Rest and Reflect

Titus 2 – God’s people January 21, 2011

But you must say the things that are consistent with sound teaching. 

Be level headed, worthy of respect, sensible, and sound in faith, love, and patience. 

Be reverent in behavior
And in word (not slanderers)
Not addicted to the ways of this world (like alcohol)

Teach what is good
Encourage others to live lives of love, to be self-controlled in everything, pure, homemakers, kind, and submissive, so that God’s message will not be slandered.

Make yourself an example of good works with integrity and dignity in your teaching. 

Your life’s message is to be sound beyond reproach, so that even your enemies will have nothing bad to say about you.

Be submissive to authority (your employer, government and elders) in everything.
Be pleasant, don’t talk back or be dishonest (stealing).
But demonstrate utter faithfulness, so that the teaching of God our Savior may be made more attractive in every way.

For the grace of God has appeared with salvation for all people, instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age, while we wait for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 

He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a peculiar people, totally committed to doing good works.

You must say all these things, and encourage and rebuke, because you have all authority to do so. Let no one disregard you.

…

God’s people are to peculiar – in integrity, simplicity and wholesome, peaceful attractiveness. With a cutting message for the world, demonstrated in word and deed, for this present time.

3T 267
Mark this point with care: Those who receive the pure mark of truth, wrought in them by the power of the Holy Ghost, represented by a mark by the man in linen, are those “that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done” in the church. Their love for purity and the honor and glory of God is such, and they have so clear a view of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, that they are represented as being in agony, even sighing and crying.

8T 37
My heart is filled with anguish when I think of the tame messages borne by some of our ministers, when they have a message of life and death to bear. The ministers are asleep; the lay members are asleep; and a world is perishing in sin. May God help His people to arouse and walk and work as men and women on the borders of the eternal world. Soon an awful surprise is coming upon the inhabitants of the world. Suddenly, with power and great glory, Christ will come. Then there will be no time to prepare to meet Him. Now is the time for us to give the warning message.

2 Peter 3:11, 14, 17-18 KJV
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

Mar 138
Are we as a people asleep? Oh, if the young men and young women in our institutions who are now unready for the Lord’s appearing, unfitted to become members of the Lord’s family, could only discern the signs of the times, what a change would be seen in them! The Lord Jesus is calling for self-denying workers to follow in His footsteps, to walk and work for Him, to lift the cross, and to follow where He leads the way.

Intrinsic or Imposed January 10, 2011

Sue Lewis quotes from Ellen White:

“Could those whose lives have been spent in rebellion against God be suddenly transported to Heaven, and witness the high, the holy state of perfection that ever exists there,– every soul filled with love; every countenance beaming with joy; enrapturing music in melodious strains rising in honor of God and the Lamb; and ceaseless streams of light flowing upon the redeemed from the face of Him who sitteth upon the throne,–could those whose hearts are filled with hatred of God, of truth and holiness, mingle with the heavenly throng and join their songs of praise? Could they endure the glory of God and the Lamb?–No, no; years of probation were granted them, that they might form characters for Heaven; but they have never trained the mind to love purity; they have never learned the language of Heaven, and now it is too late. A life of rebellion against God has unfitted them for Heaven. Its purity, holiness, and peace would be torture to them; the glory of God would be a consuming fire. They would long to flee from that holy place. They would welcome destruction, that they might be hidden from the face of Him who died to redeem them. The destiny of the wicked is fixed by their own choice. Their exclusion from Heaven is voluntary with themselves, and just and merciful on the part of God.” {GC88 542.3}

“To sin, wherever found, ‘our God is a consuming fire.’ Heb. 12:29. In all who submit to His power the Spirit of God will consume sin. But if men cling to sin, they become identified with it. Then the glory of God, which destroys sin, must destroy them.” {DA 107.4}

“By a life of rebellion, Satan and all who unite with him place themselves so out of harmony with God that His very presence is to them a consuming fire. The glory of Him who is love will destroy them.” DA 764

“If you cling to self, refusing to yield your will to God, you are choosing death. To sin, wherever found, God is a consuming fire. If you choose sin, and refuse to separate from it, the presence of God, which consumes sin, must consume you.” MB 62

“”Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” Matthew 24:30, 31. Then shall they that obey not the gospel be consumed with the spirit of His mouth and be destroyed with the brightness of His coming. 2 Thessalonians 2:8. Like Israel of old the wicked destroy themselves; they fall by their iniquity. By a life of sin, they have placed themselves so out of harmony with God, their natures have become so debased with evil, that the manifestation of His glory is to them a consuming fire.” {GC 37.1}

“God destroys no man. Everyone who is destroyed will have destroyed himself.” {COL 84.4}

Dave Larsen quotes from Terence Fretheim:

I find this from a contemporary Old Testament specialist at Luther Seminary interesting:

“The Bible often names these [suffering] events as divine punishment. But just how God relates to the movement from sinful act to consequence is difficult to sort out, not least because the Old Testament does not speak with one voice about the matter. But generally speaking, the move from sin to consequence is conceived in intrinsic rather than forensic terms: consequences grow out of the deed itself rather than being imposed by God from without as a penalty.”

