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."
“A Blessed Pascha (Passover) and Easter to you and yours also..!”
Thank-you. That’s kind of you. I’ll remember your wishes in late April when we do celebrate the Feast! :)
I know,Dear Brother, and what troubles me most about this is that when someone buys into this theology,the psychological effect “can” cause loss of love for others since God's creative power is thus not for the purpose of love for ALL His created.
This seems due to lack of understanding of God's knowledge of evil and somehow attributing evil being created by God for some purpose to be used by God.
This type of view of God strips away love being the essence of God .
I Think the following excerpt's from Blessed Saint Aquinas should give our reformed friends something to think about.
That God knows Evil Things
WHEN good is known, the opposite evil is known. But God knows all particular good things, to which evil things are opposed: therefore God knows evil things.
2. The ideas of contraries, as ideas in the mind, are not contrary to one another: otherwise they could not be together in the mind, or be known together: the idea therefore whereby evil is known is not inconsistent with good, but rather belongs to the idea of good (ratio qua cognoscitur malum ad rationem boni pertinet).* If then in God, on account of His absolute perfection, there are found all ideas of goodness (rationes bonitatis, as has been proved (Chap. XL), It follows that there is in Him the idea (ratio) whereby evil is known.
3. Truth is the good of the understanding: for an understanding is called good inasmuch as it knows the truth. But truth is not only to the effect that good is good, but also that evil is evil: for as it is true that what is, is, so it is true that what is not, is not. The good of the understanding therefore consists even in the knowledge of evil. But since the divine understanding is perfect in goodness, there cannot be wanting to it any of the perfections of understanding; and therefore there is present to it the knowledge of things evil.
4. God knows the distinction of things (Chap. L). But in the notion of distinction there is negation: for those things are distinct, of which one is not another: hence the first things that are of themselves distinct, mutually involve the exclusion of one another, by reason of which fast negative propositions are immediately verified of them, e.g., ‘No quantity is a substance.’ God then knows negation. But privation is a sort of negation: He therefore knows privation, and consequently evil, which is nothing else than a privation of due perfection.
8. In us the knowledge of evil things is never blameworthy in mere point of knowledge, that is in the judgement that is passed about evil things, but accidentally, inasmuch as by the observation of evil things one is sometimes inclined to evil. But that cannot be in God; and therefore there is nothing to prevent His knowing evil.
With this agrees what is said, that Evil surpasseth not [God's] wisdom (Wisd. vii 30) and, Hell and perdition are before the Lord (Prov. xv, 11) and, My offences are not hidden from thee (Ps. lxviii, 6); and, He knoweth the vanity of men, and seeing doth he not consider iniquity? (Job xi, 11.)
It is to be observed however that if God's knowledge were so limited as that His knowledge of Himself did not involve His knowing other beings of finite and partial goodness, at that rate He would nowise know privation or evil: because to the good which is God Himself there is no privation opposed, since privation and its opposite are naturally about the same object; and so to that which is pure actuality no privation is opposed, and consequently no evil either. Hence on the supposition that God knows Himself alone, by knowing the excellences of His own being, He will not know evil.* But because in knowing Himself He knows beings in which privations naturally occur, He must know the opposite privations, and the evils opposite to particular goods.
It must be further observed that as God, without any argumentative process, knows other beings by knowing Himself, so there is no need of His knowledge being argumentative in coming to the knowledge of evil things through good things: for good is as it were the ground of the knowledge of evil, evil being nothing else than privation of good: hence what is evil is known through what is good as things are known through their definitions, not as conclusions through their premises.
I am really enjoying the Aquinas refresher course. Thanks.
Waking understands sleeping. Sleeping does not understand waking. And therefore those who say that Man must have fallen in order to understand evil and to appreciate good are wrong.
***Man, in his natural state, has the “free will” to sin or not sin.
We are in agreement on this, Irish. I am not sure your Reformed friends here are, but the Orthodox and Catholic most certainly are.***
I am absolutely positive that most, if not all, of my “refomed” friends agree.
***I am not sure that by being regenerated we gain freedom, since our options actually narrow.***
Galatians 5:13 “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.” This is my point. We are FREE, more free than the unregenerated. We have the freedom to love one another as Christ loved us. No unregenerated man can do this. So, we have the choice to sin (which is NOT a good choice, but we do it every day), not sin (which is better than sinning), or we can choose to serve, honor, and please God (which is ALWAYS the best choice). Can you see what I am getting at?
