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Author
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Topic: Seriously just consider it
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Carol Swenson
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Member # 6929
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posted
Is God Angry at Sin?
"So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 1,600 stadia." Revelation 14:19-20
"He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords." Revelation 19:15-16
For those few of you not familiar with him, Rob Bell is one of the leading spokesmen of the emerging (t) church and was featured in a recent Time magazine article. He prides himself on teaching a God of love and not one of condemnation . But his recent “The Gods Are Not Angry” tour, as one blogger pointed out, sounded more like Oprah's god than any semblance of one which represented Christ . Unlike Oprah, whose followers are mostly women over 50, Bells' disciples are predominately young 20-something males.
One of the main messages that Bell is communicating to his audience, for which he gets standing ovations, is that 'God is not angry because God is love'. Does this sound familiar to anyone? It should because it is the vision of god which we hear from pop-culture every day . So from all appearances, Bell is essentially saying is that we should abandon the God of the Bible for a more user-friendly version. How is this different than the anti-doctrinal tactic already used by today's mega-churches? Well, not much except that it is dressed in postmodern garb. It avoids doctrine and goes straight for practice (not orthodoxy but orthopraxy). In other words, it is just 19th & 20th century liberalism refashioned for the current age. Jesus without content and thus Jesus without grace .
It is not Christianity . How do I know? Consider the following question:
Do you believe you justly deserve the wrath of God save for Christ's mercy alone?
Can someone even be a Christian if they cannot unhesitatingly affirm this?
This is and has been a historic confession of the church (based on no small number of Scriptures) for those who come to faith in Christ. Anyone who cannot affirm this, we must boldly affirm, has not even understood the most basic truth about Jesus and the gospel. Fact is, a person cannot truly know themselves unless they have encountered the majesty of God Almighty. If His holiness, sovereignty, and wrath are not preached together with His mercy, and love then the true God has not been preached at all. Bell and others appear to be merely adjusting their idea of god to their their desires and perceived needs.
Perhaps they are worried that many are preaching in a way that will offend especially if we speak of God's wrath. But if we have a robust gospel which includes ourselves among those who have worshipped false gods and continue to fall short, and if we affirm that we are no better ... and but for the grace of God we would be worse, then there is little to no danger of a message that unnecessarily offends. If we are fellow beggars just pointing the way to bread then it is the opposite of self-righteousness. This means we need to take our cue, not from fundamentalists or from the purpose driven movement, but from the Reformed tradition. Many in the emergent movement are reacting to an Arminian or semi-pelagian fundamentalist preaching of the wrath of God, not a Christ-centered, gospel-driven one. I would agree that they re right to react against what they were taught in legalistic, fundamentalistic churches, but rejecting the plain Text of Scripture is not the answer. A robust understanding of the sovereign grace of God is the answer.
When we teach the gospel, if we do not point out sin, our idolatry and moral rebellion against a holy God then we are not doing anyone a favor, but are harming them and ourselves . Christ is the remedy for sin, and if we merely preach him as a nice example who teaches us to do nice things to others then we misrepresent him and, in fact, teach legalism again. A true Christian is one who has “no confidence in the flesh”. This means a person who has utterly despaired of themselves. When the Holy Spirit does a work of grace in someone in the hearing of the Law, He convicts them of their sin. Not just sins, but convicts of the fact that they are sinners by nature and can do nothing to save themselves.
Again, in light of revelation, can someone even be a Christian if they cannot affirm that they justly deserve the wrath of God save for Christ's mercy alone?
http://www.reformationtheology.com/2007/12/is_god_angry_at_sin_1.php
Posts: 6787 | From: Colorado | Registered: Dec 2007
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Eden
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Copper25 wrote quote:
God burns in indignation against sin and every way of transgression.
Yes, but on the other hand God is love and God loved love, and it is hard to believe that God would spend a whole lot of time in His emotions and mind to "burn in indignation against sin and every way of transgression".
God knew all about the sin and transgressions, of course, and God knew what He would do about it in the long term through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, but God would mostly keep Himself enveloped by love and mercy and kindness and justice, much as we humans try to be at peace in our daily lives, but "we have our annoyances":
Matthew 6:34
Take therefore no thought for tomorrow: for tomorrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Psalm 5:5
The foolish shall not stand in Your sight: You hate all workers of iniquity.
And so it was with God; God is fully aware of the evildoers of any day, but God continues in His own peace, having His plan prepared to solve the problem in time, and that in turn provides God with peace in God's daily life, as opposed to being "consumed by hatred over" these evil men.
love, Eden
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Copper25
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Member # 7464
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Psa 89:14 Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.
“Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne”
“Justice”
God cannot do wrong, it is impossible for God to do wrong. (James 1:13) “God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man”. (Hab 1:13) “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity“ God is a lover of righteousness and certainly there must be an hatred of all unrighteousness, thus because of His righteous nature, He must hate and be enemies with all unrighteous people. (Psa 5:5) “The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.” The Lord had to give His son on the tree, on that cross, just so we can even be forgiven at all (see proverbs 17:15) , so that any of us through the entire span of human History could even have eternal life by the mercies of God. This, because of God’s righteousness, His absolute righteousness, is why we were “by nature the children of wrath. Each day, our sins would stack higher and higher, and the scripture Romans 6:23, clearly indicates that even one sin is worthy of death. God burns in indignation against sin and every way of transgression.
You cannot separate God from His righteousness and have the same God. Many people think that God would actually be pleased with them, even though they live in the ways of unrighteousness and rebellion. What happens is that people tend to separate God from His righteousness, and thus forget that God certainly has not slacked on wanting us to flee from sin, and as people of God, we should continuously just as our God, love the good and hate the evil, not tolerating leniency in one’s life toward sin? Thus they created a god in their own mind that will satisfy their want to sin, their want of conformity to this world, that is to not break from its patterns; and will gladly tolerate their carnal living. Certainly as we can see looking through biblical history, when the people lost sight that they were under the eyes of a righteous God, they started to drift toward and conform to sinful ways. Therefore, let us remember that we are under a righteousness God, one that has (despite what modern teaching says) standards, He has called us to be a holy people separate from the world, to be unconfirmed to its unrighteousness, and to be separated unto Him, following after righteousness.
“Judgment”
(1 Corinthians 4:5) “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts” O how people forget there God is a God of JUDGEMENT, (Genesis 18:25) “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” Shall God not punish the children of disobedience? People in today’s world have completely lost touch with this fact. They (unrepented people saying “Lord, Lord“, people that think they can be saved without Jesus etc…) see God as a judge that will bend the rulings, who will stretch the arm of judgment to their own favor so that they don’t go to hell: even when the evidence is right before their faces screaming guilty, guilty, GUILTY! (proverbs 20:6) “Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness” and will erase or minimize their sins in their own mind, belittling the fact that they have sinned against a PERFECT and RIGHTEOUS God who is going to JUDGE THEM by a PERFECT STANDARD.
I know this may sound strange, but the next part came to me as well
If I were to hold my Son Jesus Christ up as the standard against the people, they would all melt before me because their iniquity and their sin would be like unwashable blood before my face. If someone does a life time of good deeds, the scripture says (Romans 3:23) “for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” , and yet people act like there will not be a day when my righteousness and their sins will collide, like people can live in iniquity and not be judged; like I would look right over all their sins which are stacked over their heads; and say I forgive you, and not deliver Justice to their faces! Woe unto them that try to escape the judgment of God by their works and not by my son Jesus Christ! Woe unto them that come before me naked and ashamed, clothed with the ways of idolism! Woe unto them that are wearing iniquity, and have not been covered, whose luxuries are to dip their bodies in the works of sin; O how they will be snatched, plucked down, ripped from the heavens of their pride; who defy the living God. (Hebrews 10:31) “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” O how are they fallen! O how the house of the wicked is cut off, dismantled, and burned, left in desolation. How swiftly shall my judgment and my wrath come upon this land. (Proverbs 6:10-11) “Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.” They that sleep and choose not to flee from the pit of hell shall fall their in. They that muse on the ways of sin to go into the crooked path, O how they will fall over the ledge leaning into hell; falling into the furnace of my anger and my indignation.
“mercy ”
(Isaiah 55:7) “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” I will be merciful unto those that seek my face. Those that seek the ways of the Lord, who is (Isaiah 9:6) “Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
“and truth”
Certainly, I hold the ways of truth. I hold the keys of everlasting life, saith the Lord. I give grace to the humble, but my face and indignation burns against the workers of iniquity and proud. I have set my face against this nation. O America, America, land of them that dealt treacherously, the land of the proud, the land that is about to be cut off by my judgment. Thou that art spoiled in a moment, made a plunder unto men, taken by the armies of Russia. This is thy fate, stripped, naked, desolate, and certainly crushed under the weight of my judgment. O flee from out of her my people, flee from out of her while there is time left. Hearken unto the voice of your God. If you do not flee from her sins than you are partakers in them; if you conform to her, then you are cut off from me. I am merciful unto those that fear me, unto they who fear my Holy name.
P.S. About the Russian army part, I checked to see if others had this same telling.
http://www.unitedstatesprophecy.com/Russia_Invades_America.html
http://www.handofhelp.com/vision_36.php
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Isaiah 40:6) The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field
Posts: 262 | From: Rochester, NY | Registered: Nov 2008
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