2236	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reformed Doctrine	on: August 02, 2011, 10:33:21 AM
Quote from: Kings_kid on July 26, 2011, 11:26:49 PM I definitely agree that He rescued us from the curse of the Law, but He didn't rescue us to break the Law or ignore the Law.  He saves us to progressively obey the Law of God, in Him, Who is the Law-Giver and the Law-Fulfiller.  He gives us a new heart and lives His Life in and through us which moves us ever closer to the heart of the Law of love. Hope the highland church understands that. God gave us His law to show us how short we fall from obeying it and to give us rest so that He can provide a better way as He is faithful to defend us from the accusations of the Devil when we sin, to create spiritual success and as a secondary issue physical gifts, and to give us enjoyment as He works everything out for HIs pleasure. He speaks deliverance into our lives to protect us from the schemes and traps that men place in our way. He works in us in the image of His Son. Christ acts as our mediator of a better covenant. Christ leads us in the paths of righteousness for His Names sake. Not our Names sake. Because He gives us a completely new name. We no longer are identified as a criminal deserving of eternal punishment, as a sinner who needs a school master as law to rule us, as inherently weak in the flesh so that the worlds pleasures over ride His pleasure. We are made to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. How does He enforce our new name or image? By working in us to will and to do. How does He work in us? By causing us to walk in His ways. How does He cause us to walk in His ways? By creating a new heart in us where His decrees reign in our hearts. He provides us through His covenant the basis of meeting our deepest need. He answers our needs both physical and spiritual with His applying to us through His covenant our union with Christ. Christ is our substitute who walked before us with perfect obedience. Christ has baptized us with His Spirit who has implanted His word in our hearts. We have the rich soil of the growing word of faith. This word is our being saved in light of our sanctification. It is the word of hope unto the end. We are looking to the grace that will be revealed to us. But this word of deliverance is what we long for on a daily basis. He has implanted the same word that created the world to be applied by the Spirit in the illumination to our hearts to coalesce with our new identity to be a life giving force. We wait on the word of hope or the new word of deliverance. The Spirit creates the circumstances and the holistic understanding to our minds that make the word become flesh. The word become flesh is the reality of the life of Christ in the soul of man as He lived it on this earth. This hope is Christ in us the hope of glory. So in longing for a word of salvation we find that we are fellowship with Christ through His Spirit. This fellowship is having communication from a Shepherd to His sheep. Christ not only forgives our sins but in speaking salvation in the future event He speaks to our hearts as the agent that fulfills our deepest longings. In other words we experience this light of the glory of Christ who causes us to lose a sense of our self as if Christ becomes our all in all. We do not feel like we can go any other place.
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2237  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Mind Renewal Through Transparency : The Psychology of Life on: August 02, 2011, 09:42:45 AM The gospel cannot be twisted. It will work even if it is not explained rite. But if in this day and age 80 to 90 percent of the people agree with you then you probably are preaching something that is not ordered correctly in sovereign grace. lol. This includes pastors, religious people, the American educated person . etc. lol Because the gospel is focused on not doing what we know we ought to do in order to live in praising and glorifying someone who is not on tv, on the radio, in the papers, or on the computer... lol. This Person is despised, rejected, worthless, distant, not successful, does not sell Himself as important.etc lol. This Person is ordering everything that looks successful to be in contrast to where He lives. lol. This Person is not living in the crowds of people and making them find good connections. He does not live with mens ideas or their presentation of success. But this Person lives in the most insignificant people. He does not live to change these people into what looks like success in this world. He does not live for the show.... the miracles that are seen , the beauty of people as they dress nice and look happy. But this Person lives as in the person as the most pleasurable experience that happens in the mind. He rules the minds and hearts of His people. He rules them by making the physical things and the appearance as unimportant and the unseen things as the influence through illuminations... the smallest interactions in this world to be the most profound experiences as if there is a light glow that comes out of the eyes and it lights up the room. There is no human medicine that can create a new mind. There is no experience on this earth that can illumine the mind with joy and pleasure in comparison. People will do all kinds of things to destroy their minds through the pleasures the world offers. But this Person simply provides life to a dead organ, pleasure to a dull sense orientation, vision to a blind beggar, and light to a dark providence. Yes the gospel travel is very small and insignificant to the human eye. It goes from the mind to the heart. It expends the least amount of energy. The process of its travel is unseen or heard. But its the most personal communication , the most active agent of change, the place where all the miracles of this world are experienced. Its the ministry of the word and Spirit.   Remove Reply Quote Notify

2238  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: The New Reality of the Natural Man on: August 02, 2011, 08:56:57 AM We look at God as the guy who examines us to show us our weaknesses and our sins. We live as if Gods ways are hard and we must separate our enjoyments like eating, recreating, working, and relaxing as a way to balance out our spiritual exercises like bible reading and prayer, worship and self examination . One is pleasurable and the other is tiring and difficult. Its not natural for us to live as real sinners before God because we think that our morals reflect how God reacts to us. When we are bad He frowns on us.. when we are good He smiles at us. Our freedom is expressed in what others do not see and we know about ourselves. But God sees things in our lives as if He brings the people, the situations, the enjoyments, the recreating , etc into our lives for our own good. God is not dealing with us as sinners but as His children. He not only views us when we enjoy sin but He brings these things into our lives as He is faithful and loving to us. All of life is God recreating us in light of His word that orders everything that we experiencing. Including the particles in the air that we breath in. So we need to relax. We need to see how God is pleased with ordering our lives for His glory. We need to respond in praising God for His love and faithfulness in spite of our enjoying something that we just know led to our sin of enjoyment. We are always susceptible in this life to take what is good and turn it into sin. Its part of being in this flesh.The christian life is not segregated but its looking at life through the eyes of gifts and blessings. Then we will not think our sins are more grievous than the other guys... or that we are the only ones who struggle with this particular sin. Our problem with being sensitive in the wrong way is not that we sinned but that we think we are too important to give into that particular sin.    Remove Reply Quote Notify

2239  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Mind Renewal Through Transparency : The Psychology of Life on: August 02, 2011, 08:53:00 AM whoops wrong post. Remove Reply Quote Notify

2240  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Freedom For The Addicted on: August 02, 2011, 08:26:09 AM God is faithful and will remain faithful. We are sinners who are prone to stray and fall into a pit. This means that all of our thoughts are sinful and corrupted. Sin is not just our walking in an evil way but its thinking malicious thoughts through a false sense of our own importance. Instead of giving God our pride and anger we develop schemes through what others say in a moral equation where we argue "has not God said?" Our problem is that we use scripture for our own profit. We only hear what we want to hear. So we must reason correctly in sovereign grace. We must be taught what is not natural to us. The gospel is the only hope of our deliverance from our own schemes. We must apply all the gospel not just parts of it. The apostles were men who preached the whole gospel. They distinguished between the old covenant and the new one. Christ came to put an end to the ceremonial laws and to bring in the kingdom where He had all things placed under His feet. They looked forward in shadows but we look back with a clearer view of His work. This is why the Spirit comes in the New Covenant in a different way than He did in the old covenant. I believe they experienced a real desperation in the ot more than we experience. We try to produce a need in order to create more of a focus. But where the Spirit is there is freedom. The Spirit rules in us with groans that words cannot express. We groan inwardly as we wait for our full adoption. The Spirit reigns in us by applying His word to our hearts. We have ability to be heavenly minded because we are given the entire word that describes our future eternal existence. We have more to look forward to since God has described His eternal dwelling. We are given a glimpse of all of those people both ot saints and nt of what they are doing in heaven. We can focus on heaven and be dominated by these eternal illuminations. Remove Reply Quote Notify

