Posted on 01/27/2008 7:56:14 PM PST by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
January 25, 2008
ESV Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
In recent days I have spent time in Lima and Sullana Peru and Mexico City and I have discovered that people by nature are the same. Man has a heart that is inclined to selfishness and idolatry. Sin abounds in the remotest parts of the land because the heart is desperately wicked. Thousands bow before statues of Mary and pray to her hoping for answers. I have seen these people stare hopelessly at Mary icons, Jesus icons, and a host of dead saints who will do nothing for them. I have talked with people who pray to the pope and say that they love him. I talked with one lady who said that she knew that Jesus was the Savior, but she loved the pope. Thousands bow before Santa Muerte (holy death angel) in hopes that she will do whatever they ask her. I have seen people bring money, burning cigarettes, beer, whiskey, chocolate, plants, and flowers to Santa Muerte in hopes of her answers. I have seen these people bowing on their knees on the concrete in the middle of public places to worship their idol. Millions of people come into the Basilica in Mexico City and pay their money, confess their sins, and stare hopelessly at relics in hope that their sins will be pardoned. In America countless thousands are chained to baseball games, football games, material possessions, and whatever else their heart of idols can produce to worship.
My heart has broken in these last weeks because the God of heaven is not honored as he ought to be honored. People worship the things that are created rather than worshiping the Creator. God has been gracious to all mankind and yet mankind has hardened their hearts against a loving God. God brings the rain on the just and unjust. God brings the beautiful sunrises and sunsets upon the just and unjust. God gives good gifts unto all and above all things he has given his Son that those who would believe in him would be saved. However, man has taken the good things of God and perverted them unto idols and turned their attention away from God. I get a feel for Jesus as he overlooked Jerusalem or Paul as he beseeched for God to save Israel. When you accept the reality of the truth of the glory of God is breaks your heart that people would turn away from the great and awesome God of heaven to serve lesser things. Moses was outraged by the golden calf, the prophets passionately preached against idolatry, Jesus was angered that the temple was changed in an idolatrous business, and Paul preached to the idolaters of Mars Hill by telling them of the unknown God.
I arrived back at home wondering how I should respond to all the idolatry that I have beheld in these last three weeks. I wondered how our church here in the states should respond to all of the idolatry in the world. What are the options? First, I suppose we could sit around and hope that people chose to get their life together and stop being idolaters. However, I do not know how that could ever happen apart from them hearing the truth. Second, I suppose we could spend a lifetime studying cultural issues and customs in hope that we could somehow learn to relate to the people of other countries. However, the bible is quite clear that all men are the same. Men are dead in sin, shaped in iniquity, and by nature are the enemies of God. Thirdly, we could pay other people or other agencies to go and do a work for us while we remain comfortably in the states. However, there is no way to insure that there will be doctrinal accuracy or integrity. If we only pay other people to take the gospel we will miss out on all of the benefits of being obedient to the mission of God. Lastly, we could seek where God would have us to do a lasting work and then invest our lives there for the glory of God. The gospel has the power to raise the dead in any culture and we must be willing to take the gospel wherever God would have us take it. It is for sure that our church cannot go to every country and reach every people group, so we must determine where God would have us work and seek to be obedient wherever that is.
It seems that some doors are opening in the Spanish speaking countries below us and perhaps God is beginning to reveal where we are to work. There are some options for work to be partnered with in Peru and there could be a couple of options in Mexico. The need is greater than I can express upon this paper for a biblical gospel to be proclaimed in Peru and Mexico. Oh, that God would glorify his great name in Peru and Mexico by using a small little church in a town that does not exist to proclaim his great gospel amongst a people who desperately need the truth.
I give thanks to the LORD for allowing me the privilege of going to these countries and broadening my horizons. The things that I have seen will be forever engraved upon my heart. I will long remember the pastors that I spent time with in Peru and I will never forget Adolfo who translated for me in Mexico. I will relish the time that I spent with Paul Washer and the others. When I think of church I will forever remember being on top of that mountain in Sullana at that church which had no electricity and no roof. I am convinced that heaven was looking down on that little church on top of that mountain and very few people on earth even know that it exist. Oh, God I pray that the things of this world will continue to grow dim and that God’s people will be caught up in his glorious presence.
Because of the truth: Pastor: J. Randall Easter II Timothy 2:19 "Our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases."(Ps. 115:3) "He predestined us according to the good pleasure of His will."(Eph. 1:5) Those who have been saved have been saved for His glory and they are being made holy for this is the will of God. Are you being made holy? Spurgeon says, "If your religion does not make you holy it will damn you to hell."
