7494	Forums / Theology Forum / Sword And The Trowel: Spurgeon	on: May 02, 2007, 07:45:16 PM
Quote Tom, Thanks for the link. Things are not a lot different today, are they? Like you, I pray for revival, that God will do a marvelous work in what may be the last days before Jesus returns. God's Grace and Mercy Wow, It has become desperate in the U.S. I mean we are crumbling from within. It starts in the church , let judgement begin in the house of God , and then because the church is a family of families that canker begins spreads to society. We are seeing more and more that the modern day counseling movement is from an a - moral paradigm. It is the messing of the lines between men and women. There is such a lack of spiritual respect coming from the men, because men are crumbling under the pressure of guilt when the first sign of trouble hits their marriage. Rather then encouraging men to see that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, we are encouraging men to put the bible down. When trouble comes men are responsible to cast down imaginations against the knowledge of God by pray and meditation because the battle is more of a spiritual nature than a physicological one. Those same counselors are in churches where women share the pulpit. And unless men in the church family lead, then those men in their respective families will only repeat the past generations lack of spiritual headship. So that it really is hypocrisy to come into the presence of God on our own terms and then ask the men to do something akin to false humility. Because there is so much idolatry in worship, then even in ones own family, as Christ says, will be divided, due to the low spiritual state of church society there will be an increase number of false conversions. So we are dealing with the love waxing cold paradigm. Which is being in an enviroment of idolatry, it will effect the spiritual state of a person because the lack of knowledge on bible basics. We are now going through the paradigm where the enemies are within ones own family. A very big spiritual delima.  7500  Forums / Main Forum / Heavy Weight on: April 30, 2007, 05:54:47 PM Quote I cm completely new to any sort of furum of any kind so here goes. After consideration of the many post that I have read the on that is missing is that our Lord Jues Christ gave up his life.  "NO man takes my life... "  This is important to any disscussion of the crusifiction.  Each of us knows of our own heavey burden that we will willingly place on the shoulders of Jesus our God.  While we look for the generic and there are times that it would be true each of us has a burden that must be place upon him.  Cain declared to God Almighty "you have placed a burden greater than I can bare".  He never asked for foregiveness and the guilt of his sin followed him.  Grace that unmerited favor that has been ptesented to us as believers is as light as a feather compared to those things that are upon us as to great to bare.   I know this rambles and I should have taken more time to think it through but in a nutshell. Christ is our propitiation the redeamer of our souls. No man can take his life he gave it freely Risen on the third day he assended to sit at the right hand of the Father in his glory. With Christ as our high priest tempted in all ways as we are and can sypathise with our weakness how much more superiour is he than any sacrifice. I don't know abut you but this is light indeed compared to what my life was like before Christ my redeemer called to me Come. I agree, I can know that Christ atonement was Trinitarian, that is He is God whose glory was manifested on the cross as the only eternal sacrifice that made an end to sin and death. He in this sense is our only hope in this life. But it is quite another thing to have it as an assurance so that in any situation we go through we can rejoice and know that it was for us personally and we are at peace resting in Him. Since we still struggle with sin our testings can be quite a bit of stretching our faith. Since we have such a small faith it would be necessary for us to travel through things that are beyond our ability to endure because it would'nt be a test to us unless it was trying our patience. Its as if we were in a marathon race which is grueling and exhausting to the point giving up and we were putting all of our energy toward the finish. In this sense we are suffering on behalf of Christ because we were never promised a smooth path. We are at times being push into the direction while we are not wanting to go. Its really never a good thing to ask for God to break us. We are always in need of grace since we are not wanting to go through the Christian life loaded with guilt, because when we are under that kind of burden we are not under the gracious assurance of resting in His forgiveness , which is an abundant grace. We are always in need of more of Gods presence. We are always looking to receive a blessing of assurance. It is the ploy of Satan to get us in a mind set of liking to be under a burden so that we think that we are humble being buffeted in this way. No we want to always be revived and under the domination of the fruit of the Spirit. It is in the path of humble morning that we do not stay in that state but we experience that break through of assurance of the Spirit , who always is good, and leads us on that smooth pathway. Our supplications are to be Spirit illuminated