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Yearly Archives: 2019
The Climate of Ghosting: Individual Identity and Its Attack on Divine Institutions (Marriage, Family, and Church)
One of the primary sources for the ideas of Karl Marx was the writings of philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau of France. The latter inspired the French Revolution and thereby then the bloody devastation of two World Wars in the twentieth century and a consequential Cold War. The essence of Rousseau imagined the elimination of social relationships, traditions, customs, morals, and laws with the goal of a remaining lone existence of autonomous individuals. Rousseau called it amour de soi, which means “self love” or what he labeled, “state of nature.”
Rousseau argued true nature was autonomous individuals, predating society, so that institutions of marriage, family, and church were contrary to nature. I’m focusing on those three, ordained by God and in God’s Word. Edward W. Younkins writes:
Rousseau’s view is that society corrupts the pure individual. Arguing that men are not inherently constrained by human nature, Rousseau claims that men are limited and corrupted by social arrangements. Conceiving of freedom as an absolute, independent of any natural limitations, Rousseau disavows the world of nature and its inherent laws, constraints, and regulations.
This is the meaning of the famous line that Rousseau began his book, The Social Contract: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” He meant the oppression of personal relationships like marriage, family, and church.
Rousseau has influenced the United States much, much more than people even know. Many understand that liberalism says that the core of personhood is one’s ability to choose his own identity. Essential identity is free from family and even responsibility. To find true self, the individual finds the need to break free from divine institution with self-autonomy. In the application of law, the rights bearer is the self-determining individual, who connects to others only by his own choice. State universities push this idea on students to great acceptance.
The idea of “social contract” with Rousseau is individual choice. Each individual authors his own obligation. To accomplish this, concepts of the family are broken down. Parents have been removed from marriage as a part of radical individualism, resulting in less and later marriage, because the youth see it as a social contract wrought with potential personal harm.
Rousseau clashes with scripture. God’s Word describes the original state of man as male and female (Genesis 1:26-27) and family (Genesis 1:28), and God Himself instituted the church (Matthew 16:18-19). In scripture, freedom is not interrupted by God’s institutions, but provided by them (John 8:32-36). The moral requirements of the divine institutions do not impose on freedom, but express the nature God designed.
Although contradictory, Rousseau declared the state to release the individual: “Each citizen would then be completely independent of all his fellow men, and absolutely dependent on the state.” Rousseau was joined by others such as philosopher John Locke, his views arising from 17th century mechanistic physics. “State of nature” replaced creation as the underlying premise. Rousseau took the concept to the extent that freedom meant human opportunity to create one’s self without interference.
According to Rousseau, the ability for the individual to create himself necessitates the elimination of the aforementioned institutions, so that the individual can choose for himself what he wants to be and do. In Rousseau’s view, the state is the liberator, which seems like a contradiction, because in the real world, the state controls and coerces individuals. Radical individualism led to radical statism or totalitarianism. Many political scientists and sociologists show how that isolated individuals are most vulnerable to totalitarian control.
I have seen firsthand in many different ways the state interfering with God ordained institutions with a grounds of individual freedom. You the reader probably have plenty of your own examples. When my first child entered California State University East Bay, and we went to the financial desk to make a payment, the school would not allow it. Only the student could do business, even if the student wasn’t making the payment. The student received the report card and not the parent. Everyone knows that a teenage girl doesn’t require permission from parents to get an abortion.
The clearest practical notion of the attack on divine institutions is the arbitrary adult age of 18 that the state continues to attempt to lower to 16. Eighteen-year-olds think they are separate from their parents, free agents to make a decision with the authority of the state. They see their parents as an intrusion on their freedom, on their ability to choose their own identity. They see the parents even as an imposition on their ability to develop their own beliefs. None of this is true and is in direct violation of the teaching of the Word of God. It is pure Rousseau and a lie of Satan.
Patriarchy, the authority of a dad, even a godly one with best interests for his family, has been effectively eliminated by radical statism due to radical individualism. Church authority from the pastor to congregational to elder has been nullified. People are doing what they want to do and feel entitled in doing so. Anything or anyone who steps in the way of that might be “ghosted.” This is the climate of ghosting today, ghosting being “the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication.”
