Posted on 09/20/2013 4:29:03 AM PDT by spirited irish
“Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22).
“And the fifth angel sounded the trumpet, and I saw a star fall from heaven upon the earth, and there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit." (Rev. 9:1)
In his Concise Commentary Matthew Henry identifies falling stars as tepid, indecisive, weak or apostate clergy who,
"Having ceased to be a minister of Christ, he who is represented by this star becomes the minister of the devil; and lets loose the powers of hell against the churches of Christ."
John identifies antichrists, in this case clergy who serve the devil rather than Christ, sequentially. First, like Bultmann, Teilhard de Chardin, Robert Funk, Paul Tillich, and John Shelby Spong, they specifically deny the living, personal Holy Trinity in favor of Gnostic pagan, immanent or Eastern pantheist conceptions. Though God the Father Almighty in three Persons upholds the souls of men and maintains life and creation, His substance is not within nature (space-time dimension) as pantheism maintains, but outside of it. Sinful men live within nature and are burdened by time and mortality; God is not.
Second, the specific denial of the Father logically negates Jesus the Christ, the Word who was in the beginning (John 1), was with God, and is God from the creation of all things (1 John 1). In a pre-incarnate theophany, Jesus is the Angel who spoke “mouth to mouth” to Moses (Num. 12:6-9; John 9:20) and at sundry times and in many ways “spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all…” (Hebrews 1:1) Jesus the Christ is the incarnate Son of God who is the life and light of men, who by His shed blood on the Cross died for the remission of all sins and bestowed the privilege of adoption on all who put their faith in Him.
Therefore, to deny the Holy Father is to logically deny the deity of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, hence,
“…every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist . . . and even now already is it in the world” (1 John 4:3).
According to Peter (2 Peter 2:1), falling stars will work among the faithful, teaching damnable heresies that deny the Lord, cause the fall of men into unbelief, and bring destruction upon themselves:
“The natural parents of modern unbelief turn out to have been the guardians of belief.” Many thinking people came at last “to realize that it was religion, not science or social change that gave birth to unbelief. Having made God more and more like man---intellectually, morally, emotionally---the shapers of religion made it feasible to abandon God, to believe simply in man.” (James Turner of the University of Michigan in “American Babylon,” Richard John Neuhaus, p. 95)
Falling Stars and Damnable Heresy
Almost thirty years ago, two well-respected social science scholars, William Sims Bainbridge and Rodney Stark found themselves alarmed by what they saw as a rising tide of irrationalism, superstition and occultism---channeling cults, spirit familiars, necromancers, Wiccans, Satanists, Luciferians, goddess worshippers, 'gay' shamans, Hermetic magicians and other occult madness at every level of society, particularly within the most influential--- Hollywood, academia and the highest corridors of political power.
Like many scientists, they were equally concerned by Christian opposition to naturalistic evolution. As is common in the science community, they assumed the cause of these social pathologies was somehow due to fundamentalism, their term for authentic Christian theism as opposed to liberalized Christianity. Yet to their credit, the research they undertook to discover the cause was conducted both scientifically and with great integrity. What they found was so startling it caused them to re-evaluate their attitude toward authentic Christian theism. Their findings led them to say:
"It would be a mistake to conclude that fundamentalists oppose all science (when in reality they but oppose) a single theory (that) directly contradicts the bible. But it would be an equally great mistake to conclude that religious liberals and the irreligious possess superior minds of great rationality, to see them as modern personalities who have no need of the supernatural or any propensity to believe unscientific superstitions. On the contrary...they are much more likely to accept the new superstitions. It is the fundamentalists who appear most virtuous according to scientific standards when we examine the cults and pseudo-sciences proliferating in our society today." ("Superstitions, Old and New," The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. IV, No. 4; summer, 1980)
In more detail they observed that authentic ‘born again’ Christians are far less likely to accept cults and pseudoscientific beliefs while the irreligious and liberalized Christians (i.e., progressive Catholics, Protestant emergent, NAR, word faith, prosperity gospel) are open to unscientific notions. In fact, these two groups are most disposed toward occultism.
As Bainbridge and Stark admitted, evolution directly contradicts the Bible, beginning with the Genesis account of creation ex nihilo. This means that evolution is the antithesis of the Genesis account. For this reason, discerning Christians refuse to submit to the evolutionary thinking that has swept Western and American society. Nor do they accept the evolutionary theism brought into the whole body of the Church by weak, tepid, indecisive, or apostate clergy.
