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Thread: Clothing the Naked Eye

  1. #1
    Senior Member MichaellS's Avatar
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    Default Clothing the Naked Eye

    The naked eye, now I wonder who hatched that idiom? But this is what I wanted to address here.

    “the lust of the eyes…is not from the Father, but is from the world.” (1 John 2:16)

    There are so many factors that contribute to our not seeing the world clearly anymore. Factors such as promotional enticements or the misleading characteristics of marketable products till we seldom give it a second thought. We through promotional exhaustion quite possibly have become captive to subtle excess. The money handlers know where the pulse rests, and how the adventures the eye can lead man through a world of fascination and mind-numbing delight. The Christian can barely catch his breath, or else commit to avoiding a heavy portion of this world’s allure. In many instances, he should.

    Are they concerned over the people’s wellbeing from overexposure of the overexposed? Not lately, not when the profit margins show the need to re-correct itself to the horizons of more and more profit. So sanitized from every mention of man’s disorders of ill-equipped spiritual safeguards, the governing censorship boards of books and entertainment have long been replaced by engineers of finely tuned sweet indulge, who skillfully taps into all forms of sensuality, sex and relationship concurrently, or the pride of a prestigious life, or the false gratification of increase with all the legal protection awarded to “artistic expression”.

    Those safeguards of 60-plus years ago were there for a reason. Not because those behind the imagery held high concern for the country in which they lived, but because public acceptance would not permit much of the offensiveness thought harmless today. My oh-my, if I didn’t know better, I might come to the conclusion the world doesn’t want the Christian convert to gain a significant foothold of a morally happy living before the living Lord. As if we have never wondered what the heck happened to man’s outlook.

    Just as the p***ing of the old-world masters’ expertise many times went to the grave with them, so is the moral comp*** of responsive reason being ground down daily. How equally morbid! Like the world saying with one voice, “Here’s mud-in-your-eye”. Well, if it is mud, I would rather welcome the Lord’s administering health to it rather than a world run amock with its love affair of godless blind intelligence, which is inescapably everywhere. May His Spirit guide us, yes, convince us, through conviction to peace with Him.

    I wrote you in my letter not to ***ociate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. (1 Corinthians 5:9,10)

    So here I present a couple of reads of this topic. The first article is dealing with this subject more in a socially acceptable context. The next, also dealing with personal choices but on a wider spectrum of applications, and under a more biblical consideration.

    How Much Skin is Sin?

    Word God, picture Devil

    Mike.

  2. #2
    chuckt
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    I was reading a Kindle book by Chuck Smith called "Born Again" and he makes the case that our spirit died (1 Corinthians 15:22) and that we were part spirit.

    If you are spiritually dead and out of your environment then you will no longer put life's emphasis on what you don't know but what you do know. So instead of our "spirit" being the default belief, the physical world is our default belief.

    http://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/15-22.htm

    So how do you make people thirst for the spirit if all they have in front of them is the flesh and worldly pursuits? They don't know what they lost or could have had.

  3. #3
    alanmolstad
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    Quote Originally Posted by chuckt View Post
    I was reading a Kindle book by Chuck Smith called "Born Again" and he makes the case that our spirit died (1 Corinthians 15:22) and that we were part spirit.

    If you are spiritually dead and out of your environment then you will no longer put life's emphasis on what you don't know but what you do know. So instead of our "spirit" being the default belief, the physical world is our default belief.

    http://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/15-22.htm

    So how do you make people thirst for the spirit if all they have in front of them is the flesh and worldly pursuits? They don't know what they lost or could have had.
    I dont know if anyone ever does "make people"anything....

    i was witnessing to a member of a CULT afew years ago.
    I gave them all kinds of information dealing with the past of the CULT they were trapped within.
    I showed them facts....I showed them what their past leadership had done....
    I showed them that what they were mixed up in was clearly not a Christian church, but was just something a guy made up and convinced other to believe in.

    But it did not matter.
    They would just try to change the topic...or they would want to only talk about issues that had nothing to do with what the Bible says.
    Or they would try to make the topic "me' and tried to only ask me personal questions.

    they wanted to talk about anything or anyone other that what i was showing them in black and white about thebible or about their leadership's past actions.



    i wish I had the power to "make them" want to seek truth....make them want to see what the Bible truly says compared to what they taught.
    But no one can "make" anyone do stuff like that.

    I believe the old saying "You can lead a horse to water..." is very true at times like this.




