by satinka 205 Replies latest jw friends
myelaine, I am very careful with the words I use. I dislike ineffective evangelism. The kind that pushes rather than embraces. I am not against evangelism itself.
Here's a successful missions story that I am fond of, the Motilon people: http://www.bruceolson.com/english/english.htm
Does godrulz ever come up for air..............
Does godrulz ever come up for air
That would require him to remove his head from his rectum.
Sataninka: Love is not divorced from holiness. Jesus is not meek and mild, little manger child. The greatest wrath is seen by Jesus in the book of Revelation. He is love incarnate, but He had harsh, condemning, damning words, especially for religious leaders. The GB is in big doo doo and their followers are also without excuse, though somewhat less culpable as victims.
It is actually the triune God of Athanasius and his co-horts that has to be formed with assumptions forumalted with the spirit of human imagination, and which assumptions have to then be added to, and read into, the Bible. The Bible no where at all presents the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as more than one person. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is ALWAYS presented as one person. The Bible always presents Jesus as the son of, sent by, and speaking for, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Deuteronomy 18:15-19; Matthew 22:32; 23:39; Mark 11:9,10; 12:26; Luke 13:35; 20:37; John 3:2,17,32-35; 4:34; 5:19,30,36,43; 6:57; 7:16,28; 8:26,28,38; 10:25; 12:49,50; 14:10; 15:15; 17:8,26; 20:17; Acts 2:22,34-36; 3:13-26; 5:30; Romans 15:6; 2 Corinthians 1:3; 8:6; 11:31; Colossians 1:3,15; 2:9-12; Hebrews 1:1-3; Revelation 1:1) The Bible no where presents Jesus as being the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
The real Christian onslaught of delusion in the name of Christ had already begun in the first century. It was in the first century that many who professed Christ had already begun preaching "another Jesus".
God has revealed his truths by means of his holy spirit through the apostles. The unipersonal God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by means of His holy spirit, especially led the apostles into all the truths concerning Christ and what he said, and thereby the faith was delivered to the saints in the first century. (John 14:26; 16:4-13; Galatians 1:12; Ephesians 3:5; 2 Timothy 2:2; Jude 1:3) The truths revealed to the apostles and made available to us are recorded in the Bible itself. (Ephesians 3:3-12; Colossians 1:25,26; 1 John 4:6) Of course, without the holy spirit, these things that are recorded will still be a mystery to us. — Mark 4:11; 1 Corinthians 2:7-10.
Part of the truth revealed by means of the holy spirit was that there was to be an apostasy, a “falling away” from the truth of God’s Word, with strong delusions. (Matthew 13:24-30; Acts 20:29,30; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12; 1 Timothy 4:1-3; 2 Timothy 4:3,4) This falling away had already begun in the first century, with some receiving a different spirit and preaching “another Jesus”; the apostasy was restrained for only a short while. (2 Thessalonians 2:7; 1 John 2:18,19; 2 Corinthians 11:4) The apostasy spread rapidly after the death the apostles and developed into the great “Man of Sin”, or more correctly “Insubordinate Man,” “Lawless Man”, or “Illegal Man”, a great religious system, which claimed to have the authority to add to God’s Word since their revelation was allegedly of God’s Spirit, and these revelations were claimed, in effect, to add more to the faith that scriptures say had once delivered to the saints. (Jude 1:3) The central doctrine became the false teaching that Jesus had to be God Almighty in order to provide atonement for sins. With this spirit of error in mind, the writings of the apostles were totally reinterpreted by means of the spirit of human imagination and assumptions so as to accommodate the error, and many of the Hellenic Jewish philosophies were adapted and added to and blended in with the New Testament, even as the Jews had done with the Old Testament.
