BroJesse

Thank you for the answer. You are right, the verses are clear.
I remembered my colleague who believes that Jesus Christ died for his sins but he also told me that he will never give up hinduism, he just wants to have both and it cannot be done.

Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

Sadly, your Hindu friend is still lost and needs to get saved. He merely took on Christ as his perceived fire insurance from Hell, but never repented nor did he ever renounce his idols and multitude of Hindu gods.

I have had and still have a few problems with MacSword, sadly...FF hasn't given me much trouble ever since I upgraded to Firefox 2. The most problem I have now is Opera, Adium (IM program) and Cyberduck (FTP). Other than those, I have had no issues, let alone security problems.

These problems are typical with any software (on any operating system) where you are in a perpetual state of beta. MacSword and Adium are always in a state of development and is a work-in-progress. That also means bugs are still there and are constantly being weeded out.

That is if you don't keep it updated.

Yes, even Apple computers commonly referred as Mac's have their problems, but we know being as there are so few of them they want have never the people trying to break into them as the Microsoft Windows will.

Actually I don't get your point at all - are you saying that getting these updates is a bad thing?

Just for contrast, Windows XP was released in Oct 2001, Service Pack 2 was released on Aug 6, 2004. SP 3 is reportedly STILL in development and might be released in the next few months.

2 updates in the space of more than 5 years compared to Apple releasing updates and patches in the frequency of close to 1 every month or at the mimimum per quarter and most critical bugs are patched and fixed within less than a week and ready for download.

Oh by the way, in these releases, Apple has proactively released patches to potential security exploits ie. fixes to problems that do not yet exist. Futhermore, these threats still do not exist.

More often than not, what you see with Windows is a massive all out effort to shut the barn door after the horse has escaped, been mauled and eaten alive by the wolves and is now lunch for the vultures.

So what I see is that you have an OS developer who has acted responsibly by releasing updates and fixes to known problems as soon as possible - which is what you would expect from a responsible company. Even cars get recalled. In contrast, Microsoft makes 2 official updates in the last 5.5 years and I would love to see what would happen to a car manufacturer if they did nothing about defects for a few years even though they know about them.

All operating systems need updating and patches. It has been that way since the mainframe OSes of the 50s.

By the way, its time to stop using the tired, old argument about how "few" Mac users are out there. Computers are exploited not because of their user base numbers but because of the weakness and size of their vulnerabilities. The easier to exploit, the better. Kids today can go to a website and download small tools and scripts to compromise a Windows machine. It has become so easy to do that that the term "script kiddies" was coined to describe these paint-by-number Windows "hackers".

Finally, you really should know better than to use an outdated article (Nov 2005) to prove your point.

Shame on the Sydney IFB and the Charismatics.

Judgment is surely coming upon this 'great' city down under.

Sadly, the only folks I encountered in downtown Sydney at a McDonald's who seemed fervent in "faith" were men who were sitting around dabbling with UFO conspiracy theories while carrying a big bible around.

It troubled me to know that baptist church buildings are now converted to become pubs and restaurants.

It purely sinful and the world seems to love it.

But, If we belong to Jesus, we should have overcome the world.

In Shreveport, LA, which is our local TV stations, they have their version of Mardi Gras, its sicking to me, they are always promoting it on the news.

The problem is that the rest of the world has become enamoured by all this and are bringing mardi gras into their own countries. It's a matter of time before all the other wickedness follows.

what topic would it go under? I can post a link, it is on sermonaudio.com....it will be uploaded soon, a friend of mine sent it to me.

Just post a link if it is already uploaded to sermonaudio.com

Chev,

IMO, I think that's a question that would have to be addressed on a more individual basis. Creating traditional Korean music with Christian words wouldn't be a problem in my opinion. Putting words to an African ritual dance would be.

If the traditional music has to do with pagan worship, it can't be used.

I know of a church where they reeled back in horror when the missionary originally suggested using their traditional instruments for their music. He found out why - they used those instruments to direct the departed souls of the dead to their final resting place. It was unthinkable for them to use their traditional instruments because of that association. Furthermore for them, their particular history and culture was such that most of their songs were associated with sad funerals of loved ones who were cruelly murdered by their persecutors (not for their faith, but for their race).

In this situation, they had to learn new songs. It was however a mark of grace that this people actually also learnt new songs and hymns in the language of their enemies and persecutors who had been so cruel to them.

