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."
But I will in no way accommodate your demand.
When God brings his words alive within me, I will convey them. I cannot and will not bottle up the words of God.
INDEED! INDEED! PRAISE GOD FOR THAT! MAY WE ALL BE FAITHFUL TO SCRIPTURE WITHIN AS WELL AS ALL THE BIBLICAL TRUTHS AND WHATEVER ELSE GOD ENLIVENS CLEARLY WITHIN US.
How could anyone imagine a Believer doing less?
To God be the glory!
YUP YUP
TRUE, TRUE.
For hundreds of years the Jews commited the Torah to memory.. It was considered an offense to God to write it down(gods words). Even now many Jews dont like to write Gods name.. Hebrew kids were expected to and committed to memorize some of it.. and were tested when they were 13 years of age.. Christians could have and did in some cases do the same.. Still do in China.. where there are millions of christians and the bible is more or less contraband..
” Indeed, I have been blessed with “ears to hear” - I am a Christian, plain and simple.”
I take it that’s a “yes” in answer to my question. Quite a power you have there, AG, to understand what The Church apparently has not for 2000 years.
Have you ever heard of +Cosmas Aitolos? The Albanian Mohammedans hanged him for preaching Christianity in NW Greece in 1779. Anyway, he came across all sorts of folks in his travels. Among the most troublesome were people who had become possessed and overwhelmed by spiritual pride. To one he said:
“The Christian needs two wings in order to soar upward and attain Paradise: humility and love. When the first order of angels fell from angelic glory and became demons, the other nine orders humbled themselves and worshipped the All-Holy Trinity, and remained in their place and rejoice forever. We, too, my brethren, must reflect what an evil thing pride is - that it cast down the devil from angelic glory and he will always burn in Hades - and that humility kept the angels in Heaven, and they rejoice perpetually in the glory of the Holy Trinity. Let us then, my brethren, avoid pride, because it is the first daughter of the devil, is a path that leads to Hades; and let us have humility, because it is angelic, is a path that leads to Paradise.”
I have learned more in 4 years here on FR about Western, non-Latin Christianity than in all the rest of my life. Much stands out, but I think the rejection of a sense of abiding humility is what strikes me the most. As Kosta has said time and again, The Almighty God came to us as a baby born poor in a cave to an unwed teenage mother. He died for us as a scorned criminal broken and tortured on a cross. He is indeed the example of Extreme Humility. If at the Final Judgment we are examined to see if we bear any resemblance to Christ, am I wrong to suggest that Humility is something we should cultivate?
Nice distinction.
And now we can start worrying about what Faith is -- or what constitutes "reasonably". I would venture to say that one extreme version of the Tertullianish "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" is to reject reason altogether in favor of enthusiastic utterances.
***Dawg’s First Caveat of Theology: God is so very different from the "categories" of the human mind that He isn’t even ‘one’ the way we usually think of ‘one***Then:If this were the case then God could never had revealed himself. This has never been the position of the Church. God condescends to reveal himself mediated through the categories of the human mind and not that we can utterly know his essence but we certainly are capable of knowing of his nature otherwise we could say nothing about him.
***About freedom and God's control, and freedom as something which sort of goes through stages: I was once free to marry.
…
So somewhere in the middle of what you say I want to suggest that there might be a kind of freedom entrusted to us
…
***This the perfect example of what I spelled out in my post is the problem with the Romanist, et al, thinking and that is you start from experience and try to move to revelation instead of starting with revelation and interpret all facts through the prism of revelation.
On a micro level, I just don't think I did that. After the part you quoted about "one" I said:
Consequently, at every step of the way, we have. so to speak, to look around, pat our pockets, gather our belongings, count our change, and make sure no little one has wandered off, and we have both our gloves.In other words, I did NOT say it's impossible. I said we have to be careful.
And then I use, as our Lord does, an experience from life to make a comment about n aspect of the Spiritual life, and you SEEM to say (but I might have gotten this wrong) that I an trying to make sense of things
" based only on [my] own senses independent of God, …"
What I would say first is "ONLY?" What "only?"? What's "only" about what I'm doing? And that leads to my sense that this seems to demonstrate MY observation that the Reform weltanschaaung has trouble with both nuances and mystery, and a kind of aversion (whether right or wrong would be a matter for discussion) toward the concept of what might be called "process" (By which I do not mean anything to do with Whitehead.)
