today found c.s. lewis on scripture by michael christensen. i'm a very lazy typist and have little time so most of the following that are direct quotes from lewis, i will try to indicate by quotations. the rest will be the author's and my words mixed.
..art of whatever kind can either be received or used. the first characteristic of the good reader is his ability to receive a work of art as an end in itself. to receive what great literature offers is to exert one's senses and imagination and various other powers according to a pattern invented by the artist', that is to embrace the imagined reality conveyed by the artist in the way it is intended. to merely use literature is to 'treat it as assistance for our own activities', that is , as a subjective springboard to or substantiation of personal, preconceived philosophies. the good reader absorbs the magic evoked by the richness of style and language. the poor reader perceives only enough of the content to serve his present need, like one who satisfies his lust rather than entering into the full meaning of sexual love...
the human predicament..'five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that i can never examing more than a minority of them - never become even conscious of them all. how much of total reality can such an apparatus let thru?'..
from lewis' 'footnote to all prayers'-
He whom i bow to only knows to whom i bow
when i attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou
and dream of pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
symbols (i know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
and all men in their prying, self-deceived, address
the coinage of their own unquiet thots, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
our arrows, aimed unskillfully, beyond desert;
and all men are idolators, crying unheard
to the deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.
take not, oh Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in Thy great,
unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.
aquinas concluded that human beings can know that God is and that He is His own essence, but we cannot know in any precise, affirmative sense what God's essence is for His attributes cannot be contained in finite language/thot..
myth was, thot lewis, a help...in a conversation with tolkien in 1931 lewis had said that myths were 'lies breathed thru silver. tolkien pointing to the great trees of magdalen grove said, 'you call a tree a tree...and you think nothing more of the word. but it was not a tree until someone gave it that name. you call a star a star and say it is just a ball of matter moving on a mathematical course. but that is merely how you see it. by so naming things and describing them you are only inventing your own terms about them. and just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth'..
lewis came to see myth as God's best way of communicating truth...he roughly outlined the myth of orpheus..'there was a man who sang and played the harp so well that even beasts and trees crowded to hear him. and when his wife died he went down alive into the land of the dead and made music before the king of the dead till even he had compassion and gave him back his wife, on condition that he lead her up out of that land without once looking back to see her until they came out into the light. but when they were nearly out, one moment too soon, the man looked back and she vanished from him forever...the fact that virgil and others have told it in good poetry is irrelevant..if some perfected art of mime or silent film or serial pictures could make it clear with no words at all, it would still affect us in the same way..
in perelandra ransom destroyed the un-man. was this predestined or did he exercise free will? ..you might say, if you liked, that the power of choice had been simply set aside and an inflexible destiny substituted for it. on the other hand, you might say that he had been delivered from the rhetoric of his passions and had emerged into unassailable freedom. ransom could not, for the life of him, see any difference between these two statements. predestination and freedom were apparently identical. he could no longer see any meaning in the many arguments he had heard on this subject'..
'myth is the mountain whence all the different streams arise which become truths down here in the valley; (in this valley of separation). or, if you prefer, myth is the sithmus which connects the peninsular world of thot with that vast continent we really belong to'..
lewis's approach to myth, revelation and scripture presupposes the validity of platonic idealism not that he presumed the geographic necessity of the 'two-story universe'; but rather he perceived, metaphorically, a unified reality where the natural and the supernatural realms co-inhere...if this is true how are the universals from the supernatural transposed into the particulars of the natural?...when a higher dimension descends into a lower one, it is like translating from a language which has a large vocabulary into one that has a small vocabulary. or, to use another analogy, transposition can be compared to the problems involved in drawing. how can aspects of a three-dimensional world be represented on a two-dimensional sheet of paper? obviously something will be lost in the conversion. the relationship between the higher realm and its transposition in the lower is likewise abstract. the correspondence between the universls and particulares is not exact or absolute but rather symbolic or sacramental. the thing signified descends in substance so that the lower partakes of the higher as the higher reproduces itself, imperfectly, in the lower.
an example of transposition is the incarnation. God - the infinite, inscrutable, indescribable, 'wholly other' - transcending the universe, took on human form to reveal Himself to man. in so doing, the creator said in effect, 'My children, I want you to see and experience My eternal essence in the form of a finite particular'. thus Christ became 'the visible likeness of the invisible God'...
there are two basic approaches to transposition..if we interpret the world of universals in terms of the particulars, as aristotle did, we are tempted to conclude that the so-called higher or spiritual realm is derived from the lower or physical realm. if the natural is all that exists, then the supposed supernatural is merely a proJection or imaginary extension of the natural. if that be the case, man's highest values are simply illusions..what freud called 'wish fulfillment'..
..but if we approach transposition from above, we then perceive with plato that the natural is a dim reflection of a supernatural realm. life indeed has meaning and significance, for the values and visions we hold dear are from a spiritual source outside ourselves and the particulars of nature.
although there are always naturalistic explanations for those experiences which faith claims are from above..lewis states..'with whatever sense of unworthiness, with whatever sense of audacity, we must affirm that we know a little of the higher system which is being transposed'..spiritual things are spiritually discerned thru the bible.
plato expresses it this way..whose light would you say it is that makes our eyes see and objects be seen most perfectly?..you mean the sun, of course..apply the analogy to the mind. when the mind's eye is fixed on objects illuminated by truth and reality, it understands and knows them and its possession of intelligence is evident; but when it is fixed on the twilight world of change and decay, it can only form opinions, its vision is confused and its opinions shifting...then what gives the objects of knowledge their truth and the knower's mind the power of knowing is the form of the good'.
if God takes the initiative in transposition, then what are some of the ways He reveals himself to man? in mere christianity, lewis identifies 4 means of divine disclosure: conscience (the universal ought), the chosen people of israel (election), pagan mythology (good dreams), the Christ event (incarnation). in the problem of pain he added immortal longing (sehnsucht) and idea of the holy (experience of the numinous).
..sensing the terrifying presence of the Holy recorded down through history in literature and human experience..from perelandra lewis fictionally seeks to evokes what it is like..'my sensations were, it is true, in some ways very unpleasant. the fact that it was quite obviously not organic - the knowledge that intelligence was somehow located in this homogeneous cylinder of light but not related to it as our consciousness is related to our brains and nerves - was profoundly disturbing. it would not fit into our categories. the response which we ordinarity make to a living creature and that which one makes to an inanimate object were here both equally inappropriate...i felt sure that the creature was what we call 'good', but i wasn't sure whether iliked 'goodness' so much as i had supposed. this is a very terrible experience. as long sas what you are afraid of is something evil, you may still hope that the good may come to your rescue,. but suppose you struggle thru to the good and find that it also is dreadful?...here at last was a bit of that world from beyond the world, which i had always supposed that i loved and desired, breaking thru and appearing to my senses: and i didn't like it, i wanted it to go away. i wanted every possible distance, gulf, curtain, blanket, and barrier to be placed between it and me'..
whenever people quarrel, make excuses for their behavior or blame others, they are assuming an objective, universal value system of fair play or decent behaviour...if true, man is responsible for his behavior..
in mere christianity..'most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want and want acutely something that cannot be had in this world there are all sors of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. the longing which arise in us when we first fall in love or first think of some foreign country or first take up some subject that excites us, are longing which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy...if i find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that i was made for another world. if none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing'.
lewis in mere christianity writes, 'God selected on particular people and spent..centuries hammering into their heads the sort of God He was...those people were jews and the old testament gives an account of the hammering process'..
..'and what are we to say of those gods in various pagan mythologies who are killed and rise again and who thereby renew or transform the life of their worhippers or of nature?', lewis asks in reflections on the psalms, referring to the corn-kings in the nature religions who personify the annual death and resurrection of corn..'can one believe there was just nothing in that persistent motif of blood, death and resurrection, which runs like a black and scarlet cord thru all the greater myths - thru balder and dionysus and adonis and the grail too?'
as a young, atheistic intellectual, lewis's major stumbling block to accepting christianity was the fact that the christian religion did not seem to offer anything new. his knowledge of the life, death and resurrection theme in other religions convinced him that christianity was anything but unique. but eventually he was able to see that ancient religious myths converged and found their fulfillment in the Christ event..'the question was no longer to find the one simply true religion among a thousand religions simply false. it was rather, 'where has religion reached its true maturity? where, if anywhere, have the hints of all paganism been fulfilled? with the irreligious i was no longer concerned; their view of life was henceforth out of court. as against them, the whole mass of those who had worshiped - all who had danced and sung and sacrificed and trembled and adored - were clearly right.'..
my life is absurd. i am seeking to escape an unendurable reality. i am reading constantly and all kind of things...such as the above parts of the book on c.s. lewis...one after another. what i really want is to do what God wants but i am constantly doing what He doesn't want. the things i hate i do and the things i profess to love i continually fail, by ommission and commission, to live. a person just came and sat at the next computer and put their papers on top of mine. so what do i do...put my papers on top of theirs!
i am a very trying time now. it seems that one thing God is doing is training me to do what i hate to do. i drag my feet thru one day after another. i honestly don't remember the last time i felt thrilled with anything. life has turned into seeming interminable gray/black...there are brief times in which there is a cool and gentle breeze in my spirit where God speaks wordless messages that seem to say little more than 'I am with you..'. there are times He meets me as i am in His house. He is delivering me to a place where i am so empty in many way, where i am increasingly realizing that my life is totally corrupt, where i am realizing the absolute lack of His life within...coming out. as long as i do not have His life in my heart life seems unbearable, interminable torture.
my life with reference to God-
1. child: fear of hell/pray for salvation/no sense of salvation/ turn away
2. college: sexual sin/desire to be free/crisis (romans 6.11)/start reading bible
3. seminary: profess but do not possess, yet i will find God thru great works for Him
4. ministry: great expectations/great pride/great conflict/great self-righteousness
5. leaving ministry: great anger/great confusion/great purposelessness/great escape..emptiness
6. a deposit: great change in perspective- God is just if He saved no one
7. decision to 'return' to God (see 3 end) brings end of marriage
8. awareness of God's fatherly chastening - loss of family, hell in allentown
9. repentance regarding stealing tithe and noninvolvement in church
10. awareness of a relationship with God for first time; increasing awareness of my sinfulness
11. dark night of the soul, spiritual desert
12. no true manifestation of the life of God (current); waiting on and crying out to God
God is my only hope. there are no other options, no other truth. He is the only Truth, the totality of Truth. merely 'believing' in Him and trying to do good and not do evil are no longer enough. He is exposing me constantly for who i am apart from Him. i need to give everything to Him but it's hopeless..i can't. i don't want religion...i want LIFE, i want to know You, Lord.
i wish any amount of difficulty on you if only you come to possess what i now seek. i wish your life a total wreck and ruin, like mine, if only He has mercy on us all and we come to possess His life once for all. to hell with all profession. may God grant possession. love you, dad
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
3.28.10 tan maravilloso eres tu mi salvador!