Over eighty years ago, Rev. C. Leopold Clarke wrote that priests who embrace evolution (evolutionary theists) are apostates from the ‘Truth as it is in Jesus.’ (1 John2:2) Rev. Clarke, a lecturer at a London Bible college, discerned that evolution is the antithesis to the Revelation of God in the Deity of Jesus Christ, thus it is the greatest and most active agent of moral and spiritual disintegration:
“It is a battering-ram of unbelief---a sapping and mining operation that intends to blow Religion sky-high. The one thing which the human mind demands in its conception of God, is that, being Almighty, He works sovereignly and miraculously---and this is the thing with which Evolution dispenses….Already a tremendous effect, on a wide scale has been produced by the impact of this teaching---an effect which can only be likened to the…collapse of foundations…” (Evolution and the Break-Up of Christendom, Philip Bell, creation.com, Nov. 27, 2012)
The faith of the Christian Church and of the average Christian has had, and still has, its foundation as much in the literal and historic meaning of Genesis, the book of beginnings revealed ‘mouth to mouth’ by the Angel to Moses, as in that of the person and deity of Jesus Christ. But how horrible a travesty of the sacred office of the Christian Ministry to see church leaders more eager to be abreast of the times, than earnestly contending for the Faith once delivered unto the saints (Jude 1:3). It is high time, said Rev. Clarke, that the Church,
“…. separated herself from the humiliating entanglement attending her desire to be thought up to date…What, after all, have custodians of Divine Revelation to do making terms with speculative Biology, which has….no message of comfort or help to the soul?” (ibid)
The primary tactic employed by priests eager to accommodate themselves and the Church to modern science and evolutionary thinking is predictable. It is the argument that evolution is entirely compatible with the Bible when we see Genesis, especially the first three chapters, in a non-literal, non-historical context. This is the argument embraced and advanced by mega-church pastor Timothy J. Keller.
With a position paper Keller published with the theistic evolutionary organization Bio Logos he joined the ranks of falling stars (Catholic and Protestant priests) stretching back to the Renaissance. Their slippery-slide into apostasy began when they gave into the temptation to embrace a non-literal, non-historical view of Genesis. (A response to Timothy Keller’s ‘Creation, Evolution and Christian Laypeople,” Lita Cosner, Sept. 9, 2010, creation.com)
This is not a heresy unique to modern times. The early Church Fathers dealt with this damnable heresy as well, counting it among the heretical tendencies of the Origenists. Fourth-century Fathers such as John Chrysostom, Basil the Great and Ephraim the Syrian, all of whom wrote commentaries on Genesis, specifically warned against treating Genesis as an unhistorical myth or allegory. John Chrysostom strongly warned against paying heed to these heretics,
“…let us stop up our hearing against them, and let us believe the Divine Scripture, and following what is written in it, let us strive to preserve in our souls sound dogmas.” (Genesis, Creation, and Early Man, Fr. Seraphim Rose, p. 31)
As St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote, higher theological, spiritual meaning is founded upon humble, simple faith in the literal and historic meaning of Genesis and one cannot apprehend rightly the Scriptures without believing in the historical reality of the events and people they describe. (ibid, Seraphim Rose, p. 40)
In the integral worldview teachings of the Fathers, neither the literal nor historical meaning of the Revelations of the pre-incarnate Jesus, the Angel who spoke to Moses, can be regarded as expendable. There are at least four critically important reasons why. First, to reduce the Revelation of God to allegory and myth is to contradict and usurp the authority of God, ultimately deny the deity of Jesus Christ; twist, distort, add to and subtract from the entire Bible and finally, to imperil the salvation of believers.
Scenarios commonly proposed by modern Origenists posit a cleverly disguised pantheist/immanent nature deity subject to the space-time dimension and forces of evolution. But as noted previously, it is sinful man who carries the burden of time, not God. This is a crucial point, for when evolutionary theists add millions and billions of zeros (time) to God they have transferred their own limitations onto Him. They have ‘limited’ God and made Him over in their own image. This is not only idolatrous but satanic.
