Psalm 14:1 says, "The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good." (ESV)
Psalm 53:1 says, "The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good." (ESV)
The Net Bible translates Psalm 14:1-3 in this way:
"Fools say to themselves, “There is no God.” They sin and commit evil deeds; none of them does what is right. The Lord looks down from heaven at the human race, to see if there is anyone who is wise and seeks God. Everyone rejects God; they are all morally corrupt. None of them does what is right, not even one!"
I will direct you to this Fox News report on a city council meeting in Tampa, Florida, that granted permission to atheists to speak during the invocation after they 'scolded' the city council for praying to "invisible men in the sky."
Let me start by saying that everyone of us are born into this world with a specific nature. And that nature is best seen in the titles of "Children of Wrath," "Sons of Disobedience," and the Biblically implicit title of "Children of Satan." Now these titles apply to all of us when we are born into the world with a sinful nature. This nature is something that pervades all of us and it is that nature that none of us can overcome left to ourselves.
It is the prominent thing for people these days to say that we can choose or reject God apart from the new birth, namely regeneration. Pop Christianity says that we must first choose God and then when we ask him into our hearts we are born again as a result of that acceptance. But the true teaching of the eternal covenant only involves God acting in accordance with His own nature and man receiving that which is against his own nature. Let us read it in several passages...
Jeremiah 31:31-34 says, "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."
Ezekiel 11:19-20 says, "And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God."
Ezekiel 36:25-28 says, "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God."
Notice in the above passages that God is the one doing everything and nothing is required of God's people to which the covenant is applied. In fact God clearly shows us in Ezekiel 36 that if it were not for Him putting a new spirit and heart in us, we could not obey His rules or walk in His statutes. This one thing is clear: Man cannot and will not be saved apart from being born again by the Holy Spirit of God through the working of regeneration and applying to us, against our sinful wills, the eternal Covenant of Grace.
This is echoed by Jesus in John 3:3 and Peter in 1 Peter 1:3-5 where it is clear that in order for us to gain Heaven or Change our ways we must first be born again!
To address one last issue... Pop Christianity doesn't seem to realize one crucial thing. That just as I claim that we cannot do anything against our natural born natures, God Himself cannot do anything against His nature. This is by no means a 'bad' limitation to say that God cannot do something with regard to His omnipotence, but instead it is the truest understanding of reality and how mankind and God exists. Pop Christianity will rightly agree with me that God cannot do something against His nature in terms of.. "God cannot sin." "God cannot lie." Virtually all of Christianity will agree on that, but so many of us are so quick to say that we, merely finite humans, can somehow choose something other than rejecting God in full. It is our nature to hate Him and to reject Him! So, how is it that we can present the truth of the Gospel in the form of an option? How can we say, "You have to decide what to do with Jesus!" when we should be asking, "What will Jesus do with you?"
Instead we should do as Christ and the Apostles did when they evangelized and present the Gospel and the universal command that follows it. "Repent, and believe the good news!" "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved!" The Gospel is a command, not an option! The way we know we are in Christ and born again is because we believe and repent. Not the other way around. This is so integral to evangelism and the Gospel that it is no wonder there are so many false professions and so many nonbelievers in the church today. May God work it in you to see the truth of His word as He has done in me.
So, in establishing the Biblical teaching of the new birth that Pop Christianity so flippantly throws around as the ultimate result of people "asking Jesus into their hearts" as if Jesus were a beggar unable to accomplish what He set out to do in justifying the ungodly, I would now like to address in brief the article that sparked this blog.
We all need to be prepared to deal with this atheistic and secular uprising that is trying to ruin this nation and sensor the open expression of our Christian Faith. This is where everyone of us who can vote needs to be prepared to vote in the upcoming Presidential election or keep their mouths shut if they don't vote in the election. We who are citizens of this country have been given the right to choose our officials and every Christian who believes in the God of the Old and New Testaments should act upon their right to vote and choose the candidate that best exemplifies the teaching of the Bible.
If we do not vote then atheists like Michael Harvey may end up getting their way in this nation and we will, possibly, once again find ourselves in the midst of full persecution. Think of it this way... What happens when those who are Children of Satan gain the majority in a country and elect who ever they desire... I'm almost certain that if secular fundamentalism and postmodernity come to their fullness in this country and are able to make the decisions then persecution will begin in this country that has never seen a national persecution of Christians so far in its existence. May God show us mercy and may reformation begin again in the churches of America so that this nation might once again worship the Triune God! Amen.
