^{Ps 46 8} Come and see the works of the LORD ,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.


God has decreed whatsoever comes to pass. From before the creation, God in His eternal counsel decreed the beginning and the end of all things. All of the events of creation are put into motion by the pronouncements of blessing and cursing from the throne of God. The Revelation describes these pronouncements as the seal of God upon His elect and the smoke that ascends from the earth and descends from the throne. Psalm 46 is describing Gods decisions in pronouncing blessing or cursing as all things are brought into existence. He is comparing Gods visible display of the desolation's of creation in His judgements with our struggle to rest in Him. God has revealed these pronounced judgements in these Psalms so that we would unite our desires in order to experience this holy rest.

He is teaching that we can create order as we face these earthly disasters. God pronounces the curses from His throne in order to show Himself faithful to His covenant people. God displays His power over the opposition in defending His purposes. 6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;\he lifts his voice, the earth melts." The question if God has created all things to work for His glory by unifying all things in order to create the sure foundation of His government then how can His elect rest when the creation experiences disorder and catastrophe? The answer is that God has redeemed His people in pronouncing the curses against all their opposition. He has gifted His people with the pronouncements of the law, covenants, curses, statutes, decrees, and promises so that we might rise up in unity and praise Him.  Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth."

God has created us like Himself. When man fell into sin God cursed the creation. God expressed His anger in pronouncing the curse. On the one hand God decreed the perfect order of His creation that would bring Him the highest pleasure and glory. He responded with the curse in order to put an end to the corruption at the time of the fall. In pronouncing the creation into existence God displayed His blessing by controlling all things in the highest pleasure. In pronouncing the curse God displayed His power by killing the opposition. The pronouncements are given in order for us to exercise control over all of the opposition and bring glory to God.1 God is our refuge and strength,an ever-present help in trouble.

As the world is thrown into chaos and disaster we experience the uncertainty in the destruction of the foundations. God created us to exercise control over the creation in this perfect order. Gods perfect justice was displayed by gifting man with unhindered success in ruling His garden. He reestablished mans success in destroying the opposition in pronouncing the curse. We now push the evil curse down by pronouncing Gods perfect judgements in His law. 7The LORD Almighty is with us;the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah As we rise up and oppose the corruption we are infused with power in order to reestablish the unity of the garden. We are more and more able to exalt the work of God and rest in that work.    10"Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth."

7325	Forums / Main Forum / This May Interest You	on: June 17, 2007, 08:28:12 AM
Quote Tom, I just see you being free in my heart so clearly, and I want to make it happen today. I'm not saying you're evil, but I truly believe that theology has you around the neck. But I think in some way it's a comfort becasue it's just so predictable. I want you to be at peace. I want the others who read here to witness it. But I cannot make it happen yesterday. I don't believe for one second that your heart is insincere, or that you don't love truth. As for your heart, I believe it is beyond reproach. But you have Him in there somewhere, and maybe some of this was supposed to sink in, but I hate that you may believe that I just simply meant to cut at your feelings. I swear I didn't do that on purpose, sir. It's not your feelings that I was after, but what I perceive as a prison, and truly the antichrist that has misrepresented Jesus to the world, making a freshly made marriage bed for Islam to fill. But nothing that I have said was to hurt you personally. I wanted nothing but to make you see, and to tell you the truth in a way that few can, or will. BUT, it was never just to hurt you for the sake of hurting you. I want to be clear on that. I do not believe that your intentions are evil. I want to be clear on that. I'm sorry if I led you to believe otherwise. Thanks for being honest Patrick. When one is giving practical advice over the internet i always consider that to be less important than theology. I don t even like to here the practical stuff over the radio , (that is counselors giving advice.) Being practical is easy. You get an instant answer, you get a friend you can confide in, and you can  focus on the process of living rather than the theory or the reasons. Most people who give practical advice are arminian in their theology. Or they are pagan. My thinking on strictly the paradigm of practical advice is that every time you tell someone to do something and they do it you create another problem that may be hidden or that may come up long after the situation has taken its course. Because we are not in a battle to overcome problems, but we are in a battle between those forces that cannot be seen, those forces that are way beyond our ability to overcome, those forces that are attacking Christ, and we are placed in the middle of the battle not to fight in our own power, but to use spiritual weapons to master along with just standing there and watching or resting in Christ. We are pragmatic with practical advice , and dogmatic with Christ word. God has the ultimate view of our lives. He can see the past better than we can and he can see the future better than we can. It is not necessarily the view we have about our past or our future that makes our choices morally wise. It is the view we have of the one who knows intimately what will transpire in the future, or why we have gone through what we have gone through in the past. Our view of God is His revelation to us through the propositions of scripture. Gods revelation to us is His communication to us of the work He is doing in us by our choices, so that nothing that we have chosen has not been determined by God to form our view of ourselves for His working in us in the future. The shortsightedness of earthly counsel is that we cannot see the future circumstances that may change our choices for the good even tho we are in a pickle in the present. God does things that are not understandable in the past and present so that in the future He might show that it was Him alone that delivered us. It is chiefly His glory that makes us dogmatic about the purpose of His name being glorified in our sin and trials. Jesus is not just practical. Jesus does not come with the ten steps of righteousness. Jesus is not focused on mans ability to achieve through process. The doctrine of Jesus is not positive thinking. Lord did not we prophecy in your name? did not we cast out devils in your name? Did not we do all of these things for you? Depart from me i never knew you. Positive thinkers end up in hell. I am not directing this toward you Patrick. Doctrine and practice are inseparable. If you don t know the doctrine then you cant possibly do anything according to the truth. Sanctify them by Thy truth , Thy word is truth. If a person says that doctrine is not important or that it is not the sola of the way a person conducts himself then they are not being truthful about Christ. I live in the negative. Being a sinner is no fun. Facing the fact that i am wasting away and under the domination of sorrow at times is not what i consider a happy way to live. But it is real. Its because we are in adam that we are receiving the punishment for sin, death. And thats not just spiritual death, but physical. The physical part is real. The problems are not small. The sorrow is not weak or can be weakened. Its more of a rising and a falling feeling. If we come to Jesus we must face our sorrow because we face our sin. Every time we come to Jesus we come with nothing and we leave with everything. But we go through the sorrow of our sin. Jesus equals sorrow. When we try to mortify our sin in the biblical way,in the process we really are faced with a stronger desire to sin rather than a weaker desire. Sinning is a spiritual deli ma of Satan s power being worked out by our deed and doing the rite thing is by grace, Christ imputed righteousness. So that everything we do is done in faith in the realm of all those things that are too strong for our willing strength. We cannot will enough to overcome anything. This is Christ view of us. He knows our hearts, or He is fully aware of our weak wills. We will never not sin, or we will never not be sorrowful, or we will never choose good enough to be able to stand in our own ability. My problem I am having  with you is that i defend myself with doctrine, and then you tell me that i am wrong. I am not doing this to make you mad. This is my way of being obedient to Christ. I do not trust myself for one moment to trust in practical advice. I am not trying to be braggadocios but most everything i have written here is direct propositions from scripture.

