Podcasts about now god

Full Circle - a journey into the unfolding Bible story

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 9, 2019 40:44

In today's episode we'll take a look at the following questions: Is it possible to hate God? Is hatred of God the greatest of sins? Is hatred of one's neighbor always a sin? Is hated a deadly sin? If not, from what deadly sin does hatred arise? We'll also be reading a lot from Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground. Here's the edition I have and recommend. --- Please support my work --> https://pintswithaquinas.com/donate/ --- Here's the main article we look at from Aquinas in today's episode: Whether it is possible for anyone to hate God? Objection 1. It would seem that no man can hate God. For Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) that "the first good and beautiful is an object of love and dilection to all." But God is goodness and beauty itself. Therefore He is hated by none. Objection 2. Further, in the Apocryphal books of 3 Esdras 4:36,[39] it is written that "all things call upon truth . . . and (all men) do well like of her works." Now God is the very truth according to John 14:6. Therefore all love God, and none can hate Him. Objection 3. Further, hatred is a kind of aversion. But according to Dionysius (Div. Nom. i) God draws all things to Himself. Therefore none can hate Him. On the contrary, It is written (Psalm 73:23): "The pride of them that hate Thee ascendeth continually," and (John 15:24): "But now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father." I answer that, As shown above (I-II:29:1), hatred is a movement of the appetitive power, which power is not set in motion save by something apprehended. Now God can be apprehended by man in two ways; first, in Himself, as when He is seen in His Essence; secondly, in His effects, when, to wit, "the invisible things" of God . . . "are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made" (Romans 1:20). Now God in His Essence is goodness itself, which no man can hate—for it is natural to good to be loved. Hence it is impossible for one who sees God in His Essence, to hate Him. Moreover some of His effects are such that they can nowise be contrary to the human will, since "to be, to live, to understand," which are effects of God, are desirable and lovable to all. Wherefore again God cannot be an object of hatred if we consider Him as the Author of such like effects. Some of God's effects, however, are contrary to an inordinate will, such as the infliction of punishment, and the prohibition of sin by the Divine Law. Such like effects are repugnant to a will debased by sin, and as regards the consideration of them, God may be an object of hatred to some, in so far as they look upon Him as forbidding sin, and inflicting punishment. Reply to Objection 1. This argument is true of those who see God's Essence, which is the very essence of goodness. Reply to Objection 2. This argument is true in so far as God is apprehended as the cause of such effects as are naturally beloved of all, among which are the works of Truth who reveals herself to men. Reply to Objection 3. God draws all things to Himself, in so far as He is the source of being, since all things, in as much as they are, tend to be like God, Who is Being itself. - ST II-II, Q. 34, A. 1

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53 - God's promise of hope (S6, EP11)

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 15, 2019 6:02

Now God sends a message of hope to the people via a prophet.

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52 - God's prophet to Assyria (S6, EP10)

Full Circle - a journey into the unfolding Bible story

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 14, 2019 6:09

Surrounded by powerful nations, God communicates via prophets both within Israel and Judah and without. Now God asks a prophet to speak on His behalf to the people of Assyria, but the prophet goes on the run.

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Feb 10th -- From an explanation of Paul’s letter to the Galatians by Saint Augustine, bishop

DIVINE OFFICE AND OFFICE OF READINGS

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 10, 2019 3:08

From an explanation of Paul’s letter to the Galatians by Saint Augustine, bishop⁣⁣ Let us understand the workings of God’s grace⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Paul writes to the Galatians to make them understand that by God’s grace they are no longer under the law. When the Gospel was preached to them, there were some among them of Jewish origin known as circumcisers—though they called themselves Christians—who did not grasp the gift they had received. They still wanted to be under the burden of the law. Now God had imposed that burden on those who were slaves to sin and not on servants of justice. That is to say, God had given a just law to unjust men in order to show them their sin, not to take it away. For sin is taken away only by the gift of faith that works through love. The Galatians had already received this gift, but the circumcisers claimed that the Gospel would not save them unless they underwent circumcision and were willing to observe also the other traditional Jewish rites.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ The Galatians, therefore, began to question Paul’s preaching of the Gospel because he did not require Gentiles to follow Jewish observances as other apostles had done. Even Peter had yielded to the scandalized protests of the circumcisers. He pretended to believe that the Gospel would not save the Gentiles unless they fulfilled the burden of the law. But Paul recalled him from such dissimulation, as is shown in this very same letter. A similar issue arises in Paul’s letter to the Romans, but with an evident difference. Through his letter to them Paul was able to resolve the strife and controversy that had developed between the Jewish and Gentile converts.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ In the present letter Paul is writing to persons who were profoundly influenced and disturbed by the circumcisers. The Galatians had begun to believe them and to think that Paul had not preached rightly, since he had not ordered them to be circumcised. And so the Apostle begins by saying: I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you to the glory of Christ, and turning to another gospel.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ After this there comes a brief introduction to the point at issue. But remember in the very opening of the letter Paul had said that he was an apostle not from men nor by any man, a statement that does not appear in any other letter of his. He is making it quite clear that the circumcisers, for their part, are not from God but from men, and that his authority in preaching the Gospel must be considered equal to that of the other apostles. For he was called to be an apostle not from men nor by any man, but through God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.

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143: What is life? With Christopher Frey

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 29, 2019 67:54

Today I sit down with philosopher, Dr. Frey to discuss life. A much more difficult issue than you might think. Here's two of the main texts' from Aquinas that Dr. Frey and I reference ... I bet if you read these excerpts after listening to the show they'll make a lot more sense. Please support my work (Thank you!) at patreon.com/mattfrad --- Whether life is properly attributed to God? I answer that, Life is in the highest degree properly in God. In proof of which it must be considered that since a thing is said to live in so far as it operates of itself and not as moved by another, the more perfectly this power is found in anything, the more perfect is the life of that thing. In things that move and are moved, a threefold order is found. In the first place, the end moves the agent: and the principal agent is that which acts through its form, and sometimes it does so through some instrument that acts by virtue not of its own form, but of the principal agent, and does no more than execute the action. Accordingly there are things that move themselves, not in respect of any form or end naturally inherent in them, but only in respect of the executing of the movement; the form by which they act, and the end of the action being alike determined for them by their nature. Of this kind are plants, which move themselves according to their inherent nature, with regard only to executing the movements of growth and decay. Other things have self-movement in a higher degree, that is, not only with regard to executing the movement, but even as regards to the form, the principle of movement, which form they acquire of themselves. Of this kind are animals, in which the principle of movement is not a naturally implanted form; but one received through sense. Hence the more perfect is their sense, the more perfect is their power of self-movement. Such as have only the sense of touch, as shellfish, move only with the motion of expansion and contraction; and thus their movement hardly exceeds that of plants. Whereas such as have the sensitive power in perfection, so as to recognize not only connection and touch, but also objects apart from themselves, can move themselves to a distance by progressive movement. Yet although animals of the latter kind receive through sense the form that is the principle of their movement, nevertheless they cannot of themselves propose to themselves the end of their operation, or movement; for this has been implanted in them by nature; and by natural instinct they are moved to any action through the form apprehended by sense. Hence such animals as move themselves in respect to an end they themselves propose are superior to these. This can only be done by reason and intellect; whose province it is to know the proportion between the end and the means to that end, and duly coordinate them. Hence a more perfect degree of life is that of intelligible beings; for their power of self-movement is more perfect. This is shown by the fact that in one and the same man the intellectual faculty moves the sensitive powers; and these by their command move the organs of movement. Thus in the arts we see that the art of using a ship, i.e. the art of navigation, rules the art of ship-designing; and this in its turn rules the art that is only concerned with preparing the material for the ship. But although our intellect moves itself to some things, yet others are supplied by nature, as are first principles, which it cannot doubt; and the last end, which it cannot but will. Hence, although with respect to some things it moves itself, yet with regard to other things it must be moved by another. Wherefore that being whose act of understanding is its very nature, and which, in what it naturally possesses, is not determined by another, must have life in the most perfect degree. Such is God; and hence in Him principally is life. From this the Philosopher concludes (Metaph. xii, 51), after showing God to be intelligent, that God has life most perfect and eternal, since His intellect is most perfect and always in act. ST I, Q. 18, A. 3 --- Whether death and other bodily defects are the result of sin? I answer that, One thing causes another in two ways: first, by reason of itself; secondly, accidentally. By reason of itself, one thing is the cause of another, if it produces its effect by reason of the power of its nature or form, the result being that the effect is directly intended by the cause. Consequently, as death and such like defects are beside the intention of the sinner, it is evident that sin is not, of itself, the cause of these defects. Accidentally, one thing is the cause of another if it causes it by removing an obstacle: thus it is stated in Phys. viii, text. 32, that "by displacing a pillar a man moves accidentally the stone resting thereon." In this way the sin of our first parent is the cause of death and all such like defects in human nature, in so far as by the sin of our first parent original justice was taken away, whereby not only were the lower powers of the soul held together under the control of reason, without any disorder whatever, but also the whole body was held together in subjection to the soul, without any defect, as stated in the I:97:1. Wherefore, original justice being forfeited through the sin of our first parent; just as human nature was stricken in the soul by the disorder among the powers, as stated above (Article 3; I-II:82:3), so also it became subject to corruption, by reason of disorder in the body. Now the withdrawal of original justice has the character of punishment, even as the withdrawal of grace has. Consequently, death and all consequent bodily defects are punishments of original sin. And although the defects are not intended by the sinner, nevertheless they are ordered according to the justice of God Who inflicts them as punishments. Reply to Objection 1. Causes that produce their effects of themselves, if equal, produce equal effects: for if such causes be increased or diminished, the effect is increased or diminished. But equal causes of an obstacle being removed, do not point to equal effects. For supposing a man employs equal force in displacing two columns, it does not follow that the movements of the stones resting on them will be equal; but that one will move with greater velocity, which has the greater weight according to the property of its nature, to which it is left when the obstacle to its falling is removed. Accordingly, when original justice is removed, the nature of the human body is left to itself, so that according to diverse natural temperaments, some men's bodies are subject to more defects, some to fewer, although original sin is equal in all. Reply to Objection 2. Both original and actual sin are removed by the same cause that removes these defects, according to the Apostle (Romans 8:11): "He . . . shall quicken . . . your mortal bodies, because of His Spirit that dwelleth in you": but each is done according to the order of Divine wisdom, at a fitting time. Because it is right that we should first of all be conformed to Christ's sufferings, before attaining to the immortality and impassibility of glory, which was begun in Him, and by Him acquired for us. Hence it behooves that our bodies should remain, for a time, subject to suffering, in order that we may merit the impassibility of glory, in conformity with Christ. Reply to Objection 3. Two things may be considered in actual sin, the substance of the act, and the aspect of fault. As regards the substance of the act, actual sin can cause a bodily defect: thus some sicken and die through eating too much. But as regards the fault, it deprives us of grace which is given to us that we may regulate the acts of the soul, but not that we may ward off defects of the body, as original justice did. Wherefore actual sin does not cause those defects, as original sin does. Article 6. Whether death and other defects are natural to man? Objection 1. It would seem that death and such like defects are natural to man. For "the corruptible and the incorruptible differ generically" (Metaph. x, text. 26). But man is of the same genus as other animals which are naturally corruptible. Therefore man is naturally corruptible. Objection 2. Further, whatever is composed of contraries is naturally corruptible, as having within itself the cause of corruption. But such is the human body. Therefore it is naturally corruptible. Objection 3. Further, a hot thing naturally consumes moisture. Now human life is preserved by hot and moist elements. Since therefore the vital functions are fulfilled by the action of natural heat, as stated in De Anima ii, text. 50, it seems that death and such like defects are natural to man. On the contrary, (1) God made in man whatever is natural to him. Now "God made not death" (Wisdom 1:13). Therefore death is not natural to man. (2) Further, that which is natural cannot be called either a punishment or an evil: since what is natural to a thing is suitable to it. But death and such like defects are the punishment of original sin, as stated above (Article 5). Therefore they are not natural to man. (3) Further, matter is proportionate to form, and everything to its end. Now man's end is everlasting happiness, as stated above (I-II:2:7; I-II:5:3-4): and the form of the human body is the rational soul, as was proved in the I:75:6. Therefore the human body is naturally incorruptible. I answer that, We may speak of any corruptible thing in two ways; first, in respect of its universal nature, secondly, as regards its particular nature. A thing's particular nature is its own power of action and self-preservation. And in respect of this nature, every corruption and defect is contrary to nature, as stated in De Coelo ii, text. 37, since this power tends to the being and preservation of the thing to which it belongs. On the other hand, the universal nature is an active force in some universal principle of nature, for instance in some heavenly body; or again belonging to some superior substance, in which sense God is said by some to be "the Nature Who makes nature." This force intends the good and the preservation of the universe, for which alternate generation and corruption in things are requisite: and in this respect corruption and defect in things are natural, not indeed as regards the inclination of the form which is the principle of being and perfection, but as regards the inclination of matter which is allotted proportionately to its particular form according to the discretion of the universal agent. And although every form intends perpetual being as far as it can, yet no form of a corruptible being can achieve its own perpetuity, except the rational soul; for the reason that the latter is not entirely subject to matter, as other forms are; indeed it has an immaterial operation of its own, as stated in the I:75:2. Consequently as regards his form, incorruption is more natural to man than to other corruptible things. But since that very form has a matter composed of contraries, from the inclination of that matter there results corruptibility in the whole. In this respect man is naturally corruptible as regards the nature of his matter left to itself, but not as regards the nature of his form. The first three objections argue on the side of the matter; while the other three argue on the side of the form. Wherefore in order to solve them, we must observe that the form of man which is the rational soul, in respect of its incorruptibility is adapted to its end, which is everlasting happiness: whereas the human body, which is corruptible, considered in respect of its nature, is, in a way, adapted to its form, and, in another way, it is not. For we may note a twofold condition in any matter, one which the agent chooses, and another which is not chosen by the agent, and is a natural condition of matter. Thus, a smith in order to make a knife, chooses a matter both hard and flexible, which can be sharpened so as to be useful for cutting, and in respect of this condition iron is a matter adapted for a knife: but that iron be breakable and inclined to rust, results from the natural disposition of iron, nor does the workman choose this in the iron, indeed he would do without it if he could: wherefore this disposition of matter is not adapted to the workman's intention, nor to the purpose of his art. In like manner the human body is the matter chosen by nature in respect of its being of a mixed temperament, in order that it may be most suitable as an organ of touch and of the other sensitive and motive powers. Whereas the fact that it is corruptible is due to a condition of matter, and is not chosen by nature: indeed nature would choose an incorruptible matter if it could. But God, to Whom every nature is subject, in forming man supplied the defect of nature, and by the gift of original justice, gave the body a certain incorruptibility, as was stated in the I:97:1. It is in this sense that it is said that "God made not death," and that death is the punishment of sin. - ST I-II, Q. 85, A. 6

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142: Excommunicating Andrew Cuomo

Kingsview Community Church Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 25, 2019 28:00

Below is the entire text from Aquinas I wrote, but before that... Thank God for good bishops like Bishop Rick Stika (@BishopStika) and Bishop J. Strickland (@Bishopoftyler). Go follow them and thank them for being faithful sons of the Church. Whether the Church should excommunicate anyone? Objection 1. It would seem that the Church ought not to excommunicate anyone, because excommunication is a kind of curse, and we are forbidden to curse (Romans 12:14). Therefore the Church should not excommunicate. Objection 2. Further, the Church Militant should imitate the Church Triumphant. Now we read in the epistle of Jude (verse 9) that "when Michael the Archangel disputing with the devil contended about the body of Moses, he durst not bring against him the judgment of railing speech, but said: The Lord command thee." Therefore the Church Militant ought not to judge any man by cursing or excommunicating him. Objection 3. Further, no man should be given into the hands of his enemies, unless there be no hope for him. Now by excommunication a man is given into the hands of Satan, as is clear from 1 Corinthians 5:5. Since then we should never give up hope about anyone in this life, the Church should not excommunicate anyone. On the contrary, The Apostle (1 Corinthians 5:5) ordered a man to be excommunicated. Further, it is written (Matthew 18:17) about the man who refuses to hear the Church: "Let him be to thee as the heathen or publican." But heathens are outside the Church. Therefore they also who refuse to hear the Church, should be banished from the Church by excommunication. I answer that, The judgment of the Church should be conformed to the judgment of God. Now God punishes the sinner in many ways, in order to draw him to good, either by chastising him with stripes, or by leaving him to himself so that being deprived of those helps whereby he was kept out of evil, he may acknowledge his weakness, and humbly return to God Whom he had abandoned in his pride. In both these respects the Church by passing sentence of excommunication imitates the judgment of God. For by severing a man from the communion of the faithful that he may blush with shame, she imitates the judgment whereby God chastises man with stripes; and by depriving him of prayers and other spiritual things, she imitates the judgment of God in leaving man to himself, in order that by humility he may learn to know himself and return to God. Reply to Objection 1. A curse may be pronounced in two ways: first, so that the intention of the one who curses is fixed on the evil which he invokes or pronounces, and cursing in this sense is altogether forbidden. Secondly, so that the evil which a man invokes in cursing is intended for the good of the one who is cursed, and thus cursing is sometimes lawful and salutary: thus a physician makes a sick man undergo pain, by cutting him, for instance, in order to deliver him from his sickness. Reply to Objection 2. The devil cannot be brought to repentance, wherefore the pain of excommunication cannot do him any good. Reply to Objection 3. From the very fact that a man is deprived of the prayers of the Church, he incurs a triple loss, corresponding to the three things which a man acquires through the Church's prayers. For they bring an increase of grace to those who have it, or merit grace for those who have it not; and in this respect the Master of the Sentences says (Sent. iv, D, 18): "The grace of God is taken away by excommunication." They also prove a safeguard of virtue; and in this respect he says that "protection is taken away," not that the excommunicated person is withdrawn altogether from God's providence, but that he is excluded from that protection with which He watches over the children of the Church in a more special way. Moreover, they are useful as a defense against the enemy, and in this respect he says that "the devil receives greater power of assaulting the excommunicated person, both spiritually and corporally." Hence in the early Church, when men had to be enticed to the faith by means of outward signs (thus the gift of the Holy Ghost was shown openly by a visible sign), so too excommunication was evidenced by a person being troubled in his body by the devil. Nor is it unreasonable that one, for whom there is still hope, be given over to the enemy, for he is surrendered, not unto damnation, but unto correction, since the Church has the power to rescue him from the hands of the enemy, whenever he is willing.