this a.m. the Lord drew my attention to psalm 12.8 - the wicked strut about on overy side when vileness is exalted among men....commentary -'oft empty vessels swim aloft, rotten posts are gilt with adulterate gold, the worst weeds spring up bravest. chaff will get to the top of the fan, when good corn, as it lieth at the bottom of the heap, so it falls low at the feet of the fanner. the reason why wicked men 'walk' on every side, are so brist, so busy..is given to be this, because losels (from the root of 'loose'; wasteful fellow, one who loses by sloth or neglect; a worthless person.) and rioters were exalted. (prov. 28. 12 - a prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself; but the simple pass on and are punished) as sickness falls from the head to the lungs , so it is with the body politic. as a fish putrefies first in the head and then in all the parts, so here. some render the text thus, 'when they (that is, the wicked) are exanlted,' it is a 'shame for the sones of men,' that other men who better deserve preferment, are not only slighted but vilely handled by such worthless ambitionists, who yet the higher they climb, as apes, the more they discover their deformities - john trapp....good thus translates this verse: should the wicked advance on every side; should the dregs of the earth be uppermost? - j. mason good
this morning, in genesis 31, where jacob talks to leah and rachel about how their father has taken advantage of him he says, 'you know that with all my power i have served your father. and your father hath deceived me and changed my wages 10 times; but God suffered him not to hurt me if he said thus, the speckled shall be thy wages, then all the cattle bare speckeled and if he said..the ringstraked shall be thy hire, then bare all the cattle ringstraked. thus God hath taken away the cattle of your father and given theem to me. and it came to pass at the time that the cattle conceived, that i lifted up mine eyes and saw in a dream and behold, the rams which leaped upon the cattle were ringstraked, speckled and grisled. and the angel of God ( the angel of God in the old testament is, in theological terms, called a Christophany - a pre-incarnate (before He was born, in flesh, as a baby in bethlehem) appearance of Jesus) spake unto me in a dream, saying, 'jacob' and i said, 'here am i'. and He said, 'lift up now thine eyes and see, all the rams which leap upon the cattle are ringstraked, speckled and grisled; for I have seen all that laban has done to you . it was in these final words that God spoke to me. He sees all and will make all right.
doug's bday party last night saw us trying to get his camera to work so we could get a picture of him blowing out his candles. it took so long that the flames burned into five of the candle holders and turned them to molten wax; dick playing the piano while eileen and i accompanied doug i an accurate rendition of the first three verses of the old rugged cross...with doug then breaking away for a solo easter-bunny-cadbury-egg emendation of the final; the reading of the easter story (matthew 28). believe a good time was experienced by all.
am almost done the cellar. am waiting for word, from one competent to advise, on how to deal with the walls and the draining of water that comes into the house via the dungeon
have been thinking about the words, 'the God of jacob', and decided to see what i could find.
jacob:
-reached out his hand and grabbed esau, the firstborn's heal, before he was born
-got esau to sell his birthright (the fatherly blessing reserved for the first born0
-deceived his blind father, issac, to get that blessing in the place of esau
-made a deal with God when He appeared to him for the first time
-deceived laban, his father in law, in order to get his livestock
he-
-was hated by esau and laban and would have been killed by them had not God protected him
-desired rachel and was tricked by laban, her father, into having to work 7 extra years for her
-the one he desired was unable to bear him children until God helped her; she blamed jacob for her inability; she took her father's household gods (idols) and then deceived him so it was not found out; she died young
-laban did not give a dowry to jacob and changed his wages 10 times in order to try to take from him as much as possible
-was deceived by his sons who had sold joseph into slavery and made it appear he was killed by a wild animal
-would have had to take jacob's other beloved son, benjamin, in order to get food if joseph had insisted on this ...which might have killed him with grief
God-
-appeared to jacob as he was escaping from esau to laban in the dream of the stairway going to heaven; there He repeated the promise He had given to abraham and issac to jacob
-appeared to jacob to tell him He saw what laban had done to him and instruct him to go back to issac
-appeared to jacob at peniel ('the face of God') where jacob wrestled with him all night; where God changed jacob's name to israel; where God prepared him to meet his brother, esau, the next day
-appeared to jacob calling Himself God Almighty at the same stairway, which he names bethel ('the house of God'); here God commands him to be fruitful and multiply
appeared to him encouraging him not to fear to go down to egypt to get food for there God would make a great nation of his family
-while giving his sons a final blessing in egypt jacob calls God 'the mighty One'
names of the patriarchs -
-all three, abraham, isaac and jacob, are named together about 20 times in the penteteuch, in ll kings 13.23 and 6 times in the new testament
-jacob and israel (his God-given name) appear in the same verse: in two chapters of the penteteuch, 4 chapters in the historical books, 8 psalms (14,22,53,78,105,114,135,147) and in 29 different chapters in the prophets (a lot of these chapters have multiple repetitions)
-God's choosen people, israel, are called jacob nearly 70 times throughout the old testament (including occurances in psalm 20,24,44,46-7,59,75-7,79,81,84-5,87,94,99,132,146) and 3 times in the new
-most interestingly the term 'God of jacob' occurs in the recording of david's last words in ll sam. 23.1, in psalm 20.1, 46.7,11, 75.9, 76.6, 81.1,4, 84.8, 94.7, 114.7, 146.5. the only other occurance in the bible is in isa.2.3
we are all far short of God's standard of perfection but in the bible as well as in real life we may appear very different. if the difference is not just apparent but real, it can only be attributed to the grace of God that enables us to do better than would otherwise be possible. we see several sins of abraham's revealed but God chooses to reveal some of the wonders that His grace worked in him. issac is nearly a blank slate as far as 'seeing' him. he appears, like many people appear, to be bland almost to the point of spiritual neutrality. but jacob is a different story altogether. first, his story, covering genesis 25-50, rivals Jesus' as the longest in the bible. in that story we see what appears to be the norm as far as us humans go. if we do not take great pains to hide our sin, we tend to look gross to ourselves and others. and if we are blinded to who we really are we can tend to see ourselves in a much better light than others do and, more importantly, as God does. God reveals jacob, for the most part, as he is apart from grace..a sinner.
from the little word study it appears that there may have been one person, who was inspired of God to write His word, who was very aware of the fact that although jacob was a great sinner, God was a greater savior. the supplanter/deceiver (jacob) renamed striver with God (israel) as it occurred in jacob was seen as a model for God's people...this one man, jacob, was a model for every person. david, another sinner, seems to have seen and rejoiced in that...and so do i. the God of jacob (the God of stephen) has become my favorite term for God.
this morning read this comment on psalm 51.7 - 'i shall be whiter than snow..' but how is this possible? all the dyers upon earth cannot dye a red into a white; and how, then, is it possivle that my sins which are as red as scarlet shoud ever be made as white as snow? indeed such..is no work of human art; it must be only His doing who brought the sun ten degrees back in the dial of ahaz; for God hath a nitre of grace that can bring not only the redness of scarlet sins, but even the blackness of deadly sins, into its native purity and whiteness again. but say it be possible, yet what need is there of so great a whiteness, as to be 'whiter than snow'? seeing snow is not as paries dealbatus, a painted wall, white without and foul within; but it is white, intus et in cute, with and without, throughout and all over; and what eye so curious but such a whiteness may content/ yet such a whiteness will not serve, for i may be as white as snow and yet a leper still; as it is said of gehazi that ' he went from elisha a leper as white as snow':' it must therefore be whiter than snow and such a whiteness it is that God's washing works upon us, makes within us...' sir richard baker thank You Lord...
hope you have a good week. love, dad
this morning, in genesis 31, where jacob talks to leah and rachel about how their father has taken advantage of him he says, 'you know that with all my power i have served your father. and your father hath deceived me and changed my wages 10 times; but God suffered him not to hurt me if he said thus, the speckled shall be thy wages, then all the cattle bare speckeled and if he said..the ringstraked shall be thy hire, then bare all the cattle ringstraked. thus God hath taken away the cattle of your father and given theem to me. and it came to pass at the time that the cattle conceived, that i lifted up mine eyes and saw in a dream and behold, the rams which leaped upon the cattle were ringstraked, speckled and grisled. and the angel of God ( the angel of God in the old testament is, in theological terms, called a Christophany - a pre-incarnate (before He was born, in flesh, as a baby in bethlehem) appearance of Jesus) spake unto me in a dream, saying, 'jacob' and i said, 'here am i'. and He said, 'lift up now thine eyes and see, all the rams which leap upon the cattle are ringstraked, speckled and grisled; for I have seen all that laban has done to you . it was in these final words that God spoke to me. He sees all and will make all right.
doug's bday party last night saw us trying to get his camera to work so we could get a picture of him blowing out his candles. it took so long that the flames burned into five of the candle holders and turned them to molten wax; dick playing the piano while eileen and i accompanied doug i an accurate rendition of the first three verses of the old rugged cross...with doug then breaking away for a solo easter-bunny-cadbury-egg emendation of the final; the reading of the easter story (matthew 28). believe a good time was experienced by all.
am almost done the cellar. am waiting for word, from one competent to advise, on how to deal with the walls and the draining of water that comes into the house via the dungeon
have been thinking about the words, 'the God of jacob', and decided to see what i could find.
jacob:
-reached out his hand and grabbed esau, the firstborn's heal, before he was born
-got esau to sell his birthright (the fatherly blessing reserved for the first born0
-deceived his blind father, issac, to get that blessing in the place of esau
-made a deal with God when He appeared to him for the first time
-deceived laban, his father in law, in order to get his livestock
he-
-was hated by esau and laban and would have been killed by them had not God protected him
-desired rachel and was tricked by laban, her father, into having to work 7 extra years for her
-the one he desired was unable to bear him children until God helped her; she blamed jacob for her inability; she took her father's household gods (idols) and then deceived him so it was not found out; she died young
-laban did not give a dowry to jacob and changed his wages 10 times in order to try to take from him as much as possible
-was deceived by his sons who had sold joseph into slavery and made it appear he was killed by a wild animal
-would have had to take jacob's other beloved son, benjamin, in order to get food if joseph had insisted on this ...which might have killed him with grief
God-
-appeared to jacob as he was escaping from esau to laban in the dream of the stairway going to heaven; there He repeated the promise He had given to abraham and issac to jacob
-appeared to jacob to tell him He saw what laban had done to him and instruct him to go back to issac
-appeared to jacob at peniel ('the face of God') where jacob wrestled with him all night; where God changed jacob's name to israel; where God prepared him to meet his brother, esau, the next day
-appeared to jacob calling Himself God Almighty at the same stairway, which he names bethel ('the house of God'); here God commands him to be fruitful and multiply
appeared to him encouraging him not to fear to go down to egypt to get food for there God would make a great nation of his family
-while giving his sons a final blessing in egypt jacob calls God 'the mighty One'
names of the patriarchs -
-all three, abraham, isaac and jacob, are named together about 20 times in the penteteuch, in ll kings 13.23 and 6 times in the new testament
-jacob and israel (his God-given name) appear in the same verse: in two chapters of the penteteuch, 4 chapters in the historical books, 8 psalms (14,22,53,78,105,114,135,147) and in 29 different chapters in the prophets (a lot of these chapters have multiple repetitions)
-God's choosen people, israel, are called jacob nearly 70 times throughout the old testament (including occurances in psalm 20,24,44,46-7,59,75-7,79,81,84-5,87,94,99,132,146) and 3 times in the new
-most interestingly the term 'God of jacob' occurs in the recording of david's last words in ll sam. 23.1, in psalm 20.1, 46.7,11, 75.9, 76.6, 81.1,4, 84.8, 94.7, 114.7, 146.5. the only other occurance in the bible is in isa.2.3
we are all far short of God's standard of perfection but in the bible as well as in real life we may appear very different. if the difference is not just apparent but real, it can only be attributed to the grace of God that enables us to do better than would otherwise be possible. we see several sins of abraham's revealed but God chooses to reveal some of the wonders that His grace worked in him. issac is nearly a blank slate as far as 'seeing' him. he appears, like many people appear, to be bland almost to the point of spiritual neutrality. but jacob is a different story altogether. first, his story, covering genesis 25-50, rivals Jesus' as the longest in the bible. in that story we see what appears to be the norm as far as us humans go. if we do not take great pains to hide our sin, we tend to look gross to ourselves and others. and if we are blinded to who we really are we can tend to see ourselves in a much better light than others do and, more importantly, as God does. God reveals jacob, for the most part, as he is apart from grace..a sinner.
