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."
Here it is (All my books have migrated from the Shelves to the floor around my computer) BaQaR hard of large animals, Ts'N (where ' is an Aleph - pronounced like the "h" in honor) The second word is used for Isreal in the Psalms (I think). The One flock one shepherd line 10:16 is really "one (bunch o') herdee(s), one herder."
And shepherd, (Dictionaries are addictive) is only used once, in Ephesians, to denote a leader of a congregation.
well I had to type most of that twice because the little cat sneaked under the door(1) and decided he wanted to learn how to type. If the door won't keep him out, the better part of valor .....
Bibliolatry again? The Bible contains what God wanted to tell us through the Bible. To say that each and every word of the (insert version here) Bible is absolutely God’s word is crazy.
If you are accusing me of Bibliolitry for saying this, then perhaps I made a mistake about you. ............. I don't know what you mean when you say that words in the Bible "didn't exist". Do you mean that since English hadn't been invented yet that our Bibles must be wrong?
FK: ***Unfortunately, some folks have seen fit to claim sole ownership of it as it was a means to consolidate power, imo. God’s Church has all believers as members.***
That’s where the Protestant mindset is so obviously wrong. We don’t claim ownership over anything. We belong to God and are made in His image; we have not made Him in our own image, put Him on the hall stand and rub His head for luck when we walk by.
OK, Mark. I confess the truth of Jesus Christ. He is my Lord and my God. He is the only begotten Son and He came to earth to save me from my sins. He died and was resurrected, and He lives today! I am a lowly sinner and I need His forgiveness. I have asked Him to come into my life to be my God and to lead me in all things. I also totally reject the earthly authority of the Pope as I understand Catholicism claims it, and I reject the vast majority of Roman Catholic theology as I understand it. Am I a member of what you call "God's Church"? This is how we find out if your side claims ownership over anything.
Thank you SFA fore the beautiful and always inspiring writing of Blessed Thomas Aquinas, in this case asserting that in God there can be no evil.
The orthodox teaching of the catholic faith is that God is Essense and that in order for evil to be from Hom, evil would be His nature.
This is, of course, contrary to the Christian teaching of an unchanging, eternal God, who is Love itself. Our one, holy, catholic and Apostolic Church teaches that the origin of evil began with a free-will rebellion against God by Satan and his fellow angels. This is indirectly addressed in the Book of Revelation.
But the origin or Christian demonology is also found in Jewish demology, in what the heretics refer to as the "Apocrypha," and represents an act of rebellion against God.
By denying free will, some heretics are faced with a dilemma: whence came the evil. And, once locked in their own error, they conclude—from God! In other words, evil is a creature of God (by necessity), br of evil that in Him!
But if God is Love, if God is Good, then evil is un-love and un-good, indeed un-God! So, in their schizoid theology, the heretics are creating a God who is both the essence of good and evil! But they are locked in by their denial that love is freedom, that only free love is true love and that forced love is no-love, indeed un-love, and by extension un-God.
As the Saint puts it more aptly: "There cannot therefore be in Him anything that is not goodness, and so evil cannot be in Him at all."
And by the same understanding, being the Creator of everything and all, a God is the Giver of Life, not death. Death is un-life, and therefore cannot be from God. Christ tells us that God is the God of the living. God cannot be the cause of death; the sin is. The sin separates us form Life, and results in death. Yet the heretic "God" does kill. He even creates people for the sole purpose of being kept eternally alive so that they can be eternally tortured.
It is through the Gospels and contrasted by our fallen nature that we realize that our very notion of mercy is not of this world, for none it to be found in this world of its own nature. Love is also Mercy, and mercy is un-vengance to our fallen nature. God's vengeance is loving even His enemies. That's the kind of vengeance that burns the most.
In other words, the heretics not only teach that which is not of the Church, but their God is un-God, and essentially a very different deity.
Yes ,I agree
“”But if God is Love, if God is Good””
Blessed Aquinas addresses this as well
That God is the Good of all Good
"GOD in His goodness includes all goodnesses, and thus is the good of all good.2. God is good by essence: all other beings by participation: therefore nothing can be called good except inasmuch as it bears some likeness to the divine goodness. He is therefore the good of all good. Hence it is said of the Divine Wisdom: There came to me all good things along with it (Wisd. vii, 11)". -Thomas Aquinas
What's your address so I can send a pledge form?
