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In Exodus 20:6, you will see that God gave us a principle that our conscience would normally and readily recognize as true. This verse tells us how to be saved eternally with God. It simply says God's mercy is given to those who love God and obey His commandments.
However, we are deliberately taught by Pauline teachers that this principle on mercy / grace is false. We suffer a modern constant Pauline drubbing upon the claim that we "shall be saved" by "holding in memory" a belief in three facts about Jesus, citing 1 Cor. 15:1-4.
What are these three facts which Paul says by believing them alone we will be saved eternally?
Paul says you must simply believe Jesus died for your sins, he was buried, and then rose from the dead, and you "shall" be saved. No other conditions. This is a mercy with supposedly no requirement either to love God or obey His commandments. Paul is at total odds with Exodus 20:6.
On top of this, we are brainwashed to reject Exodus 20:6 if we ever read it. This conditioning is done by scaremongering.
We are told that "adding" anything else to the supposed faith-alone gospel of 1 Cor. 15:1-4 will cause our damnation. Thus, not only is it supposedly wrong to think repenting and turning to obey God to obtain His mercy for your sins is necessary, but also you are told that merely believing it is true and then attempting to fulfill this condition of obeying God will sever you from Christ. Again, this is based upon Paul's teachings, particularly in Galatians 5, as discussed below.
Hence, we are now almost universally taught that obeying God with such a mental expectation of mercy from God will cause your damnation -- the very opposite of what God promised you in Exodus 20:6 for such mental attitude and behavior.
For Paul tells us that obeying God for salvation will "sever" a Christian from Christ. Such an effort to obey God's principles to be right with God will supposedly cause a curse, Paul says, to fall upon you that will send a Christian believer to hell. And Paul adds that Christ will profit a Christian nothing, and you will fall from grace, by taking the path of obeying God, including obeying the sabbath day of rest, if you have the mental belief that this is a means of staying justified in God's eyes. See Gal. 1:6-12; Gal. 2:14-16 (cursed if not continue in all points of law); Gal. 3:9-12; Gal. 5:4 NASB (severed from Christ); Gal. 5:2 KJV (Christ "profit you nothing").
The icing on top to cement this startling view is the Pauline villification of God's principle in Exodus 20:6 as unnecessarily exposing us to the risk of boasting. Paul again is cited for this ridiculous proposition. See Eph. 2:8-9.
When these out-of-context verses are combined with pastors flattering us falsely every week that we can be assured salvation for faith-alone (no obedience / works necessary), we end up ensnared by the pleasure trap of Paulinism. It will take a lot of spiritual studies to escape its snare. Hopefully, this article will help you begin to restore your spiritual-recognition that Exodus 20:6 is true. And it is something Jesus teaches and refers to many times, especially in Matthew 19.
Here is Exodus 20:6 -- God clearly stating His grounds for mercy to obtain salvation -- a verse right inside His delivering the Ten Commandments — sandwiched right between the first and second commandments:
"[I extend] mercy to those who love me and obey my commandments." (Exodus 20:6 NKJV.)
This has both a loving and conditional aspect. The loving aspect is a promise of mercy and the conditional aspect is that we must turn to love God and obey His commandments.
What is the opposite message we hear today? God has supposedly made a way that there is no love and obedience condition to have a right to God's mercy, but instead we must simply keep only in memory just three facts about Jesus. We thereby supposedly become saved forever. Thus, when we sin again, we allegedly need only remind ourselves about these three factual-beliefs to restore our joy of salvation. As Paul puts it in 1 Cor. 15:1-4:
Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;
2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.
3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: (1 Cor. 15:1-4 KJV.)
Please note that Paul cites himself as his only authority -- it is a gospel "I preached to you." For this significant erasure of Exodus 20:6 -- part of the Ten Commandments, Paul does not cite God nor Jesus nor the Bible for this supposed new truth. Paul just directly does away with both elements -- as if neither need ever be mentioned again -- on his exclusive authority to say so by his own preaching.
Instead of what Exodus 20:6 requires, Paul clearly teaches elsewhere that faith alone saves. For you are "saved by faith, not works, lest any man should boast." (Eph. 2:8-9.) So "keep in memory" -- as Paul clearly says in 1 Cor. 15:2 -- just the facts that Jesus "died for your sins," was buried, and "rose the third day" and you supposedly "are saved."