    What I understand from the bible is that we are to be ready at all times to "give"to every man an answer, a reason for the hope that is there within my heart.
    I can give others the reason for the hope in my own heart...
    Its up to the Holy Spirit to bring the increase.

  4. #4
    chuckt
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    Quote Originally Posted by alanmolstad View Post
    I dont know if anyone ever does "make people"anything....

    i was witnessing to a member of a CULT afew years ago.
    I gave them all kinds of information dealing with the past of the CULT they were trapped within.
    I showed them facts....I showed them what their past leadership had done....
    I showed them that what they were mixed up in was clearly not a Christian church, but was just something a guy made up and convinced other to believe in.

    But it did not matter.
    It could be that someone is exchanging money (a hireling).
    Someone is setting someone up with dates.

    There is energy in sin and it makes people do all kinds of things.
    Someone underneath the leader always wants control of the group so they could be fighting for control because they want to be the leader or they want power; they aren't interested in following Christ.
    Sometimes going door to door is an exercise and they get brownie points from the group for working and that kind of reward is hard to stop. They're getting an emotional badge and they probably have a showcase of badges somewhere for doing things for the group. If you were in the Boston Church of Christ, all they wanted to do was study baptism because that was where the brownie points were. I remember going there and when I participated in Bible study, if I leaned forward, my neighbor leaned forward and if I put my head down on my hand, my neighbor did the same because they tried to project this image that I was leading and they were following me and later they tried to convert me but it didn't work because the Lord lead me out by giving me things to say.
    Can you make a dead person respond? Not always. They're dead and they don't know they are dead.
    The authority of the Bible isn't where it should be because the authority is somewhere else.
    Last edited by chuckt; 08-26-2015 at 06:51 AM.

  5. #5
    chuckt
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    Quote Originally Posted by alanmolstad View Post
    I dont know if anyone ever does "make people"anything....

    i was witnessing to a member of a CULT afew years ago.
    I gave them all kinds of information dealing with the past of the CULT they were trapped within.
    I showed them facts....I showed them what their past leadership had done....
    I showed them that what they were mixed up in was clearly not a Christian church, but was just something a guy made up and convinced other to believe in.

    But it did not matter.
    Have you dealt with selfishness before? Suppose the cult leader offered you something. What is your price?
    What if you had low self esteem and the leader offered you a spouse that was unattainable on your own?

    I don't know if this story is true or not but I heard the story of how people catch monkeys. They drill a hole in a coconut and put rice in a coconut. The monkey puts his fist in the coconut and won't let go of the rice. Imagine now if the cult leader gave you something and you couldn't let go because of selfishness? Have you ever seen those car ads on television. Who can afford one of those cars for $299 a month? A doctor or lawyer? When you're offered the world and offered something you can't get normally, it is hard to give up and if often happens in ministry with writers that write for the counter cult ministries. I read an article by an author who put his writing in a Christian journal and I look at what he is writing today and I ask myself, "How could this be the same person?" The fact is that if you want a *** in ministry, you can only get paid if the people are willing to buy it. Leadership changes the direction of everyone who is going in a certain direction and if the Christian writer wants to get paid, they are going to change direction instead of let the Bible be their authority. How many piano players or organists want to get paid to play in church? And what if the leadership of that church is telling lies? What is more important? Is it more important to collect that check or to stay in a church in order to get paid because you are poor and can't live without the extra income? I know someone who has to choose and I know people who have decisions to make. Are you going to go to a church that is doing well, play an instrument for a church run by three women pastors in order to get paid? You know they aren't following the Bible when there are women pastors leading a church.

  6. #6
    Senior Member MichaellS's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by chuckt View Post
    I was reading a Kindle book by Chuck Smith called "Born Again" and he makes the case that our spirit died (1 Corinthians 15:22) and that we were part spirit.

    If you are spiritually dead and out of your environment then you will no longer put life's emphasis on what you don't know but what you do know. So instead of our "spirit" being the default belief, the physical world is our default belief.

    http://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/15-22.htm

    So how do you make people thirst for the spirit if all they have in front of them is the flesh and worldly pursuits? They don't know what they lost or could have had.
    Good thoughts, thanks!

    May I add to that?

    We oft’times forget the liberty we have at our disposal while being the light of the world in Him. Things contained in God’s word like refusing people and turning from folks once they understand your message. Once that hits, the liberty is still yours, though the Bible declares minimizing argumentation.

    "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, , “ (John 6:44)

    “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.”
    (John 6:39)
    God bless!

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