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Author
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Topic: Time to Wake Up!
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barrykind
Advanced Member
Member # 35
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posted
Amen Linda
Dale you and i have talked of this many many times.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
The time is soooooo short.. even at the "door"
![[crying]](graemlins/crying.gif)
The Lord is truly softning my heart
Thankyou o Lord for your mercy and grace.. amen
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The HEART of the issue is truly the issue of the HEART!
John 3:3;Mark 8:34-38;James 1:27
Posts: 3529 | From: Orange, Texas | Registered: Jun 2002
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becauseHElives
Advanced Member
Member # 87
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posted
Very good Linda, this is that topic we disagree on, it is truly ironic how we agree and disagree at the same time.
That verse in Revelation.....REV 3:16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
1) to vomit, vomit forth, throw up
http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/words/1070246168-5991.html
before anything can be vomited up out of the mouth, it must have been ingested into the body first.
Even though we do not understand heart to heart this issue we do agree that many that profess to be Christians are not,and their life condemns them in he eyes of a Holy and Just Elohim.
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Strive to enter in at the strait gate:for many, I say unto you will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. ( Luke 13:24 )
Posts: 4578 | From: Southeast Texas | Registered: Jun 2002
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helpforhomeschoolers
Advanced Member
Member # 15
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posted
This morning, I wasn’t sure where to post this, but it is heavy on my heart to share.
It seems that the news these days is full of the ills of the so-called Christian Church in America. Headlines taut of priests molesting children, homosexuals ordained, divorce rates that equal that of the secular population.
Church governing bodies battle over issues like women in the pulpit, the inerrancy of scripture, the truth of the virgin birth, the existence of Hell, the sinless ness of Christ, the physical resurrection of his body, the deity of his person.
Yet the church in America is busy. Perhaps busier than ever!
The Church is busy with outreach. According to Barna a survey among Protestant pastors showed that evangelism and outreach ranked as the top priority of churches. Another survey indicated that Christian churches would raise and spend more than $50 billion on domestic ministry in 2002.
The Church is busy with politics. 84% of Born Again Christians are registered voters. The church is more active in political issues than ever before rallying human and financial support for issues ranging from abortion prohibition to campaign funding and just about everything in between. In fact, the Christian Church in America has become so politically minded that Congress heard a bill that would have allowed churches, synagogues and other religious organizations to preach politics from the pulpit, without jeopardizing their tax-exempt status.
Yet the numbers of un-churched adults and non-Christians in this country remains relatively unchanged over the past 3 years. And the views of morality in the church vary little from those of world.
According to a November 2003 Barna Poll of 1024 adults the following % of those who claimed to be Born Again Christians found these behaviors to be morally acceptable:
Gambling – 45% of Born Again Christians / 27% of evangelicals / 75% of agnostics
Cohabitation - 49% Born Again Christians / 12% of Evangelicals / 85% of agnostics
Enjoying sexual thoughts or fantasies about someone - 49%Born Again Christians / 15% of Evangelicals/ 78% of agnostics
Having an abortion - 33% Born Again Christians/ 4% of Evangelicals/ 71% of agnostics
Having a sexual relationship with someone of the opposite sex to whom you are not married -35% Born Again Christians/ 7% of Evangelicals/ 79% of agnostics
Looking at pictures of nudity or sexually explicit behavior - 28% Born Again Christians/ 5% of Evangelicals/ 70% of agnostics
Using profanity - 29%Born Again Christians / 7% of Evangelicals/ 68% of agnostics
Getting drunk - 24%Born Again Christians/ 8% of Evangelicals / 61% of agnostics
Having a same sex relationship - 20% Born Again Christians/ 5% of Evangelicals/ 55% of agnostics
Using drugs not prescribed by a doctor - 11% Born Again Christians/ 6% of Evangelicals/ 38% of agnostics
“Born again Christians” were defined in these surveys as people who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as “born again.” Being “born again” is not dependent upon any church or denominational affiliation or involvement.
“Evangelicals” are a subset of born again Christians in Barna surveys. In addition to meeting the born again criteria, evangelicals also meet seven other conditions. Those include saying their faith is very important in their life today; contending that they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; stating that Satan exists; maintaining that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; asserting that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; saying that the Bible is totally accurate in all it teaches; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today.
Further, respondents were not asked to describe themselves as “evangelical.” Being “evangelical” is not dependent upon any church or denominational affiliation or involvement.
Additionally while America’s churches are busier than ever and raising and spending more money than ever, even the most fundamental of Christian beliefs are in serious error for many.
quote:
(Barna Website)George Barna, the president of the company that conducted the research, pointed out that “Americans’ willingness to embrace beliefs that are logically contradictory and their preference for blending different faith views together create unorthodox religious viewpoints.” For instance, he noted that among born again Christians - who believe that they will experience eternal existence in Heaven solely because they have confessed their sins to God and are depending upon Jesus Christ to spare them from eternal punishment or rejection - 10% believe that people are reincarnated after death, 29% claim it is possible to communicate with the dead, and 50% contend that a person can earn salvation based upon good works.
“Many committed born again Christians believe that people have multiple options for gaining entry to Heaven. They are saying, in essence, ‘Personally, I am trusting Jesus Christ as my means of gaining God’s permanent favor and a place in Heaven – but someone else could get to Heaven based upon living an exemplary life.’ Millions of Americans have redefined grace to mean that God is so eager to save people from Hell that He will change His nature and universal principles for their individual benefit. It is astounding how many people develop their faith according to their feelings or cultural assumptions rather than biblical teachings.”
Let’s face it folks most of American Christianity is apostate. She is a self -serving, self infatuated, self-indulgent, adulteress and a harlot. She is as much an adulteress and a harlot as was the Northern Tribe of Israel at the time she was scattered.
