6120	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: August 17, 2008, 06:12:59 PM
We use a very small part of our brain. Which is why there is reason to believe that we were very intelligent in the pre fall paradigm of thinking. So that in a sense we all are starting from this fallen inclination to underachieve. Could it be that since we are very limited in our thinking ability that there is some kind of damage in certain areas of the brain that is undetectable ? Or could it be a spiritually dead conscious activity in the inter communication to the physical brain? For certain we know that the connections of activity of the flow of information to the areas of the brain have some natural qualities and some self programing involved. If there is a connection to the faculties in the communication of the nature of the Spirit as a cause, that being the will is determined by the desires, which involves an understanding of truth in the mind, then there also is a physical cause in a process as to all the connections of the brain that naturally work to bring about the end of a man working these logical sequences in learning. But is it because there are areas that are less enabled so that it brings in other avenues of information to balance out that weakness or do men determine to exercise their own weakness as the primary reason for and increase knowledge? Or could it be that the circumstances one faces create the heroism to achieve beyond the limits of ones natural abilities? We know that unless there is a work of the Spirit, then all attempts to resist by willing will be of no avail. Since the will cannot produce as the cause the connection to gain knowledge, but knowledge is prior to the activity of willing. And that new knowledge is according to is nature. And our knowledge of evil is from our first parents as having a power to work in us prior to our working. So that evil is prior to a physical defective action. It is an evil imagination, or a thought that comes to the point of having an evil action. In this sense the inclination to do anything is naturally different in each one of us. But we know that it is impossible for us to not on sin this side of heaven, since we still have a nature of evil. So that how we understand ability may have a direct effect on how we process knowledge and how much knowledge we are able to acquire and keep. Since what we do not agree on, we are made aware by the work of God as He teaches us through His Spirit.

6118	Forums / Main Forum / Re: Denomination are you?	on: August 20, 2008, 07:16:43 PM
Quote from: billbennett on August 20, 2008, 05:11:38 PM A baptismal thread would be interesting, as long as we could begin with the premise that it is not necessary for salvation. Since baptism is symbolic of our identification with Christ's death and resurrection, it would seem that immersion would be the most vivid representation of this (lowering the candidate into the water symbolizing his death and raising one out of the water symbolizing his resurrection). Also, I never have understood infant baptism. NT baptism always seemed to come after (often immediately after) a person trusting in Christ. I am all for dedicating a baby/child to the Lord, both from the parents perspective and the church's as well. But this should not take the place of believer's baptism, IMO. Also believer's baptism is a great testimony to the family/friends of the new believer, a testimony by ceremony so to speak. Bill  Bill, I think one of the problems of being involved with these different kinds of physical dedications is that it is not necessarily a reflection of what is going on in the heart of a person. And although these things are important at the moment of time that it happens, yet salvation is mostly a focus of the transformation that is going on in an everyday paradigm. The thief on the cross > although the chances are small in the sense of normal means , yet it speaks of the causes. Its just like being a spiritual infant in sanctification and pointing back to when we were saved that defines who we presently are in Christ, rather than having a testimony of our growth by being transformed. What follows our growth is the amount of fresh understanding we have by that growth and all of the present causes of the use of the means the encourage others to grow in Him. So that our loving Jesus is a fresh love not lukewarm. Then our speech will be seasoned with salt, or we will have the encouragement of the Spirit to cause others to rejoice in Him with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Not only will it go from our lips but it will show itself in our writing as well." My heart have You pierced."

6113	Forums / Main Forum / Re: Denomination are you?	on: August 21, 2008, 04:52:14 PM
Quote from: billbennett on August 21, 2008, 12:47:04 PM Tom (MBG), That was a great post. For me, baptism was very meaningful, because it did signify the change that was going on in my life. I had trusted Christ a couple weeks prior, and God was already working in my life in some very tangible ways. His forgiveness and grace was so real! You are right that God's work in our lives is not finished at the time we first come to know Christ, but as you described is a process. We grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. We are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. It is living in this relationship with Christ, abiding in Him as a branch in the vine, that allows us to bear spiritual fruit acceptable to Him. Bill     Yes, its always good to read your post, Bill. We should be thankful that we have the Lord of the universe promising to listen to our prayers. And we have been shown that He is good even when we struggle with a trial or sin, that seems to bring us down and cause us to walk with the weight of all of the inward griefs. But He has given us His word and promised to speak to us in His language. We have been justified by faith, fully made righteous by His work, and we are enabled to walk in His love for the rest of our days, that is having a  taste of His goodness, or His sincerity in answering our every failure. He sincerely loves us in reminding us as He meets us in every disabled learned disposition of doubt. And even tho we feel disconnected in this world, where people have departed from listening to Him, yet we know that we are not left to experience the same temptations to be hard toward Him. We have been given Christ, in such a personal way, that we know the place of being sincere to Him. And since He does not judge us as if we are questioning His being our present help in time of need, then our desire to be sincere to Him, is only as we are being enabled to understand His greatest understanding of our weakness that we know this connection to be the only real sincere place ,where our weakness is lost in His love. We grow weak in order to experience His strength, and when we have found that place of rest, then we are aware that He is all we need.

6111	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: August 23, 2008, 09:19:21 AM
This sounds like emergent. The pastor is more interested in the process than historical truth. So that he is trying to find the balance between everyones belief system. So if you have a conviction about what should be said, then that is one view. The purpose is to get people to agree rather than the historical way of teaching and encouraging. It can be frustrating , especially if you hold some very deep convictions. I agree, this is a waste of time. If the truth is from someones personal feelings and experience, then the revelation of the hidden personal problem is more important than the historical teaching. So if you try to share you convictions as historically accurate you may be labeled divisive. My personal experience in this is that there is a tendency to turn toward labeling people, applying rules or overstepping the boundaries of relationship to limit personal freedoms. Wards of the state, or politically structured church discipline.(edelweiss, edelweiss', bless my home land forever,) When you get a bunch of wayward sheep together along with the wolves and you start talking about other things that are not indirect in a biblical sense, then the inevitable direction will be to set up your own rules or system that determines the behavior. Once a person learns to view life this way, then they get really legalistic, and forceful. To me this is teaching people to look at others sins without seeing your own sins in light of others. The point and the counter point of self and circumstance is to be argued from the law of non -contradiction. This is very weird. I would distance myself from this for the sake of my own sanity. Why arent people upset about the political debates going on inside the walls of the church? Cause they have been taught through this discipline a sorta fascism. In theater we have this imaginary wall between the stage and the people in the seats. This wall is seldom broken. And in a sense what goes on in the preaching and teaching of the church is the same kind of process. Theater is strictly acting a part, where in the church you have the unseen work of the Spirit on a man, who is using these supernatural words and convictions that go to the hearts of the people and work to bring them to the glory of Christ. So that just like going to the theater and being a passive recipient on the feelings , the church does this on the inside of a person to heal them supernaturally without breaking the wall of personal communication toward one person. But the emergent has been an attempt to break the wall, so that man and the state become the agents for change and the congregation becomes active rather than the word and the Spirit. There are these powerful supernatural paradigms that are new ways of viewing the world that come in the light of all of the law of God. And we are not dealing with a moral fight in a direct way. Within the natural disposition of a sinner is not only the inability to come to unity or having a society of viewing alternative reasons for new discoveries of connection rather than processing a moral rule in connection. These new discoveries come indirectly through a point and time deliverance, or looking for the miracle, that new discovery, beyond the human understanding. This is a learned world view of deepening the understanding of the limits of the power of self within the unified understanding of the definition of connection. For we share in the unity of that discovery through supernaturalism rather than by the means of self discovery through the agency of a principled disciplined procession.   The rules of communication are different. Since what we confess is the truth of what we do. Our identity is individualist, by the reception of individual confessions of truth as the understanding of the reality of who we are in light of what we do. We know the way of truth to be the way of deliverance in a prior example of remembering the art of coming to a new way of transformation through being converted by the confession of the truth rather than the self discovery through the process of self disclosure. These powers are the limits of human security since individualism comes through the process of having these effects of growing through the reception of these passive pre dispositions in the set of new discovered desires that convert our understanding to a new world view in order for us to be at liberty in connection. Our disposition is the only example of what the truth is in connection as having a converted cohesion of being of one mind.