According to Rousseau, the terms of relationship are set by the individual like a social contract, disconnected from the God ordained terms of God, church, and even the Bible. If a young person doesn’t like what the church teaches, he can easily find a church “woke” to his desires and with all the necessary minimization of authority. Real authenticity is someone who is being true to his self without the compunctions of preset family responsibility. He can’t really know unless it is his choice, completely separated from divine institutions.
What is ironic to the thoughts or position of the ghoster is that while he pursues individual autonomy, he is bound to the disposition of the flesh. Everyone is a slave to something or someone. True freedom isn’t the absence of subjugation, according to God. The truth sets someone free, but true freedom is from the bondage to sin. The ghoster sees true freedom as freedom from the bondage of divinely instituted spheres of authority. In fact, those are ordained by God to provide freedom. This is a person, who is truly a slave now to his own desires, yet fooled into thinking he is free. The original nature of the republic was the freedom to live within the confines of moral responsibility, which is tied to divinely instituted spheres of sovereignty.
One of the next door neighbors to our church property has a huge yard and in it, he raises chickens, who got loose yesterday. Chickens were running across our church grounds here in this urban area. It was funny to watch, but I had a dim expectancy for the future of those chickens. They were free all right, just like the ghoster is free, when he separates himself from the sovereignty of the sphere of family, marriage, or a father. Freedom is not the freedom of self-destruction, which God says occurs when a child doesn’t obey or honor his father and his mother. It will not be well with him on the earth — will not be.
Individual freedom is the climate of ghosting. It is a lie about freedom. It rests on an “atomistic viewpoint,” a naturalistic assumption that human atoms function prior to social arrangements. This is a mere material world functioning according to mechanistic physics. It is the position of uniformitarianism that speaks evil of divine intervention. Someone is free from divine intervention in his own mind, which is represented by God ordained authority. He doesn’t have to fit in with divine purpose.
A “woke” church today from often to always portrays God in varied degrees of coherence with individual autonomy. A ghoster might not enjoy the relationship within a divine sphere authority, so he chooses instead a relationship with his own self-perception of God. His God now has his back, and he’s comfortable with that. He is bathing in the love of an ethereal father without the intrusion of the regulations of which he disapproves, his chosen divine father approving of all his social and moral predilections. However, that’s not how God works.
God doesn’t work through mankind like he is a free agent. God Himself works through these spheres of divine sovereignty. Someone is not free to fit into them or not fit into them as he would, even if a “woke” church gives its ironic imprimatur on the “ghoster.” God orders the world for His creation and the freedom still operates within that creation order. A husband is the head of the wife, for instance. Is the Christian wife not free just because she doesn’t like how her husband heads?
The protection of true freedom is the protection of the spheres created and ordered by God. The state itself ordained by God protects freedom by protecting those spheres. When a father can’t lead his family because of individual autonomy, freedom is lost. Individuals don’t have the right to choose their own identity. Identity proceeds from created order. A society isn’t free when a boy uses the girl’s bathroom. That violates the actual freedom of the girls.
Ghosters aren’t free. What they perceive as individual autonomy is bondage. They think they are forming their own identities, but it’s actually their slavery to their own lust. Neither is what they think is freedom, the grace of God. It isn’t grace, and it isn’t God.
Jessie Penn-Lewis: “My Demon Possession Key to My Keswick Teaching” (part 16 of 22)
The content of this post is now available in the study of:
1.) Evan Roberts
2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905
on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study. On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.
You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.
My Dad: 80
Tomorrow my Dad turns 80. He was born December 3, 1939 during World War 2 in Danville, IL, and grew up on a farm in Foster, Indiana along the Wabash River without running water, electricity, or indoor plumbing. My Dad has been the most important person in my life. He and my mom moved in with us and have lived with us now about a year and half. He is type 2 diabetic and more notably, he has alzheimers. He’s not going to get better and he will only get worse. We’re glad to be taking care of him. I’m glad he’s made it this far.
His name is Terence Carlton Brandenburg. He got up every morning of his childhood to milk cows before he went to school. He bailed hay and also ran from a bull and jumped a six foot fence to get away. He has a brother, who lives in Texas, and a sister, who now lives in Misourri. His mom, Nila, was sociable and talkative, a story teller. His father, Charles, was quiet, taciturn, and hard working. They were a church going family, Plymouth Brethren, a country church where he made a profession of faith in Christ under the preaching of an itinerant revivalist.