from the little word study it appears that there may have been one person, who was inspired of God to write His word, who was very aware of the fact that although jacob was a great sinner, God was a greater savior. the supplanter/deceiver (jacob) renamed striver with God (israel) as it occurred in jacob was seen as a model for God's people...this one man, jacob, was a model for every person. david, another sinner, seems to have seen and rejoiced in that...and so do i. the God of jacob (the God of stephen) has become my favorite term for God.
this morning read this comment on psalm 51.7 - 'i shall be whiter than snow..' but how is this possible? all the dyers upon earth cannot dye a red into a white; and how, then, is it possivle that my sins which are as red as scarlet shoud ever be made as white as snow? indeed such..is no work of human art; it must be only His doing who brought the sun ten degrees back in the dial of ahaz; for God hath a nitre of grace that can bring not only the redness of scarlet sins, but even the blackness of deadly sins, into its native purity and whiteness again. but say it be possible, yet what need is there of so great a whiteness, as to be 'whiter than snow'? seeing snow is not as paries dealbatus, a painted wall, white without and foul within; but it is white, intus et in cute, with and without, throughout and all over; and what eye so curious but such a whiteness may content/ yet such a whiteness will not serve, for i may be as white as snow and yet a leper still; as it is said of gehazi that ' he went from elisha a leper as white as snow':' it must therefore be whiter than snow and such a whiteness it is that God's washing works upon us, makes within us...' sir richard baker thank You Lord...
hope you have a good week. love, dad
Thursday, March 18, 2010
3.21.10 ayudanos Jesus!
read...
joy from above - andree seu, worldmag, 3.27.10, p83
what a blessing when a sermon is a blessing..
(note: testimonies are a recounting of what one knows to be true not merely conceptually but based upon actual experience. this is akin in the spiritual realm to what was formerly referred to as experimental holiness to differentiate a person's faith (testimony) from simply a mere profession of faith in Christ, the goal being not merely to have a correct doctrinal belief in the person of Christ, but also to have a real, ongoing relationship with Him just as real as that with any other person)
..if the orator has had no living encounter with the material, the parishioners shift in their chairs. if God has done business with the man, we hang on every word. it astonishes. it comes with authority (matt. 7.28-9). it surpasses mere textual knowledge as a road surpasses a map.
the testimony-sermon is the word of God believed, then obeyed, then blessed in obedience, then reported to the congregation. it brings practical counsel from the crucible of personal suffering. it carries 'the fullness of the blessing of Christ' (rom. 15.29), pushing into all dimensions. it lifts off the flattened page, from the realm of Idea to the realm of Incarnation in human affairs, providing entry points for God's kingdom come.
for so God has ordained that His presence with power would be directly related to the praiseful obedience of his people. the testimony-sermon completes the circle of revelation and no longer short-circuits it. the word of God is always truth applied to something, not to nothing.
i can tell when i am hearing a sermon on a doctrine that the speaker hasn't experienced firsthand. it's not that he's lying. he himself does not realize; he believes that when he lays out a homiletically top-rate teaching, he has done all there is to do.
the sermon, as it leaves his lips, makes a hollow sound on the ears of the congregation, but no one realizeds that either. it is homiletically top-rate and three-pointed. they know they should appreciate it if they are spiritual, so they believe they have been well-served. they say, 'it was a good sermon'. if this goes on sunday after sunday, a vague melancholy sets in unawares.
a gap between theology and reality widens and something fascinating occurs; the most doltish man in the pew becomes a linguistic sophisticate. abstract exhortations to 'joy' or 'reigning in life' from the pulpit are transposed on impact from their common meanings to a different category of meaning, what francis schaeffer might call 'upper story' thinking.
but when the pastor is a man who has pressed into believing God's promises in the morning and at noon and in the afternoon and when he meets us at week's end to report the concrete faithfulness of god on his spiritual living, the hearers - and language itself - are revived.
king david hints at the mystery: 'restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. then i will teach transgressors Your ways and sinners will return to You'. (psalm 51.12-3) there is the sine qua non (without which not). the teaching of transgressors and the turning of sinners must issue from the authentic joy of the emissary.
let us have semons that are testimonies rather than lectures. i want to hear about ll corinthians 3.17 from someone who walks in freedom. i want to hear about romans 5.17 from someone who is reigning in life and who can coach me to do the same.
i'll gladly sit an hour for examples of how the preacher's faith enabled him to extinguish the flaming arrows of the wicked one (ephesians 6.16). thrill my soul with specifics on how moment-by-moment obedience was reworded with God's manifesting Himself to you (john 14.21). what did that look like?
is the pastor experiencing peace because he has been training himself to 'set the mind on the spirit (who) is life and peace' (romans 8.6)? how do you train? has he overcome (revelation 2,3) old sin patters because he has applied galatians 5.16 ('walk in the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh')? provide details.
don't leave out the part of the sermon that sels the deal, that shows the way - the switch on the lamp without which miles and miles of good current are rendered to none effect.
and if the Spirit moves him, God bless the pastor who ditches the script and says, 'brothers and sisters, our condition is desperate. our prayers are anemic. our worship is on the point of being dead. let us cry out to god in concerts of prayer and fasting, day and night, and see if the lord will have mercy and revive us. two or three months seems about right. who will start us off?'
but is there only one person speaking God's word by way of testimony. i wish there were l corinthian 14 meetings among professing believers in Christ. paul says to this very troubled and troublesome group ' i would that you all...prophesied.. v.5 would that God would call forth a group of believers who would all believe this and practice it. that is, that they would meet with regularity to tell what God is teaching them. .
the weekly 'class meetings' of john wesley were somewhat along this line, where believers would first share areas of victory and areas of struggle in living out their faith to be followed with a time of mutual prayer for one another and a general seeking of God's help in being obedient to His will in the week to come. i believe this was also done in e. stanley jone's ashram model started in india and then extended elsewhere.
to extend this further, it would be wonderful to find another person who desired to share openly, that is give testimony along these lines and have a heart to seek God. i , personally, have never had the privilege of knowing such a person. i guess there are others who have this desire. i just have never met one.
in the recent reading thru genesis i was struck by the quickness of abraham to obey God, most markedly in getting up early in the morning to go and offer his son, issac, as a sacrifice. that was overlaid by the remembrance of moses doing ALL that God commanded him in the making and setting up of the tabernacle in the wilderness. it says this a number of times. then the remembrance of noah doing to the last detail exactly what God commanded him in relationship to the building of the ark. most recently i was struck by joseph, the human father of the Lord Jesus who when warned in a dream to take Jesus and mary out of egypt and return to palestine, got up immediately in the middle of the night and left. i am so different. so careless in obeying, so easily given to disobeying. may God have mercy on my soul and awaken me.
from letters written by john newton about his experiences on ship, as a slave trader, etc..
..when we came into this port, our very last victuals were boiling in the pot. before we had been there two hours, the wind began to blow with great violence. if we had continued at sea that night in our shattered, enfeebled conditionk, we would to all human appearance, have gone to the bottom about this time i began to know that there is a God who hears and answers prayer. who many times has He appeared for me since this great deliverance! yet, alas! how distrustful and ungrateful is my heart unto this hour!..
..imagine a number of vessels, at different times and from different places, bound to the same port. there are some things in which all would agree - the compass steered by, the port in view, the general rules of navigation, would be the same for all. in other respects they would diffwer. perhaps no two of them would meet with the same distribution of winds and weather. some we see set out with a favorable wind; but when they almost think their passage secured, they are checked by adverse blasts. after enduring much hardship and danger, and frequent expectations of ship wreck, they barely escape and reach the desired haven.
others meet the greatest difficulties at first. they put forth in a storm and are often beaten back; at length their voyage proves favorable, and they enter the port with a rich and abundant entrance. some are hard beset with cruisers and enemies and obliged to fight their way thru. others meet with little remarkable in their passage.
is it not thus in the spiritual life? all true believers walk by the same rule and mind the same things: the word of God is their compass; Jesus is both their polara star and their sun of righteousness; their hearts and their faces are all set zion-ward. they are as one body, animated by one spirit; yet their experience, formed upon these common principles, is far from being uniform the Lord in His first call and His following dispensations, regards the situation, temper and talents of each and the particular services or trials He has appointed them for. all are exercised at times, yet some pass thru the voyage of life much more smoothyl than others. but he ' who walketyh upon the wings of the wind and measures the water in the hollow of His hand', will not suffer any in his charge to perish in the storms, though for a season, perhaps, many of them are ready to give up hope.
take heed, lest any of you be hardened thru the deceitfulness of sin! sin first deceives and then it hardens. i was now fast bound in chains; i had little desire and no power at all to free myself. i would at times reflect how it was with me, but if i attempted to struggle, it was in vain. i was just like samson, when he said, 'i will go forth, and shake myself, as at other times'; but the Lord was departed and he felt himself helpless in the hands of his enemies. by the remembrance of this interval, the Lord has often reminded me what a poor creature i am in myself, incapable of standing a single hour without continual fresh supplies of strength and grace from the fountain-head.
..from that time, i trust i have been delivered from the power and dominion of sin: though, as to the effects and conflicts of sin dwelling in me, i still 'groan being burdened'. i now began to wait upon the Lord. though i have often grieved his Spirit and foolishly wandered from Him since...His powerful grace has preserved me from such black declensions as this i have last recorded. i humbly trust in his mercy and promises, that he will be my guide and guard to the end.
...a dissenting minister, named smith, who, by what i have known since, i believe to have been an excellent and powerful preacher of the Gospel. there was something in his manner that struck me, but i did not rightly understand him. the best words that men can speak are in effectual till explained and applied by the Spirit of God. he alone can open the heart. it pleased the Lord, for some time, that i should learn no more than what he enabled me to collect from my own experience and reflection.
...(referring to the first meeting of his future wife who he eventually married 7 years after he met her)how easily, at a time of life when i was so little capable of judging (but a few months more than seventeen), might my affections have been fixed where they could have met with no return, or the heaviest disappiontment! (at 17 he had absolutely no heart for God, she did) the long delay was a mercy. had i succeeded a year or two sooner, before the Lord was pleased to change my heart, we would have been mutually unhappy, even as to the present life..