Most of my writing in 2008 were led along by paraphrasing a Psalm. I was thinking through each phrase in a particular Psalm and applying the biblical epistemology correctly.

6110	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Freedom Of The Will Jonathan Edwards	on: August 23, 2008, 11:56:29 AM
1. Defining "Free Will" as choice absent any predilection could be challenged.  Flip a coin; tails I commit adultery; heads I don't.  Is that Free Will?  Electrons change energy levels and photons choose slits in the two-slit interference experiment with no apparent cause - do they have Free Will? Your the one who later in this post said that God was the cause of the created universe. If there is no cause then there is no reason for the existence of the smallest particle. Now if there is an existence of anything then in order for that thing to exist there must be an act of the will for it to be put into existence. If the power to make it exist is exercised, then it must be a power of choice. Otherwise there could be no emanation of the reality of existence. We do live in a conscious universe so that the cause is conscious reality of the existence of whatever is known. There is no difference in knowing. So that what is not known has no cause since it never has existence from our view. That is God determines what we know by its existence. Whatever happens by chance happens apart from a personal involvement of an idea. How can anything exist apart from an idea of what it is? And how can anything not have a causal knowledge in our being conscious of our view of ideas that we have? Is there such a logical idea of an uncaused cause?

6213	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: July 06, 2008, 03:19:09 PM
Our language indeed does not begin to describe the extent of the truth of who God is. But this language is the means by which God works His sovereign plan in time. We know that the truth of God has a back drop of the reality of our own humanness. So that we describe God as other, that is we do not understand His ways, and on our own we are in complete darkness, not being able to know God. The bible describes God as being other because in order for us to know Him we must be made holy by His revealing to us that divine knowledge , otherwise we would stay completely in the dark. But God is not completely other, since what He is like is evidenced by what He has made. He is three persons and yet one in substance. So that what He has made is an emanation of Himself for which He has worked His goodness for the purpose of bringing Himself glory by His goodness and pleasure in the end of His creating. If God were just other, then our purpose for existing would be from nothingness. But God works in creation for His pleasure of His goodness, and we receive that purpose in our existence by His perfect good working in us. And even tho we come with the corruption, yet Gods purpose in the working out of all things is Him emanating the pleasure through each second cause so that we experience that good pleasure. If God were only "other" then we could not understand who we are in that working. We have been created in His image, so that each person is of value, having a mind will and emotion. The potential of faculties is in the process of being renewed in God working out all things for His glory and pleasure. If we had no ability to understand who God is, then what He made us to be would be a bad reflection on His purposes. But since He has made all things for the purpose of bringing Himself glory, then our understanding of who He is in order to bring Him glory is essential. Other wise the universe would be a complete contradiction. And we know that Gods determination to work out all things for His glory cannot co exist with nothingness's in our understanding. If we understand any thing about who God is, it is by His giving us that ability. Other wise God could not communicate Himself to us in that bringing Himself glory. Here we struggle with sin. And from our view, we lack faith to see beyond the corrupted views of His working out all things in us for our good. Our natural predisposition is to think independently and we have a terrible time with struggling in this paradigm with a hardness of heart. Our vision is not as God sees. But He has given us some descriptions of Himself for the purpose of strengthening our faith as we are meditating on these truths in His word. What He has spoken is a breath of life, so that we cannot be extended in our believing unless we are being en grafted by the truth of that illumination. We must begin the process of vivification in order to make these eternal realities our normal dispositional sense. For we are to set our affections on things above and not on the things of this earth. Because the work that God does in us is seen in the spiritual realm, in the eternal mindset, with new spiritual eyes. We eye Gods purposes when we live by faith and not by physical sight. So that we are cast into turmoil since we have a love of our own way. We must experience His perfect light by having a greater understanding of Him being to us always faithful. We experience this by Him speaking to us His promises, in the illumination of our understanding. And since we are not always having the same assurance, then sometimes we must struggle long and hard in order to have that assurance once again. So that sometimes we sink into the depths of the circumstances of this life, and then we are in a desperate crying and we are weeping before our loving Father. And since He is always available to us, then there is always a place we can go to, as the only place where we could receive this ongoing grace of assurance. Our Father does indeed work in the unseen, beyond our ability to reason. How we have come into this world and how we know our weaknesses by that are what He is to us in each struggle. All of our thinking of these things are what He has done in us to draw us to Him by the level of that struggle. He has given us a perfect asking in His word for every malady. Our hearts were made by Him, and He knows just what to teach us to say to Him so that we are made aware more and more of His working these things out through us. Even when we sink and struggle, yet He knows, He reaches down to our level. And He wants us to communicate to Him as we pour out our hearts to Him. The malady we have as an experience is what He uses to make His word and work in us come to fruitation. If we can learn to plead the promises and ask according to His will, then we can be raised up above our anxiety to look at His salvation. Because our natural state of being under these trials is what makes us to struggle to go to Him and get that relief and assurance of having our hope strengthened by the experience of the illumination of His promises being ours by that fellowship of the Spirit of understanding. Oh that we would be strengthened to be able to stand firm!

