Awakening From Slumber

Be not deceived: evil communications

 corrupt good manners. Awake to righteousness, 

and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: 

I speak this to your shame.

1Corinthians 15:33-34

     Our view of sin is determined by our theology and our theology determines our character, and our character determines our actions. Our theology is not something that we are born with, not to say that we all have within us a knowledge that there is something or someone greater than us or the world, but say that our theology is formed by outside influences. Those influences might be good, that is they lead to live moral lives, even if our theology is that there is no God as with the Atheist (they do have a theology). Some of those influences that determine our theology may be bad as when we are being influenced by evil communications. A most important influence that determines our character and actions is that of sin. In today's Churches you seldom hear much, if anything, about sin. One reason is that those liberal preachers and teachers have been influenced by those who hold to a theology of sin that is not Scriptural. They do this by two things: 1. Don't speak about sin. 2. Soften the impact of sin by giving it meaning that would not offend someone. Here is how this is done: If sin is merely imperfection(s); how then could there be some process, some teaching, by some absolute negation be ventured upon when the culture of this world is ever changing as to what is sin? It cannot! Let us get this idea of sin right: Sin is more than imperfection in man, it is a transgression of a fixed law, or standard, and this involves a conception of absolute goodness. Now, if you are a sane person you know that there is not one man, now, or ever, or will be in this world to have absolute goodness. Liberal Churches, viz. The Bethel School of the Supernatural that give the word supernatural a meaning that is not found in Scripture for the only Supernatural is God Himself. If we use the word Supernatural in regards to God who Himself is Absolute Goodness is to have this Absolute Goodness to invade us and be involved in so that sin could be resolved. Man cannot resolve, not his/her imperfections, but more importantly, cannot absolved sin. This a liberal Christian wants to avoid because God, the One who has fixed laws and standards, requires a person to allow this Supernatural One to be affirmed that only He can remove this stain of sin. God manifested Himself to us by His Only Begotten Son Jesus who showed us what it means to live without sin, without sinning and more than that He died on the cross so that by His death and resurrection and our faith in Him to be what He said He was and is, God, Savior, a propiation for our sin, this then means that God can do this through Jesus because He is the Only Supernatural One and the Only Absolute Goodness. Jesus came to earth to pay your debt a debt that all men owed to God for that debt is death and no man, no matter how good he or she is, is not good enough by their lives or death to pay that debt. When Jesus said: "forgives us our debts" in this prayer given to us known as the Lord's Prayer, and if this is not true, not possible what an outlandish assertion and logically then, doubt will be the result. If as an Authentic Christian you do not give some outlandish assertion to what Jesus said then you will have what a liberal Christian cannot have: assurance because for you Jesus is not just an example, He is God come to rescue sinful man by His death. Authentic Christians do not get caught up on some academic debate as whether or not Jesus was sinless, or could sin, what a waste of our spiritual energies, there is no way any finite person can understand the Infinite One who by Jesus did the supernatural that only One who is Absolute Good could do. It is supernatural, not some supernatural things to be done by us, no, God did the supernatural once for all time. 

     Jesus spoke this: "And He said unto him, Why callest thou Me good?.." (Matthew 19:17a)? Was Jesus giving acknowledge to a fact: that He was not sinless? Some will point this out but only to their shame because this verse is only part of the epistle and is not to be taken out of context. No, Jesus was answering a statement made about Him: Good master, an address used in those days and due to what Jesus had just done in early verses. A man was comparing what he knew about himself, that he was not always a "good" person, and only a "good" person could do and say what Jesus said and did. Jesus never referred to Himself as being sinful. Yet Jesus is always dealing with the problem of sin. There is a great chasm of difference between Jesus and ourselves. 

     Authentic Christians do not go around attempting to do some supernatural thing: no, not ever, but do see in Jesus what it means to live sinless, and deals with sin, in their lives, and when appropriate in the lives of others. Here is an important point: UNLESS A PERSON COMES TO KNOW THAT THEY ARE SINNERS IN NEED OF A SAVIOR: THEY WILL NOT COME TO FAITH IN JESUS, BUT WILL OFTEN FIND HOPE IN SOME SUPERNATURAL WORK DONE BY LIBERAL CHRISTIANS. 