Additionally, evolution inverts creation. In place of God’s good creation from which men fell there is an evolutionary escalator starting at the bottom with matter, then progressing upward toward life, then up and through the life and death of millions of evolved creatures that preceded humans by millions of years until at long last an apish humanoid emerges into which a deity that is always in a state of becoming (evolving) places a soul.
Evolution amputates the entire historical precedent from the Gospel and makes Jesus Christ unnecessary as the atheist Frank Zindler enthusiastically points out:
“The most devastating thing that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of biological evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve, there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin there is no need of salvation. If there is no need of salvation there is no need of a saviour. And I submit that puts Jesus…into the ranks of the unemployed. I think evolution absolutely is the death knell of Christianity.” (“Atheism vs. Christianity,” 1996, Lita Cosner, creation.com, June 13, 2013)
None of this was lost on Darwin’s bulldog, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1985). Huxley was thoroughly familiar with the Bible, thus he understood that if Genesis is not the authoritative Word of God, is not historical and literal despite its’ symbolic and poetic elements, then the entirety of Scripture becomes a collection of fairytales resulting in tragic downward spiraling consequences as the Catholic Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation makes clear in part:
“By denying the historical truth of the first chapters of Genesis, theistic evolutionism has fostered a preoccupation with natural causes almost to the exclusion of supernatural ones. By denying the several supernatural creative acts of God in Genesis, and by downplaying the importance of the supernatural activity of Satan, theistic evolutionists slip into a naturalistic mentality which seeks to explain everything in terms of natural causes. Once this mentality takes hold, it is easy for men to regard the concept of spiritual warfare as a holdover from the days of primitive superstition. Diabolical activity is reduced to material or psychological causes. The devil and his demons come to be seen as irrelevant. Soon ‘hell’ joins the devil and his demons in the category of antiquated concepts. And the theistic evolutionist easily makes the fatal mistake of thinking that he has nothing more to fear from the devil and his angels. According to Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist of Rome, there is a tremendous increase in diabolical activity and influence in the formerly Christian world. And yet most of the bishops of Europe no longer believe in the existence of evil spirits….To the Fathers of the Church who believed in the truth of Genesis, this would be incredible. But in view of the almost universal acceptance of theistic evolution, it is hardly surprising.” (The Difference it makes: The Importance of the Traditional Doctrine of Creation, Hugh Owen, kolbecenter.org)
Huxley had ‘zero’ respect for modern Origenists and received enormous pleasure from heaping piles of hot coals and burning contempt upon them, thereby exposing their shallow-reasoning, hypocrisy, timidity, fear of non-acceptance, and unfaithfulness. With sarcasm dripping from his words he quipped,
“I am fairly at a loss to comprehend how any one, for a moment, can doubt that Christian theology must stand or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the Jewish Scriptures. The very conception of the Messiah, or Christ, is inextricably interwoven with Jewish history; the identification of Jesus of Nazareth with that Messiah rests upon the interpretation of passages of the Hebrew Scriptures which have no evidential value unless they possess the historical character assigned to them. If the covenant with Abraham was not made; if circumcision and sacrifices were not ordained by Jahveh; if the “ten words” were not written by God’s hand on the stone tables; if Abraham is more or less a mythical hero, such as Theseus; the story of the Deluge a fiction; that of the Fall a legend; and that of the creation the dream of a seer; if all these definite and detailed narratives of apparently real events have no more value as history than have the stories of the regal period of Rome—what is to be said about the Messianic doctrine, which is so much less clearly enunciated? And what about the authority of the writers of the books of the New Testament, who, on this theory, have not merely accepted flimsy fictions for solid truths, but have built the very foundations of Christian dogma upon legendary quicksands?” (Darwin’s Bulldog---Thomas Huxley, Russell Grigg, creation.com, Oct. 14, 2008)
Pouring more contempt on them he asked,