6210	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: July 08, 2008, 02:28:16 AM
The covenant that God made with His people is a love covenant. Since there are never a time when God does not do as He pleases, so that He doesnt need a vote to accomplish His will. Even in the societies of men in the covenants in a collective sense the requirements of a covenant being worked out are determined by Gods faithfulness and not mans willing. Because Gods requirements in society are never kept since the positive aspects of obedience are not fulfilled by one willing the covenant to be kept in the love of men in that covenant community. Thats why God made stipulations in the covenant requirements in order for men not to be burdened with with the same requirements in relation to the different gifts of other man. So that Gods faithfulness is displayed in the understanding that God controls all of these different paradigms of man falling short of meeting the requirements of love by His secret counsels. So He has determined for us to live by faith, so that we will have a unity of purpose in these unfulfilled positive requirements. In every society , God does rule through these second causes, but His rule is through the second causes in spite of the unfulfilled part of this covenant faithfulness of man. Since God weights the heart and the direction of the desires to fulfill the covenant, by a trust in a righteousness that is not natural or normal to the community of the justice of man. So that the way a man thinks about His particular reality of being connected to Christ, is the mark of His covenant faithfulness, even tho, in the community of covenant breakers, He is seen as falling short of his own faithfulness. With out sin , there would be no need of Christ. Without Christ there would be no hope of covenant faithfulness. So that our faithfulness is never rite by our own ability. We are made to depend on God , since we do not do as we are required in love. In order for there to be a perfect community of covenant keepers , then there must be a meeting of the requirement for all men to love God with all of their hearts and minds and strength. No man has fulfilled these requirements. So we depend upon these different stipulations of grace in community in order for us to keep each person from being judged by another covenant breaker.

6208	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: July 10, 2008, 02:41:39 PM
Since man cannot choose the spiritually good apart from being given a new divine knowledge to his understanding, he does not have a moral ability in himself to please in Gods. So that man is unable to please God in himself. The only hope of having a good spiritual choice is having new desires implanted by that new birth. The Spirit is like the wind, so that the work of the Spirits part of the work upon the heart of man is totally active while the man is totally passive in receiving this new will and desires. The old will in the man is destroyed, it was dead to spiritual good, and the new will is made alive to God. The old will was independent of God, so that it was completely self absorbed, only choosing for itself for the end of pleasing itself. Our old identity was from a spiritually dead paradigm. We were not able to see taste hear or touch what was reality. Not only does the will need to be destroyed but in receiving the new will grace must precede all new choices in order for those choices to be spiritually good. Grace is what the cause of all our goodness is in our new identity. Since we are made alive by grace, then we are kept by grace. If we were able to cause our choosing good , then there would be no other cause than our will choosing. And since the will is only active in the choice then the will being the cause before the choosing is no will at all. So that will being in a perfect equilibrium state has no reason to exist. And if the will does not exist, then there is no reason for the choice. And if the will was the cause of the choice prior to choosing then the choice was not free in the since of being contingent. But for every existence there is a cause of existence, since what is caused to exist is from an eternal existence. So that perfect equilibrium existence is no existence at all. If the will causes the choice , then the only choice is the prior choice causing the next choice, since the choice is what was chosen in each movement of the body. So that the first choice or the actual movement of the members had no prior choice to cause the second movement. If there was no other cause of a choice than a self determined choice, then there is no cause of all things existing. But since the reasons for choosing are prior to the willing, then choosing is from a pre meditated state. It is from the mind choosing which object is best and most pleasing. Otherwise there would be no reason for a choice. If we have the existence of sin, then we are going to want to choose sin. And so, since we still want to choose sin, then our sinful choices even all our choices apart from pre grace are not going to be pleasing to God. As long as we are sinners , we will desire to sin, and we will choose to sin. If there was no existence of corruption then there would be no understanding of sorrow. But since we are personally acquainted with sin, since sin comes from our desire to choose to sin, then we are going to have sorrow as that enemy as well as sin. The state of being enabled to choose good spiritually is mixed with this sinful experience of our minds corruption. So that what is purposed to happen from a cause to be either praiseworthy in its ends or sorrowful. Otherwise there would be no purpose in any working in our experience. If our experience in this life these two paradigms are going to be in constant communication in our minds view of our world and the people in it. When we experience sorrow over sin, from the world the flesh and the devil, then there is going to be a paradigm from the inside out and from the outside in. So that our experience of the amount of sorrow from within will have an effect on our minds view of what is without. So that we are never experiencing one or the other, but they go hand in hand. Its not about us, but then it is about us. Its totally passive, but then it is totally active. We are strangers in this world, but we are involved in the world. We are threatened with sorrow from the mind , but we are threatened from the forces that are physical. There are reasons why we face these different trials, the kinds of influences that we have in our view and our real life experience. But we must see that the enemies of our faith do not only exist from the inside. Or we will be very deceived. So that when we experience a sorrow in our minds view, we are going to need to be holistic as having a reasonable understanding. So that we can be tested and have an experience of being imprisoned for reasons we are not fully aware of. Since our view of these two different experiences are from a very narrow sight, only God has the power and sight to be able to bring all these things into their perfect order. These things are always much more difficult than we think because of this. So that there is only one remedy of being under the burden of a trial, and being under the allusion of being imprisoned by that which we experience from the inside and the outside. First by seeing these things as fallen and unable to be reconciled in our minds. If we are able to resist the temptation, then we have a reason to think that we could have enough power to present ourselves to God in prayer as acceptable. But since we are going to sin as long as we are in this life, then we are going to not be able to not be sorrowful. But these sorrows may be sorrows upon sorrows. So that our resistance is from a cause of power as being a source from God and not us. If there are things that are impossible for us to accomplish, then no amount of resisting will keep us from being under their power. So that if we thought that we could resist by the power of our will, then we would have an unlimited self power to not have any impossible strength to resist. So that all troubles are a mixture of these two realities .

6230	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: June 28, 2008, 06:14:22 PM
Human freedom, or the paradigm of conscious equilibrium is not expressed in nothingness. Since what happens is a sequence of cause an effect relationships. And where ever we find ourselves in that sequence of history, is what goes on in our spiritual consciousness. How did the concept of negative be expressed in conscious awareness to our being? So that there is attached a weight of necessity to experiencing its having an effect on our relational awareness in all that makes us a separate person of understanding of the image of ourselves. It is drawn out of the sense of the other and yet the understanding is personal experience. So there is a cause of being prior to the experience of being aware of the cause and effect in the personal conscious understanding. And human freedom has an other cause and effect longing as the origin of the struggle with negative paradigms. The natural working of sin in human experience is diverse in its negativity. That power to work is from an invisible spiritual paradigm. We cannot fathom the moment of its awakening and yet we know that there are ebbs and flows as to its power over us. That spiritual awareness in us is it being matured by the experiencing of its power. There is a sense in which we find the glory of His pleasure in understanding how we experience that weight in the matter at hand. Because our power of having a cause in the freedom over sin is a cause outside of our experience of that weight. There is no real working power in us to effect the natural ebb and flow of sins power as if it is equal to our ability to watch over our souls with our natural eyes. So that the sense of having that power over sin is eyed in us through another. We gain a proper perspective of ourselves as sinners when we are lost in the wonder of His glory and pleasure.