Psalm 53:1 says, "The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good." (ESV)
The Net Bible translates Psalm 14:1-3 in this way:
"Fools say to themselves, “There is no God.” They sin and commit evil deeds; none of them does what is right. The Lord looks down from heaven at the human race, to see if there is anyone who is wise and seeks God. Everyone rejects God; they are all morally corrupt. None of them does what is right, not even one!"
I will direct you to this Fox News report on a city council meeting in Tampa, Florida, that granted permission to atheists to speak during the invocation after they 'scolded' the city council for praying to "invisible men in the sky."
Let me start by saying that everyone of us are born into this world with a specific nature. And that nature is best seen in the titles of "Children of Wrath," "Sons of Disobedience," and the Biblically implicit title of "Children of Satan." Now these titles apply to all of us when we are born into the world with a sinful nature. This nature is something that pervades all of us and it is that nature that none of us can overcome left to ourselves.
It is the prominent thing for people these days to say that we can choose or reject God apart from the new birth, namely regeneration. Pop Christianity says that we must first choose God and then when we ask him into our hearts we are born again as a result of that acceptance. But the true teaching of the eternal covenant only involves God acting in accordance with His own nature and man receiving that which is against his own nature. Let us read it in several passages...
Jeremiah 31:31-34 says, "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."
Ezekiel 11:19-20 says, "And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God."
Ezekiel 36:25-28 says, "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God."
Notice in the above passages that God is the one doing everything and nothing is required of God's people to which the covenant is applied. In fact God clearly shows us in Ezekiel 36 that if it were not for Him putting a new spirit and heart in us, we could not obey His rules or walk in His statutes. This one thing is clear: Man cannot and will not be saved apart from being born again by the Holy Spirit of God through the working of regeneration and applying to us, against our sinful wills, the eternal Covenant of Grace.
This is echoed by Jesus in John 3:3 and Peter in 1 Peter 1:3-5 where it is clear that in order for us to gain Heaven or Change our ways we must first be born again!
To address one last issue... Pop Christianity doesn't seem to realize one crucial thing. That just as I claim that we cannot do anything against our natural born natures, God Himself cannot do anything against His nature. This is by no means a 'bad' limitation to say that God cannot do something with regard to His omnipotence, but instead it is the truest understanding of reality and how mankind and God exists. Pop Christianity will rightly agree with me that God cannot do something against His nature in terms of.. "God cannot sin." "God cannot lie." Virtually all of Christianity will agree on that, but so many of us are so quick to say that we, merely finite humans, can somehow choose something other than rejecting God in full. It is our nature to hate Him and to reject Him! So, how is it that we can present the truth of the Gospel in the form of an option? How can we say, "You have to decide what to do with Jesus!" when we should be asking, "What will Jesus do with you?"
Instead we should do as Christ and the Apostles did when they evangelized and present the Gospel and the universal command that follows it. "Repent, and believe the good news!" "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved!" The Gospel is a command, not an option! The way we know we are in Christ and born again is because we believe and repent. Not the other way around. This is so integral to evangelism and the Gospel that it is no wonder there are so many false professions and so many nonbelievers in the church today. May God work it in you to see the truth of His word as He has done in me.
So, in establishing the Biblical teaching of the new birth that Pop Christianity so flippantly throws around as the ultimate result of people "asking Jesus into their hearts" as if Jesus were a beggar unable to accomplish what He set out to do in justifying the ungodly, I would now like to address in brief the article that sparked this blog.
We all need to be prepared to deal with this atheistic and secular uprising that is trying to ruin this nation and sensor the open expression of our Christian Faith. This is where everyone of us who can vote needs to be prepared to vote in the upcoming Presidential election or keep their mouths shut if they don't vote in the election. We who are citizens of this country have been given the right to choose our officials and every Christian who believes in the God of the Old and New Testaments should act upon their right to vote and choose the candidate that best exemplifies the teaching of the Bible.
If we do not vote then atheists like Michael Harvey may end up getting their way in this nation and we will, possibly, once again find ourselves in the midst of full persecution. Think of it this way... What happens when those who are Children of Satan gain the majority in a country and elect who ever they desire... I'm almost certain that if secular fundamentalism and postmodernity come to their fullness in this country and are able to make the decisions then persecution will begin in this country that has never seen a national persecution of Christians so far in its existence. May God show us mercy and may reformation begin again in the churches of America so that this nation might once again worship the Triune God! Amen.
1 comment:
They never have anything original.
When I said these things I thought they were a challenge to "religionists" as though they've never heard these all before. The truth is I merely assumed alot and had no clue about the bible or the historicity.
Thank God I found someone who was able to give answers for his hope!
Keep up the good work.
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