Post by Rev. Jim Cunningham on Nov 19, 2008 4:31:55 GMT -5
From: Manager Rev. Jim (Original Message) Sent: 3/5/2007 3:14 AM
Dear brothers and sisters,
As you read this you will see fire in my words, but know that there is nothing but true love for you in my heart.
Recently there have been a variety of posts concerning the Law, and this contention is beginning to disturb me, and as pastor here I hope that you will allow me to mediate somewhat. And before you feel led to remind me... be aware that I KNOW AND UNDERSTAND the principle that we are not to condemn one another and that we are not saved by the Law. But I am starting to get a bit nauseated that it has become our new mantra. That issue is a matter of milk, not meat, and every one of us should be beyond that which is the first issues of salvation, as it is written,
"For when for the time YE ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which
be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk
and not of strong meat. For everyone that useth milk IS UNSKILLFUL in the word of righteousness - for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who,
by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Therefore LEAVING [moving on from] the principles of the doctrine of Christ,
let us go on unto perfection,
NOT laying AGAIN the foundation of repentance from dead works,
and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands,
and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment."
-Hebrews 5:12-6:2
Paul sounds pretty ticked and irritated to me. He is saying, "Hello! I taught you these things already. I made them perfectly clear to you. Why have you not progressed? Why are we going over this again? Why won't you pay attention? You should be passed this grade level already. This is kid's stuff!"
Why is it that we are still debating and arguing over doctrines that were settled long ago? These things you should have settled when you received Christ. Yet we go on and on, and over and over these issues, when by now we should be fully prepared teachers of these things. When I see my brethren arguing over the Law I feel like I'm about to lose my mind. It is fatiguing and it is not right. This confusion is not of God, and I beg of you all to focus on this issue, learn it, get passed it, and MOVE ON. There are souls out there who are going to BURN IN HELL FOREVER based on what they believe or not believe at your mouth. Does that matter to anyone? I don't care what your pastor, priest, pope, guru, momsie or popsickle said to you about God's Law. The Law is clear about ITSELF, and Jesus and Paul and Peter and James and John and Luke went over it in a dozen styles to make us understand, so we are without excuse.
Now, I am well aware that we are all from various backgrounds in the Christian faith, that we have been taught myriad views on the Gospel, that we have been inundated by a hundred Bible versions all claiming to be the Word of God but all saying something totally different, and that we, in one form or other, have been wounded by the church's anti-gay views. However, what troubles me is the lack of one-mindedness among us in regard to the Laws of God. Many gay Christians have swung for being destructively conservative to mindblowingly liberal toward God's Law. (And when I say "God" I speak of Jesus who is "the fulness of the Godhead bodily" who created the world, spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai, and came to earth in the flesh, died, and rose again - THAT God).
Before I go on, I would like to say something about Paul. Those of us living in today's modern society are accustomed to their freedom to pick and choose who and what they will follow, able to drop away whenever they feel that someone is encrouching upon our space and our "rights". We are accustomed to dictating to our government, daring them to defy our absolute authority over government as sovereign citizens - as it ought to be. But let me tell you something (and I'm speaking to those who call themselves followers of Jesus). That way of living and thinking may be fine and dandy in matters of society and politics in a free nation, but it is not the way in God's House. The household of God is not a republic. It is not a democracy. It is a monarchy with an Emperor who rules absolutely and whose Word is not to be challenged or debated like a bill in the Senate, but obeyed. This Emperor has established ambassadors who speak His Word to us and they are to be obeyed as though the Emperor spoke it directly to our faces. Paul is one of those ambassadors, and we are obliged to obey God's word at his mouth. Paul was set by God as the Apostle to the Gentiles, of which we are, and therefore his word is God's word, and his word is our command. Paul himself said, "Be ye followers of me." Paul is set in authority over us, and though he has been gone these 2000 years, the authority of his words over us, authored of the Holy Spirit and sealed by Jesus Christ, has not diminished. And Paul, as an Apostle of Jesus in the spirit, and as a Pharisee (doctor of the Law) in the flesh, knows and understands God's Law better than anyone living. It was Paul who set the world on fire with the Gospel of Jesus, the first to take the Gospel to the Gentiles. He established all churches outside of Jerusalem and led thousands to Jesus, and by Paul, through them, we have been fathered into the Kingdom of Heaven. Every Gentile - and even some Jewish - Christians can trace their spiritual genealogy back to Paul. The writings of Paul in the Bible IS SCRIPTURE.