Such an attractive principle — if you latch onto it — necessarily drives from your mind any necessity to obey or love God as a condition to receive his mercy. In fact, Paul says such a belief -- ordained in Exodus 20:6 in the Ten Commandments no less -- necessarily leads to the sin of boasting. Hence, Paul warns you will become damned necessarily if you believe works of obedience form any condition of God's mercy -- His grace. You will always supposedly fall into boasting, and hence a lost condition.
Paul goes even farther than just this. Paul emphasizes that you are cursed, and severed from Christ, and Christ will profit you nothing if you try to obey God's law as a condition of salvation. Yet as we review Paul's contentions next, please remember Paul's principles are at total odds with Exodus 20:6.
In Galatians, Paul bemoans Galatian Christians who wish to keep sabbath as provided in the Ten Commandments -- a command specifically applicable to all Gentiles in community with Israel. See Deut. 5:12-15 ("sojourner within thy gates"); Lev. 25:6 ("sojourner settling with thee"); Exo 23:12 (sojourner).
Paul then says "anathema" -- cursed -- are those who wish to be just / justified by keeping such parts of the Law, i.e., sabbath, etc. For otherwise, Paul argues, they will have to keep "all" of the Law, and not selected parts. (Gal. 1:6-12; Gal. 2:14-16 (cursed if not continue in all points of law); Gal. 3:9-12 (under a curse, misquoting Deuteronomy, as explained at this link), Gal. 3:21.
This is especially ironic because Paul says this in part to dissuade Sabbath observance among Gentiles when Paul claims Gentiles are the focus of Paul's ministries. However, Paul appears unaware of the following Bible promise for his target audience's entry into a new covenant:
The promise in Isaiah 56 of salvation to Gentiles ("my salvation is about to come", 56:1) through God's suffering servant (whom was obviously Jesus) was predicated on two things: "keep the Sabbath from profaning it and keep his hand from doing evil." (Isaiah 56:2) or "who keep My Sabbaths, and choose things that please Me, and take hold of my covenant." (Isaiah 56:4,6).
Paul's so-called 'gospel' thereby eviscerated one of the key conditions of salvation for Gentiles -- a weekly-time out from work -- despite Paul claiming he had the correct path of salvation for them. Oh what man cannot be led to believe!
In the same vein, Paul says to the Galatian Christians about those who obeyed God as Christians to stay in God's grace: "You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by Law; you have fallen from grace." (Gal. 5:4 NASB.)
So Paul acknowledges he is talking about true Christians. They are severed from Christ by obeying Sabbath rest as a condition of salvation as expressed by God in Exodus 20:6. Thus Paul teaches you are saved by faith alone, but become damned by obeying one of God’s commands in the Ten Commandments if motivated to satisfy the requirement in Exodus 20:6 — part of the Ten Commandments too. Paul is talking about the Sabbath command in context -- a command that was specifically extended in the Law to Gentiles aka foreigners / sojourners.
And again on the parallel topic of circumcision (which the Law necessitated a Gentile have done only if they wished to enter the Temple at Jerusalem or participate in passover), Paul says: "Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all." (Gal. 5:2 NIV.) Or as the KJV says, "Christ will profit you nothing." (Gal. 5:2 KJV.)
Thus, even a Christian who wanted to be circumcised solely to enter the temple to avoid being damned by defiling the Temple's holiness standard, would actually lose their salvation for such clear sin-avoidance. Hence, Paul warned a Christian would be eternally separated from Christ by that act of obedience to an optional command that the Law said a Gentile must follow if they wanted to enter the temple and pray.
Paul's statement is clearly a ludicrous principle -- you are supposedly damned for obeying a principle the Law said you must obey so as not to be damned. How ridiculous!
Yet, your Pauline pastors teach these lessons from Paul as if they make good sense.
What is their core reasoning? Supposedly, by avoiding obedience to God's law as of any conditional importance, you avoid the risk of 'boasting.' They cite correctly Ephesians 2:8-9 which indeed implies this. But Paul's saying it is so does not make it so. Paul has no quote of Jesus or authority of some inspired vision for this patently absurd view.