Isaiah, in prophesying concerning the stone of stumbling (Isaiah 8:14; Romans 9:23) to both the houses of Israel (Romans 9:6,31; 11:7; 1 Corinthians 10:18; Galatians 6:16), warns us: “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” (Isaiah 8:20, New King James Version) The “law”, of course, is what we call the Old Testament; the “testimony” of this prophecy is the testimony of the apostles, as given in the New Testament. This the way to test the spirits. (1 John 4:1) It is to these and through these scriptures that the holy spirit today gives true direction, and anything not in agreement with these scriptures is not of the light of the day. (John 11:9; 1 Thessalonians 5:5) In effect, any spirit that does not testify in agreement with what has been revealed is not of the light of new day.
The distortion of who Jesus truly was and is — who while on earth before his death was only human, a little lower than the angels, who gave his flesh for the life of the world — is one of the greatest stumblingblocks to understanding the true Gospel revealed in scripture. Thus Jesus becomes a stumbling stone, not only to the house according the flesh which was corrupted from true doctrine (Israel after the flesh — Luke 13:25-28; Romans 9:30-33), but also the house which claims Jesus, which has also become corrupted from true doctrine through spiritual fornication. — Matthew 27:21-23; Revelation 2:13-15,20-24.
esus, in becoming flesh, became a little lower than the angels, nothing more, nothing less, as the equivalent of Adam before Adam sinned in order to reverse effects of what Adam had done. (Romans 5:12-19; 1 Corinthians 15:21,22; 1 Timothy 2:5,6) In doing this, Jesus, being but a sinless man, nothing more, nothing less, by his obedience, never once falling short of the glory of his God, and by his overcoming all temptation to sin, thereby condemned sin the flesh, and through this means his God and Father could be found just, and yet at the same time the justifier of the sinner. (Romans 3:23,26; 8:3; John 16:33; Hebrews 2:9; 4:15; Revelation 3:21) On the other hand, the added-on philosophies that would exalt Jesus to the glory that only belongs only to the Most High, would, in effect mean that Jesus justified sin the flesh, and shown that for Adam to have obeyed the Most High, Adam would have needed to have been the Most High.
Blessed be the [unipersonal] God and Father of our Lord Jesus. -- Ephesians 1:3; 1 Peter 1:3.
'Jesus is not meek and mild...the greatest wrath is seen by Jesus in the book of Revelation'.........Now finally a Christian who admits that their guy isn't very nice.
Jesus is love and holiness incarnate. Some JUST see Him as a baby in the manger and assume that the Father is the OT meanie. Jesus is also Judge and wrath is part of that. Those who do not condemn heinous evil do not understand basic issues such as love, mercy, justice, deterrence, righteousness, etc.
godrulz-
We are very capable of condemning evil and criminals ( Court systems with Judge and Jury) without the Jesus factor, but thanks again for pointing out the obvious evil in Jesus.
Jesus is not evil. Human courts deal with temporal laws based on Judeo-Christianity. The righteous Moral Governor of the universe deals with sin against Himself and others. Do you not want justice/accountability for Hitler and Bin Laden? If someone raped and murdered your child, but was never caught, do you expect a holy God to pat him on the head and tell him to go to his reward in heaven, along with Satan, Hitler, etc.? You are clueless about the blazing holiness of God and the horror of sin. The passion of the Christ shows His great love for sinners, yet great hatred for sin.
When God wiped out evil peoples in Scripture, you fail to realize how cancerous, destructive, gross, harmful they were. It was an act of mercy to protect His people and to limit the eternal justice the evildoers would experience (more sin, more justice). If you were god, would you honestly let the righteous and the wicked into the same place? Would you just extend mercy, not justice (very unwise and deletorious)?
re: Revelations.
Revelations is a book filled with imagery, symbolisim and metaphores and as such one must be very cautious what one chooses to view as literal and as symbolic.
The coming of Christ as head of an army with a sword is a symbolic one, as are the plagues and as is the vast majority of what John wrote of his vision.
Of course if one chooses to view some parts as actual literal and concrete events then one must have a reason to view the others as not, right?
