I say this as one who loves Jesus, who loves God, born a Jew, saved by Grace, leaning on Faith, believeing in the Promise, fearing aand revering God, but this thread just breaks my heart.
"Lorddoitagain", why would you even deign to make such a post? You had your answer, you knew your answer, so why ask the question? To recieve a chorus of "yes" and "amens" from fellow saints as they heap scorn on an artist expressing his love for God as he is led to?
Who are any of you to judge the love another "broken clay jar" expresses to God?
Personally I've never heard of the Gaither Vocal Band, I read the words of the song, its just, in their words, expressing joy at the fact that God loves them. What is wrong with that?
answer me this: God made us in His image, Adam and Eve's rebellion in the garden brought sin and death into the world. Yet God had Mercy, God sent His Son Jesus in love, to atone for us, the final Pascal Lamb, God loves us, and we are all human, all too human, but God loves us, so God loves humans, that's us, so is God "humanistic"? Oh! I KNOW God is Holy, God is omnipresent, Above all and sovereign, but some of you use framing words, such as "humanism" just like razors to cut and wound others.
answer me this, [b]How does this thread bring Glory to God?[/b]
Lorddoitagian, I respect with total love your freedom to express your opinion, but how does this edify the Body of Christ....forget about the word "Christian" for a moment, but you expressed this opinion:
That's the problem plaguing many Christians? The "music" they listen to? The problem plaguing the Body of Christ, His Church is the absolute utter lack of unity, the hard-hearted pharisaicism and eagerness to cast judgement and scorn amongst one another, hearts grown cold and dead supping on "doctrine", and using theo- factions to battle one another, the readiness to stand in the public square and POINT THE FINGER and proclaim, "heretick!"
Your tongue's, that tiny "rudder" in your mouths, that can set a forest on fire, THAT is the problem plaguing many "Christians" today, just tearing apart the Church, even to the point of making the word "evangelical" a framing word, secularists use to buttress the hypocrisy of what passes for Christianity.
and what comes from the tongue, emanates from the heart, and a heart yielded up to Christ, says , "Lord Thy will be done". It doesnt say:
or I ask brother Paul West, who I love in the Lord, when you extol a song written by Isaac Watts in 1719 that says:
Hath power sufficient to atone;
Thy blood can make me white as snow;
No Jewish types could cleanse me so.
"Jewish types"? Paul, I read how many believers "love" the Jews, many ministries formed precisely to preach the Gospel the Good News to the Jewish people, but as probably the only Jewish follower of Jesus on this forum, (if there's others, speak up) how do you think I feel when I read that rhetoric? Knowing the blood soaked history of my kinsmen who suffered and were murdered at the hands of "christians" thruout the centuries, who would kill Jews with these words on their lips, "kill a Jew for Jesus", thru the "holy roman empire", thru the crusades, thru the steppes of russia, lead by the latter poisonous rhetoric of martin luther, gathered and slaughtered by a demon hitler and his hellish legions, all the while being given spiritual covering by the "official" german lutheran "church" and their clergy, given cover by that man of perdition the pope in rome, the vatican being the first to officially recognize diplomatically the nazi regime of hitler.
[b]"Jewish types"?[/b]
That's the Sweet Incense of Jesus that is draw the Jewish people to jealousy? to repentance? to proclaim, "Messiah is come and His name is Jesus"? That's the witness?
WAKE UP! 2,000 years of "church history" and its the rebellion and hard-heartedness alone of the Jewish people that has kept them for recognizing Jesus as Messiah?
The devil is cunning and evil for it is also the innate hatred and wickedness and deceit of the human heart among some of those, especially many clergy and laity that just outright plain hate Jews, that has kept my kinsmen in bondage.
What have you all done that would bring ANY Jew into jealousy of so "great a salvation"? Embarking on threads like this? or other threads, the constant revolving divisive debates about "marriage/divorce", "Cal/Arm", "KJV-only-ism"?
and then finally, one sister, who happens to like this song is told by you, "Lorddoitagain":
The spirit with which you wrote that is clean, praiseworthy and good. Yes! "Test everything", but test it with Whom? Other "clay vessels", who's third post on this forum reads:
That is discussion? Edifying? Sans a spirit of dissension and strife? or to post a hymn that speaks of "Jewish types"?
Many can, and I'm sure will accuse me of a spirit of dissension and strife, but brother, early this morning I had a joyous time with the Lord, digging into Isaiah 52 to 62, reading and eating from the Word, how that great prophet foretold the coming of Messiah, and in the hope that I would find some edifying nugget on this forum, I stumbled onto this very thread, which has just left me broken hearted.
This has been a long time in brewing on this forum. I do so enjoy when saints testify to miracles, praise reports, prayer requests, expressions of fervent Love of God, but when the "opinions" of mere men rear their ugly heads, as when a pastor is excoriated for appearing on a network news show to counter secularists, and said pastor is slandered, something is very very wrong here. Search your hearts, as I am searching mine.
In Jesus' love, neil