When Jesus speaks to the church at Laodicea he might well be speaking to the American church:
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14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; {of the Laodiceans: or, in Laodicea}
15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
Sin abounds in the world because Satan is the God of this world. He knows that he has little time left and he is making the most of it.
But sin abounds too in America’s churches and it should not be!
Sin abounds in the church and we have become an adulterous people. We w hore about with the ways and the things of the world all the while claiming freedom to do so by the grace of a HOLY God!
We cherish the gold of this world more than the treasure of Heaven. We fear the tax collector and the credit card issuer more than we fear the LORD God Almighty, and thus the Sabbath day has become a day of work and not the a day of rest and worship that God established. And we justify this by claiming to ourselves and others that everyday is the Lord’s Day for the Christian, while we reach first for the coffee in the morning and second for the Bible, if we reach for the Bible at all.
We long for the company of Larry King Live more than the company of the KING of Kings. God tells us to seek the Kingdom, but we seek entertainment and fill our minds with the bounty of tabloids rather than the bread of life. Our children don’t have a clue who Phoebe is, but they can tell you every boyfriend JoLo has had in the past 10 years.
The Bible tells us that we are not to touch an unclean thing and that we are not to learn the ways of heathen, but the spirit of Jezebel runs rampant from our very pulpits as preachers claim the harmless innocence of reading material like Harry Potter and our children who can’t recite more than 10 scriptures from the whole Bible go about their merry way singing perfectly the lyrics to the latest song written by a self proclaimed gangster with a diamond studded cross around his neck.
God called us a peculiar people, a holy nation of priests, but we have become a people who are not peculiar at all. We don’t circumcise our flesh or our hearts. We dress and act and speak just like the world. Visit any mall in America and you will find our children, but you can’t discern them from the children of disobedience. Just like the children of the world, they don’t value their bodies the way God created them; they seek to improve upon what God has created with tattoos and piercing and wild colors of hair. Thier choice of clothing speaks not of humble hearts that seeks to draw attention away from self and toward their God, but shouts “look at me.”
Paul spoke of Charity and so we believe we are a charitable people, we give billions to feed the hungry world, but are oblivious to our neighbor’s children who went to school hungry this morning. We fill boxes with trinkets and toys to ship to starving people in third world countries in the name of Christ. It is Christmas time in America after all! But we wouldn’t be caught dead taking the local homeless drunk home for Thanksgiving dinner.
We build grand and glorious cathedrals of glass and marble and dedicate them to our God, and they remain empty and closed 6 out seven days a week while abused women and their fatherless children sleep in cardboard boxes in the allies of our cities.
We know that abortion is murder and we want to be involved and so we parade around the local office of planned parenthood carrying picture posters of the bloody gorey body parts of innocent children slain at the hand of Satan disguised in a white lab coat, but we have no room in our home and no time in our schedule for a scared and alone 16 year old girl who is pregnant with child.
God says to honor our Fathers and Mothers and so we pick good clean retirement homes for them and we carefully interview the staff to insure that their every physical need will be met, but we are simply far to busy transporting children to soccer games and gymnastics classes to visit more often than on holidays.
Yes, Indeed! Like leaven sin abounds in America’s churches, but not because we don’t rally enough, or picket enough, or lobby our legislators enough, or write our congressmen enough and not even because we don’t vote for the right people. It is not because we don’t give enough or even because we don’t evangelize enough.
Sin abounds in America’s churches because we have stopped calling Sin as Sin. We not longer preach FEARING GOD. We no longer preach Hell, Fire and Damnation for our pulpits. We have replaced those sermons with the more ear appealing sermons of prosperity and easy believe-ism
The devil has succeeded at convincing us that he does not exists or is nothing more than a fictional character with a red suit and a pitchfork that represents evil. We no longer believe in an unseen realm, or acknowledge the existence of spiritual powers and principalities. Not recognizing the nature of our enemy or the scope of our mission, we have stopped fighting with spiritual weapons of prayer and fasting and have taken up arms of physical combat and legislative and legal power.
Eternal punishment, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and the lake of fire that burns with a fire that cannot be quenched, these have all been allegorized into nothing more than flowery metaphors in a archaic text that no longer applies in culture so civilized as our own.
We lie to people and tell them all they have to do is recite a prayer and the creator of the universe will suddenly magically grant them the desires of their hearts and take then to live on streets paved in gold.
We no longer endure sound doctrine. If Jonathan Edwards were to today walk into our church and begin to preach Sinners in the hands of an Angry God, we would throw him out on his ear!
We no longer regard both the goodness and severity of God. The god we worship is a god that is a god love and nothing more. We deny that he is also a JUST and RIGHTEOUS and HOLY God. We have forsaken the command to come out and be ye separate and have replaced it with the philosophies of humanism, pluralism, and tolerance.
Wake up brothers and sisters wake up! Trim your lamps and check the level of your oil. The bridegroom he cometh and once he knocks it will be too late. Come out of Babylon now while there is still time. Babylon will be destroyed and so all of those who wh ore about with her. Her lips are sweet they drip with honey. Her bed is inviting. But in the end it is folly.
The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob is a JUST, RIGHTEOUS, and HOLY GOD. His precious Son is not betrothed to a harlot, but to a bride that has bathed in the blood and made herself clean and separated herself ONLY to him. Her garment is pure white linen without spot or wrinkle.
This life here is not ours. It was bought and paid for with a price of precious holy sinless blood. It was given to you not for your pleasure, but for HIS. Time to wake up! Pray that he not spew you out because you are lukewarm.
Posts: 4684 | From: Southern Black Hills of South Dakota | Registered: Jun 2002
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