To all who are reading this thread.
We have the same thing...just tailored to our generation...
"It’s easy to say that but many could not read and obviously had no Bible so all they got was what they heard in a RC service."
In our generation...
It's easy to say that but many who are educated and read very well but have no interest in the bible and read only the humanist or secularist publication or listen to their favorite skeptic, that's all they have to listen to.
There is always more to the story than we think, the protestants of their day weren't lulled to sleep by "sincere papists who have no bible" they exhorted them to listen to the gospel when it was given, attend Church to hear the words of life, seek God even if feeling around blindly.
One might say the same for Hindus, Pagans of all stripes, the Jews and so many more.
When faced with the staggering amount of people who have not known God and died in their sins...there is only one alternative to belief in scripture, consider your own morality greater than God's and condemn him for how he runs the world. This very thing has been discussed numerous times by me and others. These lost ones with their free will didn't secure an annulment of God's judgment upon them, their plight and disadvantage didn't purchase salvation for them, nor did their wealth or advantage in any millennium or nation or people.
God's beloved are elected by God, time and place advantage or disadvantage in this world was never a deciding factor in the salvation of men.
Being born in a secularist household in America and being born in a Pagan tribe in Asia...both of them have their obstacles and both of them their advantages, neither of them are one inch farther from God nor one inch closer.
While we are talking 'spiritual realities' it's meaningless to feel sorry for those in the RCC, and equally meaningless to castigate them if you are not an active witness and sharer of the gospel with the lost. If you or I are not, it's all just academic.
When we try to speak as though we are 'really spiritual' and have done little to nothing to win the Catholic or the secularist to Christ our spiritual talk is all pure hypocrisy. We do have abundant praise for those who post sermons or insights into the close intimate walk with our Lord Jesus Christ, and rightly so for it is praiseworthy, but what is not praiseworthy is a feined spiritual attitude and emotion that is devoid of any real sacrifice to minister to the lost, to reach out to them, to pray for them to find ways to meet them and openly declare your faith and the gospel.
I read plenty on the intimate walk with Jesus but I cant count on one hand the testimonials of those who share the gospel and win the lost in that same time frame of posting.
Share your faith much with a Catholic? You find out quickly just how unbiblical and lost they are...underneath that visage of religious talk. Share your faith much with skeptics and agnostics? You find out very quickly just how devoid they are of any real knowledge of God, Jesus, Sin, the Bible it's as though they were born in a box yet educated and intelligent.
When one castigates the errors of the RCC, to those who's evangelism is mostly non-existent of course such harsh words are just the words of opinionated men without understanding and words of mean theologians who just want to be right...and on and on. But maybe for some it's all a cover for their own disobedience to the great commission. They don't meet the enemies lies working in the hearts of others, nor do they seek to undo those lies because it's safer and less messy when your walk with Jesus is all just about you and him.
I'll let it go here. But for the sake of honesty say to yourself "Do I have faith? by what works do I prove my faith?" Do I have genuine Christian love? Upon whom do I express it.
Do not let your love for God and humanity go any farther than emotional/romantic notions of men whom you surmise to love God and mean ole Christians like me supposedly condemn them.
I can say this with all truth and confidence, I have been 10 times harsher when face to face to those trusting in lies, they had no real conception of God's truth and when brought bear upon what they believe...it was difficult for them, hard and so painful to swallow, but God has been pleased to shine the light of the gospel in their hearts. You see it's not about the man who lived 400 years ago and how fair I am to sound, it is about the man I see today in front of me and what kind of witness will I be to that man?
So, in a very real sense I despise spirituality without accompanied works, compassions, gospelizing, ministry to the lost and poor that are right in front of me. Being thought of as harsh to a man who lived 400 years ago that I was not given the right or the time to preach is useless to me and to anyone else living now.
With such a lengthy post, I have provided all the ammunition one needs to accuse me of a dozen different things, find something spiritually wrong with me or just plain dismiss me outright. Believing anything strongly enough to condemn it's opposite is the norm of Christianity. But what is normal now seems extreme and fanatical to minds trained by the world.