So why does this nonsense get swallowed without objection by almost everyone in the pew every Sunday? What's the attraction holding our minds to this silly doctrine?
Let's admit it -- Paul's message is overwhelmingly great news ....
I get everything for nothing.
I only have to accept three facts of history as true.
But this represents the pleasure trap of Paulinism.
Why?
Because Paulinism uses Paul’s words to instill a belief that restored obedience as a condition of mercy (forgiveness of sin) is a frightful requirement, leading us invariably to the sin of pride ("boast"-ing). Based upon Paul, I can then justify doing nothing for God toward obedience or love. Instead, I can supposedly insist God must grant me mercy based upon my simply keeping in “memory” these three fact-beliefs which Paul specified. I can then, Paul tells me, enjoy the notion that God has to let me into heaven because I believe just these three facts of history about Jesus.
What does Jude -- second Bishop of the Church and brother of Jesus -- say about this idea? Jude talks of a doctrine of grace devoid of the second of the two principles we saw in Exodus 20:6 -- "obey my commandments" -- as a condition of God's mercy.
Jude equates this view with a teaching by a "wolf in sheep's" clothing who Jude says penetrated Christianity with a lawless doctrine that twists God's "grace" into "licentiousness.” This unnamed Christ-professing figure, Jude 1:11 says, shares the lessons of Balaam -- a figure alive in the time of Moses.
What was Balaam's doctrine?
Let’s look for an answer where Jesus in Revelation references Balaam in the context of talking about a false apostle. Jesus speaks of an unnamed false apostle, and then next condemned the doctrine of a new Balaam in Rev. 2:14 who says he prophetically can declare Christians are permitted to eat meat sacrificed to idols.
Who can Jesus be talking about?
Could it be Paul?
Absolutely.
For Paul unquestionably taught Christians are free to eat meat sacrificed to idols, only restraining from doing so around a brother with a "weaker" conscience who thinks it is wrong. By you with a "stronger conscience" -- knowing it is not wrong -- eating such idol meat in their presence, you may encourage the "weaker" Christian -- the one who Paul says erroneously thinks it wrong to eat such meat -- to do something he thinks is wrong. But otherwise, you have the "stronger" conscience, and know it is perfectly acceptable to eat meat sacrificed to idols outside the presence of such "weak" minds. Paul insists your freedom to eat such meat should not be otherwise constrained by another's "weak" conscience who needlessly fears that eating such meat is wrong. See 1 Cor. 10:28-29 and 1 Cor. 8:4-12. See Paul's Cavalier Attitude About Eating Idol Meat at a Pagan Temple (apparently post-service free hand-outs). See also Response to Critic About Paul's Idol Meat Passages.
George Reber, a Paul defender, in The Christ of Paul (1876) is shocked at Jude for likewise calling this obvious NT figure a new Balaam. Reber derisively said of Jude: "The Epistle of Jude is nothing but a bolt hurled at the head of Paul."
If you want to see how Jude's proofs about an unnamed "wolf in sheep's clothing" obviously were meant for Paul and his principles, see para. # 18 at this link. [Link to Come]
The ultimate "pleasure trap" -- which I will explain later what that means -- is to define the true doctrine of salvation -- God's mercy -- so that believing in the truth of Exodus 20:6 is depicted as spiritually dangerous. Accepting the truth of Exodus 20:6 will supposedly cause you to fall into pride. Into boasting. This sin will then supposedly cause loss of salvation. You can then justify to God that you will never try to be obedient for salvation-sake ever again because such desire will supposedly always backfire and cause the very thing you want to avoid. You can now allegedly tell God that you will only obey Him when you feel some need to get a reward in heaven.
How pleasing that is in our own sight.
It is an unbelievably attractive gospel that creates a dopamine-like effect of pure pleasure. It drives out the voice of John the Baptist, Jesus and Yahweh who give contrary warnings. Each preached to us that works worthy of repentance were an essential component of God's grace -- His mercy. See Works Worthy of Repentance.