I see the rubber logic books are still in print.
Your magicsterical must make a mint off of them.
God is both personal and infinite. It is true that we do not relate to Him on an infinite level, but we do relate to Him on a personal level, as God. On an infinite level, we are simply part of His creation, like rocks and trees. But on a personal level we are separated from the rest of His creation. We can actually have a personal relationship with Him. Rocks and trees cannot.
Second, what is the nature of your "personal relationship" with God/Jesus? Does He appear to you? And then, how would you know it really is Jesus?
The nature of the personal relationship begins with being created in God's image. Before there was a creation there was the Trinity. Within that Trinity was love. God is personal. When He created us in His image He created us as personal beings, capable of love for Him. Therefore, we can relate to Him. We see the love in the Trinity (think side to side) and we see His love for us and our love for Him (top-down). That allows a personal relationship.
The alternative would be an impersonal God, whom we would experience as unknowable, irrational, and subject to chance. No personal relationship would be possible and man would be left unfulfilled. There would be no unified field of knowledge (i.e. man would be unable to make any sense of the universe and his place in it). Without a personal God we would just be rats wandering randomly through a maze. Fortunately, the life of the Christian is much more than that! :)
And no, God does not "appear" to me in physical form. He lives within Christians in the form of the Holy Spirit. While we are always taught to be discerning, we also trust in His promises that He will lead us for our good. He leads us to obey Him and He promises good gifts. We belong to Him and no one can snatch us out of His hands.
Only if the victim is a dunce. (No disrespect to Duns Scotus intended).
Seriously. The thing to do is (a) write a REALLY nasty letter to the bishop and cc it to the pries tin question, and go find another confessor.Awesome car analogy. To me God gives the tools, the desire to fix in the particular instance, and everything I need along the way. -- Less analagously, a gift God gives over time, I think, is the gradual conforming of my will to His. Whatever else happens in prayer, I think God "uses" our prayers to draw us closer to Him.
God condescends to use our prayers to do stuff. Moses "dissuades" God from burning up the murmuring Israelites. But do we really think God was upset and Moses calmed Him down or talked Him out of it? Not me.
The Bible uses personal language about God. it seems to me that gives at least permission, and maybe, as in my thinking, a mandate to do the same.
I like to say God is AT LEAST persona,l and in no way LESS than personal.
And in the ju-jitsu of Scolastic Theology, we start with human fathers in our minds and say, "God is a Father, or like a Father." But then the more we pray and study, we realize that God is what a Father is, He is THE Father, and human-type fathers are cheap imitations, by comparison.
So God is a person, but I'm not so sure about whether I am, but I am LIKE a person.
My point exactly. We don't doubt that God can and will keep His word. We doubt that men do.
I would call that a rejection of the relationship God designed us to have with Him. Of course it is not a relationship among equals, however, it is meaningful and real. As you correctly note, people do not commune (fellowship) with sheep. However, through Christ men DO commune with God:
1 John 1:3 : We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
1 Cor 2:11-14 : 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
As you can see, there is no comparison between our relationship to animals and ours to God.
It is the arrogance of the Reformed that arrogates God to a "personal God" by elevating the status of the "elect" sheep to that of a "fellowship" with the Supreme Being.
I suppose He will allow you to opt out, but it's your loss. :)
The "language" of reverence, including the extravagant words we use and the elaborate gestures, are confusing to some Protestants. Consider the Wren "Auditory" church, with Bible and pulpit given prominence and beauty confined to proportion and chaste decoration, with the clear artistic message that what MATTERS is the WORD.
Not that that's necessarily or always a bad thing ... and some of those buildings are lovely. St. Paul's Chapel in Manhattan is very fine.
So when they see us kneeling before a reliquary and kissing it, they think it must be idolatrous. Not being familiar with this "language" and being strangers to our ecclesial culture they still think they can use our stylized gestures as a window into our hearts and judge us guilty of idolatry.
It's a kind of cultural provincialism. It's similar to those cultures where it's considered rude NOT to be talking while someone talks to you. Those of us not used to that will conclude these people are so self-absorbed that they never listen. While they, conversing with us, think our silence means we just don't give a hoot.
Our adversaries, who will stand up before their elders and will shake your hand, will scoff at any stylized gestures, not realizing how they also have a repertoire at hand. They disbelieve the notion of a courtesy foreign to their own, though they may know more about the bows of the Japanese than the genuflections of Catholics.
Further, a good maxim is "Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds." We see, from time to time, over here a body-despising Jansenism, and over there a heretical cult of the Virgin. Our adversaries will jump on these and as much as say that because things that taste good might conceal a poison, we should eat only bland food for the rest of our lives, or that because some use the gift of sexual intercourse illicitly we should all be continent and that those who embrace their spouses must be libertines.
