John81

Willy

wax candles

Biloxi

Holly

On 6/18/2016 at 4:35 PM, Rosie said:

pet peeve, people who run red lights and think its ok

Right there with you Rosie! There is a small city near here where that's a big problem. Even if your light turns green you  have to be very careful to look both ways and slowly start to go because there are many who will go right through a red light if it's only been red for a couple of seconds.

Exodus 19:2

For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness; and there Israel camped before the mount.

Perhaps it's a gremlin from the Kremlin!

Ok, I admit it, until recent years the first day of summer was always June 21 because that was the actual first full day of summer. Now, since they say summer technically actually begins at five something this afternoon they declare the 20th to be the first day of summer even though most of the day is gone by the time their official beginning of summer arrives.

Besides, we could always easily remember my maternal grandmothers birthday as it was the same day summer began, June 21.

Exodus 18:26

And they judged the people at all seasons: the hard causes they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judged themselves.

Just now, Ukulelemike said:

Of course not, because these don't see homosexuality as a sin.

Now a valid question would also be, what if the homosexual is repentant, not living in the lifestyle anymore, but still 'homosexual', in that he still clearly feels the urges?

I would consider that a repentant, non-active "homosexual", even if they are still tempted to that sin, are no longer a "homosexual". Being tempted isn't a sin, it's only when we give in to the temptation that we sin and can be defined by the sin (homosexual, adulterer, thief, etc.).   

Exodus 18:24

So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father in law, and did all that he had said.

One of the things which I don't see raised very often is if this particular sin is okay to accept, tolerate or ignore (or even claim to not be a sin) why not all the other sins?

If a pastor or church thinks they should accept open, practicing homosexuals into the church as full members, able to serve in the church, then should this apply to a known serial rapist, murderer, thief, pedophile?

Most pastors and churches, at least at the moment, would not allow or even consider allowing those open sinners to be members and to serve in the church. Why accept homosexual sinners then?

Sadly, this isn't anything new, as many pastors and churches have (and do) tolerate certain open sinners. Some tolerate adulterers, the sexually promiscuous, dead beat dads, serial divorcees, etc.

This is just one of the many consequences of viewing the church as a place that's supposed to be open and appealing to the lost, where they can come without judgment concerning their pet sins. The so-called "seeker sensitive" philosophy has trickled down to many churches under other guises.

The primary purpose of the church is to build up and train the saved while proclaiming the sinfulness of man and mans need for salvation which only comes through Christ. If a lost sinner enters a church and never feels even a little convicted of their sinfulness then something is wrong there.

6 hours ago, No Nicolaitans said:

I agree.

However, the section of scripture that I quoted from Job wasn't Job seeking answers. It was Job stating facts.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but it's easy to give an answer (on a forum such as this) that doesn't address a real-life situation. Here, we can say things like...

1. It was just God's will.
2. We just have to trust God.
3. God knows best.
4. Etc...

But when you're face-to-face with someone who lost their child, when they have tears streaming down their face, when they are on the edge of despair and their world has crashed around them, when they are in desperate need of comfort and hope...with what you believe; in that, scripture doesn't answer this, what would you tell them to help them during their time of grief?

I'm not arguing who's right or wrong. I'm just wondering what one (with the belief that scripture doesn't answer this) could say to someone who has lost a child. If all one would say is, "You just need to trust God"...then, okay...I accept that.

However, I know from personal experience (that has nothing to do with babies dying) that such answers aren't wanted, aren't helpful, aren't appreciated, and leaves the hurting with more hurt. I'm just trying to see if anyone can offer an answer that can help someone and help us to "bear one another's burdens".

Yes, I think I would agree with that.

I understand what you mean. Unfortunately I know many who have lost babies in the womb, stillborn, or died shortly after birth. Sadly, my Mom had stillborn twins and a little girl who only lived less than two hours.

There really are no words that bring the comfort being sought or desired. Even when they are told their child is with Jesus the pain is still there, there seems to virtually always be lingering doubt or uncertainty as to whether that's true or not, and oftentimes there develops an anger toward God for "taking their child".

