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Post by Les on Jun 10, 2023 15:57:20 GMT
Various shops have now done away with tills, and you are required to use a QR code to enter a shop. Various stores such as Tesco, Aldi, Asda etc are now using this system and many other stores will follow.
Check out this....
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Post by foxjj on Jun 10, 2023 22:54:51 GMT
Times sure have changed Les.
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Post by Les on Jun 10, 2023 23:35:42 GMT
Times sure have changed Les. When I was watching this, It reminded me of something that I heard about in the near future, the possibility of QR codes being tattooed onto people's hand or wrists for buying and selling. Now that is sounding something from the the book of Revelation. The mark of the beast perhaps?
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Post by foxjj on Jun 11, 2023 7:07:03 GMT
No I do not think so Les. It’s just business progress that we also have over here. Businesses see another way of reducing their overheads by their customers serving themselves which reduces the number of employees. Once more larger profits for big companies..
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Post by randy on Jul 21, 2023 5:46:40 GMT
Various shops have now done away with tills, and you are required to use a QR code to enter a shop. Various stores such as Tesco, Aldi, Asda etc are now using this system and many other stores will follow.
The real danger is not technology so much as the fact it is in the hands of a rising majority of people who have signed onto the New Morality. Here in the US we have Culture Wars in which the Political Left has been working with the Media and Big Tech to promote a pagan lifestyle. Our public schools have long been humanistic, but now the Left is encouraging a kind of promiscuity in the schools I've never seen before, and at very early ages. I'm not at all surprised a whole generation has grown up thinking in terms of the New Morality, and not in terms of Christian truth.
When technology is in the hands of ungodly leaders, I do think it's time to be on guard. Technology is being used as a tool of propaganda, and ultimately, it can be used to persecute those who hold to the Christian point of view. But in itself, technology is often a useful tool.
The Tower of Babel, in the Bible, may seem to be a harmless thing, promoting world unity as it did. However, its evil lay in the fact the world united around its own values, instead of the values God assigned to mankind. The kind of "Group Think" evolving in the West presently is hardly Christian and in fact encourages anything, as long as it is not dogmatic and resistant to libertinism.
This is the danger of world unity, the consolidation of thought that views Christianity as a threat to its permissiveness. Technology then can be used to turn minds, through propaganda, against Christian beliefs.
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Post by foxjj on Jul 21, 2023 7:30:47 GMT
Genuine Biblical Christianity will never be popular in our broken world Randy. This spiritual fact is becoming more obvious day by day. We may be in the world, however as born again believers, we are not of the world.
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Post by randy on Jul 21, 2023 16:00:41 GMT
Genuine Biblical Christianity will never be popular in our broken world Randy. This spiritual fact is becoming more obvious day by day. We may be in the world, however as born again believers, we are not of the world. That's true, and we need to accept that. However, reading the Bible we read of the heartbreak the Prophets suffered as they watched the gradual decline in their nation, Israel. The country was given righteous standards, and it seems that for a time righteousness reigned in the nation. But over time there is this gradual dwindling of spiritual interest, in fact a disinterest in paying the price to retain this spirituality.
I do believe we need to fight for righteousness up to a point, because we are responsible to God and country to speak the truth and to try to win as many as possible. But where we are being turned off, there is not much more that we can do but shake the dust off our feet and try to find places where there is real interest.
I must say that after spending some time in the South, in Mississippi and Alabama, there is a real difference from place to place. There, in the South, people are so friendly, so respectful--very different from where I live, here in the Pacific NW.
There is a temptation for me to move to the "Bible Belt," where people seem so much more open to the Gospel. Down there, for the 4th of July, I attended a church associated with a small town and out in the country, and we had a turn out of 2700 people! It was filled with Christian music and celebration of our nation's history!
But here, where I live, I attend a little church out in the country that seems half dead. You can't pay people to attend, it seems. Maybe 50 people on a given Sunday.
There are areas where there is still some excitement over the Gospel, however. And at times we are inclined to go there.