...i began to keep a sort of diary, a practice which i have since found of great use. i had in this interval repeated proofs of the ingratitude and evil of my heart. a life of ease in the midst of my friends and the full satisfaction of my wishes, was not favorable to the progress of grace..
my principal trial is the body of sin and death, which makes me often sigh out the apostle's complaint, 'o wretched man..!' with him likewise i can say, ' \i thank God thru Jesus Christ our Lord.' i live in a barren land, where the knowledge of and power of the Godpel is very low, yet here are a few of the Lord's people. this has been a useful school to me, where i have studied mor leisurely the truths i gathered up in london..i brought with me a considerable stock of notional truth, but have found that there is no effectual teacher but God we can receive no more than He is pleased to communicate; no knowledge is truly useful but what is made by experience...
reading newton's words has been a well in the desert. i so wish i had a similar person to talk with...but in saying this i am reminded that i have better.
hope you have a good week. love, dad
joy from above - andree seu, worldmag, 3.27.10, p83
what a blessing when a sermon is a blessing..
(note: testimonies are a recounting of what one knows to be true not merely conceptually but based upon actual experience. this is akin in the spiritual realm to what was formerly referred to as experimental holiness to differentiate a person's faith (testimony) from simply a mere profession of faith in Christ, the goal being not merely to have a correct doctrinal belief in the person of Christ, but also to have a real, ongoing relationship with Him just as real as that with any other person)
..if the orator has had no living encounter with the material, the parishioners shift in their chairs. if God has done business with the man, we hang on every word. it astonishes. it comes with authority (matt. 7.28-9). it surpasses mere textual knowledge as a road surpasses a map.
the testimony-sermon is the word of God believed, then obeyed, then blessed in obedience, then reported to the congregation. it brings practical counsel from the crucible of personal suffering. it carries 'the fullness of the blessing of Christ' (rom. 15.29), pushing into all dimensions. it lifts off the flattened page, from the realm of Idea to the realm of Incarnation in human affairs, providing entry points for God's kingdom come.
for so God has ordained that His presence with power would be directly related to the praiseful obedience of his people. the testimony-sermon completes the circle of revelation and no longer short-circuits it. the word of God is always truth applied to something, not to nothing.
i can tell when i am hearing a sermon on a doctrine that the speaker hasn't experienced firsthand. it's not that he's lying. he himself does not realize; he believes that when he lays out a homiletically top-rate teaching, he has done all there is to do.
the sermon, as it leaves his lips, makes a hollow sound on the ears of the congregation, but no one realizeds that either. it is homiletically top-rate and three-pointed. they know they should appreciate it if they are spiritual, so they believe they have been well-served. they say, 'it was a good sermon'. if this goes on sunday after sunday, a vague melancholy sets in unawares.
a gap between theology and reality widens and something fascinating occurs; the most doltish man in the pew becomes a linguistic sophisticate. abstract exhortations to 'joy' or 'reigning in life' from the pulpit are transposed on impact from their common meanings to a different category of meaning, what francis schaeffer might call 'upper story' thinking.
but when the pastor is a man who has pressed into believing God's promises in the morning and at noon and in the afternoon and when he meets us at week's end to report the concrete faithfulness of god on his spiritual living, the hearers - and language itself - are revived.
king david hints at the mystery: 'restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. then i will teach transgressors Your ways and sinners will return to You'. (psalm 51.12-3) there is the sine qua non (without which not). the teaching of transgressors and the turning of sinners must issue from the authentic joy of the emissary.
let us have semons that are testimonies rather than lectures. i want to hear about ll corinthians 3.17 from someone who walks in freedom. i want to hear about romans 5.17 from someone who is reigning in life and who can coach me to do the same.
i'll gladly sit an hour for examples of how the preacher's faith enabled him to extinguish the flaming arrows of the wicked one (ephesians 6.16). thrill my soul with specifics on how moment-by-moment obedience was reworded with God's manifesting Himself to you (john 14.21). what did that look like?
is the pastor experiencing peace because he has been training himself to 'set the mind on the spirit (who) is life and peace' (romans 8.6)? how do you train? has he overcome (revelation 2,3) old sin patters because he has applied galatians 5.16 ('walk in the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh')? provide details.
don't leave out the part of the sermon that sels the deal, that shows the way - the switch on the lamp without which miles and miles of good current are rendered to none effect.
and if the Spirit moves him, God bless the pastor who ditches the script and says, 'brothers and sisters, our condition is desperate. our prayers are anemic. our worship is on the point of being dead. let us cry out to god in concerts of prayer and fasting, day and night, and see if the lord will have mercy and revive us. two or three months seems about right. who will start us off?'
but is there only one person speaking God's word by way of testimony. i wish there were l corinthian 14 meetings among professing believers in Christ. paul says to this very troubled and troublesome group ' i would that you all...prophesied.. v.5 would that God would call forth a group of believers who would all believe this and practice it. that is, that they would meet with regularity to tell what God is teaching them. .
the weekly 'class meetings' of john wesley were somewhat along this line, where believers would first share areas of victory and areas of struggle in living out their faith to be followed with a time of mutual prayer for one another and a general seeking of God's help in being obedient to His will in the week to come. i believe this was also done in e. stanley jone's ashram model started in india and then extended elsewhere.
to extend this further, it would be wonderful to find another person who desired to share openly, that is give testimony along these lines and have a heart to seek God. i , personally, have never had the privilege of knowing such a person. i guess there are others who have this desire. i just have never met one.
in the recent reading thru genesis i was struck by the quickness of abraham to obey God, most markedly in getting up early in the morning to go and offer his son, issac, as a sacrifice. that was overlaid by the remembrance of moses doing ALL that God commanded him in the making and setting up of the tabernacle in the wilderness. it says this a number of times. then the remembrance of noah doing to the last detail exactly what God commanded him in relationship to the building of the ark. most recently i was struck by joseph, the human father of the Lord Jesus who when warned in a dream to take Jesus and mary out of egypt and return to palestine, got up immediately in the middle of the night and left. i am so different. so careless in obeying, so easily given to disobeying. may God have mercy on my soul and awaken me.
from letters written by john newton about his experiences on ship, as a slave trader, etc..
..when we came into this port, our very last victuals were boiling in the pot. before we had been there two hours, the wind began to blow with great violence. if we had continued at sea that night in our shattered, enfeebled conditionk, we would to all human appearance, have gone to the bottom about this time i began to know that there is a God who hears and answers prayer. who many times has He appeared for me since this great deliverance! yet, alas! how distrustful and ungrateful is my heart unto this hour!..
..imagine a number of vessels, at different times and from different places, bound to the same port. there are some things in which all would agree - the compass steered by, the port in view, the general rules of navigation, would be the same for all. in other respects they would diffwer. perhaps no two of them would meet with the same distribution of winds and weather. some we see set out with a favorable wind; but when they almost think their passage secured, they are checked by adverse blasts. after enduring much hardship and danger, and frequent expectations of ship wreck, they barely escape and reach the desired haven.
others meet the greatest difficulties at first. they put forth in a storm and are often beaten back; at length their voyage proves favorable, and they enter the port with a rich and abundant entrance. some are hard beset with cruisers and enemies and obliged to fight their way thru. others meet with little remarkable in their passage.
is it not thus in the spiritual life? all true believers walk by the same rule and mind the same things: the word of God is their compass; Jesus is both their polara star and their sun of righteousness; their hearts and their faces are all set zion-ward. they are as one body, animated by one spirit; yet their experience, formed upon these common principles, is far from being uniform the Lord in His first call and His following dispensations, regards the situation, temper and talents of each and the particular services or trials He has appointed them for. all are exercised at times, yet some pass thru the voyage of life much more smoothyl than others. but he ' who walketyh upon the wings of the wind and measures the water in the hollow of His hand', will not suffer any in his charge to perish in the storms, though for a season, perhaps, many of them are ready to give up hope.
take heed, lest any of you be hardened thru the deceitfulness of sin! sin first deceives and then it hardens. i was now fast bound in chains; i had little desire and no power at all to free myself. i would at times reflect how it was with me, but if i attempted to struggle, it was in vain. i was just like samson, when he said, 'i will go forth, and shake myself, as at other times'; but the Lord was departed and he felt himself helpless in the hands of his enemies. by the remembrance of this interval, the Lord has often reminded me what a poor creature i am in myself, incapable of standing a single hour without continual fresh supplies of strength and grace from the fountain-head.
..from that time, i trust i have been delivered from the power and dominion of sin: though, as to the effects and conflicts of sin dwelling in me, i still 'groan being burdened'. i now began to wait upon the Lord. though i have often grieved his Spirit and foolishly wandered from Him since...His powerful grace has preserved me from such black declensions as this i have last recorded. i humbly trust in his mercy and promises, that he will be my guide and guard to the end.
...a dissenting minister, named smith, who, by what i have known since, i believe to have been an excellent and powerful preacher of the Gospel. there was something in his manner that struck me, but i did not rightly understand him. the best words that men can speak are in effectual till explained and applied by the Spirit of God. he alone can open the heart. it pleased the Lord, for some time, that i should learn no more than what he enabled me to collect from my own experience and reflection.
...(referring to the first meeting of his future wife who he eventually married 7 years after he met her)how easily, at a time of life when i was so little capable of judging (but a few months more than seventeen), might my affections have been fixed where they could have met with no return, or the heaviest disappiontment! (at 17 he had absolutely no heart for God, she did) the long delay was a mercy. had i succeeded a year or two sooner, before the Lord was pleased to change my heart, we would have been mutually unhappy, even as to the present life..
...i began to keep a sort of diary, a practice which i have since found of great use. i had in this interval repeated proofs of the ingratitude and evil of my heart. a life of ease in the midst of my friends and the full satisfaction of my wishes, was not favorable to the progress of grace..
my principal trial is the body of sin and death, which makes me often sigh out the apostle's complaint, 'o wretched man..!' with him likewise i can say, ' \i thank God thru Jesus Christ our Lord.' i live in a barren land, where the knowledge of and power of the Godpel is very low, yet here are a few of the Lord's people. this has been a useful school to me, where i have studied mor leisurely the truths i gathered up in london..i brought with me a considerable stock of notional truth, but have found that there is no effectual teacher but God we can receive no more than He is pleased to communicate; no knowledge is truly useful but what is made by experience...
reading newton's words has been a well in the desert. i so wish i had a similar person to talk with...but in saying this i am reminded that i have better.
hope you have a good week. love, dad
Sunday, March 14, 2010
3.14.10 que dios te bendiga!
this week's thots -
everytime a key game's score will be in the newspaper i must be at the library to read about it as soon as i can after it is printed! Lord, even though You have taken me away from sitting for hours in front of the tv, i still need You to free me from this addiction. it is still one of the drugs i take to get by. Lord, why are You still not enough? would You truly bring me to the place where i 'need' nothing but You?
saying sent from russ -life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. it's learning to dance in the rain....you can tell how big a person is by what it takes to discourage him..
i constantly fall short of my expectations..sometimes by huge amounts. how do You give the sense that You love, accept and will never leave me alone? the simplest explanation i can come up with is that You tell me these things in Your word...yet at the same time You desire perfection? how do i know this? i guess, once again, it's because You tell me so...You are incomparable. so faithful and true. never pushing You but always focusing on me...how can You be true?
i talk regularly with a friend and am noticing more and more that when talk turns to sport, i am much more animated and interested. i have little apparent interest in talking about You for You rarely come up.