“When Jesus spoke, as of a matter of fact, that "the Flood came and destroyed them all," did he believe that the Deluge really took place, or not? It seems to me that, as the narrative mentions Noah’s wife, and his sons’ wives, there is good scriptural warranty for the statement that the antediluvians married and were given in marriage; and I should have thought that their eating and drinking might be assumed by the firmest believer in the literal truth of the story. Moreover, I venture to ask what sort of value, as an illustration of God’s methods of dealing with sin, has an account of an event that never happened? If no Flood swept the careless people away, how is the warning of more worth than the cry of “Wolf” when there is no wolf? If Jonah’s three days’ residence in the whale is not an “admitted reality,” how could it “warrant belief” in the “coming resurrection?” … Suppose that a Conservative orator warns his hearers to beware of great political and social changes, lest they end, as in France, in the domination of a Robespierre; what becomes, not only of his argument, but of his veracity, if he, personally, does not believe that Robespierre existed and did the deeds attributed to him?” (ibid)
Concerning Matthew 19:5:
“If divine authority is not here claimed for the twenty-fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis, what is the value of language? And again, I ask, if one may play fast and loose with the story of the Fall as a “type” or “allegory,” what becomes of the foundation of Pauline theology?” (ibid)
And concerning Cor. 15:21-22:
“If Adam may be held to be no more real a personage than Prometheus, and if the story of the Fall is merely an instructive “type,” comparable to the profound Promethean mythus, what value has Paul’s dialectic?” (ibid)
After much thought, C.S. Lewis concluded that evolution is the central, most radical lie at the center of a vast network of lies within which modern Westerners are entangled while Rev. Clarke identifies the central lie as the Gospel of another Spirit. The fiendish aim of this Spirit is to help men lose God, not find Him, and by contradicting the Divine Redeemer, compromising Priests are serving this Spirit and its’ diabolical purposes. To contradict the Divine Redeemer is the very essence of unfaithfulness, and that it should be done while reverence is professed,
“…. is an illustration of the intellectual and moral topsy-turvydom of Modernism…’He whom God hath sent speaketh the Words of God,’ claimed Christ of Himself (John 3:34), and no assumption of error can hold water in the face of that declaration, without blasphemy.” Evolutionary theists are serving the devil, therefore “no considerations of Christian charity, of tolerance, of policy, can exonerate Christian leaders or Churches who fail to condemn and to sever themselves from compromising, cowardly, shilly-shallying priests”---the falling stars who “challenge the Divine Authority of Jesus Christ.” (ibid)
The rebuttals, warnings and counsels of the Fathers against listening to Origenists (and their modern evolutionary counterparts) indicates that the spirit of antichrist operating through modern rationalistic criticism of the Revelation of God is not a heresy unique to our times but was inveighed against by early Church Fathers.
From the scholarly writings of the Eastern Orthodox priest, Fr. Seraphim Rose, to the incisive analysis, rebuttals and warnings of the Catholic Kolbe Center, creation.com, Creation Research Institute, Rev. Clarke, and many other stalwart defenders of the faith once delivered, all are a clear, compelling call to the whole body of the Church to hold fast to the traditional doctrine of creation as it was handed down from the Apostles, for as God spoke and Jesus is the Living Word incarnate, it is incumbent upon the faithful to submit their wills to the Divine Will and Authority of God rather than to the damnable heresy proffered by falling stars eager to embrace naturalistic science and the devil's antithesis--- evolution. But if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord,
“…you have your choice: choose this day that which pleases you, whom you would rather serve….but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15
In reviewing the various quotes from the Founders captured thereon, I note that most of the citations mention Jesus Christ specifically. Offhand, maybe three did not. [By my count, Henry Knox, John Hancock, and John Jay.]
It appears that the great revolutionary General Henry Knox might have been a monotheist. It was he who brought the great guns of Fort Ticonderoga to Boston, hauling by ox-drawn sled 60 tons of cannons and other armaments across some 300 miles of ice-covered rivers and snow-draped Berkshire Mountains to the Boston siege camps. As a consequence, the British were forced to withdraw from Boston into safer precincts in Halifax....
But I'd be inclined to say that this amazing military technocrat — an artillery officer by inclination and native genius of that art, as well as a brilliant, savvy military commander who got the job done, and brought his troops safely home under the most adverse conditions — if a monotheist, perhaps was so on Occam's Razor grounds, just as one supposes Sir Isaac Newton was likewise persuaded.
Does this make Henry Knox — or Isaac Newton — a "heretic?"
Guess that goes according to how one defines "heretic"....
Thank you ever so much for posting this valuable link, dear boatbums!
HAPPY NEW YEAR to all my dear friends here gathered!
Duh!
boadbums: "It seems you are unable to separate the views of the founders of America WRT religion versus politics.
