RELIGION....(part 2)

[soulshocked]

---

@lightbringer

bruh! juz email me the outline from tonight's message

let him be for...

Romans 3:12-19
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

Isaiah 8:20
To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

Matthew 8:22
".....let the dead bury their dead."

Let them deny the Word of God for they shall receive destruction in the end!!!

[lightbringer]

YOU CAN'T BECAUSE YOU'RE HEAD IS SOMEWHERE ELSE!

Awww gee... now that you've run out of arguments you're resorting to ad hominems (attacking the person). And threateining me with hellfire? Aww man... I'm shaking in my boots!!!!Â*

That just goes to prove how totally empty your "reasoning" is. Find a brain.

Hebrews 11 is taking a history backtrack to where men and women lived by faith!

Exactly. And it explicitly mentions an incident NOT FOUND in the protestant canon. But it IS found in 2 Maccabees, which is in the Catholic Bible and the Septuagint canon of the Hebrew scriptures! You just shot yourself in the foot!Â* Â*

I need not to prove it to you baby boy!Â* The Bible itself provided a solid proof but you ignorantly denied it bucko!

Really now? So where is that itsy-bitsy little verse that undeniably teaches that the Bible is the SOLE and FINAL authority? PROVE IT FROM THE BIBLE! Come on Mr. biblical scholar, surely you can come up with even one verse? Just one teeny weeny verse? Or can you?

Aww, what an excuse to cover up the fact you DON'T HAVE PROOF!
The truth is, you CAN'T prove it from the Bible.
Contradiction galore! Try to remove your foot from your mouth, bubba. It might help you think.

Bucko! I'd rather be in the car business than to face eternal damnation with your LIES!

At the rate you're spewing lies, you'll be in BOTH!Â*

Bahahahaha! Again you're goin round in circles! Clearly your dumb head isn't working. I need not to defend the Bible baby boy! The Bible can stand alone. The verses have been presented but you have clearly rejected them.

The truth is you are blind and dead in spirit! That is why you continually deny what the Bible says!
Go back to your mother's room baby boy, you're words are full of lies and deceit! The Bible presented not just a teeny weeny verse bucko! Not just one kiddo!! You failed to accept it baby boy!! Failed! Denied! Rejected!

Rubbish bucko! Rubbish!

[mannyamador]

bruh! juz email me the outline from tonight's message

Hey, maybe you can help lightbringer find that itsy-bitsy verse that clearly teaches that the Bible is the SOLE and FINAL authority.

Of course, we all know you can't either.

[soulshocked]

@lightbringer: Â*indeed! rubbish! Â*

RUBBISH

A Sermon by C. H. SPURGEON

"There is much rubbish..." — Nehemiah 4:10

The great work comprised in the building up of the church... Now, this enterprise is the work of God. He alone can build the church. "When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory," and we may build as we may, but "except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." Still, our full and firm conviction that it is God's working does not at all interfere with the grand truth that he employs agents for the building up of his church in the world; that, in fact he has commissioned us, his chosen servants, and and sent us into the world, each one according to our ability and opportunity, to labour for him. We work because God works by us. We are hindered, however, in this service by the fact that there is much rubbish in the way. It always was so.

When Paul began to build for God, and the apostles went forth as wise master-builders, there lay before them in towering heaps the old Jewish rubbish, hard to remove, heavy to bear away, and in quantity equal to a huge hill. The foundation was there; thank God we have not to lay that; that is laid in Christ Jesus, and firmly laid, and "other foundation can no man lay;" but the Jews, with their traditions, had overlaid the foundations; they had added to the word of God, they had put glosses upon it, they had taken away its real meaning, and put to it a meaning of their own. They had invented rites and ceremonies innumerable, and traditions of the fathers dark and mysterious, so that though a man should seek to find out the truth, he could not by reason of the abundance of the confused material and traditional superstition with which they had covered it up.