This last comment might bear some adumbration: We see human fathers. We see Ephesians 3:14-15. We pray to God and think about Him. Little by little we see that He is a REAL Father, and we guy-type parents are to him as Rams are to us, when it comes to Fatherhood. HE is the reality, WE are the "sorta-like".
I fear think the rest of your post may also have some hastily drawn conclusions based on falsely exhaustive alternatives.
Yes, the Eleatics and Parmenides and Plato and Plotinus and the rest ponder the one and the many. But I have still been called a polytheist by Muslims and Jews, and a few Protestants right here on FR seem almost ready to agree with them about us Catholics! So, yeah, I'll stick with "unexpected". Finally we have:
***so maybe omnipotence doesnÂ’t work out as we might think it does.***I hold that Scripture says that omnipotence is very like a baby who needs his diapers changed or a man hanging on a cross, or like someone who was "an hungered". And when it is so revealed, it is not much esteemed, and many, to this day, think it feckless and passively masochistic. (Or passive-aggressive: I once was shearing a small flock of sheep and their owner said she thought IHS came to earth and got Himself crucified to make us feel guilty!) A bruise reed He - Lord of Lords, Pantocrator - will not break.What does the revelation of God say?
Yeah I think omnipotence isn't what we thought it would be.
SO here's the REAL question: I say something, and you shake your head and say, Can't he see he's doing exactly what I said?
And I read your response and shake my head and say almost exactly the same thing!
To me this suggests that we are missing the true area of our differences. THAT, to me, is the interesting area of question. There is SO much misunderstanding. Some of it is willful; some is a kind of giving up - "I've had it, whatever I say they don't listen; they don't get it; they don't WANT to get it!"; and some of it is because maybe we've been looking in the wrong place.
Sure, some would rather win in Hell than lose in heaven. There's not much hope there. But some, I think would love at the very least to be able to delineate, clearly and in a manner with which both sides agreed, the matters of difference.
Of course, for some it's an article of religion that we are evil. That's gonna leave a mark.
That's interesting. I would say the same of the EOC and the RCC.
Much stands out, but I think the rejection of a sense of abiding humility is what strikes me the most.
You're not serious are you?
I don't see the Born Again Christians claiming the sole authority to interpret Scripture because some council recognized it. I don't see Born Again Christians claiming an exclusivity to the Holy Spirit and power over it through their ordinances.
I do see the Born Again Christians searching Scripture to validate or refute their thinking on theological questions, not theologians "church fathers", or a big group of clergy "councils". I understand your frustration, it's hard to persuade others in heated discussions when your history is that people should believe what you said just because you said so. The history of the great state sponsored churches was to destroy any who disagreed. It is so much harder to persuade.
I don’t agree with people who destroy anything in the name of the Catholic Church if it was not given to them to do so by the magesterium of the Church.
Why does it bother you If there were certain gnostic things that the Church might have destroyed?
I doubt you would have no problem destroying pornography in the name of God. Right?
“”Were the ones who crucified Christ free from sin because they were simply taking part in the economy of salvation?””
Of Course not!The Crucifixion of Christ was the only time that God gave power to man to do anything to Him.
They freely chose to crucify Him.
With all due respect ,Dear Sister, the protestant belief that their scripture interpretations are always guided by the Holy Spirit is the cause of these groups you mention.
Catholic/ Orthodox rely on over 2000 years of the teaching authority of the Church lived through the lives of the Apostles martyrs and saints
Compared to other plantation owners in the area, when it came to slavery, “The Jesuits were no better or worse,” according to Cloke. Many of the slaves had been gifts from wealthy Catholic families to sustain the Church. The abolition of slavery was not an issue in the area until the early nineteenth century, when Georgetown’s Jesuits became deeply divided over the issue of slavery.“But they were not conflicted in the way you would want,” Cloke said. “They were conflicted over what to do about the threat of abolitionists.”
...Abolitionists presented an economic rather than moral problem for these Jesuits. With a growing abolitionist presence in Maryland, some of them feared a devaluation of their property, their slaves. Maryland was a state in which slavery had a tenuous hold, the economy was no longer driven by slave labor. According to reports, the general debt of the mission was close to $32,000 by the 1830s, a large sum for the time.
“It was not a market for growing crops, but for growing slaves,” said Cloke. The real money was to be made not from the work a slave could do in Maryland, but from the hugely profitable business of selling the slaves downriver....