7324	Forums / Theology Forum / Women In The Church	on: June 17, 2007, 01:30:28 PM
Quote Quote God has not chosen to do anything where He has not blessed to accomplish His purposes to bring Himself glory. It is God who raises one up and brings another down, and there is only one purpose in His doing this, to bring Himself glory. God gives to men positions of power in order to discipline them. He makes men rich in order to accomplish the His moral purposes through their pride. God will not be mocked. When God disciplines through adding wealth or power He sends a wasting disease with that earthly happiness. Is there a 'direct connect' some of us don't know about? Of course, \"to God be the glory\" but with stuff like this, no wonder timeout has a problem with our Father. So God takes us up and then brings us down... just for His enjoyment? Then why do we need faith? Come on! God saves us from ourselves and our own pride. He didn't create puppets. And if we're happy while we're on earth through Him, I think we just might be reflecting Him. Did Neb give God the glory prior to getting the rug yanked out from under him? Is man ever going to take responsibility for their own sin... aka shortcomings? God doesn't 'cause' sin! If He does, we're ALL screwed. Quote What is your monument? Is it buildings with you name attached at the bottom? Is it you name on the pew? Is it your world view where play and work are one and the same importance based upon the numbers? Is it your radio programs, your books with your names? How about... God (not church... BIG difference), family, work, play... in that order... for 'monuments'? Who gives a flip about anything else during a 'vapor of a life' on earth? Have a 'play-full' weekend! earnestt earnest, Thanks for the directness. If there was one thing you could do to make the salvation process acceptable to God then salvation would be a heavy weight around your neck. There are only three states of being in life. The fallen state, the regenerated state, and the heavenly state. When we are born we are born in sin. That means we can do nothing to please God. We only sin continually. Our mouths are a sepulcher, that is there is no life on our lips because what comes out of the darkness of the heart is the evidence that the heart is dead spiritually. Its not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man , but what comes out of that man. In other words man cannot glorify God because man in his natural state does not want to give all the glory to God in praise and adoration. Man does not really believe there is a God. They say in every action that there is no God. They are foolish in their thinking. God deserves all of the praise of everything that exist, or is in the process of changing, or is under dark circumstances. By the word of God do the heavens exist, He melts the snow on the mountains by His word. So that even the natural process of existence is brought about by the decrees of God from eternity. Mans heart is restless until he finds his rest in God. And the only thing that can change mens hearts is Gods gracious decree of salvation. God saves because He deserves praise for all of His works. Gods work of salvation is His display of love , faithfulness, long suffering, and free grace. When God saves a man , He does it strictly by His work and His power. If God can create the universe by the word of His mouth, then He shows forth His work for His glory by the word of His mouth, so that every man may conclude that all men are under the wrath of God and cannot do one work to reverse the decree of God against sin. If man cannot effect the change then God must receive the glory of His decree in His willing according to His design before the creation of the world. God is not only glorified in His working in creation and in the salvation of men, but God is glorified in His wrath being poured out on man because of sin. God is angry at sinners every day. Because sinners have no power to change they are always working against God, against His unfailing love, against His goodness, against His patience, against His faithfulness. God always uses mens rebellion against themselves by giving them their hearts desire. The truth is that mens rebellion does not change the plan of God one bit. When men rebel, they just make their own lives more miserable. They dig their own hole. They never make it difficult for God to protect the righteous. They work in behalf of Gods glory to prove that God is just and rite in His word. The righteous are encouraged by Gods word of faithfulness, His work of unfailing love and His rescuing them from the evil of the wicked designs. The wicked continue to dig their own hole, and telling themselves that God does not care to see. But God is working to break their bands and render them powerless. God will avenge the righteous. One thing that i must say is that the righteous are not embroiled in this war on their own. Because Gods unfailing love, faithfulness, patience and goodness are bigger than their failures. So that the righteous are shielded not by their own goodness, but by Gods love that reaches farther and wider than they could ever comprehend.  We don t create our own safety, but we have a refuge that is outside of our abilities, so that when we take refuge in God we experience His greatness, His eternal attributes,  His command to save. We live in another s victory over the enemies. This is why salvation is of God.

7320	Forums / Theology Forum / Orthodoxy - Chesterton	on: June 18, 2007, 09:42:37 PM
What do those here think of the role of mystery in our Christian experience? There is much mystery in the spiritual sense. The mystery rises and falls in that paradigm in the spiritual heat in an eternal sense. How can one explain being carried away at the contemplation of Gods eternal existence? If we could be able to translate what we desire into an understandable concept, we would some how lose the reciprocated experience of God reduplicating Himself to us in His truth by a spiritual sense. That is our entire life experience is seeing in faith or seeing things that are unseen. How can we describe the process of communication to our minds of Gods promptings so that we receive a satisfaction of the unseen in all of the color of that illuminated fact to be able to see those things where eternity meets time?

7319	Forums / Theology Forum / The Ugliness Of Self- Righteousness	on: June 19, 2007, 02:50:39 PM
Self righteousness is the only problem with man under sin. It is the natural state of man to try to do something to please God in order to win favor with God. It is man trying to get favor with God with some kind of outward performance so that everyone will see and give assurance to men that they are worthy of salvation. Self righteousness starts with an outward performance and never gets to the inward problem of the heart. It is cleaning the outside of the cup while the inside is full of dirt. Self righteous people think that membership of a church or baptism, or consistent attendance at Christian meetings give them an advantage in their sanctification. They love to parade their position among men as the reason for their being acceptable as Gods chosen. Their service to the church is measured by their attendance to commit y meetings and the organization in the functioning part of those commodities. Self righteous people never consider the weightier matters of the law, like mercy, compassion, love and relationship. They are more interested in their goals being met.

7317	Forums / Theology Forum / Orthodoxy - Chesterton	on: June 20, 2007, 08:57:18 PM
Thanks Bill, We are really people who are unable to accomplish any good apart from the brightness of His glory exposing us to His gracious deliverance's. Our Father in heaven comes to us shining forth as our protector in a spiritual display in all the pomp and grandeur of a commander of millions and millions of chariots. Being exposed to that brightness blinds us from our tenableness. Its as if we were shaken out of our stupor by the beams of His pleasure and comfort and we were so encouraged that it translated into an assurance that all would be well when our trials had taken there course. Our spiritual vision is given to us so that we can live in the light of this grace. The stronger sight we have of His commanding in the sky the greater assurance will transpire in our finite views.  We can be utterly over come by the brightness of His commanding glory.

7312	Forums / Theology Forum / Orthodoxy - Chesterton	on: June 22, 2007, 08:00:51 PM
I understand what you are saying. But from personal experience i have not found this to meet the standards of Christ in discipleship. After all Christ did not teach that balance between mens responsibility and Gods sovereignty would lead to a trust that was radical. This paradigm of balance can be mis applied to be a paradoxical paradigm of autonomy and self effort. We really do not understand the power of the struggle with the flesh. Jesus teaching on this was radical. In other words what we are dealing with is making the personality of the trust more important than the trust itself. Here is what Jesus said was the problem. 16.      \"But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places, who call out to the other children, 17.     and say, `We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.' 18.     \"For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, `He has a demon!' 19.     \"The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, `Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.\" 20.     Then He began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent. Its not really the freedom to exercise the will, but its that we are fighting against the tendencies to regard these neutral things by choice as an excuse to disregard the importance of these times in our lives that are ordered by God so that we treat them as common. ie worship, selflessness, mortification, a serious disposition , having pleasure in Christ alone. Its not necessarily sin that takes the place of these times, but it is good things, and because of the flesh we are always waring against wanting to do the opposite in what God has determined at the time, or really not giving all of our strength to the means of grace.