A neuroscientist Tali Sharon in a Ted talk discussed studies that show people will negate a warning and accept a more optimistic projection over the warning even if the optimistic “truth” is untrue. See this You Tube at the six minute mark:
Thus flattery combined with wishful thinking -- a pleasing “truth” -- attracts us like the porch light that attracts moths who mistake it for the light of the moon to which they are designed to fly toward. Our carnal-mind naturally seeks to be optimistic about our salvation. We gravitate toward pleasing messages that flatter us and have no cautions about what true path to take. We are thus susceptible to pleasure traps on what is the path to salvation. What are such traps? Such snares?
A pleasure trap is anything artificially created to appear like God’s true design which is so juiced to boost attractiveness unrealistically that true warnings are ignored. For example, as Dr. Lisle explains in his Ted Talk --
-- one pleasure trap is where the brain turns off natural warnings / signals, and responds to eat unnaturally processed oily salty and sugary foods solely because of unrealistic and processed taste concentrations which our ancestors never experienced.
This too is the power of modern Paulinism. It is like the unrealistic sweet or salty junk foods we eat regularly. It is also like the unrealistic cocaine high that you cannot give up. We will self-destructively pursue recklessly the next fix of potato chips or the snort, ignoring our pangs to obey our conscience despite our declining physical health.
How is this done spiritually using Paul’s words?
Paulinism stringsverses together from primarily only Paul week after week at church, for a powerful effect. Paul’s words, had they instead been read along with Jesus' words being given equal or greater weight, would never have been able to persuade. On top of this repetitive narrow focus on Paul, Pauline teachers juice Paul's authority by the simple uncorroborated power-claim that Paul enjoys the label “apostle." This label is incessantly ascribed to Paul without any proof other than Paul’s self-serving claim. See link.
And this is how God’s truth of salvation — His expectation we love God and obey His commandments for forgiveness of sin — an unassailable truth from the Ten Commandments themselves — now revulses us. We are so satiated by sweet words of optimism that faith alone saves that the true Word of God seems like a tasteless and unsatisfying dish of unseasoned vegetables. Our pastors have fed us the equivalent of exciting Frito Lay potato chips or Hostess cupcakes. We just cannot get enough of flattery reassuring us weekly that we are saved by belief in three historical facts about Jesus: he died for our sins, was buried, and rose from the dead. We hear the echo incessantly of 1 Corinthians 15:1-4. It is part of the Nicene Creed of the 300s that we typically are asked by our pastors to affirm as true.
Thereby, Paulinism points us directly at a path of self-destruction like the moth is drawn to the unnaturally bright light at night of a porch light. Paulinism presents an artificial pleasure trap that hooks into our natural attraction to be saved upon physical death but sadly we are not following truth. Instead, we follow some artificially and exagerrated powerful misleading message. In other words, a Pleasure Trap.
What should we do in response? Our goal must be to break free, see the truth of the ungodly Pleasure Trap, and head back to the true light of God’s and Jesus’ unassailable words.
Interestingly, here Paulinists are so enamored with faith-alone for salvation that they recklessly encourage a misidentification of Paul’s self-contradictatory statements. Paul contrarily utters obedience-conditions for salvation stated in the same 1 Corinthians epistle. He also does so three times elsewhere. Paul thus a total of four times gives Christians warnings that they will not “inherit the kingdom” if they commit various sins. Paul primarily cited examples from the Ten Commandments. Paul expressed frustration that the churches he seeded understood something different from something he said. See 1 Cor. 6:9, Ephesian 5:5-7, Galatians 5:19-21, and 1 Thessalonians 4:6-8. See also full discussion at this link.
Yet, the Pauline preachers of today tell their followers that Paul means in these four 'you will not inherit the kingdom' passages that Paul only had in mind a loss of rewards. They supposedly know this is true because we know elsewhere such as from 1 Cor. 15:1-4 that Paul promises salvation for only keeping certain factual beliefs in “memory.” They read that passage to mean that no misconduct on our part can erase such salvation. They insist Paul's warning Christians elsewhere that they won't “inherit the kingdom” for sins specified in the Law means we are only at risk of losing a reward in heaven. We supposedly never can be barred from entry as it would violate Paul's promise that we will be saved by mere belief in three historical facts about Jesus' life: he died for sin, was buried, and rose from the dead. Somehow not "inheriting the kingdom" supposedly means you are still there but lack joy during your eternal life.