     Have you come to know that you are really, actually, sinful and in need of a Savior? Do you see yourself as God sees you: a sinner? Only through the lens of the work of Jesus, His work on the cross, and His death on the cross, and His resurrection can or will God see you as sinless and give to you that which He desires to give to you: EVERLASTING LIFE! 

Ho, every one that thirsteth, 

     come ye to the waters,

and he that hath no money;

    come ye, buy, and eat;

yea, come buy wine and milk

    without money and without price.

                     Isaiah 55:1

Come now to living waters

Richard L. Crumb

 

Finding Rest For Your Souls: No Outlandish Claim

All things are delivered unto Me of My Father: 

and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father;

 neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, 

and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal to him. 

Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 

and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, 

and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in hear: 

and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke 

is easy, and My burden is light.

Mathew 11:27-30 

     In yesterday's blog I wrote about the claims of Jesus and how outlandish they seem to be and even affront our minds. We seek answers to this Man's claims, and when no answer is forthcoming we invent theologies from our excuses to make Jesus be what we want Him to be. Look at the opening verses: Jesus makes this statement that only God knows the Son, and the Son only is the One who knows the Father and that Jesus will to "whomsoever" the Son reveals to know. Some theologies will say that the word "all" means only certain ones, others will say that it is for anyone that the Son reveals about Himself and about the Father. The Greek word πάντες is plural and has many ways to be translated i.e., all, any, every, the whole, whosovever, every thing, every man, any thing, this word is not only plural it is masculine so it is speaking of men, not a thing. Therefore  everyone, who?.. whosoever will come they will find rest. Jesus also said that His yoke was light, that is to say that you will have to bear the weight of the knowledge of Jesus, that burden is not taken away from you, rather that you will find that this burden is light. How can that be? You must learn of Him and from Him. How can this learning happen? You learn by doing, not by apathetically sitting on the side lines. You learn by reading His word that was inspired for us so that we can learn of Him. 
     Is all this just another outlandish claim? Did Jesus come to earth as the Messiah promised in the Old Testament? Is Jesus as asserted by Christians to be the central miracle, the incarnation of God in man? Did God invade earth, man? Is this the Grand Miracle and is it credible? The moral teachings of Jesus seem to be rampant megalomania unless He is indeed God. If we accept this Grand Miracle as recorded for us in Scripture so that we come to a place where everything is easy and coherent we must, that is, if we do believe that God created all things, that is not only possible for Him to come to earth as the Son of God, but it is highly probable that He did come. It is not that God Himself emptied Himself to the point where He traded His Spirit to become non-spiritual, no, God does not live in our existence for He stands outside of all that exists for He created the existence in which we exist. So this Grand Miracle of the incarnation of God stands just as that: A Grand Miracle. As Christians we are not just claiming that simply 'God' was incarnate in Jesus. Authentic Christians are claiming that God, the Only true existent One is the one whom the Jews worshipped as Yahweh, and that it is He who descended to earth. We say in Christianity that there is a hypostatic union and this is true for on one hand Yahweh is the God of Nature, it is He that created Nature but is not a Nature-God for Yahweh does not die and be reborn and He is not part of Nature as a Pantheist would say. God is a different sort of Being as anything that was and is that exists for He stands outside of all that exists. This One, God, is Love, Mercy, Just, Grace, and those are not attributes, they are God. God created man and angels and gave to them a "free will" and this made possible sin. God by doing so rendered a portion of His omnipotence (if He had not done so man would not be free or have free will) and this He did because He saw that out of this world of free creatures, even if they fell into sin, He could and would work out more than man could know or admit, a deeper and fuller happiness. 
     Jesus could make those claims that seem outlandish because He was God incarnate to do just that, to bring "rest" and "peace" and life eternal to everyone, whosoever may would learn of Him and come to Him. This claim was, and all other claims by Jesus come to fruition and reality by the resurrection. This resurrection was not some hidden and secret event, no, for He was seen by upward of 500 persons, and this was certainly a miracle for those who saw Him also knew that He had died upon the cross, was buried, and now was alive, just as He had promised. When those present saw Jesus arise to go into heaven this event marked the time that Jesus, the Only Begotten Son of God was more than just a Grand Miracle: He is God, He is the Son of God, and He is the One who will judge the world, and He is the One who can redeem all who will learn of Him, and come to Him. 

