Perilous times for the church in America (vanity)

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.

On what you wrote about Romans 2:14-15 and the Gentiles, that passage also suggests that God has shown people what’s good so they have no excuse for their sin. Other passages to consider are those that say God will judge those outside the Church, Paul’s address to the Athenians in which he shared the Gospel with them, and Jesus’ giving of the Great Commission to the Church, in which He told His followers to go and make disciples of all nations.

I’m going to leave off here for now.

Hi again. On the church and human fallibility, the protection that the Lord gives us is, above all, individual. His Word says there will be false teachers who lead astray those who don’t receive a love of the truth. Jesus said His sheep hear His voice and won’t follow another.

On the point about child murderers and forgiveness, we have to recognize ourselves as being like such criminals before God when we’re without Christ.

On James and not being saved by faith alone, we must consider both Paul’s and James’ statements, which don’t contradict but are different parts of the same argument. We are saved by faith alone, from which will come works without fail. But we can not be saved by works alone, which come of pride. Hebrews says without faith it is impossible to please God. I know because the Lord has given me faith, I want to live to please Him, so I do dfifferently than if I didn’t know Him. But I’m not doing works to try to get into Heaven. (Cont’d)

On those not “given the gift of faith” as you say “through no fault of their own,” it’s really not for us to say whether or not that can happen. The Bible says God will judge those outside the Church, and also tells us that we only know things in part. As Paul wrote, God is fully in control of things here, He chooses to Him he extends mercy (”I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,” “Jacob have I loved and Esau I have hated”) yet He still finds fault. If we approach things with faith rather than reason, we will find we’ve been given what we need to understand here even though we don’t have all the answers. Do you believe in Hell and that people go there?

What that part of the conversation made me think of is whether or not the Catholic Church does missionary work today in places where people have never heard of Christ and the work involves learning their unknown language so they may hear the Gospel and then translating the Bible into it. (Cont’d)

Then on what you wrote about that we should “depend” on faith and reason, “tolls that God has given us,” what the Bible teaches is that we are to actually depend on Jesus. The other way sounds something akin to deism, while the Bible teaches that the truth about our existence is that God created us for fellowship with Him, as there was in the Garden and as Revelation promises, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with men.” But, sin and sinners simply can’t be in His presence. How can they? How can rebellion and disobedience to God exist around Him? God wants all to come to repentance and be reconciled to Him, but if it doesn’t happen, those people can’t be in His presence. The Bible says Christians are to be “ministers of reconciliation,” who, “knowing the terrors of Hell, persuade men.” Once we are reconciled to God through Jesus, though, it’s as Jesus said: we passed from death to life. (Cont’d)

...”any acceptance on our part of disagreement with Him is rebellion”....

That’s not true.....I’ve disagreed with the Lord many times along the way...so did Moses and others. He remembers we are “dust”....even his disciples were “slow to learn all Jesus taught them”.

Better saying God’s huge patience with us is more than we deserve and be grateful He is so..... And I rather think He enjoys us when we talk with Him about why we disagree. He doesn’t want robots.

One more comment on faith and works here. For a time, I believe I was trying to trust in both, and the Lord showed me through an actual Hell experience how that was wrong. The Gospel is “good news,” in that through faith alone in Christ we’re justified before God and saved. What the Lord showed me was that through faith in Jesus, I was no longer in rebellion to Him, hating Him and His ways, and I wanted to do His will out of love for Him. I am seeking to get closer to Him all the time through prayer and letting His Word dwell in me. So, where I fall short, or seem to, I can still “be anxious for nothing,” because I trust, for a variety of reasons, it’s God’s will for my life here in this imperfect place.

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