6296	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: June 06, 2008, 05:09:25 PM
Personalities are very different. But we cannot be defined by our personality in our new life in Christ. Each person is not just a personality but there are other definitions of a person that are more important to having an identity than the personality alone. And yet there are philosophies that intermingle the teaching on the personality as if that defined the central issue in the inner problems one experiences.  The mind is the place where self reflection is understood. What we think about ourselves is who we are. There is a difference between a biblically based mind and a philosophically taught mind. The principles of reality are the basis for that which we find our acceptance of the understanding of who we are. And within this knowledge we are taught to think from the frame work of blame and reward. All of our feelings about ourselves come from our view of our understanding of this knowledge. How we feel is determined by our understanding of those truths that are necessary and those truths that are secondary. Because when we determine a secondary truth as if it is necessary then we determine to redefine human liberty.

6295	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: June 06, 2008, 06:37:36 PM
Given the above paradigm of how we view ourselves as the truth is presented to us, and our understanding of the nature of the truth, we therefore entertain romantic notions of the truth of who we are when we entertain a philosophical view of ourselves that inverts the secondary truths to the necessary truths.  This inversion is our delving into the imagination of the truth about ourselves. When we turn over the origins of our self image to an image other than how we are defined by the eternal truths we entertain images of ourselves that are lesser than the understanding of ourselves with true liberty.  The soul is like an internal living reception of the outward calls in its reception through the understanding of what comes in through our 5 senses. The level of the condition of the soul is always determine by a level of spiritual understanding and not the circumstances that enter from the 5 senses. Our internalizing of an unrealistic view of ourselves is the condition of receiving into our souls an image. The depth of our sense of the negative image is determined by the spiritual condition of our understanding and not the circumstances whether morally good or totally corrupted. That bruising of the soul as to the depth of the pain from the outward circumstance is only as deep as to what we entertain in the false image. We are aware of who we are when we are aware of who He is.

6294	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: June 07, 2008, 02:06:50 PM
The inner man is a creation of the new call. We have been called to Him alone. The inner man has the new life defenses and creates an entirely secure soul. These secure understandings are the call of the Holy Spirit to a new way of thinking. As we grow in our understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit speaking to us in the word, we are shielded from the arrows of the enemy and we are secure in the communications of the Spirit. All of the personality traits of the whole man are renewed and not a product of outward intervention. The call of the new man is always from the inner man.  There fore we have a new way of thinking by that continuous work of recreation. And we long to be growing in His grace by that work. So that we think in the opposite way of the world ,flesh and the devil. Our way of resting is the way of war, and the sense of protection, and the way of meditation. As we deepen the inner man, the sense of protection is a strong conviction that there is no love of idols that we long for more than Him. As our mind is being transformed we are expanding our love for Him in the inner man, and we are longing to be like Him in our entire frame of disposition. Then we have a strong sense of the complications that are involved in this battle. We must think rite at all times so that we do not entertain idols. Because we have a very strong double mindedness in having a love of those things that are not of value in eternal world , and we feed the flesh and create a strong battle with those who belong to Satan.  If we have a rest from our being transformed then we will decline that much more by our level of understanding. Since the forces of the old  are grow stronger in our being stronger in Him. Temptation is stronger by the natural working of the worlds declension in our declining. There is a sense in which we are fighting by His word and His way , and we are watching Him in our position of refuge in Him. When we lose heart and turn back then we begin to feel the self awareness of the old life. Our struggles increase since we have feel alone in the sense of our falling into the old self awareness. A sense of Him being distant and the calls of the inner man are faint. This is when we struggle intensely with this lack of peace, since we have taken on the old awareness of our pride.

6293	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: June 07, 2008, 07:55:00 PM
Yes there is a lack of understanding that we are always having to battle with. Since we do not know exactly what He wants for us on a daily basis, when we make all of these little decisions. The tendency is to trust in our deciding rather than to long for the rite things. We would love to think that we are serving Him when we are only serving in a servile older son obedience. So He is concerned with our hearts and the state of our peace. Since He has accomplished every good deed, then He has given us that as our confidence in coming to Him who works all things out according to His will. So we are always in need of an assurance to our faith that He is speaking to us this peace.  He has earned forgiveness by appeasing the Fathers anger against every sin that we commit, and we are always in need of knowing that forgiveness by His grace. If we go too fast in our remembrance then we will have a servile older son obedience. Because He speaks peace in the Spirit of grace, and He is always applying His work to our hearts in that Spirit through His word. So that we grow to love our sovereign Lord, who protects our hearts from a servile fear. He would never force us to obey. So that if we grow impatient then we need a communication of His love to us through that forgiveness through His grace. It is through the Spirit of freedom that we come to any knowledge of His gracious communications. If the Spirit has made -(the only spiritual work on our hearts) you free, you shall be free indeed. So that if we do not know His freedom then we really do not understand His grace and we will serve Him in a servile conviction. The only other option we have is to try to fake it. If we fall in love with Jesus , everything else will fall in place.

6259	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: June 11, 2008, 08:40:25 PM
I love you guys . You are my joy and this place is my only rest from the world system. Its the way of the Lord to cause us to walk in the light of the terrible view of our own flesh. And we are the dregs of society. We are the ones who only have one true hope. When the world is going the way of condemnation, our only real call to us in these dark hours is out of the love , eternal love of our Father. We stay close to Him, we know His voice of grace. Our inner call is to see these eternal things and feel helpless to understand these workings in this world so that we cannot do a thing about them. We are led down the road of in ability so that we might find in Him a refuge about these times and circumstances and rest in HIs light that shines upon our path. God will always be faithful to His own. Look at the mountians, the high places. These are the spiritual things we look at as we look into His word. These are those places where He dwells , and we are the ones how have been stripped of our own confidence. We are only allowed to look at the grace of God and wonder how He is so powerful to hold us and comfort us who have been wandering all of our lives. Here is where we rest on Him. Our looking to Him lifted up on a hill. Here is His love for us, that covenant love, which rings in our ears, it is finished. Oh we only need to look. To gaze and to call on HIm to lead us to that rock that is higher than we are . He has accomplished all that is needed to keep us in His eternal love. So that we long for heaven as we look at Him on that hill , knowing that we have a Savior that can help us in the time of need as we call out to Him night and day, calling on His name. Here He speaks peace to our souls and will lead us to the eternal call of His promise to keep us!