Making matters worse are all those who try to preach adult, clearly lost sinners into heaven. Many people have heard pastors talk of how a known lifetime sinner had a good heart, loved God in their own way, didn't wear their religion on their sleeve, loved their family, helped folks in the Mason Lodge, or some other non-biblical reason why they are in heaven. These people who actually knew the deceased sinner know the pastor is preaching a smoke screen. After hearing these sort of things they become even more skeptical of hearing similar.

The top pastor of Southwest Church in Indian Wells was asked to resign because he refused to condemn homosexuality, he explained in his resignation letter. 

A few months ago, Pastor Gerald Sharon—who has been lead pastor of Southwest since 2013 and previously served at Saddleback Church in Orange County—asked the church hierarchy to look into "the extent to which a homosexual individual could be involved in the life of Southwest Church."

While the church leadership initially seemed engaged in the discussions, they recently sent Sharon a letter in which they unanimously affirmed Southwest's current position on homosexuality.

Southwest's LGBT policy is written down in a document titled "Homosexuality and Human Sexuality." The document does not appear to be publicly available.

"My heart sank realizing that no homosexual person who would read these documents would truly feel welcome at Southwest Church," Sharon wrote in his resignation letter.

"And if the positions held in these papers are followed, they will effectively exclude homosexual individuals from the life of Southwest. My desire was to rescind these papers, neither affirming nor condemning homosexuality so that all individuals regardless of their perspective could feel completely welcome and fully loved at Southwest."

Sharon's resignation is effective July 8, but the church elders have forbidden him from attending any services at Southwest, according to the resignation letter.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

3 hours ago, No Nicolaitans said:

I agree.

My belief on this isn't tied to my emotions, nor do my questions represent any emotion on my part. My questions represent the emotions on the grieving parent's part. That's all. I'm in no way bound to this by emotion.

I only asked the question(s), because I sincerely wanted to know what one could say to grieving parents under such circumstances. I realize that's probably asking a lot, because a conversation with grieving parents could go in many different directions. While I know that trusting God is ample enough for whatever may happen, it's not enough for most people. In the real world, leaving grieving parents with "just trust God" will most likely cause confusion and resentment. I'm not saying that's right on their part; I'm just stating how people are. So, I was just wondering if there was anything else that could be said.

It was. I know you well enough brother.

As stated above, God doesn't always give clear answers and assurances regarding every point where someone may believe or feel better about a particular matter. Even with regards to Job, God never answered His questions, didn't reveal to Job the behind the scene (spiritual) things going on. God simply pointed out He is God and there are none who can rightly question Him.

People die every day which, if we are honest, we are unable to give a clear "they are certainly in heaven with Jesus right now" statement. Sadly, many do give such statements even when it's as obvious as possible to us that the deceased are nowhere near heaven.

Considering Scripture doesn't directly address the eternal state of those who die in the womb, as babies or young children, isn't is simply safe to trust God with the matter and not try to come up with our own thoughts on this?

Another point, are we all going to be the "age" we were at death throughout eternity? Will the woman who died at 108 be as that age for eternity; or the 13 year old boy, or anyone else? It doesn't seem likely little babies will be tossed into hell for torment or crawling around the streets of gold for eternity. Again, however, since Scripture doesn't specifically speak to this, doesn't it stand to reason we can trust God with however He deals with this?

The main problem here is, like so many other churches, the SBC is losing sight of the main mission of churches as presented in Scripture. Churches are to build up the believers so they can rightly live for Christ and spread the Gospel, make disciples.

If churches were doing what they are called to do, these other matters would be covered by right Christian living. A Christian, rooted and grounded in the Word, living his life for Christ, will love others, have compassion, pray for others, help those they can, share the Gospel with all.

No need for establishing committees and special groups to focus upon a dozen separate political/cultural issues.

So-called conservative Christians have been active in politics, giving a great deal of focus, time, money and attention to such, for many decades now. Is the country today more or less Christian?

