[RnMomof7]

God has used the World Trade Centers to get our attention..how will it change our lives?

[RnMomof7]

What say YE? Written by the author of the Prayer of Jabez...does he speak to the Church? Does he speak to us?

[RnMomof7]

bump..for a holy discussion

[RnMomof7]

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[DouglasKC]

A good post...a little long, but good.

Hopefully current events unfolding will cause people to repent. I'm afraid it's going to get much worse though.

[RnMomof7]

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[concerned about politics]

I said "God didn't put his hand out to stop the planes", and "it was a message". I got "crucified" for saying it by other posters.
I've read the following:
"Just believe. Accept Christ, and you'll be saved."
many times on the liberal websites. They think anything goes, and they'll be forgivin for just being them.
Sometimes, many times, people ignore the "change", or the "repent" part because they don't want to hear it.

[RnMomof7]

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[RnMomof7]

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[RnMomof7]

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[farmer18th]

You rarely hear the word mentioned in most churches today — even in Baptist, Pentecostal or evangelical circles. Pastors nowadays seldom call for their congregations to sorrow over sin — to mourn and grieve over wounding Christ by their wickedness.

Stop! We are hurting from the WTC attack and we need to unite at all costs! We need to pull together. Speak smooth things! Tickle our ears, will ya?

[Southflanknorthpawsis]

You might find interest in this related THREAD

[RnMomof7]

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[Romulus]

Bump for a Eucharist that consists of both Body and Blood.

[LiteKeeper]

You might want to check your biographies. David Wilkerson is not the author of the "Prayer of Jabez." That is Bruce Wilkinson. David Wilkerson is a pastor in New York City whose writings in the past have been somewhat suspect...not always, but sometimes.

Bruce is involved with the Walk Through the Bible group.

[.30Carbine]

I have a much keener sense of the vileness of my own heart now than when I first came to Christ...

Yes, this is true of me, too.

[.30Carbine]

Dear saint, Jesus is that tree! He's telling us, "If you'll repent, I'll give you constant life from my very being. And as long as you continue to love me, I will provide a flow of supernatural life in you. This life will be revealed in your discernment, your love for people, your good works for my kingdom!"

This is the trait that distinguishes every Christian who's truly in love with Jesus. Such a believer is full of life — and everyone around him knows it!

Oh, that this would be true of us! May it be so!

[George W. Bush]

I checked out Wilkerson's web site. He has a lot of sermons posted there. I thought his sermon The Last Days of America was one you might want to post sometime. Although written in 1989, I think it's actually more applicable today than it was then. For those of you who see the WTC/Pentagon tragedies as a warning from God, I'll reproduce the most relevant portion here:

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This country is headed the way of all fallen empires. The time that God warned us about in His Word has come - the "dread release," when even the prayers of godly saints no longer avail. God said, "When the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it... and will cut off man and beast from it: though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God" (Ezekiel 14:13-14).

God never yet has destroyed a society or nation without ample warning. "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7). God warned Abraham of the sudden destruction about to fall on Sodom: "And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do" (Genesis 18:17). He warned Noah, too, that He soon would destroy mankind with a flood: "Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear" (Hebrews 11:7).

God warned Samuel of the downfall of Eli's ministry and of the destruction of Shiloh, "And the Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of everyone that heareth it shall tingle" (1 Samuel 3:11).

Jeremiah prophesied judgment upon Israel because "the Lord hath given me knowledge of it, and I know it: then thou showedst me their doings" (Jeremiah 11:18). God also revealed to Daniel what was to come: "Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision:" (Daniel 2:19).

In every age God has communicated His warnings to the people in different ways. He spoke with Moses face-to-face, to Joshua through an angel and to the Old Testament prophets in visions and dreams. And today God is speaking again - loud and clear.

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Moses listed in Deuteronomy 28 all the signs of the curse. We need to be reminded of these dreadful signs which shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments" (Deuteronomy 28:15). I'll list just 12 of the fearful curses here:

1. A curse upon our cities: "Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field" (Deuteronomy 28:16). American cities are doomed. Our own magazines have declared them to be Western "Beiruts" or war zones. Crack is tearing them apart. New York City is becoming unlivable. A murder occurs every five hours, a crime every 20 seconds. Our cities are headed for anarchy, and there is no turning back. Now it's spreading even to our smallest towns.
2. A curse upon our economy: "Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store" (Dueteronomy 28:17). This refers to gross national product, banking and reserves. A curse will fall upon it all, bringing confusion, fear and uncertainty. "I (will break) the staff of your bread" (see Leviticus 26:26) - meaning widespread unemployment.
3. A curse upon our futures market: "Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine (cattle), and the flocks of thy sheep" (Dueteronomy 28:18). This curse will fall on our crops and cattle.
4. A curse upon our foreign negotiations: This curse will bring shame and embarrassment. "Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do... because of the wickedness of thy doings" (Dueteronomy 28:19-20). U.S. foreign policy today is in complete disarray! Our negotiators come home confused - upstaged by Russia, upstaged in China. We appear befuddled before the whole world.
5. Plagues of incurable illnesses: "The Lord shall make the pestilence (sickness) cleave unto thee... with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation" (Deuteronomy 28:21,22). "The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt... and with the scab... where of thou canst not be healed. The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment (panic) of heart (Deuteronomy 28:27,28). "The Lord shall smite thee... with a sore botch (boil) that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head" (Deuteronomy 28:35). The mark of AIDS is the purple blotch - the incurable boil.
6. Dust bowls and areas of drought: "The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee" (Deuteronomy 28:24). This is God's doing. All of it is sent from heaven!
7. Insignificant enemies will put our armies to chase: "The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before them... And thy carcass shall be meat unto all fowls of the air" (Deuteronomy 28:25,26). Think of the stalemate in Korea. Or our troops fleeing from Vietnam and being chased out of Lebanon. Or tiny Panama holding a gun to our head.
8. An epidemic of divorce: An epidemic of broken homes has erupted. "Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shalt lie with her: thou shalt build a house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof: (Deuteronomy 28:30).
9. A wave of bankruptcies: "Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes... thine ass shall be violently taken away from before thy face, and shall be given unto thine enemies, and thou shalt have none to rescue them" (Deuteronomy 28:31). This describes the ancient Oriental custom of the creditor taking everything from the debtor for restitution. It warns of the wave of bankruptcies that will come upon this cursed nation.
10. The loss of an entire generation of youth: "Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them" (Deuteronomy 28:32). Today a nation of adults, supplied with all money and might, can merely stand by and watch in horror as drugs and violence swallow up an entire population of youth. This Scripture is a prophetic warning about the despair that falls upon parents in a nation under the curse. "Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity" (Deuteronomy 28:41).
11. The prosperity of other nations at our expense: "The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low" (Deuteronomy 28:43). Hosea describes the blindness of people under this curse: "Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not: (Hosea 7:9). Whatever the crop, whatever the fruit, "The strangers shall swallow it up" (Hosea 8:7).
12. You will become a debtor nation rather than a lender: "He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail" (Deuteronomy 28:44). In the last five years we have become the world's biggest debtor nation. At this moment we are now the tail - and Japan is the head. We can't even bail out our own bankrupt savings and loan institutions. Consider the $150 billion that's needed to save our banking system - and then tell me America is not under the curse! We are now experiencing the full fury of it!

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Clearly, Wilkerson's former application of scripture did not work out as he thought. But we should ask to what extent these scriptural warnings in the Old Testament do apply to us today.

[Jerry_M]

"I don't agree with all of the Puritan writers' doctrine, but I love their emphasis on holiness."

Sorry, but you really can't have one without the other. One can only engage in "holy living" when one is born of the supernatural sovereign grace of God that the Puritans held as the core of their doctrine. Only when there is a total focus on the work of God in salvation (driving men to their knees in repentance) is there true holiness.

Men will repent before the face of Almighty God. The problem is that they worship a god of their own imagination rather than the sovereign ruler of the universe.

[aruanan]

No -- this man doesn't know his Greek! The full, literal meaning of the word "repent" in the New Testament is "to feel remorse and self-reproach for one's sins against God; to be contrite, sorry; to want to change direction." The difference in meanings here rests on the word "Want." True repentance includes a desire to change!

Moreover, simply being sorry doesn't constitute repentance. Rather, true sorrow leads to repentance. Paul states, "Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death" (2 Corinthians 7:10).

I like David Wilkerson, but his analysis isn't exactly the most rigorous. For instance, in the passage above, he defines "repentence" and then in support quotes a verse that shows his earlier definition to be unworkable. To demonstrate this, we simply plug in his definition in place of "repentence":

"Godly sorrow worketh a feeling of sorrow and self-reproach and contrition and a desire to change direction to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death".

Sorrow worketh sorrow. Feelings, whoa, whoa, whoa, feelings... And that's the problem. People tend to substitute feelings and intentions ("a desire to change", New Years resolutions) and talk (Clinton's claiming to have kept campaign promises because they had talked about them after getting into office) for action.

No, the earlier definition of "changing direction" is the better one. The man did know his Greek. Repentence involves an actual change of direction, of behavior, not a "desire to change direction". It's a change of behavior that comes as a result of sorrow over one's sins. This is what Paul was talking about in the verse above about godly sorrow versus sorrow of the world: godly sorrow results in a change of direction, a qualitatively change in behavior. Worldly sorrow is feeling bad but not changing one's behavior. As Paul described a specific instance of repentence with respect to one sin in Ephesians 4:28: "He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need." The worldly sorrow version of this would be, "He who has been stealing must desire to steal no longer, but must intend to work, planning to do something useful with his own hands, that he may have something he can really, really want to share with those in need."

Jesus gave another example of the difference between intention and action and the effect it had on salvation in Matthew 21:29-32.

"There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, `Son, go and work today in the vineyard.' "`I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. "Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, `I will, sir,' but he did not go. "Which of the two did what his father wanted?" "The first," they answered. Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him."

[shatcher]

Last night my husband read Jude to me. Is this not what this thread is talking about?

Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort [you] that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

Jud 1:4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jud 1:5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.

Jud 1:6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

Jud 1:7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

Jud 1:8 Likewise also these [filthy] dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.

Jud 1:9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.

Jud 1:10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.

Jud 1:11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

Jud 1:12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds [they are] without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

Jud 1:13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

Jud 1:14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,

Jud 1:15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard [speeches] which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

Jud 1:16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling [words], having men's persons in admiration because of advantage.

Jud 1:17 But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ;

Jud 1:18 How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.

Jud 1:19 These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.

Jud 1:20 But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,

Jud 1:21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

Jud 1:22 And of some have compassion, making a difference:

Jud 1:23 And others save with fear, pulling [them] out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

Jud 1:24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present [you] faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,

Jud 1:25 To the only wise God our Saviour, [be] glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Praise God.