6257	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: June 12, 2008, 07:05:18 PM
Our lives are seriously in turmoil most of the time. So we feel that anxiety as a general condition. We go in an out of worry fear, and a lack of trust in Him. Because we are made by Him to feel low so that we can get serious about helping others who are struggling. God leaves the games for kids, because kids are always looking for an escape from the heat, and so we must at some point become serious adults and see the suffering around us and feel that suffering, making an effort always to go and carry our brothers in Christ. So God does things in our lives to make us feel the weight of our own inability. See we actually live in a leprosy camp. Thats the communion of the saints. Everyone who attends to the state of his heart as a general practice will feel a communion with those saints around him that are physically and mentally exhausted. His interest are not on the world and the things of the world. These things are the cause of all of the deep seated problems and sorrows that attend people. There is enough sorrow over sin that any one who is spiritually alert can understand.  So we live with the lepers if we truly take Christ love seriously. We live as beggars who are so over whelmed with the natural state of our unbelief that we would seek Him until we know Him to be in that situation in which we find our disposition to rest on. He is with that low and sinking disposition.  Christ is not with the high and self sufficient. They pass by all of His communication in this life , because they live as if they need nothing. But Christ begins to communicate His love to us when we go down to the reality of the level of our sorrow. There He is, waiting for us, and yes He is there to comfort and assure us of His presence. And as we lower ourselves in the true spiritual state then we will begin to see the real world. We will begin to see the sufferings of Christ as the most glorious communication of His love to us. This is the mind set of a true believer.

Quote from: squalltorpedo on June 14, 2008, 03:03:31 AM

MGB....going to give you some constructive critiscism here,  you tend to come across in your posts in a tone of "self-righteousness"  (ain't nuthin" wrong with me) attitude in as much as you seeem to take pleasure  pointing out where "you feel" (not necessarily God) "everyone" else has it wrong.....each and everytime.  I think Marc and Freeman make some very valid points for which I have also made "the exact same points" on other occassions, and you just don't acknowledge a hoot of truth to the same observations.  Btw....Not every sin is "cavalier" as you say.....sometimes poeple sin by doing what they "didn't  mean to do" and therefor disqualifies what you said describing sin in one mode only (ie cavalier)....which does in fact miss the marc!  I don't see the same attitude in Toadbat or others, and they agree with most of what you'd agree with, so what I'm telling you isn't based on the position you take, it's more an attitude thing.

 answer.....I agree with you about willful sins and sins of omission. But i dont agree that there is a different standard of sin before God. Look there are sins that cause much more suffering than other sins, but that does not mean that we escape the degree of the judgment of God by a particular sin. God always deals with His children through discipline to maturity, not a punishment for sin relationship. He does not repay us according to our sins. There is a lot more sin that can be done by not acknowledging the Calvinist view point because sins of omission are committed by not desiring or longing for the things of grace in order for those things to happen in time. We do believe in longing grace.

 If we share with God our ability and we are rewarded by our ability, then we are requiring what we cannot do. So that is sin, since our longing grace is the birth of the power to perform by the acknowledgment that the power does not come from us. But the cause of the power is in object we long for. So we can waste a lot of time in the omission of righteousness by having confidence in ourselves and thus sin by that. Grace is always free and it is all we need. I hope you see the difference.

6249	Forums / Main Forum / Re: Does God\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\	on: June 15, 2008, 02:30:45 PM
Quote from: squalltorpedo on June 15, 2008, 11:23:23 AM Hey MBG....just....tie.... it....a little tighter.....ahhhh that's it! So, while the noose is around my neck under "your' yoke of control, what was it you were whining about??  :  ))  but I do completely feel you are free to disagree with us.....  You're an intelligent guy, (even look great too)....but can you explain how what's been said sounds political??  The 2 issues work synergistically,  God's Grace produces fruit and works in us just as Paul, James, and Jesus reinforce that it does. The pre-requisite is God and His gift of Grace to whom He chooses....Grace over time causes an increase of faith and obedience,  faith and obedience pleases God does it not??  Never have I ever stated that Works are the basis of grace, quite the opposite.  Yet, one's attitude about sin (ie the struggle),  as well as the fruit (what God causes as growth in us)  over time does in fact shed light on what's actually taken place, in the first place. No one is ever free of sin, but nobody is ever as bad as they could be either.  I just believe that God does in fact convict us of sin, and find it very hard to scripturally understand how someone could claim to be a Christian, not ever struggle with sin, and hide behind a doctrine of grace to defend their right to wallow...and while declaring "nobody has the right to throw stones"?? Well, we see Paul taking action...as well as exhorting others to do so as well, was he wrong MBG?  So, we do see both sides to the picture,  and if you declare that God has no standards for Christian living, both written and Spiritually convicting, and think you can do whatever you please (and give hearty approval over others who also do).....you have a warped view of the Biblical Grace God gives.  In short, a genuine and total disregard of the respect of the "Grace" we've been given,  leads to a life "not struggling" with sin.  If you never struggle with sin,  then I'd say you'd have every right to question the validity of God's choice of influence in your life.  Wouldn't you agree?     Thanks for the response, Squ. My take on your intellectual philosophy is that you are teaching what i call the way to jump on the spiritual tread mill. The problem is we dont have the spiritual energy to stay on.  I will have to say that just watching you jump the theological tight rope is tiring me out a bit. Its wearisome to me that you are so quickly turning from the grace of God.  First if i depended upon my works as an evidence of the grace of God then the grace would no longer be grace. If it is tied to the train of works either as the car that pulls or the car that follows , it aint no grace car as we say in the south. Grace covers over sin. Sin is any lack of conformity to the law. Sin is not just an action but it is a thought. Every breath of my life is generated by His grace and will end in His grace as i lay my crowns at Jesus feet.  Grace is the back drop of failure. Because grace comes out of Gods bountiful love and faithfulness to us. So we do not have that kind of ongoing love. We love based upon false assumptions of ourselves and of others. We work as if we belonged to a task master and we are proud of our work as if we produced enough power to perform it on ourselves. Our problem is that we do not rest in the eternal love of God. This is not us having a sense of our self sufficiency as the problem, but it is in our restlessness until we find God. Love of self is finding the pride in ones work and attributing it to God. True affection for God is finding God all sufficient in the working out of our lives and praising Him alone for that kind of power. When we have relinquished the images of ourselves as being self sufficient, then we will have worshiped a true image of God.  So grace is the voice in salvation from God as Father of the assurance of the promises and the redeeming value of every inch of the history of the world. When we sin our Father comes to us with love and forgiveness, that is grace. When we fall, our Father comes to us as one who upholds us and that is grace. When we pray our Father comes to us with gifts that we could not fathom, that is grace. When we long for Him and His will for us, He teaches us by His Spirit and word apart from works that we do ,so  that we learn as we are loved and not as we are corrected in anger. And when we are not able to lift our heads, He sustains us by His power, that Power that is life sustaining. If we had really depressing thoughts He encourages us by a spiritual communication so that we can persevere in prayer. And as we learn to persevere in this way He adds His moral fiber to all of our lives. Now listen, within these paradigms i have described to you in this paragraph are the working power in the real world. These are the working of His power in us. As we dwell in this mindset we will be transfused with power from on high. We are trusting by faith and not by works. So there really is no trust in our working or our level of obedience. We simply rest in His love.

Ps  144 2 He is my loving God and my fortress,
my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield, in whom I take refuge,
who subdues peoples under me.
3 O LORD , what is man that you care for him,
the son of man that you think of him?

