Posted on 04/17/2014 5:43:38 PM PDT by Faith Presses On
This is a response in part to a piece posted in another thread: The Loss of Mystery and the Loss of Childhood"
It's really hypocrisy for concern over the destruction of childhood and Christian morals in Western countries to come from anywhere near the Catholic Church, which consistently has talked out of both sides of its mouth. First, the Catholic Church probably did more than any other institution to promote the original shift in European culture away from God and onto man. That was partly what I learned in tenth-grade public-school European studies, without that much emphasis on the Catholic Church's role: that the Renaissance shifted society's focus from God to man as the "measure of all things." And we know that the Catholic Church heavily promoted and financed it, and since then has embraced man's knowledge and works of art for their own sake and ends in themselves. The Bible, though, says our focus should be singular, on God. Not on God and man, but God alone. To focus on both is to be "double-minded," which God's Word condemns. And nothing we do is our own to do, and we our not our own. God will give us what our hearts truly desire if we delight in Him, but only if we do.
But today, the church does less and less, while objecting to the world and its ways less and less. A primary way the church has let in Satan's work has been through worldly art and entertainment. To be sure, God doesn't excuse what He has called abominable immorality because there is some human "talent," even "genius," behind it. God gives the talent and genius, and it doesn't impress Him in the slightest, and neither does the artist or genius. In recent years an artist or photographer in Australia or New Zealand, I believe, whose works were fairly called child pornography, was defended by some, including some in Hollywood, because one could see his genuine artistic giftedness in his "work." It was high art while being child pornography. But again, God doesn't care about the talent He's given someone except for how it's used - either to glorify and serve Him, or to glorify and serve the purposes of His enemy.
And the God who considered our sin serious enough that He gave His Son to die on a cross as the only means for us to be forgiven for it and reconciled to Him, and the God who willed Christians to be eaten by lions and die other horrible deaths, including in this era, also does not put entertaining pampered, rich, whining, 21st-century American Christians, who have more wealth, creature comforts and security than any people ever, ahead of His demand for holiness. Not perfect holiness through works, but through an honest, humble and broken-hearted appraisal of our condition before Him (which is truly having no "rights" before Him except the right to exist forever in Hell) and that we should agree with Him and seek after His heart and what pleases Him.
That means, then, where we are weak, admitting it. The Bible says in the last days "perilous times" will come, and it is dangerous, indeed, that the rich American church, the Bible-believing church which is following now the same path already taken by the Catholic and mainline Protestant churches, today rationalizes and defends its embrace of so much that is clearly demonic and Satanic, and which hardens even children to sins that surpass that of Sodom and Gomorrah. This church more and more often only pays lip service to there being a difference between "being in the world" and "being of the world."
Why is America today like it is? Part of it undoubtedly has to be our riches. And what word does the Bible say that at one point Jesus used to describe riches? He spoke of the "deceitfulness of riches." They're deceitful. And what do they do? They give a false picture and false sense of reality. They give a false sense of confidence that the only true reality - God's Word - tells us that we should truly fear adopting. Reality can't be changed by wishful thinking, self-deception, or hiding behind ignorance or the idea that God will overlook things if we're just going along with today's crowd. Jesus said: "He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful," (Matthew 13:22). "Deceitfulness": 539 //apath//apate//ap-at'-ay// from 538; TDNT 1:385,65; n f AV - deceitfulness 3, deceitful 1, deceit 1, deceivableness 1, deceivings 1; 7 1) deceit, deceitfulness. And "riches": 4149 //ploutov//ploutos//ploo'-tos// from the base of 4130; TDNT - 6:318,873; n m AV - riches 22; 22 1) riches, wealth, 1a) abundance of external possessions, 1b) fulness, abundance, plenitude, 1c) a good i.e. that with which one is enriched (Strong's Greek definitions).
There's no room to get around it, especially when taken with what the Bible says as a whole: riches have a capacity to deceive. If we start to believe that we can follow our thoughts and feelings rather than God's Word, and believe that a loving God doesn't really mean the tough things that He's said which our flesh hates, then we can believe that riches have deceived us.
Since the 1950's, teen suicide has tripled; we hear all the time that teenagers are constantly using all sorts of substances for new "highs;" and they think nothing of "friends with benefits." And as we look at all the moral confusion around us, it is clear what the fruit of our society is and where it comes from. And back in the 1950's, Christians who spoke out about Elvis' gyrating hips, who warned that little compromises with immorality would someday lead to utter immorality in society, were ridiculed as alarmist. Even in the 1980's when I was growing up, liberals in the media would defend the latest celebrated perversion by Madonna by calling on people to remember how the silly Chicken Little "prudes" used to be alarmed by Elvis moving his hips, thinking that sexual immorality would run rampant, drawing us away from God. But one step at a time, we have become a solidly Satanic culture with the spiritual carnage all around us for us to see and experience every day, and even the church is largely dulled to sin and its horrible spiritual consequences, and embracing sin as really not bad. The world's "wisdom" now seems wise enough for us. But so many Christians are more concerned about being "too good" than in seeking after God's heart.