“The orthodox teaching of the catholic faith is that God is Essense and that in order for evil to be from Him, evil would be His nature”
“But they are locked in by their denial that love is freedom, that only free love is true love and that forced love is no-love, indeed un-love, and by extension un-God.”
“that the origin of evil began with a free-will rebellion against God by Satan and his fellow angels.”
That’s all well and good but if God created the cosmos and everything in it to operate with a uniformity of cause and effect how then can He have created absolute “free-will” with the potential for rebellion without creating the concept rebellion? Are you saying that a creature can create a concept not known or thought of by God or that God learned something because of the creature’s exercise of “free-will”?
God is the source of everything and all, and that includes our freedom; He gave it. Freedom and free will are not independent of the rest of the creation, as you observe correctly, and therefore free will cannot be independent of consequences.
One of the potential consequences of free will is rebellion, resisting authority. Free press is free to lie as well as to print truth. My freedom doe snot eixst at the expense of your freedom.
Love must be free to be returned. God could have made us all "love" Him, but that would be false love. In order for love to be genuine it must be free and it must be freely returned.
Once you take away man's freedom of will, you have a slave who either doesn't know he is a slave or who has no choice but to be a slave.
The Church teaches that the angels rebelled and so did our human ancestors because God gave both the freedom to come to Him or to rebel. Just because you have a blessing in your hand doesn't mean you have to waste it. But some do.
This is truly a pregnant metaphor.
If I were to apply hosepipe's insights at 4353 to the situation at hand, the pen the sheep in the pasture might go back into could be a pen of his own imagining, for good or ill.
But Jesus Christ is the Gate and the Good Shepherd. So the sheep is actually free of the pen to pasture no matter what he thinks.
Sanctification is, after all, a walk.
What Biblical scholarship do you bring that gainsays the Catholic translation, and the translation of the Church Fathers right back to the Apostles?
It is not a matter of scholarship, it is a matter of common sense and observation of what YOU guys have said on these boards. I assert that when you all read a passage in which God says "THIS IS SO", in MANY cases you all parenthetically add the codicil "ONLY IF A MAN IN HIS FREE WILL AGREES SO". For example, GOD SAYS that no one can be snatched out of His hands. Catholics say "OH YES SOMEONE CAN, WE CATHOLICS CAN".
Either sin is of man or it is of God. If man is responsible for his sins, then he has to have some control over them. The Grace of God allows man, with his own free will, to determine whether he goes to hell or not.
That is not grace. That is standing by and smiling while you watch your small child wander into the middle of a busy street to play in traffic. In contrast, I say that God actually loves His children. :)
God wants all to be saved; I understand that that passage has been excised from the Calvinist Bible, nevertheless, it does say that.
God says that He wants all of His children to be saved. And, they ARE! :) God also makes an outward call to all men, but He does not ORDAIN that all men will be saved. Disagreeing Catholics are left to explain God's failure since all men are not saved. Reformers don't have that problem. :)
FK: Sure, sin results in eternal death. That’s what the Bible says. Fortunately, God provides a way for His elect to escape that fate. We disagree on whether God could handle it Himself or whether He needed help.***
Oooooh, stepping lightly around that landmine to Calvinist theology, aren’t we? The frogmarching Holy Spirit absolves every Calvinist elect of any responsibility for anything that he does.
In your mocking of Calvinists you have often used the term "frogmarching". In today's parlance, that term carries with it the word picture of a criminal being led away in shame to justice. You appear to want readers to think that Calvinists think God drags people kicking and screaming into His family. We think no such thing. What you call "frogmarching" is what we call "God's sovereignty". Do you believe that God EVER EVER gets what He wants? Your side shows me offense at the thought that He ever does.
[continuing:] Kind of a theological teenage wet dream, isn’t it?
I will let the readers decide that.
[continuing:] No matter what I do - drinking underage, stealing cars and crashing them, smoking pot, skipping school, vandalizing and burgling - there’s always Big Daddy to pull our wretched backsides out of the fire.
That is NOT what the Bible teaches, and it is NOT what we believe. It is also NOT what we preach. ONLY IN YOUR MINDS does this mindset exist, against us. I must admit a level of great frustration building because of how many times I have quoted Paul saying "BY NO MEANS". On that I have been ignored.
That’s the allure of Calvinism - the ducking of personal responsibility.