However they had to be taught some things about Western Music also as they had innocently assumed that a drum kit was something that could be used and they managed to build a whole drum kit out of garbage and recycled materials. Such was their enthusiasm, innocence and resourcefulness. The good news was that this drum kit was ultimately abandoned and was not used in worship.

Many resist the outward testimony of scripture because it is only external, but the inward irresitable call is when one is regenerated by the effectual power of God. Paul was # 1 Born again on the road to damascus 1cor 15

8And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

Now , anyone knowing scripture understands that one is born exactly on the day and hour predetermined by God !

Also paul testifies that in due season God converted Him gal 1

15But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace,

16To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:

You believe God was trying to convert paul before his appointed time, how silly...lol !

When it was time for paul to be converted, God exerted His power and worked effectually as He does with all His elect..

eph 7Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power.

Paul was born out of due time, the scripture says what it says but while you have charged others here for not reading in context, you need to read this in context. "Due time" was with reference to the sequence of eyewitnesses of Christ's resurrection by the disciples and apostles and has nothing to do with your assertion of Paul's irresistible conversion.

(1Cor 15:4-8)
4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
5 And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:
6 After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.
7 After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles.
8 And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

Yes, he states that he was ultimately converted. The word means "untimely birth" and the next verse tells us why:

1Cor 15:9* For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

It was untimely because right up to his conversion on the Damascus road, he was a persecutor of the church. The scripture also mentions that the Lord Jesus Himself told Paul that he was kicking against the pricks of his own conscience.

God was calling him to grace, you on the other hand conveniently substitute calling for conversion. That's subtle, but that's not good bible teaching I'm afraid.

Eph 3:7 that you quote - God made Paul a minister, one who serves and in this case, he served by preaching the gospel. This is not a conversion testimony by Paul. Totally out of context and twisted to teach you intend.

No minister can minister that without the grace of God. It isn't even optional.

I made a mistake in the year of the hymnal--I looked at it last night and it IS the 1989 revised edition and the hymn "The Old Account" #245 was changed from "O sinner seek the Lord, repent of all your sins; for thus He has commanded if you will enter in" to "O sinner seek the Lord, be cleansed of all your sins; for thus He has provided if you will enter in" (I'm not sure if I typed the change in correctly). But it does remove the "repent" and replaces it with "be cleansed" and from "commanded" to "provided"--BIG CHANGE. I don't know if our pastor is aware of this, but I will be showing this to him at our Wednesday night prayer meeting.

The problem is that these changes have also been copied and duplicated into newer hymnals and I think it has affected also the Majesty Hymns hymnal. This will be increasingly the case as the 1st edition Soul Stirring Hymns fades away into history as it is no longer being printed with the exception of 1 or 2 printing ministries which are reproducing the old copy.

I've really been struggling in my mind over something lately. It seems there are a whole lot of churches that have bus ministries that bring in children who make salvation decisions, but then when they become a teenager or adult or they move away, etc.., they just quit on God altogether and live the worldly life and totally forget about their childhood decision. Is their salvation not real? Is it possible to get saved and then just forget about your salvation for the rest of your life?

It is not uncommon for bus workers to chalk up multiple salvation decisions even by the same child week after week. The proof is still in a changed life and while we are never going to be sinlessly perfect, we will be sinning less as a general trend.

The turning point for us over here is about the age of 14-15 when either the rebellious sin nature fully rears its ugly head or it has been greatly subdued because of genuine salvation. That's when I can really see whether there was a genuine turning to Christ for salvation or not.

At the earlier ages, we tend to overlook all this and discount the fact that the root of that Adamic sin and rebellion nature is already there. Worse, some parents actually think it is "cute".

Unless we get the view of man correct, we will be making all the wrong assumptions. It isn't the fact that there's all this external influence and peer pressure that is causing teens to act that way, Jesus tells us that it comes from inside the heart.

1. No Christian has any business being involved in trying to celebrate and indulge in as much sin as possible before Lent, which is the whole premise of Mardi Gras - to enjoy as much of the world as possible before you enforce a period of "piety".

2. No Christian lady would be on the streets during Mardi Gras trying to shed her clothing and earn as many bead necklaces thrown to her by the "appreciative" audience for baring her bosom

3. No Christian man has any business being there watching these women or "soaking up" the whole atmosphere ie. using this for our entertainment. Rom 1 warns us about being entertained by sin:

Rom 1:32* Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

4. the open and rampant beer drinking and drunkardness, men and women urinating and defecating themselves in the back alleys in open view of others - speak nothing but of a shameful hedonism that has nothing to do with a spiritual preparation to commemorate the death/resurrection of our Lord.