Your reformed friends dney free will.
Galatians 5:13 “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.”...We are FREE, more free than the unregenerated.
And Ephesians 6:6 says "not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart."
In other words, doing the will of God is not freedom but servitude. And servitude means less freedom. It comes form the heart, but it's sevritude nonetheless, because that heart was changed by God's will and not ours, right?
Your theology teaches that God changes our hearts and gives us faith and that you really have no choice but to believe, so you are actually less free; you have fewer options if you are obligated to do God's will!
But a Christian soul is free from the fallen world, and the tansient charm it has on us; we cannot be bought with wordly things and simple pleasures, to which we were born as slaves into our fallen naure.
***Galatians 5:13 “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.” This is my point. We are FREE, more free than the unregenerated. We have the freedom to love one another as Christ loved us. ***
If we are free to love, we are free to hate. Otherwise there is no freedom. If we are free to follow the Way of Jesus, we are free to follow any other way as well.
I think that I understand your point - that without the Grace of God, we cannot possibly have true faith and obtain salvation. But let’s understand the full implications of that thought. Adam was free to reject God; so are all men.
That is how perfect His love is for us.
Either we make a choice or we make no choice. We either have freedom or we don’t.
***I think that I understand your point - that without the Grace of God, we cannot possibly have true faith and obtain salvation. But let’s understand the full implications of that thought. Adam was free to reject God; so are all men.***
We do reject God every day, it’s called sin. But, our sins are forgiven through the grace if our Lord through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We freely choose to sin, and we freely choose to please God, which is a choice the unregenerated do NOT have. We ARE freer than the unregenerated, praise be to God.
Good post, Mark. Hope your Easter was full of JOY.
***Your reformed friends dney free will.***
As do I, if you mean that a person can, on his own, choose to believe God. That can’t happen, as scripture points out all over the place.
***But, our sins are forgiven through the grace if our Lord through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We freely choose to sin, and we freely choose to please God, which is a choice the unregenerated do NOT have. ***
We agree here absolutely.
***We ARE freer than the unregenerated, praise be to God.***
If by freer, you mean that we have more options open for us to choose, then we are in agreement here as well. Easter is a wonderful time, is it not?
***Hope your Easter was full of JOY.***
It was, kind sir. A leg of fresh Iowa lamb roasted at 500 degrees F with lots of garlic slivers and covered in kosher salt, accompanied by a genuine Middle Eastern rice pilau, with lots of sauted garlic, onion, cumin, sesame seeds, etc etc etc, added to the rice and microwaved for about 30 minutes in the traditional Middle Eastern style.
I agree that this does highlight some of our bigger differences. If you belong to the RCC, then you must also belong to the Pope. I do not belong to the Pope. :) I also note that many Catholics refer to "Our Mother" in a theological sense. Finally, we have this:
John 20:27-29 : 27 Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe." 28 Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!" 29 Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
Jesus did not appear to have any problem with this saying.
I thought that the indwelling knowledge passed on by the Holy Spirit was enough. Are you saying that the Holy Spirit is insufficient to move mens’ hearts and souls and that the creation, production, dissemination and preaching of the Bible by men to other men is required for salvation? Ooooh, I think that we’re verging on a works based system with a very weak Holy Spirit. I don’t think that Calvin would approve, FK.
The Holy Spirit is fully capable of converting men's hearts who would never have access to the written word, and presumably He has done so. However, under the normal course the Spirit will convert a heart and then see to it that the person HEARS the word and then believes. In either case, no works of men are done or needed, and God gets all the credit.
Mechanical rote. Oh, can you name me an instance of the non elect to preach the word to the elect? How does that mechanism work anyway? Does the elect hear the Gospel (or Paul anyway) and then all of a sudden the Light of the Holy Spirit gets clicked on and all this indwelling knowledge, or some of it, or something, comes pouring into one’s soul, or brain, or kidneys?
I'm just noting the principle that anyone can SAY the word without actually believing in it. We could hire an actor, etc. Nevertheless, if that was the particular time God had ordained for an elect to start believing then it would happen. In the same way, surely there are clergy on all sides who are not of the elect. They say the right words, but are not believers themselves.