Moving on.
There appears to be a total lack of comprehension with regard to our liberality in Christ, though Paul told it to us. Whenever Paul spoke of God's Law, he was referring to the Law given through Moses contained in the first five books of the Bible. Paul told us that before Jesus died for us, we were bound to keep the whole law perfectly for salvation, and when we failed we were required to slaughter an innocent animal to take our place. God's Law is absolute. It is perfect. It is holy. It never changes nor passes away until that day when we dwell with him in New Jerusalem on the new earth ("till all be fulfilled"), at which time there will be no need of law because there will be no evil. But as Paul said, "I had not known what sin was until the Law came." By eating the fruit of the tree of the KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL, Adam and Eve suddenly knew what good was and what evil was. And this has passed on to all of their children (us). HOWEVER, none of us on our own know THE DIFFERENCE between good and evil ("for all do that which is good in his own eyes" and " there is a way that seems right unto man, but the ends thereof leadeth to destruction"), and therefore without the Law to distinguish good from evil, we are lost. "The Law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith."
Do not confuse obeying the Law because it is good with obeying the Law for justification. The first is true, the second is false. Now, let's get this out of the way once and for all. SALVATION CANNOT BE OBTAINED BY OBEYING THE LAW, BY ANY GOOD WORKS OR DEEDS. If you believe in Jesus and all that was spoken of Him, YOU HAVE SALVATION. Got it? You sure? Alright.
Now, you understand that you cannot be saved by obeying the Law, right? You understand that "our own righteousnesses are as filthy rags", right? You understand that "ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God", and that "sin worketh death", right? You know that there is no deed, no sacrament, no law that you can perform to earn salvation, right? So, after all of that, and understanding it, here is what everyone in both the Old and NEW Testaments tell us we have to do. OBEY THE LAW. You obey God's Law because He told you to, that's why. Don't argue, do it. "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep His commandments, FOR THS IS THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN... Doth (the Master) thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not! So likewise ye, when ye shall have done ALL those things which are commanded you, say, 'We are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our DUTY to do," Ecclesiastes 12:13 and Luke 17:9.
If God tells you not to wear different materials together, if he tells men not to wear women's clothes and women to not wear men's clothes, if he says don't eat pork, if He say to not work on the seventh day, if he says not to mark your skin with markings or cutting (tattoos), if he says stand on your head every day for five hours, who are you to question the authority of the Almighty? Does He not know why He gave the Law? Do you think He is stupid just because YOU don't understand the Law and think it is ridiculous? Is it not enough that our good and holy Master and Emperor so wishes it? Does He need to explain Himself to the likes of us, we who were filthy in our own blood and waste as vagabonds in the earth and desolate in spirit whom the Prince of Peace dained to condescend to lift up (Ezekiel 16)? Did He EVER ask our opinions before He gave the Law? How dare we sit here amongst ourselves questioning His authority and question His prophets and apostles, because that is exactly what we are doing! Will we be stiffnecked like the original branches so that we will be ungrafted from the Vine?
Where is holiness? Where is righteousness? It is written in the prophets that in the end times people will travel far and wide just to hear the Truth of God's Law because it will be so rare in the earth! So we are gay. Big deal. We are not special. We are not separate from our straight brethren. The same Law that binds them binds us. FAITH WITHOUT WORKS IS DEAD. If you do not obey, you have no faith. If you have no faith you are not saved. "If you love Me, keep My commandments." If you do not obey, you do not love the Lord. You think that just because the fundamentalists tortured us WRONGLY with the Law that we are not obliged to keep it? They are wrong on the point of homosexuality. That does not overthrow the whole law, my brothers and sisters. I do not want to hear the nonsense and blah blah blah any more that the Biblical law was ONLY for the Jews and only as a special "holiness code" for their day. That is a lie from the pit of hell. Paul stated that ALL who believe in Jesus have become the sons of Abraham the Hebrew and through Judah of the tribe of the Jews of which Jesus is born King, and are therefore Jews, and salvation is only of the Jews. YOU ARE A JEW - THE LAW APPLIES TO YOU. Don't believe me? Read Romans 2 and 3 and ALL of Hebrews. "Do we make void the Law by faith? God forbid! Yeah, we Establish the Law!"