2241  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Re-forming reformed theology on: August 02, 2011, 07:40:07 AM Quote from: Kings_kid on July 31, 2011, 02:03:34 PM Quote from: mybigGod on July 31, 2011, 10:16:39 AM Psalm 18 20 The LORD has dealt with me according to my righteousness;    according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me. 21 For I have kept the ways of the LORD;    I am not guilty of turning from my God. 22 All his laws are before me;    I have not turned away from his decrees. 23 I have been blameless before him    and have kept myself from sin. 24 The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness,    according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.  25 To the faithful you show yourself faithful,    to the blameless you show yourself blameless, 26 to the pure you show yourself pure,    but to the devious you show yourself shrewd. 27 You save the humble    but bring low those whose eyes are haughty. You totally missed the context of this portion. Hes extolling God ... Davids rock....and in 27 he shows this distinction. David obviously is not haughty or proud since ... of which you are claiming. Look here in 27 really focus on it... put away your pre conceived ideas . Hes basically saying that God leads him in war to destroy the haughty. lol. He saves the humble... or delivers them from the hand of the wicked. The context of this Psalm is really God working through David to destroy the nations... because they are idol worshipers. This is why the nations are haughty. David is not condemning himself as if he were divided between being haughty and humble. lol. Thats your schizo interpretation.   K_k:  You are missing the fact that David thought he was humble because God was blessing him for keeping the Law in his own righteousness.  Look more closely at what he is actually saying, instead of what you think he means. 21 For I have kept the ways of (YHWH) the LORD;      I am not guilty of turning from my God. 22 All His Laws are before me;      I have not turned away from His decrees. 23 I have been blameless before Him      and have kept myself from sin. 24 The LORD (YHWH) has rewarded me according to my righteousness,      according to the cleanness of my hands in His sight. K_k:  Who kept him righteous, according to this?  David said he did it himself.  Who kept him from turning from God, who kept him in the ways of the Lord?  He did.  Who has been blameless by keeping him from sin?  David takes the credit.  So he thinks the Lord rewarded him because he was so righteous, for he kept his own hands clean. What is missing is the humility that recognizes that any goodness in us is because of His Spirit, not our innate ability to do good or keep the Law.  MbG, you are trying to take prideful statements, which eventually led to David's downfall (and later restoration), and make them somehow humble.  Just see what's there, not what your theology wants to see, and you will have less contradiction and confusion. In my ultra humble opinion, of course.  Steve Brown cautions people that 50% of what he teaches is true, but he isn't sure which 50% that is.  I believe i am right over 50%, (by His grace, of course) and God knows how much over 50% that is.      First of all you cannot show me where the apostle calls the saints the haughty ones by name. David was not extolling his own ability, because David understood that his sin did not just need a 6 point presentation to present a new way to deal with it. David saw his only hope was to trust in the name of Jehovah who gave him the victories to glorify His own name and not Davids...lol. Sir .. .let me warn you that you are teaching people ... in your equal righteousness scheme to trust in themselves. The christian is a man who puts no confidence in the flesh. The gospel is both simple and difficult. The simplicity of the gospel is that Christ lived a perfect life on this earth. Those who want to be accepted must turn to this God- Man as the only hope of finding themselves. The gospel is the power of God ... its not our personal power. The gospel is a gospel of grace through and through. Grace is an unmerited favor. The gospel does not go out from us but it comes to us as the grace of acceptance. We really no longer live but Christ lives in us. So the gospel is very hard to understand when we apply it to all of this life. Its simple in that we turn to Christ. Its difficult when we apply it to lifes troubles and experiences. Our difficulty is how we present the gospel. Because the gospel is a message about someone else but it depends upon our abiding in Christ. There is an element of self knowledge so that we do not take the glory to ourselves. This is why the gospel brings us to an experience where we can do nothing without Him. In other words the works that we do are performed through the person who feels his own unworthiness and is amazed at the mystery of the gospel. A person who has a 50 -50 view of the gospel has not understood how much his flesh is ruling in him. The gospel is the power when we acknowledge that we come to God with nothing in our hands to bring but only to His cross we cling. The gospel is God coming down to us. Its having a sense of the light of the glory of God. Having a view that its power is to great for our little puny presence on this earth. We are but worms. I mean this not as worm theology but in light of how great the light of the glory of God is before our eyes. We must have a sense of self that no longer gives us a false sense of our value.   Reply Quote Notify

2242  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Psalms study... on: August 01, 2011, 07:51:34 PM Psalms 26 Prayer    Plea  "for" Prayer    Plea  for Prayer   Plea. Profession Prayer   Plea... Profession Vindicate me...do me justice. LORD Jehovah..Eternal immutable One trusted...  confided in .. so as to be secure ...without fear. reins ....kidneys reins... heart... metonymy...for thoughts and feelings. walked... habitually congregation... assembly..in a military aspect evil....meditated wickedness... plotted..planned. and designed.... wicked or lewd purpose...especially of sins of un-chastity... chastity.. restraint and simplicity in design or expression wicked... lawless....in the sense of restless activity of the fallen nature altar... temple and altar at the time of David... from the Exodus. tell of ... recount habitation....dwelling...implying safety. house...referring not to the Temple... but to Davids Tabernacle on Zion. the place... of Thy glorious Tabernacle dwelleth...from Gen 3:24... the shakan... to place in a tabernacle ... hence to dwell... the Cherubim placed later in the tents of Shem. gather not... destroy not.. my soul... me ... emphatic... sinners... to miss the mark...to stumble and fall.... men....men of name... always in a bad sense morally depraved, physically frail, weak. inability... for strength, physically.... mischief... lewdness redeem ... deliver by power ...see be merciful... show me favor... e gracious. Congregation.... assemblies... or pl. of majesty the great assembly David is experiencing the tension of a king who is facing the false accusations of his enemies and the rumblings of the people of Israel. David has established this relationship with Jehovah who is the immutable and eternal God as the only foundation of Davids success. So David is approaching this God to present his arguments for God to display Himself once again by a military victory and to silence the gainsayers. David was not concerned for himself in light of his own sin and weakness but was focused on the glory of Jehovah and how God would get the glory. But once again the king offers his petition to God out of a sense of desperation and wisdom in forming his arguments for God to intervene. This is Davids petition but more in the form of praise rather than in the context of his own sin and sorrow. This is a man who had many experiences with this immutable God and was recounting all of the victories of the past as the handle by which he petitioned this God to intervene in the present. Because the King was familiar with the covenant promises he once again appealed to God on the basis of His covenant promises. Gods unfailing love and Gods faithfulness is unchanging. David was not asking God to prove love out of his sorrow but David was so focused on Gods faithfulness in recounting the past that his heart was warmed with the majesty and power of God! The most natural thing for David to do was not to achieve a great victory or obey God out of a sense of duty in order to change the situation. But it was to go about the altar praising God and focusing on what God had done through him and for Israel! David did not consider worshiping God with a rite attitude as secondary to fighting these battles but David was drawn out of himself in this worship with the pleasure and glory of God as the basis for his future victory. He constantly says I will extol the Jehovah nite and day... i will praise Jehovah with all of my heart... all day long i will call on the Name of Jehovah. So that all of Davids life was walking before the altar and praising God. It was always ascending to the hill of God and worshiping God with all of his heart. He was seeking greater experiences in his trust in Jehovah so that all of the people would see Gods glory and be exposed to their own need.   Remove Reply Quote Notify

