Can you expand as to what in Post 30 you consider "Blasphemy"?
Yes. Easily, though I don't really see any fruit in making enemies. I do appreciate going to the dictionary, it makes it much easier for us to stay on track.
Are you saying the Old Testament has been rendered nonexistent by the New Testament?
I'm not sure how you could possibly wring that thought out of "the united States is not OT Israel", I'm guessing that you may be applying the favorite Dispensational's interpretation hermeneutic of "Eisegete whatever you want, wherever you want until you get the results you want" and its necessary corollary "ignore everything in context that disqualifies the a priori assertion.
I don't know what you mean by "rendered nonexistent" because I am looking at a copy of the OT right now, it has not been rendered non-existent. I do know that old testament is a source of teaching of the gospel of Grace (Rom 1:2;1Pe 1:10-11) "wise unto salvation" (2 Ti 3:15) yet primarily about our LORD (Jn 5:39; 2 Peter 3:2) therefore it is invaluable to the true believer. I also know that modern Dispensationalists have perverted the Old Testament into a puzzle book, crystal ball, and Day Planner for the reprobate. (2 Pe 3:16)
Why did the Apostles reference Old Testament scripture?
I'm a bit confused here. Your comment was rife with bad theology, blasphemous in its assumption that man can manipulate God into following one course or another of action. Your statement:
If HE wants to expedite the destruction of our Nation because of past and present sins of a people that have turned away from HIM
the "because of" statement presumes the tail will "wag the God" (#3), it also assumes that there is a level of Sin that God is comfortable with - that trivializes His Holiness and brings to question His foreknowledge.(#4)
If the people repent, HE'll also give us the leaders we deserve - leaders that fear God
This is the statement that demonstrates you either don't understand or reject the doctrines of Redemption. Romans 2:5, 2 Cor 5:10-11; 2 Peter 2:9,3:7 all teach that God stores up His Wrath towards the wicked until Judgment Day. Your statement included a direct quote from 2 Ch 7:14:
Dispensationalists like to call Post-Millennialists and Amillennialists "Replacementarians". Clearly, this passage in Chronicles is for the Jewish people, but you here, and many of your teaching system replace OT Israel with modern united States and don't see the hypocrisy and the outright contradiction. Furthermore, since Dispies think the OT is alive and well in the current Christ-hating Israel, yet you folks pretend that God is going to heal their land and help them sans the humbling and repentance - so you really don't even believe this passage applies to the Jews - only the united States.
It is well past time to repent and seek the LORD, and to beseech HIM to remove the plague from the land.
It is disappointing to see that so many people accept uncritically the dreck that pours out profusely from the Dispensers of Dispensationalism. We live in a Constitutional Republic, such as once the margins from voter fraud are covered, its a function of the voting majority electing the lesser of two evils. You can repent all you want, it isn't going to change the vote of your red-flag waving Marxist next door.
Furthermore, the doctrine or Repentance isn't about manipulating God into giving you a benevolent dictator, its about the natural reaction to the gift of regeneration of the spirit being brought from death to life and that which separates you eternally from the damned and brings glory to God. I find your statement highly offensive in view of the Martyrs who did a whole lot more than bitch and complain about their government. Do you feel that the early Church wasn't earnest enough in their prayers and repentance and that is why they suffered through Nero and Tertullian? Were the disciples lacking in some area of faith that caused them to get martyred? What about the people of modern day Congo where in the last decade millions of Christians have been slaughtered. Do you care?
If you want to correctly believe that God is involved in the politics of any nation, including the united States, then look no further than Romans 13. I have brought this up before Dispies in times past and the usual reaction is that Paul was only talking about benevolent government (as if Nero was some sort of saint), so it appears when God does take credit for government, its the Dispies who disagree and then claim that its by some convoluted system of quid pro quos that earn God's gift of good government. As I pointed out before, maybe we should return to slavery since that is what gave us George Washington and Thomas Jefferson - using YOUR logic.
Dispensationalism, for reasons I can't quite understand, rejects pretty much all of God's teachings about government. Here we are complaining about our wicked government and blaming ourselves for Barry Soetoro's regime!
Prov 24:21-22 My son, fear thou the Lord and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change: For their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the ruin of them both?
Does it say anything here about repenting and humbling ourselves? I mean you prophecy hunters totally missed this passage and it especially refers to wicked leadership that campaigns on "Change". The reason why, is that it doesn't fit the narrative, the Bible contradicts the desired fantasies of the Dispensationalist.
Do you want to pretend that the united States has the same relationship with God as OT Israel? Well, here is God's plan as he laid out for the Jews who were taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar:
Jer 29:4-9 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters — that you may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them, says the Lord.
This is what the Post Millennialists and the Amillennialists have been preaching for years. Trust God, even when He causes you to be in the hands of the wicked. Continue to live your life and ignore the Hal Lindseys and the John Hagees who tell you to drop-out and pine for an escape aka "rapture". They are false teachers, prophets who steer you away from the truth and are out to take your joy.