7311	Forums / Theology Forum / Orthodoxy - Chesterton	on: June 23, 2007, 09:25:26 AM
Bill Bennett, will you continue to post more of CH? Ive not read much of him. I think he was dealing with a different mindset tho. Orthodoxy can become mechanical and dry. It can also give one an excuse not to care about people personally. Maybe the answer is to teach a little bit more on the doctrine of perseverance of the saints as it relates to the fellowship of the saints. Today God is a complete mystery. Propositions are contradictory but held as equally valid. We face an intricately woven set of explanations that have evolved over years of church history. We are in the biggest mind battles of all time. The NT. scholars exegesis has been honed for 2000 yrs and now we are learning more and more about ourselves through science and the rapid exchange of information. Historical theological views prior to the computer age seem to be outdated. The minds of people have been programed through the ideas and practical nature of discovery in answering the problems of the human condition. We now face a knowledge of truth in relation to its accessibility and work ability rather than a logical drawn out study of theology. Questions as to God and origins  are more important than the facts themselves because we have lost the spiritual discernment to separate the common things from the uncommon. In this culture we mix philosophy and psychology with theology. We bring in the cast system of the temple money changers because we do not revere Gods nature or His invisible glory. Our theological perspective is mysteriously scientific. What we are facing is kind of like the beginnings of a cat 5 hurricane as it relates to the degeneration of the American society. We were warned   by the theologians in the 60s, as to the future problems that evolution, abortion, and humanistic science in large numbers of the population would create so the effects of a ripple of suffering that would be seen in this storm of this godlessness. We are now seeing the clouds form and the beginnings of the gale force winds whipping up. We are going to face the full effects of suffering in the hurricane winds of persecution if there is no reformation.

7310	Forums / Theology Forum / Orthodoxy - Chesterton	on: June 23, 2007, 12:39:52 PM
One of the problems i have from the argument that cals and arms can coexist ie Gods sovereignty and mans responsibility is that it really does not answer the balance between what is revealed about God and what is a mystery. From the desire theological view point that i hold  we see in answering this problem we must come from the meta physical paradigm so that we answer the anthropological questions in lite of Gods revelation of Himself.

7309	Forums / Theology Forum / Orthodoxy - Chesterton	on: June 24, 2007, 12:47:24 PM
MBG, There will always be conflict between those who emphasize one of these truth's to the exclusion or at least trivializing of the other. God is sovereign and yet man is responsible. The trivializing of mans responsibility does not come from a lack of balance of truth, but from a misunderstanding of truth and misapplication of that truth. When we are  discussing free will, we are tempted to think of it as if it were a balance of weights. And if there is anything that is out of balance then there cannot possibly be freedom in the will. Today we think of freedom as independence. We are declared independent of God in order to be free to choose God. Its our way of declaring our autonomy. Thus we consider the concept of dependence as being co- dependent. Because we believe that in order for a person to be responsible he must be able to exercise free will without compulsion. And any cause to will is compulsion which is being co dependent.So that co dependence is the opposite of independence , a paradigm without coercion.The fact is that those who are in need and those who meet the need are one and the same, just under different circumstances. Here is an example to make this a little easier to understand.  Take for instance an economical example. Capitalism.  There are those who believe that in order to increase the budget you need to raise taxes, that is it is a 0 -sum proposition. The other side believes you need to lower taxes to increase growth which will make more tax payers. Now there are is a paradigm of suppression or weight of effect that will directly effect a persons well being that comes as a result of implementing these philosophies. It has the same weight or effect of suppression with how we view freedom of choice in the human soul. If we believe that liberty of choice is a balance between good and evil , or that the will is under no necessity to choose one way or the other , then we are creating a philosophy that will work out in effects of suppression. My view of this is that you are saying that in order to be free to choose you need to be under the domination of the objects of the choice. Or in order for you to be without coercion your choosing at some point must not be presently coerced , because that would mean that there would be no freedom. But choosing is desiring one thing over another so that there is never a choice without coercion or a cause. Because if there is no cause then there would be no reason to choose. Something cannot come from nothing . Now if we are under no obligation to choose then we are not choosing. If the will does not have a cause then there is no will to choose. So that the object of choice then comes to the for front as the coercing power. I am saying that this is really bondage rather than freedom. If your system of thinking involves this equilibrium freedom then the person who disciples you will be the coercing power for you to choose. In other words if you want your equilibrium then in order for you to have that paradigm your going to be in bondage to another person or object.I am saying that balance in this way leads to no cause and no effect so that in the autonomy of equilibrium we lose our liberty from the activity of the Spirit and the word to another person that is our equal. Choice always has a cause, being the strongest desire of the soul so that freedom involves our direct relation in a causal sense to the Spirit and the word rather than being in bondage to another person or the power of an object. We experience freedom by the spiritual cause of desire alone in our choices. All these other paradigms are secondary.

7363	Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit	on: June 06, 2007, 10:38:55 AM
MBG, yesterday I was midrashing with my pastor about my thoughts on will being self driven and why circumstances and influences shape us without needing to interject God into our every action and he mentioned Edwards' \"Two Lenses\". Now I am familiar with what he is speaking but I wanted to get your thoughts on it. Also, I wanted to ask you the same thing I asked him, \"Isn't it possible (notice I did not say it is so) that ST is a lens unto itself which more or less encourages its followers to view everything through it's lens?\"   I am not sure about the two lenses but i will speculate here. I guess you are talking about his metaphysical side along with his theological side. In studying his works, i have found that he does not contradict  any proposition found in the biblical revelation. As long as teaching is taken from the exegesis of the text then having those propositions we can argue for divine origins, the Trinitarian theology, and the identity of Christ in a logical way. I think Edwards employs logic so that what is revealed about God is made clear by his logic. Every document of man must be subjected to scrutiny of the word of God so that the revealed revelation is clearly understood from the ideas that are from mans inventions. Edwards theology of the soul of man is proposed from that biblical world view. It is the most profound and balanced view of the workings of the soul that has ever come into print. His logic in the use of grammar in his freedom of the will has changed my world view about origins and about freedom.I  see nothing wrong with his metaphysical approach. Quote We have these analogies of faith throughout the new testament. Our life in Christ is compared to being identified with Him in His death and being raised with Him to newness of life. We are not physically present with Him in His death and resurrection even tho those terms are employed to describe our salvation. In another place Paul says that he wants all men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer. Another analogy to mean that that describes saints coming together corporately to pray , a historically accurate exegesis of that text in Timothy. The holy hands simply are stating another way to describe saints. The same thing with the blood of Jesus, or His stripes, or The holes in His hands. All analogies to the death of Jesus as a substitute for us. And then we have here the anointing of oil, but then the text makes no reference to that being the thing that gets forgiveness, but rather the prayer. So that its another analogy of special prayer for the one who is struggling with illness, or sin or some other malady. Its our great Shepherds love for us that is expressed through our shepherds in prayer that intercedes on our behalf in a priestly sense that is part of our saving process. The Holy Spirits presence in the Shepherds prayers is the healing balm for the saints. We need to see that our new covenant worship is in the Spirit. The life of our Sovereign Lord is flowing down our of the waters from heaven that are before His throne, and they are brought down by the Spirit into our hearts so that out of our hearts flows this living spiritual life. And it is mainly through the Spirit and the word that we receive this gracious infusion of life. What happens is there is peace like the earthly waters who are like glass in the morning , of which we experience in a corporate way through the ministry of the word and sacraments for a spiritual worship and a favor of grace that is authoritative as God looks on the anointed or the shepherd. So that the Sovereignty of grace is expressed corporately by the saints calling on God to look on our shepherd, look with favor on your anointed. This corporate grace is a ministered through the prayers of the shepherds in a spiritual sense so that our spiritual worship is of a nature that is of one heart and will show forth in the great assembly. When we understand the nature of our Lords rule through the word and the sacraments we will take our supernatural prayers very seriously, because our methods are mainly spiritual as our worship. We worship in spirit and truth. Have we seen the Lord look with favor on our shepherds? Do we know what that kind spiritual transaction works out in the practice of worship? Have we experience the well of waters welling up within us by the power from on High? Do the waters from the throne of God pour down from His throne in our cooperate unity? May He look upon our anointed one.

