St_Worm2

Both Greetings! I've always thought of "spiritual warfare" as a mostly defensive operation on the part of the saints, but I'm wondering if I need to revise my thinking about that? For instance, So, what say you? Offensive, defensive or both, and if it is the latter, do you believe that we are (or at least should be) principally engaged in an offensive or defensive operation (please explain why you believe what you do w/a verse or two in support, if possible). Thanks!! BTW, I always thought of "gates" as being defensive in nature, but the wording of Matthew 16:18 makes the gates of hell sound like it could be an offensive weapon of some sort instead, especially in translations like the NASB, NIV, and paraphrases like the NLT ("will not overpower it/the church" NASB and/or "will not conquer it/the church" NLT), though the AV's/NKJV's" translation, "the gates of hell ~shall not prevail~ against it (the church)" could certainly be understood as the "gates" being offensive too. There is much more concerning this topic that I'd like to discuss, but this seems like a good place to start, so please let me/us know what you think about all of this God bless you!! --David

The Screwtape Letters Chapter 2 II MY DEAR WORMWOOD, I note with grave displeasure that your patient has become a Christian. Do not indulge the hope that you will escape the usual penalties; indeed, in your better moments, I trust you would hardly even wish to do so. In the meantime we must make the best of the situation. There is no need to despair; hundreds of these adult converts have been reclaimed after a brief sojourn in the Enemy’s camp and are now with us. All the habits of the patient, both mental and bodily, are still in our favour. One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with rather an oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print. When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbours. Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like “the body of Christ” and the actual faces in the next pew. It matters very little, of course, what kind of people that next pew really contains. You may know one of them to be a great warrior on the Enemy’s side. No matter. Your patient, thanks to Our Father below, is a fool. Provided that any of those neighbours sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous. At his present stage, you see, he has an idea of “Christians” in his mind which he supposes to be spiritual but which, in fact, is largely pictorial. His mind is full of togas and sandals and armour and bare legs and the mere fact that the other people in church wear modern clothes is a real—though of course an unconscious—difficulty to him. Never let it come to the surface; never let him ask what he expected them to look like. Keep everything hazy in his mind now, and you will have all eternity wherein to amuse yourself by producing in him the peculiar kind of clarity which Hell affords. Work hard, then, on the disappointment or anticlimax which is certainly coming to the patient during his first few weeks as a churchman. The Enemy allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavour. It occurs when the boy who has been enchanted in the nursery by Stories from the Odyssey buckles down to really learning Greek. It occurs when lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing. The Enemy takes this risk because He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His “free” lovers and servants—“sons” is the word He uses, with His inveterate love of degrading the whole spiritual world by unnatural liaisons with the two-legged animals. Desiring their freedom, He therefore refuses to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any of the goals which He sets before them: He leaves them to “do it on their own”. And there lies our opportunity. But also, remember, there lies our danger. If once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt. I have been writing hitherto on the assumption that the people in the next pew afford no rational ground for disappointment. Of course, if they do—if the patient knows that the woman with the absurd hat is a fanatical bridge-player or the man with squeaky boots a miser and an extortioner—then your task is so much the easier. All you then have to do is to keep out of his mind the question “If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?” You may ask whether it is possible to keep such an obvious thought from occurring even to a human mind. It is, Wormwood, it is! Handle him properly and it simply won’t come into his head. He has not been anything like long enough with the Enemy to have any real humility yet. What he says, even on his knees, about his own sinfulness is all parrot talk. At bottom, he still believes he has run up a very favourable credit-balance in the Enemy’s ledger by allowing himself to be converted, and thinks that he is showing great humility and condescension in going to church with these “smug”, commonplace neighbours at all. Keep him in that state of mind as long as you can. Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape

Hello Ghostdog, I was submerged three times when I was baptized as an adult (once for each Member of the Godhead .. e.g. Matthew 28:19). As far as how long I was underwater each time I was submerged, well, I never felt the need to come up early to breathe (nor did I ever wish that I'd been wearing a SCUBA tank ;)). Finally, what do you mean by, "long enough to make sure that it (your baptism) took hold? ("took hold" of what, exactly?). Thanks! God bless you!! --David