This is the same language used by our LORD at the Mount of Olives as He was describing the Last Days - as in the Days of Noah and Lot where they were marrying, trading, eating, drinking, planting, starting businesses - the very same thing that God is telling the faithful to do in this passage.
I know Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt are the stock in trade for Dispensationalists. Its more fun to completely and totally disregard the Words of God here, and repeated again by our LORD Jesus Christ in Luke 12:22-34 (also Matt 6:19-21,52-34) and go be anxious over everything.
You seem, though, to be chasing some dispensationalist bogeymen or demons. I’m glad to hear that you don’t believe the Old Testament Scripture has been abrogated by the New Testament, and that we agree the New Testament is built on the foundation of the Old Testament (or as you said, ‘the old testament is a source of teaching of the Gospel of Grace…’). I asked the question because the only previous message you sent to me was your Post 42, which consisted of 2 lines, 3 sentences:
News Flash
The united States is not Old Testament Israel. Everything you just said above [Post 30] is blasphemy.
Since your original post was not exactly expansive, and most of what I quoted in Post 30 was from the Old Testament – I had to ask the question. I honestly did not know where you were coming from – other than you had strong objections (and aversion) to what I had written.
I don’t believe that I fall into the ‘dispensationalist’ camp. I don’t know exactly what they believe – nor is it high my list of things to learn. I know people in the past have claimed that Great Britain was the “new Israel”. And later, others have claimed the United States as such. That’s nonsense.
And although I’ve heard of Hal Lindsey (he’s the writer of the ‘Left Behind’ books – right?) and John Hagee – there’s nothing they’ve written, or said, that really interest me (I believe I ran across a John Hagee sermon when I was on vacation – several years ago - and had access to cable – but there wasn’t anything profound that I remember. Just that I’ve heard his name before). But what dispensationalists are, or believe, I don’t really know, nor care. If they can back up their beliefs with Scripture – then great. If not, they just join the line of hundreds of other folks with their appeals to itching ears.
But if I fall into your definition of a Dispensationalist – so be it.
We obviously disagree in the need and power of prayer. You call it “manipulation” (and thanks for explaining what you considered to be blasphemous in my Post 30). Now I acknowledge (and am thankful) that God may overrule our prayers to bring out HIS purpose. And since HIS purpose is right and good – that is good. But was Jeremiah wrong to weep for his nation? Is it wrong to pray for repentance and revival in one’s country? I don’t know why God works through prayer – given HE is Almighty and All Sovereign – but HE tells us HE does, and HE tells us to pray. And God be Praised - I'll happily take advantage of that gift.
And was it blasphemous to note that: Daniel 4:17b …that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men? And you also referenced Romans 13:4 (which I don’t consider to be blasphemy) that our ‘ministers’ are ministers of God. HE sets them up. We may get bad ones, we may get good ones. We certainly should keep them in our prayers – either to give us better ones, or to convert the ones in place, or to allow us peace. But certainly with the understanding that ‘not as I will, but as God wills…’
God alone knows the end from the beginning, and if we need to experience temporal suffering in this world – then it is all to the Glory of God.
Now I acknowledge that I did, and often do err, when I speak about prayer for our Nation. I firmly believe we should do so, but I acknowledge the fact that there is no such thing as a “Christian Nation”, and there never has been one. God saves a remnant (Romans 9-11). That was true in ancient Israel, it is also true today. We should have a closer kinship and bond with Christians in China, Iran, and any corner of the world – than with Christ rejecters in our own country.
But that said – Prayer is a gift, and I’ll pray.
Your vehemence against II Chronicles 7:14, seems to deprive you of a wonderful blessing of Scripture. You shouldn’t let dispensationalist bogeymen cause you to toss it into the trash heap:
2 Chronicles 7:13-14 If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
What a wonderful model of prayer.
“The called people of God”, humbly seeking the LORD (Matthew 5:3-4 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted), and praying (Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you…), and seeking HIS face (which we can only see through Jesus Christ our LORD: John 14:9c … he that hath seen me hath seen the Father…; 2 Corinthians 4:6b …to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ); and turn from our wicked ways (‘Repent ye therefore, and be converted’). And we get the wonderful blessing of God hearing us (John 9:31a Now we know that God heareth not sinners” … yet HE heareth us - through Jesus Christ our LORD), forgiving us (again, through the mighty work of our LORD and Saviour Jesus Christ), and healing our land (however HE wills to do it).
And then with the response to heart broken repentance and prayer – we have the additional blessing in:
2 Chronicles 7:15-16 Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place. For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there for ever: and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.
A wonderful corollary are a couple of passages in I Corinthians:
1 Corinthians 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
Romans 11:33-36 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counseller? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
Now I got carried away in my response – it was intended to be brief… Intentions don’t always pan out. Anyways, thanks again for your clarification – and God Bless.