to the point where our trials are unburdened by that assurance of full relief in a physical sense. Whatever adversity we go through we have an advocate in Christ our high priest who has gone before us and finish the work of concuring our enemies. We are running a race that has already been won, and He finished it for us. He was the only one who had the perfect race, who was fully obedient when He crossed the line for us. In His winning we have a High Priest who is ready to meet us at every trial with the like strength and endurance that Christ experienced by being filled with the Spirit beyond our capability.He was filled with the Holy Spirit and He has sent the Spirit into our hearts at His assention so that He comes as the fulness of God in the Trinitarian sense, as equal in the essence of the Father and the Son. With the Spirit comes Christ and the Father. So that we are left with more strength than we can handle, and we are left with more comfort than we can fathom. It is the Spirit who witnesses with our spirit that we are the sons of God. It is the Spirit that fills us with joy and comfort when we go before the Father in prayer through Christ , and who restores us to know Him and the joy and pleasure that the Father and the Son recieve from each other in the Trinitarian relationship. Because we have the Spirit we have the Godhead living in us. We may be weak in the flesh , being corrupted in all areas of our being, but we are filled with the fulness of God. We are more than conqueours though Him who love us. We have are filled with power to each task, being trained by the Godhead. We recieve strength unto strength, in all of our daily task. He trains our hands for work. He makes us the recipients of others who have strongholds who fall beneath our feet. Yes , we restore by being regenerated by the supernatural work of the Spirit so that we are strengthened to over come in our daily task and in the society we are in.  David was not saying his choices determined his being blessed or disciplined. Davids view of his own righteousness and his own ability was a Pauline view , it was filthy rags. The decision to fight the battles was determined on Gods choice to give victory not Davids ability to fight or the size of Davids armies. Salvation belongs to the Lord. The Lord was Davids king. David was gifted with Gods ability through the new birth. It was determined from his mothers womb to be in a relationship of grace from the Lord and with the Lord. David was the poet of Israel, because He was given special gifts by the Spirit not only to fight in a supernatural way but he was given a special measure of the Spirit to rule as the only King of Israel who was after Gods own heart. It was through his gifts that He gave God the praise and the glory in this poetic and exalting way. David was a worshiper who was blessed with an ability to worship in the Spirit before the battles and after the battles. It was in his worshipping God in the temple with such an unfeigned that he was empowered to have victory over all of his enemies. It was not by the power of his choices. Those victories were not of a self congratulatory paradigm. But the war victories brought on a supernatural ability in David to write about the experience and the trust that was a result of the individual moments in those supernatural battles to give God the glory for His unfathomable strength and His absolute sovereign work in those supernatural defeats of his enemies. David experienced the help of God beyond his own ability to grasp and understand. Davids will was given up to Gods 7526  Forums / Main Forum / Heavy Weight on: April 26, 2007, 04:07:14 PM Jesus was speaking about taking the burden from us because His grace is greater than our sin , the consequences we suffer as a result of sin, and the being judged by others who are self righteous. Jesus is the only one who understands our weakness, since He can read our thoughts and He can understand all of the intents of our hearts. He suffered the reproach of men, being spat apoun, jerred at. He was kicked and punched by men in the last hours of His life, being tormented by demons, and tempted to pre mature death. He suffered the absolute worse situation by being made sin so the the Father turned away as a result of His being made sin for us. He was forsaken by the Father as darkness enveloped the earth.  It was an unimaginable pain.In His death He received the full punishment for our sins. He was beaten and whipped so bad  that He was unrecognizable. He was truely a man acquainted with sorrow and grief. He identifies with our suffering because He suffered the pangs of death knowing the time He was to die while He was in His ministry. He know the hour and was fully aware of what He was to suffer. Being aware of the kind of death we are to die would put to much grief on any of us mortals. We would always be staring death in the face from our births. It would be painful. Yet Jesus came to die that kind of death for us being acquainted with the sorrow all through His life. Our preparation for death is short and then we are in heaven. Since He was a man of sorrow, He can take all of our sorrows because He can make us know that He understands by experience. When we go to Him in prayer, He meets us at our deepest need by reminding us of  that He under-girds our lowest experience because He is lower. His hand meets us by holding onto us, or by holding us up, or by keeping us in HIs grip. His steps are always going before us , keeping our enemies from destroying us in our day of evil, or our day of the lowest point emotionally and spiritually. His angels at His command ,are fighting for us when the forces of evil come at us at our lowest point, and trying to smother out the last bit of light we have to trust in. He grace is there when we have no strength to give us our needs by a pure and free grant so that we are not made to cope with too much of the burden of our trial. His words are true when every man tries to get us to trust in something else, or someone else for our relief, He speaks to us from His suffering cross, telling us that He alone will deliver us. As we here the voices of men saying \"He trust in God , let God deliver Him.