The Psalmist is drawing a parallel to the original command in the garden for man to subdue the earth and rule over Gods creation. In Psalm 8 he teaches 8  4what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? 5You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor." that God has created all things according to His law, covenants , statutes, curses, decrees, and promises. He has given man the authority to rule the world by these 6 pronouncements. As long as man thinks thoughts after God , he will speak the words of God and will not slip into destruction. In this Psalm he is teaching that the original creation mandate  to rule the earth is established by Gods eternal government. The kingdom of God is established in Gods work in the history of redemption. God is bringing all things back to the original order by establishing His government through law.

God establishes the history of redemption through human government. God speaks all things into existence according to His law, covenants, curses etc. The Psalmist is showing that the goodness of God that is provided in salvation is worked out in unifying all things by the 6 axioms. We see that the words that describe Gods salvation like shield, rock, deliver, refuge, goodness, praise, fortress can only be present in the fullest sense when God reorders all relationships according to their true value in perfect unity. Gods spiritual kingdom on this earth overrules the earthly kingdoms by life and death pronouncements of the 6 axioms.

God cursed all things in response to the fall. God not only pronounced the curse in response to Adams sin but He extended the authority of the curse as written judgements of the violation of His law.  When sin entered the world man was unable to rule over the creation. But God reestablished mans authority in the incarnation. Before the fall man had unhindered power to rule over the earth. Man was implanted with Gods law and  was able to rule with  a kings authority. Each man was his own king. Gods eternal law establishes perfect unity in all relationships in justifying Himself as the Ruler over His creation. God reestablished the authority of the law by pronouncing His justice through cursing and blessing.

God has established the authority of His elect by life and death pronouncements. When Adam sinned man was reduced to redefining Gods law. This new way of creating government was ingrained into society from one generation to another. The Psalmist is teaching that the power of the curse is present in Gods eternal government that is established by destroying the evolution of this history of redefining Gods law. The power of lawful government to overturn the advancement of evil governments is worked out through the ultimate curse of war.  As Gods elect push the evil curse down by pronouncing the curse it is worked out in the death of the opposition in war.  The pronouncements of the perfect law of God are yea and amen.

The Psalmist teaches that God has chosen His earthly nation by giving them His law. The lawful nation is the engine in which God works to establish the history of Redemption. The gift of the law is God establishing His law, covenants, curses, statutes etc in order to bring unity and success to the nation of Israel. God established the creation ordinance by making Israel the new garden in which God reordered all things to work in unity for the purpose of reestablishing mans authority over the creation.

The mandate to rule the earth were pronounced in Israel in protecting the borders, teaching the new generation to pronounce the 6 axioms to promote unity through holistic posterity, inviting the blessing of God in receiving the fruits of His creation, and pronouncing the curse that silenced crime in the streets and brought safety within walls that surrounded the garden in order to keep the nations from invading. The kingdom of God was reestablished in His work of saving His nation by unifying all things in the work of His law. All of the attributes of salvation were established in the perfect work of the law, curses, covenants etc.

6341	Forums / Prayer Requests / Re: Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me	on: May 21, 2008, 07:21:17 PM
God is really really good and forgiving. His love is everlasting. Since we cannot inform God on our present state of mind, then we are coming to a God that has given us a remedy in this Psalm. But the remedy was already obtained by Jesus Christ and was put into effect in time from before the foundation of the world. So that here we are reminded how faithful our God is, in forgiving all of our sins. Davids problem was that he had been caring this guilt around for a long time, and he only needed to see that God had made a time for him to come to this point were the guilt turned into an endless experience of Gods faithful forgiveness. David was made aware of his sin by the prophet, and it was then that he saw the awful state of his own heart. But he had been going to a God that was unfailing in His love, so David was led to a confession that was full of these longings for forgiveness and the forgetting of the guilt of sin. Gods acceptance of us is in psalm 51. Every sin that we commit is put under the compassion and mercy of God. We come knowing that a confession is only acceptable as Gods love being the starting point and the end. We have no forgiveness unless God has taken care of the sin. And since Christ has done the work, then we dont come groveling in our own mournful condition, but we come with full assurance that He has forgiven our sins and has separated us from our sins as far as the east is from the west. So that we come to the triune God who has worked out salvation and deliverance from sin, the Father who sent the Son, who sent the Spirit who assures us by the word, that we are fully accepted by grace. And so , we start in the Fathers unfailing love, we long to long for more of His communication of His unfailing love by our falling and getting up.  So that our confession is not just about the sin, but it is about the fellowship we have with the Spirit. When He speaks that peace and assurance to us, then we know we have a Father who is fully able to forgive and love us beyond our understanding. That is why we fellowship with the Spirit by our sin. We would never come to a Father who is ready to condemn us and remind us of our sins. But we come as people who live in repentance because we have grace by that sin. His grace is greater than our sin, so that it is not a hope that He is greater, but it is living in the reality that His grace is more powerful than the condemning voice of the law.  We are illuminated in such a way that we are under the constants of His love by being set free from our sins to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. That is when we feel His presence in such a way that the world has no strong pull to our inmost longings. Here is where maturity of a repentant saint comes fully to fruitation. His kindness is extended to us as a Father who is determining to change us by the compassion of one who cares about our deepest longings while we come with our most dreadful sin.

6340	Forums / Prayer Requests / Re: Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me	on: May 22, 2008, 04:11:37 PM
Quote from: Worc on May 21, 2008, 08:23:50 PM  Tom I love it when You write you....  That was great and the best thing about it its true too good to be true but truth none the less. ((((((((((((WORC))))))))))))))) Your the man of the hour my friend for life and in heaven. ((((((((((((((((((((WORC)))))))))))))))))  Well, ive been doing the meditation for a long time. And it is very simple here. We have the finished work of Christ. And yet we suffer so much not only on a personal level but with those around us. And we must always be having a defense that when we say that Jesus is all we need then we must call on His name to prove it. So that the word is like a sledge hammer. Now we know of this by the practical method of picking up a sledge hammer to tear down a wall by the experience of demolition. Now the hammer is the word of God. And most men do not accept that Jesus is has all the power, but we must use the word as an offensive weapon when we are under great trials. We need not be afraid since we are in a battle and we have the absolute power of Christ as our defense. Our confidence is not in ourselves but in the word of God as we stand and fight.  So it really is an offensive battle. We pick up the sledge hammer and we begin to pound the wall. We do not waste a hit in striking the wall down. That is how some of the most profound battles are won. God puts us in a situation so that He can test our faith. We must not stand on our own power. We look to ourselves and we become afraid. Even when we have past experience that the wall will come down. Because we naturally want to trust in our own power. Our new confidence is on shaky ground. But we remember that God has always been faithful. As we grow, the enemy begins to become more fierce in trying to convince us that we must trust in our own power. Our worst enemy is our self righteousness. But as we pick up the sledge hammer, each time we make new holes in the wall, but it is much harder each time we go to confronting walls. So we must go farther in our prayers, we must cross to the other side, in our assurance. And we must put all of our hearts and might in our calling out to Him. As David worshiped with all of his strength. We may try to muster up strength for all kinds of physical test, but when we have prayed with all of our strength then we are exhausted from the battle. Some times we must prove by the prayer that Jesus is all we need.