These pastors equally ignore Paul's words in Romans 2:13 KJV that only the "doers of the Law are justified" but not those who "hear" alone.
What else can that mean other than that those who believe alone but do not do the Law's requirements are not justified?
But this brings to mind the 2005 tragedy of
as it ascended from 10,000 to 18,000 feet after departing Cyprus while heading for Athens. The 737 gave the pilots a sound warning of an in-flight problem which sounded similar to a ground configuration warning that only sounds when on the ground. The pilots did not recognize it was an inflight-warning sound about pressurization of the cabin which will become deadly as they ascend if not addressed.
The pilots spoke via radio with the ground mechanic. It was learned later that this mechanic had mistakenly forgot to set the pressurization switch back to "auto" when he was done. Via radio, he asked the pilots questions designed to alert the pilots to the true problem -- asking about the status of the auto-manual setting on the pressurization switch. However, the pilots repeatedly brushed aside his questions.
The main pilot pressed for an answer how to throw a circuit breaker to take offline the "erroneous" warning sound. The pilots even ignored the fact that the oxygen masks had dropped for the passengers, triggered automatically by a change in pressure in their cabin. The plane's passengers thus knew there was danger. They trusted the pilots, however, were paying attention. But the pilots were not paying attention to how the passengers were doing. The passenger's confidence was misplaced, and soon enough the pilots themselves would lose consciousness, dooming all onboard. When that happened, the plane simply flew in one direction until the plane ran out of fuel, and crashed into the side of a mountain. The pilots needed to heed the mechanic's questions (which implied a warning) in time to save the passengers and themselves.
The pilots' fault was they remained resistant to listen to questions from the ground mechanic who tried to alert them to check the pressurization status. Thus, when the ground mechanic point blank asked the pilot: "Can you confirm the pressurization is set to AUTO?," the pilot ignored him, responding: "Where are my equipment cooling circuit breakers?" referring to wanting to know where was the location of the breakers to stop the warning signals.
Thus, the pilots did nothing right, ignoring the mechanic three-times pursuing the same issue. The pilots instead insisted the mechanic respond to their question on how to simply disrupt warning sounds to turn them off.
However, had the pilots listened to the lowly ground mechanic - the one responsible for the error in the first place, and followed his questions, they would have learned that the auto pressurization was mistakenly turned to "off." All they needed to do is flip the switch from "manual" to “auto.” Instead, the pilots were “ignoring the question,” fixated instead on finding the breakers to turn off what they thought was the sound of a ground misconfiguration warning that should only sound while on the ground.
See this for youselves in this re-enactment at the 7:00 to 7:57 mark of this video:
Let's give meaning to the death of all those people by treating this as a parable to teach us that we must pray self-styled pastors wake up, sound the warning, and flip the switch to Jesus from Paulinism. We need to reject skewed string-cites from Paul, refusing any longer to ignore Paul's four inheritance warnings given to believers to fly right or not make it to heaven.
Thus, in our present state, we have oxygen masks of Bible verses from Jesus to alert us. However, no pilot is telling us how to use them. We are doomed by our pastors' ridiculous misreading Paul’s four inheritance warnings as not applicable to get us to grab the oxygen masks and have a true chance at spiritual survival.
So why did Helios flight 522 eventually crash, killing all crew and passengers?
A single mechanic on the ground checked the pressurization of a door, and to do that he turned the pressurization system from auto to manual. He forgot to reset it back to auto. So as the plane ascended above 10,000 feet, all the pilots ever had to do was flip a single switch from manual to auto to live.
On three separate occasions the main pilot ignored instructions to take care of this. He didn’t think that was the problem. He thought the problem was there was a mistake, and that the warning sound was for a ground configuration issue which he knew was impossible in flight. He just wanted to turn off the sound. He didn’t want to address the truth of what the real warning was even when more reliable sources on the ground were telling the pilot what to do. The pilot did not want to even listen to the person who was most intimately involved in creating the mistake himself: the ground mechanic who should have set the pressurization back to "auto."
This is like the behavior of our modern pastors today. Paul is like the ground mechanic who made the mistake. Paul is "difficult to understand," Peter says in 2 Peter 3:15-18, so no wonder Paul made a mistake in stating things absolutely with no conditions in Ephesians 2:8-9, and in 1st Corinthians 15:1-4.