The apostles had to begin their gospel labour amongst their fellow-countrymen in the midst of this much rubbish. No sooner did they begin to remove the worthless deposits than the lovers of tradition assailed them, raised a great dust, and became their violent persecutors, following them from city to city, scandalising them, and committing all manner of violence against them. You cannot remove ruins without arousing the owls and bats. The most rotten rubbish upon earth is sure to find some defender. By this rubbish many have gained their wealth, and they are full of wrath if any threaten to disturb it. The apostles soon found that they had fallen upon troublous times, yet by God's help they cleared away that rubbish, and were enabled to build their wall, till the New Jerusalem became famous in the earth.

They encountered in the wider world of the Roman empire the rubbish of old paganism; and oh, what rubbish that way! He who is acquainted with the classic writers knows how polluted were the people of their times. Their satirists ascribe to them mirthfully vices which even with tears we would not dare to mention. The superstitions of the age were grovelling to a hideous degree; their very gods were monsters of crime, and their sacred rites orgies of lust and drunkenness. The priests had successfully endeavoured to make vice into a religion, and under the pretence of mysterious worship had devised means for pandering to the basest passions of the most corrupt human nature.

It is no small mass of rubbish which the student of today sifts over as he makes researches into the Greek and Roman mythology. Men could not find out God, for gods many and lords many stood in the way. Neither could they believe in the simplicity of Jesus Christ, because their foolish heart was darkened. "God made man upright, but he hath found out many inventions;" and all these inventions helped to turn him from his uprightness, and to pervert his judgment. Yet those who went before us laboured on amidst that foul and noisome rubbish, and were so successful in their earnest, excavations, that at this day no one thinks of worshipping Jupiter, or Saturn, or Venus, or Mercury; these demon-deities have gone to the limbo from whence they came. They have been smitten — smitten by the gospel, and they have withered like grass, so that no man boweth himself before them anymore. The God of truth has come, and these bats and owls of the night have betaken themselves into obscurity and oblivion. This rubbish was cleared away, and the foundations were built upon by earnest men that went before us, though they had to lay each stone in martyr blood, and cement it with agonies and tears.

Moreover, remember that in those early days the church in her building had to encounter the very much rubbish of the various philosophies of mankind. There was a kind of "feeling after God" in the heathen mind; but this feeling after God was misdirected and proudly self-confident, and therefore it missed its way, and in the process of thought the more spiritual-minded amongst men (if I may venture to call men spiritual at all who were not renewed by grace) invented theories and imaginings, which they thought to be exceeding wise but which in fact were folly itself dressed out in the robes of vainglory. These philosophies had a great following, and exercised so subtle and powerful an influence that they were felt even in the church itself. In the writings of the apostles Paul and John you continually meet with allusions to the great Gnostic philosophy which perverted so many Christians. Ever since that day human wisdom has been a greater curse to the church than anything else.

The ignorance of Christians has never been so evil a thing, bad as it is, as the vain knowledge, the false wisdom, with which men have been puffed up in their fleshly minds. It is an ill day when men know too much to know Christ. It is a great misfortune when men are too manly to be converted and to become as little children, and sit at the feet of the great Teacher: yet there are many professors of religion who talk as if this was their condition, and as if they were proud of it. Even at this present time the outside philosophies of unchristian men infect the church, spoil her, injure her, dilute the wine of the kingdom, overturn the children's milk, and to a great extent poison the bread of life. Sad that it should be so, but the rubbish of philosophy has always been in the way of the building up of the wall of the church of God, and the story of the apostolical age may serve as a great comfort to us in these evil times. As they were hindered so are we, but as they persevered and overcame even so will we, by out great Master's aid.

After that lot of rubbish had been cleared away, the task was only begun, for soon after apostolic times, and first zeal of Christians had gone, there came the old ROMAN rubbish, which in the end proved a worse hindrance than all which had preceeded it. This Popish rubbish was found in layers — first one doctrinal error, and then another, and then another, and then another, and then another, till at this time the errors of the Church of Rome are as countless as the stars, as black as midnight, and as foul as hell. Her abominations reek in the nostrils of all good men. Her idolatries are the scorn of reason and the abhorrence of faith. The iniquities of her practice, and the enormities of her doctrine, almost surpass belief.