Finally, do not think that just because we are not authorized to condemn one another that we are at liberty to willfully disobey and say to one another, "Ha! You can't judge me!" God will utterly destroy such fools that think they can mock Him so. God is not mocked; that which you sow, so shall you reap! Now, you DO have some liberality in Jesus that allows the Law to be flexible to an extent. HOWEVER, that is a great and deep thing, and since everyone apparently is still in the milk stage so that they must be taught all this again, he alone that is qualified to eat meat and know God's liberality will be given that meat from the table of our Lord. But those who drink milk must stay with milk until they are filled and grown. To them I say, stick to the written Law for now, for you have not learned it, and you will not be given meat until you do.
So, that is the end of that matter. Do your duty and obey the Law. It will not save you, it is merely your duty to your Emperor who saved you.
Some of you will be offended in my words. You will not see anything that was said, but will only show rebellion. Who does he think he is telling me like that? Where does he get off? I hear you saying already. I'll tell you the answer. I am your loving brother and servant of God. This is no game we're playing here. There was a TV show where Nazis lined up a group of men. A woman pointed to one of them and he was hauled away into a room and beaten. The woman was his wife and he hated her for the rest of his life for betraying him. What he did not know until the last days of his life was that immediately after he was taken away, all of the men in the line up were shot to death. His wife had saved his life, but because he was beaten and didn't know how serious the whole situation was and how he just barely escaped by the skin of his teeth, he hated her. Do you understand the stakes? Do you understand that the whole world teeters on the border of life and death and WE have been sent to save it with the CORRECT word of Gospel? And if it takes the rod of correction across your backside to make you wake up and see it, I'd rather beat you black and blue and have you angry with me than to let you go down to the pit of eternity! But don't worry, that's why the Lord put padding on your butt, baby.
Sorry, it's 3:15 AM. Please don't ask me to spellcheck. If it's that bad, just read between the lines.
I love you,
Rev. Jim
Dear brothers and sisters,
As you read this you will see fire in my words, but know that there is nothing but true love for you in my heart.
Recently there have been a variety of posts concerning the Law, and this contention is beginning to disturb me, and as pastor here I hope that you will allow me to mediate somewhat. And before you feel led to remind me... be aware that I KNOW AND UNDERSTAND the principle that we are not to condemn one another and that we are not saved by the Law. But I am starting to get a bit nauseated that it has become our new mantra. That issue is a matter of milk, not meat, and every one of us should be beyond that which is the first issues of salvation, as it is written,
"For when for the time YE ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which
be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk
and not of strong meat. For everyone that useth milk IS UNSKILLFUL in the word of righteousness - for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who,
by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Therefore LEAVING [moving on from] the principles of the doctrine of Christ,
let us go on unto perfection,
NOT laying AGAIN the foundation of repentance from dead works,
and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands,
and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment."
-Hebrews 5:12-6:2
Paul sounds pretty ticked and irritated to me. He is saying, "Hello! I taught you these things already. I made them perfectly clear to you. Why have you not progressed? Why are we going over this again? Why won't you pay attention? You should be passed this grade level already. This is kid's stuff!"
Why is it that we are still debating and arguing over doctrines that were settled long ago? These things you should have settled when you received Christ. Yet we go on and on, and over and over these issues, when by now we should be fully prepared teachers of these things. When I see my brethren arguing over the Law I feel like I'm about to lose my mind. It is fatiguing and it is not right. This confusion is not of God, and I beg of you all to focus on this issue, learn it, get passed it, and MOVE ON. There are souls out there who are going to BURN IN HELL FOREVER based on what they believe or not believe at your mouth. Does that matter to anyone? I don't care what your pastor, priest, pope, guru, momsie or popsickle said to you about God's Law. The Law is clear about ITSELF, and Jesus and Paul and Peter and James and John and Luke went over it in a dozen styles to make us understand, so we are without excuse.