Even when the four inheritance warning passages are cited as telling Christians that violating various commandments will cause us not to "inherit the kingdom of God," our pastors just know better. Paul supposedly cannot mean what this says. Our pastors contend Paul must have meant we lose rewards only. Our pastors tune out not only Paul but also anyone who says otherwise. We are supposedly ignorant lowly lay persons who are just disturbing our pastors' focus upon getting people saved on faith alone oxygen. The four-inheritance warnings of Paul and we lay-persons are snidely disregarded with impunity by our pastors.
Thus, our pastors remain unaware that faith-alone oxygen will evaporate as their congregants try to reach for the heavens. It is insufficient to get us to the higher altitude above 18,000 feet in this real-world parable and thus into heaven. We lack the protective pressurization that Exodus 20:6 provides -- the path of loving God and obeying His commandments for salvation -- an unmistakable warning post because it is right inside the Ten Commandments.
No pastor, and none of us, can ever say we never saw it there. We will have to confess instead that we just ignored words in the most read portion of the Bible: the Ten Commandments.
So our pilot-pastors presently refuse to take Paul’s own warnings seriously that obedience is crucial to go to heaven. Instead, they ignore even Paul's warnings. Thus, they fail to get themselves and their passengers to safety. We’re all being led to destruction for the failure of just one flip of a switch — from Paul — with his confusing, poorly articulated words — back to Jesus – our true auto pilot. And thus we never hear Jesus' answer in Matthew 19 bluntly on how to be saved when Jesus quotes Exodus 20:6 as the answer. See link.
Let's therefore make the effort to insist all of us -- pastors and their passengers -- get back on track before it is too late.
END
Please note the absurdity of Ephesians 2:8-9 -- we are "saved by faith, lest any man should boast." There are two absurdities in this.
First, in light of Exodus 20:6, Paul presents boasting as if the risk of that sin necessitates God eliminating Exodus 20:6 going forward. For Paul presents the consequences of boasting as far more egregious than the consequences of disobeying any or all of the other laws of God. Paul thereby implies that we should never further try to avoid blasphemy or idol worship or adultery, etc., to remain saved. It is more important to avoid boasting, and to that end, we must accept God no longer has a condition of "loving me" and "obeying my commandments" in Exodus 20:6 so as to remove the risk of boasting.
The second absurdity is that in this path, by the same principle against boasting, Paul should equally imply that rewards cannot be sought as well based upon loving and obeying God. For obviously such good works for rewards equally or more so pose a risk of boasting too. For now you justifiably can think you are "entitled" to rewards without any condition too. Any condition of obedience for rewards equally can lead to boasting. For rewards for obedience alone does not lessen the risk of boasting.
At least I don't see any thing materially different as to the moral risk of boasting if obedience solely determines rewards. For whether salvation or rewards is the goal, if you do good works to achieve either, you always have the risk of boasting either way.
Hence, if Paul's principle were true, both salvation and rewards with God must necessarily both be by "faith, not works, lest any man should boast." Thus, to be consistent, Paul must mean you enjoy complete abundant fellowship with God, with every reward possible, and not merely obtain salvation, just by believing Jesus died for your sins,was buried, and rose from the dead (1 Cor. 15:1-4.)
Hence, Paul is apparently saying in Ephesians 2:8-9 'stop trying to repent from sin, obeying God, loving God, or otherwise in every case, whether for rewards or salvation, you will be tempted to boast’ — a supposedly horrifying sin that should negate your concern ever again to try to avoid any other sin. The upside is you allegedly get everything — salvation and rewards just for belief, for otherwise God would be guilty of tempting you to sin (Paul implies). Thus, you are apparently entitled in either case to salvation and rewards by faith alone, lest any one should boast.
However, that is silly — rewards should not be given for faith alone in theee facts — Jesus died for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead. What great feat worthy of rewards does holding such three historical facts about Jesus in memory represent?
Thus, Ephesians 2:8-9 — when you stop and think about it — is pure nonsense. This is why 2 Peter 2:15-18 calls Paul's words "sometimes DYSNOETAS" - literally destructive of good sense; nonsense, etc. See Second Peter. [Link to Come]