7350	Forums / Main Forum / Souls In The Hands Of Angry God	on: June 09, 2007, 07:31:06 AM
Does God hold the threat of hell over our heads? May it never be. There is only one accuser of the brethren. If God is for us , then who can be against us? For we know that nothing can separate us from the love of God, that is in Christ Jesus. Because of His grace we know that we are safe in His family. He chose us in Him before the creation of the world. We received eternal life by grace, because we did not deserve it. So we cant keep it on our own strength. It really is His salvation. We have been given everything for life and Godliness. And we are new creations in Christ Jesus. Even tho we experience sorrow over sin and over the circumstances of this life, our sorrow does not equal the pain of the dread of the wicked. Nor do we retreat into fear, and dread. But we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus. Our state of mind is that even tho we are helpless in ourselves, we have been given powers beyond ourselves to fight a good fight of faith. Our state of mind is that when we look to Christ we can fight faithfully against the world the flesh and the devil. We can know by faith that our struggle will ultimately be complete victory. And yet our state of mind is to be in  a battle that gets really intense at times. We are not overcome by the sorrow but we are tempted to draw back, to do something in the flesh, or to trust in our own horses. But this battle takes all of our strength because we must focus on the prize, like a long distance runner. The more we see Christ as the end, the more confidence we will have that we are conquerors. Christ said that we would suffer hardship. We suffer because He suffered. When we stand with Christ we will experience persecution. When we take refuge in Him alone we will be misunderstood by the Pharisee, or we will be tempted by the wicked. The battle is to go the path of resistance against the self righteous and the wicked. Both of these groups will use threats to intimidate us , on the one hand , to lead us to curb the appetites by not tasting, not touching, in order to go through a set of steps to attain self righteousness, and then the others will encourage us to sin by turning against those who are resting in Christ in order for us to make our lives easier. We must fight these temptations in prayer. We must cast down these imaginations, because we know that the grass is not greener on the other side. But that these worldly views will ultimately lead us to trust in ourselves, so that we are not hoping in His word, we are not taking refuge in Him alone, or we are trapped by our own lust. It is a joy to partake in these kinds of battles knowing that with each little victory there is a prize.

7349	Forums / Theology Forum / If You Must Assume...	on: June 09, 2007, 08:50:56 PM
This relationship that we share with Christ in this life is the most personal of all other relationships. When we go to Him in prayer we are going to the throne of grace. Because we are so deeply sinful, wounded and divided there is no other state of existence in this life where we are completely enabled than in His presence in before the throne of His grace. It is a throne where we are able to share in all honesty where we are at. What is our deepest desire? What is our greatest hope? What makes us the most afraid? How deep is our anger? In the grace room we are able to come with all our baggage. Here is where we are enabled to get to the bottom of that itch that will break us into an emotional basket case. This grace throne is where all of those secret things that are hidden from our discerning eye are known by Him and in Him is complete ability to deal with all of those secret things at His time and with His resources. We come to a God who knows us better than we know ourselves and is dealing with us in love so that we are healed by His intimate exposure by His disposition of always gracing us with confidence in our secret areas. God never gets up and walks out of the throne of grace. He is there always, so that we do not come to a Person who we are familiar with or that we think we can figure out. No we do not come trying to figure out His will, or leaving a laundry list, or using His compassion to get something that is important to us. We do not come to a person who has no feelings, or is ignorant of what we are going to go through in the future. We do not come to a Person who if we say the rite words then we will be blessed. No we come to a place where we can be what He created us to be, not what He can get from us. There is no ulterior motives with God. God is always truthful. So we can be what He created us to be at the most in the throne of grace. When we come to Him with our needs we are coming to ask from the bottom of our hearts. We are getting to the roots of our asking so that what petition we offer is Him dealing with us at the point of showing us our need and we agreeing with Him that we need grace. Because when we are doing what He wants us to do, we are able to be needy in the way He has designed us to be needy. He is not going to be misunderstanding about our deepest need, because He created us to come to Him and express those things. When we learn to open up in His presence and petition Him in this way, we are learning to trust Him in a way that no other person would understand. We will learn that all men are going to misunderstand these sensitive areas. Only God could be calm enough, and attractive enough in His compassion to receive us in a way that we will enjoy going to Him in that grace sensitiveness and pour out our hearts to Him. Unless our hearts are resting in Him we are always going to be searching for that place of rest. Unless we have found Him to be Fatherly we will always live in anxiety. He made us to find peace in Him.

7347	Forums / Theology Forum / If You Must Assume...	on: June 10, 2007, 06:53:46 PM
We really cannot understand the choice man had in the garden, because we do not have enough information as to the nature of the fellowship man enjoyed in paradise nor can we fully understand the freedom man enjoyed so that he chose evil over good. That kind of freedom remains a mystery.  Now mans choices are only evil continually. Man in his natural state does not seek God. Man is in bondage to sin. There is no one good , no not one! Dependence on God is absolutely necessary. Without him we can do nothing. The society of people that we live among in the church is only safe as we walk down the path of dependence. We are only safe as we take refuge in Him. Taking refuge in Him is having saving faith. We have a trust that is in the only end of our faith , that is the object of our faith is Christ alone. But the looking part is not the predominate means for our trust but it is the object that makes the faith work. So its not steps of faith that gets us to be in the path of righteousness, or in His refuge. But it is because He has accomplished salvation for us so that we are rejoicing in Him, praising Him, constantly setting Him before us in this way that leads us down the path of righteousness.

As we set Him before us we are looking on Him in His word.So that the  growth in righteous both individually and corporately is determine by how much we know Him and experience Him. When we take our eyes off of Christ we begin to place them on an idol. Our only movement on the path of righteousness is only toward Christ, the only other alternative is to create an idol. We are so close to Christ that we are connected to Him, so that apart from Him we can do nothing. Our emotional well being is determined by our rejoicing in Him alone. Any other thing that we place value on more than Him will lead us to sorrow.