Now, I am well aware that we are all from various backgrounds in the Christian faith, that we have been taught myriad views on the Gospel, that we have been inundated by a hundred Bible versions all claiming to be the Word of God but all saying something totally different, and that we, in one form or other, have been wounded by the church's anti-gay views. However, what troubles me is the lack of one-mindedness among us in regard to the Laws of God. Many gay Christians have swung for being destructively conservative to mindblowingly liberal toward God's Law. (And when I say "God" I speak of Jesus who is "the fulness of the Godhead bodily" who created the world, spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai, and came to earth in the flesh, died, and rose again - THAT God).
Before I go on, I would like to say something about Paul. Those of us living in today's modern society are accustomed to their freedom to pick and choose who and what they will follow, able to drop away whenever they feel that someone is encrouching upon our space and our "rights". We are accustomed to dictating to our government, daring them to defy our absolute authority over government as sovereign citizens - as it ought to be. But let me tell you something (and I'm speaking to those who call themselves followers of Jesus). That way of living and thinking may be fine and dandy in matters of society and politics in a free nation, but it is not the way in God's House. The household of God is not a republic. It is not a democracy. It is a monarchy with an Emperor who rules absolutely and whose Word is not to be challenged or debated like a bill in the Senate, but obeyed. This Emperor has established ambassadors who speak His Word to us and they are to be obeyed as though the Emperor spoke it directly to our faces. Paul is one of those ambassadors, and we are obliged to obey God's word at his mouth. Paul was set by God as the Apostle to the Gentiles, of which we are, and therefore his word is God's word, and his word is our command. Paul himself said, "Be ye followers of me." Paul is set in authority over us, and though he has been gone these 2000 years, the authority of his words over us, authored of the Holy Spirit and sealed by Jesus Christ, has not diminished. And Paul, as an Apostle of Jesus in the spirit, and as a Pharisee (doctor of the Law) in the flesh, knows and understands God's Law better than anyone living. It was Paul who set the world on fire with the Gospel of Jesus, the first to take the Gospel to the Gentiles. He established all churches outside of Jerusalem and led thousands to Jesus, and by Paul, through them, we have been fathered into the Kingdom of Heaven. Every Gentile - and even some Jewish - Christians can trace their spiritual genealogy back to Paul. The writings of Paul in the Bible IS SCRIPTURE.
Moving on.
There appears to be a total lack of comprehension with regard to our liberality in Christ, though Paul told it to us. Whenever Paul spoke of God's Law, he was referring to the Law given through Moses contained in the first five books of the Bible. Paul told us that before Jesus died for us, we were bound to keep the whole law perfectly for salvation, and when we failed we were required to slaughter an innocent animal to take our place. God's Law is absolute. It is perfect. It is holy. It never changes nor passes away until that day when we dwell with him in New Jerusalem on the new earth ("till all be fulfilled"), at which time there will be no need of law because there will be no evil. But as Paul said, "I had not known what sin was until the Law came." By eating the fruit of the tree of the KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL, Adam and Eve suddenly knew what good was and what evil was. And this has passed on to all of their children (us). HOWEVER, none of us on our own know THE DIFFERENCE between good and evil ("for all do that which is good in his own eyes" and " there is a way that seems right unto man, but the ends thereof leadeth to destruction"), and therefore without the Law to distinguish good from evil, we are lost. "The Law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith."
Do not confuse obeying the Law because it is good with obeying the Law for justification. The first is true, the second is false. Now, let's get this out of the way once and for all. SALVATION CANNOT BE OBTAINED BY OBEYING THE LAW, BY ANY GOOD WORKS OR DEEDS. If you believe in Jesus and all that was spoken of Him, YOU HAVE SALVATION. Got it? You sure? Alright.
Now, you understand that you cannot be saved by obeying the Law, right? You understand that "our own righteousnesses are as filthy rags", right? You understand that "ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God", and that "sin worketh death", right? You know that there is no deed, no sacrament, no law that you can perform to earn salvation, right? So, after all of that, and understanding it, here is what everyone in both the Old and NEW Testaments tell us we have to do. OBEY THE LAW. You obey God's Law because He told you to, that's why. Don't argue, do it. "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep His commandments, FOR THS IS THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN... Doth (the Master) thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not! So likewise ye, when ye shall have done ALL those things which are commanded you, say, 'We are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our DUTY to do," Ecclesiastes 12:13 and Luke 17:9.