it would be so easy Lord if You wanted me to do what i love to do. my whole life i've pursued doing what makes me feel good and avoided like the plague doing what i don't want to do. help me become not only able to do what You want (what i hate to do) but to do it with diligence and joy. the place i need for You to bring me is where You alone are enough..
a church-going friend was telling of a time that he was in a girl's dorm room in college and said, 'that's when i was a bad person'. this is how i have thot most of my life. it seems as though that is how most church going people tend to think...that they are actually good despite Your word to the contrary in romans 3,7 and elsewhere. isn't that how a person who knows about Jesus but does not yet have a saving relationship with Jesus thinks?
i pray that You would live Your life through me. Your love is so beautiful. if only people who relate to me could see You rather than me! bring me to that point, Lord, no matter what it takes.
i continue, zombie-like to just barely get thru every day. life is colorless, grey, insipid and intolerable to my flesh. that's why i escaped to the basketball drug yesterday..it must be You who are moving me to a life completely defined by duty. it is horrible! and yet, inexorably, You are filling up my life with only what you would have me do...and i am yearning so for what i want to do. experimental believers..i read of them one after another..consecrate themselves totally to You. would You lead me to this Lord?
finally, was struck by the number of christian ministries in haiti. the thot occurred..why are there no muslim ministries there trying to help the people? why no jewish? confucian? hindu? buddist? new age? satanist?
some readings this week -
it's the end of the world and we love it-mark moring ct,march 10,p44f
what's on the other side?
the question is innate to human experience and hollywood knows it - as evidenced by the spate of spiritually themed films to debut after the blockbuster success of the passion of the Christ (2004). in a fear-filled world where war, terrorism and economic collapse bring the question of death and the afterlife to the fore, the film industry has delivered more stories to fuel the question- though not always providing answers.
the result oin 2009 was a record $10 billion at the box office in the us and canada, where theater attendance was up 4.5% over 2008 despite an exonomic recession that saw cuts in consumer spending in almost every other sector.
much of that record windfall came from a near epidemic of movies about the end of the world - from the explosion-driven drivel of transformers: revenge of the fallen (where all life on earth is in peril) and 2012 (global mayhem as predicted by the mayan calendar) to the tongue-in-cheek zombieland and more thotful fare such as terminator salvation, district 9 and the road. the trend continued in 2010 with two end-tims thrillers, the book of eli and legion, both of which opened in january and the documentaries waiting for armageddon and with God on our side, both exploring the state of israel's role in ushering in the last days. january also saw the wide release of the lovely bones, depicting a teen girl's view of heaven (and our own longing for it). more such films - pre- and post-apocalyptic - are on the 2010 tap.
why are so many of us flocking to the theater when we're pinching pennies more now than in decades? and why are we spending our hard-earned $ on movies about the end of existence?
do you want to hear? -jeremy weber p.47
about the vision and ministry to the deaf by david and ruby stecca - deaf video communications (dvc)
'most churches regard the deaf as a benevolence ministry, similar to the elderly or disabled. but experts argue that a different paradigm is desperately needed: seeing deaf ministry as cross-cultural missions (note: they do not understand. not, they can't understand.)
language and cultural barriers have left the deaf a veritable unreached people group right in america's midst. christian deaf ministries estimate that only 1% of american deaf children will attend church as adults. less than 7% will ever have the gospel presented to them in a way they can understand.'
problems with communicating to the deaf:
1. 'the printed word is inaccessible to many because over 50% of deaf adults read at or below a 4th grade level..'
2 the way those who hear and those who do not hear are very different making 'talk' from the former 'translated' by sign language to the latter an ineffective vehicle of communications. 'stecca discovered this when he began translating sermons into asl (american sign language). "it was a waste of time, because the way the sermon was presented was not understandable to the deaf". hearing pastors tend to deliver non-linear messages at a tenth grade reading level, while most deaf best comprehend linear messages at lower reading levels. in stecca's experience, deaf christians often understand less than 40% of an interpreted sermon'.
3. '95% of deaf children are born into hearing families, but only 10% of parents learn enough asl to have a conversation beyond 'pass the salt' and 'be quiet'..when parents have limited signing skills, it's daunting for them to teach their children about Jesus or moses'.
steccas', with the help of volunteer deaf actors and paid, mostly hearing production professionals, dvc has produced almost 500 video of Bible stories, sermons, dramas, marriage counseling sessions and children's programs..all in asl'...
voice of martyrs - testimony of believer in north korea. he escaped to china and there met a man who gave him a bible and said to him, 'if you read this book, you will find truth'. he did and he did. he also took 6 bibles back to north korea and buried them in his yard. he was suspected and taken in for questioning and his wife, as previously instructed, dug them up and destroyed them. since, he has been very disturbed by this and has made 4 trips into china a brought back 4 bibles...each time willing to risk getting caught. he said to vom, 'tonight i will take my fifth bible back to north korea. next year i will have all six back!' vom asked him what he planned to do with the bibles. was he going to give them away? after a long pause, mr. chin looked at me with saddened eyes and said, 'i'm not ready to die yet'.
...marx and his comrades while anti-God, were not atheists, as present-day marxists claim to be. that is, while they openly denounced and reviled god, they hated a god in whom they believed. they challenged not His existence, but His supremacy.
when the revolution broke out in paris in 1871, the communard flournes declared, 'our enemy is God. hatred of god is the beginning of wisdom'.
marx greatly praised the communards who openly proclaimed theis aim. but what has this to do with a more ezuitable distribution of goods or with better social institutions? such are only the outward trappings for concealing the real aim - the total eradication of God and His worship.
marxism is a religion and it even 'uses' scripture. its main work, the capital by marx, is called 'the bible of the working class'. marx considered himself 'the pope of communism'. communism 'has the pride of infallibility'. all who oppose the communist 'creed' (this expression is used by engels) are excommunicated. marx wrote, 'bakunin should beware. otherwise we will excommunicated him'. those who die in the service of marxism are feasted as 'martyrs'. marxism also has its sacraments; the solemn receptions in the toddlers' organization called 'the children of october', the oaths given when received as 'pioneers', after which come the higher grades of initiation in komsomol and the party. confession is replaced with public self criticism before the assembly of party members. marxism is a church. it has all the characteristics..yet, its god is not named in its popular literature. .satan is obviously its god. it is strange that though marxism is clearly satanic, it is not seen as a threat by many churches in the free world'.
the lli massacre ad. 1342...one of the earliest missions in china flourished in the most unlikely place - the frontier town of lli baliq (now known as yining) in a remote region of northwest china. in the 14th century, lli was considered to be outside of civilized china. thousands of criminals and persecuted christians were banished there to serve the rest of their lives in exile.
a group of mature christians, handpicked by church leadership, pioneered evangelism in this forlorn place. among them were francis and raymond ruffa, two priests from alexandria, egypt, and four men, peter from france, lawrence from egypt, matthew from hungary and john from india. they traveled around the sparsely populated region on camel and horseback, stayed in the tents of mongol nomads and succeeded in winning many families to Jesus Christ.
soon after the men arrived, the prince of lli fell ill. francis of alexandria helped the prince recover and won favor with the prince and his father, the khan. the missionaries enjoyed the freedom to preach for several years. in june 1342 the khan was poisoned by one of the princes, a fanatical muslim. the murderer usurped the throne and issued an edict ordering all christians to renounce jesus Christ and embrace islam. failure to do so would result in death. the christians, however, courageously continued to meet for worship.
the missionaries at lli were arrested. they were chained together while a muslim mob struck them with whips and sticks. although severely battered the believers refused to deny their faith. the crowd responded by cutting off the missionaries' noses and ears. the men cried out to Jesus and continued to preach the gospel. the mob finally cut off their heads.
local christians, including ethnic uyghurs, kazkhs, mongols, russians and han chinese, refused to flee. they were thrown in prison and cruelly tortured. many lli christians died as martyrs under the brutal muslim monarch. despite being deprived of leadership and direction, the church in lli survived. remarkably, the gospel was still preached in this remote outpost 400 years later. (china's christian martyrs by paul hattaway, p. 34-6)
intercessors for america, march 2010, a falling away by derek prince delivered 1998
..'the church is failing. a projection of what happens when the church fully fails is recorded in LL tess. 2.3: 'let no one deceive you by any means; for that day will not dome (the return of Jesus) unless the falling away comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God..' paul writes to the believers in thess.. to correct their thinking. paul clarifies that the day of the return of the Lord Jesus will not come until there has been a falling away.
interestingly, the greek word for 'falling away' is exactly the word which gives us the english word apostasy. it's only used twice in the new testament - in this passage and in acts 21.21 where the leaders of the church in jerusalem tell paul that he's been accused of teaching apostasy from the law of moses. it specifically means a turning away from a revealed truth. paul is saying that before the antichrist, the man of lawlessness, is revealed, there has to be an apostasy in the Church. there will be a moving away from sound doctrine (l tim. 1.10) why? because the Church is the appointed authority and barrier to the revelation and the consummation of evil. satan knows this and knows the bible better than most of us. satan knows that he cannot manifest the antichrist until the Church is weakened and moved out of the way.
so there has to be an apostasy, a falling away, in the Church because the restraining influence of the Church has to be cancelled before the antichrist can be revealed..
in ii thess. 2.7 paul states that 'the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way'. i know i am entering into speculative prophecy, but there are two ways of interpreting the phrase, 'he who now restrains'. it can be the Holy Spirit or it can be the Church. probably it's both the Holy Spirit and the Church (note: the church, in it's individual members, is indwelled by the Holy Spirit...)
the final consummation of evil in this age will not come until the "Church, by apostasy, opens the way. i would say that the apostasy is just about consummated in america today in the top levels of Church and state. apostasy is ruling via lawless, immoral, blasphemous, Bible-truth- denying, Christ-denying, God-provoking speech, policy and action.
i don't think things need to go much further before the apostasy is complete. in the meanwhile, what is our responsibility? ...we are His salt, light and leaven to restrain corruption and decay until the appointed time.
hope you have a good week. love, dad
everytime a key game's score will be in the newspaper i must be at the library to read about it as soon as i can after it is printed! Lord, even though You have taken me away from sitting for hours in front of the tv, i still need You to free me from this addiction. it is still one of the drugs i take to get by. Lord, why are You still not enough? would You truly bring me to the place where i 'need' nothing but You?
saying sent from russ -life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. it's learning to dance in the rain....you can tell how big a person is by what it takes to discourage him..
i constantly fall short of my expectations..sometimes by huge amounts. how do You give the sense that You love, accept and will never leave me alone? the simplest explanation i can come up with is that You tell me these things in Your word...yet at the same time You desire perfection? how do i know this? i guess, once again, it's because You tell me so...You are incomparable. so faithful and true. never pushing You but always focusing on me...how can You be true?
i talk regularly with a friend and am noticing more and more that when talk turns to sport, i am much more animated and interested. i have little apparent interest in talking about You for You rarely come up.
it would be so easy Lord if You wanted me to do what i love to do. my whole life i've pursued doing what makes me feel good and avoided like the plague doing what i don't want to do. help me become not only able to do what You want (what i hate to do) but to do it with diligence and joy. the place i need for You to bring me is where You alone are enough..