7401	Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit	on: May 28, 2007, 05:00:25 PM
Men are incapable of meeting God eternal standard of righteousness. Since the fall men have been alienated from God, not just emotionally addicted to a disease or physiologically diseased. There are only three states of being that men are in. In the domination of sin, men are in an eternal state of judgment.  They are not just in a lost state but they are in a state of enmity against God.They are at odds with everything about God. They hate God. Men begin life scheming against the knowledge of God.  They are without the knowledge of God. Men are in complete spiritual darkness. The hate everything about God, they hate every one who names the name of Christ. Men have a natural aversion to any place, person, or thing that represents the name of God. Men like themselves more than they love God. Men never have a thought that is out of divine love. Their thoughts are without natural affection. Men are not only in sin, but they are dead in sin, and in a continuous state of death, under the condemning power of God, and are under the eternal decree of the judgment of God. Mans sin is not just an affront to Gods holiness, but it is an eternal affront to an eternal standard of Gods holiness. Men do not understand the nature of their sin, nor do they understand the eternal judgment that the sin brings to them. If God were to judge men by that standard without mercy, men would be eternally punished from the garden without the least bit of ability to change that state. God is eternally holy , so that He does not change. Where ever God is present, His eternal presence demands an eternal holiness. Men do not only commit sin which is an affront to His holiness, but men cannot even reach the standard of His righteous demands. Men cannot even understand the nature of His anger, nor can they fear God enough any moment of their existence. Any man who thinks that he is able to please God will meet the crushing blow of Gods eternal wrath. He will crush himself against the rock. And who can drink the full wrath of God? Who can fathom that kind of drink? What man can stand up against the eternal demands of Gods law. God is so holy that anyone who has ever encountered His presence has been devastated by His holiness. The more a man senses the presence of God , the more confounded he becomes about his own righteousness. Any man who has met God, has found himself confounded. Gods holiness is crushing. God stoops to a low men to go through this life receiving discipline for sin without being completely swallowed up in Gods eternal wrath, for even the smallest inability to be able to do one righteous act or to meet even the condescending nature of Gods revelation of Himself. Men are never able to understand the full nature of Gods eternal standard of His righteousness nor are they ever judged by that standard , it would destroy the most righteous man. God will pour out His eternal wrath on man one day, it is because God is eternal that He must meet the requirements of His judgment for sin, by and eternal punishment. Men will drink the full cup of His wrath. Men live in the eternal eminent judgment of God. That judgment is not far away. Because Gods wrath is manifested where ever sin is not atoned for. So that men are without remedy. Gods wrath is eternally present in the working out of all things in this world. Men are just blind the the depth, and the nature of its presence. God is pouring out His wrath on men, one by one, as men die every day. God will be vindicated and His holiness will be upheld. No one can escape the judgment of God. Even believers are receiving the judgment of sin. There is sorrow upon sorrow, for sin. We are mixed with sorrow and joy, pain and pleasure. We morn inwardly to wait for our full regeneration of all things. But our sorrow is mixed with joy. We are not without hope. We are in Christ so that we do not need to feel the full effects of sin, but we are receiving grace upon grace.

7400	Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit	on: May 28, 2007, 08:59:57 PM
Quote In Romans when Paul is talking about the holiness of God and His eternal righteousness, he says that it is revealed by nature itself and men suppress the truth in unrighteousness by ignoring that there is Creator and in doing so declare their enmity to God. The problem that I have with the double-predestination model is that, while it has a neat bow on everything, it does away with Paul's assertion that God is revealed in creation. God is storing wrath against men, Paul says, not because of their sins, although that fact would be obvious from elsewhere in the Bible, but because they ignore God and refuse to worship Him as God. Paul is saying that all men are called in a general way. MBG, I don't know where you stand on double predestination so this is not really meant at you but reading your post brought it to mind because I think this a radical departure of Calvinists from Calvin, Luther and Augustine where these ideas were first given doctrinal shape. Because there is a general call, which men ignore, God must in  some way reach men so He quickens them, says Paul, but it is in men's free will that the battleground is fought. I didn't in past times think this way, but study has changed my mind somewhat. While Paul says that faith is gift from God and we are quickened by God, nowhere does the text say God compels us to believe. The Bible says Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith, but it does not say that Jesus interrupts free will to save us, but it does say that once we hear His voice and acknowledge Him as Lord He will never lose us or forsake us. If DP is correct, and God controls every thought word and deed, then it is illogical to assume that anyone should be found guilty for their sins because sinning would be an action predetermined by God's foreknowledge and therefore inescapable and thus nonpunishable. There is also the problem of prayer. If God has already made up His mind about who will and will not be saved then why should we pray? It makes no sense. We should just as well pray to the idols of stone and wood for all the good it would do us were God absolutely unchangeable. I know the Calvinist will say, "Well we pray according to God's foreknowledge," but upon what is that foreknowledge based. Augustine said that while we have free will, our every desire is for evil, which the Bible confirms, and therefore we, being evil and children of wrath by nature, through our free will are self-determined beings. It is because of this self-determination that it is unnecessary to assert that God has a perfect and controlling knowledge of the future. Rather, if we are completely predictable because of our nature, there is no need for God to bend and shape us according to His plan for our lives because we will, through natural revelation (the creation), and general revelation (the hearing of the word) walk ourselves into the place where we will experience specific revelation (the stirring of the heart by the Holy Spirit). I think the notion that God has decided before hand who will and will not be saved is not true because it adds a level of orthodoxy which is unnecessary given the free will of men and the nature of revelation. In the end, those who will not hear the call will have doomed themselves without any help from God at all. "   But what about Paul, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, didn't God interfere in their lives and cause them to do things according to His plan? Well, yes, but remember as surely as we are free will beings so God is also a free will Being, but His will supersedes ours because He is the Potter and we are the clay, so if God chooses to use His omnipotence to jump into human history from time to time it is His prerogative, after all He's God. All the reformed confessions are from the double predestination side. If God is sovereign then He must will whatever comes to pass. No will can thwart His divine decrees. If you would read my Edwards thread, this is about the most thorough going over of the difference between the armianist view of the self determined will and the choosing according to the strongest desire theology. The basic difference is that the armianist believe that in order for the will to be free, there must be no coheres ion. There must not be any thing that precedes the choice, but the will is in a perfect equilibrium. But to will is to choose an object. For no will can be unless there is an action done. To say that the will is alive in a state of equilibrium is to say that there is no will at all. If you have two equal objects with the will in between those objects you have no act at all . If you divide the life of a person in a line of choices, and you say that the will determines the choices, what you are saying is that the prior act or will determines the next act or will. Because there is no will unless there is a choice of one object over another. But then you count the choices back to the first choice , the question would be what caused the first choice. In the model , a person who moves a body part is an act of the choice. And so if there is no movement then we say that the person last choice is to not move. So that to choose is to move toward the most desired object. Placing one foot in front of another. Self determination in the armianist view places the will as the initial response faculty of the soul. But we know that there are prior faculties that are in use before the will responds. The mind and the understanding of which is the center of desire. The mind does not just take in facts and then make a choice, but the mind is the center of pleasure, or the spiritual sight, touch , feeling in which the divine knowledge transforms so that we could say that choice is the mind choosing by what it is pleased with most. So that we could say that desire precedes choice, which is the will under cohesion from the mind or desire. We could say that free will, is the ability to choose what one desires the most for oneself.

7398	Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit	on: May 28, 2007, 10:28:08 PM
Because of this God does not have to foreordain that some will be lost and others saved, but rather God only has to leave humanity alone and we are as doomed as if there were no salvation to turn toward. Here is my problem with your thinking. Obviously there are always consequences for the kind of language we use. I mean if i told you that you did not want to do a certain sin but you did it anyway then really i am giving you an excuse or an out. And i know you are not trying to say this here but that is why i like Edwards. Because every time there is a proposition stated then we must examine the intent or the direction of that proposition. There really is a negative side to saying that a will not expressed is a will. Because when we think in these terms we are really opening the door for the seeds of pragmatism. And really you are using this argument here and trying to argue that mans free will is in the equilibrium state by not willing absolutely. I mean if God is able to not will in order to get the purpose of mans destiny without God being in that purpose, it is the same thing to say that man is able to thwart Gods will by purposing his own destiny or end. Here to me language is everything, because i believe you are introducing the idea that God is not sovereign by not willing what actually happens. Which is the definition of pragmatism. If man is unable to choose, and God allows man to be unable then God wills man to be unable to choose. So that God is expressing His will in purposing man to be unable to choose so that man inability is within the purpose of God since God is the beginning and end of all things. God either wills man to be saved or He wills man to not be saved or there is no will at all.

