reform Party. He is keen on deporting immigrants, but silent on privatising the NHS.

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Next Week, should I consider writing fiction to emphasise Biblical truths?