QUESTION: WILL YOU COME? WILL YOU LEARN OF HIM? WILL YOU SEE THAT HIS CLAIMS ARE NOT OUTLANDISH BUT GOD REVEALING HIMSELF TO HUMANKIND? WILL YOU PUT YOUR FAITH IN HIM? 

Then Job answered the LORD, and said,
    I know that Thou canst do every thing,
and that no thought can be withholden 
    from Thee.
                  Job 42:1-2

Put your faith in the One who can save

Richard L. Crumb





 
 

Excuses, Excuses, Apologies, Alleviation

As ye therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord,

 so walk ye in Him: rooted and built up 

in Him, and established in the faith, as ye have 

been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. 

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy 

and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, 

after the rudiments of the world, 

and not after Christ.

Colossians 2:6-8 

     Who is this Jesus who made so many outlandish claims: i.e., you cannot have eternal life unless you believe in Him. You must live this way if you are to have any thought of a blessing from God. What is more: Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, in fact, Jesus claimed to be God. We hear of many healings, and raising people from the dead, from a man who lives more than 2,000 years ago. What is more: Jesus claimed to be the One who would judge the world. It is this Jesus that will either give you everlasting life with Him, or be thrown into the Lake of Fire. And we are to put our faith in Him? Really? Now for us, we are to believe that this Book, the Book we call the Bible is the work of inspiration from God and written by men. Really?

     Those claims are what the world throws at those who claim to be a Christian. The world will say that those claims are unjustified. Really? The world, and liberal Christianity has come together and have adopted a policy of  palliation, that is, to attempt to mitigate and conceal the gravity by excuses, apologies, etc., they want to alleviate the pain that would be caused if they were to follow this One who claimed so much about Himself, Who He Was and Is, because they love the world and all its trappings and do not want anything to change. That is understandable, we do not like change even if that change could be seen to better our lives. Take a person addicted to drugs: they know the pain that comes by this addiction and they can see that not to be addicted is better for themselves, but they love the "high" and the "good feelings" that those drugs give them, so they do not want to change. Oh, let us get this closer: a man, or woman sees another person that they want to have sex with, even though they are married to another knowing that this is wrong, but they want that moment of thrill, that time of intimacy that will make them feel like a man or a woman, and knowing that this is wrong they do not want to change (at least until caught). Those who have taken time to read the Ten Commandments can see how good they are and how good they would be if implemented in their lives, but they love the world more than to change for something they know is better. 

     So, how do liberal Christians get around this difficulty? Reconstruct this Jesus to fit into what they want their Jesus to be even going so far as to reconstruct this historical Jesus. This problem that they attempt to alleviate is a moral and psychological problem. Liberal Christians in many ways, even subtle ways, make excuses that this One, this Man, would think of Himself as the judge of all the earth, and then be accused and put to death, and even then say that by His death He took on the sin of the world. Was this not defeat? Was this not to make Him immoral? Was this not a stain upon His character? To make this all palliative and alleviate they do this by excuses and apologies, to extenuate by covering up the truth. By doing all this the liberal Christians have lost all claim to be truly Christian. 

     Questions: Are you following a man or woman who write books and devotionals, that are doing nothing more than be palliative? Are you following a preacher or teacher that make excuses, in some way or the other by not teaching the "Real Jesus?" Are you one who has those same questions and concerns as was written in this blog? Have you come to have a personal relationship with Jesus or a Jesus that you have personal made for you so that you are not so troubled by His claims? 

     These blogs are all about Jesus and our faith in Him and how we can know that the claims of Jesus are truth and not some man who attempted to bring into this world another religion. The next blog will be about sin, the attitude of Jesus toward sin. 

      REALLY? DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE JESUS OF THE BIBLE?

Blessed is the man that walketh not

    in the counsel of the ungodly, 

nor standeth in the way of sinners,

    no sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

                     Psalm 1:1

It is ok to question: the answers are in the Bible

Richard L. Crumb