My dad was never a good student in school. His parents put him in special education class in junior high. He was a good athlete, but because of work on the farm, he could play only two sports, so he chose track and field and football at Covington High School in Covington, Indiana. In the former, he went to the Indiana state final in the 100 yard dash, second place. For decades he held his high school record in the 100 and the long jump, running on cinders in 9.9 seconds. His football team won the Indiana state championship his senior year.
My mom grew up in Clinton, Iowa. Her mom died when she was 8 from a malignant brain tumor. Her dad’s work sent her family from Iowa to North Carolina for a year and then to Covington, Indiana for employment at a factory for the Olin Corporation just out of town, which made cellophane. My dad met her and they married just out of high school.
My father worked a short period as a fireman on the railroad and then when he was only eighteen he started work himself at Olin’s, and stayed there for 17 years. A bigger event was that my dad and mom started also attending First Baptist Church of Covington, and the pastor came to visit and she received Jesus Christ. My dad and mom were both baptized by immersion into the church. My sister was born their first year, I came along three years later, and my brother three years after that. We grew up in the church.
Dad became very involved in the church, as a deacon and door-to-door evangelism. Some were saved through his work. We attended every service and it influenced me greatly. I heard Bible teaching in Sunday School and jr. church and preaching in church services. We invited others to church. I evangelized my classmates, this greatly influenced by my dad’s example.
When dad was in his early thirties, he started attending a Bible institute at a Baptist church in Danville, Illinois. He desired to go into full time service for the Lord, so our family went on a Bible college trip to several places. We met B. Myron Cedarholm at Maranatha Baptist Bible College, and when he was thirty-five, our family moved to Watertown, Wisconsin. We sold our house and most of our belongings. My dad worked two jobs, went to college full time, and sent us three children to Christian school. That sacrifice had the biggest influence on my life.
Our family was never rich, but we became even more poor in Watertown. Our whole family of five large adult sized people rode first in a 1967 volkswagon station wagon with no heat. We scraped the inside of the windshield in the winter, while my dad drove. Our 1972 Vega rusted out in the bottom and we could see the road through the large jagged rust hole in the floor. The shower in the basement of the house, no bathtub, was a pipe out of a crumbling brick wall with a deteriorating concrete floor. However, we were always rich, because we had the Lord Jesus Christ and He had us.
My dad was a strict disciplinarian, what some might call old school, and he required obedience of his children. My fear of my father kept me from wrong activities. Today people would say he went over the line. I don’t think so. I have a lot of stories to tell, but I have not one ounce of resentment. He was loving me. It was exactly what I needed. We also played sports together, sat in church together, and talked about the Word of God. School was difficult for him, but he studied very hard and made the honor roll. He majored in secondary education and Greek, and minored in physical education. When he graduated, he won the award as the top Greek student in the college. He stayed on to teach in the Academy and I had him as a second year Greek teacher my senior year in high school.
Seven years later, my wife and I married and moved to California. My dad and mom had gone to teach at a Christian school in Arizona. A year and half after we started our church, my dad came to become principal of our Christian school. With my mom, he served faithfully first as principal and teacher, then just teacher. He weekly evangelized and taught a men’s Sunday School class. My parents lived in the same small, old two bedroom apartment their entire time in California. They were on time and helpful to every meeting and event, an encouragement to the church.
I could say a lot more, but on his 80th birthday, I want to thank the Lord for my dad and what he has meant to my life. It has been great serving with him and my mom for thirty years in the Lord’s church.
More On Ghosting
The Irish Independent is the most prominent newspaper in Ireland, and yesterday, November 29, 2019, in that paper, Larissa Nolan writes about ghosting in an article entitled, “Into thin air: How ‘ghosting’ became the new normal”:
We’ve all heard about ghosting: the spineless trend of severing a relationship by disappearing from contact. No calls, no texts, no emails – and no warning, explanation or chance to discuss. It’s a particular kind of narcissism, a form of emotional cruelty, according to psychology. It’s a mixture of cowardice, immaturity and modern technology.