They are expert, in their minds, on our hearts. They will not hear us.
***It is true that we do not relate to Him on an infinite level, but we do relate to Him on a personal level, as God. On an infinite level, we are simply part of His creation, like rocks and trees. But on a personal level we are separated from the rest of His creation. We can actually have a personal relationship with Him.***
I think that you might be mixing up the personal touch and interaction with Jesus the man with the impersonal and largely standoffish and angry God of the OT. Part of Jesus’ mission to us was to provide that.
***The alternative would be an impersonal God, whom we would experience as unknowable, irrational, and subject to chance. No personal relationship would be possible and man would be left unfulfilled.***
Exactly. That’s what the Jews experienced throughout the OT.
***Before there was a creation there was the Trinity.***
There was no ‘before’. God existed, exists and will exist at all moments in time.
***Without a personal God we would just be rats wandering randomly through a maze.***
A ‘personal’ God in many cases is one that an individual creates.
***And no, God does not “appear” to me in physical form. He lives within Christians in the form of the Holy Spirit. While we are always taught to be discerning, we also trust in His promises that He will lead us for our good. He leads us to obey Him and He promises good gifts.***
Leads, not frogmarches. The terminology is quite clear.
***We belong to Him and no one can snatch us out of His hands.***
We can, however, walk away.
There is only one true God. He uses His elect to do good deeds that are good in His eyes. Non-believers cannot do good deeds in His eyes. God only indwells His children. Since I am one of those I can recognize His work in me.
Many Muslims believe that murdering infidels is a good deed. However, they do not follow the one true God. Therefore, "Good" must be measured against what we are told is "Good" in the Bible.
That's what "Abba" means, Kosta. It is also another excellent illustration of the personal and familial relationship God wants to have with us. When referring to someone else's father, the word would be "ab". But with the addition of "ba" it would only make sense to refer to one's own father, "Daddy". This is the family of God. Only believers can properly say "Abba, Father".
And you, apparently, are reading the book with NO context.
Either it is the word of God, or it is the word of man.
So what you are saying is that since John was written 20 years after the others, we can ignore everything in it, right?
Did he ever leave the love of his father?
And if God wanted men to fly... Try again something better.
If God had wanted men to fly He would have given him the airplane. So, He did. The Bible clearly says that without God-given ears to hear the scriptures (teachings of God) will be meaningless. Without God there is no proof that will be accepted.
Your faith should be sufficient to you because, obviously by your logic, God wanted it to be deeply personal and not provable to men unless God already made them believe, in which case there is no need to prove anything! :)
That doesn't follow. God uses us to witness to others. If my faith is true, it will speak for itself to the other person. My job is to share the Gospel and give a reason for the hope that I have.
But you are also making a giant leap of faith when you say that your faith is right because you "know" it is! Wow! That's rich, FK.
Where have I said that? You have been showed hundreds of scriptures by many people, reasonably proving the faith to be true, but you have rejected them. That's up to you.
***If God had wanted men to fly He would have given him the airplane. So, He did. ***
Are you saying that the Heavenly wing of UPS delivered their prototype airplane to Kitty Hawk?
***God uses us to witness to others. If my faith is true, it will speak for itself to the other person. My job is to share the Gospel and give a reason for the hope that I have.***
Why? If the Holy Spirit indwells whomsoever He will, of what use is your witness? If you witness to the elect, that is of no use, since the HS will indwell at His timetable. If you witness to the non elect, are you taunting them with what they cannot have?
***Where have I said that? You have been showed hundreds of scriptures by many people, reasonably proving the faith to be true, but you have rejected them. ***
There is a huge difference between the reality of the world and what you believe. If you believe something to be true, then shouldn’t you ought to state it that way?
I don't like to answer questions with questions but this calls for one.
How can the death of Jesus for our sin be genuine when the outcome was never in question? How can we affirm, as Kolo reminds us, “Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!” if Christ never died and conquered death?
I love that poem. Haven't seen it in a while. Thanks for posting.
How refreshing that some folks
GET IT!
The Scripture, that is!
Sigh.
Starchy deadliness in the name of RELIGION has always abounded. It’s one of satan’s most effective deadening and deadly tools.
Thanks much for your comments and ping.
Amen. I learn from every one of your posts, FK.
I could agree with "looks like". I just can't take the next step. :) Without implying your position (I don't take your above as a commitment one way or the other), I think there is a real difference between God humbling Himself "TO" man and Him humbling Himself "in front of" man.
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