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.
Or fear that it is NOT - hence the immediate reactionary defense at the slightest hint that the RCC might not be right in everything?
No fear of that at all. Papal authority extends to morality, right and wrong, and he is infallible in only that context.
However, Pope Francis I is never preaching anything new, is he? NONE of the popes preached anything new. Sin is VERY old. It's not as if we humans have invented ANY new sin. I think we humans have already committed all the sins there are to commit and we will continue to commit them until our good Lord ends it all for us, personally or totally.
I doubt if I EVER shocked a priest at confession. I might have shocked myself and what I had done but, never the priest.
IMAGINE what they hear.
What does that mean? The word used in that verse is Hades which simply means “the unseen world”. So what does “the gates of the unseen world will not prevail against it” mean?
You’re welcome. The Bible tells us to warn each other, so that’s what we must do. God isn’t a man that He should lie. Things are as He says, and He’ll do as He says He will. And listening to Him doesn’t just save us from pain and quite possibly Hell itself, but brings us closer to Him and truly fulfills us.
Who do I think? God Himself. And Jesus’ disciples never would have wanted to take any of the credit knowing that they themselves were completely sinfuland unworthy. Moses didn’t enter the Promised Land for one reason, and one reason only: because He “did a work”which gave some credit to himself rather than clearly allowing the people to see that only God Himself deserved their gratitude, awe and worship. “The church” also only refers to all those who have been saved by faith. “Ekklesia” means “called out.”
Please see my reply in Post 45 as it speaks to your comments, too. “The church” is those who have been “called out” by God to believe in His Son as the only personal Saviour for our individual sins. But because only God knows who all those people truly are, we must in our limited understanding and knowledge call anyone who professes a genuine belief in Jesus as their Savior a part of the Church, and we must use the word “church” in other ways, too, which are based on our limitations in this life, too.
You’re welcome.
I don’t have the time tonight to reply to your post, but I will as soon as I can.
I see someone who wants the record of the LONGEST existing religious organization by using a narrow definition.
Satan does a pretty good job with Scripture...
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
Opinion?
I saw a QUESTION.
Some people just don’t know their history, do they?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2280714/posts
And some people just don't know their Scripture, do they? If they did, they would agree with what Faith Presses On said a few posts back. The "church" is the called-out assembly, ekklesia of ALL the redeemed in Christ through faith in Him. To assert it is only ones own church, as in worship place or religion, misses the whole point of the gospel.
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
What else do you wish to ADD?
5 Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.”
6 The apostles and elders met to consider this question. 7 After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. 8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. 9 He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. 10 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? 11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
12 The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. 13 When they finished, James spoke up. “Brothers,” he said, “listen to me. 14 Simon[a] has described to us how God first intervened to choose a people for his name from the Gentiles. 15 The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:
16 “‘After this I will return
and rebuild David’s fallen tent.
Its ruins I will rebuild,
and I will restore it,
17 that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
even all the Gentiles who bear my name,
says the Lord, who does these things’[b]—
18 things known from long ago.[c]
19 “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. 21 For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”
The apostles and elders, your brothers,
To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:
Greetings.
24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
Farewell.
30 So the men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter. 31 The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message. 32 Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the believers. 33 After spending some time there, they were sent off by the believers with the blessing of peace to return to those who had sent them. [34] [d] 35 But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, where they and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord.
What else do you wish to ADD?
Acts 15
20
Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.
No, they are not all used. In the Greek there is only one word used and that is Hades. It means the unseen world.
>>so what’s your point?<<
My point is that the Catholic Church has corrupted the meaning of scripture. They have corrupted the very word ekklésia and turned it into something it never was intended. They have also corrupted the meaning of Hades. Hades from the New Testament and Sheol from the Old are not Gehenna. And “church” is not ekklésia
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