I think anyone with an ounce of common sense would recognize this as the truth about this odious, heinous practice, primarily by young people, who very often justify it as a means to “wellness.” Dropping out, they justify, preserves themselves, keeps them well or improves them. In my last post, I spoke about how that psychiatry is notoriously untrustworthy and a pseudo-science. Nevertheless, a major mark psychiatrists give the narcissist is “the silent treatment”:
The silent treatment is probably one of the most common forms of emotional abuse used by narcissists . . . . Narcissists use the silent treatment as a form of punishment for not acquiescing to their point of view or as the way to gain the upper hand and control in their relationships. It’s also a way to avoid discussing important issues in the relationship and avoid taking accountability for their wrong-doings. When a narcissist uses the silent treatment, they will do it in a way that is so out of proportion to the situation. Narcissists will also tend to demand a perfectly delivered apology. If the apology is not said correctly or in the right way, the narcissists will extend the length of the silent treatment. By demanding a perfectly delivered apology, narcissists confirm their dominance and support their exaggerated importance.
If someone reads the entire above article from which this paragraph comes, to possess narcissistic personality disorder, one must check off several markers. Even if ghosting or the silent treatment are narcissistic, this isn’t a biblical means of analysis of human problems. It’s way too subjective and seems as though it is invented to weaponize against a chosen target. The truth about someone is not a matter of an arbitrary culling from studies or articles to conform to an already settled conclusion. This isn’t how the Lord Jesus Christ or any of God’s men in scripture function in service to God and men.
The Bible is sufficient as it speaks to behavior, and ghosting is in no way scriptural. It is a form of extreme separation, but not biblical separation. Separation in and of itself is fine, required even by God in His Word. However, certain forms of separation are evil.
Evangelicals do not practice biblical separation, but I have observed they still practice separation, and an unbiblical version more like ghosting. They are not attempting reconciliation, which is a requirement in biblical separation. Real reconciliation centers on the truth, the basis of reconciliation, bringing two entities back together. The point on which they come together is the truth, aligning with the historic, biblical teaching of the church.
Ghosting is not about reconciliation. It’s many different variations of selfishness. At it’s best, if even possible, someone who desires to avoid the pollution of sin separates in an extreme manner to preserve personal purity. Out of sheer desperation about sinning, a person turns monastic without any warning to those around him. I’ve never seen it. People truly concerned for sin want to help sinners. They know the truth and want others to know it too, because they care.
Someone really can judge belief and behavior based upon scripture. The goal is to get to the right position and practice for God. A person can know that. Some people don’t want that. They want what they want and they don’t want to be challenged — at all. This is the new generation Z and millennials. They have picked upon this new standard of human relations, even with the encouragement of evangelical leaders.
A kind of ghosting behavior actually is not new. It is an extreme form of self-centeredness. I understand it, because I’ve done it. I can’t imagine that any human being hasn’t at least given the “silent treatment” to someone at some point. I remember two instances. It’s a form of throwing a fit, a childish type of tantrum behavior. Instead of reconciling along the lines of Matthew 5:21-26, someone sulks, ignores those around him, and goes silent.
An antidote for ghosting or the silent treatment for a true believer is Ephesians 4:26, let not the sun go down upon thy wrath. It’s a command. It’s not, let not a week, a month, or a year go down upon thy wrath, but the sun. A dispute or division has got to be settled between believers out of love. It’s not right to hold a grudge, hold onto resentment, none of that. It’s self-destructive and dishonoring to God. Much of this goes on between children and their parents today, but also between siblings, and childhood friends. It’s not acceptable, but it is still happening and at an alarmingly increasing rate.
Again, scripture requires initiation of reconciliation, including possible mediation. At the foundation is the love of the neighbor, the love of the brethren, according to the Word and will of God and as fruit of the Spirit. It is also endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit. Ghosting and the silent treatment don’t please God and sin against God in their hateful treatment of others.
Miracle Moss Cures Cancer–watch the video!
A Hearing or Listening the First Rightful Response as Thanksgiving
Deuteronomy 5:7 begins the ten commandments in Deuteronomy: “Thou shalt have none other gods before me.” There are at least two and maybe three stages before one arrives at that first command from God. One, God does a lot of good stuff for people. That first one could be divided into more than that one stage. He gave them mercy, He delivered them, and He blessed them physically in numerous ways. These are seen in the first four chapters of Deuteronomy, and in several other places in the Bible. A representation of these are seen, in essence a summation, in chapter 5 and verses 2 to 6:
2 The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3 The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day. 4 The LORD talked with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire, 5 (I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to shew you the word of the LORD: for ye were afraid by reason of the fire, and went not up into the mount;) saying, 6 I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
Reading those there, one can see at least:
- Our God — He possesses them and they Him.
