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Yes, I think that both Robertson and Limbaugh were off base, not biblically centered and totally wrong in their assessments and approach. I don't expect Limbaugh to get it right. He doesn't claim to know the word of the Lord. However, I certainly expect more of someone who says they know or understand God and his nature and dealings toward man.
We may not know the why, but we should know the who and As I maintain that who was not and is not the God that we serve.
Have we read this book? This is the question of the day.
I left Maddow out...her show is bunk to me anyway.
ReplyDeleteJon Stewart is Jewish. :-)
ReplyDeleteNumbers 16:28-35
Deuteronomy 11:13-21
Colossians 1:15-17
"Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins."
~James 5:17-20
"Have You Read This Book?"
ReplyDeleteA 2000 Gallup survey shows that fewer than half of Americans can name the first book of the Bible, only one-third know who delivered the Sermon on the Mount (many named Billy Graham), and one quarter do not know what is celebrated on Easter.
A 1997 Barna Research poll showed 12 percent of Christians think Noah's wife was Joan of Arc. Eighty percent of born-again Christians
believe it is the Bible that says "God helps them that help themselves."
The Gallup Poll showed the number of people who read the Bible at least occasionally has dropped to 59 percent, down from 73 percent in the 1980s.
So why aren’t people reading the Bible?
Tyndale House Publishers did a survey that showed that 64 percent of Americans said
they did not read the Bible because they are too busy. Eighty percent said the Bible is too confusing and hard to understand.
Of course these are not valid excuses for not reading God's Word. The majority of Americans are busy but we tend to find time to do those things that we enjoy or that we deem important.
Bible reading is simply not a priority.
Michael J. Valch, author of “Crisis in America’s Churches”, postulates that there is an overemphasis on personal experience rather than Bible education.
Christian apologist Anthony Horvath maintains that youths are not being taught how to defend their faith. When these young people leave the familiar surroundings of church and home, many of them fall prey to other doctrines and philosophies because they have not received a foundation of biblical truth.
I have read the book. I get what Stewart is saying and its probably good advice. But not everything like this can be overlooked. I think it may have something to do with the coming of the Lord. I think that the big message we may be missing. Even if we help rebuild Haiti into the premier vacation destination in the southern hemisphere, it wont change what is inevitable and these things are signs pointing towards that inevitability. As I said before, the scope of destruction, human loss of life and worldwide upheaval will eclipse all these events combined.
ReplyDeleteI dont believe "God did this" as in sent and earthquake to kill over a 100,000 people but he has done it in the past and taken credit for it. So we cant completely rule that possibility out.
Pastor Burnett, Im not sure I agree with you but since you are saying that God DID NOT do this (meaning he holds absolutely no responsible connection) did the devil do this?
If not God, not the devil, then other than just a bad day in history is there anything we can point to? For the record, sans evidence, I dont think Pat Robertson was correct, but in the big picture, being poor or weak doesnt exempt you from the wrath of God. He does consider the poor, but there will be much poor in hell. Not because they are poor, but because of their unrepentant sin.
Im not a preterist or any of the other factioned belief groups out there today, but I just dont think there is any way you can not ascribe this to God, since the earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof the world and they that dwell therein.
Pat Robertson also said that the Lord wanted him to be President...didn't happen remember that when he ran....
ReplyDeleteOregonsistah,
ReplyDeleteThanks, I remember that too...a whole host of false prophecies...but I think he was trying to make an association like a cause and effect argument. That was a bad move.
Gcmwatch,
ReplyDeleteElder you said:Pastor Burnett, Im not sure I agree with you but since you are saying that God DID NOT do this (meaning he holds absolutely no responsible connection) did the devil do this?
I think when we look at cause, we have to look at the bigger picture. Since we know God created teh earth, we also know that the earth was created with these faults and fault lines. the potential for earthquake always existed but the earth did not quake PREVIOUS to sin entering the world.
I belive that the best argument is that the weight of SIN in the earth is responsible for tragedy, because the earth being created by God not only operates under natural law, but is also subject to spiritual law.
Death and destruction came in with Adam's transgression. Spiritual law operates in such a fashion that death occurs, tragedy occurs, and all evil occurs because NONE of this creation was built to function with or inclusive of sin.
I pose that this spiritual law not only operates and effects the flesh like we see in Romans 8, but it also effects the very genome, the DNA the essence of all things animate and inanimate.
