Posted on 07/25/2007 7:20:45 PM PDT by Ottofire
Very nice. There’s probably nothing there I disagree with. I could post some links too, probably even by the same people, with a different flavor entirely.
Look, I’m getting bored here. We’re not making any headway, and you seem determined to be all severe and dramatic. Well, by all means, go ahead, but please, don’t tear down your brothers and sisters in the Lord, just because you’ve got a different perspective or emphasis. I’ve seen this critical tendency more than I care to remember, and it’s never becoming of the bride of Christ.
Be blessed, and have a good night. I do love you, even though I got angry.
Right back atcha bro...
Well, by all means, go ahead, but please, don’t tear down your brothers and sisters in the Lord, just because you’ve got a different perspective or emphasis.
But we'll never know because you're not going to read or listen.
You do disagree. Otherwise you wouldn't be arguing.
Maybe you'll find something interesting there.
2 Cor 13:5 "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you--unless indeed you fail the test?"
Paris Reidhead “Ten Shekels and a Shirt”
The liberal says the end of religion is to make man happy while he’s alive, and the fundamentalist says the end of religion is to make man happy when he dies.
But again! The end of all of the religion it was proclaimed was the happiness of man. And where as the liberal says, “By social change and political order we’re going to do away with slums, we’re going to do away with alcoholism and dope addiction and poverty. And we’re going to make HEAVEN ON EARTH! AND MAKE YOU HAPPY WHILE YOU’RE ALIVE! We don’t know anything about after that, but we want to be happy while you’re alive!” They went ahead to try and do it only to be brought to a terrifying shock at the first World War and utterly staggered by the second World War, because they seemed to be getting no where fast.
And then the fundamentalists, along the line, are now tuning in on this same wavelength of humanism. Until we find it something like this:
“Accept Jesus so you can go to heaven! You don’t want to go to that old, filthy, nasty, burning hell when there is a beautiful heaven up there! Now come to Jesus so you can go to heaven!”
And the appeal could be as much to selfishness as a couple of men sitting in a coffee shop deciding they are going to rob a bank to get something for nothing! There’s a way that you can give an invitation to sinners, that just sounds for all the world like a plot to take up a filling station proprietor’s Saturday night earnings without working for them.
Humanism is, I believe, the most deadly and disastrous of all the philosophical stenches that’s crept up through the grating over the pit of Hell. It has penetrated so much of our religion. AND IT IS UTTER AND TOTAL CONTRAST WITH CHRISTIANITY! Unfortunately it’s seldom seen. And here we find Micah, wants to have a little chapel, and he wants to have a priest, and he wants to have prayer, and he wants to have devotion, because “I KNOW THE LORD WILL DO ME GOOD!” AND THIS IS SELFISHNESS!!! AND THIS IS SIN!!! And the Levite comes along and falls right in with it! Because he wants a place! He wants ten shekels and a shirt and his food! And so in order that he can have what he wants, and Micah can have what he wants, THEY SELL OUT GOD! For ten shekels and a shirt. AND THIS IS THE BETRAYAL OF THE AGES!!! And it is the betrayal in which we live. And I don’t see HOW GOD CAN REVIVE IT! Until we come back to Christianity, as in DIRECT AND TOTAL CONTRAST WITH THE STENCHFUL HUMANISM that’s perpetrated in our generation in the name of Christ.
....
But there was a difference! It wasn’t trying to convince a GOOD MAN that he was in trouble with a BAD GOD! But that it was to convince BAD MEN that they had deserved the wrath and anger of a GOOD GOD! And the consequences were repentance, that lead to faith, and lead to the life. Dear friends, there’s only one reason, one reason for a sinner to repent and that’s because Jesus Christ deserves the worship and adoration and the love and the obedience of his heart. Not because he’ll go to heaven. If the only reason you repented, dear friend, was to keep out of Hell all you are is JUST A LEVITE SERVING FOR TEN SHEKELS AND A SHIRT! THAT’S ALL! You’re trying to serve God because He’ll do you good! But a repentant heart is a heart that has seen something of the enormity of the crime of playing God and denying the just and righteous God the worship and obedience that He deserves! Why should a sinner repent? BECAUSE GOD DESERVES THE OBEDIENCE AND LOVE THAT HE’S REFUSED TO GIVE HIM! Not so that he’ll go to heaven. If the only reason he repents is so that he’ll go to heaven, it’s nothing but trying to make a deal or a bargain with God.
WHY SHOULD A SINNER GIVE UP ALL HIS SINS? WHY SHOULD HE BE CHALLENGED TO DO IT? WHY SHOULD HE MAKE RESTITUTION WHEN HE’S COMING TO CHRIST? BECAUSE GOD DESERVES THE OBEDIENCE THAT HE DEMANDS!!!
I have talked with people that have no assurance that sins are forgiven. They want to feel safe, before they’re willing to commit themselves to Christ. But I believe that the only ones whom God actually witnesses by His Spirit and are born of Him, are the people, whether they say it or not, that come to Jesus Christ and say something like this, “Lord Jesus, I’m going to obey you, and love you, and serve you, and do what you want me to do, as long as I live even if I go to Hell at the end of the road, simply because YOU ARE WORTHY TO BE LOVED, AND OBEYED, AND SERVED, and I ‘m not trying to make a deal with you!” Do you see the difference? Do you see the difference? Between a Levite serving for ten shekels and a shirt or a Micah building a chapel because God will do you good AND someone that repents for the glory of God.
Why should a person come to the cross? Why should a person embrace death with Christ? Why should a person be willing to go, in identification, down to the cross and into the tomb and up again? I’ll tell you why! BECAUSE IT’S THE ONLY WAY THAT GOD CAN GET GLORY OUT OF A HUMAN BEING!!! If you say it’s because he’ll get joy or peace or blessing or success or fame then it’s nothing but a Levite serving for ten shekels and a shirt. THERE IS ONLY ONE REASON FOR YOU TO GO TO THE CROSS DEAR YOUNG PERSON. And that’s because until you come to the place of union with Christ in death you are defrauding the Son of God of the glory that He could get out of your life. For no flesh shall glory in His sight. And until you’ve understood the sanctifying work of God by the Holy Ghost taking you into union with Christ in death and burial and resurrection, you have to serve in what you have and all you have which is under the sentence of death: human personality, and human nature, and human strength, and human energy. And God will get no glory out of that!
So the reason for you to go to the cross isn’t that you’re going to get victory, you will get victory. It isn’t that you’re going to have joy, you will have joy. But the reason for you to embrace the cross and press through until you know that you can testify with Paul “I am crucified with Christ” (Gal 2:20), it isn’t what you’re going to get out of it, but what He’ll get out of it, for the glory of God. By the same token: Why aren’t you pressed through to know the fullness of the Holy Spirit? Why aren’t you pressed through to know the fullness of Christ? I’ll tell you why? BECAUSE THE ONLY POSSIBLE WAY THAT JESUS CHRIST WILL GET GLORY OUT OF A LIFE THAT HE’S REDEEMED WITH HIS PRECIOUS BLOOD IS WHEN HE CAN FILL THAT LIFE WITH HIS PRESENCE AND LIVE THROUGH HIS OWN LIFE.
ROFLOL... What a great video. Hahahahahahaha.
Yet, it is sad because it is true.
ping to me
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.