Monday, January 21, 2013

Turning To The Truth


If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath,
from doing your pleasure on my holy day,
and call the Sabbath a delight,
the holy day of the LORD honorable,
and shall honor Him not doing,
your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure,
nor speaking your own words,
then you shall delight yourself in the LORD;
and I will cause you to ride on high hills
of the earth and feed you with the heritage
of Jacob your father, the mouth of the LORD
has spoken.
Isaiah 58:13–14

            When there is an emulsification of heathen philosophy and Christianity the end result is not a better product as each belief systems, while having some similarity are so different that cannot be homogenized and as with this form of emulsification there is fall out, a separation one element from another. Milk is a homogenized product, once done it remains emulsified. Oil and vinegar dressing with all the herbs must be shaken up to blend them once again as there will be at the bottom of the bottle a sludge of herbs and other unblended products. Now, if you mix vinegar with baking soda and attempt to emulsify these products you are going to get an exothermic reaction. This is because when these two are mixed, the mixture rapidly expands to its original volume. This simple knowledge is well explained in High School Chemistry. There is in this combination an attempt to blend products with the hope of establishing a good thing and all that has been done is to have an explosion of sort, or in the least a tremendous overflow of bubbles. Then end result will not produce a good product. This is what occurs when heathen philosophies are attempted to be syncretized with Christianity; the end result is in a bad product. Heathen philosophies, no matter how good some things said or believed are, they are still from the root of heathenism. Vinegar is a good thing, baking soda is a good thing; yet together they are not good. The good sounding of heathen philosophies often lead people to believe in what is not Scriptural, to practice things that are not Scripture, to build organizations that are not Scriptural; the sound good, but their base is in heathenism. One diversion that has occurred due to the influence of heathen philosophies can be seen often on Sundays which for Christians the Sabbath Day. The Seventh Day Adventist use the old Jewish Sabbath Day as being the proper day for worship of God. By doing so, promoting this day as the Sabbath they have ignored history and the reason why Christians claim Sunday as the Sabbath Day. We may argue about this day, but do you have a Sabbath? If so is it aligned with Sunday which was the day set aside as the Sabbath from early Christianity. Today there is a blending of the world with Christianity. How? For many this is a day of boating, skiing, shopping, going out to lunch making cause for someone to serve them when they should be associating with other brothers and sisters, to play football, or other sports on this day, etc.. Yes, many use this day for their pleasure and not taking time to delight themselves in the Lord. God has promised to feed you to care for you, and this is according to your devotion to Him, and in the above Scripture it is by keeping the Sabbath. How does this demonstration of impiety align with the above analogies? It is an emulsification of the world with Christianity and many give reasons for doing so all sounding good, but are not Scriptural. This emulsification of heathen philosophy and Christianity and made cause for many developments leading to many forms of religion, Christian religion and many to ignore the facts, the facts of history, the facts of Scripture.
            What has this emulsification caused? One such result of this blending of philosophies is reason, it is an exalting of reason to be Reason. It is by this Reason one can come to God and know God and that this Reason was given to man as a guest in our consciousness. It is from this Reason that we have, “God within us.” These ideologies of such as Neoplatonism teach that Reason is the necessary mediator between God and man. This may sound good, that it has the ring of truth to it for every man is said to be enlightened by this Reason, and of God being universally in man. This philosophy of religion is to be found in Plato, Pythagoras and in Neoplatonism, that Reason was necessary as the mediator between God and man, the teacher for man, the interpreter of God, and is Divine and human at the same time. This syncretized religion, a blending of heathen philosophy with Christianity has not taught the truth about God and His dealing with man. What has been done is to reduce the knowledge of God to be individual, a personal manifestation of God that each man can have which may or may not be different from another man’s manifestation of God. We find this in the world today where it is taught and believe that every man has his/her own truth. God is not then the absolute God of the universe, rather it is a god that is manifested in spirit and truth. We find this thinking of individuality of belief in Churches that teach special revelation from God. No one is to suspect, or oppose such demonstrations that may seem so absurd, and against the norm, rather we are to accept them as God’s manifestation. This Realism leads to a belief system that refers all our religious knowledge to be subjective. It is this subjective reasoning that leads to a mysticism that is unscriptural. While there may points of agreement, a blending by stirring up the fallen particles and making them once again to be Christian all that is been done is to assign to one’s belief is speculation and the result is to syllogize heathen philosophy into a form of mysticism. This emulsification can be found in such teaching of George Fox  (1624 – 13 1691) who was a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends. In this religious group there will be found mysticism practiced and emulsified with Scripture. They, as many do, attempt to find God where God does not reside.
            I will illuminate more on this subject as it pertains to all of us and our faith. As a reminder I am reproducing the definition of Neoplatonism:
1. A philosophical system developed at Alexandria in the third century a.d. by Plotinus and his successors. It is based on Platonism with elements of mysticism and some Judaic and Christian concepts and posits a single source from which all existence emanates and with which an individual soul can be mystically united.
2. A revival of Neo-Platonism or a system derived from it, as in the Middle Ages.
A philosophical system originated in Alexandria in the 3rd century A.D., founded on Platonic doctrine, Aristotelianism, and Oriental mysticism, with later influences from Christianity.[1]

When you cry out,
            Let your idols deliver you.
But the wind will carry them
            All away.
A breath will take them.
            But he who puts his
Trust in Me shall possess the land,
            And shall inherit My holy mountain.
                                    Isaiah 57:13

Revive Your Soul;  Read His Word

Richard L. Crumb



[1] Retrieved from: http://www.answers.com/topic/neoplatonism January 21, 2013

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