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Shadows, Handkerchiefs & Holy Water

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 22, 2019 44:55

There are many extraordinary miracles recorded in the Book of Acts that demonstrate the power of Christ. But in Acts 19:11-12 it says, "Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them." To call that kind of miracle 'unusual' is an understatement. The question is, what do these sorts of strange methods of healing tell us about God? Pastor Josh addresses this question and more...

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Extraordinary Year

Joshua Generation Ministries Audio Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 1, 2019 40:00

Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them

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Squad Goals

DuxburyChurch.org

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 31, 2018 36:46

Possibly the very worst worldly saying concerning anyone's relationship with God is, 'God helps those who help themselves.' or any variant of it. This attitude is not only contrary to what the Bible teaches, it is never what God seeks to find in the mind or heart of anyone; so what sort of life are we expected to live by God? The answer is very simple but impossible to achieve without both God's help and godly wisdom, and that is, to live a selfless life, a life that seeks to bring glory to God by taking upon the attitude and actions of a servant to any and all. In this sermon by Pastor Tim Bresnahan, we come to Mark 10:35-45, where the ultimate confrontation of a selfless life verses a selfish one is seen, and in the end, we all must ask ourselves, how do we live, selfishly or selflessly? Do we live seeking to serve others in love, to do God's will, to accomplish His purposes in our lives, purposes which will not only bring Him due glory, but also His love, as well as the Gospel into the lives others, or do we, because of somehow believing we are due based on our good actions or deeds (good in our own eyes)God's attention and blessing, or in other words, by what we believe we have done well in our lives, such as 'being a good person' (again in our own eyes)that such self-defined, self-directed efforts and actions by us have allowed us to earn the expectation, if not the right of a quid pro quo blessing from God. Now God indeed desires to bless each of our lives, to reward us. However, and as Pastor Bresnahan shows as he delves into this passage that the selfless life, the servant's heart towards all people is the one true way for the Christian to not only live a fulfilling life, but it is a life that not only brings Christ to those who so desperately need him, but it is a life that ensures God's blessing of keeping one from ever ultimately suffering a hollow manner of life that is marked by self-seeking, selfish ambition.

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How to Love the Least, the Last, and the Lost, with Andrew Foster - EM245

Engaging Missions

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 5, 2018 44:39

God can meet people in hard places. Andrew Foster met Jesus when he was a prisoner. Now God's moved him into prison ministry and advocacy. This is his story.

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Sermon: The Meanings of Marriage

Advent Sermons & Conversations

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 17, 2018 13:53

Find us online at: AdventNYC.orgEmail us at: Podcast@AdventNYC.orgTalk with us at: Advent Sermons & Conversations on FacebookCome to a service and hear the sermons live and in person Sunday morning 9am and 11am in English and 12:30pm in Spanish at 93rd and Broadway.Readings for this week:Genesis 2:18-24The Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.”Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.Psalm 8O Lord our Lord,how majestic is your name in all the earth!—you whose glory is chanted above the heavens out of the mouths of infants and children;you have set up a fortress against your enemies, to silence the foe and avenger.When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,what are mere mortals that you should be mindful of them,human beings that you should care for them?Yet you have made them little less than divine;with glory and honor you crown them.You have made them rule over the works of your hands;you have put all things under their feet:all flocks and cattle,even the wild beasts of the field,the birds of the air, the fish of the sea,and whatever passes along the paths of the sea.O Lord our Lord,how majestic is your name in all the earth!Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. But someone has testified somewhere,“What are human beings that you are mindful of them,or mortals, that you care for them?You have made them for a little while lower than the angels;you have crowned them with glory and honor,subjecting all things under their feet.”Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying,“I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters,in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.”Mark 10:2-16Some Pharisees came, and to test [Jesus] they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

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#63 The Greatest Story

Subversive Undercroft

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 6, 2018 27:41

We can only understand our selves, our world, and our God through story READING Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12 Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. But someone has testified somewhere, “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet.” Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying, “I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.” MUSIC Come Thou fount of Every Blessing, Sarah Noelle I Love to Tell the Story, Chris Rupp Immortal Invisible, Reawaken Music

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Sacrifice and Substitute

Maximum Life with Pastor Zach Terry

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 25, 2018 43:08

TEXT: Genesis 21:1–7 (ESV) 1 The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. 2 And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. 3 Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. 4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6 And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.” 7 And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” In verses 8-21 we see a divorce take place between Abraham and Hagar (the slave woman that Abraham had married and conceived the child Ishmael with). Abraham divorces Hagar as well as Ishmael. They are sent out of his life entirely. In 22-34 we see a treaty had been struck at Beersheba with Abimelech the Philistine King. Abraham, Sarah, and now Isaac were enjoying a time of peace. The last thing we see in Chapter 21 was Abraham planting a tree a sign that he planned to put down roots. Abraham calls upon the Lord as El Olam – the Everlasting God. Genesis 22:1 (ESV) 1 After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” I am very thankful that the Holy Spirit saw fit to give us a clue that this was a, “test” so we could read what follows with that in mind. Abraham however had no such heads up. Genesis 22:2 (ESV) 2 He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” Notice how God demonstrated the significance of this command - Take your son - This was Abraham’s son, if God has given you a child you know it is a special thing. For a dad, there is always something unique when the Doctor says, “it’s a boy”. To be honest, girls freak us out a little bit. We aren’t sure what to do with girls. But a boy - we’ve been down that road before. For Abraham the birth of his son was all of that and more - this was the child he should not have been able to have. Sarah was well past child bearing years. Beyond this Isaac was the conduit of the promise - he was the next step in God’s promise, God’s covenant to bless the entire Earth. Your only son - Was this Abraham’s only son? Well there was Ishmael, but practically speaking yes. Ishmael had been sent away. Abraham had only one son left – Isaac. The promise would happen through Isaac or it would not happen at all. Not only that - the first born son was subject to the ironclad law of PRIMOGENITOR. You see in the ancient world inheritance wasn’t divided equally between all the children. But the firstborn son would receive everything. So in a very real sense in offering Isaac God was calling Abraham to lay everything he had, or ever hoped to be, every hope, every dream, all of his possessions on the alter. Whom you love – Don’t think for a minute that Abrahams journey of faith had been a series of theological equations. God is acknowledging that Abraham would FEEL this deeply. ILLUSTRATION: I was traveling back to AL for a funeral this week. At one point on the journey I heard a song that my son Cole plays on guitar. That simple music reminded me of how much love my son, how proud I am of him… I don’t expect Abraham love Isaac any less. No doubt, his knees buckled, his stomach twisted into a knot. For a brief moment despair, doubt, disillusionment, disappointment flooded his soul. This is the son that he LOVED! Genesis 22:2b (ESV) 2…and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” The word Moriah literally means "foreseen by God." It is not coincidental that God wanted this event to occur on Mt. Moriah. In the mind of God this was a sacred spot. There was no other place any place like this place. Why did it have to be this place? Out of all of the galaxies God choose the milky way. Our of all the solar systems God choose our’s. Then he laid his finger on a little blue planet called earth. Out of all of the expanses of land on planet earth, God choose the sands of Canaan. And out of all of the mountains that sprung out of the land of Canaan God choose one Mountain called Moriah. It is on this mountain that redemption would occur. Because there on the Mountains of Moriah - there was one particular place called, Golgatha, the place of the skull… upon a hill called Calvary. Genesis 22:2–3 (ESV) 2 He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” 3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. Gordon Wenham calls us to notice order of action—first saddling his donkey and then cutting wood – the progression is illogical which indicates that Abraham was quite disoriented. Was it because he was about to have to sacrifice Isaac??? Yes, but more than that. You see God’s COMMAND was in direct contradiction to God’s COVENANT. Isaac was the child through which God promised to carry out the covenant promise. Now God is saying, “Sacrifice him as a burnt offering”. How could Abraham make sense of this seemingly impossible situation. God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to him. That would require Abraham cutting the throat of Isaac, draining his blood, cutting off his arms and legs, then burning his body completely. Somehow or another God was going to have to put this boy back again. Some how God was going to have to reinstate that spilt blood. Somehow God would have to breath again the breath of life. The promise of God demanded that Isaac have a child. That had not occurred. Abraham was believing God for the unbelievable – a resurrection. We get some hint of that in verse 4 and 5… Genesis 22:4–5 (ESV) 4 On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. 5 Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” You say Pastor that’s quite a stretch that Abraham would assume that God intended to raise Isaac– No not at all - Hebrews 11:17–19 (NAS) 17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; 18 it was he to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called.” 19 He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type. Friend the ONLY reason Abraham was able to obey God in this command was because Abraham KNEW that God HAD to be true to His word. DO YOU REMEMBER THE COVENANT? The Shikina Glory of God passed through the torn pieces of the animals. If God didn’t keep His promise - God called down a curse upon Himself. The death of Isaac could NOT be the end… Abraham believed that deeply. Genesis 22:6–8 (ESV) 6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. Isaac would be required to carry wood up Mt. Moriah, the very wood that was designed to claim his life. It would be thousands of years later before another Son would carry the deadly wood up the mountain… Church do you see the analogy that Isaac is portraying? The loving father giving His only begotten son as a sacrifice. 7 And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8 Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together. Now I don’t know if Abraham really believed that or if he was trying to convince Isaac to go along. We are told Abraham expected resurrection. Either way - what a prophetic word that was! God will provide HIMSELF a LAMB. Dear church: We don’t serve a God that demands your son’s to die… we serve a God that provides HIMSELF a lamb. We don’t serve a God that call your good to outweigh your bad so that he is appeased… we serve a God that provides HIMSELF a lamb. We don’t serve a God who calls you to EARN his good favor… we serve a God that provides HIMSELF a lamb. Genesis 22:9–14 (ESV) 9 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” The Hebrew word for fear means an “Awe, reverence” it carries the idea of wonder, amazement, astonishment… it’s very similar to our word for ultimate love. He is saying Abraham - you have passed the test. You have proved that I’m the absolute most important thing in your life. 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. Do you see it? This Ram wore upon his head a crown of thorns pointing to another who would bear a thorny crown. Up until this point Isaac has been the type pointing to Christ, but the analogy could go no further. For you see Isaac also needed a redeemer, there must be a substitute also for Isaac. ULTIMATELY - the mind of God wasn’t fixed on Abraham, it wasn’t fixed on Isaac, it wasn’t fixed on the ram caught in the thorns…look at verse 14 - 14 So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” You see the word Moriah literally means "foreseen by God.” God could look into the future and see another Son, carrying the wood up the mountain, another Father prepared to slaughter His son…. Other thorns upon another head…. But this time, no angel stepped in. ILLUSTRATION: Years ago I read about a preacher who was backing out -of his driveway. His little boy loved to play hide and seek with his daddy. And this preacher's little boy jumped out from behind the bushes and said, "Boo, Daddy." But Daddy didn't hear him because he was behind the auto- mobile. This preacher heard that sickening thud as he backed out over and crushed the body of his little boy. And he picked up that crushed little body. The life had already gone from the little youngster. And he was so broken-hearted. Later on, he told a preacher friend about it. And the preacher's friend's name was Bob. And this older preacher told the younger preacher with the tears streaming down his cheeks, he said concerning the death of his son, "Bob, I wouldn't have done it for the world. I wouldn't have done it for the world. But God did for the world, for the world. For God so loved the world, that He gave, He gave He gave His only begotten Son for the world. Friend - if you are to find the power to take your dreams and sacrifice them to God’s glory…. You will have to look to a God who didn’t stop the knife. God looked at Abraham who almost sacrificed his son and said, “Now I know how much you love me”. We look at God who DID Sacrifice His Son and say, “Now I know, how much you Love me”.

UNSHAKEABLE PART 2 | PRESSURED TO CONFORM | Pastor Mark Shook

COF Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 16, 2018 35:07

WHEN YOU’RE PRESSURED TO CONFORM UNSHAKEABLE! (Pt. 2) But Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king’s choice food or with the wine which he drank; so he sought permission from the commander of the officials that he might not defile himself. Now God granted Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the commander of the officials, and the commander of the officials said to Daniel, “I am afraid of my lord the king, who has appointed your food and your drink; for why should he see your faces looking more haggard than the youths who are your own age? Then you would make me forfeit my head to the king.” But Daniel said to the overseer whom the commander of the officials had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, “Please test your servants for ten days, and let us be given some vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance be observed in your presence and the appearance of the youths who are eating the king’s choice food; and deal with your servants according to what you see.” Daniel 1:8-13 MANY TIMES, BEFORE A ____________ THERE IS A ____________. But we speak the Good News because God tested us and trusted us to do it. When we speak, we are not trying to please people, but God, who tests our hearts. 1 Thessalonians 2:4 HOW TO PASS THE TEST 1) ____________________ your mind 2) ____________________ Him on his promise “Everything we could ever need for life and complete devotion to God has already been deposited in us by his divine power. For all this was lavished upon us through the rich experience of knowing him who has called us by name and invited us to come to him through a glorious manifestation of his goodness. As a result of this, he has given you magnificent promises that are beyond all price, so that through the power of these tremendous promises you can experience partnership with the divine nature, by which you have escaped the corrupt desires that are of the world.” 2 Peter 1:3-4

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Can I Have Peace Now?

Freedom Church Los Alamos

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 17, 2018 37:42

Why is it that peace is so illusive? What if, peace is something you can have NOW? God has given it to you as a gift, and Satan wants to steal it away. He knows a life without peace struggles to move forward and is paralyzed with fear and anxiety. Peace is available NOW, in ANY situation. We just need to open the gift! www.freedomla.church/sermons

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When I See the Blood

Broadway Baptist Church Maryville Tennessee

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 10, 2018 45:23

This morning we continue our series from Exodus and conclude our section on the plagues of God upon Egypt. Remember the Hebrew word “nega” means to “strike or blow”. God had struck Egypt with nine blows, nine supernatural divine judgments; ye Pharaoh's heart was hardened and hew refused to release the Hebrew people. Now God announces “one final plague”, the plague that would bring about the deliverance of His people, “the death of the firstborn”.

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The Wedding of the Ages

Walking In The Light

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 22, 2018 42:43

We all love weddings. We all love a wedding feast. It is an exciting event. It is indescribably wonderful, thrilling, & beautiful. Now GOD chose a wedding to describe that moment when we become one with the Lord Jesus Christ in even a fuller sense than we are one with Him now. When we become one in the deepest sense with our Lord in actuality & in reality, when we become one with our GOD for all eternity in a more intimate way than we know Him presently—GOD calls this the marriage of the Lamb. Now, when we think about that it should excite us.