Looking at the biblical model, and those who followed the biblical model, we see entire towns transformed by the saving power of Christ, entire regions and nations transformed. Sadly, many Christians and churches have lost sight of this and dive into the political and social activism arena believing their seen and felt efforts in this is more productive than an hour in fervent prayer, witnessing in the park, sharing the Gospel with neighbors, being involved in mission either directly or indirectly.

By Lee Duigon
June 16, 2016
NewsWithViews.com

[NOTE: I have to be careful what I write today, because a Muslim fanatic shot up a gay bar and Christians are to blame, somehow. Every form of resistance to the demands of organized sodomy will be declared the moral equivalent of the Orlando massacre.

So all I will say is this. Sorry, liberals, but this was your fault, not ours. You fostered and coddled homosexual activism. At the same time, you have tried to do the same with Islam, which you have imported.

“Gay rights” and militant Islam cannot coexist.

And I think you knew that all along, but didn’t care.]

We’ve been wondering what will be the Left’s next big social engineering project, once the transgender movement has run its course and people are in jail for using the wrong pronoun.

Some would bet on pedophilia. Temple University, for one, has been working hard for decades to convince society that it’s beneficial for children to have sex with adults. Only they don’t call it that. They call it “consensual inter-generational sex,” and by the time you figure out that’s just a fancy term for pedophilia, the deed’s been done.

Last week, though, the Supreme Court of Canada, with a stroke of the pen, created another Cherished Minority—people who have sex with animals. Yes, they virtually legalized bestiality, except for one particular act which need not be mentioned here.

This week, British newspapers reported that bestiality has become something of a fad in Germany, leading to the creation of “erotic zoos”. Because there is some faint stirring in the German legislature to go back to making bestiality against the law, “zoophiles”—see? They’ve already got a name for themselves—have vowed to organize, demonstrate, and lobby to secure their… “rights”.

We’ve seen that all before, haven’t we? In due time, “zoophiles” will become a favored and protected group in many Western countries, and everyone else will be required to respect, affirm, and “celebrate” this—well, I’m sure they will call it a lifestyle.

St.Paul said, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12). Note that the origin of all this wickedness is spiritual, not temporal. But its instrumentality is indeed of this world: humanity’s inborn drive to sin, which can be overcome only by spiritual regeneration in Jesus Christ, by the grace of God.

This one effective, spiritual weapon lies rusting in the churches’ armories.

Naturally, and now more than ever, people are afraid to speak against what we timorously call erotic minorities. Why? Because they don’t want to be smashed by the whole ruling class of the Western world: by courts and politicians, by the media and celebrities, by schools and universities. By worldly forces which, willingly or unknowingly, serve spiritual wickedness in high places.

It should hardly be necessary to say that violence is not the answer. If we’re going to kill all the sinners, we would wind up killing everybody; for all have sinned.

But surely the answer cannot be to surrender to the rulers of the darkness of this world: to dance around the golden calf, because we don’t dare not to, mindlessly chanting “Love wins! Love wins” with all the rest of them. Nowhere in the Bible are we told, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

The bare fact is that we’re killing our culture by rebelling against God; and if you kill your culture, the culture will kill you right back.

As Moses said, we must choose blessing or cursing, life or death.

Spiritual destruction seems a high price to pay for a sexual buffet.

When I was a baby Christian I heard the idea of reading several different versions in order to really understand the Bible. I don't recall where I heard that or who from but I bought several inexpensive Bibles of various versions. While some claim to gain better clarity comparing different versions that wasn't the case for me. What I discovered is that while some passages seemed to say basically the same thing, in many other cases the passages were clearly different, sometimes even contradicting one another. In my mind it seemed impossible that each version could be trusted to be God's Word when they disagreed in so many areas.

That experience led to much discouragement. Eventually I went back to my RSV, the Bible I had been given in Methodist Sunday school as a child. Some years later I switched to the NASB because it was an "American Bible". It was a few years later when I clearly "heard" the Lord telling me to read the KJB and stay with the KJB. I did and what a blessing that has been.

Ban Rosie for this, that and the other.

Ok, I admit it, sun tea can be really good.

I'm sure glad I got the yard mowed the other day. It was hot then but it's been several degrees hotter every day since then.

1

Ungar