Repetance is such a key factor in salvation, and mentioned so often throughout Scripture, that I fail to understand how some can read the Scriptures and miss this.

John, the answer to that is simple: WHEN you let your theology interpret the bible instead of letting the bible determine your theology.

Thus far, we can established that beloved57 holds to salvation being only for the elect, that repentance comes after regeneration and that Israel consists of Jews and the redeemed elect.

We can further establish that he will continue to debate Acts 2:37-38 but ignore all the other scripture that was already discussed. Not only that but he will now have us believe that conviction is equivalent to repentance ignoring the scriptures that show us that there have been people who were convicted in the same book of Acts but didn't get converted until either much later or rejected it altogether.

Paul fought the conviction and kicked against the prickings of his conscience but was not converted until confronted at the Damascus, while Festus trembled at the preaching but never showed any sign of a turning to God for salvation. The Calvinist would have to overturn all these scriptures because it is unthinkable under that system of theology that a human being could resist the conviction and defy "irresistible grace".

I believe in "Amazing Grace" that can save a wretched sinner including a murderer like Paul from the guttermost to the uttermost, but I do not hold to "irresistible grace". Paul resisted for a long time until he was on the Damascus road.

beloved57, I may be missing something here but in your first introductory post you said that "it is a priviledge to share the testimony of Christ". From there I understand about where you lived and where you went to college but I'm hoping that you will be able to share with us your testimony of salvation as it will be a great blessing.

This is describing the outcome of a Sovereign work of the Spirit !

repentance and forgiveness is freely given to the elect !

Ah... finally the Calvinism is showing its colours. Thanks for clarifying where you are coming from.

Clarification on what easy believism is:

I am also against "123 pray after me", but someone can easily get saved after being given a clear and thorough presentation of the gospel using the Word of God. The Bible compares getting saved to taking a drink of water. (See Revelation 22:17) The doctrine that I am opposed to is that one must "repent of their sins" to get saved.

You may be opposed to the idea of repenting of sin, but let's see what scripture has to say and in particular, what Jesus Himself taught:

Matt 21:28-32
28 But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard.
29 He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went.
30 And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not.
31 Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.
32 For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.

The type of repentance that Jesus portrayed here is not merely changing one's belief but it led to a forsaking of the old actions and leads to a change in what that person does. Simply put: Repentance with respect to salvation has to do with forsaking sin.

The Thessalonian church gave testimony of this kind of repentance in the lives of the new believers:

(1Th 1:9,10)
9 For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;
10 And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

There was a turning FROM idols and a turning TO God. There was a forsaking of service to idols to serving God.

If that belief never changed what you do (from the inside out), it never saved you.

(Ac 20:20,21)
20 And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to house,
21 Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

If repentance has to do with changing one's beliefs, then why does Paul talk of Repentance AND Faith? Doesn't faith have to do with belief? It is possible to have faith in the finished work on the Cross and still have unbelief (unrepentance as you define it) at the same time?

"Soul Stirring Songs and Hymns" It is the blue cover edition. Not sure of the year.

Where can I find some info on changed amed to this hymnal??


We also sing choruses. These I do not care for.
They sound very much like the parise/worhsip stuff.

God bless
Bro. Mike

Here's a link: http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/changesin.htm
and another: http://www.johnnythebaptist.org/SermonO ... Repent.htm (see the entry on Curtis Hutson)

"cross-dominant" - that sounds almost, uh, well, you know.

Ha ha, there is a technical term for it and I think it is called cross laterality or something like that.

huh? what do you mean?

Someone emailed me before about this and showed me a chat log of how this person led someone else to Christ in a chatroom.

Sure, she used the Law and went through the 10 commandements. However the usage of the Law has to do with bringing about a personal knowledge of sin, not merely going through a checklist of 10 Laws that we have broken. You can take someone through that and still merely get head assent that they are not perfect.

This person then proceeded to lead that other person in a "sinner's prayer" and chalked it up as someone who got saved, but it was clear even in the chat log that this person had no idea what he was doing.

So while this lady had been enthusiastically learning how to use the Law in evangelism, she didn't realize that there was quite a bit of unlearning to do. What she had done instead was to integrate the use of the Law into what she had always been trained to do instead - to lead someone into a "decision".