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Meet Me at the Gate - Part 2

East Gate Church

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 15, 2018 69:07

When Jacob laid down and dreamed, he dreamed God's dream for his generation. Now God wants us to dream the same dream for ours. Find out how to make His dream a reality in your life.

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10: Finding Your Calling & Courage with Hand Lettering Artist Andrea Howey

Live It Well Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 22, 2018 27:43

In today's episode we talk with our good friend and amazing hand lettering artist, Andrea Howey about how God revealed an unexpected calling during the hardest season of her life. She began writing out promises from the Bible in an effort to build her faith, and after a quick google search she discovered her gift had a name: hand lettering. Now God is using her beautiful hand lettering artwork to spread truth and encourage thousands through her daily instagram posts. We chatted with Andrea about how to find your calling, the courage required to take massive risks, and how to hold on to God's promises on the tough days. We were so inspired by our conversation with Andrea; we know you will be too! Andrea's also offering you, our wonderful listeners, a 15% off discount so you can grab an encouraging print or two over at Andreahowey.com Use the promo code: ONELIFE and let us know your favorite finds! We'd love to hear your favorite takeaways! Share them with us here: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/onelife.works/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisgraebe/ Website: www.onelife.works

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In the Age of Kingdom God Perfects Man by Words

New Songs of the Kingdom - Testifying to God

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 13, 2017 3:33

I In this age, God'll realize this: that all practice His truth, that all live out His word and love Him with their heart. God's word is the root of their life. They all have hearts that fear God. Through practicing God's words, they'll rule and reign with God. Only God's word provides man with life. Only His word brings man His light, pointing out the way of practice. This is more true in the Age of Kingdom. II God's words, they govern man. God's word is food and might. Feel good when you eat it. Eat not and you'll find no way to go. In the Bible, it says: Man shall not live by just bread, but by the words from God's mouth. Now God will realize this in you. Only God's word provides man with life. Only His word brings man His light, pointing out the way of practice. This is more true in the Age of Kingdom. III Before, man went for days without reading God's words; they worked and lived their lives. But things have changed today, for God governs all by word. People are judged and perfected, able to enter His kingdom, all because of His word. Only God's word provides man with life. Only His word brings man His light, pointing out the way of practice. This is more true in the Age of Kingdom. IV Daily drink God's word. Daily eat God's word. Don't leave the truth in it. And you will be made perfect. from “The Age of Kingdom Is the Age of Word” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

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The Plan is in Place Awaiting Your Response

Dig a Little Deeper

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 17, 2017 15:01

Long before the first human took his first step, or tasted her first fruit, humans had a safety net. God did not create until He had a plan to save them if they went astray. that plan has been followed by God to the letter - - to the death. Now God awaits each person's response to the life line He has extended.

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The Plan is in Place Awaiting Your Response

Dig a Little Deeper

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 16, 2017 15:01

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Episode 9 - Let's Send This Thing Out Right - Where We Ended Up