2243  Forums / Politics Forum / Re: Does Congress need to pay off the national debt. on: August 01, 2011, 12:05:09 PM Interview with Tea Party Co-Founder Mark Meckler 'We Have Compromised Our Way Into Disaster' Mark Meckler, 49, the co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots in the United States, talks to SPIEGEL about the US debt ceiling, the radical right's uncompromising fight against the national debt and the "complete economic disaster" he claims President Barack Obama has created. Info SPIEGEL: The world is looking at Washington and sees gridlock and chaos. How much have the negotiations over the United States' debt ceiling hurt America's standing in the world? Meckler: Saying that these debates have hurt our image is absurd. What you currently see in Washington is one of the most responsible debates ever about the size and scope of government. The world should look at what is going on in the United States as a model for what should happen in all countries. SPIEGEL: We look at it and see a Congress held hostage by a small group of radical Tea Party members unwilling to agree to any budget compromise and risking a US default. Meckler: What do you mean by "a small group?" Forty-one percent of voters in the last US election said they agreed with Tea Party values. And the primary values of the Tea Party are about fiscal responsibility. SPIEGEL: But you are willing to accept a US default if your demands for massive budget cuts and no tax increases are not met. That seems rather irresponsible or even unpatriotic. Most leading economists forecast financial "Armageddon" in that case. Meckler: Default is a false threat. We take in over $220 billion in revenues every month and our debt service is only roughly $20 billion. The only way we will default is if the President of the United States makes the irresponsible choice not to pay our debts. We Tea Party Patriots put principles first, and we have to understand what America is about. Our country was founded on an idea: liberty. But it requires fiscal responsibility for people to be free. We are becoming slaves to our own government. Every US family now owes $400,000 to $500,000 in national debt. We Tea Party Patriots fight for the future of the nation, and there can be nothing more patriotic than that. SPIEGEL: Democracy is not just about winning fights. It can only function if all parties are open to compromise. Meckler: The compromises that we have witnessed on debt have taken our country to the brink of financial collapse. Currently, the American government is spending 44 cents of each dollar on interest payments. We have compromised our way into disaster. None of the budget plans proposed have real cuts in them -- only promises to cut. The reality is that legally one Congress cannot bind the future Congress to cut, so these promises are actually a lie. We need real and immediate cuts. SPIEGEL: The budget plan proposed by Republican speaker John Boehner contained massive spending cuts. Why were you so unwilling to embrace it? Meckler: Look closely at the plan: It proposes $22 billion in cuts in the upcoming fiscal year. That is ridiculously little. It is the equivalent in the United States of shutting off the lights on Friday night and reopening at your normal rate of spending on Monday. SPIEGEL: The plan also rules out any tax increases to close the deficit, though. Even the plan of the Democrats does not mention new taxes. So your movement already won the debate over taxes. Meckler: This debate is not about taxes. This is a question of spending. There is no amount of taxes that we could raise that would stop our deficit spending caused by politicians who have lied so often. SPIEGEL: Your movement often refers to Ronald Reagan, the Republican icon. But he raised taxes 11 times and the debt ceiling 18 times. Meckler: At no time did he control both houses of Congress, so often he had no choice. But Reagan got attacked viciously by conservatives over this, just as we would attack any Republican president in the future if he did something similar. SPIEGEL: The US economy is still growing very slowly. If you cut government spending drastically now, you will risk having a double-dip recession. Meckler: That is simply wrong. Government spending is never efficient. SPIEGEL: But in the short run, the cuts will lead to even higher US unemployment. Meckler: Possibly on a minimal level. But we have worried about the short term for so long that we have damaged the long-term prospects of our nation. Look at what is going on in Europe: Spain is a complete disaster. It has more vacant homes than we have here, with only 40 million people. Italy is a complete disaster. Europe is going down the same path as the US, only many countries are far ahead and don't take corrective action. SPIEGEL: Speaker Boehner failed several times to rally Republicans around his plans. Does he need to go? Meckler: We have polled our membership and 74 percent of our members in our 3,500 chapters said it is time to look at new leadership. SPIEGEL: And should he be replaced by a Tea Party representative? Meckler: The ultimate goal is to have somebody in the House who is fiscally responsible. We have changed the debate in the United States, which is a pretty radical thing to do in such a short period of time. The question back then was: "How much more will we spend next year, not how much can we cut?" But you will see much more profound change in 2012. SPIEGEL: Who could be the Tea Party candidate in the next presidential election? Meckler: The movement has no clear preference. Our members are taking a cool and careful look at all the candidates on the Republican side. I am actually glad people are not more excited and blown away. The last time we saw that on the campaign trail, the country got Barack Obama in the White House -- and that led to complete economic disaster. Interview conducted by Marc Hujer and Gregor Peter Schmitz Reply Quote Notify

2244  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Re-forming reformed theology on: July 31, 2011, 10:16:39 AM Psalm 18 20 The LORD has dealt with me according to my righteousness;    according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me. 21 For I have kept the ways of the LORD;    I am not guilty of turning from my God. 22 All his laws are before me;    I have not turned away from his decrees. 23 I have been blameless before him    and have kept myself from sin. 24 The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness,    according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.  25 To the faithful you show yourself faithful,    to the blameless you show yourself blameless, 26 to the pure you show yourself pure,    but to the devious you show yourself shrewd. 27 You save the humble    but bring low those whose eyes are haughty. You totally missed the context of this portion. Hes extolling God ... Davids rock....and in 27 he shows this distinction. David obviously is not haughty or proud since ... of which you are claiming. Look here in 27 really focus on it... put away your pre conceived ideas . Hes basically saying that God leads him in war to destroy the haughty. lol. He saves the humble... or delivers them from the hand of the wicked. The context of this Psalm is really God working through David to destroy the nations... because they are idol worshipers. This is why the nations are haughty. David is not condemning himself as if he were divided between being haughty and humble. lol. Thats your schizo interpretation.  Reply Quote Notify

2245  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Re-forming reformed theology on: July 30, 2011, 03:15:30 PM Quote from: Kings_kid on July 30, 2011, 02:13:46 PM Sorry, too many errors here, and i don't have time to respond to them all.  Let me give just an example. mbG:  "I can promise you that David never bragged about His ability to obey God." K_k:  Let's see if that is true in Scripture. David:  "For I have kept the ways of the LORD (YHWH), and have not wickedly departed from my God.  For all His judgments were before me; and as for His statutes, I did not depart from them.  I was also blameless before Him, and I kept myself from my iniquity."  2 Samuel 22:22-24 K_k:  Note that he is bragging about his own ability to keep the judgments and statutes of God, not about Christ's ability.  He thought he kept himself from iniquity.  Wrong heart.  And to make sure we see it, the same pride is repeated in the Psalms. David:  "The LORD (YHWH) rewarded me according to my righteousness;  according to the cleanness of my hands He has recompensed me.  For I have kept the ways of (YHWH) the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all His judgments were before me, and I did not put away His statutes from me. I was also blameless before Him, and I kept myself from my iniquity."  