7396	Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit	on: May 30, 2007, 06:14:17 PM
I believe God does possess an intimate knowledge of our hearts and thoughts, I do not believe though that it necessary to assert that God orders our every thought word and deed. Yes God has given us a will of our own. We are free to choose what we are most pleased with. But God also has orders every situation so that the prophecies of scriptures are are fulfilled to the exact time and detail. The situations come about by mans moral decisions. \"God works all things for our good and His glory.\" He does what ever pleases Him. Who can resist His will? God knows the number of our hairs, but our sins outnumber even our hair. And God knows our sin better than we do. Because God sees our souls. He knows us better than we know ourselves. We cannot see spirits, but God can. So that most all of His knowledge of us is unknowable to us. He made us and He knows us individually. Because He made us we are dependent for every breath we take. God knows the number of breaths we take, and He orders them. He turns us back to dust by His word so that He orders the length of our lives to the minute. He made us finite so that the knowledge of His will can only be understood according to what we are able to know. By limiting our ability He determined our circumstances that formed our moral limits. We did not choose to be born. We do not choose to die. In between our birth and death our choices are determined by the ability He gave us to along with our weaknesses and strengths that He made us with.So that even tho we have personal responsibility in our moral choices, yet our choosing is cause by our desires, which are determined by Gods giving us the ability to think a certain way and not another way. Our spiritual ability comes from the Spirit and from Christ righteousness so that we are totally dependent on Him for all are good works. Our works are only good because we have have Christ righteousness. The corrupted part comes from us. So in this way God determines our moral choices even tho we are free to choose.

7374
7395  Forums / Main Forum / Grace And Faith on: May 30, 2007, 07:00:46 PM Quote Howdy, I'm new to the forum, and I've been struggling with a question.  In 1 Cor. 10:13.  Paul talks about being tempted and God providing a way out of that.  I know the standard answer that God will provide an alternative to the temptation so we will not sin, but my query is this, does this "way out" also refer to us that when we do sin, having not walked away from it, that we should have faith in Christ, and His atoning sacrifice for our sin, as our "way out".  I hope that makes sense.  Of course, I'm not looking for an excuse to sin, not that I need one." Yes, there are trials that we must go through in this life. And there are provisions for us when we go through them. I do not think that the apostle is talking about taking one step at a time or the rite step. God orders our trials for a purpose. It is not mainly for a moral purpose. It is to try our faith. He does this so that we will learn to trust in His word, trust in His unfailing love, and our object any trial is to become like Christ. If we just went through this life being blessed, we would become self confident. We would be like the wicked man who says in his heart, i will hunt down the oppressed, and no God will not see, nor will He repay me. So God makes all of His children go through trials so that they will call out to Him for deliverance, because God delivers on the day of trouble when the wicked are most severe in their arrogant plans. God waits for the last minute because He wants us to go from trusting in His word , to seeing His hand in a really clear way. He does not want us trusting in man. He does not want us trusting in a plan. He wants us to trust that His rite hand is directly involved in our deliverance. His rite hand is the place of authority , because Christ has all authority over every thing by right. So we get  ready for the day of evil,or the trial that is determined by God to test our faith. We know that when He seems far away, that our trial will be for our good. It will in the end teach us to walk in a path of righteousness by us learning to trust in Christ righteousness. We will learn that grace is really free. And in going through the trial we will learn that there is nothing we can do except trust in Him. We will begin to learn that we were not as strong as we once thought. We will learn that our strength really causes us the most pain. Because in a trial God deals with our self confidence. If we are going to learn about His power then we are going to need to shed our power. In crying to Him night and day we are learning to depend on His power, because we are single minded, that is we are asking that He lead us down the rite path   which in a trial we are less aware of that path being smooth since our anxiety level causes us to feel some of the pit falls on our way. In learning to go down His path , we must trust in HIs word alone. For His word is the application of our trusting in Him to lead us down the straight path. When we trust in our own understanding, we will be less able to go His way. So we turn from our own understanding and trust in His word alone.

7371	Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit	on: June 03, 2007, 08:31:53 AM
The old add age that you can't change the past since those things that exist cannot not exist. And when we are talking about divine foreknowledge we are saying that those things that exist are necessary and not contingent. In other words there is no way that they could not exist since they already happened. And because we cannot change past actions, we see that we don't have the liberty of making them contingent. As i am writing the things that i do are in the past. So that the reality of what i do is necessary. Otherwise i could change it. And the things that i do are connected in a series of events in whose connection is necessary. If they were not necessary they would not exist. If i was looking back and  saying that there were things in my life that were contingent then there would be no necessary connection to the present and the future and i would really be denying the existence of that past choice. As i am writing the connection to my past writing is necessary to achieve the rest of the post so that all the things that i do are from a cause outside of myself being known by God who is the cause or the reason for my doing what i am doing. Otherwise there would be no reason since my past actions would be without necessity subject to change, which is a denial of Gods necessary infallible foreknowledge since i cant change what is past. 7373  Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit on: June 02, 2007, 05:10:13 PM Quote If God does not decree all acts of men or passively decree all sin in man  then either we are immutable or He is immutable. God is not subject to frustration, or change, or being knowledgeable about any thing. Either God is frustrated or we are frustrated, either God changes or we change, either God is omniscient or we know more about our own plans. If God is subject to change according to mans choices then He repents of His actions. If man can dictate then God can be frustrated. God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscience, so that He causes all things to work , so that all events are decreed , even the sin and evil that He decrees passively. We naturally have an independent disposition from birth. We do not seek God , we do not understand who God is so that we are corrupted in all the areas of our being. We are darkened in our minds so that we worship dead idols. These idols cannot speak, they have no mouths, they cannot hear, they have no ears, they cannot see, they have no eyes, and they cannot touch , they have no hands. We make dead idols our gods and then we become just like them. Every idol we set up in our minds comes in a package with a set of rules. Because the idol is not alive we get we must open the rule book in order to work that thing we purchase by the sweat of our brows so that we learn to love our things by how we run them by the rules. We naturally enjoy using our idols in that prescribed manner. It gives us a sense of control over our lives. So we spend all our time , thinking in the i -it dimension. The more things we possess the more we pride ourselves in that kind of idol worship with the rules. We are blinded by our own sin and pride. We actually replace a Sovereign ruler of the universe who has made us to worship Him alone with dead idols. God has designed us to worship Him alone and to cast down imaginations that set themselves up against knowing Him. The i - Thou dimension. We are made to communicate directly with Him. For He is present everywhere so that in Him we live and move and have our being. We are present because God was always present. Our very lives are under His sovereign decrees so that we are receiving life from His life. He holds all things together. When we recognize that He is all powerful, then we will realize that we are not able to do anything good unless He teaches us. And His teaching us is determined by how much we know Him in His word. We are not only to look into the word to begin to be taught , but  we are dependent upon Him moment by moment in the communication of Himself through His word, by His hand being directly involved in all that we experience. When we are regenerated, we receive the Spirit who is the Spirit of supplication. Our new longings are evidence that we have new life, the very life of the Spirit dwelling in us. Now we communicate with our Father, because we now understand by a spiritual sense that He has ears to hear us, eyes that see us, and that His ear is always ready to act by our supplicating. Our natural response to being in Christ is to go to the Father. The more we know of His power, unfailing love, sovereign will, and compassionate disposition the more we will know Him. The more our hearts are drawn out of our selves by prayer and meditation the more     we will gain an understanding of His essence as God and the more we will depend on Him even for our very breath. We are most pleased when God is most exalted so that we are most aware of who we are when we recognize that His pleasure is being worked out in His working in us to will and to do. All of Gods glorious workings in us are from His  design to work in us the good so that He is pleased with His goodness in us. When we bow down to Him and acknowledge His rite to rule in us and through us then we will learn to rejoice in Him in a supernatural way. Our heavenly mindedness will keep us from thinking that we are good enough to be good on our own. Why would we substitute a thing for this reciprocal communication of His glorious attributes. We must learn how to rejoice in Him.