That some held religious doctrines that were NOT orthodox, isn't a reason to toss out everything ELSE they believed..."
Please, please don't forget the essential fact here: spirited irish titled her thread, in part: "Damnable Heresies", and Kevmo has determined that my views, similar to those of many Founders, make me a "God Damned Heretic".
Now, it seems to me that should be a matter of grave concern to "the community at large", that both Kevmo and spirited should be sternly scolded for not only intemperate language, but unacceptable ideology.
Has anything like that happened?
Not a hint of it.
Instead, yours truly, BroJoeK, has been roundly scolded by boatbums & others for merely objecting to such insane talk.
Why?
boadbums: "NOBODY is advocating the murder of them or those who believe as some of them might have.
To be honest, I think you are being a little hysterical over it."
But, of course, you're not honest, because, if you were, then you'd have something to say -- here, on this thread -- to Kevmo about his "hysterical" words calling BroJoeK (and by implication, our Founders), a "God Damned Heretic".
And spiritually speaking, what could be more murderous in intent than calling down God's damnation on somebody who disagrees with your religious doctrines?
boadbums: "I repeat, they were not founders of a religion but of a nation and the basic underpinnings through their writings for how a nation can function in the best possible way for all its citizens."
True enough, but I again ask you to please remember: this thread is for the purpose of discussing "Damnable Heresies", and Kevmo has identified yours truly, BroJoeK, (and by implication our Founders) as one of those "God Damned Heretics".
But no, their hysteria is of no concern to boatbums.
Boatbums has nothing to say about their utter freekin insanity -- zero, zip, nada.
Instead boatbums is oh, so very worried about BroJoeK's reminders of how lunatic those people are.
So boatbums wants to be on their side, while still pretending to be half-way sane yourself, don't you?
boadbums: "You ask if I want to take "both sides".
I don't see that there really are two opposing sides.
Kevmo correctly states that God will damn those who do not believe the truth.
Jesus said we would "die in our sins" if we believed not that he was who he claimed to be.
What you call "murderous hatred" is pointless hyperbole - nobody is advocating an inquisition.
Cool your jets."
Ah, but FRiend, they do -- at least here on Free Republic.
Look at the language Kevmo uses not just to me but others who disagree with him.
He clearly wished to drive us off of Free Republic, and if he could get the "powers that be" to support him, he'd zot is in a second, wouldn't he?
In that sense, his intentions are not just spiritually but also physically murderous.
As for who "denies the truth", I'll again remind you that nobody on this particular thread has denied a single word the New Testament says about Jesus.
Yes, I have presented a small-few different interpretations of some words, interpretations which support many of our Founders' religious ideas, plus those of more-or-less 50 million world-wide "restorationists" non-Trinitarian Christians today.
And I have not asked anybody to accept those views, only that they be treated with forbearance & respect on Free Republic -- since nearly all those 50 million "restorationist" Christians should be our natural political allies.
FRiend boatbums, do you not yet grasp what's going on here?
Nobody denies that our Founders were all Christians of one stripe or another.
But for many, and virtually all of the "top tier" Founders, their Christianity was influenced more-or-less by Enlightenment Age deism, Unitarianism and Freemasonry.
This puts them into the same category as yours truly, BroJoeK, and along with around 50 million "restorationist" Christians today makes us all, in Kevmo's words, "God Damned Heretics".
Seems to me Kevmo's is a totally unacceptable point of view, and you, boatbums, should have the courage to stand up and condemn it.
But you don't, do you?
False. I have not "put aside" a single word, verse or book.
Yes, I follow the "restorationists' " understandings, and am well satisfied that these interpretations are closer to the authors' original intent than your "revisionist" trinitarianism.
However, I have never advocated that anybody here believe my particular point of view on this, only that you treat it with forebearance & respect, just as you would treat a close FRiend and hoped-for political ally.
So what exactly is your problem with that?
So you say, but I disagree.
And the proof is right there, staring you in the face in verse 7.
Go ahead, FRiend, read it, and weap.
In verse 6 Jesus has made us to be a kingdom to serve his God and Father.
Verse 7 describes Jesus "coming with the clouds", the reference being Daniel 7:13, where "one like a son of man" approached the "Ancient of Days" and was lead into His presence.
Next, in verse 8 the Lord God, "Alpha and Omega" speaks: clearly the Father Himself.