Psalm 18:20-23 K_k:  You should be careful about making promises based on errors, mbg. Your taking this literal and you would create a contradiction. Did not David commit murder and adultery.. these two sins punishable by death? The question then if David is strictly talking about his own righteousness was then how can a man be righteous before God if he obviously has done these sins and also stated on other occasions that there are more sins in him than the number of his hairs? lol And also state that he is righteous in himself? So Kk says its Christ living His righteousness through him. So did Christ commit adultery? Did Christ share in Davids corruption both body and spirit? Kk will confuse the issue by stating that he does not say that. lol....indeed a really profound argument. How can one be righteous before God who does not meet Gods standard of righteousness ... because of his sin corruption and inability to do what God has commanded in the positive ability? He must stand in a relationship to his own righteousness through the righteousness of the Perfect Man. This is why if you look in the context He says You bless "the humble but bring down those whos eyes are haughty."You must go back to the first Psalm and see  who the humble are. They are the elect who are the blessed. The haughty are those who are independent of God who do not meditate on the word of God nite and day. They are the chaff. Instead of David exalting his own righteousness... he his exalting the man who is humble who God works through that man. If you go on in that Psalm the context of this is not righteousness in general but in his military victories. If you were to memorize the whole book of Psalms then you would learn that all the military victories they would talk about were in the context of God displaying His glory and love to Israel. In other words any of the military victories they enjoyed were exalted in with the words not by our swords .... not by our horses but by the name of the Lord! In this Psalm that you have taken out of context David is extolling God because he experienced Gods power when he was fighting and winning these wars. Heres the thinking. God is righteous because there is no one who has the power to overcome Him. We are his servants because we acknowledge that we are powerless without Him. When we acknowledge this then we give God all of the glory for our efforts because we brag about God working through us. We are not saying that we share His strength.. we are saying that He gets the victory Himself. He begins this Psalm by extolling God and David ends this psalm by giving God the praise.  God is seen as the glory and praise of Isreal. Because in Him is wisdom... thanks and honor... so that He displays His strength and power in all of His works. To Him be glory forever and ever.... this is what we will be saying in eternity. Ps 18 37 I pursued my enemies and overtook them;    I did not turn back till they were destroyed. 38 I crushed them so that they could not rise;    they fell beneath my feet. 39 You armed me with strength for battle;    you humbled my adversaries before me. 40 You made my enemies turn their backs in flight,    and I destroyed my foes. 41 They cried for help, but there was no one to save them—    to the LORD, but he did not answer. 42 I beat them as fine as windblown dust;    I trampled them[f] like mud in the streets. 43 You have delivered me from the attacks of the people;    you have made me the head of nations. People I did not know now serve me,  44 foreigners cower before me;    as soon as they hear of me, they obey me. 45 They all lose heart;    they come trembling from their strongholds.  46 The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock!    Exalted be God my Savior! 47 He is the God who avenges me,    who subdues nations under me,  48 who saves me from my enemies. You exalted me above my foes;    from a violent man you rescued me. 49 Therefore I will praise you, LORD, among the nations;    I will sing the praises of your name.  50 He gives his king great victories;    he shows unfailing love to his anointed,    to David and to his descendants forever.   Reply Quote Notify

2246  Members Only / Purgatory / Re: Taking Heaven By Force on: July 30, 2011, 01:30:55 PM God is in heaven and He alone decides the fate of nations. The only real secure leadership is how God works in the system of men. No man can ultimately prosecute another man but God determines how these decisions are going to go. Why does God only deal with men in blessing as they are dependent on God for the outcome? Because God is the only one who is just! God is the only one who knows the beginning from the end. So men only rule for themselves. God is just because He alone says what is just... men are the ones who devise injustice. God is the prosecutor from the top down. Men prosecute from the bottom up. God does not allow men to devise what is just because men are born as self prosecutors. Their first thoughts are to devise their plea for their own innocence. Men always point to other men because this is how they create a moral universe where they are seen as the ultimate judge. The more evil men become the more oppressive authority is seen in society. When every man does what is rite in his own eyes... prosecution has gone out into the streets. God is God because He does not prove Himself through human authorities but by His authority alone. So God decided before the foundation of the world to deliver men from the chaos of mens rule through His covenant of love. God displays His love as the perfect law keeper so that all men... God focused kingdom advancement through declaring the rule of men to be unjust ...would be silenced as law breakers. This is why God can be seen as loving , faithful, long suffering and gentile because He works the good out of the oppressive rule of men to protect the poor and the innocent. God will fulfill His covenant to His people. So we are gifted with knowing how God deals with oppressive leaders. He says to them... "Kiss the Son lest He be angry and you be removed from the way. " Even the oppressed cannot defend themselves against the oppressive rules of men. They must cry out to God. They cry out knowing that God is with the lowly and the oppressed. God gets glory out of His ruling from the heavens as He intervenes for the poor and the oppressed. God displays His righteous anger in a predominate way toward those in authority because God desire to defend the poor is greater than His desire to prosecute the rich. God is love. This is why He gifts His poor ones with prayers of righteous indignity because He is not only concerned for His will being accomplished but He is concerned for their suffering as well. God gives prayers of cursing and anger to the oppressed to balance out this experience of the oppression of evil rulers. He allows His children to accomplish His rule on this earth by speaking kingdom prayers as a king in this spiritual kingdom. God will become our Shepherd and lead us to springs of living waters. He will respond to cursing the evils of this rule.      Remove Reply Quote Notify

2247  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Sinners in the hands of an angry God? on: July 30, 2011, 12:51:04 PM I do not believe that fire or brimstone is literal but figurative. So we must think in terms of moral agency. Because eternal punishment is not divorced from what describes a person in this time sequence. The personal nature of eternal punishment is how we view the freedoms that are personal to us. If we say that punishment is annihilation, then we regard the gifts of God to those who deserve punishment as not a substance in that punishment then we deny them freedom on this earth to sin and enjoy that sin. We in essence say that God does not exist as the giver of the enjoyment. Because we deny there is a moral consequence of that sin in eternity. So we cannot close our eyes to the moral universe just because we do not want men to receive what they desire in eternity. God deals in realism not in fantasy. So God in making man by His breath is the only one who can determine the good in what good is in this time sequence. If God annihilated the moral consequences in defining the value of His life giving breath to all men by sending His own Son to bless men in His Son in eternity above the living creatures, the angels, and the everything that glorifies God.. that God has made... then the extent to which He  does not judge men cheapens the value of the objects of His love. Just like how men take part in the murder of another man without consequences.... as your definition of Gods punishment of annihilation. Reply Quote Notify

2248  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster. on: July 30, 2011, 12:08:31 PM Our flesh is described in scripture in terms of attributes in order that we might not be unbalanced in this life and be overcome with this sorrowful weakness. Christ sees us as dust ... or He distinguishes between our redeemed longings and the weakness that the flesh causes. The flesh includes all of these unseen physical problems that cause us to be handicapped. So that in His view of us... He accepts us even tho we have a hard time accepting our total weakness in our flesh. Christ must go lower than we think our flesh produces in us as the lowest. Christ not only responds to our desires to glorify Him but He produces a pleasure in us by  gifting us with a confidence from what we cannot accomplish because we are flesh. This is how He encourages us along the way. In revealing to us who we are He produces in us a bigger view of His love. So that we will not stray in how we desire to seek His grace. Christ uses our weakness as courage to know Him by His grace. We acknowledge how weak we are and He responds to us with more gifts.We are only acquainted with the flesh when we enjoy the fruits of the Spirit.  Reply Quote Notify

2249  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Christ in us Scriptures on: July 30, 2011, 11:53:49 AM We follow Christ instruction by asking Him to do as He promised in the instruction. On the one hand He provides for our daily needs, keeps us from temptation, keeps us from the wiles of the Devil and blesses us in spite of our sins. He promises to remember our sins no more, to separate our sins from us as far as the east is from the west, to not deal with us according to our sins, but encourages us to receive grace in time of need and protection from the schemes of men in that grace. Christ bids us to rest from our works by praying according to His will. He bids us to seek this rest through His promise to lead us into the life of Christ. In other words the Spirit produces in us this single focus through our offering to Christ our insecurities, worries, and our shame and sin, and our need in our experiencing this helplessness in our resisting our enemies and these designs of the Devil to destroy us. The Spirit gives us new desires to go back to yesterdays rest we enjoyed with a new word of hope for today. So the Spirit leads us into rest in Christ from one day to the next to fulfill our longings in a more profound way as we seek that rest from day to day. So we are entering Gods eternal rest before we actually go into eternity.  Reply Quote Notify

