Army of My God

Onward Christian Soldier
by Sabine Baring-Gould,1865

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.

At the sign of triumph Satan’s host doth flee;
On then, Christian soldiers, on to victory!
Hell’s foundations quiver at the shout of praise;
Brothers lift your voices, loud your anthems raise.

Like a mighty army moves the church of God;
Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod.
We are not divided, all one body we,
One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.

What the saints established that I hold for true.
What the saints believèd, that I believe too.
Long as earth endureth, men the faith will hold,
Kingdoms, nations, empires, in destruction rolled.

Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane,
But the church of Jesus constant will remain.
Gates of hell can never gainst that church prevail;
We have Christ’s own promise, and that cannot fail.

Onward then, ye people, join our happy throng,
Blend with ours your voices in the triumph song.
Glory, laud and honor unto Christ the King,
This through countless ages men and angels sing.

LOL

Sue, you had to know that Bible versions was a no no.

BTT

Civility is in short supply today everywhere. Everyone isn't right. Not everyone has a valid opinion. Some people are criminally insane, others are amateurs. But everyone can give grace.

But will we? 

All of the above points are excellent. Iron sharpens iron. Paul warned Timothy against useless debating NOT against all debating. We all certainly have different ideas and scripture is multi-faceted. Trouble starts when we view the same diamond from different facets. We need to step back, maybe sometimes write a private note (as one member did to me, properly rebuking me), and then realize that we are brothers and sisters NOT enemies.

I agree with Youth Pastor that sometimes we are like oil and water. Some of us have come from "legalistic" backgrounds, others from "greasy grace" churches (I've been in both). I think we can all learn from each other but my hope is that we will at least try to let the scriptures be our guide and as you say, stay in the game! I think the comment someone made about private blogging might be a good idea. Blocking, to me, seems a little like taking home the ball, once again.

Would you agree though that there are people who cannot be reasoned with and for the benefit of the community need to be muzzled?

I've had to ban people on a Freecycle list I moderate for that very reason. last resort, but.. 

Could we do women in ministry instead? I'd like to get Kathy involved too.

Just kidding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I was guessing someone was going to mention OSAS again. :)

Actually I loved that to begin with.  I've got to be honest, the controversial ones have been the most interesting on here.  Not because I'm looking for a fight, but because I want to understand better.  Try to have the discussions mentioned (OSAS, Versions of the Bible, etc.) with a non Christian.  It just doesn't work.  So I've been looking for some place to have this type of honest discussion.  Yeah things occasionally get heated, but over the years I HOPE I've learned when to back off. (not always unfortunately).

The one thing that many people who want us all to be PC CHristians miss is the resolution part. Let me explain:

Once a blog gets good and heated up, OSAS, Bible Versions (or Perversions, Sue! LOL), or Tongues, there is almost always a fairy tale ending where we all make nice and agree to disagree. The world NEEDS to see that!

They may say, "Well, you guys aren't unified." Sure we are. We are unified by the blood of Jesus. But we are family and family may squabble amongst themselves. I know none of you have had family squabbles...

Voice: When I come across people who are bitter, who are angry I apologize to them with a broken heart that somewhere along the way, someone dropped the ball in discipling them. I have had this conversation with many people of varying ages. I remind them that bitterness is a poison we drink hoping it will kill the other person. I tell them it's OK to be angry- in fact the Bible says to be angry and sin not. I usually find that they've gotten angry and sinned. Once we talk all of these issues through, I begin showing them Jesus. His character from the Bible and if we would be more like Him, all of this other falls by the wayside. Now, you know this doesn't work with everybody. Voice, let me also make it clear that I am refering to CHristians who should have grown in their faith. I have only been saved for 4 years, called to preach 3. I was not raised in Church, but its right there in black and white (and red)! LOL! I just took the Bible at face value. I also had a Pastor over me that was teaching the Bible and held you accountable for reading it on your own.

Dan: Welcome to MyCHurch. Let me help you with understanding Hitler's rise a little better. After WWI, Germany was descimated. The people were so deperate they would have accepted anybody. Hitler was willing to step in, at first to elevate the people, then himself. He and the Nazis took Martin Luther's own writings and developed an Anti-Jewish Philosophy. Many people do not know thi (you may) because it is not taught in most History books. I happen to teach History in a local Christian High School and covered this very thing in Seminary School as we covered the 20th Century. I had no idea about Luther's writings. In fact, my Seminary professor was using it as a warning to us to be careful what we write. 400+ years after Luther wrote those notes, HItler was able to establish a reign of terror, justified by his religion. Sorry, about the tangent...