In verse 9, John himself speaks of the "word of God and the testimony of Jesus."
I understand those to be two separate beings.
This is presented in understandable form here.
FRiend, there are references and modifiers throughout those verses, so I "get" that somebody might wish to understand them differently.
But I don't see why a different understanding necessarily makes one a "God Damned Heretic".
Nothing "dishonest", much less "God Damned Heresy" about it, because there's no "shift".
And the proof is right there to see, in verse 7.
Go ahead: read it, and weep.
Nobody on this thread has denied that George Washington was a Christian -- indeed, he was an official in his home church.
That is beyond dispute.
But what would make Washington -- along with yours truly and modern "restorationist" Christians -- in Kevmo's words, a "God Damned Heretic" is that nothing in that particular prayer, or any other writings of Washington suggests he believed any Trinitarian ideas.
Indeed, Washington's membership in Freemasonry suggests strongly he did not.
I'm here to suggest that Washington's religious ideas should be treated with forbearance and respect here, on Free Republic.
Do you disagree?
BJK: Please, please don’t forget the essential fact here: spirited irish titled her thread, in part: “Damnable Heresies”, and Kevmo has determined that my views, similar to those of many Founders, make me a “God Damned Heretic”.
Now, it seems to me that should be a matter of grave concern to “the community at large”, that both Kevmo and spirited should be sternly scolded for not only intemperate language, but unacceptable ideology.
Spirited: The concern you raise is of grave concern to all human beings who view themselves as “sovereign,” that is, there is no transcendent Authority, no Mind, over their own minds. In other words, “man, but particularly BJK in this instance, is the measure of all things.”
That sinful men would elevate their corrupted reasoning above God was one of the very grave concerns of perceptive thinkers like Richard Weaver.
By the close of WW II, Weaver and countless other classical liberals apprehensively discerned that the Western civilized nations were on the road to breakdown and
totalitarianism.
Suffering “progressive disillusionment,” Weaver perceived that old cultural restraints had failed to control man’s propensity for evil. This led him to ponder the fallacies of modernist ideas-—the ones you champion, BRK-—
that had produced the holocaust of evil visited upon the world from WW I to WW II.
By late 1945, Weaver published his conclusions in his book, “Ideas Have Consequences.” The subject of Weaver’s book was “the dissolution of the West.” Its deterioration was traced by Weaver to the late 14th century when Western man had made an “evil decision.” Enticed by William of Occam’s (d. c. 1349) philosophy of nominalism, Western man abandoned his belief in eternally unchanging transcendent “universals” and thus the position that “there is a source of truth higher than, and independent of, man...”
The consequences of this revolution in ideas were catastrophic, for “The denial of everything transcending experience means inevitably...the denial of truth. With the denial of objective truth there is no escape from the relativism of ‘man is the measure of all things.”
As Weaver feared, things worsened as the downward spiral continued:
God would be conceptually murdered, Heaven shut-down and Nature itself elevated to the supreme reality. The doctrine of original sin was abandoned and replaced by the “goodness of man.” With only the physical world of the senses held to be real, supernatural Christianity declined, rationalism arose, and materialist science and biological evolution became the most prestigious way to study man.
With knowledge limited to the sensory realm (empiricism), man’s spiritual attributes, that is, man’s soul, mind,
conscience, and free will were soon lost in an endless cycle of reductionism and determinism. Man, created in the spiritual likeness of his supernatural Creator would be lost. In his place would stand the soulless human ape, an accidental emergent product of mindless evolutionary forces.
Weaver dubbed this way of thinking the “spoiled-child psychology” of modern man, who had “not been made to see the relationship between reward and effort.”
This orgy of mindlessness is traceable to certain terrible-willed modernists who, no longer wanting to be created in the spiritual likeness of their Creator, had failed to achieve an integrated world picture, a “metaphysical dream,” said Weaver.
Weaver concluded with an ominous warning:
“the closer man stands to ruin, the duller grows his realization (for) the annihilation of spiritual being precedes the destruction of temple walls.” (The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, George H. Nash, pp. 30-33)
There it is BRK, a portrait of yourself: the spoiled-child psychology of a terrible-willed relativist blind to the fact that the cost of his intellectual arrogance is
annihilation of spiritual being.