- God made a covenant — He made promises to them that He always kept and would keep.
- With us, even us — He chose them out among many other people, and it could have been other people but it wasn’t.
- Alive this day — The very fact that they were alive was a testimony of multiple deliverances by God.
- The LORD talked with you face to face — God kept it personal with the people.
- I am the LORD thy God — He is the LORD their God; enough said.
- Brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage — He saved them from a very difficult situation, Egypt and bondage.
10 To him that smote Egypt in their firstborn: for his mercy endureth for ever: 11 And brought out Israel from among them: for his mercy endureth for ever: 12 With a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm: for his mercy endureth for ever. 13 To him which divided the Red sea into parts: for his mercy endureth for ever: 14 And made Israel to pass through the midst of it: for his mercy endureth for ever: 15 But overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red sea: for his mercy endureth for ever. 16 To him which led his people through the wilderness: for his mercy endureth for ever.
1 O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. 2 O give thanks unto the God of gods: for his mercy endureth for ever. 3 O give thanks to the Lord of lords: for his mercy endureth for ever.
And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day.
Faithless Music? The Belief in a Transcendent God Requires Objective Beauty
A material universe exists. Modern science shows that it is not eternal. It had a beginning a finite time ago out of nothing. It is absurd to to say that the universe just popped into existence out of nothing. The existence of the universe requires a transcendent cause that must be spiritual, because it can’t already be a part of the material universe. That cause also must be a lot of other qualities that fit a description of God. Based on the complexity of the universe, the cause must have been the personal choice of an intelligent designer. Vast evidence shows the existence of the universe requires elaborate initial conditions to sustain intelligent life. This has been called the fine-tuning of the universe.
In this complex, personal, and intelligent universe, there are also values. Like the natural laws bind the universe, so do the values, indicating that they too proceed from God. Everyone for instance knows that certain objective, moral laws exist that are wrong to break. The same cause of the universe is the cause of the moral values — God.
The process I’m traversing here fits what Psalm 19 says in the Old Testament and Romans 1 in the New. Psalm 19:1 says:
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
Romans 1:19-20 say:
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.
Nature reveals not only the existence of God but also various attributes of God. Sir Isaac Newton at the end of his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy wrote:
[T]hough these bodies may, indeed, continue in their orbits by the mere laws of gravity, yet they could by no means have at first derived the regular position of the orbits themselves from those laws. . . . This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.
The founders of science called science “the wisdom of God.” The Royal Society began in 1660 and in 1667 John Ray became a fellow of the society, writing The Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of the Creation. David said “their words,” the words of the handiwork of God through His creation, go out “to the end of the world” (Psalm 19:2-3).
The words of creation, providence, and conscience match the Words of God in scripture. Values are transcendent and the scripture, which reflects natural law, manifests those in categories of truth, goodness, and beauty. Since God originated everything, so truth, goodness, and beauty spring from and, therefore, mirror Him. Believing in the existence of God is believing in objective beauty. Rather than state that argument myself, I use the statement of Augustine in his City of God:
Beauty. . . can be appreciated only by the mind. This would be impossible, if this `idea’ of beauty were not found in the mind in a more perfect form. . . But even here, if this `idea’ of beauty were not subject to change, one person would not be a better judge of sensible beauty than another. . . nor the experienced and skilled than the novice and the untrained; and the same person could not make progress towards better judgement than before. And it is obvious that anything which admits of increase or decrease is changeable.
This consideration has readily persuaded men of ability and learning. . . that the original `idea’ is not to be found in this sphere, where it is shown to be subject to change. . . And so they saw that there must be some being in which the original form resides, unchangeable, and therefore incomparable. And they rightly believed that it is there that the origin of things is to be found, in the uncreated, which is the source of all creation.
Furthermore, Augustine writes in his Confessions:
[M]y sin was this, that I looked for pleasure, beauty, and truth not in him but in myself and his other creatures, and the search led me instead to pain, confusion, and error.
If something can be beautiful, then something can be ugly. Scripture backs up the logic, the natural law of which I and many others through history speak. I provide three verses, two from the Old and one from the New, first 1 Chronicles 16:29 and Psalm 27:4:
Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.