Dan: you have some extremely, extemely good points. Yes, we do need to mature and grow up and eat some meat. I would also warn that Hitler did not come up in a vacuum. I would say, Youth Past.. that he was far more influenced by Darwin and the American and British Eugenicists and by Doctors that had already killed 300,000 (useless people in Germany) before HItler really had power than by anything Martin Luther wrote. 

Hitler was a total enemy of the church and many church people lost their lives and would have after the Jews were wiped out. Hitler was the natural result of the environment set up by scientiests and doctors who were evolutionary in thought totally similar to what we see in America today. The fact is that American abortion "doctors" have already killed more than Hitler even dreamed of but based upon the exact same lying philosophy of evolution via Darwinian survival of the fitest, i.e. we decide who will survive!

Hitler was much closer to Hinduism than any kind of Christianity. He just used it in a demagougic (sp) fashion.

I think Dan is right we better look inwardly in America and see the danger of PC thought and preachers who are cowardly and won't preach vs. other isms...particularly islamism right now! 

Students:

This week, you'll be reading about the roots of the German Reformation, and about the life of its hero, Martin Luther. Perhaps my favorite persona of church history, Luther became a towering, though reluctant, bulwark against heresy in the Roman Church.

Luther spent years of anguish trying to convince his peers that he had "rediscovered" the gospel of justification by faith in Scripture. Initially, this rotund Augustinian monk had no desire to shatter the Roman church. But when Rome would not listen -- not to reason but to a pure and unadulterated preaching of the gospel -- he mustered the courage to say, "Farewell, hopeless, helpless, blasphemous Rome."

Luther was the hero of the German people. He defied Rome and lived. He built a new church. He wrote enduring hymns. He gave the German people Die Gute Nachtricht, or "the Good News," in the form of the September Bible, one of the first translations (but not THE first) of Scripture into the common vernacular.

But Luther was all too human. I remember when I first began reading his works. I looked at his sixty-plus volumes of writings and thought to myself, "This could take a while." I agreed with most of what I read. I laughed at many of his comical sayings; phrases such as, "I think it is almost impossible for lawyers to be saved. It is hard enough for theologians."

But I also wept on the day I stumbled across a work called, "On the Jews and Their Lies." Written by Luther in 1543, the work is shocking. Little is known about why he wrote it, though what is certain is that a different Luther wrote the work. He was, in this instance, no longer the passionate preacher of a gospel of grace.

Consider Luther's suggestions for dealing with the Jews:

1. "First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools, and to bury and cover over with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them." When the synagogues are burned, he wrote, "all who are able should toss in sulfur and pitch -- it would be good if someone would also throw in some hellfire."

On November 9-10, 1939, 119 synagogues were destroyed by fire in different parts of Germany. The Nazis called it "Kristalnacht," for the sound of breaking glass.

2. "Second, I advise that their houses be razed and destroyed."

3. "Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings in which such idolatry, lies, cunning, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them."

The Nazi Party did so, and later burned them in bonfires for their Fuhrer.

4. "Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth upon pain of loss of life and limb."

5. "Fifth, I advise that safe conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews."

6. "Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safe keeping."

On April 1, 1933, within just a few months of taking power, Adolf Hitler ordered that signs be distributed and posted throughout Germany, which read, "The Jews have until 1 a.m. on Saturday to reflect. Then the struggle commences. The Jews of the world want to destroy Germany, German people resist -- don't buy from Jews." Futhermore, Luther reminds us here of the recent discovery of Jewish funds in Swiss banks, and piles of golden teeth in the death camps liberated by U.S. soldiers in 1945.

7. "Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their living by the sweat of their brows, as it was imposed on the children of Adam (Genesis 3:19)."

After 1939, thousands of Jews were sent to work camps which supplied food, clothing and munitions for German soldiers. Those who would not work were executed.

8. "Furthermore, if they cannot be controlled, they should be expelled. ... If we wish to wash our hands of the Jews' blasphemy and not share in their guilt, we have to part company with them. They must be driven from the country ... this is the most natural and best course of action which will safeguard the interests of both parties." By doing so, Luther wrote, Germany will have shown the Jews a "sharp mercy."

Here, we see the long shadows of crowded box cars taking the Jews to their ghettos, and later to the camps where German soldiers worked toward Hitler's "final solution."

Luther's recommendations for dealing with the Jews fell mostly on deaf ears, as his proposals were far too radical for the German princes who had to account for the economic stability of their provinces. Germany in Luther's day may not have been fond of the Jews, but they needed them.

In Newmark and Electoral Saxony, safe passage for the Jews was abolished. Philip of Hesse also prohibited the Jews from lending and required them to attend Christian services. In the long run, however, the policies Luther proposed never made the impression he hoped for ... until the swastika flew over Germany and the sound of goose-stepping storm troopers could be heard across Europe.

