LIBERAL THEOLOGY – Christmas Eve I was listening to assorted Christmas Eve services, mainly to enjoy the Christmas music, since I was not able to attend our own services. Most of the services I heard were put on by liberal church bodies associated with the National Council of Churches, such as the Riverside Church in New York. During a break from the music a man stepped up to the mike and made the statement, “Christ came to take upon Himself our broken human nature.” That caught my attention because of the falseness of the theology, something I should have expected from such a source. I don’t imagine another soul in the entire place even noticed how wrong that statement was. Hopefully all my readers have. Had he said something to the effect, “Christ took upon Himself human flesh that He might die for our broken human natures” I would not be making this criticism. Christ took on Himself human flesh when He was born a Babe in the manger, not our “broken” fallen natures! Christ was born of a “virgin,” He did not receive our fallen sinful natures that have been passed on to all of us through the fallen Adam. If you are not aware, so many among the liberal church leadership and seminaries, do not believe in the virgin birth and therefore have become false teachers, promoting unsound theology. Christ lived a sinless life, not having the sinful Adamic nature, so that he might present Himself a perfect, sinless sacrifice at Calvary for our forgiveness. There, He paid the price, made the sacrifice, for man’s “broken (fallen) nature.” We need to be so very careful as we listen to the radio and TV preachers (teachers) today, for many do not hold to sound doctrine and many are being misled down a path to destruction. We are to know our Bibles and thus rightly divide the Word of truth.
PAPER ACCUMULATES – Do you have this same problem? I just finished going through a lot of papers that I had saved on my computer stand. As I looked through it all I was not sure why I’d put them there. At the time I know it was something I wanted to deal with or comment on in my “Musings” but they are no longer registering or relevant. I had good intentions but the intent has flown away and I no longer remember the reason. Someday I’ll learn to deal with such matters immediately, not put them before me, hoping to remember and use them later. This world is full of paper with good ideas and information. Information registers with my mind but with time that registry seems to pass me by and I fail to recall so I’ll just blame it on old age.
GLOBAL WARMING – I grow weary of all the Global Warming rhetoric and people that can’t seem to comprehend the reality of earths cyclical past. The earth has gone through many cycles, some warm and some cold. Yet, we are now plagued with all kinds of news dealing with the topic. Isn’t it interesting that snow made it all the way down to the southern areas of Texas and elsewhere this year? We are suppose to believe the theory of Global Warming and yet cold and snow is reaching further south. Their theory couldn’t possibly be wrong and they will find some way to explain away these types of weather events. Just hang around for a while and smile whenever their theory comes to these bumps in the road and you personally observe the flaws in their theories that provide an income for their proponents. In my nearly eighty years I have experienced severe winters and mild winters as well as hot summers and not so hot summers. I am not about to jump through the hoops of Global Warming theorists, How about you? Some people enjoy worrying about the weather. Me, I just take what God chooses to pass out year by year. In due course I will be in glory enjoying the perfect weather of Heaven.
MORE ON MEDICAL COSTS – One dear brother responded regarding eye injections he receives that cost $4,000 each. OUCH! I just found an article from an Oct. 20th U. S. News & World Report Titled “Is Healthcare Armageddon Next?” by Bernadine Healy, M.D. with the following: “ Clueless Doctors are largely clueless about the cost of care they prescribe or its implications for a patients personal finances and, until serious illness strikes, patients often are, too. But any good doc can tell you lower cost does not necessarily mean lower quality. A study led by John Wennberg at the Dartmouth Institute for health Policy and clinical Practice found that the cost of care for comparable patients during the last two years of life at the 18 hospitals in the 2007 U.S. News “Best Hospitals” honor roll ranged from $34,372 to $71,637 with the lowest-cost centers ranking at the top. The report concludes, “More is not better.” This expresses the same conclusions I have personally come too. The article would be worth looking up at the library. The point of the article tells of the new medicines and procedures and their cost are heading us toward a medical Armageddon in the title of the article. I won’t quote more but these increasing costs are leading the insurance companies, etc. to a tremendous crisis.
CHURCH MUSIC FROM THE PAST – I was thinking back to our first church plant in Federal Way, Washington. Our little church group was like family and we had some rather informal services (I think we have become too formal in many of our churche. Roland Barnes was a Boeing Engineer and he also enjoyed playing his violin. Occasionally he would bring his violin to the evening service and played it while we sang some old favorite hymn and choruses. Did you ever try to out sing a violin? You can’t do it! That stringed instrument always comes out on top, above all the voices singing along with it. Our song services were longer then and the people sang enthusiastically. What has happened to those joyous times? We also had a lady that still corresponds with me via e-mails. She played the piano and marimba. I remember her keeping after all of us that had played instruments into bringing them to the evening service and we tried playing together during the song service. I even got out my old clarinet and played with them. That was the time I learned some of our instruments didn’t fit with the hymnal and we had to get separate music to be able to play the music in the hymnals, including my clarinet. Anyway, we had great times in those days and it seemed to me it got the people in a good spirit to receive and follow the messages I preached after all that music shared together. (Thanks Jeanne.) To realize that little church no longer exists because of assorted problems that followed and someone that came along and took it out of our GARBC Fellowship is heart rending.
No comments:
Post a Comment