Popery is as much the masterpiece of Satan as the gospel is the masterpiece of God. There can scarcely be imagined anything of devilish craftiness or Satanic wickedness which could be compared with her, she is unparalleled, the queen of iniquity. Behold upon her forehead the name, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. The church of Rome and her teachings are a vast mountain of rubbish covering the truth.

For weary years good men could not get at the foundation because of this very much rubbish. Here and there a Wycliffe spied out the precious cornerstone, and leaped for joy because he could get his foot upon it, and say, "Jesus Christ himself, elect and precious, is the stone on which I build my hope." Here and there a John Huss, or a Jerome of Prague, or a Savonarola, in the thick midnight, yet nevertheless found out the foundation, and wept their very hearts out because of the much rubbish which threatened to bury even them while they were seeking the foundation.

A master excavator was MARTIN LUTHER; how grandly he laid bare the glorious foundation of justification by faith alone! An equally grand worker at this great enterprise was Master JOHN CALVIN, who laid open long stretches of the ancient foundations of the covenant of grace. Well was he supported by his brother of Zurich, Zwingle, and John Knox in Scotland, and others in this land. They cleared away for a while some of the rubbish, but there was such a mass of it that they had to throw it up in heaps on either side, and it is beginning to come crumbling down again on to the foundation, and to cover it up once more. A perfect reformation they could not work, and the remnant of the rubbish is now our plague and hindrance. Everywhere the much rubbish is being diligently cast upon the wall by the emissaries of the evil one, and we can scarcely get to the foundations to build thereon the gold and silver and precious stones which God commits to us with which to build up his own house.

Alas, there is very, very much rubbish. I saw in Rome that the waggons which took away the earth from the Forum were marked "Regia Scava." They belonged to the royal excavations; and I long to see royal excavators, employed by the King of Kings, get to work to excavate again the foundations of the wall of Jerusalem, and cart away some of the tremendous heaps of rubbish that still lie upon the walls. God grant we may see good and great work done in this direction before long.

But, beloved friends, if all this rabbinical, and pagan, and philosophical, and Roman rubbish were all gone, still the work would scarcely have begun, for there is yet very much rubbish of other kinds lying hereabout. There is much rubbish arising from the world, the flesh, and the devil, so that we are not able to build the wall. Look at human sin, how that impedes us! Oh, if there were no false systems of religion, if priest and scribe were silent, if false prophet and Antichrist were both out of the way, yet the sins of men are a vast and hideous mass of rotten rubbish, and our labours of love are hindered thereby. How hard it is to get at human ears, for the world has the first word, and often the last word, with the most of men. Eargate is choked with rubbish.

How harder still it is to get at human hearts, for there Satan reigns as in his own palace, and takes care to erect huge barricades and earthworks of the rubbish of carnal lust and pride and unbelief. Men are wrapped up in indifference to eternal things, like mummies in their bands and gums. They give all their energy to the answering of the question "What shall we eat and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?" Immortal as they are, they live only for mortality. Though their grandest destiny lies in eternity, yet all their efforts are bounded by the narrow space of time. Charm, O thou charmer, never so wisely, but this adder hath no ear for thee. This people, bent on its lusts, will still follow its own devices. Though Christ beckon with his pierced hand, yet turn they their back on him; and even he from Calvary cries —


"Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by,

Is it nothing to you that Jesus should die?


He is despised and rejected of men; they see no form nor comeliness in him whose countenance contains within itself all celestial beauty. They cannot be got at by love or law, by tears or terrors, by prayers or preachings; they are so absorbed in earthly things. We cannot build the wall for their much rubbish. They are wedded to their sins; they cling to their idols; they will not even think upon their soul, and their God, and their Saviour; they choose their own delusions and reject their own mercies, and it seems as if everything in the world helped them this way, for the business of life, the care and the ease, the quiet and the noise, the tumult and the turmoil thereof alike ensnare them; all these things are transformed by their alienated hearts into a mass of rubbish. With one man it is the pursuit, the arduous pursuit of learning, with another an intense greed for gold, with a third ambition, with a fourth the lust of pleasure; but in each man the heap of rubbish prevents out getting at the heart. We cannot build the wall.