How does the Reformed explain the failure of Israel to accept Christ? Is that part of God’s flawless ‘plan’?
Yes, to the extent they did not accept Him that was a part of God's plan. God alone chooses who are to be His. In addition, I don't think that every last man of Israel was lost, but it does seem clear that many were.
God wills that all men be saved. If they aren’t, it is because they will be Judged to be one of the goats and not one of the sheep. The Judgement is on deeds, you must admit, or does your Bible need even more pages restored?
There is A judgment on deeds, but the judgment to get into Heaven is by grace through faith, and not by works. God decides who are the goats and who are the sheep.
***It was, kind sir. A leg of fresh Iowa lamb roasted at 500 degrees F with lots of garlic slivers and covered in kosher salt, accompanied by a genuine Middle Eastern rice pilau, with lots of sauted garlic, onion, cumin, sesame seeds, etc etc etc, added to the rice and microwaved for about 30 minutes in the traditional Middle Eastern style.***
Quit, your making me drool all over my keyboard :>)
I had lamb for the first time last week. One of the guys at work brought in Irish Stew with lamb. Yummy!!!
Good observation, WM. The hierarchy of the Church teaches that it has a Divine right to lead all Christians. Therefore, all Christians should submit. That is liberalism, just as you said.
An Irishman who’s never had lamb stew?
Lamb is one of the easiest types of meat to cook. I make it 3 or 4 times a year. It’s rich but if you have a good butcher available, it’s tremendous.
I’ve got the bones and some meat cooking with a lot of Burgundy and garlic cloves and sliced onions and various spices in a slow cooker. And barley. Irish stew. Mmmm.
Next thing, you’re going to tell me that you’ve never had roasted rabbit wrapped in bacon.
Or Guinness...
I know we have a lot of RC posters who are conservative, but their church is not.
You never cease to amaze me brother. You are so patient in responding to some posters and you methodically work your way through all posts that have been sent to you.
I hope Resurrection Sunday was a joyous time for you.
It was for me. We did a lot of singing and Amazing Love brought tears to my eyes.
***If you belong to the RCC, then you must also belong to the Pope. I do not belong to the Pope.***
The Pope is the servant of the servants of God. I do not belong to him either. More backwards possessive?
***I also note that many Catholics refer to “Our Mother” in a theological sense. ***
It’s only Scriptural - Our Lord giving us to Mary from the Cross. Theological nonsense, I suppose.
***The Holy Spirit is fully capable of converting men’s hearts who would never have access to the written word, and presumably He has done so. However, under the normal course the Spirit will convert a heart and then see to it that the person HEARS the word and then believes. In either case, no works of men are done or needed, and God gets all the credit.***
The normal course? Sees to it that the person hears the word and believes? No works of men are done or needed?
Are we embarking on a magical mystery tour?
***Yes, to the extent they did not accept Him that was a part of God’s plan. God alone chooses who are to be His. In addition, I don’t think that every last man of Israel was lost, but it does seem clear that many were.***
How do you know it was God’s plan? We have every evidence that He tried sincerely to get Israel to accept Him. And failed.
***A judgment on deeds, but the judgment to get into Heaven is by grace through faith, and not by works. God decides who are the goats and who are the sheep.***
If you read the NT, it is our deeds that are judged. God decides who are the goats and the sheep based upon what we have done or not done.
Once we have received the Grace of God, like the parable of the talents, it is up to us what we do with it.
I am an Irishman from Florida. Some of the things we eat...
Gator, Gopher turtle, Snake, etc.
And no, I’ve never had rabbit, but Guinness? Yes, though my tastes run toward Harp.
***The hierarchy of the Church teaches that it has a Divine right to lead all Christians. Therefore, all Christians should submit. That is liberalism, just as you said.***
It is the word of Jesus. I didn’t think that he could be labelled as liberal, but nonetheless, His instruction is what we need to do. After all, His instruction is how we shall be judged.
Conservatism is not about freeing the individual. It is a reversion to a past state, by the way.
The liberalism of the RCC is probably rooted in it's historic relation to the state ...
The Catholic Church is a LOT older than the nation-state, or even than the idea of the nation state. Some rulers have made martyrs of Catholic clergy. Rulers wanted to be able to appoint bishops, and in some places they got what they wanted. In some places the Church was able to cow rulers and in others to persuade them. In some places, like Inquisitorial Spain, the courts of the Inquisition were so much more merciful (not every court, not all the time) than those of the king that suspects would claim to be heretics in hopes that they would be tried by "the Inquisition" rathern that the King's judges.
