Posted on 08/29/2016 7:54:32 AM PDT by Salvation
Another good one Msgr. Charles Pope, Thanks
I have to disagree with Pope here. I think Jesus used those terms knowing full well their connotation. Wheat will NEVER be tares/weeds just like sheep will NEVER be goats. He used these metaphors to teach a great truth. He alone can sort out the wheat from the tares and knows His sheep from the herd mixed with goats. Those who belong to His family through faith in Christ are the wheat/sheep and those who reject the truth of the gospel are the tares/goats.
Now, a sheep can be raggedy, lazy and disobedient but he will always BE a sheep. Wheat can get rancid, moldy or stale but it is STILL wheat. A goat can be pretty, sweet natured and tame but he remains a goat. Jesus is teaching about eternal judgment and not how we can change our make up by our outward acts. Our eternal salvation is based upon what Christ has done for us and not what we do for Him. We receive the gift of eternal life by faith.
I think this is a good way to see it:
"A prince, while he is a little child, is presumably as willful and as ignorant as other little children. Sometimes he may be very obedient and teachable and affectionate, and then he is happy and approved. At other times he may be unruly, self-willed, and disobedient, and then he is unhappy, and perhaps is chastised—but he is just as much a prince on the one day as on the other. It may be hoped that, as time goes on, he will learn to bring himself into willing and affectionate subjection to every right way, and then he will be more princely, but not more really a prince. He was born a prince" (C.I. Scofield, Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth).
I think the answer is every person has the free the will to choose good over evil. God’s law is written in the heart of every man. At any particular moment, a person can choose to respond to God’s law and calling, and do good.
If man is not free to commit the greatest sins, then there would be no need for God’s infinite mercy.
Sure sounds to me like the fallen, carnal heart of man is certainly capable of great evil. We've seen the evidence in our own lifetimes - recently, even. Could it be a "pure" evil? Maybe.
The term “Pure Evil” is an oxymoron.
If it contains evil, it is not pure.
In order to know thy Father, you must be like a child. Children are still pure as they reflect the Love from God in their eyes. (The eyes truly are the windows to the soul). It is not until an obstacle to that pure Love in the child is created in their soul, that the sparkle in the eyes of the child diminishes. ( I find it interesting that recently scientists discovered that there is “Light” generated when the sperm penetrates the ovum)
All human beings were children at one time and therefor contain that Light of God in them. Thus all human beings have goodness and purity at their core. However, there are certain human behaviors and characteristics that create obstacles to that Love within us thus allowing a formerly pure soul to be vulnerable to the external influence of evil.
(In many ways, life is about finding and removing those obstacles to Love that exist within us.) That is the reason for Jesus second commandment of “Loving thy neighbor as thyself. It is our fellow humans that assist us in finding the hatred, anger and fear that are our obstacles to Love within us. In many ways, when someone brings out our anger, we should thank them for helping us to locate the impurity within us in order that we may remove it and fill the void with Love.
(Remember 1 John 4)
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
“This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.”
God provides the life that makes us human. In many ways, all life is of God and in God. If we remember that “evil” is “live” spelled backwards, we could define evil as that which takes away or suppresses the “live” or “life” in us. In short, God provides life and evil takes it away. Yes, sin causes death.
Since God is omnipresent, evil exists within God, or God allows evil as it has a higher purpose. Remember if we have a closed box sitting in the sun on our picnic table, that closed box contains darkness. When we open the box, the light fills the box. The darkness in the box does not fill the exterior around us. So it is with evil and darkness existing within God.
Just as the difficult experiences we encounter as a child growing up help us to become a better adult, evil serves a purpose and assists us in becoming stronger in our Love for God. Many people completely forget about God in their lives until they encounter evil. Often, evil destroys us and makes us an empty vessel in order than we are no longer full of ourselves and have room for God. (Remember, we can’t put new wine in an old vessel. We must first get rid of the old.”) Evil helps us to get rid of the old and thus serves a purpose. God is in control and often we view evil as the parent who is disciplining us when we were a young child. When actually, the parent is disciplining us because they Love us and want us to grow to become a healthy adult.
I have encountered satan while doing exorcisms. He is the closest thing I have met that resembles pure evil. The room became freezing cold as though I was in a blast freezer, even though it was a very warm summer night. It’s as though satan tries to suck the life out of you. The only way to counter satan is to be connected to God where there is more life (and Love) flowing into you than satan is taking from you. This is why it is necessary to Love thy enemies, as to hate thy enemies you lower yourself to their level and you lose. To truly Love satan is to destroy him with God’s Love as satan realizes that the Light of God will destroy his darkness. This is the secret to performing exorcisms and depossessions. Love all at all times.
“At my now 64 years of age I have never met or come across anything in life scarier, more dangerous,or more evil.”
If that fear generated by evil caused you to turn to God to be rescued by His Love, it served a good purpose. If you just held on to the fear, then it did not.
I’ve seen people such as you describe meeting in the prison fall to the ground and snarl, hiss and growl in the presence of God’s Love. They are afraid of it. If you fill yourself with God’s Love, then they are afraid of that Love overflowing from you.
Excellent tagline.
(Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
Is not nothingness the same thing you achieve by dying daily and becoming an empty vessel? Enlightenment is not the tree realizing it is in the forest. Enlightenment is the tree awakening to realize that it is one with the forest. Unless we as an individual become nothingness, we will never realize that we exist within Jesus, and God that exists within Jesus also exists within us.
(John 17)
Jesus Prays for All Believers
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
I remember my own father often saying as I was growing up, “I can find the good in everyone. However, in some people I have to look a might bit harder than others to find it!”
“Wheat will NEVER be tares/weeds just like sheep will NEVER be goats. He used these metaphors to teach a great truth. He alone can sort out the wheat from the tares and knows His sheep from the herd mixed with goats. Those who belong to His family through faith in Christ are the wheat/sheep and those who reject the truth of the gospel are the tares/goats.”
Remember at the end of Matthew 13 when the disciples came to Jesus and asked for the parable of the tares in the wheat to be explained?
The earth is the field, Mankind are the good seeds, and satan planted the weeds.
Humans are not weeds. However, just as the weeds in a field can take the sunlight and nutrients from your good crop, the weeds can stunt the spiritual growth of humans. As a farmer, it is my experience that constantly pulling the weeds in my own garden or fields resulted in the highest yield of the best quality harvest.
Remember, the weeds Jesus spoke of cannot stand the sunlight. All we need to do is rise above the weeds and they will perish as we flourish in God’s Love while they perish..
“If man is not free to commit the greatest sins, then there would be no need for God’s infinite mercy.”
And thus the “School of Hard Knocks” with the class colors of black and blue. What an education life provides us if we don’t read the assembly instructions ahead of time.. i.e The Bible.
Our time, and the time of those we know who have so far refused to know Jesus’ Salvation is very limited and we should never give up our hope for them. Pope is right that we should see the good in others, even those who “seem” purely evil, and patiently work to grow that good while teaching the danger of our evil qualities.
As for Hell having some good, that is objective perhaps, in that Hell will be eternal separation form God, and God being love, the place will be completely devoid of love. Hard to find good in that. Maybe “good” like describing a delicious meal to someone who is starving to death...?
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