Terence Fretheim, “Creation Untamed: The Bible, God and Natural Disasters” (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2010), p. 113.

Posted by: davidrlarson | 12 December 2010 at 11:19

* Greg Boyd in his sermon, http://whchurch.org/blog/3567/the-wrestlers, briefly mentions that perhaps just as Jesus became sin for us (2 Cor 5:21), God similarly takes the blame/fall for the actions of His children. The violence of the OT, the destruction of the wicked is God’s work – in so much as He allows His children to commit them. Perhaps the consequences of our sin, which God allows, are then described as God’s wrath.

It is in this way I see the sanctuary service. In continuous succession sinners would arrive at the sanctuary bearing their sacrifices for the wrongs they sought atonement for. As they shed blood, the courtyard, their hands, the priest, the sanctuary itself was stained red. This process would continue day after day for a full year. In this way the sanctuary was defiled, a figure of the estranged relationship the people now had with God as a consequence of their sin (Lev 26:11-12 etc.). But God to the consequences upon himself. That Yom Kippur lamb whose death brought atonement. Because of the lamb’s shed blood the sanctuary could be cleansed (the relationship of God with His people restored). In Christ, God reconciled the world to Himself (2 Cor 5:19).

Dave Larsen on Theological Plurality January 10, 2011

Although they were written about the authors in Scripture, I believe that the following lines from the EGW book “The Great Controversy” apply to others as well.

“As presented through different individuals, the truth is brought out in its varied aspects. One writer is more strongly impressed with one phase of the subject; he grasps those points that harmonize with his experience or with his power of perception and appreciation; another seizes upon a different phase; and each, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, presents what is most forcibly impressed upon his own mind–a different aspect of the truth in each, but a perfect harmony through all. And the truths thus revealed unite to form a perfect whole, adapted to meet the wants of men in all the circumstances and experiences of life.”

This suggests at least five things to me:

1. Theology is irreducibly pluralistic; i.e., we can decrease our theological differences but we cannot wholly eliminate them.

2. These irreducible theological differences flow in large measure from varying psychological and sociological factors about which we are rarely fully aware;

3. Therefore, the proper mode of theological discourse is not debate but affirmative speaking and affirmative listening.

4. “Affirmative speaking” occurs when we spend more time positively explaining what we believe than negatively criticizing what others believe.

5. “Affirmative listening” occurs when we make every possible effort to understand what other persons believe and why.
The purpose of theological dialogue with those past and present is neither to defeat nor defend. It is to learn as much as possible from those whose journeys started at different places..

Posted by: davidrlarson | 12 December 2010 at 7:14

http://www.spectrummagazine.org/blog/2010/12/03/video-biographical-and-theological-conversation-graham-maxwell

Torches (Flashlights) I like January 5, 2011

Thrower: Olight SR91, Thrunite Catapult
Tactical: Olight M21, JetBeam Jet-III M r2
EDC: ??

Provocative Article on Perfection January 1, 2011

Why is Perfection Theology So Destructive?

Some good comments too

My view:
1. When Christ said “go and sin no more”, He was not requiring the impossible
2. Despite all the effort and willpower in the world, I cannot make myself perfect
3. The God who can create the universe out of nothing, who calls the dead (Abraham and Sarah) as if it were alive, for whom nothing is impossible, can certainly make me whole — for His name’s sake
4. It is His work, not our own
5. Thus He determines and judges the adequacy and progress of His work, not us
6. We must labour to enter into God’s rest
7. At what point can we say we’ve made it? When can we say we are perfect as our father is perfect?
8. (Most of the time) a newborn baby is perfect. Yet it has much growing yet to do.
9. Outward behaviour is only a symptom of inward character
10. Assurance is not found in reflecting upon self, but in focusing upon Christ
11. Heaven will not be a hospital for sinners
12. There will be a fundamental difference between the saved and the unsaved. It will not be an arbitrary distinction.
13. The truth is encouraging and empowering, not discouraging
14. The defeatist attitude (no longer fights the good fight of faith) is as anti-gospel as the self-confident attitude (who sees his victories as in some way by his effort). Self-sufficiency, in its pride, devalues God’s work in saving me, as if it can somehow add to God’s perfect work. Self-deprecation, in its shame, dishonours the work of God (me – for God does not make junk). Understanding the gospel in its reality causes the focus to be on God and develops an attitude of trust and expectation regardless of the struggles, defeats and failures.
15. When Christ has my heart, He has my all. And my all is enough for Him. Just as He is enough for me.

Roy Gane “Altar Call” — When I think about becoming perfect in character, I start contemplating my faults and become afraid. . . . But when I think of being loyal to Christ, the picture changes because my gaze is on Him. He is my example, shepherd, and guardian (1 Pet 2:21-25). I gain courage because all I need to do is follow Him where He wants to take me, including to perfection of character. The result is similar, perfection of character, but the focus is different.

2 Timothy 3:5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

1 Peter 4:1 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;

Jude 1:24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,

2 Corinthians 7:1 Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

The bottom line is my perfection is not my worry. It is God’s.