a church-going friend was telling of a time that he was in a girl's dorm room in college and said, 'that's when i was a bad person'. this is how i have thot most of my life. it seems as though that is how most church going people tend to think...that they are actually good despite Your word to the contrary in romans 3,7 and elsewhere. isn't that how a person who knows about Jesus but does not yet have a saving relationship with Jesus thinks?
i pray that You would live Your life through me. Your love is so beautiful. if only people who relate to me could see You rather than me! bring me to that point, Lord, no matter what it takes.
i continue, zombie-like to just barely get thru every day. life is colorless, grey, insipid and intolerable to my flesh. that's why i escaped to the basketball drug yesterday..it must be You who are moving me to a life completely defined by duty. it is horrible! and yet, inexorably, You are filling up my life with only what you would have me do...and i am yearning so for what i want to do. experimental believers..i read of them one after another..consecrate themselves totally to You. would You lead me to this Lord?
finally, was struck by the number of christian ministries in haiti. the thot occurred..why are there no muslim ministries there trying to help the people? why no jewish? confucian? hindu? buddist? new age? satanist?
some readings this week -
it's the end of the world and we love it-mark moring ct,march 10,p44f
what's on the other side?
the question is innate to human experience and hollywood knows it - as evidenced by the spate of spiritually themed films to debut after the blockbuster success of the passion of the Christ (2004). in a fear-filled world where war, terrorism and economic collapse bring the question of death and the afterlife to the fore, the film industry has delivered more stories to fuel the question- though not always providing answers.
the result oin 2009 was a record $10 billion at the box office in the us and canada, where theater attendance was up 4.5% over 2008 despite an exonomic recession that saw cuts in consumer spending in almost every other sector.
much of that record windfall came from a near epidemic of movies about the end of the world - from the explosion-driven drivel of transformers: revenge of the fallen (where all life on earth is in peril) and 2012 (global mayhem as predicted by the mayan calendar) to the tongue-in-cheek zombieland and more thotful fare such as terminator salvation, district 9 and the road. the trend continued in 2010 with two end-tims thrillers, the book of eli and legion, both of which opened in january and the documentaries waiting for armageddon and with God on our side, both exploring the state of israel's role in ushering in the last days. january also saw the wide release of the lovely bones, depicting a teen girl's view of heaven (and our own longing for it). more such films - pre- and post-apocalyptic - are on the 2010 tap.
why are so many of us flocking to the theater when we're pinching pennies more now than in decades? and why are we spending our hard-earned $ on movies about the end of existence?
do you want to hear? -jeremy weber p.47
about the vision and ministry to the deaf by david and ruby stecca - deaf video communications (dvc)
'most churches regard the deaf as a benevolence ministry, similar to the elderly or disabled. but experts argue that a different paradigm is desperately needed: seeing deaf ministry as cross-cultural missions (note: they do not understand. not, they can't understand.)
language and cultural barriers have left the deaf a veritable unreached people group right in america's midst. christian deaf ministries estimate that only 1% of american deaf children will attend church as adults. less than 7% will ever have the gospel presented to them in a way they can understand.'
problems with communicating to the deaf:
1. 'the printed word is inaccessible to many because over 50% of deaf adults read at or below a 4th grade level..'
2 the way those who hear and those who do not hear are very different making 'talk' from the former 'translated' by sign language to the latter an ineffective vehicle of communications. 'stecca discovered this when he began translating sermons into asl (american sign language). "it was a waste of time, because the way the sermon was presented was not understandable to the deaf". hearing pastors tend to deliver non-linear messages at a tenth grade reading level, while most deaf best comprehend linear messages at lower reading levels. in stecca's experience, deaf christians often understand less than 40% of an interpreted sermon'.
3. '95% of deaf children are born into hearing families, but only 10% of parents learn enough asl to have a conversation beyond 'pass the salt' and 'be quiet'..when parents have limited signing skills, it's daunting for them to teach their children about Jesus or moses'.
steccas', with the help of volunteer deaf actors and paid, mostly hearing production professionals, dvc has produced almost 500 video of Bible stories, sermons, dramas, marriage counseling sessions and children's programs..all in asl'...
voice of martyrs - testimony of believer in north korea. he escaped to china and there met a man who gave him a bible and said to him, 'if you read this book, you will find truth'. he did and he did. he also took 6 bibles back to north korea and buried them in his yard. he was suspected and taken in for questioning and his wife, as previously instructed, dug them up and destroyed them. since, he has been very disturbed by this and has made 4 trips into china a brought back 4 bibles...each time willing to risk getting caught. he said to vom, 'tonight i will take my fifth bible back to north korea. next year i will have all six back!' vom asked him what he planned to do with the bibles. was he going to give them away? after a long pause, mr. chin looked at me with saddened eyes and said, 'i'm not ready to die yet'.
...marx and his comrades while anti-God, were not atheists, as present-day marxists claim to be. that is, while they openly denounced and reviled god, they hated a god in whom they believed. they challenged not His existence, but His supremacy.
when the revolution broke out in paris in 1871, the communard flournes declared, 'our enemy is God. hatred of god is the beginning of wisdom'.
marx greatly praised the communards who openly proclaimed theis aim. but what has this to do with a more ezuitable distribution of goods or with better social institutions? such are only the outward trappings for concealing the real aim - the total eradication of God and His worship.
marxism is a religion and it even 'uses' scripture. its main work, the capital by marx, is called 'the bible of the working class'. marx considered himself 'the pope of communism'. communism 'has the pride of infallibility'. all who oppose the communist 'creed' (this expression is used by engels) are excommunicated. marx wrote, 'bakunin should beware. otherwise we will excommunicated him'. those who die in the service of marxism are feasted as 'martyrs'. marxism also has its sacraments; the solemn receptions in the toddlers' organization called 'the children of october', the oaths given when received as 'pioneers', after which come the higher grades of initiation in komsomol and the party. confession is replaced with public self criticism before the assembly of party members. marxism is a church. it has all the characteristics..yet, its god is not named in its popular literature. .satan is obviously its god. it is strange that though marxism is clearly satanic, it is not seen as a threat by many churches in the free world'.
the lli massacre ad. 1342...one of the earliest missions in china flourished in the most unlikely place - the frontier town of lli baliq (now known as yining) in a remote region of northwest china. in the 14th century, lli was considered to be outside of civilized china. thousands of criminals and persecuted christians were banished there to serve the rest of their lives in exile.
a group of mature christians, handpicked by church leadership, pioneered evangelism in this forlorn place. among them were francis and raymond ruffa, two priests from alexandria, egypt, and four men, peter from france, lawrence from egypt, matthew from hungary and john from india. they traveled around the sparsely populated region on camel and horseback, stayed in the tents of mongol nomads and succeeded in winning many families to Jesus Christ.
soon after the men arrived, the prince of lli fell ill. francis of alexandria helped the prince recover and won favor with the prince and his father, the khan. the missionaries enjoyed the freedom to preach for several years. in june 1342 the khan was poisoned by one of the princes, a fanatical muslim. the murderer usurped the throne and issued an edict ordering all christians to renounce jesus Christ and embrace islam. failure to do so would result in death. the christians, however, courageously continued to meet for worship.
the missionaries at lli were arrested. they were chained together while a muslim mob struck them with whips and sticks. although severely battered the believers refused to deny their faith. the crowd responded by cutting off the missionaries' noses and ears. the men cried out to Jesus and continued to preach the gospel. the mob finally cut off their heads.
local christians, including ethnic uyghurs, kazkhs, mongols, russians and han chinese, refused to flee. they were thrown in prison and cruelly tortured. many lli christians died as martyrs under the brutal muslim monarch. despite being deprived of leadership and direction, the church in lli survived. remarkably, the gospel was still preached in this remote outpost 400 years later. (china's christian martyrs by paul hattaway, p. 34-6)
intercessors for america, march 2010, a falling away by derek prince delivered 1998
..'the church is failing. a projection of what happens when the church fully fails is recorded in LL tess. 2.3: 'let no one deceive you by any means; for that day will not dome (the return of Jesus) unless the falling away comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God..' paul writes to the believers in thess.. to correct their thinking. paul clarifies that the day of the return of the Lord Jesus will not come until there has been a falling away.
interestingly, the greek word for 'falling away' is exactly the word which gives us the english word apostasy. it's only used twice in the new testament - in this passage and in acts 21.21 where the leaders of the church in jerusalem tell paul that he's been accused of teaching apostasy from the law of moses. it specifically means a turning away from a revealed truth. paul is saying that before the antichrist, the man of lawlessness, is revealed, there has to be an apostasy in the Church. there will be a moving away from sound doctrine (l tim. 1.10) why? because the Church is the appointed authority and barrier to the revelation and the consummation of evil. satan knows this and knows the bible better than most of us. satan knows that he cannot manifest the antichrist until the Church is weakened and moved out of the way.
so there has to be an apostasy, a falling away, in the Church because the restraining influence of the Church has to be cancelled before the antichrist can be revealed..
in ii thess. 2.7 paul states that 'the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way'. i know i am entering into speculative prophecy, but there are two ways of interpreting the phrase, 'he who now restrains'. it can be the Holy Spirit or it can be the Church. probably it's both the Holy Spirit and the Church (note: the church, in it's individual members, is indwelled by the Holy Spirit...)
the final consummation of evil in this age will not come until the "Church, by apostasy, opens the way. i would say that the apostasy is just about consummated in america today in the top levels of Church and state. apostasy is ruling via lawless, immoral, blasphemous, Bible-truth- denying, Christ-denying, God-provoking speech, policy and action.
i don't think things need to go much further before the apostasy is complete. in the meanwhile, what is our responsibility? ...we are His salt, light and leaven to restrain corruption and decay until the appointed time.
hope you have a good week. love, dad
Friday, March 5, 2010
3.7.10 THE GRACE AND PEACE OF THE lORD JESUS CHRIST BE WITH YOUR SPIRIT!
greetings!
i hope this finds you right where God wants you for that is truly the best place to be. it's friday morning and i have a few minutes so wanted to share a little of what i'm processing right now.
beware progress in world mag 2.27.10, p62 talks to the idea currently in vogue that islam will mellow as christianity supposedly mellowed after the crusades..
..to what extent is 'moderate' islam possible.
current thinking 'arises from a worldview that looks at ideologies thru the lens of 'progress' or 'evolution', shaped by a kind of darwinism...underlying presupposition is that human societies evolve as time passes, progressing and becoming more humane and more advanced.
thruoughout the whole medieval period the idea of reformation was prestigious and many reform movements chased after this ideal. reformation meant going back to one's roots. for medieval christians, a reformed christianity meant being more Christ-like, more apostolic and mor pauline. the wealthy st. francis read jesus' words about giving away one's possessions to feed the poor, so he followed this teaching and many flocke..the franciscans were founded as a reform movement. st. francis mas a radical reformer. he was not inspired by a vision of making christianiy more moderate and progressive. what moved him was a desire to follow the Jesus of the gospels.
the european reformation - so often invoked in comparisons with islam today - was driven by a desire to reform christianity a second time, taking it back to its roots. it sought to move ahead by going backwards. the reformation was not a 'progressive' movement in the modern sense, but one which sought to 'regress', renewing the example of Christ and His apostles.