6337	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Free Will?	on: May 23, 2008, 09:40:10 AM
Impossibility is not within our ability to exercise our power over the opposite choice. But then there is a line at what is impossible and what is possible. So that if there is no responsible blame at not accomplishing the impossible, then how do we measure where the line is drawn from what is possible? So that there would be levels of a persons responsibility the closer one gets to the line of impossibility. Is this really the paradigm of responsibility?

6336	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Free Will?	on: May 23, 2008, 10:30:35 AM
Quote from: osiris041282 on May 23, 2008, 10:05:25 AM It is a slippery slope P-man, and one I've been sliding on for a while.  But this is most likely going to be an issue which we agree to disagree. By Free Will in the truest sense is exactly that.  It is what separates man from the angels and beasts... free will is ingrained in our souls, it is what makes us human... Perhaps I get hung up on the "double predestination" aspect, but like you said it is one or the other.  So if one believes that God ultimately has our lives planned out before us, then you are also saying God causes us to sin and causes us to reject Him, which seems incompatible to me... So free will is exactly that, God gives us reign over this world, we have the power to choose or reject Him, we make the decisions in our daily life, and ultimately must answer for those decisions.  Not saying this isn't possible, but based on my experience I don't think God would force someones hand, then blame them for that... MBG, to quote the addidas commercial "impossible is nothing"...obviously we are limited by physical and natural laws(or are we?) but Christ said: John 14:12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. and the oft quoted verse in Phillipians4 "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me" So for the Christian at least, perhaps we do not have that line between possible and impossible....  How much resistance do you have that can keep you from dieing if you jump off a building with Jesus? What i am saying here is Do we measure responsibility by the greater the sin the more resistance is required and the greater reward is the measure?

6335	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Free Will?	on: May 23, 2008, 10:48:14 AM
Quote from: osiris041282 on May 23, 2008, 10:38:34 AM I am not suggesting that anyone go jumping off buildings or sitting in fire, but I am suggesting that faith can lead to amazing things... and I think the short answer is no, but Im not quite sure what you are referring to when you say resistance... These words have a different intended use than we naturally use them in the resistance way. "must, cannot, unable, necessary, impossible, unavoidable". The biblical usage is not from our natural way of thinking about these words. Most of the time we think that we are excused by the amount of the lack of resistance we have toward sin. And since we think that we can resist sin by our amount of resistance to it by our willing then the natural view is to make excuses by using these words. Do you understand what i am saying?

6332	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Free Will?	on: May 23, 2008, 11:41:49 AM
I argue Humanity has NO resistance to sin; any resistance is based not on our strength but on His.  But if we sin or not we still make the choice...  Forgive me if i got this wrong. But are you saying that something causes our choices, or that we choose ourselves between the rite and wrong? I am not sure. answer...... And if we have a system where the reward is based on resistance , then there is really no real connection between the good and the reward. Since the good is the amount of resistance instead of the nature of the choice.

6331	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Free Will?	on: May 23, 2008, 12:10:51 PM
Quote from: osiris041282 on May 23, 2008, 11:58:41 AM Quote from: mybigGod on May 23, 2008, 11:41:49 AM I argue Humanity has NO resistance to sin; any resistance is based not on our strength but on His.  But if we sin or not we still make the choice...  Forgive me if i got this wrong. But are you saying that something causes our choices, or that we choose ourselves between the rite and wrong? I am not sure. Everyone get your dive gear, it is about to get deep... We as humans make our own choices, nothing is driving that other than us...However sin is so ingrained within us, it plagues our being so much that we desire it above all else.  Sin has power over us but doesn't make our decisions for us.  Sin is a drug to humanity all the pride, jealousy, arrogance, deceit, betrayal, we thrive on it whether we admit it or not. By sending Jesus though, God has set up an intervention and rehab to get us clean and back to Him, back to where we should be...but like rehab, we have to recognize we are addicted and that we need help.  We have to choose to accept the gift... answer..... I am not trying to be a smart ale c. I hope you dont take this like that. I tend to be a bit one sided so dont be afraid to question my arguments. We as humans make our own choices, nothing is driving that other than us. Ok i believe that there is a lot that goes on prior to our will being involved. So that there is necessary cause to have a choice. If there is only the will acting on its own, then the only cause of a choice would be an action of the will prior to the new action. This is why choice is from a necessity. Just like the origin of all things in creation. Something does not come from nothing. There is a cause for every existence. God was there and then the created things. In order for God to create He had to exercise His power over the elements. So He had a counsel of His will, and then the order of creation. He planned the creation prior to creating. He was not under a necessity to create tho. And i guess you could say that the action of planning prior to act of the will in an internal sense.

6330	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Free Will?	on: May 23, 2008, 12:35:42 PM
I agree that our actions are shaped by events and other actions in our lives, so in that regard we aren't "free".  God himself is the only thing that has a truly "Free" will by every stretch of the term...  So we agree that to have a necessary cause prior to willing does not hinder true liberty. I am not sure why God chose to create, but God is under necessity to act according to His nature, and He is under necessity to respond to the lesser ends for the ultimate end of His glory.  But if we have a cause of choice then we really dont agree that man is self determined in any choice. Because if we take all of mans choices starting from his birth to his death and we line all of them up, then the will cannot cause the first choice since there was no choice prior to the first choice. So that there is a cause for each choice in succession. The cause is a desire, or since we premeditate we think before we sin, and i mean each body movement toward sin. So that we desire the most pleasing object by our mind being most pleased.  Since a will as being defined as self determined is two equal objects and then the will is in an equal Librium between these objects so that this is the definition of true freedom. This is no will at all, since there is not a choice one way or the other.