I really think that there's a lot of anachronistic thought here, and a lot of bragging because others made the mistakes from which we have learned, thereby saving us the trouble of making the mistakes, but not excusing us for thinking we are so much wiser than they.
There's lots of horror (much of it just by the far more humane standards of our age) over the 13th century massacre of the Cathars by Simon de Montfort. It is hard (for me at least) to think that Simon was all about serving the Church. I have a feeling that the real estate of the Albigensian Nobility may have had its own entirely secular charms.
Compare and contrast the US tendency to have the Feds invovle themselves more and more with public edumication, and the Hillarious desire for single-payer (hah hah) health care administered by the same folks who brought you the IRS to the principle of subsidiarity, as mentioned in this post contrasting the Catholic Church with the liberal welfare state:
One of the key principles of Catholic social thought is known as the principle of subsidiarity. This tenet holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity which can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be. This principle is a bulwark of limited government and personal freedom. It conflicts with the passion for centralization and bureaucracy characteristic of the Welfare State.This is why Pope John Paul II took the “social assistance state” to task in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus. The Pontiff wrote that the Welfare State was contradicting the principle of subsidiarity by intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility. This “leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending.”
In spite of this clear warning, the United States Catholic Bishops remain staunch defenders of a statist approach to social problems. ...
(emphasis blah blah)
Liberalism always seeks to subordinate the individual in the name of the group. Conservatism seeks to free the individual and only have the state exercise it's power to protect those freedoms.
But even Conservatism realizes that the best way to protect individual freedoms is NOT a loose-knit agglomeration of small groups but something more federal, with local interests in tension with federation interests. It seems to be that subsidiarity provides that kind of thing in the RC Church and that it also explains the otherwise inexplicable toleration of some bishops.
Being supreme authority does not, cannot mean having control over every little thing. And it would be a foolish autocrat who would try to micro-manage a group of 1 billion souls spread all over the world.
All of which is to suggest that perhaps there is some misunderstanding of what a Pope MAY control and of what Pope CAN control.
Good observation, WM. The hierarchy of the Church teaches that it has a Divine right to lead all Christians. Therefore, all Christians should submit. That is liberalism, just as you said.
So I disagree with the imprecision of this statement, as I see it, as well as with it's loose relationship with reality on the ground.
The Pope may, after the bulk of Protestant Christendom has changed its mind, persist in asserting that the use of artificial Birth control is wrong. The Pope may also know that a lot of US clergy (to their shame) do not comport with this teaching, and some even use the rejected notion of "the fundamental option" to encourage those who come to them for permission uh, I mean, counsel to use birth control.
When a bishop hereabouts started sounding too much like an Episcopalian around 15 years ago, the then Pope read him the riot act and then sent him an "assistant" bishop for a few years. If he had the control some of you seem to suggest that bishop would just have disappeared quietly into the cellars of the Vatican.
As I suggested to someone, check out the history of the astonishing Catherine of Siena. I bet at least one Pope had some fantasies about what he would do if he had absolute power. But St. Catherine, while maybe not politically tactful, seriously yanked the papal chain, and in so doing gave the rest of us permission to do the same and gave wise Popes warning that foolish exercises of power are simply NOT a good idea.
It may make sense to use derogatory neologisms to describe the Catholic Church, and sometimes it does seem like a bureaucracy with the wait-time meter set to "stun". But it really is far more like a barely functional family with daddy down at the See City and Big Daddy up in the big house in the Vatican, and us kids out here running wild.
YES, many bishops, being innerleckshuals, are liberals. And NO I don't think the Vatican really "gets" the idea of the United States or has freed itself from European "big-state" liberalism. So the RC Church, sociologically speaking, has some pressure toward what I would consider 'Statist' paradigms, in which the state is sovereign, as opposed to the original (but imperilled) US paradigm in which the individual is sovereign and the state are our ministers and street sweepers. But there's enough room even in the explicitly social doctrine for me to be able to say with the vigor of a clear conscience, "No, Father," or "No, Bishop, I do NOT agree that the state needs to do the things you think it should do." He may harrumph at me, but I'm within my rights as a Catholic to do so.
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