\" At the most helplessness we feel the name of Jesus rings as our only hope and our last defense, at the lowest part of our trial.  Very few men see that kind of grace.     7527  Forums / Main Forum / "christian" Magical Thinking on: April 25, 2007, 09:48:05 PM Quote But I do still think that magical thinking, as opposed to the genuine work of the Holy Spirit, is delusional.  C. I am opposed to the word of faith movement because of the focus on man and his wants as the agent for change. Any time mans will becomes the focus then God glory diminishes. God does not share His glory with any man. So if mans faith magically makes his circumstances then his glory means more to him than Gods will. God must have the control of the circumstances so that He gets the glory and not man. In saying that mans words produce death as an individual circumstancial paradigm is not within the context of the scripture. Mans words produce eternal destruction because they go no higher than the box of corruption that man exist in. They have no power to effect anything accept personal destruction and leading a host of people toward hell ,which is the paradigm of death in scripture. If the negative words could produce a certian situation then the positive words could create. Have you ever brought someone from the dead by your declaration? Its just crazy and dillusional.   Reply Quote Notify 7528  Forums / Main Forum / "christian" Magical Thinking on: April 25, 2007, 09:26:08 PM The thought is magical when it is not formed by the word of God , as it is proposed in the mind outside of the context of that phrase or word in the text. Our thoughts are to follow Gods thoughts. We call this a world view. It is a mind filled with thoughts that are within the propostional boundaries of the whole counsel. The christian mind is formed by confessional standards. In this way the logic of thought becomes orthodox. Although the text only has one proposition , there are many applications in life. But in applying a particular text great care should be made not to stray from the doctrinal intent and thus create a adversarial relationship in the understanding of the mind of doctrine and action. The intent in any action comes from the desire and not from the will itself. The mind choosing what it is pleased with rather than the choosing of choice. The natural exposure of doctrine in the mind will transform the action. So that the doctrine makes the action spiritually acceptable being from a proper motive. Without the Spirit the mind cannot apprehend in the understanding spiritual thoughts. Without the word the mind cannot be exposed to divine light. The Spirit uses the word to cause regeneration. So that the mind is transformed by being made alive to spiritual things. Unless we expose our minds to the word of God, in a holistic way as well as a scientific way and in a repetitive way then the intents of the heart will be more of a higher criticism rather than a submission to the whole counsel. In searching for truth as for gold we are forming a mind that thinks thoughts after God. The experience of being exposed to the word is that the Spirit will take the things of God and reveal them to us. In that paradigm we are under the illumination of the word and are being assured by the Spirit that we love God. Because the only agent for mortification is the word then we are not trusting in ourselves as the cause of renewal and change but we are looking to the righteousness of Christ in His revelation as our only object of mortification. In this way we are getting to the desire rather than just changing the outward behaviour. Our integrity will be first an inward integrity since we are trusting in the only source of change, the Spirit and the word.   7530  Forums / Theology Forum / Perseverence on: April 25, 2007, 02:17:16 PM There are some practical applications to the soul of man in this day and age of psychobable. First God does what ever pleases Him. He is not subject to mans will, and so if He rules every moral choice then He is not a God we are co dependent apoun. The reason that we fully acknowlege Gods absolute soveriegnty is because Gods love and His faithfulness is present wherever He is present. His love and faithfulness are strickly in His power to exercise His choice apart from any other cohercion. God is the only one who is loving and faithful. If He is not able to exercise His will in what ever He does then He is not able to be loving and faithful. We are absolutely 100 percent dependent on God for all of our ability to choose. Because if God is loving and faithful and He is able to show it any