6324	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Free Will?	on: May 24, 2008, 10:55:16 AM
Quote from: toadbat on May 23, 2008, 09:53:43 PM You might argue that this is a simplistic way of looking at the subject, but if you consider a person who (for one reason or another) has just commited themselves to an irrevocable course of action (such as jumping of a cliff) and now has no choice but to reap the consequences of the action (i.e. a smashed-up body). You could say that up to that point, they had the perfect free will to make either decision A (Jump). Or decision B (Don't Jump). After he went and made decision A, he still has free will (sailing towards the ground at 32 feet per second doesn't change that), it's just that his free will doesn't do him a bit of good anymore; his choices have all been taken away and now he must go with what the inexorable force of gravity now dictates he must do - yet he still is a free-willed agent!" I rather feign that that is what our parents in the garden did for us. We still have the power to choose; the inexorable course they put us on when we were still "in Adam" made all of our choices to no effect; whatever we choose (in the natural) will always be under the dictates of sin (no matter what those choices look like from the outside). It takes a "Superman" if you will, to spot the man sailing through the air and rescue him from his decision. Of course, since as believers, we still sin, you would have to expand the analogy to have the man (now safe in the arms of Superman) look around himself and say: "Hey, I want to go flying too! - by myself!" At which point Superman has to do things like let him go for a moment - just to show him that that is not a good idea! I dunno, I just thought I would trot this analogy out and see whatcha thought.  I think what we are discussing here is the paradigm of resistance and whether there is a real equilibrium choice between staying put on the cliff or jumping off. We would say that it is impossible to jump off the cliff and resist the amount of speed of our fall enough to remain in one piece. So that the question is can we by our will resist that speed of the fall? Are we responsible to slow ourselves down? If every movement of the body is under the control of the will, then every movement is in our power to be responsible to have the power over our movements? My point is that we do not have control over every movement of our bodies by resistance through willing.And if we thought that we were responsible in this way then falling would be just as responsible as jumping off. How foolish would it be for us to conclude that the man was responsible since he could not decrease the speed enough to remain in one piece? And yet we measure the decision to jump by that same standard. If he is not responsible in the fall to have control over his own body by resistance then he is not responsible in the self determination through resistance to move his body to jump. Otherwise we would be hypocritical in our assessment of our own power by this comparison.  Read sinners in the hands of an Angry God, Adam has already jumped. Theres no question we bow down to Jesus.

6323	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Free Will?	on: May 25, 2008, 09:09:32 AM
Quote from: toadbat on May 24, 2008, 02:43:26 PM As I understand it, before the fall, our parents had the power to choose whether or not they were going to sin (i.e. jump). After they made that choice (for themselves and all of us), they no longer had any more choice about whether they were (ultimately) going to sin or not; God had to start making provisions right then and there so that their inclination to sin did not ultimately take them away from Him. While they (and we) still had (and have) free will, that free will in not autonomous; it cannot operate independently from the dictates of our sin nature. The whole argument (and I recall we covered this one in another thread) is what impelled our parents to make that choice (i.e. jump) in the first place. The conclusion I came to was that at that moment, though they still had unimpaired free will, to partake of the fruit appeared as a greater good then obeying the command - yet they still had the power to come back from that line before they crossed it. However, cross it they did (and the rest is our sad, sorry, horrifying history). I guess the lesson we can take away from this is that whatever else, a will unimpaired by sin does not categorically mean one that cannot be deceived. To believe otherwise, would mean having to believe that sin existed in our parents before it existed, and that, of course, is a logical absurdity."   Answer.....  If the will is only influenced by sin then it is not the cause of sin and we could conclude that we are sinners because we are free to choose between good and evil. If the sin did not infect the cause of our choosing then it would be an influence. But we are corrupted in every part. And the responsible view of this is getting to the cause. If we were in an equilibrium state, so that we were only influenced in our freedom, the will being passive. Then the will is no will at all. For to will is to choose one thing over another. But the action of all of our corrupted faculties is from a sinful mind and understanding as the cause of all of our choices.  If we are in an equilibrium state then there is no will at all since there is no real choice. So that the object of our choice has all of the power to cause us to choose that object. This is the definition of pragmatism. For to have a necessity to choose evil is not taking responsiblity for our choice away, but it is making us responsible, since the nature of the choice is in the nature of the cause. If there is no corruption in the faculties prior to the involvement of the will, then there is no real punishment for the choice since there is no real choice for the evil. And the object would then have all the power. We know that the object does not have the power to make us choose evil because Adam and Eve were surrounded by a multitude of beautiful objects pre sin and we are not as beautiful post sin, so that we could conclude by the equilibrium state of things that they were worse off that we are post sin.

6449	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Exclusive psalmody	on: April 25, 2008, 04:15:21 PM
We do not sing from the Psalter, but since i have memorized most of the Psalms they are my meditation in my private pray and worship. I can understand why they are important , since by them there is a more clear understanding of the difference between sentimentalism and the necessary elements of understanding the nature of who God is. Some of the hymns are sentimental in nature even tho they are very doctrinal. And although i love to sing doctrine, yet there is a feeling of mushiness and more of a defense attitude about Christ rule that are not there in the spirit of the Psalms.  The psalms are a fortress for those who are in trouble, those who have a misunderstanding of the holiness of God, and those who are relationally deceived. The Psalms create the dispositional qualities of kingdom living, by having the necessary components of creating a worship that is pure. They are the vehicle by which the Spirit recreates the soul. The psalms create the intellectual discernment so as to keep a person from being deceive by a religion of the masses. In the Psalms is the perfect ending of selfish anger, and the beginning of Gods love in experience. They create  the place where we leave all of our inordinate inhibitions, and come out with a  holistic attitude of spiritual awareness. The psalms are the counselor of the soul. They are the only permanent trustworthy systemic medicine that we have to answer every soul malady. In the psalms we have the end of the society of accusers in Gods determining for them to be dealt with in an ongoing spiritual element through redeeming activity by the means of prayer or the just recompense of judgment by those spiritual paradigms. It creates in the working out of Gods design a society of lovers by the sovereign nature to reality in those spiritual paradigms of fervent communication. They give us the indirect way to deal with all of the practical problems that come as a result of living in this world by creating sovereign action to create peace in our surroundings.

6442	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: The ways of man	on: April 26, 2008, 01:09:16 PM
Men are always searching for a way that is not Gods way. That is why from birth men are going astray. First because in the heart of each man is a confidence that is in his own power. Every man is born with a disposition of self confidence. That is why they naturally are blind to being dependent upon Gods way. Men will not think that they are unrighteous in themselves, but they want to go the way of self will, and then search out any other way than going the way of self destruction. The natural form of self love is not going down into the abyss of grief of having that self love. So that men say they are free by their pride in their choices. This is why men are quick to judge and slow to receive self hate. God requires a foreign ability to do good. Men think their goodness is not foreign. God is angry with the wicked everyday. Not because they are wicked by their deeds but because they are wicked by their desires and thoughts. God requires good desires. Men think that good desires are their freedom to do good in their choices. But these are not good, rather they are men trying to be good apart from Gods ways of thinking. The resting in natural thinking is the way by which men hate God. The sin is in the passive pride. God not only deserves to be praise for His creation, but He deserves to be praised for His gracing us with the ability to do good. So that men must come to the point in which they relinquish their own will. They must see that their own strength is pride. But men will not go that far in believing. They will allow God to be second in their thoughts as long as the requirement is not for them to acknowledge their own schemes that are an affront to Gods ways. When God speaks He works in that word to change mans ways of thinking. Every word of God is a new way for men. Men will stop at the point of living in their own confidence and will go no further to understand Gods word and ways. But Gods ways are the ways of self hatred. If men trust in their own strength then they will not know the strength of God. When men are weaken and undecided about what will be done without their own strength is when they will see Gods strength. Unless the path is supernatural then men are scheming in their own pride.