This JW Life

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 7, 2017 101:34

After leaving the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses we learned even more eye-opening things about it. Then we applied the same scrutiny to the book that everything we ever believed was based on. Where did we end up? How is our life now? How will I end this last episode of my story? Listen to find out. Direct Download Here [expand title="Click Here To Show Transcript"] [00:01:59] I'm going to break down the nearly two years since my wife and I left the call in different sections to tie up some loose ends and and report on what life has been like after the call. So let's just jump right in. First section we're going to talk about is what I've learned since leaving the cold about the cold admittedly Jehovah's Witnesses know very little about the religion that they pledged their loyalty to. As far as history goes and they also honestly don't know a lot about what is involved in it. Presently you see a good magician only shows you what they want you to see. They don't slow things down and show you the sleight of hand used to make the allusion appear seamless to your naked eye. I've had time now to slow things down to get away from the indoctrination and to get that detailed look at things that I never even had any clue were going on. Around the time that I was coming out there were two big events that happened in the Colts. First the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses. Again these are the leaders of the cult. They started coming out from behind the curtain. Now when I was growing up. One of the selling points of the cult was that our leaders were unknown to us. So it couldn't be a call right. You know these people were behind the scenes they weren't doing it for personal glory. So it wasn't like we were following some man. Well those men have now decided to make themselves known. And it is glorious. [00:03:28] Now I'm just going to sit here and take shots at them unnecessarily. But if you've ever seen a picture of them or if you ever hear them speak the mental illness in them just drips off their words one of them looks like a caricature of Cecil the turtle from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons and speaks about like him. It is so creepy. Others have he's really flat facts as though they are dead inside something that kind of tends to do anyway to people by robbing them of their humanity. But they are truly caricatures. Now one day around when I left there was a huge meeting that was broadcast throughout all the congregations. This was a big deal. [00:04:11] It was a special thing and everyone flocked to their kingdom halls to watch this live stream on video screens of the governing body during a special meeting. This [00:04:21] wasn't something that the average Jehovah's Witness ever got to see. [00:04:26] There were these annual meetings that were held up at Bethel or the headquarters in New York in New York City. But this wasn't something that the average person got to participate in. But they took the opportunity to come out pretty much to great fanfare to be seen on these video screens that each congregation would either buy or rent so that they could show the members this live stream now this is a great chance. [00:04:58] The governing body could speak to anything they wanted anything in the world. They had their subs subjects were captive they could encourage them in any way they wanted. Would you like to know what the highlight from that meeting was Anthony Morris one of the governing body members used his 15 minutes of fame to go on a rant about tight pants tight pants. [00:05:25] In fact he is no now as tight pants Tony he could have talked about anything he could have encouraged single parents that were going through tough times. He could have encouraged young people that had to live a messed up life in the cold. But instead he chose to harp on things like how tight the pants were that people were wearing. And if you don't like it as he is so fond of saying take it up with God because you know that's right there in the Bible in the book of fashion you know the chapter about how tight your pants should be. He he talked about those Spanx as he called them just to show how out of touch he is. He talked about those Spanx as he called them that women used to work out in. And how appalling it was that they would ever wear those out of the house. Then he went on to talk about how the homosexuals that design men's pants want to see you in those tight pants the more slender dress pants as opposed to the pleated pans that looked like balloons were. Remember those as I remember when I was younger you'd wear these pleated pants a little balloons in your crotch when you sit down. Well you know these homosexuals they're just making you wear these tight pants so they can see your bold young men. That's what it's about. You could see how out of touch these human beings are what their world view is like in just a few statements. It doesn't take a lot. [00:06:51] You don't have to get to know these men. This man is a God. A G O D or a guardian of doctrine as they literally referred to themselves as at one point. What a shame that instead of helping people. All he did was put more burdens on them like the Pharisees in Jesus day that Jehovah's Witnesses liked to poke fun at that talk helped to wake a lot of people up. He even went on a rant about the socks that brothers wore with crazy colors on them or designs really now also around that time was the live streaming online of the Australian Royal Commission. The FARC is investigating religions in Australia and how they deal with childhood sexual abuse in their organisations. Now it isn't just Jehovah's witnesses that were being investigated but it was the Jehovah's Witnesses that got special attention not just from those of us that were watching. Ex Jacob's but from the commission itself you see ANGUS STEWART Now a hero among us ex SJ Dubbs was not fooled by the court's appearance and persona. He went in prepared in part because the ex Jehovah's Witness community reached out and gave him things that helped him to prosecute the witnesses in his court. I'll let you in on a little something regarding Jehovah's Witnesses and child sexual abuse or honestly abuse of any kind. Let's say that Little Susie claims that a relative molested her she tells her Jehovah's Witness parents first her parents will go to the elders not to the police but to the elders as that is pretty much how everything is handled in the creation's. [00:08:38] Then once they're little Susie would have to sit down in front of men elders and tell them what happened. Faced probing questions into it again. I think I mentioned earlier they want to know all the details. Then the elders would call the legal department at Watchtower headquarters for advice on how to proceed. Now Jehovah's Witnesses will deny that this is the case but the case is that Jehovah's Witnesses have always been discouraged from going to the police. As a general rule remember they're concerned more about appearance than anything and they will avoid the courts because they don't want the organisation to look bad publicly just like they'll encourage people that seek psychiatric care. So then please don't disclose that you're one of Jehovah's Witnesses because it reflects badly on them. So Susie has now been through this ordeal and the elders would then go confront the relative in the congregation that was accused of molesting her. Often it would come down to a judicial hearing and the little girl would have to face the person that she accused often an adult and likely a man in this scenario in front of three men in the end unless the accused confessed. There could be nothing done unless there was a second witness. Now how many times do you think someone witnesses such predatory behavior. So the relative goes free to molest others and only if another person comes forward later. Will they then have their two witnesses. They have what's called the two witness rule. They take it from one particular verse in the Bible out of the mouth of two witnesses and they use it in this particular scenario. [00:10:27] And because people aren't going to the police it really causes a lot of problems and there's a lot of behavior that has repeated There was an elder that was being shaken down by Angus Stewart that was on the stand in the course of questioning Mr. Stewart asked him what he was doing to protect the general public. Her he got all indignant and was like well you know of course we care about other kids but how could we protect everyone. Well Mr. Stewart beautifully pointed out that by keeping everything in-house and avoiding taking matters like this to the police they were at best only trying to protect those in their own cult and that even if the abuser confessed and was disfellowshipped that did nothing to protect the community at large from a predator. The elder as if thinking about this for the first time in his life thinking about other people he turned blood red and was humiliated. You see Jehovah's Witnesses are so full of themselves that they don't even consider outsiders. This was an eye opener. In the end over 1000 cases of pedophilia were documented and not one was ever reported to the authorities. Jehovah's Witnesses have a policy of also destroying notes taken during such questionings of abuse cases and when questioned on the stage on the stand as to whether or not they would continue doing so. They said yeah that's our policy because again it's policy over people. Now people have even been threatened with disfellowshipping if they were to take these accusations of abuse to the police. Justice McClellan who was presiding over that court pointed out that Jehovah's Witnesses were the worst organization that he had seen in dealing with this. [00:12:22] And the quote was defiance at every turn in areas where they were expected to cooperate. They even hired an outside expert to sing their praises. That was snowed by them as to what the reality was. [00:12:36] And then when this woman gets up on the stand she looks like a complete tool because she had to admit as their own hired expert that they were not doing what they should be doing at all. [00:12:49] She didn't realize what the real situation was and so she got on the stand. She had gone by what the organization had told her. All the flowery things about how wonderful they are and then when she got confronted with the reality of it she had to admit what that reality was she was absolutely taken apart on the stand. [00:13:11] In fact it's also funny that they have a woman up there as an expert in the first place. [00:13:16] We all know as the Jehovah's Witnesses at least know that only those with a male appendage know anything of use. They're the only ones who could be an expert for them to actually put a woman up there. It's just so counter to who Jehovah's Witnesses are. In fact the court was hoping that the court would allow women to hold a role in these types of abuse cases particularly where girls or women were being abused so that they didn't have to go speak to men about it. And of course the court declined to consider that I could go on and on. I could do an entire podcast about the RCC alone but I'll leave it there. The organization of Jehovah's Witnesses actually has a database of thousands upon thousands of such accusations of pedophilia and even known pedophiles who have confessed to what they did. They have a database of thousands upon thousands of these situations around the globe that they keep secret. The court is not co-operative and holds those databases close even redacting basically any information they want when forced to cooperate by the judicial system. Further showing how little Jehovah's Witnesses regard outsiders was another event that happened at the time there was a massive earthquake in Nepal that killed thousands and injured tens of thousands. It was a nightmare it was all over the news well the way the witnesses react it bothered me so much as I was waking up. That actually put a post up on one of the SJW forums in a thread entitled they only care about themselves. [00:15:02] I said I've watched the reaction to the Nepal disaster for the first time with eyes open. What do I see. [00:15:09] Lots of comments about praying for the brothers and sisters affected the official release on the Web site because the witnesses main web site they actually have kind of like a media section where they address things that happen in the world regarding them. [00:15:26] So there is this official release on their Web site references only the sister and her two children that died along with the impact on the brothers there. That's it for an organization that is supposed to be marked by love for all of the gum flapping about how much love for neighbor they show. They can't even be bothered to shout out to the thousands killed and their families and friends. Would it be too much to even acknowledge that other people you know the ones that you supposedly love so much that you go and preach to them door to door even exists. [00:16:00] I understand taking care of your own but you don't have to ignore everyone else like calous Narcissus. [00:16:07] So that's the end of my post that I had made. I just couldn't believe how they wouldn't even acknowledge that other people were impacted. There was literally no mention of those other people. It shows again how little they care about anyone that is outside their group. Here's some other random things that I've learned since being out. I came to realize that there is now no concept of grace in the Colts. They don't use the term grace. That's something that I heard for the first time outside of Jehovah's Witnesses Instead they use the term undeserved kindness so that you always know that you're not really worth anything. I also realize that they they use a lot of weasel words like the word evidently when about to make a point that requires a huge leap and has no real basis. They like to make leaps tobacco whatever ridiculous thing that they're about to posit. So they'll use a word a use word like evidently to get you to make that leap with them. On that. No. They often use the term present truth and the other does speak term present truth to let you know that you have to obey because whatever they're telling you is true but that truth is subject to change. [00:17:29] I learned that they are involved in all kinds of things that they would never allow their members to be a part of or even given the appearance of association with. The biggest example of this is the United Nations now. Jehovah's Witnesses are not even supposed to join the local YMCA because it is a Christian organization not affiliated with the cult and thereby it is false religion because remember they and they alone have the truth. But the colt which claims that the United Nations will eventually cause the nations to turn on and shut down religion and which they see as the scarlet colored wild beast in Revelation. They Jehovah's Witnesses actually became an associate an NGO or a non-governmental organization of the United Nations in 1992 the Guardian and the United Kingdom actually broke the news in October of 2001 that the Jehovah's Witnesses were a member of this organization that they claim to be the scarlet colored wild beast of Revelation. [00:18:38] And that very same month the cult withdrew and disassociated as an NGO member of the United Nations. They are hypocrites of the highest order. If you look up the company of Rand cam that's R.A. in the space s.a.m Aranda cam if you look at their SCC or Securities and Exchange Commission information as a traded company in the United States you'll see that the Watchtower holds a large stake Rand's cam makes engines and is involved in the defense industry the war machine something that Jehovah's Witnesses are opposed to. [00:19:16] Do they think do you think that they would have let you as one of Jehovah's Witnesses do anything that even sniffs such an industry of course not years ago Jehovah's Witnesses aligned themselves with the well-known televangelist Jimmy Swaggart and listing themselves as a quote friend of the court during his case regarding sales tax on books sold. You see Jehovah's Witnesses used to sell their books and magazines from door to door. We would go and we would sell them we would collect money for them. Well one day we got a notice from the top at one of our meetings that we were so blessed by Jehovah that we were going to start relying on him to make this organization go. [00:20:01] We would show our trust in him by going to a donation arrangement instead of charging for the literature we were given suggested donations and proof that Jehovah was backing us would be demonstrated as the organization would have an abundance materially under this new system of getting funding through voluntary donations instead of charging for our literature. [00:20:22] This was God ordained right. Well what they didn't tell us and what I found out later was that the government decided that selling books like this should be taxed and they didn't want to pay taxes. [00:20:34] So that is the real reason that the donation arrangement came about it wasn't blessing from Almighty God. It was prompting by the almighty dollar. In the end it is the members of the congregation that donate the money for the literature that they then go out and give away for free. Most of the time they jilted their members into funding all of it. Well-played colt. Well played another great play is this. It used to be that every congregation was its own entity and own its own property including the building the local brothers and sisters would donate money to the upkeep of the building. They donate money to pay the mortgage or eventually save money for a down payment on a new building if needed. Well the organization often funded those mortgages and the local congregations would get a loan for their Keenum hall that they would you know them be so proud of well Watchtower headquarters decided that they were going to be nice a few years ago. They sent out a letter only part of which was read to the creation and part of which was for the elders eyes only and which they forgave all the mortgages those congregations that had a loan with the organization we're now debt free. That's awesome right. [00:21:53] I mean really how can you mess that up. Well as with just about anything. Read the fine print. What they actually did was to forgive the loans to be sure but they had all of the properties turned over to them. They now owned everything including Keenum halls that were long since paid for. They scarfed up all the properties. [00:22:17] They also told the Koreans that since they were taking care of everything now there was no use in the individual congregations having much money in the bank. So they took everything over a certain amount of basic operating costs. There are creations that had tens of thousands of dollars saved up and earmarked for a new building and all that money was just taken to sweeten the deal for the cold even more. [00:22:42] They told the members that you know what since you've proven that you can pay X amount for your mortgage over these years you know whatever they had previously been paying for the mortgage you could just keep donating that amount through a pledge. And what they did is they handed out slips of paper for everyone to write down how much money they would commit to giving each month so that they knew that they would still be getting their money. In other words don't think you can relax and not keep donating just because you don't have a mortgage anymore. They weren't about to take that foot off the throat of their members. [00:23:15] This new arrangement is forever. So yeah you don't have a loan anymore but you have a commitment in perpetuity to pay at least the same amount. And oh yeah that's took all of your money out of the bank and they took your property too. Again well. [00:23:32] Well played in fact one of the things that Jehovah's Witness has always bragged about was that every month we would have this accounts report that was read from the platform. A brother would get up the account servant who took care of everything. And you know so how much money was donated he'd tell how much you know went to the electric bill the gas bill the water bill it's maintenance on the creation. And I mean you know to be honest to you know give them props for this. [00:23:59] They were very transparent on the local level and when they go to conventions they have a much less detailed accounts report that they go over. [00:24:11] But has anybody ever seen an accounts report for the entire organization. Has anybody ever seen where all of that money goes. Because all they would ever say at the local level is we had X amount that was donated to the quote worldwide work a catchall for the money that was given to the organization. [00:24:31] And you know this was beyond the money that was given to the local herniation. So there was a lot of transparency locally. [00:24:39] But all of the funds that went to Watchtower headquarters said he didn't know where all that money went. [00:24:46] But not until 1961. [00:24:51] Changing the subject. Jehovah's Witnesses could say blood transfusions without penalty. [00:24:57] There were brothers and sisters who you know got a blood transfusion that maybe even save their life. In 1961 it was made a disfellowshipping offense. Eventually as I stated in an earlier episode it was deemed to be an automatic disassociation so that they could put the entire blame on you for being out. [00:25:18] If you took a blood transfusion that saved your life instead of looking bad themselves for kicking you out for taking such a life saving measure over time they have now decided that certain blood fractions are OK to say how many died or were disfellowship during their changes in beliefs. And yet no apology was offered. [00:25:39] And if you are disfellowshipped for taking a fraction to save your life prior to their change in doctrine you would still remain disfellowshipped because ultimately the real problem is that you didn't submit to their wishy washy doctrine. I always wondered when they would start letting sex fractions be OK. There are a lot of witnesses who question that fun fact at one point Jehovah's Witnesses considered organ transplants to be cannibalism. [00:26:08] Here's some other fun facts. The cult was started by Charles Taze Russell. He was associated with the millwrights and the Seventh Day Adventists and he bought into their predictions of the end of the world with specific dates. He is rumored to have had involvement with the Knights Templar Freemasons. He used pyramid ology to try to predict things like 1914 using the dimensions of pyramids. Speaking of 1914 they arrive at that date for the beginning of the end of this system of things based on calculations starting from the fall of Jerusalem in 6 0 7 BCE only do a quick Google search and you'll see that Jerusalem wasn't destroyed in 6 so seven BCE 587 is the accepted date. For its fall for any exodus out there that haven't looked that one up yet. Take a look at that that dates 1914 that Jehovah's Witnesses hold so dear as the date that Jesus took his invisible reign in heaven. Just waiting to come and crush this this world or at least the non Jaida on it. That day was based on 6 0 7 BCE and then other speculative ridiculous calculations but six so seven BCE. Pretty much according to Jehovah's Witnesses they're the only ones who say that that's when Jerusalem fell. I mean it doesn't really take much research. Anyway back to Russell. Charles says Russell is buried in a cemetery adjacent to Masonic property and there's a large pyramid monument nearby his grave that Rutherford the second president of the call is rumored to have put their Russell was involved in something that was a scam a called Miracle Wheat as well. [00:28:00] At one point it was said that God lived on a star in the Pleiades constellation Jehovah's Witness has purchased two properties under the direction of Rutherford the second president one called Best Seram and one called Beth Shan. Both I believe were in San Diego. Best Seram meant the house of princes princes and these properties were supposedly purchased because they believed that the faithful men of old these princes like Abraham or Mose's they believed that these men would be resurrected to the earth and they wanted to have a nice place for them to stay. Yes I'm serious. It is well-documented. You see photos of the place. There was rumor that Beth Shan How's the bomb shelter some sort of bunker for the impending Armageddon. Most Jehovah's Witnesses don't know anything about these matters. I never did. Another thing they don't realize is that they are being played in the literature often the use of an ellipses. [00:29:05] Those few dots you'll see something said then dot dot dot and then some more things said. Usually when you see one of those ellipses those few dots indicating that part of something usually a quote we're left out there often hiding some very real lies and manipulation of quotes for instance Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe that Jesus died on a cross. They believe it to be an upright stake like a pole. Here is a partial quote that the cult gives to support its position on this upright stake taken from the Imperial Bible Dictionary. Now first I'm going to read what Watchtower's says in their book. Reasoning from the Scriptures on the subject and then I'm going to read what the actual dictionary says. So here's what Watchtower's says that this book says the Greek word for cross rose properly signified a steak and upright pole or a piece of paling on which anything might be hung or which might be reused in impaling or fencing in a piece of ground. Dot dot dot dot. Even amongst the Romans the crux from which our cross is derived appears to have been originally an upright pole. All right so if you read this. Sounds like the Greek word for cross-bow star rose. It was a stake and so that would be used in impaling right. Even the Romans appeared to have used a cross that originated from an upright pole. All right. It's a pole. It's not a cross Well let's see what the quote actually says. [00:30:42] It says the Greek word for cross star rose properly signified a stake an upright pole or a piece of paling on which anything might be hung or which might be used in impaling or fencing in a piece of ground. Now here's the dot dot dot dot. The ellipses but a modification was introduced as the as the Dominion and usages of Rome extended themselves to Greek speaking countries even amongst the Romans. The crux from which the word crosses derived appears to have been originally an upright pole and always remained the more prominent part but from the time that it began to be used as an instrument of punishment a traverse piece of wood was commonly added. Not however always then there can be no doubt however that the later sort was more common. And that about the period of the Gospel age crucifixion was usually accomplished by suspending the criminal on a cross piece of wood. Honestly if you continue going through the dictionary there there are several places where it talks about the cross and how it was a cross. But the witnesses have manipulated the quotes to mean something else. [00:31:53] In fact I remember one time this isn't actually in my notes. I tried to find it but at one time there was an expert that they used. You know he was some scientist that they used to explain something. [00:32:11] I don't know about how you know things were really here by creation not by evolution. You know this former evolutionist or something. What they failed to mention was the person that they quoted was one of Jehovah's Witnesses who used to be a science as that's what it was. [00:32:28] And then when caught on it they took the entire part about that out. So you know they have no qualms in bending the truth and claiming to have the truth if they are changing the words of others to fit what they want they will do the same in their own publications. If you were to go look at their publications today the cult keeps them online for easy access part of that easy access that they can change things in their own written word without anyone noticing. In fact if you go look at what they allow people to see now they only allow you to go back to like the year 2000. Everything before then is gone as though it didn't happen. All the crazy things that they said are just gone. [00:33:18] In fact they often will try to get rid of older books and try to destroy them so that the average person can't come across them you see with all the books that they've produced over the years. [00:33:32] They were caught on a lot of things that they predicted and got wrong. For example the cult said over and over and in many ways that the world would end in 1975. There was even a saying stay alive till 75 people were encouraged to give up their worldly possessions and to spend more time preaching the message of salvation. Door to door because the time was near for Armageddon the biggest increases the organization ever had were during the years leading up to this. People sold off everything. They quit their jobs they quit basic education like high school and devoted everything to the cause. I'm guessing you realize that since we're still here they were wrong yet again. Let's look though at how they change the past through their written word. [00:34:22] There was a book released in 1968 around the time when they kind of started pushing the rhetoric about this 1975 thing and the book on page 88 paragraph 11 says during and after World War II widespread. Now I should say first sorry the title of this chapter. [00:34:46] This book is called the truth that leads to eternal life. The title of this chapter is God's Kingdom comes to power. OK. So supporting the when God's kingdom will come in. And of course God's Kingdom coming in means Armageddon the end of this current system of things subparagraph 11 says that during and after World War 2 widespread food shortages added to the distress. [00:35:09] Shortly after the war look magazine observed a fourth of the world is starving today. Tomorrow will be even worse. Famine over most of the world now is more terrible than most of us can imagine. [00:35:22] I wonder what it says there anyway. There are now more people hunting desperately for food than at any other time in history. More recently the book entitled famine in 1975 said concerning today's food shortages. Hunger is rampant throughout country after country continent after continent around the undeveloped belt of the tropics and subtropics. [00:35:45] Today's crisis can move in only one direction toward catastrophe. Today Hungary Nations tomorrow starving nations by 1975 civil disorder Anarky military dictatorships runaway inflation transportation breakdown and chaotic unrest will be the order of the day in many of the hungry nations. [00:36:08] So you see there they were already starting to point to 1975 is this time when all these bad things are going to happen right. Well and I think it was like 1980 they revised this book. So let's look at what it said after 1975 during and after World War 2. [00:36:31] Well I'll just skip the first part. Shortly after the war. [00:36:35] Look magazine observed and then it goes on about how the world is starving today. And to me it just goes. More recent reports have shown that a constant lack of adequate food resulting in chronic malnutrition has become the major world hunger problem today. [00:36:49] The London Times reported and then it just goes off into some you know random quote having nothing to do with 1975. [00:36:59] So the previous the original iteration there was a quote from a book entitled famine 1975. And in that book it actually pointed to 1975 as when chaos would ensue. So they will do anything they can to try to avoid admission of being wrong even changing their own written word. [00:37:21] And now they can do it with impunity because they can do it online on their own Web site where they control everything. [00:37:30] Now I initially they blamed the members of the organization for making up the whole 1975 thing on their own and they blame them for running with it when it was actually them the organization that mentioned it over and over suddenly putting it out there like the manipulative people that they are. Speaking of books through a crisis of conscience by Ray Franz the former Governing Body member I learned that