2250	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Re-forming reformed theology	on: July 30, 2011, 11:33:59 AM
Quote from: Kings_kid on July 28, 2011, 02:08:43 PM K_k earlier:  "Another potential area of re-form for some aspects of "reformed theology", as seen in actual practice, is the attitude toward the Commandments and Laws of God.  Instead of seeing them as a burden that has been done away with, we need to have the kind of attitude David expressed in many places. "Oh, how I love Your Law!"" Now:  As a subset of this area of re-forming reformed theology, the Sabbath day, which God established as a rest day on the very first seventh day, needs to be reconsidered.  Other threads are addressing this issue in depth.  Here we need only remember, again, to "Remember the Sabbath" as one of the things God considered important enough to Personally write His instructions to us with His Own Hand. We have looked at the Word of God as verbally inspired by Him, but missed the importance of His Own special Autographs.  We have let theologians undervalue His Hand-writing far too long.  And not just reformed ones. David loved Gods law not because David shared Gods glory in obedience. lol. David loved Gods law because it gave David a proper view of Himself in Christ. It gave David a personal connection to finding rest in substitution. In the life of substitution David was given the ability to glorify God by enjoying HIm.. not by attempting to please God in law keeping. lol I can promise you that David never bragged about His ability to obey God. I can promise you that David considered himself unworthy and unable to be accepted according to Gods law. In fact David hated self righteousness! He not only cursed wicked men but also self righteous men. Paul called these men dogs. Paul borrowed this concept from David. David said these men were like dogs who go out at night and eat the scraps that line the streets of the city. They live a life in which they think the understand the letter of the law but all they do is apply it to everyone else and have words as if they are focusing on the details of law keeping filled with language of how they know the law here and apply it there but they have their tongues set against their neighbors whos end is to find a reason for being better than other men through complaining. The point is they wont stop after destroying others mens lives... even to the point of eating the garbage.  These dogs trust in their own strength and not Gods. But David sang of Gods covenant love. David did not have a focus on Gods law but on God his strength. This is an acknowledgement of Davids total inability to gain one good thing in Davids strength.  Now Kk will come back and point out how i am misinterpreting his position but he cannot describe how he plays this game in his tennis theology because it does not show genuine humility.        2251  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: The coming of the great Apocalypse on: July 30, 2011, 11:04:45 AM Quote from: Kings_kid on July 28, 2011, 10:07:47 PM Good time to review who will be there. "And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the Commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."  Revelation 12:17 "Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the Commandments of God and the faith of Jesus."  Revelation 14:12 K_k:  We have talked a lot about keeping His Commandments in His ability and guidance, but it is also interesting that the KJV, NKJV have it that we will keep the "faith of Jesus".  Some versions change that to "faith in Jesus", such as the Amplified. "Here [comes in a call for] the steadfastness of the saints [the patience, the endurance of the people of God], those who [habitually] keep God's commandments and [their] faith in Jesus." But then, since we have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer we who live, but Christ Who lives in us, according to Paul, therefore it is actually His faith which saves us as we trust in and depend on Him. This is the biblical thinking on how we approach the law. Not like Kk is saying. The law of God is His commands, precepts, decrees and promises in the 2nd use of the law. When we are saved God no longer deals with us as law breakers. We go from being an eternal criminal that is alienated from all of Gods word to being adopted into the family of God. Kk believes that all mankind have God as their Father. This is a heresy. Now that we are in the Family of God the Lamb of God... the eternal Son of God promises to deal with us as a Shepherd. He is the eternal shepherd who keeps His sheep in the fold through speaking the word that causes all things to exist. The sheep hear this word and they follow Him. The word is the reality in time. The sheep cannot follow a dream. They do not desire the worthless things any longer. God not only leads the sheep along this path by His word, but He places within them desires that cannot be thwarted. These desires are from a source that is eternal in the nature that God gave the sheep in their new birth. This nature is not corrupted and is perfectly designed to create reality in where it exist as God determines it to be. The sheep are not left with fighting between the old life and the new. The sheep become new creatures... have a totally new name, and possessing the perfect nature of God being totally sanctified in their new birth. Why does God need to implant His word in us in order for us to be saved and delivered? Because before we knew God we were alienated from God , standing in a relationship of enmity, being at odds with God. We did not follow a shepherd but we follow in our old deception... following the desires of our father the devil and living a life for ourselves. We followed this deception having a mind that was living in a dream  world. We follow the way of death. When God implanted His word in us we were put on a path of eternal life. When the bible talks about this life it now changes our relationship to the law. Now the eternal life is the cause of our gaining the end of eternal life. The law no longer is our goal but Christ who is the eternal Son of God who stands in the center of the throne of God determines the quality of our lives by leading us to eternal life. How does He do this? By putting in us springs of living water. These springs are closely tied to the decrees of God and they produce in us the purpose for which we were created. The springs are connected to our desires to walk along this path not turning to the rite or to the left. They are the cause of our being dominated by eternal life even tho we experience the pangs of death. Now listen to me... we already are completed in Christ having received our total acceptance as if we did not sin before He actually wipes away every tear from our eyes when we go to our eternal home! We have this real position in all the promises in Christ. The wicked and religious man have a relationship to Gods law as a school master or they understand the letter of the law. They follow their own interpretation of the law of God. They use the law of God for their own profit. When a man is born in sin he is born with a wicked heart that is alienated from God. The man gains his power through scheming against his neighbor by creating a legal system of man to defraud his neighbor. Sin is a violation of Gods law but its also an attempt to be god. Mans problems are more than his attempt to rebel against the kingdom of God but man also wants God but man also wants his independence. God proves to man that God alone will get the glory by thwarting every attempt for man to be independent. God will not allow man one moment of independence... but God decrees mans ends knowing that man would destroy every thing and every one if man was completely independent. Man does not hate the life he lives moving up the ladder of life. Man does not hate the fact that he proves his worth by being successful. Man hates being told that all that he has earned on this earth is a gift of God and the man is morally responsible to gift others with what he is gifted. Man hates a sovereign God and will seek to destroy Gods people as well.    Remove Reply Quote Notify 2252  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster. on: July 28, 2011, 03:58:42 PM The flesh is simply our relationship with our human weakness and our sin. We cannot get out of this relationship. Most relations in this world come into our lives and we have a certain freedom to contain the sorrows from these relationships. But the flesh is like our image of ourselves. It is like having another person who has sorrowful strength that subdues us and makes us weak. The flesh is always weakening our resolve. But i dont think there is an in between half life. I dont think that obedience is complete at any time. This is why we enjoy a completed sanctification. Our spiritual strength is not just weakened by sin but its our lack of ability as well. We are naturally weak because we are corrupted by the flesh. So we do not contain evil by overcoming the flesh but we obtain victory in wrestling with the flesh by the Spirit. We have all of the power we need at our expense. We do not naturally enjoy the effects of this spiritual power because we live in the flesh. The flesh always has the weight that hardens us and makes us less aware of our spiritual identity in Christ. So we fight the flesh by word and spirit. I think the flesh is like a separate communication to our minds. It speaks death. This is why spiritual awareness is not in the flesh or the law but in our spiritual warmth. Because the flesh works with the law to produce death in us. The Spirit is not of the letter. The letter kills but the Spirit gives life. Weve got to look at the word as an instrument not a hurdle. Christ came to redeem us from the curse of the law. The 2nd purpose of the law is for Christ to prove us just in His own power and forgiveness. The flesh is our obstacle that proves to us that we cannot justify ourselves by the law.  