Agreed.

_________________
David Winter

Blessings to you, David. I appreciate your heart.

_________________
Fifi

1) "It Must Be Finished - Making Sense of the Return of Jesus"

2) "Israel and the Great Commission - How the Great Commission Fulfills God's Purpose for Israel and the Nations"

3) "One King - a Jesus Centered Answer to the Question of Zion and the People of God"

4) "Moving Toward a Biblical Understanding of Persecution"

They can be recommended and should not be that hard to obtain.

Blessings

_________________
David Winter

Fifi wrote,


"If a rich man enters a room and says I decided to give a $ million to the one who is wearing a red shirt. Does that make the one in the red shirt worthy of the $ million? And yet he had to meet the condition."

One thing is lacking...in your story...if you're attempting to make an illustration of salvation.

The room that the rich man entered was the morgue. And before he was placed in the morgue, the rich man gave the mortician a red shirt to put on the dead man because he was shirtless!

Now,he's a millionaire! Oh, I forgot to mention, the rich man also said, "rise up and walk", and then placed the $ million in his hands!

Okay Savannah,
You ask hard questions.
But are you sure you want to open this can of worms/morgue, we may not be able to close it again.

But if you insist, I have to answer your question in several posts if you would just bare with me.
For one reason, multitute of words just weary me. I can easily do physical labor in my garden 10 hours straight than write a long post. Another reason is, I lack the ability to put into words what I really want to say and it's frustrating.

That being said, let's begin.
The first point I want to bring to your attention is the danger of taking things to extremes. Even good things, like overemphasizing certain doctrines that seem to give God glory and bring man low.

I have expressed previously that I believe faith is man's response to revelation.
The natural man is unable to see his corruption. If you ask your unbelieving neighbor to consider Christ, he will tell you he doesn't need a savior. He is pretty good on his own. After all, he has never killed anybody and he gives to charitable organizations.
It takes revelation to bring the natural man to view his corrupt state as God sees it.
That revelation takes place only in the manifest presence of God. Only when sinnful man in the presence of utter holiness can he then see his utter sinfulness. This comparison can not be done in any other way.
Until here I may sound like a Calvinist, but I am not. I am a zero Calvinist. In fact, there is nothing I hate with a passion more than Calvinism. I think Calvinism has done so much harm to the cause of Christianity, because it takes God's sovereignty and man's depravity to extremes.
You may think what harm could be done to take God's sovereignty to an extreme. If it's something that glorify God the more the merrier.
What harm could be found in reducing man's natural righteousness to zero.
Well, there is harm!!!
If we say the natural man has no trace of God's image whatsoever in him, no conscience to tell him right from wrong, no ability to make rightous judgments, no inclination to exercise goodness, we make many people Christians who shouldn't be and we end up deceiving them into thinking they are safe when they are not. When people embrace God's sovereignty and admit to the fact they are corrupt, we tell them you must be saved because in your natural state you would never embrace these truths.
What then do we make of Herod who rejoiced to hear John the baptist. This man actually rejoiced to hear about the rightous law of God. He rejoiced to hear John's condemnation of his lifestyle. Well, if that is not his natural state, it must be God's Holy Spirit working in him. He must be a child of God then.
What about Soal who when confronted by David admitted that David was rightous and himself wicked, and bowed himself to the ground asking for David's forgiveness and promising not to pursue after him any longer only to break his promise shortly after. Why, this man must be a child of God then even though we know an evil spirit was possessing him. There are many more such examples both in the Bible and in our daily experience. We, on daily basis, brush shoulders with such people, and inwardly admit this man is a better Christian than people I go to church with.

Here is my point,
Christianity is not so much worked up over showing how severely corrupt man is.
The message of Christianity is simply put: ALL HAVE SINNED.
Mother Teresa( if she is not saved) and Hitler have both sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That does not mean that mother Teresa is as corrupt in her natural state as a serial killer. If we say that, we have to lay reason and Sound judgment aside. Even God is not pleased with such judgments that take on the cloack of false humility.
So, if mother Teresa and Hitler would stand side by side we can easily see they are not at the same level of corruption. But even if one is 100% corrupt and the other is only 2% corrupt, they both fall short of the glory of God. That means if they both to be weighed in the scale, they both would be found wanting
God demands 100% righteousness which is only found in Christ..
If mother Teresa is to die without Christ, she will spend eternity in hell.

That, not total depravity, is the message of Christianity.


I am done with this post.
Next: Is faith an act of rightouness of desperation?

_________________
Fifi

Two people standing in the natural amphitheatre of a field white for harvest listening to George Whitefield. One by the name of Ben Franklin, and the other the unnamed town harlot.
Which of these two would you think have the potential of embracing the message of Christianity and the cross.
Some may answer, well, Ben Franklin off course, this man has done much good for humanity, had a brilliant mind, exercised self discipline to the point of near perfection. Just look at his diet, his inventions, his writings. Yes, he had his faults, his weakneses but surely his good side way outweighs the bad. But oh, this harlot doesn't have a chance .

28 “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ 29 He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went. 30 Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?”

They said to Him, “The first.”

Jesus said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you. 32 For John (George)came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him; but tax collectors and harlots believed him; and when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe him.


Two people under the same annointing, and given the same revelation, experiencing the same manifest presence of the same God show two opposite reactions to the same message.

They both saw their utter corruption in light of God's absolute holiness. Both have the same revelation of the eternal judgments that awaits the soul who refuses to submit to the claims of Christ, both were quickened to the same eternal truth.

One dismisses the conviction as a mere emotional manipulation produced by the speaker while the other sees it as a just judgment of a holy God and DECIDES to submit to it, and so, it takes hold of Christ by faith as the only way of escape..

Faith is not an act of rightouness. It is an act of desperation for the poor in spirit.

_________________
Fifi