No Scar? "For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake." Philippians 1:29 Hast thou no scar? No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand? I hear thee sung as mighty in the land; I hear them hail thy bright, ascendant star. Hast thou no scar? Hast thou no wound? Yet I was wounded by the archers; spent, Leaned Me against a tree to die; and rent By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned. Hast thou no wound? No wound? No scar? Yet, as the Master shall the servant be, And piercèd are the feet that follow Me. But thine are whole; can he have followed far Who hast no wound or scar? BY Amy Carmichael Missionary to orphans in India. She suffered much -- and bore much eternal fruit. Back in the 1920s, Amy rescued hundreds of orphaned children -- especially little girls that would be dedicated to Hindu gods for use in sexual temple rituals. By God's wonderful grace, some had miraculously escaped from such pagan slavery and were led to the Irish "mother" who lovingly cared for each child God sent her. In 1931 she prayed, “God, please do with me whatever you want. Do anything that will help me to serve you better.” That same day, she fell, suffering fractures that would cripple her for the rest of her life. Not one to be discouraged or bitter when faced with pain or persecution, Amy now had the opportunity to demonstrate God's faithfulness before a much larger "host" of witnesses. While her growing children had continual freedom to enter her bedroom and share their hearts with their beloved "mother," she now had the quiet times that allowed her to write books, poems, and letters that were translated and shared around the world. "Great is Thy faithfulness," O Lord! "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross..." Hebrews 12:1-2 ~NO SCAR?

Hello D. Adrien, please elaborate a bit, as I'd like to make sure that I'm understanding the point that you're making (also, are you referring to St. Francis specifically, or to preachers, witnesses and missionaries in general, as those who fall short of the word that they are preaching?). If it is St. Francis, remember that he was an itinerant preacher/missionary who went from town to town to town, sometimes preaching in as many as five different cities/villages on the same day, to the people who lived in each of these places and, apparently, sometimes to their cows, too :) (he must have taken Mark 16:15 VERY literally) :) Thanks! God bless you!! --David

Hello D. Adrien, thank you for your reply and thoughts I agree with what you just said with a single exception, those of us who have been born again and justified, and who are now in Christ as a result (because we truly are being made less and less rotten and more and more Christlike throughout the balance of our lives here by God (principally), but also by the good/righteous influence of our fellow believers (especially those who are more mature in the faith than we are), because we end up walking with/being influenced by those who have spent their lives walking closely with and being influenced by Him The problem with the "apples" of this world is that while most appear to be healthy on the outside, they are already corrupt on the inside and therefore, beyond our help in their present state .. cf Luke 6:43-45. They can't be healed or made better somehow, because they/we are all born with an incurable disease of the heart. Instead, they need to be ~changed~ from the inside out (just like we were .. e.g. Ezekiel 36:26-27) by the only One who can, the Great Physician. God bless you!! --David

Hello Neighbor, I'm going with "not". Judaism has had a problem since A.D. 70 since animal sacrifices can no longer offered by the Levitical priesthood to redeem the people of Israel and/or the individual Jew from their sins (so that God can/will forgive them) because 1. the Temple no longer exists and 2. no one knows who the Levites are anymore (as all of the records of who belonged to which Tribe were also lost in AD 70). So, what has been taught for centuries now (by "Rabbinic Judaism") is that in the place of the burnt offerings (that were always used for redemption and the forgiveness of sins in Israel, until AD 70), sins are now forgiven simply by confessing them and asking God to do so (the basis for this now traditional belief being found in a single verse .. 2 Samuel 12:13, when David confessed to the prophet Nathan and Nathan told him that God had forgiven his sins .. even though no animal sacrifice had been made, apparently). A couple of problems with this (with what Rabbinic Judaism teaches, that is) is, 1. why were the sacrifices EVER required to begin with, and 2. why did they continue from the time God forgave David until AD 70 if they were no longer necessary I've asked those questions several times and received no answer back from the Jews I've talked to, only consternation, and the belief that something must be wrong with me for even thinking that there might be a problem (with this particular Rabbinic teaching). God bless you!! --David

Matthew 5 14 “~You~ are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; 15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” In this passage we have the Lord Jesus who is, ~THE~ "light of the world" .. e.g. John 8:12, telling us that ~we~ are the "light of the world". I find this thought to be very humbling (to say the least) every time I consider it. Lastly, here's a wonderful song by Kari Jobe about this passage called We Are (if anyone would like to listen to it :)).

Or as Missionary (to India) Amy Carmichael said in kind,

It seems to me that 1 Corinthians 15:33 has a teaching that is similar to Proverbs 13:20.

James 1 19 Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.

Me too :D I guess I just couldn't resist (but I'll stop now). Wait, "Documentary"? Really?? YEAH, I ~KNEW~ it was all true!!

Or how about............................... Again, sometimes it's hard to recognize them, but other times, not so much

Hello LaurenMay, we already know that there is extraterrestrial life out there because of the aliens who are living among us, even now (though "intelligent" life might be a bit of a stretch in some cases). They are, of course, incognito, and part of a government coverup, but once you know what to look for, they're actually pretty hard to miss. Granted, some are harder to recognize than others are, but some are so easy that you'll wonder how you could have ever mistaken them for anything else (other than extraterrestrials, that is). For instance, > > > > > > > > > > > > > >