Who among us has not often gone back to his God, and said, "Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" And this age of competition seems to make the thing worse than ever. Some are so poor that they tell us they cannot listen, for they have to work and toil like slaves for their bread merely to keep body and soul together; and as for those who are rich — O God, help the rich! Still is it true, and perhaps truer now than ever, that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God;" for the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches are a mass of rubbish, so that we cannot build the wall.

Oh, how sad is the retrospect of the pastor as he remembers the many in whom he could never reach the conscience, because of the intervening rubbish, and how mournful is the prospect that lies before him! Our only consolation is that, if we cannot build, there is One who can; and if the rubbish be so much that the strength of the bearers there is an arm which is not weary, and can perform all that is needed.

There is very much rubbish about, brethren; and therefore for the present distress, if every Christian minister were to keep to preaching Christ and him crucified, and nothing else, I think he would do well; and if every Christian man were to just keep to the plain truths of Scripture, and have them worked into his own soul by the Holy Spirit, and then speak them out with power, and live for soul-winning, and care for nothing else, he would do well.

But there is very much rubbish. Oh, the rubbish of pride, of unbelief, of evil lustings, of anger, of despondency, of self-exaltation! Brethren, it is not worth while to stir it, it is such a foul heap! I have no desire to turn cinder-sifter to it, for there is never a jewel in it that will pay for the sifting; but there it is, and the building of grace does not advance as we could wish, because of the corruption which still abideth in us, notwithstanding all that some may say.

But there are some others who have had choice seasons of fellowship with Christ, and they have been for awhile free from temptation, and there has been no great unbreaking of the great deep of corruption within them; and therefore they say, "Ah, now I am getting on: I think, somehow, I am getting up to the higher life. I should not wonder that I should be perfect one of these days." Rubbish, brother! It is all rubbish, every bit of it, it is not worthy harbouring for an instant. It may be very glittering rubbish, it looks amazing like gold, but "all is not gold that glitters." Any notion of our own attainments which could lead us for a moment to speak of what we are with any degree of complacency is only rubbish. For my own part, I desire constantly to stand at the foot of the cross, with no other testimony concerning myself than this —


"I the chief of sinners am,

But Jesus died for me."


Personal holiness is to be sought for with all our hearts, and it can only be obtained by faith in Jesus Christ — by simple faith in him. He gives us power to overcome sin through his precious blood. Christ is made of God unto you "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption;" in him be all your glorying, and in him alone, for if not so, the rubbish will cover up the foundation. "I know whom I have believed." None but Jesus, none but Jesus. There rests our souls' only hope, upon his precious blood and righteousness; every other hope we heartily abhor. Well, the foundation is laid. Blessed be God for that! When a man is brought to rest alone in Jesus, then there is laid for him in Zion a sure foundation-stone, and to that he is cemented by sovereign grace.

Now, let us thank God again that the building up of his temple in us is his own work. He began it. He digged out and made clear to us our own emptiness. He cast out our self-righteousness, and he laid Christ where our self had once been. The Lord did that, and he has done everything else which has been done in us that has been worth the doing. I cannot, I am sure no brother here can, look upon any step he has ever taken as a real advance in divine life, which was taken in any strength but in the strength of God. Whatever we have done of ourselves had been much better undone, for all that nature spins will have to be unravelled sooner or later. "Salvation is of the Lord." Jonah learned that in the whale's belly. It was worth while getting into the whale's belly to learn. We want to know it through and through. Salvation is of the Lord alone, and unto him must be all the praise. And there is our comfort. It is his work to save us; we are not our own saviours, partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. It is the Bridegroom, not the bride, that is to make the bride fit for her husband. So says the scripture. "Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." It is he that presents the bride to himself, and he that makes her fit to be presented. Blessed by God, the work is in sure and competent hands.