One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
I apply this truth about God and beauty to you professing pastor, who has his play list filled with vile music. I apply this to you professing Christian, listening to your worldly tunes on your road trip or on your way into work in your car or when you work out. I write this to you, who when you hear the ugly, do not turn it off, when you can.
The Continuous Practice of Sin in Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism with Its Music
Young people. . . should and must receive an education in music as well as in the other arts if we are to wean them away from carnal and lascivious songs and interest them in what is good and wholesome.
Mark 4:19, “And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.”
Romans 1:24, “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves.”
Romans 6:12, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.”
Romans 13:14, “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”
Galatians 5:16, “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.”
Galatians 5:24, “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.”
Ephesians 2:3, “Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”
Ephesians 4:22, “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.”
1 Timothy 6:9, “But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.”
2 Timothy 2:22, “Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity,, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”
2 Timothy 3:6, “For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts.”
2 Timothy 4:3, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.”
Titus 2:12, “Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.”
Titus 3:3, “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.”
1 Thessalonians 4:5, “Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God.”
James 1:14-15, “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”
James 4:1-3, “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”
1 Peter 1:14, “As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance.”
1 Peter 2:11, “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims,, abstain from fleshly lusts,, which war against the soul.”
1 Peter 4:2-3, “That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries.”
2 Peter 1:4, “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
2 Peter 2:10, “But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.”
2 Peter 2:18, “For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.”
2 Peter 3:3, “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts.”
1 John 2:16-17, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”
Jude 1:16-18, “These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage. But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.”
Many more can be applied above. They are very serious. The popular music hurts the Christian and displeases God. Those who “walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, . . . despise government.” I’ve never seen more anger than that from those who wish to keep their lustful music. It is feeding their flesh, and they don’t want to or can’t give it up. It becomes more important than God and usually godly parents. Young people take the music over their parents at the same time savaging the parents with scoffing. I’ve watched this again and again. It almost always goes along with immodest clothing as well.
The popular music of the world does not deny “worldly lust,” and so conforms to this present world, the lust of the flesh, rather than proving what is the good and acceptable will of God (Titus 2:11-12, 1 John 2:15-17, Romans 12:1-2). Evangelicalism and fundamentalism is filled with those who disobey these passages in a continuous manner. It leads to a hunger and fascination with many other worldly interests and behaviors. Rather than deny worldly lust, they deny true fellowship with God.
I am not writing here about what is even used in churches today for worship. I’m talking about what Christians do in their lives on an almost every day basis. They not only listen to this music, but they promote it all the time in how they use it in their cars and podcasts. All of this shapes a different view of God than a scriptural one. They might have “God” in their doctrinal statements, but this forms God into the image of their own lust. They subject God to their lust and invent a different, heretical view of the grace of God. Rather than their lives being transformed by the renewing of their minds, they conform God to their lust. It affects everything they do, how they make decisions, what they do and how they live, much more than the continuous practice of sin in disobedience to passages against lust. What I’m explaining, Jonathan Edwards already described in his Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections:
The affections and passions are frequently spoken of as the same; and yet, in the more common use of speech, there is in some respect a difference. Affection is a word that, in its ordinary signification, seems to be something more extensive than passion, being used for all vigorous lively actings of the will or inclination; but passion for those that are more sudden, and whose effects on the animal spirits are more violent, and the mind more overpowered, and less in its own command.
David Wells in No Place for Truth writes:
It is this God, majestic and holy in his being, this God whose love knows no bounds because his holiness knows no limits, who has disappeared from the modern evangelical world.
God hasn’t actually disappeared. He is Omnipresent. He sustains the universe. He is missing from the imaginations of evangelicalism and fundamentalism, replaced by a god shaped by their passions, fed by their lust. Edwards warned of this in his Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections. A different god is shaped in the imaginations formed by lust or passion. Someone chooses his music according to either passion or affection, or his music fashions the passions that lead to a different god in his imagination.
Jessie Penn-Lewis: Binding and Loosing (part 15 of 22)
The content of this post is now available in the study of:
1.) Evan Roberts
2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905
on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study. On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.
You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.
‘I Disobey and Dishonor My Parents Because Jesus Saved Me’: More on Virtual Christianity
In Romans 14:10 Paul says, “[F]or we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” In 2 Corinthians 5:10, he says the similar:
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.
And hereby we do know that we know him,, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.
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