...Brother Mobberly, who served as an overseer on one of the estates, kept an extensive diary giving a bird’s eye view of the tension the Jesuits felt surrounding the issue of slavery. His diary explores the tension between Catholics, an already persecuted group, and the Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers and Methodists who were outspokenly opposed to slavery. Mobberly, like other Jesuits, came to feel threatened and saw the issue as a Catholic-Protestant conflict. Involving everything from the Bible to Thomas Jefferson, Mobberly’s diary defended slavery. He explained that Abraham owned slaves, and wrote, “Abraham had God for his particular friend; and we do not read that God ever reproached him for keeping men in servitude. Therefore, it was lawful for him to possess them.”
Whatever boasting may be in my posts should be of God not man and certainly not me:
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. – Matthew 5:14-16
For ye were sometimes darkness, but now [are ye] light in the Lord: walk as children of light: - Ephesians 5:8
I very strongly agree that pride is an abomination to God – it is our biggest obstacle in loving God surpassingly above all else – the one and only Great Commandment.
Does any Christian really believe the proud ("what's in it for me?") have any part in the new heaven and new earth?
Pride is a symptom of a reprobate mind and is an abomination to God:
The LORD hath made all [things] for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. Every one [that is] proud in heart [is] an abomination to the LORD: [though] hand [join] in hand, he shall not be unpunished. By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD [men] depart from evil. – Proverbs 16:4-6
The fear of the LORD [is] to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate. – Proverbs 8:13
And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man. – Mark 7:20-23
Thou [wast] perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. – Ezekiel 28:15-17
And does it not also rest at the very root of the sins we barely notice? Want, complaint, anxiety, worry, jealousy, disbelief?
And is it not the very reason people withhold mercy from one another – or judge one another?
At the moment God’s adopted children realize Who He is – there can be no pride, there is nothing but abject spiritual humility in the presence of His glory.
Consider Paul who had every reason for pride in his day but he lost all of it on the road to Damascus when he was touched by the power of God:
But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things [but] loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them [but] dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but [this] one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. – Philippians 3:3-16
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. – Galatians 2:20
If any [man] come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have [sufficient] to finish [it]? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish [it], all that behold [it] begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.
So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. – Luke 14:26-33
I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every [branch] that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. - John 15:1-5
We must focus on God. Sit at His feet and hear His words, like Mary. It is the needful part. Believe Him. Trust Him.
But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.
And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. – Luke 10:38-42
To God be the glory, not man, never man.
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
A blessed Lord’s Day sermon.
Thx.
May God bless you and guide you in your walk with Him, both in this life and in the one to come.
Please remember that Peter was not like John who was not like Paul who was not like James who was not like Thomas. And Christ chose them all.
Likewise you and I are not alike - and yet we are both members of the body of Christ.
God is not finished with any of us.
“Dear Sister, the protestant belief that their scripture interpretations are always guided by the Holy Spirit is the cause of these groups you mention.”
And who leads the individual Roman Catholic and Orthodox to believe that the teaching of their church is right?
Cultivate humility?
. . . My first response is, OF COURSE!
. . . However, it is a Grace, a Gift, an imparting or it’s not very thick or deep or durable.
And, usually, it comes out of great suffering and/or great compassion, empathy, Love.
It particularly comes out of a Great Vision of The Risen Lord . . . and His train filled the Temple.
And, those ‘saturatedly infected with humility’ also come in all stripes but readily resonate with one another in The Lord’s Love and in His Humility.
Humility also seems to . . . take over a willing, eager life chunks at a time—though some of the ‘humility consumed chunks’ can be rather sizeable when the suffering is quite sizeable.
Humility tends to be gracious but is not per se wimpy nor necessarily always quiet. Christ was just as humble when castigating the religious leaders as snakes, vipers and whitewashed tombs as He was suffering on The Cross—though in many observable existential respects, the Cross version was ostensibly greater. Executed naked publically as a criminal was no HUMAN crowning glory. Yet, it was for Christ before all Creation.
Those with above average humility seem to learn the most from the humble themselves.
The broken and contrite before God seem to have and to acquire yet more, the most humility.
Those seeking most to do so, with the greatest facility of putting themselves in others skin and shoes likewise.
Alamo-Girl’s ‘a tough old Texan.’ And they don’t come any better. Any missing her humility . . . tell me by doing so . . . more about their discernment and possibly their humility than about her humility.
Humility is not always wrapped in expected wrappings.
I’m inclined to persistently choose enthusiastic utterances over rubberized logic books any day.
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