But there is another part of me that always wants to stick with the flickering wick, the broken reed. I don't want the weaker churches to die out. I think it takes wisdom to know where to go to be fruitful in ministry and where to go to stay fresh and stay well.
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Post by foxjj on Jul 21, 2023 21:39:55 GMT
That would have been a wonderful and uplifting 4th. of July experience Randy. A lukewarm Church is most disheartening indeed. How we wish for everyone to experience the spiritual life changing power of The Holy Spirit.
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Post by randy on Jul 21, 2023 23:07:16 GMT
That would have been a wonderful and uplifting 4th. of July experience Randy. A lukewarm Church is most disheartening indeed. How we wish for everyone to experience the spiritual life changing power of The Holy Spirit. Your church sounds like it would be a good one for us--I believe you're a pastor? Yes, the "spiritual life changing power of the Holy Spirit" is the only thing we're interested in. No pastor is always on top of his game. However, the church we're going to has matters that may be a little more serious.
We love some of the congregants. The pastor seems to have an ego problem of the worst kind. He is a very short person, but that is not the problem. The problem is that he appears to have a Napoleonic Complex. He was kind enough to meet with me when he 1st became pastor of our church. I was probably the only one who didn't really want to vote for him, but everybody else wanted him. So I threw in my lot for him too.
I asked to meet with him because I explained that I'm not 100% on board with Assemblies of God theology, though we agree on what I believe are the essentials. He was fine with that but told me that his parents had groomed him for political office, and possibly the governorship, prior to his choosing to be a minister. He felt he gave that up for the ministry. lol!
Then we had Bible Studies before COVID hit, and he was discussing the Feasts of Israel. When I volunteered my knowledge that the 3rd Feast, which he called Tabernacles, was also called the Harvest Feast, the 3rd in the agricultural year, he openly opposed me. I felt a little set back, but privately, I later sent him an email showing him the Scriptures that validated my claims. Later, when he saw me in church, and I asked him what he thought of my email, he said, "Randy, I think you're beginning to get it," as if he was teaching me the truth, and not vice versa.
So I don't know what to say. He's a true brother, and at times he preaches a good sermon. But most often he puts me to sleep.
When I recently went South to Alabama and Mississippi, I sat in on a country church with my friends, and man--I heard true preaching, the Word of God. It truly spoke to my heart. So what am I to do? I tend to try to be faithful to brothers, no matter what their problem. If I divorce myself from this pastor, then I'm divorcing myself from all of my friends there. But I suppose I have to make hard choices?
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Post by foxjj on Jul 22, 2023 7:02:12 GMT
Thanks for sharing Randy. My pastoring days were a few years ago now. Mind you I am happy to say that The Lord still uses me in ministry. To my understanding a pastor should have an attitude which draws people to Jesus and encourages the people in his church to have a closed walk with The Lord. Attending a church that one is not getting fed spiritually is not a growing experience. When we move to another church in which we are comfortable with the teaching and therefore grow spiritually dose not have to mean we say goodbye to our friends. I have found that genuine friendship continues no matter which church we attend.
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Post by randy on Jul 25, 2023 0:31:04 GMT
A quick note: I went to church last Sunday with the idea it may be our last time there. However, I informed my wife that I was not yet absolutely determined to leave, and wanted to leave the door open for the Lord to speak with me on it. The church was somewhat discouraged, perhaps, because a board member had left for Tennessee, as another family earlier had left for Tennessee. And we left for about a month and a half, as well. A number of people in the church were having health issues, etc. Maybe the pastor was just having a tough time?
I walked into church last Sunday, and was greeted in unusual fashion. A board member walked up to me and offered me as many zucchini as I wanted. Others appeared happy to see us. The pastor delivered a really good, spiritual sermon. And all of the "signs" looked good. After church we were invited to join a few others, including a board member, to a restaurant.
So we'll likely stay in this church, as long as God wants us to be there. Times are indeed tough for Christians. But this just means we have to get tougher?
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