The Bible says that God has promised to send strong delusion: "And then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming— even him, whose coming is according to the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all the deceit of unrighteousness in those who perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness," (2 Thessalonians 2:8-12).
It wasn't the "sexual revolution" or anything so abstract that has brought the church in America, and America itself, to the points that they are each at. Christians have taken up with God's enemy and his ways, allowing him in by justifying this or that which he's done, and not from the Bible, but from "human reason." And we can be sure that there is always a price paid for that.
One of the lies of God's enemy and ours is that God's ways really aren't so satisfying. God's ways may not sometimes be as easy to access today as the enemy's, but they always give real satisfaction and enjoyment which never ends and only grows, while the Devil's is empty and satisfies only briefly, while breeding distress, hopelessness, confusion and destruction. God's ways produce the fruit of the Spirit, and they actually fulfill all the promises which the Devil makes to us but can't keep. Doing as James said, being a doer of the Word, and not a hearer only, which is just looking into the mirror and then forgetting what our faces look like. God is able and does mean to satisfy our souls all the time. As Christians know, slavish obedience to rules and worrying about right and wrong aren't what the Lord is after, but life, and life abundantly, as He has designed it in His infinite wisdom and not our limited understanding, is truly His will and desire for us.
Frankly I am NOT SURPRISED about the “Catholic bashing” that goes on in a number of threads. Very sad and at a time in which with this Easter Sunday weekend coming up and ALL the churches have come together this year, it should be a call for ALL who by faith in the Lord and a COMMON baptism that we MUST witness for HIM instead of BASHING other Christians.
FEAR that the Catholic Church is right.
Well put.
Protestant churches did exist until the 16th century with Martin Luther but Church bashing has always existed.
The relatively few disgruntled Protestants we hear from are merely the latest Catholic Church bashers. Most all FReepers KNOW that "the Church" always means the Catholic Church, that is, the OLDEST, longest existing church founded by Jesus.
What other church can claim that?
Our Lord will sort things out. That is what He does.
Easy!
It's the ONLY 'true' one!
Uh... the time is getting close??
Luke 18:8
However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
BINGO! We have a winner!
Oh BOY!
Yet another C vs P food fight!!!
Just ask Stephen!
Acts chapter 7
Rather, then have anti-bashing against the Catholic Church, it would be a whole lot better if in the spirit of John 17, Christians pray that all believers will be ONE in the Lord Jesus.
Synagogue = still waiting for the Messiah.
Church = Jesus, our Messiah.
That is the eternal prayer of all Christians, I would hope.
You quote John, a Jew and Apostle, so one would have to be a Christian...
:o) THANKS!
From a golf lover: even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.
Here's my acorn!
1John 3
18
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
Jesus told us what we must do to be saved, did he tell us to follow the Catholic teachings or the Mormon teachings, Baptist, Pentecostal, Methodist J.W? no he did not.
John 3:15
He said that those who believe in me shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 14:15
15
If ye love me, keep my commandments.
What was his commandments?
I do not think the commandments Jesus gave us had any thing to do with Church religious rituals, they were how we live our every day life, mostly in regards to our fellow human beings, our neighbors.
All of the emphasis seems to be on the Church and nothing more, did Jesus send the apostles out to preach Church? no, he sent them out to preach his gospel.
But most of what you hear in Church about being saved has more to do with ritual than what Jesus told us to do and not do.
How long has it been since any one has heard the Gospel that Jesus actually preached?
Normally what you hear is a half dozen words of Jesus ( if he is quoted at all ) and then a sermon about those words that last for thirty minutes or an hour that mostly has nothing to do with what Jesus actually said.
Or you might hear about Paul for an hour, but what about Jesus?
Where do you get the idea that the gates of hell are not prevailing against your religion???
Your opinion and nothing more.
As is YOURS.
Considering the condition of Catholicism today, it certainly isn't winning that battle.
It's more like the gates of hell have infiltrated the church.
When the corrupt leadership which doesn't even hold to Catholic teachings itself are gone, then Catholics will have some credibility.
Thank you for this! Came at just the right time. Bless you!
bump
Do you acknowledge the "Protestant" bashing that occurs here as well?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.