beliefs and policies are actually voted on now. I mean he kind of makes some sense is not a huge revelation you know but let's play that out. That means that there are members of the governing body today that don't even believe their own teachings. If you or I believe something different and others found out it could be grounds for a ruling of apostasy and we could be disfellowshipped. [00:38:19] However those men are voting on things that impact people's lives their real everyday lives the decision not to allow the brothers and sisters in Malawi to purchase a party card because of their stand on political neutrality cost thousands their lives and they were brutally raped and mutilated and tortured because the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses would not allow the brothers and sisters in Malawi to purchase this party card. They said it would not be showing neutrality as it turns out. Malawi only had one party so they wouldn't have been taking sides. And this car costs very little it was like getting an ID and the brothers pleaded with Jehovah's Witness headquarters because the ruling made no sense. In the end a lot of people were slaughtered. Lives were ruined. People were tortured and Jehovah's Witnesses have a lot of blood on their hands. I came to realize that that whole field service work that we always did it's not to make converts. [00:39:26] It's to keep you the publisher going from door to door so that you stay in the colt. [00:39:33] You see human beings have a need for internal consistency we need our thoughts and our actions to align or or we'll start going a different path because they don't match up. But if they can get us to go knock on doors investing so much time and energy when they're teaching can't come up in our head that maybe it makes sense or or the cold asks us to do something ridiculous. We were more inclined to just brush it aside because we were investing so much into this. In fact the Jehovah's Witnesses and I looked this up. I forgot about it just now come to mind. But there's a quote in a recent magazine where essentially the governing body has written that there's going to likely come a time in the future when the governing body is going to ask Jehovah's Witnesses to do something that may not seem prudent or may not seem to be the smartest decision given the circumstances. But it's a matter of obedience and salvation to go ahead and follow that direction. [00:40:46] They they basically have set them up to tell their people anything they want and people can't question it. They're supposed to just go along with it. I mean how sick is that. Additionally there are a lot of people that leave the cold that end up going Buchwald. Why. [00:41:09] Well you might think it's because they've been pent up for so long in a restrictive call and you know you'd be at least partially right in some cases. [00:41:16] However if you think about it the cult tells people that those on the outside are basically having sex with anything that moves taking every drug getting drunk constantly just leaving and living the the life of every sort all the time so when a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses leave the Colts they think that's what's expected of them to fit in. They often go far wilder than anyone around them because they've been told that's how it is and they're just trying to fit in and they've been given a false vision of what that means. The hope is that yeah they'll go wild and ultimately they'll implode and come back to the Colts. So coming and going they've got you brainwashed. They then use those people on convention parts as examples of of the person that went out into the evil world and found that there was nothing good out there for them. Well it's a self-fulfilling prophecy inserted into the consciousness of members that is then played out when they leave. If you want to know what it's like to live in a cult I would encourage you to read the book 1984 by George Orwell. [00:42:29] I'm not going to spoil it for you but there are so many phrases that are used in daily life like Big Brother is watching those phrases come from this book. If you are an ex Jehovah's Witness you have to read this book. It is a very dystopian novel. [00:42:45] And honestly once I was done reading it I felt dirty like I needed a shower. [00:42:51] Realizing that it was largely the life that I had lived didn't quite help that feeling a whole lot. It's just gross. The manipulation of human beings all right now we're going to move on to Section 2. This is something that that people actually often ask me and that's all you know where are you now spiritually or you know what do you believe now. So I'm going to talk about where I am spiritually and how I got there. In fact if you think about it just the end of last episode when I came out I was seeing God's praises I even said that I was closer to Jehovah then than I'd ever been in my entire life. [00:43:34] I saw I thought I saw God's hand in so much of what was changing my life for the better. I thought I was being blessed and it blew my mind that I was doing things differently than what I had been told I needed to do in order to be blessed. The coach said that I could be blessed for things that I was doing that were now turning out in my favor as my life was changing dramatically for the better. [00:43:58] Jehovah's Witness who can quote quote scripture the scriptures as they've been shown and the narrative that has been woven through disparate verses is something that they're very good at. [00:44:08] However they don't know much about the book itself or at least I didn't and I know a lot more now than I ever did as one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Just like with with the cold itself. I have gone deep on a lot of things after leaving. So after taking apart the cult that I pledged my allegiance to for so long I realized that my faith was all built upon the Bible which you know makes sense. [00:44:35] But the same thing that was true of my religious faith was true of this book that it was all founded upon. [00:44:42] I never really examined the book itself. And so I sat down and looked at it with fresh eyes. Now while I woke up in large part because of how the cult was so unloving and harsh and how it was mentally and emotionally unhealthy my wife if she was telling her own story right now she would tell you that it was actually the Bible itself that woke her up while I was diving deep into the side of things. [00:45:07] She was trying to double down on her Bible reading so that she could prove the truth to herself and God's word. We really approach things differently. But there's a saying that atheists are atheists because they've never read the Bible. They are atheists because they actually did. [00:45:24] Now this is where I'm going to relate a part of my journey that could be somewhat uncomfortable for some of you. It's not my goal to attack anyone's faith. [00:45:34] You have a right to feel or believe anything that you want to believe or look at the evidence however you want to look at it. [00:45:47] I'm going to keep this somewhat brief because my goal isn't just to tear down the beliefs your beliefs but this is a part of my journey. This is my story. This is real and I'm going to share it. This is this is the progression of everything for me. [00:46:02] For those of you who are out there that feel a need to save me through your faith I will respectfully tell you that although I appreciate where you're coming from and your intent because we've had many people since we left to have something else that they want us to get in I'm not really interested unless you can come to me with evidence. [00:46:20] You see I lived a faith based life for three decades and then it was actually different facts that started waking me up to things that I actually had faith in so it was now time for me to really take a look at this book and the facts of what it contained and the facts surrounding its composition. These were things I never really looked. [00:46:42] I just kind of accepted on faith that the Bible was true from day one. I mean that was a foundation that was something that was given to me. And I mean I never even had a chance to look at that. [00:46:55] So I'm going to be blunt. I'm going to be quick here and then we'll move on to my life after the cold and what my life afterward has been been like including some key events that happened there. [00:47:06] So these are the things that my faith in the Bible the way first of all in Genesis the plants are created before the light sources. That's bass ackwards God. That's kind of the wrong way. There is a literal talking snake but the creative days were supposed to be figurative. When Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden there was an angel placed to guard it with a flaming sword swords weren't even invented back then if you take Bible History is written if all of the scientific evidence is right and man has been here much longer than 5000 years. Then there was no Adam and Eve according to Bible chronology and thus no original sin and no real need for a redeemer. And the whole narrative falls apart. The Marians also had very similar stories before the Bible was written and the Bible is very similar to many of those because I was curious as to how I had always been told basically that the Bible was the original not necessarily the facts Noah's Ark. I mean come on. [00:48:15] There are too many species of animals to take them all and not only to but to you. But if you read on some were taken by sevens it depended on clean versus unclean. [00:48:25] Really they all fit on that ark. What about the dinosaurs. Where were they in any of this. How did all of the aquatic life not die. [00:48:36] Because if the waters really rose above the entire surface of the earth as stated then the mixing of salt and fresh waters would have killed everything in the sea and destroyed their habitat. [00:48:49] Afterward where did all that water go. So they had to go somewhere and the last time I checked I'm not living in Atlantis underwater. Why did God kill all of his creation that wouldn't fit on the ark. Isn't that cruel. Why are we supposed to respect his creation when he doesn't. Why is there no fossil record of kangaroos anywhere but Australia to know a swing by there and drop them off at some point. [00:49:14] Or how did they get there. [00:49:17] Another thing that woke me was that Scripture were 40 something kids make fun of a Lycia was saying go up you baldhead. [00:49:24] And then God sends two she bears out of the woods to tear the kids to pieces. Really God really was that really necessary it let's face it. The old testament god wasn't very kind. He ordered his people to dash the children of a conquered nation on the rocks they would conquer and take the virgins as their own. I'm pretty sure they weren't taking them just because they wanted to give them a better life. Women were concubines and those with God's favor that led his nation. Lot of the Kings had lots of concubines violence. Massage any infanticide all at God's direction. It has been pointed out that God kills way more people in the Bible and say it never did. [00:50:11] The Messiah was supposed to come through the line of David. Joseph was indeed in that line but Mary wasn't and apparently old Joseph had no hand in the matter as far as the pregnancy with wit and for that matter Mary was a virgin. So how was Jesus through that lineage. I mean if it was so important and would prove that he was the Messiah shouldn't God make sure that Joseph was involved in some way if you know what I mean. I mean like that's one of the main prophecies. [00:50:41] How can it not be straightforward. Read the accounts of the resurrection of Jesus in Matthew 28 1 through 10 and open another Bible and read the account of the resurrection of Jesus and John 20 1 through 18. [00:50:59] Read those two accounts together side by side and compare them. They aren't quite the same. There are scriptures in the Bible with clear direction on everything from not mixing certain materials and fabric to how long a woman was ceremonially unclean with the flow of blood to warnings against beast reality in very specific language. Yet I've never found any scriptures specifically protecting children the most vulnerable human beings against sexual abuse and this kind of hit me one day and it kind of seems like a big oversight there God. I mean where is it. [00:51:40] You point to a scripture about fornication or something like that. But I mean if that's the case and it's just about how not having sex with some one you're not married to the while the Scriptures on reality. I don't think you're married to your dog or whatever. [00:51:54] Where are the verses to specifically condemn child sexual abuse when so much else is spoken about. [00:52:09] The Bible was voted on to see what books would be included. It was written by men and the accounts of Jesus were written well after the fact Mark was written first and the original copies did not contain mentions of the virgin birth or anyone seeing Jesus after his death. Though it appears the latter was added and some translations later it is as though other things were added by later writers to make the story more appealing. Romans Chapter 9 talks of God as a potter and starting at verse 20 it says. But who are you O man to be answering back to God. Does the thing molded say to it's older. Why did you make me this way. What does not the potter have authority over that collates to make from the same Lumpe one vessel for an honorable use another for a dishonorable use. Just think about those words. It kind of sounds a lot like that whole free will thing. Was it quite so free. If you can't you know God can make you this person a vessel for honorable use this one for dishonorable use. How is that fair. And then you know another thing that always caught me was the book of Revelation. [00:53:25] But that doesn't mean all the book of Revelation I mean come on. If our salvation is Shearman's hangs in the balance of understanding the Bible. Why put such insane riddles in it. God has been described as a loving father. The superlative example and the bible is supposed to be his love letter to us. If that's the case then why couldn't he make it more clear. Shouldn't any good father understand what his kids need in order to understand something. Shouldn't he know our abilities and limitations as humans if he created us. [00:53:58] And what good father gives his book gives his kids a book of riddles and then if they can't figure it out to his liking destroys them. [00:54:09] The final thing that I'll say is there's a lot of circular logic used when discussing the Bible like well we know the Bible is true. Just read this scripture here at well that's not a basis for belief. You can't use the bible to prove the Bible that that's that's bad logic is circular logic. That doesn't mean it's true just because it says it is. So where am I now own I guess pretty much my wife too though I guess I got let her speak for herself. As far as myself I simply can't have faith in the Bible or the God of it. I just can't. Now does that mean there is no God. Well not necessarily though. It absolutely could mean that there is no God. And you know at this point I'm not seeing a lot of evidence of it. But you know I don't claim to know everything anymore. See I I spent my entire life thinking I had the truth about my entire life thinking that I didn't know at all that I didn't know that there was a God that this book was his word too was. But as I've gotten to examine those things with fresh eyes it just doesn't add up. Now there might be a God that loves us and wants to offer us everything we've ever dreamed of on this earth or maybe in heaven or some other planet. I don't know. Maybe I can believe in possibilities. I can believe that I don't know everything and maybe there is something else there also might be a god that just walked away and is indifferent. [00:55:47] Or there could be a god that's malevolent and hates us and wants bad things for us. We look around there's a lot of bad stuff that goes on. You know it's always funny. Always look that you know what I called creation for evidence of this loving god. You know I would talk about the beauty of creation. It shows there must be this god of love. [00:56:08] But what I never bothered to look at was the absolute cruelty of the animal kingdom and the parasites and diseases the critters that get an utter critters and eat them from the inside out that are just as much a part of that creation. [00:56:25] There's there's a yin and yang to a lot of life. There's there's you know these different extremes. [00:56:34] Now at this point I guess I'd have to say that I'm basically an atheist. Some might call it an agnostic atheist I mean I'm open to possibilities and I'm open if there is a god out there and you can open my eyes and I can have some evidence not faith. Not just the faith that I have my entire life where I have to make leaps. But if he if I could find any easy evidence that there is truly this god I'm open to that. But there just has to be more proof for me to ever put my belief in something again. [00:57:16] I just can't do it. [00:57:18] Now you might say. But what about all those blessings that you just said. You know in the last episode you said you experienced all those blessings firsthand while you were exiting the coal the van that was running the you know the things that happened as you made yourself available to get more work and all that. [00:57:35] Well here's what I'll say. I learned better things I did better things and better things happened in my life. It would be just like if I played a game of basketball but didn't know how to play the game would be pretty ugly for me wouldn't it. But if I concentrated on my handles I'd learned how to dribble. Then I worked on my form I learned how to shoot if I figured out how to position my body on defense so as to limit the mobility of the player in front of me. I'd have a much easier time on the court. Now God didn't help me I help to me. I finally reached out for better tools. I worked on my life. I did better things and therefore I got better results. Just like if I worked out or anything else if God was helping me and I have left God and basically become an atheist why hasn't my life spiraled again. It hasn't because it wasn't God in the first place or at least that's my take on it. You're you know you're welcome to have your own. And I can appreciate that now. We don't all have to think of field together. I'm no longer the same. I'm no longer in a Colts so we can have those differences and that's fine. We're part of the beauty of this world is that we don't all have to be the same and we aren't all the same. In fact I now appreciate the beauty of each day. I still appreciate the life around me. [00:59:06] In fact I can look at my life today as the miracle that I was waiting for my whole life to happen to me at some point in the future after death or when the world ended or whatever. I'm so much more in tune with life now around me. I realize it just for me to be here today doing this podcast there was such a statistically improbable scenario that the sperm and egg that made that happen made it happen that time. Just the fact that I survived two full term birth that I was born without complications that nothing catastrophic happened in my childhood that I learned to drive and drove like an idiot as a teenager without disaster that I didn't take my own life in my darkest moments and that I made it out of a cult. I am in heaven now. I mean I'm not really you know I don't believe in a heaven but so to speak. I'm in heaven now I've experienced hell. I made it out. I'm not going to spend my time now dedicated to things that have no real proof attached to them. I can't. Now that doesn't mean that I don't marvel at the complexity of everything. I was listening to a podcast or something. I believe it was Adams but it was said that scientists could put an atom in one room and another atom in another room. They can stimulate the one add them to vibrate at a certain frequency and the other one in the other isolated room were spawned by very vibrating at the same frequency. That is amazing stuff there. I can still marvel at things bigger than me. [01:00:50] Like the universe and I don't claim to know everything but a lack of answers doesn't mean that the answer is God. [01:01:00] I live a beautiful life now. [01:01:02] Now speaking of that let's go ahead now. We're going to go to section three and I'm going to talk about my life after the colt. All right. So when we first left the coke it was like my wife and I were aliens being dropped in this planet and we had to figure out a lot of things we are still doing that at times. For instance someone gave me a birthday card and a present the other day because this Saturday August 12th I turned 40 years old and it was so cool and unexpected. I thanked the person personally while I was there very sincerely Oh am I supposed to send a thank you card as well. I don't know. I don't know if you bring presents to a birthday party for an adult. I mean people did to ours but like or from our wives. But it was you know her for her first birthday. I've heard different things. There are so many things that we have to figure out. We decided this year to celebrate the Fourth of July here. You know here in America I don't know where everybody is listening from. And we want work walked into a a large fireworks superstore and we had absolutely no clue what anything was in that store other than sparklies those labels might as well been in a foreign language to us. We didn't know what a jumping this was or a fountain or whatever it was we had no clue. [01:02:24] Though you know we experimented and we know a few things now but there are so many things that I think other people take for granted that we just don't know. I can still remember going to our first cocktail party. [01:02:37] I didn't know how we should dress or what we should expect to do. We don't drink so I didn't know what. [01:02:45] You know how we were going to fit in but we ended up having a great sob. We've had to do so many new things and it's scary. Like when you go just to do you know do anything for the first time. But as we do more and more new things and they continue to work out we've had greater comfort as we've done other new things. I want to say this what we called worldly people those people outside of the call there are nothing like what we were told. I just want to take this moment right now to thank all of the beautiful people that have helped us that have been on this journey with us not just watching but actually taking an active interest in helping us. Thank you so much. We have the best friends and you know we would call many people family. [01:03:36] We disassociated from the call in September of 2015 and that November we celebrated our first Thanksgiving one amazing family that we work with invited us to their Thanksgiving to be a part of their family. And that was huge for us. In fact we now have two families that we visit on Thanksgiving that we've been adopted by. I can't tell you what that means when you've lost everyone that meant anything to you. [01:04:02] We've had people take us on trips like pay for our meals and drive us to places and share their lives with us. These were people that we cleaned for just another amazing worldly family. [01:04:17] You know I hate that term but I'm using it just to show the contrast. [01:04:22] We've also reconnected with extra witnesses that we knew back in the day. [01:04:26] And it's so great to have those links to our past as everything was stolen from us by the Kalt other groups of friends that you know maybe weren't people we cleaned for links to our past as Jehovah's Witnesses have become friends too. It's really cool to look at our friends list and see people that we made friends with that we didn't already have some sort of connection to now with that said among others there is a struggle that my wife and I both face and it seems to hurt my wife the most. [01:05:00] And that is that we just don't have roots anymore those people like your family that you know that you could just go talk to and reminisce about the past with just relax with be transported back in time for my wife and I. [01:05:15] There is no back in time. Well I guess this podcast is a version of back in and I'm sharing it with you but I can't share it with the people who were there. They're all gone. [01:05:27] There's like this it's like the foundation to our lives that just disappeared one day. It's like waking up one day and everyone you knew was killed in a car accident only They're still actually out there. But they're unwilling to even say hi to you. Imagine that all of your friends from high school or college and your family was gone tomorrow who would be your friends. [01:05:51] Who would you talk to who would you go for who would you go to for things. It's so strange and it's it's hard to convey what that feels like. Unfortunately because we had a family in the coal it will always be a part of us if nothing else. I once heard that leaving a coal and de-programming. It's kind of like if you have an image on your computer and you delete it well you may have deleted it or sent it to the trash bin or whatever but it isn't really gone. It's somewhere in the background and on your hard drive and new data is written over it bit by bit little by little but it's still there and it's retrievable. If you have the right software the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses will always be a part of us. It will always be with us. [01:06:44] We're linked through family that is still in. And you can't have your formative years co-opted by a cult without certain neural pathways being built in and emotional pathways. [01:06:56] The one major struggle for me since being out is the thought of death. Honestly a lot of times before I go to bed at night when my my mind is quiet I think about dying. [01:07:13] It's not the thought of being dead that is the big deal or at least the way I see it. I think it was like a man I'm blanking on who wrote it Tom Sawyer or something. We've all been dead already before we were ever born. So I like that thought but the thought of there being an end to all of this that I might not wake up tomorrow at some point. That's that's pretty hard to swallow. Realizing that I wasted so much time probably half my life in a cold. You know assuming my life continues to go well physically you know the fact that I wasted so much time in a hole with time being you know the real precious commodity of life that's pretty hard to swallow. The fear that we had when we were Jehovah's Witnesses It was never of a fiery hell. The fear we actually had was of dying and just being dead forever. That was the punishment. Either you become a good Jehovah's Witness and live forever on this paradise earth or you die forever and there is nothing else which was always a terrifying thought to me. And honestly now I know that the only evidence there is out there is that's what it is. One day I'll die I'll be worm food and that's it. There's there's no do overs there's no to be continued. There's there's nothing there still you know these feelings while real they're not enough for me to reach out. [01:08:52] You know for faith in something that you know just to me feels unsubstantiated just to make myself feel better or give myself some sort of prospects for the future. The Buddhists actually teach impermanence from the start. And [01:09:07] I was actually taught the complete opposite I was taught absolute permanence that I wouldn't ever have to die that I will walk right into a paradise earth where I could live forever and I was taught this since I was a child. I wish I had been taught impermanence it would have would have been so much more healthy for where I am today. It's so hard to shake that fear of nothingness when that was always the fear that I had above all others and now I'm about to turn the big 4 0 this weekend something that I never really ascribed a lot to because age didn't mean anything to us. We didn't even celebrate birthdays so we didn't even pay that much attention. [01:09:49] And you know now I realize that yeah I'm about to be 40 and you know if I if I can stay healthy you know maybe I make it to 80 or so. [01:10:02] You know that would be cool. So at least I've got to have a life to do it over. But it's still just a tough thing to to face it's like for the first time I'm facing my mortality. It's like I left the call and I found out I was going to die. You know I mean how would you feel if you found out you were going to die in X amount of time. Well that's that's kind of what I found out which seems so odd. I'm sure that the average normal person out there. But when you've been taught your whole life something else it is tough to contend with still. [01:10:39] You know despite all that you know we do have struggles from it but our lives are beautiful. We've heard so many beautiful lessons. My wife and I still work together we still clean for amazing human beings every day. We try to start out every day in the van by doing two things. First we discuss where we are that day you know kind of like what our moods like what side of the bed we woke up on how we're feeling. Things like that so that we know where each other is coming from for the day. [01:11:08] It kind of helps to head off misunderstandings when you work together every day. [01:11:12] And you know you're married to after that we do our Happy's what we do is you know in our happiness we just go back and forth trying to name things that we're happy for. Whether it's you know big or general things like you know I'm happy we're out of a cold to small things like I'm glad I can fill up my gas tank now and not have to look at the amount of worry that I can't pay it. Or it might be something you know just around us like man I'm so glad the sun is out this morning or or we're going over the river to work and there's a fog over the river just trying to be present and appreciate life around us in that moment. It's a really great way to start the day. Now people were there to support me in April of 2016. [01:12:04] That was a rough little rough patch for me after we we'd gotten out of the call just seven months after we left it. [01:12:11] I got a call from my mom that my dad was in hospice care. I was cleaning a house and I mean the phone rang. I was shocked to hear from her in the first place. In fact not 100 percent sure I knew it was her. But nobody ever calls me. [01:12:26] So I just let it go to voicemail. Figured it was just a telemarketer. But she left a message and told me that I was able to come up if I wanted to to see my dad one last time. I have to admit that that was a very difficult decision by that point I'd been officially shunned for seven months. [01:12:48] But unofficially I've been Shaun for I don't know probably about a year or so. My wife called my mom to get the details. My head spun with the possibilities. [01:12:58] And what I should do. I appreciate the opportunity. There are many ex Jehovah's Witnesses that never even get that. Some actual witnesses actually find out after the fact that a parent is that often you know from someone else because that's how cruel the cult is. But I really wasn't sure what to do with this opportunity. I really thought about it a lot. And in the end I decided that you know this is a new path I was on was one of being authentic. So I decided to be me. I didn't want to let external things like the Colts or whatever dictate my reaction or my family than what I wanted to react to in a way that was just purely me. So I decided to go. [01:13:50] I wanted to be a good person. I wanted to show love where it hadn't been shown to me. I wanted to end on a better note than that horrible conversation where my dad yelled at me for defending the gays. [01:14:03] So my wife and I went to a hospice and there were some Jehovah's Witnesses there already. Mom had told us on the phone that they had said that they wouldn't be there if we were there. [01:14:16] What a horrible thing to do to leave like that. So we arrived on the floor. My dad was on and my mom kind of seemed to try to get my wife and I to go around the corner from the elevator to talk you know the one elevator everybody goes up and down. Well I didn't quite move where she wanted me to and there I saw a brother and sister leaving down the elevator away from my dad. [01:14:41] These people that w