Think about what you are saying. What could possibly be an allure to something one has no say in? Calvinism says that God chooses who will be saved. I can work very hard and earn a ton of points, but if God hasn't chosen me, then I'm not going to be saved. So logically, there should be no allure to Calvinism in this particular Catholic premise. It does one no good. YET He has chosen us to follow Him anyway.
OK, I'm glad we're getting somewhere. I will take your TOTAL repudiation of the Catechism as simply your own personal opinion. :)
Shakespeare wrote a body of works that everyone and his dog have attempted to understand. Therefore we have many thousands of understandings of his works, all or nearly all of which differ from what the author originally intended to convey. If Shakespeare had left a teaching institution specifically dedicated to teaching what he actually wrote, I submit that that body would be a lot closer than Joe Sixpack or Arnold Artsie coming up with his own understanding based upon whatever whim, mood or substance was in effect at the time.
Irrelevant. Shakespeare would have no power to control what happened after he was gone. While your claim of knowledge of Shakespeare's original intent is unique, I do not see any substantiation. There is no comparison here. You appear to deny that God is an active Being in our lives, yet you claim what you claim with the Eucharist. I observe a disconnect.
If man has no free will then man doesn't act on his own but on God's will—regardless if he is doing good or evil.
Two things help me thread my way between the Scylla of thinking that God is NOT "too pure to behold evil" and the Charybdis of His having so say, "Oh,Wow! I didn't think THAT would happen, what do I do now!"
The first is the Augustinian (so I am told) idea that evil, as such, does not exist. It is a, rather, "privation of good". This ties in with Stfassissi's fine excerpting from St. Thomas and expecially his saying that nothing can be entirely evil because "being" is a good.
The second is the concept of eternity and the thought experiment of trying to look at things from God's point of view (yeah, right).
In the Exsultet, sung at the Easter Vigil, is the verse::
O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam,
which gained for us so great a Redeemer!
Man's rebellion is evil now, in time, before the consummation. But "when we've been dead ten thousand years," it will be seen as glorious.
These are just sort of suggested interpretive tools and not offered as conclusive of anything.
A pen of imaginings is a pen as real as any cage.. Actually the metaphor pen is just that, I think.. A pen of imaginings.. What is a denomination but an imagined corporation.. with a charter.. i.e. door knocks, hand shakes, and hoops to go through.. For that matter the Moose, Elks, VFW, and Boy Scouts are denominations..
There is no end to groupie variations.. Which makes the word "eklesia" (called out ones) even more pertinent..
Indeed the pen is within you.. Some are penned way up.. Jesus did not forbid pens.. but he did not seem to be real happy with synagogue's.. Which was a synthetic temple.. since they lost the ark of the covenent.. No Ark; and the temple was meaningless.. The temple became where God used to be.. I guess you must keep up with the shepherd and the flock or you get yourself "LOST".. With No shepherd a pen might seem protective.. even though its a spiritual health risk.. With all that ammonia and stuff in your hooves..
***If you are accusing me of Bibliolitry for saying this, then perhaps I made a mistake about you. ............. I don’t know what you mean when you say that words in the Bible “didn’t exist”. Do you mean that since English hadn’t been invented yet that our Bibles must be wrong?***
I am simply saying that since the English words that are in your Bible didn’t exist and they vary from Bible to Bible anyway, that the words that some do worship aren’t God’s - they are translations of translations of translation. In other words, they are the best attempts of fallible men to write the infallible word of God in our language as it is today. The truths are contained within - at least the best translations such as the NAB :) - but the individual words are not necessarily as God would have had written in the original Greek (NT) and Hebrew (OT).
Many Protestants will point at the KJV or NKJV or NIV or... and say that the specific words or phrases mean exactly something based upon their understanding of those words or phrases even though they differ from other translations and therefore somebody else will come up with a different understanding. How can somebody worship words which differ from translation to translation?
***I confess the truth of Jesus Christ. He is my Lord and my God. He is the only begotten Son and He came to earth to save me from my sins. He died and was resurrected, and He lives today! I am a lowly sinner and I need His forgiveness. I have asked Him to come into my life to be my God and to lead me in all things.***
As do all sincere Christians.
*** I also totally reject the earthly authority of the Pope as I understand Catholicism claims it, and I reject the vast majority of Roman Catholic theology as I understand it.***
Then I and other Catholics have fallen short of the mark for being unable to get you to understand it. It is our failing, not yours. It is our burden and something that we shall answer for to Him.