If God tells you not to wear different materials together, if he tells men not to wear women's clothes and women to not wear men's clothes, if he says don't eat pork, if He say to not work on the seventh day, if he says not to mark your skin with markings or cutting (tattoos), if he says stand on your head every day for five hours, who are you to question the authority of the Almighty? Does He not know why He gave the Law? Do you think He is stupid just because YOU don't understand the Law and think it is ridiculous? Is it not enough that our good and holy Master and Emperor so wishes it? Does He need to explain Himself to the likes of us, we who were filthy in our own blood and waste as vagabonds in the earth and desolate in spirit whom the Prince of Peace dained to condescend to lift up (Ezekiel 16)? Did He EVER ask our opinions before He gave the Law? How dare we sit here amongst ourselves questioning His authority and question His prophets and apostles, because that is exactly what we are doing! Will we be stiffnecked like the original branches so that we will be ungrafted from the Vine?
Where is holiness? Where is righteousness? It is written in the prophets that in the end times people will travel far and wide just to hear the Truth of God's Law because it will be so rare in the earth! So we are gay. Big deal. We are not special. We are not separate from our straight brethren. The same Law that binds them binds us. FAITH WITHOUT WORKS IS DEAD. If you do not obey, you have no faith. If you have no faith you are not saved. "If you love Me, keep My commandments." If you do not obey, you do not love the Lord. You think that just because the fundamentalists tortured us WRONGLY with the Law that we are not obliged to keep it? They are wrong on the point of homosexuality. That does not overthrow the whole law, my brothers and sisters. I do not want to hear the nonsense and blah blah blah any more that the Biblical law was ONLY for the Jews and only as a special "holiness code" for their day. That is a lie from the pit of hell. Paul stated that ALL who believe in Jesus have become the sons of Abraham the Hebrew and through Judah of the tribe of the Jews of which Jesus is born King, and are therefore Jews, and salvation is only of the Jews. YOU ARE A JEW - THE LAW APPLIES TO YOU. Don't believe me? Read Romans 2 and 3 and ALL of Hebrews. "Do we make void the Law by faith? God forbid! Yeah, we Establish the Law!"
Finally, do not think that just because we are not authorized to condemn one another that we are at liberty to willfully disobey and say to one another, "Ha! You can't judge me!" God will utterly destroy such fools that think they can mock Him so. God is not mocked; that which you sow, so shall you reap! Now, you DO have some liberality in Jesus that allows the Law to be flexible to an extent. HOWEVER, that is a great and deep thing, and since everyone apparently is still in the milk stage so that they must be taught all this again, he alone that is qualified to eat meat and know God's liberality will be given that meat from the table of our Lord. But those who drink milk must stay with milk until they are filled and grown. To them I say, stick to the written Law for now, for you have not learned it, and you will not be given meat until you do.
So, that is the end of that matter. Do your duty and obey the Law. It will not save you, it is merely your duty to your Emperor who saved you.
Some of you will be offended in my words. You will not see anything that was said, but will only show rebellion. Who does he think he is telling me like that? Where does he get off? I hear you saying already. I'll tell you the answer. I am your loving brother and servant of God. This is no game we're playing here. There was a TV show where Nazis lined up a group of men. A woman pointed to one of them and he was hauled away into a room and beaten. The woman was his wife and he hated her for the rest of his life for betraying him. What he did not know until the last days of his life was that immediately after he was taken away, all of the men in the line up were shot to death. His wife had saved his life, but because he was beaten and didn't know how serious the whole situation was and how he just barely escaped by the skin of his teeth, he hated her. Do you understand the stakes? Do you understand that the whole world teeters on the border of life and death and WE have been sent to save it with the CORRECT word of Gospel? And if it takes the rod of correction across your backside to make you wake up and see it, I'd rather beat you black and blue and have you angry with me than to let you go down to the pit of eternity! But don't worry, that's why the Lord put padding on your butt, baby.
Sorry, it's 3:15 AM. Please don't ask me to spellcheck. If it's that bad, just read between the lines.
I love you,
Rev. Jim