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Supernatural Courage | Week 6 | Daniel 1 | June 18, 2017

Trinity Grace Church East Village

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 18, 2017 34:52

1 In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2 And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the temple of his god in Babylonia[a] and put in the treasure house of his god. 3 Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring into the king’s service some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility— 4 young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king’s palace. He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians.[b] 5 The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king’s service. 6 Among those who were chosen were some from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. 7 The chief official gave them new names: to Daniel, the name Belteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abednego. 8 But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. 9 Now God had caused the official to show favor and compassion to Daniel, 10 but the official told Daniel, “I am afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your[c] food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you.” 11 Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, 12 “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13 Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” 14 So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days. 15 At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. 16 So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead. 17 To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds. 18 At the end of the time set by the king to bring them into his service, the chief official presented them to Nebuchadnezzar. 19 The king talked with them, and he found none equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah; so they entered the king’s service. 20 In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom. 21 And Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.Support the show (http://www.sanctuarychurch.nyc)

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Extended Hands

True Living

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 2, 2017 55:47

Vicki was homeless & addicted to drugs for 18 years. Now God is using her to give many to the homeless community through her non-profit org - Extended Hands Ministries. Catch our TrueLiving show live on TruthFM M - F between 6am to 8am, 11am - 1pm or 5pm - 7pm PST. To Tune in, listen on our website or download our app: truthfmlive.com

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Joshua 5 Circumcision, Passover, Commander (Audio)

Norris Ferry Community Church Sermons

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 12, 2017

Today, in Joshua chapter 5, we see God has faithfully delivered Israel across the Jordan River as Israel carefully obeyed God’s every word. Now God’s people are camped just outside of Jericho. There Israel sits, their past is behind them and their...

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37: If God knows what I'm going to do, how can I be truly free?

Catholic Homilies by Fr Linus Clovis

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 27, 2016 24:33

PintsWithAquinas.com Get the book! https://www.amazon.com/Pints-Aquinas-Thoughts-Angelic-Doctor/dp/0692752404 --- Does man have free will? It is written (Sirach 15:14): "God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel"; and the gloss adds: "That is of his free-will." I answer that, Man has free-will: otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would be in vain. In order to make this evident, we must observe that some things act without judgment; as a stone moves downwards; and in like manner all things which lack knowledge. And some act from judgment, but not a free judgment; as brute animals. For the sheep, seeing the wolf, judges it a thing to be shunned, from a natural and not a free judgment, because it judges, not from reason, but from natural instinct. And the same thing is to be said of any judgment of brute animals. But man acts from judgment, because by his apprehensive power he judges that something should be avoided or sought. But because this judgment, in the case of some particular act, is not from a natural instinct, but from some act of comparison in the reason, therefore he acts from free judgment and retains the power of being inclined to various things. For reason in contingent matters may follow opposite courses, as we see in dialectic syllogisms and rhetorical arguments. Now particular operations are contingent, and therefore in such matters the judgment of reason may follow opposite courses, and is not determinate to one. And forasmuch as man is rational is it necessary that man have a free-will. ST. I, Q. 83, A. 1. Does God know future contingent things? God knows all things; not only things actual but also things possible to Him and creature; and since some of these are future contingent to us, it follows that God knows future contingent things. In evidence of this, we must consider that a contingent thing can be considered in two ways; first, in itself, in so far as it is now in act: and in this sense it is not considered as future, but as present; neither is it considered as contingent (as having reference) to one of two terms, but as determined to one; and on account of this it can be infallibly the object of certain knowledge, for instance to the sense of sight, as when I see that Socrates is sitting down. In another way a contingent thing can be considered as it is in its cause; and in this way it is considered as future, and as a contingent thing not yet determined to one; forasmuch as a contingent cause has relation to opposite things: and in this sense a contingent thing is not subject to any certain knowledge. Hence, whoever knows a contingent effect in its cause only, has merely a conjectural knowledge of it. Now God knows all contingent things not only as they are in their causes, but also as each one of them is actually in itself. And although contingent things become actual successively, nevertheless God knows contingent things not successively, as they are in their own being, as we do but simultaneously. The reason is because His knowledge is measured by eternity, as is also His being; and eternity being simultaneously whole comprises all time, as said above (I:10:2). Hence all things that are in time are present to God from eternity, not only because He has the types of things present within Him, as some say; but because His glance is carried from eternity over all things as they are in their presentiality. Hence it is manifest that contingent things are infallibly known by God, inasmuch as they are subject to the divine sight in their presentiality; yet they are future contingent things in relation to their own causes. ST. I, Q. 14, A. 13.

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There is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 26, 2016 39:22

Does God have favourites? And of course we know from the Scriptures which we should always quote, we know from the Scriptures, “God has no favourites”. However, the Scriptures also go on to say that, “Anyone who has a sincere heart and sincerely seeks God is acceptable to Him.” However God does choose certain people and certain groups of people to perform special functions for Him and these functions are called vocations. We should never mix up the idea of vocation with salvation. They are two quite independent things. A vocation is a calling to do a particular work for God for the salvation of ourselves but more important, of others. A vocation is given by God freely. Being acceptable to God is essentially a disposition of the heart. Are we available to Him so that we might fulfil His will and in so doing, become Holy which is what God requires of all of us, “Be Holy as I, your God am Holy”. In the case of a vocation we’re called to do something in addition to. Now if we fail to do that which we are called to do, we will be punished for it, it’s as simple as that. Saint Paul himself, says that much, “If I do not preach as I’ve been commanded to preach, I will be punished.” So we can say that the vocation in fact is a responsibility. Now God shows individuals such as Abraham. What did he choose him for? To be a father of a multitudes. All those who believe in God, would be the children of Abraham, because Abraham sets an example… For Fr. Linus’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

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Progressing in God - Takes Change Pt11

Word Alive

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 28, 2016 32:00

The enemy of our mind interrupts the goodness that God is doing. Expect clarity of the intimacy between us and God. It's not just God loving us but him causing us to love Him. Now God changes us through his love toward us, and through us until we know life is not revolved around us. This world does not revolve around us. Then we open and allow him to reach out through us with that love to touch lives and make a difference. Wow, what change. [2Co 4:4 KJV] 4 "In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."

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346 - LE SAINT-ESPRIT, SOURCE DE PUISSANCE Part II

Parole Delivrance Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 13, 2016 35:49

Acts 19: 11 Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them. 13 Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “We[a] exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.” 14 Also there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so. 15 And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” 16 Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered[b] them, and prevailed against them,[c] so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 This became known both to all Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. 18 And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds. 19 Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver. 20 So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.

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God Confronts Job

Benbrook Church of Christ Sermons

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 4, 2015 33:18

In the final section of Job, God confronts Job for his demands. Job who is seeking to defend his righteousness to his friends, has suggested God has unjustly punished him. Now God confronts Job. The end result is Job's repentance. But the section also reminds us that God has established order in all things.

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God Confronts Job

Benbrook Church of Christ Sermons

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 4, 2015 33:18

god now god

Tormented by Good News?