But then pride goes before the fall of the narcissist relentlessly pursuing “self-gratification” no matter the cost to others. If erasing the stain of heresy from “self” means destroying the good character of others, then so be it.
Only in this world are you able to get away with your chicanery, manipulation of perception, and endless quibbling over the meaning of heresy. But within minutes of the death of your body, your immortal soul will be met by either a righteous angel or an evil angel sent to escort you into eternity.
With every lie, deception, twisted meaning, attempt at manipulation of perception and transference of your own guilt onto others, you are freely choosing which angel will be waiting for you when your immortal soul departs your dead body. And this is why CS Lewis said hell is a freely made choice.
It is not too late for you to repent, BRK. But don’t wait until it’s too late.
FRiend, the answer to your question is found soon after, in Mark 2:10-12:
Here again we see that Jesus clearly, consistently, openly said he was "Son of God", "Son of Man", Messiah/Christ.
He never explicitly claimed to be God Himself.
I live a life of repentance, in actions & words.
I expect, in due time God will find those acceptable.
I don't believe God intends me to hunt out & condemn "God Damned Heretics".
My job here is more concerned with a new commandment, from John 13:34, Romans 10:12 and several similar.
Look them up, FRiend. They're important.
"boadbums" = boatbums.
Time for coffee...
Like most liars who work for the father of lies, you purposely leave out that to the Jews —to whom Jesus first directed His teaching— the forgiving of sin was a Grace ONLY God could perform. So when Jesus forgave someone on Earth, the Jews received that as proof He was claiming the position which to their minds only God held. Your purposed deceptions expose for whom you are posting so arduously at FR. You are gladly serving the spirit of antichrist.
First, in this exchange Jesus, far from claiming to be God Himself, calls himself "the Son of Man".
And second, one answer to your unfounded accusation is found in Matthew 9:8:
Some translations say "to a man", others say "to men".
Of course, FRiend, if you refuse to believe Matthew on this, then what can yours truly, BroJoeK, say?
IF you were really seeking the truth, you would do a study on the identity of ‘Son of Man’ as explained in the Old Testament. Again, you try to deceive readers by implying the title Son of Man is somehow less than an identity reserved for The Messiah of Israel. You are a liar, through and through.
Wrong, wrong, wrong! Where did you dig up this nonsense? The only Deist was Jefferson, and David Barton's latest book provides evidence against that.
"The Progressives within academia, politics, and the left-leaning media are concerned that religious ideas may receive too much attention or acceptance within the general culture." As William F. Buckley said "...what we're up against, and though the Academy and the judiciary, is a felt disappointment that the American Revolution was not the French Revolution, and a consequent attempt to Jacobinize the Constitution into religion and its influence are wholly vanished from our public life." This attempt to marginalize religion, or even exclude it from the public sphere is an unstated recognition that religious ideology has profound influence on the minds of people, ideas that might run counter to contemporary Progressive elitism." William F. Buckley
This puts them into the same category as yours truly, BroJoeK, and along with around 50 million "restorationist" Christians today makes us all, in Kevmo's words, "God Damned Heretics".
Have you ever heard the word anti-Christ? It means against Christ. The rejection of Christ as God come in the flesh is what you reject. When you reject who He is, then in reality you are rejecting His AUTHORITY.
Seems to me Kevmo's is a totally unacceptable point of view, and you, boatbums, should have the courage to stand up and condemn it.
But you don't, do you?
Who would want to stand by someone opposed to Christ?
Sure verse 7 confirms verse 6:
Psalms 45:6-7 NASB
Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of joy above Your fellows.
The One coming on the clouds is Jesus Christ. No where do we see The Father communicating with John in chapter 1. Thus the linkage of you mentioned in Daniel and we also see in Ezekiel.
Clearly more gymnastics are required to deny “the first and the last” shifts from Jesus Christ to The Father. We see in the following verses two more confirmations Jesus is the first and last, which corresponds again to Isaiah 44 where it is clear Yahweh is the subject.
Here is the context:
Revelation 1:5-18 KJV
And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea. And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.
What makes you think Free Masons all ascribe to the hidden secrets? Perhaps men join it for business and political reasons or the good food and fellowship at the social meetings. Do you really believe GW worshipped Baphomet?
Incorrect. Both references, one by GarySpFc and one by you clearly shows truly God and truly man.
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