***Am I a member of what you call “God’s Church”? This is how we find out if your side claims ownership over anything.***
The Vatican has said that valid baptism makes you a member, but distancing one’s self from the Catholic Church may imperil one’s soul. We do not own God - we are the creatures of God. We do not attempt to individually define God - we accept His Church’s teachings. Is FK going to eternal salvation? I would certainly think so, but that is entirely up to God. We have God’s Church and the statements of Jesus and the Apostles and the Church Fathers.
I will not play chicken with my soul by gainsaying or second guessing the Apostles and the Church Fathers.
If what you are saying is true it leaves the church of Rome on the outside looking in. You never had an ecumenical council that was binding on all member churches that declared the canon. Scripture was written by Apostles, or those that were closely associated with the Apostles.
During the Apostolic Era in which these people lived they called themselves Christians. The Roman hierarchy that came to dominate Christianity until the Reformation only emerged later.
*** For example, GOD SAYS that no one can be snatched out of His hands. Catholics say “OH YES SOMEONE CAN, WE CATHOLICS CAN”.***
Don’t be silly. We say that men have free will to determine for themselves if they will accept God’s Grace. We do not understand the concept of the frogmarching Holy Spirit.
***That is not grace. That is standing by and smiling while you watch your small child wander into the middle of a busy street to play in traffic. In contrast, I say that God actually loves His children. :)***
God gave us His Church in order to keep His children from playing in the theological street. The Reformed keep forgetting to mention that the Reformed God created the unelect for hellfire and damnation forever and that only the minority (of the elect) are kept from playing in the street forcibly and without their permission and (it seems) their knowledge.
***God says that He wants all of His children to be saved. And, they ARE! :) God also makes an outward call to all men, but He does not ORDAIN that all men will be saved. Disagreeing Catholics are left to explain God’s failure since all men are not saved. Reformers don’t have that problem. :)***
Reformers have apparently truncated their Paul once again: 1 Tim 2:
1
1 First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone,
2
for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity.
3
This is good and pleasing to God our savior,
4
who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.
***Think about what you are saying. What could possibly be an allure to something one has no say in?***
Umm, you’re kidding me right? A personal get out of hell free card is not an attractive proposition? A disavowing of any responsibility and a guaranteed limo ride to Heaven is not of great allure?
***So logically, there should be no allure to Calvinism in this particular Catholic premise. It does one no good. YET He has chosen us to follow Him anyway.***
I’ve noticed that all those who are Reformed believe that they are of the elite selected elect. I do not know of any Reformed that believe that they are of the non elect. The beauty of it is that every sin that one commits is of no consequence and repentence is not required after one initially repents.
A perfect teenage wet dream. You can do anything you want and still get the limo ride. Scripturally unsound, and yet so appealing. You see why we value the lessons of the Church Fathers and the bishops that fell into heresy? It shows that individuals can be so theologically wrong. It is the Church that is right.
***I will take your TOTAL repudiation of the Catechism as simply your own personal opinion. :)***
???
***You appear to deny that God is an active Being in our lives, yet you claim what you claim with the Eucharist. I observe a disconnect.***
Time to clean the glasses or possibly get a new prescription. Man has free will, or else God is the author of all evil.
***If what you are saying is true it leaves the church of Rome on the outside looking in. You never had an ecumenical council that was binding on all member churches that declared the canon.***
Really?
So the Council of Hippo, followed by Carthage, Trent and a second Carthage (over which Augustine presided) weren’t binding?
***During the Apostolic Era in which these people lived they called themselves Christians***
The term Catholic first is documented about 100 AD. The early Christians called themselves a lot of things. They most certainly didn’t call themselves Baptists or Presbyterians or Anglicans or...
I will try to explain it to you, again.
Man, in his natural state, has the “free will” to sin or not sin. Those are his only choices. He can decide at any point to sin or he can choose to not sin. In other words, a man can decide that another is asking for a punch in the nose. The man can either punch him or not, sin or not sin.
Man, in a regenerated condition (saved) can choose to sin, not sin, or (and this is what is different) this man can choose to please God. In other words, a saved man has more options, is in fact more free than the unsaved person. No one who is unsaved can CHOOSE to please God in any way.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, He maketh me to lie down in green pastures
No pens, mental or otherwise for His.
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