7370	Forums / Main Forum / In A Rut	on: June 04, 2007, 01:02:00 PM
When i begin to think that life is passing me by, becoming numb toward in my disposition then i am not obedient to the demands of Christ in discipleship and not rejoicing that He is a work in the universe and in every detail of my life. I have cut myself off from the vine. The reason we do this is because we fail to see that we are so unaware of our spiritual condition that we fail to grieve over our sin which causes us to be distant from God. We learn to neglect personal time in self examination and meditation so that we shun Gods presence by running from our self righteous state in sin. We are always to give God glory in all of our lives , rejoicing in His presence, longing for His smile, grieving over the hardness of our hearts, and battling in prayer for God to mend our brokenness and make rite our broken lives. Our satisfaction is in Gods goodness being worked out in our lives so that we see the work of his hands in the circumstances of our lives. We want His favor, His grace to fall upon us through His Spirit so that  we know we belong to a loving Heavenly Father, that we are special to Him. The special presence of God comes as a result of His favor resting upon us like rain falling on us. It is when we long for His favor and go to His throne and sue for it that we are going to experience His special presence. It does not matter who is in our lives or the circumstances that we are in. Our performance has nothing to do with being bored. Its learning how to rest in Him, and knowing Him in all circumstances that cause us to be above our circumstances rather than our circumstances   driving us.

Ps 99 7" He spoke to them from the pillar of cloud;
they kept his statutes and the decrees he gave them.
8 O LORD our God,
you answered them;
you were to Israel a forgiving God,
though you punished their misdeeds."
This Psalm is teaching that God established justice and equity in Israel. Because God orders every event in time to fall out according to His attributes. This is why the Psalmist opens up the Psalm , praising God for reigning over Israel. If God did not establish justice and equity then He would not be holy. God is holy because He controls all things. Not only has God spoken the creation into existence but He causes His elect to keep "his statutes and the decrees he gave them." In other words just like Gods creation came from His spoken word...so the elect enjoy the self revelation of Gods law that allows and prevents them from straying...The Psalmist says that God prevents His elect from falling into destruction. They only get tripped up. 7" He spoke to them from the pillar of cloud;and they kept his statutes and decrees". That God "gave them"....here is the covenant law relationship. God establishes His elect by covenant.
Then the Psalmist goes on to distinguish Gods elect from the entire nation. You see God does not forgive everyone. Just like God establishing justice and equity as the proof of His holiness so God must punish men who are not His elect. If God forgives all Israel then there would be imperfect justice and equity. And thus God would cease to be holy.
In order for God to be faithful,kind, long suffering ,and gentle He had to establish His elect with perfect justice. So God in displaying His love could not establish the relationship with Israel by rewarding wickedness. If God were lenient toward law breakers then He would allow His elect to experience injustice and inequity. This is what the Psalmist is teaching here. That God punished the wicked in order to establish His elect with justice. So the proof of Gods love toward those who have been forgiven is that He punishes those who oppose His elect. In order for God to be forgiving He had to punish wickedness.
God cannot be just if every sin that was ever committed was not atoned for. If God was not satisfied with the punishment for sin then we would never be satisfied with His justice and equity. If we were never satisfied with His justice and equity then we would never experience real love.Because real love is never experienced unless there is the proper value of the work that is done towards us and on behalf of us. In order for us to be loved without a beginning and an end...or according to our own value it must be eternal.Gods eternal love is not some mystical experience that we have. But its defined by carrying out His full wrath on sin and sinners, and a blessing that has no boundaries. God proves His love for us when we think of eternal punishment for sinners. God proves He loves us when we experience the curse of the law toward sinners that pushes away the destruction. Gods love for us is not based upon feeling but upon eternal value. Eternal value that is experienced is self respect. ,

7369	Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit	on: June 04, 2007, 07:19:05 PM
You say everything that has been doen cannot be contingent because now is the unavoidable result of what has been, and I agree. And here we dive into Augustine. Augustine said that because (cause/effect) man is enslaved to sin, Jer 17:9, he no longer has liberty though he still has volition. Consider that carefully then read on. Very good point. I agree with you. Man does have a free will but not to choose any spiritual good. Man in his natural condition is dead to spiritual things. Yet he does choose moral good and the various likes and dislikes of this world. But Calvin gives very little attention to this kind of freedom. Because really it means nothing in comparison to the bondage of the will in a spiritual sense. Since a man cannot ever choose to be saved, though he may be acted upon by the revelation of God which Romans 1 clearly indicates that all men are and thus all men are guilty, a man's actions will be determined by his own heart. A man chooses his own way. A man's volitional decisions determine his direction, and in this we self-determine the outcomes of decisions and events in our lives. I agree that it depends upon the condition of the heart. The cause of mans action is the mind choosing what is most pleasing at the time of choice. If we dig a little deeper into the area of freedom or liberty, we do not mean that choice is not in the equaliberium state of arminian self determinism. In other words moral liberty equals the will being without cohersion of a cause that determines the choice prior to choosing. What we are saying that the will is determined by the strongest desire that comes from what the mind is most pleased with as to the objects of choice. If a person had two equal objects of choice with the will not leaning either way then that is not liberty of will but no will at all. Choosing is desiring one object over another. Or choosing according to what the person wants for themselves. That is using the subject and the verb properly. When we say that the choice is the mind choosing we are not saying that choosing is strictly in a rational paradigm. The minds view of the object is determined by what kind of understanding a person has by the pleasure one has about the object. In other words moral ability is more than rational understanding, we know what is rite, we do not always do what we know to do. So when we are talking about moral ability, we are talking about the understanding of an object of choice by what pleases us most about the object or what our strongest desire about the object by our forming  a view of the object in our understanding by our rational process and a spiritual process. We call this spiritual affections. So we believe that the forming of what we are pleased with most in our understanding comes as a result of divine knowledge , or from a supernatural source. So what i am saying it is not just the supernatural change in the soul that determines the choice, but it is the divine knowledge applied to the mind that is of a supernatural process that makes the desire strongest so that we understand the view of the object of choice to be most pleasing to us. Its our spiritual affections that are part of our rational process that affect our understanding of the object of choice that deterimines our view of the object so that our desire for that object is greater to choose the good over the evil. A mouth full but think about that .