The central message of the Law has to do with God, not man. It points out God's holiness and man's sinfulness and how much we lack and need the perfect righteousness of God which God will impute to man by faith, if we are willing to humble ourselves in repentance to receive it.

Samer, I'm teaching and using the Law when it comes to evangelism in my church. It is hard going because I have to under many years of folks being taught to lead someone into a decision or a prayer.

I've also seen baptists who use the Law as a formula, turning it into yet another variation of "getting a decision".

An important point to note is that to the average reader "ye" means "you" and the two are interchangable to them. So, for them, whether they read a Bible with ye or you, they are thinking you.

Thee also means you, but it means you (singular). Ye refers to all of you or "you" as in a group.

This is not perculiar to the KJV, they were formal rules of written English that were in common use until the 20th century. This was covered in Strunk and White's book called "The Elements of Style".

The Online Bible documentation has more about this subject.

I own a copy of the Evidence Bible and while it would seem on the surface that the language of the KJV has been edited to make it more "accessible" to the common man on the street, the problem is that not all the changes are helpful.

Example: Joh 3:7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

By changing all the "thees" and "ye" to "you", it has actually made things less clear because it no longer distinguished between the first person singular and the plural. What Jesus was saying to Nicodemus was this:

Marvel not that I say unto you {Nicodemus}, Ye {everybody: all men} must be born again.

I keep the Evidence Bible around as a useful reference.

Wow, I'm the subject of a poll! I knew you guys liked me all along :cool

Anyways, I'm 99% left-handed. I was the only southpaw in my first-grade class, so my teacher taught me to write right-handed. The only other things I do right-handed is play golf (clubs are a lot cheaper!) and shoot (I'm right-eye dominant).
Mitch

You sound cross-dominant to me. It's probably much easier to shoot right handed anyway.

We use the green hymnal "Soul Stirring Hymns" from Sword of the Lord. I think John R. Rice put that together. It is the 1972 edition.

That's the 1st edition, the uncorrupted edition before many of the words were changed.

Ain't you ever heard of a high tech redneck :hmm

Nope. Have you?

Do they live in the same place where squirrels order their nuts and other supplies on eBay? :lol

What??? You mean a person can change dominant eye? I don't want that to happen!!

God created the human brain with very powerful software running on it. It can compensate for faulty hardware even. That's why you can see some stroke patients recover very quickly and regain the use of parts of their bodies that were disabled because of the loss of a part of the brain.

It's very hard for any computer to be able to do that - mobilize unused capacity and other facilities to replace what was already lost. Totally amazing in its design!

The benefit of becoming cross dominant is that I've gained the full use of both halves of my brain. It's like going from a single core to a dual core processor upgrade! I'm still learning to master whatever I've gained.

I was born a righty, but was also born with a defective eyelid that didn't open for 3 days after I was born. Later in life, that eyelid continued to cut off about 20% of the incoming light.

I was enlisted into military service as a righty with a right master eye for shooting. But in the last 12 years or so, it seems that I've shifted my eye dominance over to the left. The opthamatrist confirmed that I'm now left eye dominant and that means I'm cross-dominant as I'm still right handed.

His theory was that the brain shifted its dependence to the left eye as my right wasn't too good thanks to the loss of incoming light and also the fact that it is somewhat more myopic than my left.

I had suspected that for a few years but couldn't confirm it. But now its very clear as I've regained more of the use of my left hand. I carry babies and my toddler with my right arm alone and I can catch a tennis ball with either hands though handwriting is somewhat of a challenge. I now shoot photos as a right handed person but looking into the viewfinder through my left eye instead.

I do think like a left handed person and it has helped me to be able to bring about a different perspective and view into problem solving back when I was writing software (a radically creative, logical, analystical person).

These days I have a preference for a particular hand when it comes to certain tasks. I'm feeding my toddler with my right, while feeding myself with my left. I do very well these days writing by typing on the computer (2 handed tasks) when I used to be terrible when I wrote essays by hand on my right hand. I've developed the tendency to discuss with myself aloud (speech is controlled by the left brain) and then brainstorm in front of a whiteboard or large sheet of paper. Preaching also has become more "visual" as I tend to use more visually vivid language to "paint" a situation for folks and put them in that situation along with the illustrations.

If I were to vote, I'd still say I'm right handed.