time He wills or decrees it then we are not able to show love without Gods willing it to be. It is a blessing for us to be unable because of us we will lack integrity if we do not acknowlege God as able to do what ever He pleases. If we do not acknowlege Him able then we are taking what ritefully belongs to Him for ourselves. And we know that because we are unable to be loving , then taking what glory God has designed for Himself is representing ourselves as more able than He made us , and it is making God out to be weak and a liar. If we believe that we are unable, and we acknowlege that God is able then we are in a position to be blessed even tho we really are not even able to acknowlge the absolute truth of our inablity and His absolute sovereignty. If we think we are able then we are making God out to be a liar and we are delibertly lacking integrity. God does what ever He pleases because of His love and faithfulness, so that we are unfaithful and unloving. Thats why His ability must be exalted and we must make all of our acts as His trophies of His glory. To see God as God we must believe that He is represented rite in all of His works, and that His divine providence is purposed to show Himself in those works with integrity. Not to define Him in His providence is to have a lack of integrity. To make God out to be the recepient of a co dependent relationship is to make Him subject to mans will. If we think of God as only able because of our abilities then we are going to make God a co providencial creater along with man. In making God like a man we are taking away His attributes and we are making God our idol. We actively make a god by taking His glory for ourselves. In that way we not only make God a mystery, but we are acting like an atheist.   7531  Forums / Theology Forum / Freedom Of The Will Jonathan Edwards on: April 25, 2007, 01:32:32 PM Quote Shalom, mybigGod. You said, For us to say that God decreed everything to happen is just biblical. If you just read the Edwards article on free will you will not accuse God of sin, or having two wills. What ever sin is committed is decreed by God as well as punished by God. Man has already chosen evil so that his free choice is only evil continually. Man chooses exactly according to his nature or the condition of his soul. We can say that mans free choice is choosing according to his desire. Okay, evidently the great Edwards had a lot more time to think about these things than do we; however, Edwards is NOT God, nor is he infallible. I believe it's equally dangerous to say "what ever sin is committed is decreed by God as well as punished by God." This is PRECISELY why some have problems with Calvinism, and why I believe that people like "timeout" have problems accepting a benevolent God. (Sorry, timeout, if I'm wrong about that.) Retrobyter Heres my problem with your reasoning. You say that mans will can change Gods will. If men are sinners then that deed of sin  surprised God. And if God was unable to know about sin pryor to it being committed then He is under an obligation to man to redeem man because He is subject to mans free choice to sin. In other words God had no pryor knowlege of the fall of man. So you are making God a subject of His own creation. God is subjected to the choice of sin. If God was subjected to man, then His never changing character was subject to change based apoun mans sin. And if God was subjected to mans choice to sin then He had no knowlege that man would sin pryor to man sinning. If God had no knowlege of future events then He what He thinks is not all knowing. And finally if Gods will was subjected to mans free choice then He did not have the power to exercise His active providence to make a remedy for man , since mans purpose in the sin was more powerful than Gods purpose to save. How can we trust God if His purpose for man started after man sinned? If man was able to purpose to sin apart from God decreeing that man would sin, then Gods purpose after sin could be changed by man any time since Gods purpose was subject to mans purpose. Then God would be untrustworthy. An since salvation was in the mind of God from eternity, His purpose in saving man involved the fall of man. Other wise God would not be God. Reply Quote Notify 7532  Forums / Theology Forum / Belief/behavior on: April 23, 2007, 01:40:43 AM Being an advocate does not necessitate being a king first! Wouldn't that make our court system interesting, though? He does not need to be ruling now to be our advocate before His Father. Furthermore, the Messiah (Christ) does not reign by causing all things to work. According to Scriptures, that is not HIS job; it's the job of His Father, YHVH Elohim! Here's another example why it's so important for us to understand the Trinity or rather the Triunity of God. When we completely equate the Father with the Son of God, we confuse issues because the Scriptures are clear that the Father is in charge of some things that the Son of God, Yeshua, is NOT, such as when He will return to earth! Col. 1 ;15.      He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16.     For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17.     He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18.     He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. 19.     For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, 20.     and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.