We know that God must give what He commands because of our familiarity with human weakness and sin. We must regard ourselves as having powers that are too strong for us so that He might be seen as the only hope of our deliverance. We must see our flesh as an instrument of God who gifts us with a vision divine strength in human weakness. So we acknowledge our total inability in excusing ourselves in overcoming our flesh to the point where we feel we have obeyed. We must know that God overlooks our sin and treats us as if we did not sin because we are too weak to feel justified in our own strength.  Reply Quote Notify 2253  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: The coming of the great Apocalypse on: July 28, 2011, 03:10:12 PM You have the language that God gave us in the time sequence to connect us in this ongoing already and not yet. I guess you could say that we are seen as obtaining a sense of this eternal protection before we actually obtain it. And yet we are so connected to God in light of the four living creatures as emissaries only for judgement on the wicked and the earth. Even the angels become spectators of these nt saints who are under the alter of God , who have suffered in the suffering of the Lamb , who alone gets the glory and yet rewards the saints for their suffering. With the back ground of these heavenly creatures as they look upon the Lambs elect as the object of Gods holy love in how this heavenly worship views Gods eternal attributes being worked out from His throne. Our being united with Christ brings us to a predominate position in the new world.    Remove Reply Quote Notify 2254  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Sinners in the hands of an angry God? on: July 28, 2011, 02:29:29 PM I agree this slippery slope is our looking at the wicked when we go into the temple to worship. Its what we receive in worshiping God as an illumination of the hopeless condition of the world. The context of this illumination is when the foundations of society have been destroyed and the christian is caught in these hopeless troubles that come from these awful conditions. You have a good generation and a wicked generation. When you have a wicked generation then the conditions in the world is good turned upside down. But these conditions do not come in just one generation but is a slow declension that is past on from one generation to another. I believe the conditions of the world come as a result of the sinfulness that men are born into but its also like a disease in that there are evil people who work to destroy the foundations of a society. This is the context of this Psalm 73. The context of the Psalms is that evil as a disease is the outworking of sin that men are born with who develop their own ways of doing things in a society that are in conflict with the principles of Gods laws. We see that God not only wrote the Ten commandments but He also gave the oracles to Moses in judging the people and in the ceremonial laws. But even tho we are not under the law as a school master nor are the ceremonial laws applicable for us... yet the principles of these ot laws are what our legal system were developed by. And we also have laws in principle that we apply to family situations and how we treat our neighbors. But i believe the focus of the ot is in this disease motif in focusing on causes rather than on who lives according to these laws by how they are enforced. You need to understand that presence of the laws and principles of society are subject to decline as a natural order in the state of corruption. When we get our focus off of the causes then we fail to address the total power of a system that is developed over a period of time that takes a divine intervention to reverse. Because there is an evolution of the evils of society. They start with the evil intentions ...the secret schemes developed by evil men on their beds ... then it goes to one scheme upon another so that the evil is protected as a law in itself. lol. So you have a declining of common grace and men act according to the false scales as a matter of following the legality of their scheme. This is what the Psalmist was experiencing in the power structure of an evil world. He saw evil men being rewarded in a legal sense because the laws that were developed were to glorify .. theft, destroy the poor... bring glory to the power structure of amoral leaders. The Psalmist was growing bitter under the stress of being taken advantage because of his keeping quiet when he suffered under these excessive burdens placed on him from the evils that these laws produced in his suffering. This is why God will not be mocked because God lives in unapproachable light. God is always on His throne. God designs suffering in this world so that He might reward His sufferers in the eternal kingdom. God keeps a record of our sufferings. He collects our tears as we pour them upon His altar. He keeps our prayers as if there is an evening sacrifice and the aroma of the sacrifice was lifted to heaven. In Gods eternal kingdom  He alone deserves all of the praise because He designs the evils of this world so that in our suffering we look to the eternal things and we receive our rewards in eternity.   Reply Quote Notify 2255  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reformed Doctrine on: July 26, 2011, 05:54:23 PM This sermon is genuine and accurate. Its really transparent and as close as you can get to scripture. Youve got to click on this .... "Christ Rescues His People from the Curse of the Law"   http://highlandbiblechurch.org/pages/sermons.html Remove Reply Quote Notify 2256  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Mind Renewal Through Transparency : The Psychology of Life on: July 26, 2011, 05:24:23 PM We develop our own way to God that is more neurotic than we carry on in our earthly relationships. And yet God is the only one in all of the relationships that we have experience who knows us more than we know ourselves. So why do we develop these different schemes to appease our Father who sees the motive and not the action? Why do we think that in Gods presence all of the fun is a negative and we really believe that our fun we have with others is shielded to Gods sight? Why do we want to come to God in such a hypocritical way...feeling one way but acting another? Or thinking different than in how we view God than we do with other people? After all God knows what we need so that all of our faculties of the soul align in us to be genuine. He knows more than we do about how to accomplish this. And yet we feel more comfortable with sinners rather than being genuine in Gods presence. One of the reasons there is a disconnect is because we really do not believe God made us to enjoy the relationships of others as part of our being genuine. We try to put these two experiences in different rooms. We think in a natural way that our being in other relationships as more human than God because God is in the category of perfection and that makes us feel uncomfortable. But if we are not genuine and we put a mask up because we do not come to God as knowing, feeling, and hearing in a genuine way of our expressing ourselves as if we were standing before other sinners then we have not lived in obedience to how God wants us to think. After all we could have a God who is distant and He so holy and not like us that we totally forget about our being genuine and honest before Him is an attractive quality that He wants from us. Because He deals with us as a father to his children.   Remove Reply Quote Notify 2257  Members Only / Purgatory / Re: Taking Heaven By Force on: July 26, 2011, 11:48:34 AM John 8 "Hears what God says"47 12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”  13 The Pharisees challenged him, “Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid.”  14 Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. 16 But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. 17 In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. 18 I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.” 42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. 43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47 Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” Jesus’ Claims About Himself  48 The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?”    49 “I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. 50 I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. 51 Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.”  52 At this they exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that whoever obeys your word will never taste death. 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?”  