7481	Forums / Theology Forum / Why I Believe The Bible Is The Word Of God	on: May 06, 2007, 10:00:36 AM
Thanks Bill, Good post! The Bible is the revelation of God and His will. Because it is Gods word , its language is God breathed, every word of it, and even the accents. This ancient language gives life. And being ancient it must be understood only by an eternal teacher who is from old. Gods always was is the paradigm for His life giving wisdom. He knows as God. He is eternal. We are finite and limited. Our limitations are not only in us being created as being from Adam the first man. Even Adam who had more ability than us, was limited in His knowledge. Being created with a spirit and a body Adam was able to access his full potential. But Adams temptation and fall brought on his new knowledge of sin in sin rather than a knowledge of sin and eternally righteous. So instead of us being able to resist the Devil, we were plunged into bondage and sin. We were cast into a state of spiritual darkness. We cannot see, feel, taste, touch any divine knowledge. We lost our ability to understand divine truth. Even as believers we are still lost without the ability of the Spirits revealing that knowledge to us. When the Trinity reveals any truth, it comes to us by the work of Christ , through the Fathers will, in the Spirit of the Trinity. His breathing is in God revealing to us the essence of His Godness. It comes as the pure revealing of the Trinitarian essence. We must be regenerated , given a new set of senses to understand Gods revelation. It is by Divine decree alone. In the post modern paradigm, we are confronted with 2 generations of determinism. This is the spirit of the age. That determinism spirit is the spirit of depression. In the atmosphere of determinism man is at the center of the universe creating his meta narrative. The ancient divine wisdom is replaced by mans new scientific knowledge and ability. In the warped view of that mindset is the seed-determined self deception. In that new seed to tree growth comes a spirit of death. It is  spiraling down from the normal means through common grace. It is suicide in a relational universe of dark sayings and self determined breaks in communication and purpose. In the destructive paradigm of determinism comes the ultimate deception of breaking with the ancient wisdom and spiraling down into the abyss of an uncontrollable spirit of loneliness and sin.

7479	Forums / Main Forum / Isn't It The Heart That God Judges?	on: May 06, 2007, 02:23:35 PM
Quote Quote Retro I can appreciate the time you take to write your posts. But taking what you have said and then reading mbg's post says something. To me it does. One of the things that I got so tired of with religion is all this confusion. You said one thing and mbg contradicted what you said. And vice versa. I'm not putting anyone down here just pointing out what seems clear to me as THE problem with the Bible. I have no idea if either of you is interpreting correctly. Your at opposite ends. It makes no sense to me to believe God could be behind the writing of a book that confuses people left and right. Shalom, timeout. I'd like you to know that mybigGod and I are not that far apart in our thoughts. We just choose to see things from different perspectives, IMO. I'm not sure whether mybigGod would see it that way; I can't speak for him, but I have done a LOT of research into the Calvinist/Arminian views and I have concluded (for myself) that they were both seeing truths from the Scripture but were ignoring other truths...the opposite truths, in fact! I've used the analogy before, but, to me, it's like walking through a doorway that says above it "whosoever will may enter" and once passing through, looking back at the doorway and seeing above it the phrase "chosen before the foundation of the world." Both views are equally true from the Scriptures, yet somehow we have problems accepting both truths. Most will either camp too much on the "whosoever will" or will camp on the "chosen before the foundation of the world." Just because mybigGod chose to point out the truth that it is all of God who does the choosing, does not negate that Scriptures also say "whosoever will may come and drink of the water that I shall give him." It is also, at least from our perspective, partly our choice. Retrobyter I guess you are a  two pointer? Well if the 5 points are not logically interrelated then the new math is correct. That is 4 +4 could equal any other number than 8.  TULIP is the full flower. It doesnt need any new scientific genetic restriction. Even tho you may try to make orthodoxy- Retro orthodoxy the historical orthodoxy of the 5 points is the pure lineage of Pauline teaching. If man is totally depraved, then he is more than just morally corrupted but he is spiritually dead. The only answer to this deli-ma is God  moving toward man unconditionally. God choosing man since man is dead to God and without hope. If God purposes in His choice, if He determines to save man, then His determination is without help, without insincerity, without failed ends. That is why His purpose in election is proved in His finishing that work at the cross by its effectiveness in that purpose in the salvation of the elect by the cross. His purpose was without hypocrisy in dying for the elect. So that it is finished was that work of salvation and the power of grace that could not be resisted in the future transaction of that work. Because it was finished truely at the cross, because no truth has a purpose of a lie in it, then the transaction of that personal work to each of His sheep was in free grace, free from all of mans unbelief. So that man is abled to persevere in that free grace for all eternity.

7477	Forums / Theology Forum / Forgotten People: God Left This Place	on: May 07, 2007, 07:17:14 PM
In your account however, as I understand it, we screw ourselves. We screw each other. We have choice. We turn our backs on Him. God’s ticket out of Dodge so to speak (again, as inscrutable as it is) therefore becomes amazing kindness. That which leaves space for our suffering also leaves space for real love. It is not a vacuum. We are not Killer Robots. We have free will. But the freedom involves us being able to choose what pleases us most. The reason we are pleased with sin is because we are sinners. There are moral consequences for the choices we make. Even unbelievers have moral choices. The can be very moral. But the point is since the fall there is no one good, there is no one who seeks God, all have turned aside, their throats are open graves, and the poison of vipers are on their lips. Men devour Gods people like they are eating bread. What we need to see is, that the equation of free choice falls short of the full awareness of ones own soul, and what kind of ability one has in his free choice. When we think in terms of free choice and our view of ourselves making choices , we are always more gracious to ourselves and less gracious to the others. So we are starting with a view that is full of flattery. The point is that we must have truth from a source outside of our ability to measure our freedom, and it is the word of God. So when we are meditating on the word of God, we are not looking at our freedom in terms of how we are moral or not, but we are looking at a perspective that we are much worse than we view ourselves and we are less able than we think about our ability to choose. It is the Spirit and the word that bring us to our senses about our view of our free choices. This warped view of our freedom is shown in the process of our memories. And we have a thousand thoughts that go into our degenerate hidden areas. We lust, hate, and covet most of the time we are insincere enough so that we do not go out of our way in mourning with those who mourn, and rejoicing with those who rejoice. We are not really loving others as they would want to be loved, even tho we consider our loving actions acceptable. Even when we communicate the pain we are experiencing, we trust in the experience of that process so that it comes more from selfish motives, rather than letting scripture determine and define our deep hypocrisy in our motives, so that we learn to process knowing ourselves in the initial light of divine revelation rather than in community. What we are always doing is trying to believe we are better than we are, and others are worse than they are. We live in this corrupted mold, so much, that we really only get to the roots of our inward freedom in a millimeter at a time. We love to think that we can change faster than what really happens. We flatter ourselves thinking that if we follow some kind of program, then we are going to get better faster. As long as we can feel better about ourselves than we really are, and keep others in the same steps we are taking to get better, then we are feeling better about ourselves in a very shallow society. We never like to think that we sin alone. We are always looking at others sins and getting relief from feeling that a lot of other people do the same things , so its not so bad. We love to keep from feeling alone in our own sin. It is so ingrained in our sinfulness that we cannot find our way out of our own flattery even tho we think we have found the truth. Thats why we will remain in this finite sinful existence until we get to the other side. On this side there is not a day in which we are not embattled with multiple sins, deep lack of awareness of ourselves, a lack of feeling toward others, and a constant comparison in our guilt. Its just what we are . Much worse than we think we are.