Look that ye be built on on the foundation. That is the last and yet the first question. Are you on the foundation? Some build very rapidly, but they are not on the foundation. Yes, you have a fine character and you make a noble profession, but is the palatial structure based on the rocky foundation, or on the sand? Our little children at the seaside will build very fine castles with their wooden spades, but the next tide sweeps all away, because it is sand built on sand. I am afraid the religion of multitudes is just that — sand built on sand. Is that your religion, dear hearer? Does it consist of church-goings, or chapel-goings, and prayer-meetings, and sacrament-takings, and all that? Well, then, it is sand built on sand. But if you are a poor and needy sinner, and you have rested your soul on Jesus, and then, renewed in heart by his Spirit, have been zealous for good works, then is it no longer sand built on sand, but the work of the Spirit of God upon the one foundation which God laid from all eternity, in the person and the work of his only-begotten Son.

The Lord bless you, every one of you, for Jesu's sake! Amen.

[soulshocked]

@mannyamador

Nah! I don't need to help him with that! Like what he said..it was all presented.

LOOKS LIKE IT'S YOU WHO NEEDS HELP!

[mannyamador]

I need not to defend the Bible baby boy! The Bible can stand alone.

So where does it say in the Bible that the Bible is the SOLE and FINAL authority?

Surely you can find even one verse? Pretty puhleeezzz?
Obviously, you can't, so now you're coming up with excuses NOT to prove your stupid claim.
That's so very dishonest of you. But I guess that's what your brand of Christianity preaches/

Rubbish bucko! Rubbish!

Wow, foaming at the mouth like some rabid dog. How fanatical of you!

[mannyamador]

Nah! I don't need to help him with that! Like what he said..it was all presented.

Really? If so, then where is the verse?

Can't show me huh?

[mannyamador]

The Missing Books of the Bible
Fr. William Saunders
http://catholiceducation.org/article...on/re0134.html

Last week, my friend who is a Baptist was visiting and came with me to Mass.
The first reading was from the second Book of Maccabees. She had never
heard of that book. I said, "It is in the Bible." She said, "It is not in my Bible."
Is there a difference?

Yes, there is a difference between Catholic and Protestant editions of the Bible. However, to appreciate this question and its answer, one must first remember that almighty God never handed anyone a complete Bible and said, "Here it is." Rather, over the centuries of salvation history, the Holy Spirit inspired the authors of Sacred Scripture to write down God's revelation to us. As time went on, the Church compiled these books to form a Canon -- an authoritative set of Sacred Scripture -- and declared it "God's Word."

The books of the Old Testament were written probably between 1000 and 100 BC, and are usually distinguished as four sets: The Law (or Torah, our first five books of the Old Testament), the Historical Books, the Prophets, and the Writings. (The books of I & II Maccabees belong to the historical set, being written between 150 - 100 BC.) Even in the New Testament itself, we find references to the reading of the Law and the Prophets in synagogue services (e.g. Luke 4:16-19, Acts 13:15). After the Fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, the Jewish rabbis convened the Council of Jamnia (90-100), at which time they established what books would be considered their Sacred Scripture. At this time, some controversy still existed over what are called the seven "deuterocanonical books" — Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and I & II Maccabees — although they had been incorporated in their entirety or at least partially in versions of the Septuagint, the official Greek translation of the Old Testament (c. 100 BC). Part of the reason for the controversy was because these were the latest writings of the Old Testament and were written in Greek rather than Hebrew; the other books of the Old Testament — the "protocanonical books"-- were older and originally written in Hebrew. Modern scholars note that Jamnia did not exclude any books definitively; a rigid fixing of the Jewish canon does not occur until at least 100 years later, and even then other books-- including the deuterocanonical books-- were read and honored. Many Scripture scholars, however, have no doubt that the apostolic Church accepted the deuterocanonical books as part of its canon of Sacred Scriptures. For instance, Origen (d. 245) affirmed the use of these books among Christians even though some of the Jewish leaders did not officially accept them.