54 Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 55 Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”  57 “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”    58 “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds Remove Reply Quote Notify 2258  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Freedom For The Addicted on: July 26, 2011, 11:07:27 AM Our own wills are the cause of the idols we hold onto. Any ability we have is by grace. It it is by works then it is no more grace. Our willing is from a necessity to act according to our nature. If we describe willingness as meeting Gods demands through obedience then we act according to our own false ideas. We are what we think so that our willingness is our view of ourselves as having power to obey. But we do not possess saving power apart from grace. This is why salvation is a deliverance from the beginning to the end. We are not only delivered from sin but also from unbelief. We do not try to make a good effort in order to exercise our faith. Our faith was a gift from God. The devils have faith and they tremble. All men possess a faith of some kind. So the question is not whether we are able to meet the standard of law keeping because the world shows the law written on their hearts and men always attempt to live a moral life. They have a quality of faith in a god. It may be money as their god... or drink..or even a religious set of biblical principles. Because all men stray in their thoughts from birth. Man will attempt in a natural way to prove his own goodness. There are two opposite kinds of boasting. One is from the principle of works in which a man naturally boast in himself. And the other is from a principle of grace in that causes a man to boast in God alone. Christian faith as in the eyes of men can be copied. Because Christian faith involves a quality of the order of ideas. But at the same time there are less chances to error the closer we get to inability. How we view inability determines our definition of faith. And how we view faith determines whether we possess saving faith. Faith is required in order to have a proper view of God and then ourselves. Mans natural human faith does not have God as the object. Human faith is exercised from a view of the most cherished object as the evidence of what describes and gives quality to that faith. Man in his natural faith has many different objects of his faith. These objects are what we call personal acquaintances with persons or things in the amount of time he thinks about them, his pursuing them, his passion toward them as if it was an image deserving of his allegiance ....that we see as equal to God or greater than God. Real saving faith apprehends the voice of a Shepherd -King who gives a man saving faith to enjoy anti intuitive way of thinking.  This is why saving faith is an acknowledgement of our inability to meet the requirements of the law. We must reason correctly or we will never enjoy assurance in a real personal object. Saving faith has its only life flow from Gods covenant promises. We cannot exercise human faith and saving faith as distinct in the act of faith. But we have as Gods saints ... human faith that does not fail because it is pre determined from a new principle of grace. We can suffer some of the same problems as an idol worshiper but the quality of our faith never changes because it is founded in grace. It may be small... like a mustered seed but it grows out of grace being much greater than our sins. Where sin is present grace is much more present. It cannot fail.    Remove Reply Quote Notify 2259  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Psalms study... on: July 24, 2011, 01:31:50 PM Psalm 25  Prayer in view of Ps 16 alternation... 1-7 Prayer and worship    8- 10 Teaching. Worshipers 11 Prayer and worship    12 -14 Teaching. Worshipers 15-22 Prayer and worship Acrostic Psalm...: a composition usually in verse in which sets of letters (as the initial or final letters of the lines) taken in order form a word or phrase or a regular sequence of letters of the alphabet ....the hebrew letter V is omitted ...and P is duplicated....in the word "redeem" The last verse is thus , in each case, made to stand out by itself. The omission of (Koph) makes twenty one letters 7 x 3 instead of twenty two, and makes off one verse (11) as central.... which is the first confession of sin in the Psalms... thus linking on Repentance to suffering and Resurrection. The double aleph in vers 1,2 connects the looking up of the worshiper with the double (resh) of vers 18, 19 , which speaks of the looking down of Jehovah. These two link on to Psalm 24 by the selah of 24:10 and 24:6 Selah... connecting Ps. 24 with 25... 24 referring to Zion, , the new place of worship and Ps. 25 corresponds with 1 Chron. 15 and Ps. 25 with 1 Chron.16 which together give a full description of the worship. 25 is further emphasized by being an Acrostic Psalm, in which the worthiness of Jehovah and the unworthiness of His worshipers stand out in vivid contrast. LORD... Jehovah... lift up... look down vs 18, 19 soul.... nehesph The english word soul is from the Latin solus... alone or sole, because the maintenance of man , as a living organism , and all that affects his health and well being is one sole or main thing in common with every living thing which the Lord God has made. The correct Latin word for theoligical term soul is anima... and this is from the greek anemos... air or breath, because it is this which keeps the whole in life and in being. The usage of the corresponding NT word  psuche  the first occurence of nephesh is in Gen 1 20 the moving creature that hath life. God .. Elohim The creator in relationship to His creatures. In contrast with Jehovah the covenant relationship. God the Son the living Word. Word.. the divine form to create ...later in human form to redeem ...In His Divine form He appeared to the Patriarchs , a form not temporarily assumed. I trust...have confided...so as to secure and without fear. This is the word rendered...trust.. in 107 passages. not the same as 20 not.. subjective... none vs 3 ashamed... fig..metonymy of cause... as a verb..when the cause is put for the effect... put to shame. 20 enemies.. foes let none..objective....none with them transgress.. act treacherously On... for...and for... 6 remember ....threefold objective...verse 7,16mercies...compassion.7 sins...to miss the mark.... also of the feet... stumble and fall ...Hence , morally , a coming short, blameworthiness, not necessarily willful. An act of thought , word, or deed, not a condition. Usually by by no means always rendered sin , and other words also so rendered. transgressions....revolt... rebellion... sin against lawful authority. Often rendered transgressions... Ps. 51 . In Prov. 10:12.. the action of love or mercy shown stands in strong contrast to this character of the sin. mercy... grace.. not the same word as in vv. 6, 16  8 teach...direct... The subject of this member. 9 meek...patient...or good in judgement .. to be vindicated. 10 such. The redeemed 22 and righteous worshipers are the subject of this Psalm covenant.. the first occurrence in the Psalms. 11 Pardon.. This is the first such plea in the Psalms. iniquity.... perverseness , from the root to be bent, or crooked, English... wrong.. ie.. wrung out of course expresses it.... 1 Sam. 20:30...2Sam. 19:19 Remove Reply Quote Notify 2260  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: The coming of the great Apocalypse on: July 24, 2011, 10:13:58 AM Quote from: poppy on July 18, 2011, 10:12:07 AM Quote from: mybigGod on July 15, 2011, 10:57:24 AM Quote from: poppy on July 14, 2011, 12:23:28 PM Thanks Tom. Wish I could read as fast as you write. Thanks Poppy... most kind... ive gotten back moving forward with Revelation. My most cherished object of affection is memorizing this book and sharing my illuminations of pleasure with people. So in going back over the 3 chapts i previously memorized, i havent lost any of them in my memory... which is surprising at my age. I will continue on and post often.   A book for the learned indeed. A most admireable goal in my opinion. Fare thee well my friend. Thanks Poppy... im moving along but not ready to write yet. The more i meditate on these 4 chapts the more i grow in the awareness of the value of our suffering on this side of heaven. It really does connect us to all the saints who have gone before.  Remove Reply Quote Notify 2261  Forums / Politics Forum / Re: Does Congress need to pay off the national debt. on: July 23, 2011, 04:06:48 PM The government is terrible at handling money. They have the worst profit margin. Like 20 cents on the dollar. I think it was like 220 000 dollars to employ the shovel ready job seeker . lol. Thats why we owe so much monies. Also... as long as the unemployment rate is about 25 percent then there is not enough growth in the economy to offset the spending. So we should roll back the taxes enough to encourage the big corporations return and provide labor jobs back into this country. It goes like this... the more jobs there are the more taxes that are collected. The higher the taxes the less private sector jobs the more the individual must pay tax. I think its like 1 worker for one SSI recipient.. thats a lot of burden to place on our labor force. Reply Quote Notify 2262  Members Only / Purgatory / Re: Taking Heaven By Force on: July 23, 2011, 11:30:08 AM The world is not really a place where God is ruling without us applying wisdom in what God is doing. There are only two kinds of people in the biblical world view. Theres not a personality profile that matters in our christian experience. lol. But our problems are that we major on the minors and we begin to change as we think outside of what we are required to think. This world is filled with devils because the Devil is the father of men. Men are not dangerous because they are threatening .. or abusive.. or corrupted. But men are dangerous because they live in a relationship where the Devil keeps them in his bonds by dictating to them this deception. We are only able to view men in our own space but if we saw men as God sees them we would understand the nature of this devilish communication in their minds. The devil will set us up with promises through people and our circumstances in a kind of moral beauty. The devil does not come to us as the one who we think opposes us. He comes to us through a small thought here... or a kind of gamesmanship through his children. The