Posted on 11/30/2013 1:46:42 PM PST by fwdude
The Calvinists were right about the part of once saved, always saved, and God has guaranteed the conclusion. God uses various circumstances to shape the guaranteed saved soul. Sometimes they show copious fruit below, and that’s the ideal case. Sometimes they run screaming from God and God grabs them by the collar and shakes them hard till they give in once more. And God has the power to coordinate the events of human existence to guarantee this. We want to pull God into our little 3-D mortal coil and tell Him no, You can only work that way, the way of causation that we mortals know. God laughs from heaven at that idea.
Well, Paul (Galatians) and the author of Hebrews (if different) rolled his/their own then.
Try not to edit the epistles too much. It makes you look ignorant.
If the rumors about this are right, they sinned (but again they sell media and mementos... they don’t run everything off of sheer donations).
Is it possible to sin but to yet also share a genuine gospel?
Reason says yes.
Bible history says yes.
Why we are so blue in the face saying no, is a puzzle. I don’t have to worship the Crouches to praise the Lord big time for what they did in spite of any of their sins.
I wish even 1% of Christians would have the moxie to strive to go big time with the gospel. Sinning or not.
Moses killed a man in anger. Saul (Paul) murdered Christians...My guess is God in His wisdom can use Crouch and other flawed humans to share the gospel.
And... I don’t even know if the allegations that they wasted evangelism donation funds on personal luxuries are even true, or if at most formed a tiny fraction of the whole. Like I said: they also sold stuff. And no it wasn’t prayer hankies.
They may have handled the temptation of big money and big earthly glitz better even than Solomon did. (He got carried away with his wives and got involved with pagan sacrifices that those women wanted.)
Some folks are, I suspect, just jealous. When did they ever get the moxie to push a gospel vision out to the world?
I have always enjoyed the discussions we have here. I have learned much even from forced study in order to be able to post intelligent rebuttals of views I think is in error. But when people get derogatory or snarky they have lost their position and shown their spirit. The more I learn the more I can understand why God had to make salvation as simple as possible with “believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved”. He surely understood the human tendency to try to take at least some of the credit.
I love the Graham’s. One thing has nothing to do with the other.
Yes, He understood fallenness.
And let’s give Him a rip roaring Hallelujah that He did!
He is the only One that can be of use to us. Some of us can be servants in His mission, passing on the Word, but we can’t be constructing frameworks to try to keep the Lion of Judah in a cage.
Jesus is the Author and Perfector of our faith. Note that is Author of our faith. Not even Author of a book with which men are to set up a religion. The need for a Perfector should tell us loud and clear that our faith isn’t perfect yet! Other verses steer us to understand that perfection is in heaven. We’ll have faith all right there — we will all trust one another and trust God — but we will also see what can’t be seen down below, that creatures down below do not even possess faculties to see. Our faith will be confirmed in the sight we get in heaven.
In a sense our dear E-S is right that it’s about obedience to Christ. But his model for obedience isn’t too strict. It’s too loose! It’s obedience to Christ’s spirit that Christ wants. Then the details of scripture fall in place. C. S. Lewis observed this and was thus able to mount a robust defense of “mere Christianity.” In fact that really is the transcendent view, and Lewis was more privileged than he knew on this mortal coil.
TBN was fun to watch, had Jay Sekulow early on. It’s a difficult outfit to judge but a lot of their programming was good. I’m sorry that it sounds like there was some eccentric living probably in what they did. A lot of good guests.
He who is without sin, cast the first stone, that’s what the good book says.
Thank you. You've said it better than me.
I see them differently than many do I suppose.
If you or I had a couple hundred million a year coming in, how would we spend it?
They spent it on more transmitters, more satellites, more programming, more stations, more jets and compounds so they can travel to run their empire. Thats what they did.
They did it, and I didn't. They built it and I didn't. God uses us at the level we can be used.
Do you believe in capital punishment?
I like the way that the late Dave Hunt put it. No one who acted like these people do, who teach the outlandish heresies that they do, who tell the blatant lies that they do, all under the pretense of Christ, could be a true believer. No one who really believes the sobering, majestic truths of Scripture could be so deceitful.
He considered them unbelievers, and plainly said so.
Do not try to lay off your apostate gospel on Paul!
Your deliberate misinterpretation is the problem, not Paul.
The dog that yelps,huh?
We toured TBN HQ in 2011. I have never seen so much fakery, everything painted gold. To look like real gold. But so fake. I hope their hearts are in the right place, but that is up to God, not up to us.
>> “Faith in and of itself doesn’t save. It’s the object of faith who saves” <<
.
The operative phrase is “through faith.”
Through faith we endure to the end, at the last trump, when at that time, we are born again in incorruptible bodies.
Those that think that they are born again now are simply confusing it with the Mikva process (baptisms), through which we are changed in our hearts to conform to the way of Yeshua. Probably not an important point, since it is merely semantic, but the misunderstanding gets jumped upon by the agitators to discredit the believer.
>> “Fruit of the Spirit and all that right?” <<
.
How about some fruit of the truth for a big change, OK?
>> “I have never seen so much fakery, everything painted gold. To look like real gold. But so fake.” <<
.
While I agree with you, as to what it does to their credibility, just think how much worse it would be if they had actually spent Yehova’s money for real gold.
>> “BUT they took grannies grocery money and spent it on hairdos, wigs, jets, and mansions.” <<
.
Yes, they certainly did that, which many evangelists do, putting them in a class with Baalam, showing that one can be a prophet of Yehova without necessarily be one of his elect.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.