Scientifically, i've heard scientists say there is no genetic reason why we age or why things die. death isn't a necessity genetically...so where does that corruption come from? It comes from sin. Sin is the force that moves throughout the world that causes pain and suffering.
This may be new info and may certainly eb controversial, but I believe it is biblically supported, fits with the evidence and fact of a loving father that DOES NOT wish destrucion upon his creation and also allows does not impenge upon that father's ability to judge sin and evil in the hearts of men.
I don't think that we can justify the though that "if God didn't do it, then the devil did". Since the devil is not omnipresnet nor omniscient, he can't get credit for things even though he sets it in motion.
Well, we definitely know who isn't responsible, President Obama...unless there is some top secret subterranean military drilling going on along their fault line, which I am sure if it were so Rush or Maddow would expose next week. I did not vote for Obama, but they are so afraid of him getting an unfortunate opportunity to do his job, to the best of his abilities. Now I didn't vote for or like Bush, but no one blamed him for trying to gain political leverage during 9-11, the Tsunami, or Katrina, though his handling of situations did not bode well for his party in the long run. I know 2012 is all they have to look forward to but (Matt 6:34)...Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. A republican in 2012 is not going to help Haitians starving and trapped under rubble for the last week. Take a breather.
ReplyDeleteRobertson, I was really looking for him to be reading his script or focusing on a teleprompter but I said this man is going off the dome! Never heard that as an urban legend as Stewart referenced, but if some snot noised production/research assistant put that in Robertsons head before he went on air, they are as good as fired like in the Dan Rather debacle.
I kinda felt like I knew where he wanted to be and reference the voodoo and obeah that was practiced on the islands long before their revolution 200yrs ago, and for christian relief workers to seize the opportunity to let them know their is hope in Christ alone. But he went somewhere else and I could not follow.
To reading the Bible, I know recently the COGIC PBB quarterly had a topic of why people are avoiding the Old Testament, because God is destroying all the heathens "for no reason" then sends judgment to his own people. That is how they read it w/o the Spirit, or how some leaders/teachers who are not really apt to teach present it, especially to keep people under their control. They are not teaching the Bible, but teaching from the Bible and uncanonized books and whatever they feel or think to back the Bible up or tear what the Bible says down, whichever is necessary. People want to get straight to grace and salvation not knowing what it is you need grace and salvation from, and that why they don't really repent. Everybody knows about forgiveness, judging, hypocrits, beams and motes when they need to, anything that comes up in life can be solved by you forgiving them even though they will never repent or acknowledge wrong doing, or by calling you a hypocrit for telling them about their sin. But you can say something outside that sphere of misinterpretation, they don't have a clue you are in the Bible, or then respond to you like something unbiblical.
Lapreghiera, I totally agree with your whole last paragraph. I've been collecting christian books from the 1800's for awhile, and now I'm transcribing them and I have learned so much from kid's books! They didn't censor anything out because it cast God in a pc bad light, even really hard stories to grasp.
ReplyDeleteTo God be the glory for putting these teachers in my hand and enabling me to share them with the world.
Tell someone off the street that they are in need of a savior for their sins, and they would laugh! "What sin? I live a good life." Shoot, I even thought I understood just how far I was from the mark, but with the WHOLE Bible and it's stories, uncensored and explained, I have a much better understanding of the great divide between us and God, and the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for mankind if they would only believe.
Pastor Burnett, I can accept the plausibility of the earth's travail under sin being a reason for things like this. I was thinking of that earlier today, that the earth itself awaits redemption for the curse of sin. Romans 8:22
ReplyDeleteI dont think we can blame (scapegoat type) sin, but all tragedy and the likes is a result of sin whether direct of indirect. But then again would that make Robertson's claim have some credibility even if he didnt frame it that way?
Laura, I am not speaking of people off the street, I am talking about those in my own church, who sat under the same teaching the same time or longer than me. Call you sister one minute and the next they are giving you the eye, and won't hear you cause you are not in a position of leadership/are not the pastor.
ReplyDeleteYes, those old writeres and preachers 1700-1800 century they were on it and they stayed in the Bible.
...Just adding thoughts. Because leaders in the church and secular areanas don't know what sin is they've generationally reduced reading the bible to the level of a child trying to read a thick technical manual. Meanwhile because of technical difficulties it becomes easier generationally to receive sense pleasing information that's not in a thick technical format. Currently this is referred to as the emerging church and the gospel of inclusion.
ReplyDeleteLawrence