Meanwhile, the writing of the New Testament books occurred between the time of our Lord's death and the end of the first century. (Recent studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls by some scholars suggest a date of the earliest writings closer to the time of our Lord's death, whereas much scholarship seems to place the writings between 50 and 100 AD). After the legalization of Christianity in 313, we find the Church striving to formalize what writings of the New Testament were truly considered inspired and authentic to the teachings of our Lord. St. Athanasius in his Paschal Epistle (367) presented the complete list of 27 books of the New Testament saying, "These are the sources of salvation, for the thirsty may drink deeply of the words to be found here. In these alone is the doctrine of piety recorded. Let no one add to them or take anything away from them." This list of 27 books along with the 46 books of the Old Testament (including the deuterocanonical ones) was affirmed as the official canon of Sacred Scripture for the Catholic Church by the synods of Hippo (393), Carthage I & II (397 and 419). The letter of Pope St. Innocent I in 405 also officially listed these books.

Although some discussion arose over the inclusion of other books into the Church's canon of Sacred Scripture after this time, the Council of Florence (1442) definitively established the official list of 46 books of the Old Testament and 27 of the New Testament.

With this background, we can now address why the Protestant versions of the Bible have less books than the Catholic versions. In 1534, Martin Luther translated the Bible into German. He grouped the seven deuterocanonical books (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and I & II Maccabees) of the Old Testament under the title "Apocrypha," declaring, "These are books which are not held equal to the Sacred Scriptures and yet are useful and good for reading." Luther also categorized the New Testament books: those of God's work of salvation (John, Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, I Peter, and I John); other canonical books (Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, rest of Pauline epistles, II Peter, and II John); and non-canonical books (Hebrews, James, Jude, Revelation, and books of the Old Testament). Many Church historians speculate that Luther was prepared to drop what he called the "non-canonical books" of the New Testament but refrained from doing so because of possible political fall-out. Why Luther took this course of action is hard to say. Some scholars believe Luther wanted to return to the "primitive faith," and therefore accepted only those Old Testament books written in Hebrew originally; others speculate he wanted to remove anything which disagreed with his own theology. Nevertheless, his action had the permanent consequence of omitting the seven deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament in Protestant versions of the Bible.

The 39 Articles of Religion (1563) of the Church of England asserted that these deuterocanonical books may be read for "example of life and instruction of manners," although they should not be used "to establish any doctrine" (Article VI). Consequently, the King James Bible (1611) printed the books between the New Testament and Old Testaments. John Lightfoot (1643) criticized this arrangement because he thought the "wretched Apocrypha" may be seen as a bridge between the two. The Westminster Confession (1647) decreed that these books, "not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of Scripture, and therefore are of no authority of the Church of God; nor to be in any otherwise approved, or made use of than other human writings." The British and Foreign Bible Society decided in 1827 to remove these books from further publications and labeled these books "apocryphal." However, many Protestant versions of the Bible today will state, "King James version with Apocrypha."

The Council of Trent, reacting to the Protestant Reformers, repeated the canon of Florence in the Decree on Sacred Books and on Traditions to be Received (1546) and decreed that these books were to be treated "with equal devotion and reverence." The Catechism repeats this same list of books and again affirms the apostolic Tradition of the canon of Sacred Scripture.

_________________________________________________
Saunders, Rev. William. "The Missing Books of the Bible." Arlington Catholic Herald.
This article is reprinted with permission from Arlington Catholic Herald.

[shoeless_rebel]

At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.
-Friedrich Nietzsche


i've been reviewing my nihilism 101 and my anarchist guide... smart guy this friedrich dude.

[Gwynhuever]

OT: pastilan jud nimo shoeless....i bet mo inspire jud ni ug debate to the max imong posts he he he.....