Soteriology 101: Former Calvinistic Professor discusses Doctrines of Salvation

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2015 70:28

We play clips from John Piper and JD Hall where they speak of being tormented by the truth of the gospel, and going through stages of grief when first confronted with the TULIP systematic. Is this something we all should expect to go through when the good news of the gospel is made perfectly clear? If so, where does the bible say so?We also spend some time unpacking the concept of Total Inability, the power of the gospel, and the doctrine of Prevenient Grace as held to by some classical Arminians. Here is an article on the subject by Dr. Eric Hankins that my help: http://www.baptistcenter.net/Documents/Journals/JBTM%208-1%20Spring11.pdf#page=90 After four hundred years, Calvinism and Arminianism remain at an impasse. The strengths and weaknesses of both systems are well-documented, and their proponents vociferously aver each system’s mutual exclusivity. This paper is based on the observation that these two theological programs have had sufficient time to demonstrate their superiority over the other and have failed to do so. The time has come, therefore, to look beyond them for a paradigm that gives a better account of the biblical and theological data. Indeed, the stalemate itself is related not so much to the unique features of each system but to a set of erroneous presuppositions upon which both are constructed. As the fault lines in these foundational concepts are exposed, it will become clear that the Baptist vision for soteriology, which has always resisted absolute fidelity to either system, has been the correct instinct all along. Baptist theology must be willing to articulate this vision in a compelling and comprehensive manner. The following four presuppositions shared by Calvinism and Arminianism demonstrate the degree to which a new approach to soteriology is needed. One presupposition is primarily biblical, one is primarily philosophical, one is primarily theological, and one is primarily anthropological, although each is intertwined with the others. Having established the need for a new approach to soteriology and the Baptist vision for such an approach, the paper will conclude with a brief description of a way forward. The Biblical Presupposition: Individual Election The idea that God, in eternity past, elected certain individuals to salvation is a fundamental tenet of Calvinism and Arminianism. The interpretation of this biblical concept needs to be revised. Quite simply, when the Bible speaks of election in the context of God’s saving action, it is always referring to corporate election, God’s decision to have a people for Himself. When the Calvinist, Arminian, and Baptist Perspectives on Soteriology JBTM 88 election of individuals is raised in Scripture, it is always election to a purpose or calling within God’s plans for His people as a whole. In the OT, the writers understood election to be God’s choice of Israel, yet they also clearly taught that the benefits of corporate election could only be experienced by the individual Israelite (or the particular generation of Israelites) who responded faithfully to the covenant that had been offered to the whole nation.1 This trajectory within the OT is unassailable. It is reinforced in the intertestamental literature and is the basis for the way election is treated in the NT.2 The Bible, therefore, does not speak of God’s choice of certain individuals and not others for salvation.3 When the Bible does speak of the salvation of individuals, its central concept is “faith,” never “election.” Take away individual election, and the key components of Calvinism and Arminianism disappear.4 God does not elect individuals to salvation on the basis of His hidden councils, nor does He elect them on the basis of His foreknowledge of their future faith. Simply put, God does not “elect” individuals to salvation. He has elected an eschatological people whom He has 1 See, for instance, Deut. 29:14-21. Israel is reaffirming the covenant promised to the patriarchs and to future generations. However, if there is an individual man or woman who boasts, “I have peace with God though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart,” the Lord will “single him out” from the people for destruction (vv. 18-21, NASB). Although the covenant is for the whole community, the individual must respond in faith in order to benefit from those corporate covenant promises. 2 Critics of the corporate view of election will quickly raise Rom. 8:29-30 and 9-11 (among others) in defense of their position, but the pre-temporal election of individuals is not Paul’s purpose there. Rom. 8:29-30 is setting up Paul’s point in chapters 9-11 about two groups: Jews and Gentiles. The end of Romans 8 crescendos with the greatness of salvation in Christ. Verses 29-30 articulate God’s actions toward His people from beginning to end in order to bring about His ultimate “purpose” (28): God knew He was going to have a people; He determined to bring them into existence in Christ; He actualized that people in history through His call; He justified them by faith; He has determined to bring them into resurrection glory. In light of this incredible plan to have this kind of people for Himself, Paul is heartbroken at the beginning of Romans 9 that his Jewish brothers have responded to the gospel with unbelief. The Jews appear to be “out,” and the Gentiles appear to be “in.” But God works in unexpected ways. Jews are “out” now so that the Gentiles can come “in.” But the Gentiles coming “in” will ultimately cause the Jews to come “in” at the proper time. That is why Paul will continue to preach the gospel to Jews as a part of his mission to the whole world, looking forward to the response of a remnant by faith. One thing is certain: Romans 9-11 is not teaching the election of some individuals and the reprobation of others without respect to their genuine response of faith. Ephesians 1:4, 5, and 11 function in Ephesians 2 the same way that Rom. 8:29-30 functions in Romans 9-11. 3 See William W. Klein, The New Chosen People: A Corporate View of Election (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2001), 257–63 for an extended exegetical analysis of all the relevant biblical data concerning the concept of “corporate election.” Klein argues that there is not a single verse or overarching tendency in the Scriptures in support of the idea that God chooses certain individuals for salvation. 4 Indeed, if “individual election” is what the writers of the NT meant, then Calvinism and Arminianism really are the only options, and Baptists should pick one and move on to other matters. It is significant that we have been unwilling to do so. Eric Hankins JBTM 89 determined to have for Himself. This group will be populated by individuals who have responded in faith to the gracious, free offer of the gospel. The group, “the Elect,” is comprised of individuals who are “saved by faith,” not “saved by election.” This being the case, there is no longer any need for the theological maneuvering required to explain how God elects individuals without respect to their response (which evacuates the biblical concept of “faith” of all its meaning) or how He elects individuals based on foreseen faith (which evacuates the biblical concept of “election” of all its meaning). Asserting that “individual election” should be abandoned is striking, to say the least. It is the foundation on which evangelical soteriology is often constructed.5 It is painful to consider the enormous investment of time and energy that has been spent trying to reconcile how God chooses individuals and, at the same time, how individuals choose God, only to discover that the whole endeavor has been based on a misreading of Scripture. Nevertheless, most Baptists have never felt fully comfortable with either Calvinist or Arminian understandings of election because neither comport well with the whole counsel of God. The reason is clear. The Scriptures lead to the conclusion that Augustine, Calvin, and Arminius were simply wrong in their construction of individual election. Baptists have never been theologically or confessionally committed to these august theologians, and the time has come to move beyond them. The Philosophical Presupposition: The “Problem” of Determinism and Free-Will Like Calvinism and Arminianism, the 2,500-year-old debate concerning the “problem” of determinism and free-will has also reached an impasse. This is because absolute causal determinism is untenable.6 Put simply, the “problem” is not a problem because the paradigm for causation in the Western philosophical tradition is wrong. The whole of reality cannot be explained in terms of uni-directional causation from a single first-principle. The universe does not work that way. Causation is complex, hierarchical, and interdependent. God sits sovereignly and non-contingently atop a hierarchy that owes its existence to the functioning of the levels below it, levels that include the fully operational free-will of humans.7 Opposing God’s sovereign guidance of the universe and the operation of free-will within that universe is a false dichotomy based on reductionistic metaphysical assumptions. God has made a free and sovereign decision to have a universe in which human free-will plays a decisive role. Human agency is one force among many that God has created to accomplish His cosmic purposes. 5 For example, if individual election to salvation were removed from Millard Erickson’s massive systematic theology, there would be essentially nothing left in his chapters on “God’s Plan” and those in the whole section on “Salvation.” See Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998). 6 Kenneth Keathley, Salvation and Sovereignty: A Molinist Approach (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2010), 93–99. 7 Nancey Murphy, “Introduction and Overview,” in Downward Causation and the Neurobiology of Free Will, ed. Nancey Murphy, George F. R. Ellis, and Timothy O’Connor (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2009), 2–3. Eric Hankins JBTM 90 Free-will plays a unique role within God’s purposes for the universe because it is the unique power of human beings freely to enter into and maintain covenant relationships, especially a covenant relationship with God. This makes human willing fundamentally moral. Under certain circumstances, God, in His freedom, contravenes free-will, just as He is free to contravene any other force in nature, but this is not His normal modus operandi. Because God is God, He knows all of the free acts of humans from eternity, but this knowledge does not cause these acts nor does it make Him responsible for them. Moreover, the existence of these acts in no way impinges upon either His freedom or His ability to bring about His ultimate purposes. The ability of humans “to do otherwise” does not call God’s sovereignty into question; it actually establishes and ratifies His sovereignty over the particular universe that was His good pleasure to create. Opposing free-will and sovereignty is, from a philosophical perspective, nonsensical.8 Calvinism’s desire to protect God’s divine status from the infringement of human free-will by denying it completely or reducing it to some form of “soft-determinism”9 is unnecessary. God’s corporate elective purposes are accomplished by individual free acts of faith. Arminianism’s need to inject ideas such as God’s election of individuals based on their future free acts is also a move designed to maintain both a strong view of God’s sovereignty and the free choice of individuals. Unfortunately, this move is made at the expense of any regular understanding of biblical election, which is unilateral. God does not choose Israel because He knows she will choose Him in return. He chooses her even though He knows that her history will be one of rebellion and failure. Moreover, Arminianism’s desire to protect the inviolability of free-will to the degree that God cannot keep His promise to seal a believer’s free response fails to take seriously the totality of the biblical concept of faith. Many Baptists have tended to opt for what they think is a “compatibilist” understanding of determinism and free-will in salvation: God chooses individuals unconditionally, and individuals 8 C. S. Lewis, Yours, Jack: Spiritual Directions from C. S. Lewis, ed. Paul Ford (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 186. The word “nonsensical,” while a bit harsh, is chosen purposefully. I take my cue from Lewis: “All that Calvinist question--Free-Will and Predestination, is to my mind undiscussable, insoluble. . . . When we carry [Freedom and Necessity] up to relations between God and Man, has the distinction perhaps become nonsensical?” 9 “Soft-determinism” is the view that humans are free to do what they desire most, but they are not free to choose what they desire. Since, “the good” is off the table as an object of desire (because of the Fall), “evil” is the only option left, and therefore, humans always “choose” to do evil because they cannot do otherwise. “Soft-libertarianism” (mentioned below) is the view that human freedom, while limited in many aspects by environment and prior choices, is still characterized by the ability, often at crucial moments, to choose between two live options for which the agent is responsible. For a more full discussion, see Keathley, Salvation and Sovereignty, 63–79. Eric Hankins JBTM 91 choose God by faith.10Unfortunately, compatibilism demands a deterministic view of both God and free-will with which those same Baptists would be very uncomfortable. What these Baptists really want to say is that a “determinist” view of God is compatible with a “libertarian” view of free-will, but this is philosophically impermissible. Another typical strategy of Baptists, at this point, is to appeal to “mystery” or “paradox:” We don’t know how God chooses individuals, and, at the same time, individuals choose God. But, like other complex doctrines such as the Trinity or the hypostatic union, it is still true. To say, however, that God chooses individuals unconditionally and that He does not choose individuals unconditionally is not to affirm a mystery; it is to assert a logical contradiction. Baptists need to abandon the language of compatibilism and “mystery,” which do not adequately reflect what they believe about God and salvation, and embrace the concept that a robust (soft-) libertarian free-will is the actualization of God’s sovereign direction of His universe. The Theological Presupposition: Federal Theology Both Arminians and Calvinists assume a “Covenant of Works” between Adam and God in the Garden of Eden, even though there is no biblical basis for such.11 The Covenant of Works, they assert, was a deal God made with Adam whereby Adam would be rewarded with eternal life if he could remain morally perfect through a probationary period. Failure would bring about guilt and “spiritual death,” which includes the loss of his capacity for a good will toward God. Adam’s success or failure, in turn, would be credited to his posterity. This “Federal Theology” imputes Adam’s guilt and total depravity to every human.12 In Calvinism, actual guilt and total depravity are the plight of every person. Free-will with respect to salvation is, by definition, impossible, and with it, the possibility of a free response to God’s offer of covenant through the gospel. The only hope for salvation for any individual is the elective activity of God. In 10This often expressed in the old saw that “Whosoever will may come” is written over the entry into heaven, but, once inside, the verse over the door reads, “You did not choose Me, but I have chosen you.” 11William J. Dumbrell, Covenant and Creation: A Theology of Old Testament Covenants (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2009), 44–6, Reprint. 12The principle text for Federal Theology is Rom. 5.12-21, but the evidence within this text and its place within the argument of Romans speaks against such an interpretation. The strict parallelism between Adam and “all” demands a strict parallelism between Christ and “all,” necessitating universalism, which is not possible theologically and not the point exegetically. Paul’s focus in the passage is clearly on physical death and eternal life, not the imputation of Adam’s guilt to all people (the same is true for Eph. 2:1-7 and 1 Cor. 15:20-28). Paul’s point: Adam’s sin brought in the condemnation of death for all people. All people demonstrate that they deserve such condemnation by their own sin. Christ, the sinless one, has overthrown that condemnation by receiving it undeservedly into Himself, which is the ultimate act of obedience, and rising again. All who ratify Christ’s obedient life, death, and resurrection with their faith in Him will have eternal life. Eric Hankins JBTM 92 Calvinist soteriology, election is privileged above faith because regeneration must be prior to conversion. In Arminianism, the effects of Federal Theology and the Covenant of Works must be countermanded by further speculative adjustments like “prevenient grace” and election based on “foreseen faith,” a faith which is only possible because prevenient grace overcomes the depravity and guilt of the whole human race due to Adam’s failure. All this strays far beyond the biblical data. Such speculation does not emerge from clear inferences from the Bible, but is actually a priori argumentation designed to buttress Augustine, not Paul. God’s gracious action in Christ is not “Plan B,” a “Covenant of Grace,” executed in response to Adam’s failure at “Plan A,” the “Covenant of Works.” The pre-existent Son has always been the center-point of creation and covenant. Adam was not created and placed in the Garden for the purpose of demonstrating moral perfection through his own efforts.13 This original “works righteousness” was read into the Garden by Pelagius and assumed by Augustine. Adam was not being called to moral perfection; he was being called into worldchanging covenant relationship. The command not to eat of the tree was simply a negative construal of God’s offer for Adam to know Him and be satisfied in Him and His plan alone. It was a specific instantiation of the covenant offered to Adam and Eve in Gen. 1:26-28: In a blessed relationship with God, they were to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and rule over it.14 In the Garden, Adam was being asked to do what Noah, Abraham, Moses, Israel, David, and, ultimately, everyone would be asked to do: trust and accept the gracious covenant offer of God in Christ for the purpose of bringing the created order to its intended conclusion. Adam and Eve were to respond to God in faith. The sensual temptation of the fruit itself came after the temptation to question God’s character and His covenant plan. It was in Adam’s rejection of God’s covenant offer that he failed to be moral. In Christ, God re-offers the covenant through successive renewals, culminating in His final offer of the gospel revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of the Incarnate Son. Adam was asked to believe God and bless the whole world, as were Noah, Abraham, Israel, David, and ultimately Christ, who succeeded where all others failed. His victory is extended to all those who put their faith in Him, just like Abraham, the father of the faithful did.15 Covenant in Christ by faith is not “Plan B;” it is the point of the Bible. 13This is not to say that perfect obedience was not the standard; it was just not the point. True obedience is the expression of covenant faithfulness and utter dependence on God. 14Eugene H. Merrill, Everlasting Dominion: A Theology of the Old Testament (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2006), 17. 15In Gal. 3:8, Paul states quite clearly and without any need for further explanation that “The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, ‘ALL THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH WILL BE BLESSED IN YOU.’” This single covenant in Christ is also in view in 1 Cor. 10:4: “. . . and all [Israel] drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.” Eric Hankins JBTM 93 Once again, speculation such as a Covenant of Works, Federal Theology, prevenient grace, etc. are little more than theological “fudge factors” designed to make the Augustinian synthesis work. They do not emerge from the biblical text but are a priori arguments pressed into the service of a fifth century Catholic bishop, not the authors of the Scriptures, and Baptists have never been comfortable with them. These adjustments mitigate the centrality, power, and immediacy of the biblical concept of “covenant” which has, at its heart, God’s desire for a relationship with His people through a real response of faith to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the nexus of Baptist soteriology. The Anthropological Presupposition: Total Depravity The Scriptures clearly affirm that all people are sinners. Because of sin, humans are in a disastrous state, unable to alter the trajectory of their rebellion against God, unable to clear their debt of sin against Him, unable to work their way back to Him through their best efforts. This situation is one of their own creating and for which they are ultimately responsible.16 About these realities, there is little debate in evangelical theology. What is at issue is what being a sinner means when it comes to responding to God’s offer of covenant relationship through the power of the gospel. Both Calvinism and Arminianism affirm that the Fall resulted in “total depravity,” the complete incapacitation of humanity’s free response to God’s gracious offer of covenant relationship.17 In Calvinism, the only remedies for this state-of-affairs are the “doctrines of grace” in which the free response of individuals is not decisive. For Arminianism, total depravity, which is purely 16Paul’s point in Rom. 1-3, the locus classicus of human sinfulness, is not that people cannot respond to God, but that they will not, even though the results lead to their utter ruin. 17Ephesians 2:1 and 5 are frequently cited in support of this view, with a focus on the phrase “dead in your trespasses.” “Dead” here is taken to mean “spiritually” dead, utterly unresponsive to spiritual things. This reading, however, does not work exegetically. Paul’s point in 2.1-7 is that Jews and Gentiles alike were in the same sorry situation and in need of the resurrected and ascended Christ. If Paul means that everyone was “spiritually” dead, then he must also mean that everyone was made “spiritually” alive “with Him.” Does this mean that Jesus was, at some point, incapable of a response to God? Is Paul’s point that Jesus is now “spiritually” alive, responsive to God? Are we now “spiritually” raised and seated with Him in heavenly places? What could this possibly mean? Clearly, Paul is speaking eschatologically here: “Before we trusted Christ our destiny was the condemnation of death. Our behavior confirmed that we were deserving of that sentence. But now our destiny is bound up with His destiny so that ‘in ages to come’ the inclusion of sinners like us will put God’s unbelievable grace on display. How did we come to belong to Christ? By faith.” Paul’s point is not that we are incapable of faith without “regeneration.” His point is that Christ has made a way for those deserving of death to have eternal life, no matter what their ethnicity or level of religious effort. Moreover, if Paul thought that Adam’s sin resulted in spiritual death/total depravity for everyone else, how could he write in Rom. 7:9: “I was once alive apart from the Law”? Eric Hankins JBTM 94 speculative, is corrected by prevenient grace, which is even more speculative, and makes total depravity ultimately meaningless because God never allows it to have any effect on any person. Nothing in Scripture indicates that humans have been rendered “totally depraved” through Adam’s sin. Genesis 3 gives an extensive account of the consequences of Adam’s sin, but nowhere is there the idea that Adam or his progeny lost the ability to respond to God in faith, a condition which then required some sort of restoration by regeneration or prevenient grace. In fact, just the opposite appears to be the case. The story of God’s relationship with humankind is fraught with frustration, sadness, and wrath on God’s part, not because humans are incapable of a faith response, but because they are capable of it, yet reject God’s offer of covenant relationship anyway. To be sure, they are not capable of responding in faith without God’s special revelation of Himself through Christ and His Spirit’s drawing. Any morally responsible person, however, who encounters the gospel in the power of the Spirit (even though he has a will so damaged by sin that he is incapable of having a relationship with God without the gospel) is able to respond to that “well-meant offer.” Therefore, the time has come once again for Baptists to reject another dichotomy mediated by the Calvinist/Arminian debate: monergism and synergism. Monergism insists that salvation is all of God. Monergists conclude that faith emerging from a decision within the will of the believer is a “work” that makes salvation meritorious, but this idea demands a theologically objectionable determinism. As a technical theological concept, synergism18 still operates off of a framework that views sovereignty and free-will as problematic, often forcing too fine a distinction between “what God does” and “what man does.” Synergism tends to put “faith” in the category of performance, rather than an attitude of surrender. This has led some Arminian theology into over-speculation concerning the nature of the act of faith, psychologizing and sensationalizing the “moment of decision,” so that one’s experience becomes the basis of his assurance. Synergism also tends to demand further acts in order to receive further blessing and opens the door to the possibility that, if a person fails to act faithfully subsequent to the experience of salvation, God will cease to save. 18“Synergism,” to be sure, would be the category to which the soteriological viewpoint of this paper belongs, if we persist in using these categories, because monergism, in the true sense of the term, in untenable. Unfortunately, this word has theological associations that Baptists reject. Synergism is often considered to be the functional equivalent of semi-Pelagianism, which throws the whole discussion back into abstruse arguments about “operative” and “cooperative” grace, “general” and “effectual” calling, facere quod in se est, etc. forcing us to approach soteriology from Augustinian and medieval Roman Catholic categories rather than biblical ones. Monergism and synergism have simply outlived their usefulness. Eric Hankins JBTM 95 Baptists must get off of this grid.19 We have preferred terms like “trust,” “surrender,” and “relationship” to “monergism” or “synergism” when we reflect on God’s offer and our response. These terms secure the affirmation both that individuals can do nothing to save themselves, yet their salvation cannot occur against their wills or without a response of faith that belongs to them alone. The Baptist Vision So, what would a biblically-sound, Christ-centered, grace-filled soteriology look like without appeals to individual election, determinism, Federal Theology, or total depravity? What would it look like if it were free from the presuppositions of Calvinism and Arminianism? It would look exactly like what most Baptists have believed instinctively all along. Baptists have consistently resisted the impulse to embrace completely either Calvinism or Arminianism. We simply posit that we are “neither.”20 The basis for this resistance to the two systems is our aversion to theological speculation beyond the clear sense of Scripture and our willingness to go our own way when Scripture and conscience demand. The way forward is basically backward, a massive simplification, a walking out of the convoluted labyrinth that evangelical soteriology has become in the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism. It is a move not dissimilar to the basic impulse of Luther at the birth of the Reformation, which was to reject the Medieval scholasticism that had turned the gloriously simple gospel of grace into its absolute antithesis. For Luther, the solution was to start over with the Scriptures (and Augustine), no matter what the implications. Baptists need to apply the Reformation principles of sola scriptura and semper reformanda to Luther himself. Augustine’s soteriology and the bulwark constructed subsequently to defend it must be removed. Baptists believe in the clarity and simplicity of the Bible. We search in vain for decrees, a Covenants of Works, the distinction between a “general call” and an “effectual call,” hidden wills, and prevenient grace. We react with consternation to the ideas that God regenerates before He converts, that He hates sinners, that reprobation without respect to a response of faith brings Him the greatest glory, or that the truly converted can lose their salvation. Baptists have felt free to agree with certain emphases within Calvinism and Arminianism, while rejecting those that offend our commitments to the possibility of salvation for all and to the eternal security of that salvation based exclusively on faith in the covenant promises of God. The free offer of an eternal, life-changing covenant with the Father through the Son by the Spirit to all sinners by the free 19See Keathley, Salvation and Sovereignty, 101–8. After thoroughly dismantling the determinism of Calvinism, Keathley, a Baptist theologian, still wants to retain the term “monergism,” qualifying it with his assertion that people can still refuse God’s grace. But if one’s refusal matters, then salvation is not monergistic. Any Calvinist worth his salt would agree. Persisting in the use of the term “monergism” and in defending the logically contradictory concept that “what man does matters and what man does doesn’t matter” is unhelpful. 20Malcolm Yarnell, Neither Calvinists Nor Arminians but Baptists, White Paper 36 (Ft. Worth, TX: Center for Theological Research, 2010), 7. Eric Hankins JBTM 96 exercise of personal faith alone has been the simple, non-speculative but inviolable core of Baptist soteriological belief and practice. Baptist soteriology (specifically including the doctrines of the sovereign, elective purposes of God, the sinfulness of all humans, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, salvation by grace alone through faith alone, and the security of the believer) is not in jeopardy and does not need to be reinforced by Calvinism or Arminianism. It can be successfully taught, maintained, and defended without resorting to either system. It has been typical of Baptists to believe that anyone who reaches the point of moral responsibility has the capacity to respond to the gospel. While all persons are radically sinful and totally unable to save themselves, their ability to “choose otherwise” defines human existence, including the ability to respond to the gospel in faith or reject it in rebellion. God initiates the process; He imbues it with His Spirit’s enabling. When people respond in faith, God acts according to His promises to seal that relationship for eternity, welding the will of the believer to His own, setting the believer free by His sovereign embrace. Our assurance of salvation comes not from a “sense” that we are elect or from our persistence in holy living. Assurance comes from the simple, surrendered faith that God keeps every one of His promises in Christ Jesus. Baptists’ historical insistence on believer’s baptism is a solid indicator of our soteriological instinct. Historically, neither Calvinism nor Arminianism had a correct word for infant baptism because both were burdened with the justification for total depravity, original sin, and individual election. For many Arminians (like those in the Wesleyan tradition), infant baptism functions with reference to original sin and prevenient grace and plays a role in the faith that God “foresees.”21 For many Calvinists, infant baptism has become an extremely odd vehicle by which they deal with the fate of infants, an issue that is illustrative of the fundamental inadequacy of the system. If Calvinism is true, then its own logic demands that at least some infants who die before reaching the point of moral responsibility spend eternity in hell.22 By and large, Calvinists do not want to say this and will go to great lengths to avoid doing so.23 Covenant Theology and infant 21The question remains, however, concerning how God foresees faith in the child that dies in infancy. Now God is making decisions based on possibilities rather than actualities, which is extremely problematic. In Arminian traditions that do not practice infant baptism, the tendency toward belief in baptismal regeneration or subsequent Spirit-baptism over-emphasizes human effort in the understanding of free-will over against God’s sovereignty. 22Adam Harwood, The Spiritual Condition of Infants: A Biblical-Historical Survey and Systematic Proposal (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2011), 23. 23R. Albert Mohler, Jr. and Daniel L. Akin, “The Salvation of the ‘Little Ones:’ Do Infants Who Die Go to Heaven?” [article on-line]; June 16, 2009 AlbertMohler.com; available from http://www.albertmohler. com/2009/07/16/the-salvation-of-the-little-ones-do-infants-who-die-go-to-heaven/; accessed 12 March 2011. Mohler and Akin’s argument is that all infants who die are elect. It is an astounding display of a priori reasoning that runs like this: Since Calvinism is true and since we don’t want to say that some infants go to hell, all infants who die must be elect (even though there is no biblical basis for such a claim). Eric Hankins JBTM 97 baptism have been the preferred method for assuring (at least Christian) parents that they can believe in original guilt and total depravity and still know that their children who die in infancy will be with them in heaven. While Baptist Calvinists and Arminians do not allow for infant baptism, the fact that their systems allow for and even advocate it is telling. Prevenient grace and Covenant Theology have never played a role in Baptist theology. This frees us to deal biblically with the issue of infant baptism: it is simply a popular vestige of Roman Catholic sacramentalism that the Magisterial Reformers did not have either the courage or theological acuity to address. Privileging election necessarily diminishes the significance of the individual response of faith for salvation, thus creating room for infant baptism and its theological justification. But with faith as the proper center of Baptist soteriology, infant baptism has never made any sense. Our distinctive understanding of the ordinance of baptism celebrates the centrality of the individual’s actual response of faith to the free offer of the gospel. Finally, Baptists’ historic passion for evangelism and missions is underdetermined by Calvinism and Arminianism. For Calvinism, if the decision about who is saved and who is not has already been made by God, then the actual sharing of the gospel with the lost does not matter. The vast majority of Calvinists strenuously object to this charge, employing a variety of tactics to obviate what is, unfortunately, the only logical conclusion of their system. Saying that God elects the “means” of salvation as well as the individuals who are saved demands a determinism that is theologically unacceptable and philosophically unsustainable. Insisting that evangelism is still necessary because it “glorifies God” and demonstrates obedience to the Scriptures is simply a variation of that same determinism. The historical struggles of Calvinism with doctrinal and attitudinal opposition to missions and the “promiscuous preaching of the gospel” is evidence of the weakness of their system. Insisting on a “well-meant offer” while at the same time insisting that not all are able to respond is not the affirmation of a “mystery;” it is stubborn fidelity to a logical contradiction. For Arminianism, if election is based on foreseen faith, then it must be assumed that every person will receive enough of the gospel to trust or reject Christ. We know that billions still have not heard the gospel. This privileges the effort of the faith-capacity of people over the power of the gospel alone to save. If all people have the ability to figure out some form of faith in Christ, why worry overmuch about evangelism? It is this sort of weakness that lends itself to the frequent liberal trend in Arminianism. Baptist anthropology affirms that, because of personal sinfulness, no one is capable of coming to faith in Christ without the proclamation of the gospel in the power of the Spirit. While there are certainly unique instances of individuals receiving the gospel through dreams and non-human proclamation, this is not God’s normal manner of working and those instances of salvation still require both a proclamation of Jesus as Lord and a response of faith. Baptists believe that the proclamation of the gospel is necessary for a faith response to Christ. Those who do not hear will not be saved. Everyone who does hear has the opportunity to respond to Christ in faith or persist in unbelief. This is the only proper biblical motivation for the urgent proclamation of the gospel. Baptists have excelled in evangelism and missions because we believe it really matters. Eric Hankins JBTM 98 It is safe to say that Federal Theology, Eternal Decrees, Covenants of Works, Grace, and Redemption, and prevenient grace have played essentially no major role in the expansion of the Baptist witness, especially among Southern Baptists, from the late nineteenth through the late twentieth centuries. This is not because ordinary Baptists are unintelligent or simplistic in their beliefs; it is because ordinary Baptists have played a significant role in the direction of denominational identity, and they have been serious about what the Bible plainly does and does not say. In the older Baptist confessions and in the writings of older Baptist heroes like Spurgeon, Fuller, and Carey, echoes of the doctrinal speculation above can be heard, but they sit uncomfortably with the strong affirmations of the opportunity of everyone to respond in faith to the preaching of the gospel and the inability of any believer to fall away. In the Baptist Faith and Message, such problematic speculation disappears completely. 24 Baptists have known that these things were unnecessary for the articulation of God’s unstoppable plan to redeem the whole world through the bold proclamation of salvation in Christ alone by faith alone. From the beginning, the work of Christ in creation and redemption for the purpose of covenant relationship with humankind has always been the center of the biblical narrative. There is no need for an alternate metanarrative of secret decrees and hidden covenants to sort out the history of redemption. The plot of God’s purpose for humankind can be found right on the surface of the text from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, all summed up succinctly in John 3:16.25 Without committing to either Calvinism or Arminianism, Baptists have evangelized millions, planted thousands of churches, and reached literally around the globe the with life-changing, world-changing message of salvation by grace through faith. When either system has come to the forefront in debate or dispute, the outcome has rarely been positive for kingdom work through us. Baptists have been well-served by a simpler, less-speculative, less metaphysical approach to soteriology. As we move into a new millennium, a more constructive, positive statement of our soteriology based on this heritage of simplicity and faith-focus will sharpen us as to what is essential to the message and motivation of the gospel for all who stand in desperate need of it. A Baptist Soteriology So, what would a soteriology based on the Baptist vision look like? The four presuppositions discussed above, indeed, provide a sound framework upon which the Baptist vision could be set. Around the core biblical principle of faith, the philosophical principle of God’s purpose for human free-will, the theological principle of “covenant in Christ alone,” and the anthropological principle of the sinfulness and salvability of every person could be arranged. It is interesting that, in actual practice, these key concepts are identical with the emphases in the most widely 24Malcolm Yarnell, “The TULIP of Calvinism in Light of History and the Baptist Faith and Message,” SBC Life, April 2006. 25Jerry Vines, “Sermon on John 3:16,” in Whosoever Will, ed. David L. Allen and Steve W. Lemke (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2010), 13–15. Eric Hankins JBTM 99 used personal evangelism tools in Baptist life. F.A.I.T.H. Evangelism, Continuing Witness Training, Evangelism Explosion, The Four Spiritual Laws, and Share Jesus without Fear all highlight (1) faith in Christ, unpacking such faith as (2) the absolute necessity of a personal, individual response of repentance and trust, (3) an entry into God’s holy and loving, eternal purposes in the person and work of Christ alone, and (4) available for anyone who will admit his radical sinfulness and inability to save himself.26 In none of these gospel presentations is there even a hint of the issues of election, determinism, Federal Theology, or total depravity. In such gospel witness, the principle of lex orandi, lex credendi is a helpful reminder that our actual evangelistic practices are crucial indicators of what we truly believe about soteriology. The Biblical Presupposition: Individual Faith The central biblical presupposition for a Baptist soteriology is, therefore, “faith” (Eph. 2.8- 9). “Election” is a term that belongs properly in the Doctrine of God. Faith captures the fundamentally relational nature of NT soteriology. “Justification by faith,” which lies at the center of Protestant soteriological identity, speaks of the initiating and sustaining activity of God in bringing an individual into right relationship with Himself and the necessity of the individual’s response for God’s justifying work to be actualized in his life. While the totality of justification has numerous aspects (past, present, future, spiritual, physical, individual, moral, social, ecclesiological, cosmic, etc.), it does not happen without personal faith. Faith has a variety of nuances as well, but, ultimately, it is an act of the will that belongs to the believer. It is not a “gift” God gives to some and not others. When we call people to salvation, we emphasize the biblical concept of faith, not election. The Philosophical Presupposition: The Freedom of God and the Free-Will of People The manner in which biblical faith functions in creation is this: God sovereignly and freely made a universe in which the free-will of humans plays a decisive role in His ultimate purposes for that universe (Rom. 10:9-10). Without free-will, there is no mechanism for the defeat of sin and evil, no mechanism for covenant relationship, no mechanism for a world-changing, world-completing partnership between God and His people. For Baptists, faith has never been something that occurs without our willing. We deny that people’s eternal destinies have been fixed without respect to a free-response of repentance and faith. We preach that the decision of each individual is both possible and necessary for salvation. 26The scriptural basis for each soteriological presupposition discussed below is drawn from the scripture references most common to these gospel presentations. Eric Hankins JBTM 100 The Theological Presupposition: Covenant in Christ In a Baptist soteriology, Christ is the central object of belief. He is believed as the mediator of covenant relationship, the full expression of the kingdom of God, eternal life, God’s ultimate purpose for everyone and for the cosmos (John 3:16). We have no interest in a series of extrabiblical covenants created to bolster a soteriology that does not take seriously the necessity of personal faith as an expression of free-will. In our preaching, we do not burden people with the calculus of covenants of works, grace, and redemption. We do not invite people to believe in Calvinism or Arminianism. We offer Christ alone, the only hope of Adam, Noah, Abraham, the Patriarchs, Moses, David, Israel, and the whole of humankind. His perfect life, substitutionary death, and victorious resurrection comprise the object of confession and belief that is sufficient to save (John 14:6, Rom. 10.9-10). The Anthropological Presupposition: The Sinfulness and Salvability of Everyone Finally, the anthropological presupposition is that no one can save himself, but anyone can be saved (Rom. 3:23). No person ever takes the first step toward God. Humankind’s history is broken; its destiny is death; it’s context darkness; its reality is rebellion. This sinfulness has put us out of fellowship with God and under the verdict of eternal separation (Rom. 6.23). Through the person and work of Christ, which is proclaimed through the gospel, God reaches out His hand of “first love,” providing a ground of salvation to which any one can respond in faith. If people do not hear and respond to this gospel, they will not be saved. So, we preach the gospel broadly, regularly, and passionately. We offer an invitation every time we preach because we believe every unbeliever, no matter how sinful and broken, can respond, and no matter how moral and selfrighteous, must respond (Rev. 3:20). These four pillars are the super-structure of the soteriology that has driven Baptist preaching, evangelism, and missions. It is the basis for life in Christ and the way of discipleship. Into this matrix, the totality of biblical soteriological language can be fed, but no other single concept can be allowed to dominate doctrinal development to such a degree that one or more of these emphases are abandoned or effectively neutralized. From these fixed-points of Baptist soteriology, such issues as the effects of the Fall, the order of salvation in its various dimensions, and other important implications can be discussed in full. In this construction, election is an important but tangential and transitional concept, connecting the borders of soteriology, ecclesiology, eschatology, and theology proper. Faith, however, must stand at the center of Baptist soteriology, so that we might proclaim to all with firm conviction: “Believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).