Why do I mention this unpleasant episode in the life of one of the church's greatest saints? Because Luther, like all of us, was far too human. He himself admitted that he was "simul justus et peccator," or at the same time justified and a sinner. And late in his life, he realized this more than ever.

On his deathbed, Luther said something that provides insight into his view of himself. "They are trying to make me a fixed star, but I am only an irregular planet," he told his wife and children. In other words, he was a human being, a sinful man saved by grace, who had been elevated in status beyond what he deserved. He was not someone Christians should model themselves after, he thought. Luther, even in his sin, would point only to Christ for that.

I hope you will also realize that, like Luther, no matter what you do for Christ, if you act outside of his will and love in ministry, the results may be catastrophic -- perhaps even 400 years in the future, should the Lord tarry that long.

While the tough love approach isn't for everyone, neither is the artificial sweetener one.  We can't forget that while Jesus was the lamb of God, he was also the lion of Judah. 

I would say more but I fear we'd end up having the ideal debate again. :)

I think there are a lot of people who simply have a shortage of time -- or perhaps better stated, need to be selective as to where they spend the available time they have.

As the old saying goes, "If your field ain't growin' corn, plant something else or get some new dirt."  In a similar line of thought, we know that the "crop" we plant shouldn't change (the Gospel is the Gospel, and changing it or watering it down is not an option for the true disciple), but if ministering in a particular place isn't showing any fruit, a person needs to reconsult with the Lord to see if the place is really theone the Lord desires us to be in.

I know for myself and countless others, it hasn't been an issue of "leaving the fight" -- not in the least!! -- but rather "am I fighting in the right theater of war?"  After all, sending the Pacific Fleet of the Navy to fight on the eastern front of Germany in WWII and the footsoldiers to Midway would have been a catastrophic failure that would have changed the outcome of the war.  Well we too are at war, spiritual war, and we need to make sure that the right "troops" are battling in the right theaters -- no Navy battleships and carriers in the middle of dry land, so to speak.

Honestly, I have been wrestling with this the past month or so here...whether to stay here or to re-allocate my time elsewhere.  If there is fruit being borne, fabulous!  I'll stay and continue to plow, sow, water, and pray for the increase.  But if not, I don't want to in any way impede (or worse, be counterproductive towards) anyone else's plowing, sowing and watering.  I have been praying, yet receiving no reply as of yet, either from the Lord or co-laborers.  So I'll continue to wait until I hear something -- something very difficult for me to do, as impatient as I am -- but the thought of leaving the venue is something I think about everytime I log in.

Perhaps I am here to be a Barnabas, perhaps a Paul, perhaps a Timothy...I'm not sure.  But my contemplations and those of many others are not from whether we desire to "retreat and run" or not, but instead whether we are farming the right field.  Hopefully I was able to explain the difference.

In His service, and yours,
jason

I think the thing that most don't want to deal with is that many times we are here not just to feed, but to get fed.  Too often we think we are going to be the source of information and we ourselves need to learn.

So something that annoys you, a point you don't agree with, something that contradicts what you posted.  Yeah it may be an attack, however it may also be an opportunity to examine what you believe and why.

From a ministering standpoint, if we think we are going to come here and change someone else's life, that just isn't as likely*.  That's not knocking on this site but the medium and our ability to effectively convey what we want.  It's also counterintuitive to the reason most people post.  Most people post really not wanting anyone to disagree with them, but to have others "eat the fruit" of their message.  There are more messages I have posted that fit in that category than I want to admit.

Unless I'm wrong**, this post by YPC speaks to that idea moreso than whether there are other more effective places to minister.

* - There are times, but the percentage compared to everything else is small.

** - And while I may very well be, I almost typed a similar thing based on a recent post by someone. 

"From a ministering standpoint, if we think we are going to come here and change someone else's life, that just isn't as likely."

True. But quite honestly, I cannot read many of the blogs on here because they are so warped in theology and so illogical that if I exposed myself to a steady diet of them, I might begin to think they are normal. This place seems to be morphing into a collection of weird.

Mike, I am trying to abide by something my father in law told me.

"You don't have to attend every argument you are invited to."

King...

IOW ...like California?? 

Maybe next year brother?

This blog brings out some very important stuff. By staying in the game and not getting upset because you can learn something that you might not have know. I don't always agree with everything I read but respect the persons opinion. Sometimes we get something in our head and thing that is the way it is and somebody will point out something you haven't seen before. You might have a view change that you though was right. So stay in the game. Mike