Devil likes a good challenge. The Devil will challenge us... make us motivated to walk on a side path. The Devil will come with veiled threats... the silence of men.. but most of all the devil works behind closed doors. He creates trouble through His children in what we do not see or know about. Most of the community relationships are formed by the Devils teaching. So there is always an attempt to ensnare Gods kids in a kind of back door agreement. The devil controls the minds of men. This is why we are not only in danger of forces out there that are too strong for us but we are betrayed by our own hearts. We hold onto ideas that come to us that seem to be really small and have not offensive weight in them. We do not examine these thoughts because we feel invincible as Calvinist. Our personal strength is our biggest weakness. If we really saw as God sees... if we really understood the intricately woven schemes in this world... if we knew all the mental anguish experienced by the devils children then we would be cursing the darkness... the devils schemes. Most people do not consider the powers that effect their own happiness. They do not see their own anger as festering and producing a sore in their souls. They just do not see the danger of living in the Devils world. But in acknowledging that we are fighting against inanimate schemes and spirits that hold the world in their bonds we fail to use the full weapons of our warfare to call down fire and bring us to praise God finding such comfort and consolation that we find God as a consuming fire. We have all of these experiences ... all of these insecure personal weights in a communication in Gods revelation. We have the most profound self reflection in communication as a way to unburden our souls and seek the comfort from those things that are too powerful for us. Remove Reply Quote Notify 2263  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Freedom For The Addicted on: July 23, 2011, 10:50:07 AM God determines what our likes and dislikes are going to be. He decrees our weakness.. our sins.. and our sorrows. God knows that we are but dust not as looking at our lives but in His understanding that He gave us weaknesses and sinful inclinations so that we would learn to trust in Him and see Him remain faithful when men are not. God not only defines the evil that is in the world but He causes us to experience evil in light of our living our lives out before His sight. This is why we do not trust in our way.  Our experience is in the view we have of God and ourselves. We come to God as we are and not what we imagine we are by how men define reality. For all the thoughts of men are futile. If Gods thoughts are not our thoughts then we could not know reality if God did not reveal it to us. This is why God can not be understood through the study of relationships as a science to understand who God is. But God speaks to us personally and reveals the truth when we ask. Our view of ourselves and the reality of our thought life is determined by Gods continuous daily illuminations in this single path. We stray when we begin to think in our own thought patterns. God knows our thoughts before we think them. So God knows us by decreeing our thoughts in entering our reality. We do not listen to God for wisdom... so the problem is that we think on our own more than we think Gods thoughts after Him. If God were understood as God then we would believe that nothing in our lives comes by chance. We would focus on God knowing us through showing Himself good and faithful to us by pre ordaining our thoughts before we think them.If we know God as intimately involved in the most minute things then we would be filled with all good things. We would know true faith... hope.. .love..faithfulness. Because God comes in His divine decrees to produce the reality of His thinking through us as He orders the beauty of the world to be seen. So we would have a flow of pleasure because God created our reality so that He could communicate His goodness to us. We must understand in the illumination of the pleasure of Gods ordering these things. In the understanding of the illumination of our own reality being illuminated by the effervescence of the truth as the light then we are passing beyond the veil of this world. We are experiencing the pleasure and beauty of God by acknowledging His rite to order all things in His ordering our reality. We find a kind of flow of pleasure and beauty. We experience the reordering of our own hearts in connecting to love and goodness. We look beyond the creation and we see with our spiritual eyes. We are looking on the light of the glory of God through His revelation to us. The experiencing is more than words on a page but we are as it were caught up in the flow of the stream of Gods purposes that have no end in our view of what is beyond time.   Remove Reply Quote Notify 2264  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Re-forming reformed theology on: July 23, 2011, 10:31:27 AM If Christ is a real person then He must be defined and understood as what a real person in relationship understands the responsible action and who is worthy of that action. Other wise we are dealing with imaginary persons. Obviously we would like Christ to kind of come and go in a mystical power play. But Christ does not allow us the freedom to misrepresent His work so that we can prove that our 12 things or how many there are will work. Christ is not a person we can define but He defines Himself and we compare everything else to that standard. Hes really not emotionally in and out of our experience. Christ was an actual man who was born of the Virgin Mary. He grew in wisdom and knowledge just like a small boy would learn the way he should go in life. Christ learned carpentry as a boy from his father Joseph. When we apply our faith to Christ we look at His performance according to the law as a child and a man. We look at Christ as a person not a way for us to perform. We see that He obeyed the law completely. We see that He was one with the Father and in His humanity He prayed to our Father for His strength. His faith in being exercised each day was a perfect trust in His Father. Christ showed perfect submission to His Father every moment of every day... focusing on His Fathers will. When we look at Christ as who He is we look back at a real man not some figure that empowers us. We compare our law keeping with His and we think of His life lived on this earth in the flesh. We know that our Friend did not share His life with us as if He gives us gifts according to our performance but we see someone who performed what we could not do and He provided salvation in His life for many. Our worship and experience is looking at His life and seeing His obedience and faith. We compare our lives to His and our response is not how He responds to us but how we must study this God Man in order to worship and adore Him. Our focus is not on our obedience but His.. not our value but His .. not our power but His... as a man as Someone who gifts us who could never share in His life.   Reply Quote Notify 2265  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: The "sabbath" and keeping it holy... on: July 23, 2011, 10:01:16 AM The ot message of salvation is no different than the nt. Its a message of grace. But since Christ had not yet come the ot saint was required to bring a sacrifice of himself to God. They were not just required to bring a daily sacrifice for sins. But God is not someone who we can bargain with. God makes things difficult and impossible to understand so that we might not build our own tower to heaven. Mans first thoughts as a sinner is to develop a way in which he is god and God is appeased. But God does not respond to bargains. Rather God must come in His covenant to man. So God does not come to the righteous but to the sinner ... the idol worshiper. The ot is not describing a God of law but a God of grace. God does not concern Himself with mans ability to provide a reason as to why this or that way is a better way. God provides the way and proves Himself faithful by bringing man to the end where God gets the glory. The sacrificial system was to the ot saint a kind of deal maker. In other words God wanted their whole hearts but they wanted to perform the ritual as a way to appease God. This is why God told them that they ignored the weightier matters of the law like truth , justice , kindness and benevolence. God was saying to man that it was natural for man to follow his own way of thinking. God gave them a specific amount of laws.. what did man do? Man extended the laws as to qualify himself in his own way. Man always wants to simplify things for the sake of his own profit. This is why God comes to man as God and not an arbitrator of mans complaints. Because God does not need anything from man. God knows everything... He sees everything. Man thinks he can build his own kingdom and attach God to it. But when God speaks He not only defines the way but He is the way. He not only proves man is unable but God provides the ability for man to endure in Gods way. The ot saints wearied God with their focus on days, on all of the physical means to please God ... while at the same time ignoring God by complaining ... not believing...no thankfulness.. and not acknowledging that God is all glorious. Instead they focused on how they could please God with their efforts. This is why not only was God wearied with their sacrifices but He accuse them of changing the law in their explanations of the law of God. The problem with man is not whether the man is simple or complicated. The problem is that man builds complicated schemes that were never authorized by God. God gives ten commandments and men want to further it to a whole new philosophy of conduct. But the truth is that salvation is God loving sinners.