western free man god freedom dead history klein human fall ot election garden lord covenant fuller spirit jewish romans baptist acts bible jesus stock father plan rom erickson fear akin medieval protestant catholic critics historically redemption soft cor tulip jews scripture salvation christ luther rev sermon scriptures ephesians revelation jesus christ failure roman catholic plan b wesleyan doctrine necessity sovereignty augustinian neurobiology holman spurgeon christ jesus reformation free will assurance nt his spirit southern baptists evangelism calvinism reprint gentiles whosoever daniel l predestination israelites israelite calvinist baptists eph john piper white paper asserting arminianism verses david l justification god are calvinists opposing lord jesus christ christian theology insisting determinism causation humankind covenant theology in christ deut because god covenants elect patriarchs nasb share jesus steve w 21the privileging pelagianism keathley arminius 12the persisting now god if paul arminian jd hall 26the monergism mohler albert mohler synergism millard erickson prevenient grace pelagius spiritual condition george f arminians whosoever will

Derek Turner - Clean Slate - Part 2

River Church Charlotte Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 15, 2015 31:56

Jesus made a way for you to have a fresh start and a clean slate with God. The sin and shame is erased! Now God wants to write His story for your life.

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Derek Turner - Clean Slate

River Church Charlotte Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 6, 2015 30:29

Jesus made a way for you to have a fresh start and a clean slate with God. The sin and shame is erased! Now God wants to write His story for your life.

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Grace Triple Header - Week 2 - Show & Tell

Grace Community Church Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 24, 2014 44:07

We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus. Now God is calling us to commit to the expression of our faith in ways that will change us—and the world around us—for His glory.

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Contract or Covenant?

Let's Talk It's Relationship

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 23, 2014

Ever notice how we treat the Bible as a contract between God and us? "Now God we do this, and you promise to do that...." Sound familiar? Find out what it means to go from religion to a relationship at http://frmpodcast.wordpress.com

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Unprecedented Power #6: Salvation, 3.3.13

Pastor Bill's 2013 Video Archives

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 3, 2013 42:19

The greatest manifestation of God's power is when He takes a sinful man and makes him righteous. He demonstrated this first in Jesus when He raised Him from the dead. Now God works on the heart of every man woman and child to receive this free gift. But we can resist Him by our pride. Discover more about the saving power of God in this message.

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Unprecedented Power #6: Salvation - Audio

Pastor Bill's 2013 Audio Archives

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 3, 2013 42:27

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Talking With Apostle Author Timberlake

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 22, 2011 41:39

Join with us as we fellowship with Apostle A. Timberlake! Insightful, encouraging , words of wisdom coming from a set man of God. It all starts with a thought, generally if the thought is greater then what you have expected it's a God thing. Let's plan to eat healthy, go for a walk with the family. Why do we need to plan? When think better, you act better. When you plan to do better, you are better! That's when we need to pull on those that are well-versed in their specific areas. Our character becomes better. To guide us through the process in a more effective way. Assisting us with gathering as much knowledge that is needed. Yes, it takes money to make many things happen let's let Favor and Grace step on the scene. Now God can to give creative ideas, witty inventions, & people with the knowledge to help pursue your vision. These people will not take away from you but point you a better since of direction to reach your goal. In this season of seeingmyvision2reality you will hear motivating discussions on "families strength", The importance of quiet time. How to correctly speak to people. How to listen. Then we want to apply methods on rekindling your marriage. Life applications on building self-worth. We will discuss finances - how to create them, share them, and save them. How to implement prayer back in the home. ** Is counseling a bad thing?**What will it take for you to be established in the Kingdom. So let's plan to plan to WIN! 1) Bring your questions and comments to the table. Let's be better starting now!

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Talking With Apostle Author Timberlake

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 22, 2011 41:39

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Plan to plan!

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 18, 2011 29:38

When I decided to go to college I had to have a plan in mind where, why, when, how much it would cost, and how would it benefit me along with others. So I had to come up with a plan. Because my parents where college graduates they already foreknew what was needed. It all starts with a thought, generally if the thought is greater then what you have expected it's a God thing. Let's plan to eat healthy, go for a walk with the family. Why do we need to plan? When think better, you act better. When you plan to do better, you are better! That's when we need to pull on those that are well-versed in their specific areas. Our character becomes better. To guide us through the process in a more effective way. Assisting us with gathering as much knowledge that is needed. Yes, it takes money to make many things happen let's let Favor and Grace step on the scene. Now God can to give creative ideas, witty inventions, & people with the knowledge to help pursue your vision. These people will not take away from you but point you a better since of direction to reach your goal. In this season of seeingmyvision2reality you will hear motivating discussions on "families strength", The importance of quiet time. How to correctly speak to people. How to listen. Then we want to apply methods on rekindling your marriage. Life applications on building self-worth. We will discuss finances - how to create them, share them, and save them. How to implement prayer back in the home. ** Is counseling a bad thing?**What will it take for you to be established in the Kingdom. So let's plan to plan to WIN! 1) Bring your questions and comments to the table. Let's be better starting now! What are you called to do?

Plan to plan!

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 18, 2011 29:38

Plan to plan!

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2011 32:27

Plan to plan!

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2011 32:27