..according to the core meaning of 'reformation' - a return to one's roots - reforming islam would mean making it more muhammadan. an islamic reformation would produce a religion which is closer to the quran and above all, closer to the example and teaching of its founder..as it happens, such a movement has been underway for more than 100 years and is in full swing today. it is what we knwo as islamic radicalism...and has produced the global jihad movement, the push for shariah revival and reimplementation of the caliphate. this is what a desire to revive the example and teaching of muhammad has led to.
..reasons why renewing the example of muhammed leads to islamic radicalism..one is that muh combined within himself the offices of king, judge, general and religious leader, thus unifying politics, law the military and religion. to follow his example means creating a theocratic political order, where the laws of the land are controlled by islamic theology...second..is that many of the harsher elements of islamic law - such as death for apostates, stoning adulterers, cutting off the hands of thieves, enslaving one's enemies and killing nonbelievers are firmly grounded in muh's example..
interview with wafa sultan, a woman who an interview which involves an imam on the television network al jazeera made a stir in the islamic world. 'the host asked me to sum up my thots. he gave me two minutes. i began to speak and the imam interrupted again. i said to him in arabic, "shut up. it is my turn".'..a first in public islamic history?
sultan uses words like brain washed to describe the power islam exerts over the people who live under it ...islam uses fear to control people. "you're not allowed in the islamic culture to ask, you have to take whatever is taught without any questions. you aren't allowed to leave islam, to convert to any other religion"..
of islamic women who will not talk..'does she know how muh treated women? how can she explain that muh married a 9 yr old girl when he was 54? how can she explain that muh forced his son to leave his wife for him and he slept with her the very same day (he) beheaded 800 men in one night and slept with a jewish woman sophia the very firest night he killed her husband, her father and her brother?
..after 9.11 i was free to say whatever..
..i believe more muslims are leaving islam than people becoming muslim..
article on iraq p. 65..at recent british chilcot commission..2 hour testimony of annclwyd, a member of parliament who headed a british human-rights group and has traveled to iraq since the 1970s..'in 1985 they told us of 44 (iran-iraq)war objectors in the abu ghrib (prison)..bodies were drained of blood before execution...then came the campaign, the genocidal campaign against the kurds and there were thousands we were told who were arrested..including 300 children..there was a report..that iraqui forces delivered 57 boxed of dead children and each dead child wqas drined of blood and their eyes gouged out..' clwyd recounted the practice of taking and killing children, then returning their bodies to their families and charging the parents with their deaths; the discovery via recovered identity cards of offical rapists in the saddam hussein regime; first-hand visits to mass graves containing 15,000 or more corpses. she told of the iraqis certainty that saddam planned to use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) leading up to the 2003 invasion, as mother bought out stores of deapers after learning they could be used in the absence of gas masks to protect their children from a chemical weapons attack..
..clwyd, pressed by the panel for her own views, said of the invasion, 'i felt myself ther was no other option'..
on a lighter note i went to the district 1 bball semis to see souderton, already qualified for the state tournament, lose to last year's pa state champion, pennwood by about 22. pennwood may not be quite what they were, i don't know, but i am thinking they have a real shot at winning the state again. souderton is the best they have been during this last 4-5 year run where they have become a consistently good and every-year -impoving team. this year they have all senior starters so it will be very interesting to see what will happen next year. i'm thinking they have a possiblity of winning the first 2 games at states thus beating their best to date of winning the first round game two years ago. we will see...
now almost monday afternoon with 15 minutes left a finally read (world mag, 3.13.10, p80)..'peruvian economist hernando de sotl polar, who describes the 'tremendous conceptual error' of his country's leaders in these words...'the assumption that, in anurban society swamped by migration, a ruler can know everything that is goin on in the country and that a new social order can be built on this presumed knowledge...in such a society, with millions of people whose specialization makes them interdependent, with complex systems of communication etween producers and buyers, creditors and debtors, employers and employees, with a constantly evolving technology, with competition and a daily flow of information from other countries, it is physicllly impossible to be familiar with and directly run even a small fraction of national activities..it is not rulers who produce wealth; they sit behind dests, give speechies, draft ersolutions and supreme decrees, process documents, inspect, monito and levy, but they never produce. it is the population that produce..
desoto's breakthru book was the other path (1989). he wrote it at a time when a maoist terrorist group, shining path, seemed close to taking over peru. de soto saw in 'property' not the enemy of the poor but their greatest economic hope: the poor needed togain clear title to their land and homes so they could use that property as collateral for loans that would allow them to become entrepreneurs. in the other path de soto celebrated peaceful entrepreneurial disobedience. peruvian powers tried to lock up markets..desoto praise street vendors who disobeyed regulations and expanded informal trade. peruvian powers tried to lock up public transportation..desoto praise drivers in their vans, station wagons, and mini-buses who disobeyed regulations and got people to work. leftist ideologues favored governmental redistribution. de soto praised the initiative of those without homes who moved onto uninhabited and unimproved land.
the worldwide evidence is that big government redistributes wealth to bureaucrats and hurts the poor. people get rich not by investing labor or capital in productive enterprises but by gaining political influence. businesses begin competing not to serve customers but to build ties with bureaucrats. political efficiency becomes more important than economic efficiency...in the redistributive state, the enviable capacity to be generous with other people's $ is an invitation to corruption..government is a mechanism for sharing a fixed stock of wealth among the different interest groups that demand it..the redistributionsit ethos does not acknowledge that wealth and resources can grow..and that even the humblest members of the population can generate wealth..
christianity and liberalism - j. gresham machen
paganism is that view of life which finds the highest goal of human existence in the healthy and harmonious and joyous development of existing human faculties. very different is the christian ideal. paganism is optimistic with regard to unaided human nature, whereas christianity is the religion of the broken heart.
we do not mean that the characteristic christian attitude is a continual...crying of 'woe is me'. nothing could be further from the fact. on the contrary, christianity means that sin is faced once for all and then is cast, by the grace of god, forever into the depths of the sea.
note: the last statement would seem to be partial at best, misleading at worst. as stated it was my belief for a long time, possibly until i started having an ongoing relationship with my blessed Savior. before that time salvation was no more than some completed transation in the past. though i professed to know God, looking back i possessed little if anything of what i would call a vital relationship. i lived as if on automatic pilot, though i worshipped a deistic god who had set things in motion spiritually by rescuing me from hell and whom i no longer needed (professedly yes, but in my heart no). i'll take it on in from here god until You do Your thing again by taking me to heaven when i breathe my last. one of many huge gaping holes in my spirituality was having NO conception of the power of sin over me and my constant living, nay SWIMMING! IN IT!!!
my understanding at present is that when God opens our heart to believe Him and turn our life over to Him, He saves us from the PENALTY of sin only. the rest of our earthly time He is progressively delivering us form the POWER of sin. it seems our norm should be a mixture of rejoicing in the position as eternal sons of God that is our present reality while at the same time, rightly, being in a continual state of brokenness over the power of sin still evident in the degree to which we are short of God's good and holy law which is a reflection of His immutable nature. who prays without ceasing? who does any command of God perfectly, all the time? blessed are the poor (not the normal word for not having enough but the intensive 'cringing, beggaredly poor') in spirit for theirs IS the kingdom of God...the sacrifices of God are not what little we do do but a broken spirit over how far short we far with continual regularity. paul speaks of this mix in various places such as having joy in deep affliction...joy is not a feeling but a settled understanding that 'all i need is You... love, dad
i hope this finds you right where God wants you for that is truly the best place to be. it's friday morning and i have a few minutes so wanted to share a little of what i'm processing right now.
beware progress in world mag 2.27.10, p62 talks to the idea currently in vogue that islam will mellow as christianity supposedly mellowed after the crusades..
..to what extent is 'moderate' islam possible.
current thinking 'arises from a worldview that looks at ideologies thru the lens of 'progress' or 'evolution', shaped by a kind of darwinism...underlying presupposition is that human societies evolve as time passes, progressing and becoming more humane and more advanced.
thruoughout the whole medieval period the idea of reformation was prestigious and many reform movements chased after this ideal. reformation meant going back to one's roots. for medieval christians, a reformed christianity meant being more Christ-like, more apostolic and mor pauline. the wealthy st. francis read jesus' words about giving away one's possessions to feed the poor, so he followed this teaching and many flocke..the franciscans were founded as a reform movement. st. francis mas a radical reformer. he was not inspired by a vision of making christianiy more moderate and progressive. what moved him was a desire to follow the Jesus of the gospels.
the european reformation - so often invoked in comparisons with islam today - was driven by a desire to reform christianity a second time, taking it back to its roots. it sought to move ahead by going backwards. the reformation was not a 'progressive' movement in the modern sense, but one which sought to 'regress', renewing the example of Christ and His apostles.
..according to the core meaning of 'reformation' - a return to one's roots - reforming islam would mean making it more muhammadan. an islamic reformation would produce a religion which is closer to the quran and above all, closer to the example and teaching of its founder..as it happens, such a movement has been underway for more than 100 years and is in full swing today. it is what we knwo as islamic radicalism...and has produced the global jihad movement, the push for shariah revival and reimplementation of the caliphate. this is what a desire to revive the example and teaching of muhammad has led to.
..reasons why renewing the example of muhammed leads to islamic radicalism..one is that muh combined within himself the offices of king, judge, general and religious leader, thus unifying politics, law the military and religion. to follow his example means creating a theocratic political order, where the laws of the land are controlled by islamic theology...second..is that many of the harsher elements of islamic law - such as death for apostates, stoning adulterers, cutting off the hands of thieves, enslaving one's enemies and killing nonbelievers are firmly grounded in muh's example..
interview with wafa sultan, a woman who an interview which involves an imam on the television network al jazeera made a stir in the islamic world. 'the host asked me to sum up my thots. he gave me two minutes. i began to speak and the imam interrupted again. i said to him in arabic, "shut up. it is my turn".'..a first in public islamic history?
sultan uses words like brain washed to describe the power islam exerts over the people who live under it ...islam uses fear to control people. "you're not allowed in the islamic culture to ask, you have to take whatever is taught without any questions. you aren't allowed to leave islam, to convert to any other religion"..
of islamic women who will not talk..'does she know how muh treated women? how can she explain that muh married a 9 yr old girl when he was 54? how can she explain that muh forced his son to leave his wife for him and he slept with her the very same day (he) beheaded 800 men in one night and slept with a jewish woman sophia the very firest night he killed her husband, her father and her brother?
..after 9.11 i was free to say whatever..
..i believe more muslims are leaving islam than people becoming muslim..
article on iraq p. 65..at recent british chilcot commission..2 hour testimony of annclwyd, a member of parliament who headed a british human-rights group and has traveled to iraq since the 1970s..'in 1985 they told us of 44 (iran-iraq)war objectors in the abu ghrib (prison)..bodies were drained of blood before execution...then came the campaign, the genocidal campaign against the kurds and there were thousands we were told who were arrested..including 300 children..there was a report..that iraqui forces delivered 57 boxed of dead children and each dead child wqas drined of blood and their eyes gouged out..' clwyd recounted the practice of taking and killing children, then returning their bodies to their families and charging the parents with their deaths; the discovery via recovered identity cards of offical rapists in the saddam hussein regime; first-hand visits to mass graves containing 15,000 or more corpses. she told of the iraqis certainty that saddam planned to use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) leading up to the 2003 invasion, as mother bought out stores of deapers after learning they could be used in the absence of gas masks to protect their children from a chemical weapons attack..
..clwyd, pressed by the panel for her own views, said of the invasion, 'i felt myself ther was no other option'..
on a lighter note i went to the district 1 bball semis to see souderton, already qualified for the state tournament, lose to last year's pa state champion, pennwood by about 22. pennwood may not be quite what they were, i don't know, but i am thinking they have a real shot at winning the state again. souderton is the best they have been during this last 4-5 year run where they have become a consistently good and every-year -impoving team. this year they have all senior starters so it will be very interesting to see what will happen next year. i'm thinking they have a possiblity of winning the first 2 games at states thus beating their best to date of winning the first round game two years ago. we will see...
now almost monday afternoon with 15 minutes left a finally read (world mag, 3.13.10, p80)..'peruvian economist hernando de sotl polar, who describes the 'tremendous conceptual error' of his country's leaders in these words...'the assumption that, in anurban society swamped by migration, a ruler can know everything that is goin on in the country and that a new social order can be built on this presumed knowledge...in such a society, with millions of people whose specialization makes them interdependent, with complex systems of communication etween producers and buyers, creditors and debtors, employers and employees, with a constantly evolving technology, with competition and a daily flow of information from other countries, it is physicllly impossible to be familiar with and directly run even a small fraction of national activities..it is not rulers who produce wealth; they sit behind dests, give speechies, draft ersolutions and supreme decrees, process documents, inspect, monito and levy, but they never produce. it is the population that produce..
desoto's breakthru book was the other path (1989). he wrote it at a time when a maoist terrorist group, shining path, seemed close to taking over peru. de soto saw in 'property' not the enemy of the poor but their greatest economic hope: the poor needed togain clear title to their land and homes so they could use that property as collateral for loans that would allow them to become entrepreneurs. in the other path de soto celebrated peaceful entrepreneurial disobedience. peruvian powers tried to lock up markets..desoto praise street vendors who disobeyed regulations and expanded informal trade. peruvian powers tried to lock up public transportation..desoto praise drivers in their vans, station wagons, and mini-buses who disobeyed regulations and got people to work. leftist ideologues favored governmental redistribution. de soto praised the initiative of those without homes who moved onto uninhabited and unimproved land.
the worldwide evidence is that big government redistributes wealth to bureaucrats and hurts the poor. people get rich not by investing labor or capital in productive enterprises but by gaining political influence. businesses begin competing not to serve customers but to build ties with bureaucrats. political efficiency becomes more important than economic efficiency...in the redistributive state, the enviable capacity to be generous with other people's $ is an invitation to corruption..government is a mechanism for sharing a fixed stock of wealth among the different interest groups that demand it..the redistributionsit ethos does not acknowledge that wealth and resources can grow..and that even the humblest members of the population can generate wealth..
christianity and liberalism - j. gresham machen
paganism is that view of life which finds the highest goal of human existence in the healthy and harmonious and joyous development of existing human faculties. very different is the christian ideal. paganism is optimistic with regard to unaided human nature, whereas christianity is the religion of the broken heart.
we do not mean that the characteristic christian attitude is a continual...crying of 'woe is me'. nothing could be further from the fact. on the contrary, christianity means that sin is faced once for all and then is cast, by the grace of god, forever into the depths of the sea.
note: the last statement would seem to be partial at best, misleading at worst. as stated it was my belief for a long time, possibly until i started having an ongoing relationship with my blessed Savior. before that time salvation was no more than some completed transation in the past. though i professed to know God, looking back i possessed little if anything of what i would call a vital relationship. i lived as if on automatic pilot, though i worshipped a deistic god who had set things in motion spiritually by rescuing me from hell and whom i no longer needed (professedly yes, but in my heart no). i'll take it on in from here god until You do Your thing again by taking me to heaven when i breathe my last. one of many huge gaping holes in my spirituality was having NO conception of the power of sin over me and my constant living, nay SWIMMING! IN IT!!!
my understanding at present is that when God opens our heart to believe Him and turn our life over to Him, He saves us from the PENALTY of sin only. the rest of our earthly time He is progressively delivering us form the POWER of sin. it seems our norm should be a mixture of rejoicing in the position as eternal sons of God that is our present reality while at the same time, rightly, being in a continual state of brokenness over the power of sin still evident in the degree to which we are short of God's good and holy law which is a reflection of His immutable nature. who prays without ceasing? who does any command of God perfectly, all the time? blessed are the poor (not the normal word for not having enough but the intensive 'cringing, beggaredly poor') in spirit for theirs IS the kingdom of God...the sacrifices of God are not what little we do do but a broken spirit over how far short we far with continual regularity. paul speaks of this mix in various places such as having joy in deep affliction...joy is not a feeling but a settled understanding that 'all i need is You... love, dad
Monday, March 1, 2010
3.1.10 SIN; LEVITICUS 13
we tend to take sin lightly probably because we are not dwelling in the light near enough to clearly see ourselves as God does. we may be like the man portrayed by james when he warns us of a careless attitude toward obeying God...'BE ye DOERS OF THE WORD and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. for it any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass, for he beholdeth himself and goeth his way and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. but whoso lookETH (continuous or repetitious) into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.' (1.22f) on a practical level we can get in the mode of either being unnecessarily hyper about our sin if we don't believe the promises of God I john 1.9; prov. 28.13 or carelessly excusing ourselves for known, repeated sin. in the latter case we tend to explain away many warning verses such as ..'and ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin. whosoever abidETH in Him sinnETH not: whosoever sinnETH hath not seen Him, neither known Him. little children, let no man deceive you. he that doETH righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous. He that committETH sin is of the devil; for the devil sinnETH from the beginning...whosoever is born of God doth not sin (ie. committETH not sin), for his seed remainETH in him and he cannot sin (ie. ETH) because he is born of God. (I john 3.5f)
in leviticus 13 God gives in great detail how israel is to deal with leprosy (spreading uncleaness) when it occurs on the body, in clothing and, later, in the structure of dwellings. this is a teaching picture for all saints of all times as to how they are to deal with sin in their life.
the priest, who knows the law, is the one to make inspection to determine the nature of the leprosy. God gives the signs by which he makes judgment. based on these he decides whether it is present or absent. if it is present, based on further revelation he tells the person what they are to do. after a prescribed time he then comes back and once more looks carefully to see what the state of the signs is. are they constant? increasing? decreasing? based upon his careful series of observations he either declares the object leprous, still questionable or cleaned and tells the person inquiring what to do in each case. if the body is leprous, he 'is unclean, he shall dwell alone, without the camp shall his habitation be'.
who is our priest? in a word He is Jesus. we cannot come to God except thru Him (john 14.6), He is at the right hand of God the Father as our advocate (defense attorney) (I john 2.1) where He makETH intercession for us. He is our only mediator ( ) making it possible for a holy God and a sinful man to relate. this is all possible because He gave His life and rose from the dead. i can come to God thru faith in what Christ did when He became my propitation (satisfaction of God's holy wrath against sin) by dying on the cross in my place for my sin (I john 2.2). having done this i, with Him indwelling me, can act in a priestly fashion for another. those who have trusted Him, He has made a kingdom of priests ().
if Jesus is not constantly examining my leprosy (sin) and giving me instructions about what to do, i am in a very bad way. i am and will to the last moment here on earth be a wretched sinner capable of whatever may be considered the worst sin(s) and therefore am in dire need of constantly being in touch with Jesus and asking Him to reveal, convict and release me from any sin i do and cooperate with Him by forsaking it. i am helped in this process by being familiar with God's revelation so the signs of sin are more quickly detected. i am helped also by being in FELLOWSHIP with others who also are walking with Him and are also concerned about (their) uncleanness; where mutual sharings, prayings, reminders of the signs, encouragements to enact the remedies, timely recheckings and, if need be, pronouncements (matt. 18.15f) are the norm. this is human love at its highest. unfortunately human priests are exceedingly difficult to find on earth, but thank God for Jesus in heaven.
much of the church retreats from the human priest so that it can live as much in sin as it likes. believing the lie that i am getting away with anything is my greatest plague. having believed it, i would rather live alone in the world and have my uncleanness. in israel, with physical leprosy, this was not possible. the unclean person was a total outcast. spiritually we are cursed with a situation where everyone is 'capable' of mutually contriving to act as if their spiritual leprosy 'is not showing'...the timeless story of the emperor's new clothes.
neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight, but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do...we have a great high priest...which can.. be touched with the feeling of our infirmities...let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. (heb. 4.13f)
in leviticus 13 God gives in great detail how israel is to deal with leprosy (spreading uncleaness) when it occurs on the body, in clothing and, later, in the structure of dwellings. this is a teaching picture for all saints of all times as to how they are to deal with sin in their life.
the priest, who knows the law, is the one to make inspection to determine the nature of the leprosy. God gives the signs by which he makes judgment. based on these he decides whether it is present or absent. if it is present, based on further revelation he tells the person what they are to do. after a prescribed time he then comes back and once more looks carefully to see what the state of the signs is. are they constant? increasing? decreasing? based upon his careful series of observations he either declares the object leprous, still questionable or cleaned and tells the person inquiring what to do in each case. if the body is leprous, he 'is unclean, he shall dwell alone, without the camp shall his habitation be'.
who is our priest? in a word He is Jesus. we cannot come to God except thru Him (john 14.6), He is at the right hand of God the Father as our advocate (defense attorney) (I john 2.1) where He makETH intercession for us. He is our only mediator ( ) making it possible for a holy God and a sinful man to relate. this is all possible because He gave His life and rose from the dead. i can come to God thru faith in what Christ did when He became my propitation (satisfaction of God's holy wrath against sin) by dying on the cross in my place for my sin (I john 2.2). having done this i, with Him indwelling me, can act in a priestly fashion for another. those who have trusted Him, He has made a kingdom of priests ().
if Jesus is not constantly examining my leprosy (sin) and giving me instructions about what to do, i am in a very bad way. i am and will to the last moment here on earth be a wretched sinner capable of whatever may be considered the worst sin(s) and therefore am in dire need of constantly being in touch with Jesus and asking Him to reveal, convict and release me from any sin i do and cooperate with Him by forsaking it. i am helped in this process by being familiar with God's revelation so the signs of sin are more quickly detected. i am helped also by being in FELLOWSHIP with others who also are walking with Him and are also concerned about (their) uncleanness; where mutual sharings, prayings, reminders of the signs, encouragements to enact the remedies, timely recheckings and, if need be, pronouncements (matt. 18.15f) are the norm. this is human love at its highest. unfortunately human priests are exceedingly difficult to find on earth, but thank God for Jesus in heaven.
much of the church retreats from the human priest so that it can live as much in sin as it likes. believing the lie that i am getting away with anything is my greatest plague. having believed it, i would rather live alone in the world and have my uncleanness. in israel, with physical leprosy, this was not possible. the unclean person was a total outcast. spiritually we are cursed with a situation where everyone is 'capable' of mutually contriving to act as if their spiritual leprosy 'is not showing'...the timeless story of the emperor's new clothes.
neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight, but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do...we have a great high priest...which can.. be touched with the feeling of our infirmities...let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. (heb. 4.13f)
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