by Veronica Benton
I am often asked, “When will I trust my husband again?” This is such a hard question to answer, especially for a woman who just found out her husband has been hiding a pornography addiction.
Trying to find herself in the shock of the moment and not seeing a light at then end of the tunnel is such a scary place.
I knew my husband was having an “affair with our computer” for a long time: the first year and a half of our marriage, to be exact. The problem was that I thought it was my fault. I thought I was not fulfilling my husband, so he would have to turn to the Internet. It was so hard to muster up the courage to call him out, but I knew I had to do something. I had fallen into an eating disorder, partly to have control of something in my life and because I felt that if I could look like the girls online, he would pick me over them. On top of that, we were leading worship at our church, wearing perfect masks, telling no one of our struggles. I had exhausted my efforts and had enough. He snuck into bed around 4am one night and I said, “I know what you’re doing.”
Let the recovery begin.
Thankfully, T wanted to change and was truly sorry. I am heartbroken on the road when I talk to women who tell me their husband says, “The only problem with me looking at porn is your jealousy problem.” Ouch.
One of the biggest factors in rebuilding trust in our marriage is accountability. We signed up with accountability software and the first two weeks in, I got his report in my email and realized it works. I had to call him out again, and told him this was his Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card. If it happened again, the Internet would be gone for good. Every time I get a “clean” report, it helps to build trust.
We always tell people that addiction is addiction, everyone just has their drug of choice. Porn happened to be T’s hardest habit to break. Now, had he secretly been addicted to cocaine, yes, I’m sure I’d have been devastated, but secret sexual sin personally affects the spouse in such a deep way. I know his addiction wasn’t my fault. It took a long time to learn that.
If you’re reading this and think your spouse’s addiction is your fault, please understand it is not. There is nothing you could have done or said differently to prevent the addiction. Trust me, I tried. I tried for a year and a half. Through marriage we become one, especially in our most intimate times. So in my mind, he was turning away from me, unfulfilled, which left me so offended and so disgusted. Once I truly grasped that his addiction wasn’t my fault, I was really able to take “me” out of the equation and we were able to focus on him and his recovery.
Through this entire process I learned a lot about my own faith and our marriage. January 19 will be our 9 year wedding anniversary. When we got married I gave my heart to my husband. He wasn’t very gentle with it, and so I took it back. Since that time, T and I have both truly given our hearts to Jesus. Truly. As long as Jesus is holding my heart, no one can break it. So really, part of rebuilding trust was trusting Jesus with our hearts.
I think I would be lying if I said I trusted my husband 100%. We as humans are imperfect beings; unfortunately, we let each other down. T and I have chosen to grow together and change together. We said, “Till death do we part,” and meant it. I do, however, trust Jesus with my heart, and as long as T and I are fully focused on Him we will always be pointing in the same direction, together. We have taken this addiction and turned it into our ministry. We are daily fighting the battle and daily choosing integrity. If we were in a solitary place, he and I would both be in a recovery group. There is so much healing in knowing you are not alone in your struggle. We are reminded of this daily through emails, texts and talking to people after our shows. It is so amazing to have a couple come up and say, “Thank you, that is our story and it needs to be heard.”
If you are struggling with a hidden addiction, please be honest about it. Get it off your chest by telling someone. Choose integrity daily. Who we are the good, the bad, and the ugly make up our ministry here on earth. Focus on what you are passionate about and use it for Gods purpose. Be the change you want to see, and most of all . . . just love.
. . . .
This is a guest post by Veronica Benton. In 2002, Veronica’s husband Tyler (TD) confessed his ongoing struggle with pornography. Since 2006, T and Veronica have been touring the country with their band, White Collar Sideshow, a group dedicated to helping people break free pornography addiction.
Luke –
“To downplay someone’s sin or the reality of hell is one of the most unloving things one can do. At the same time, to downplay the joy of being forgiven, the joy of His fellowship, is also a gross injustice to God’s glory.”
Agreed. As well as the rest. But these were by far the best lines.
Pulled – I am also curious to hear your thoughts on MBRAIMSRSMPGHHCTOB as ‘irredeemable styles”.
@dead_light – Thanks for compliment!
Pulled from the Fire has been talking about the concept of the “weaker brother,” and that certain music styles have been a stumbling block for him. In light of texts like Romans 14, what do you think a church should do about guys like Pulled from the Fire? I’m asking because I genuinely want figure out how we might work out clear biblical principles when we run into people with clearly different convictions than us.
Luke, that was a major post; much of what you say runs counter to modern Christianity, and took me years to comprehend. I now rejoice in these truths, and rejoice to read them from your keypad.
Luke wrote:
“But I believe each attribute of God can only be understood in the light of His other attributes. In other words, His love can only be understood in the light of His wrath, and vise versa.”
Amen, and the same goes for us, if I say I LOVE children and I don’t HATE abortion I am a liar.
“God not only hates sin, he also hates sinners. He calls those who do unrighteousness “abominations” to Him (Deut 18:12; 22:5; 25:16; Prov 3:32; 16:5; 29:27). Our sin is an affront to His majesty and that makes it (us?) ugly and offensive to God.”
A very sobering truth lost to our culture. It is a dangerous lie that God loves the sinner but hates the sin. God will not send those he loves to hell. God is not a failure who looses part of His beloved bride to hell.
“Modern man rather believes that he is God’s judge; God is on trial.”
What a shocking, devastating, and insightful statement. This seems to be the attitude of those who give more value to sentiment than God’s word. I think in many ways the errors of the modern Church are born out of this attitude. It is like we know better than God’s word what is fair, right and good. This is proof that we are all born in Adam insane God-haters! Look at how we discount His word.
My web connection is too slow for video, so I will skip Piper for now, but I did listen to parts of the Mark Driscoll link you gave for the 2006 DGM conference. In my book, the guy is a reckless wolf. He jokes in the beginning of this sermon that we should repent if we don’t have cable TV, and seems to endorse the Simpsons. There is porn on cable TV, and this is a dangerous and reckless endorsement. The fact that it was a joke does not help (Prov 26.19). I used to like the Simpsons until the Lord broke my heart about scoffing at things that should make me weep. I think his attitude is typical of worldly Christians: reckless, indulgent, and a stumbling block to the unwise.
I read the paper by Tim Keller. It is a very interesting work. One faulty assumption I saw that I will mention now is this: that all cultures have the same value, worth, and insight. Does God’s grace not ebb and flow? Does He not show favor to one and leave another alone?
I need to look at it more. It seemed a little academic and cold, but it is a interesting work.
Anyway, thanks for the post, Luke, amen for the most part.
@Pulled – Thanks for the agreement on many theological issues. Amen to that.
As for Driscoll, I personally would never try to defend or denounce him as a person or minister in one small comment on a blog. I don’t even think he would want to do that. As for his use of sarcasm, I don’t believe he used it inappropriately here. As for the Simpsons, I think you are confusing Driscoll mentioning the Simpsons with endorsing them.
As for Keller’s article, you are right that he doesn’t tackle the subject of all cultures having or not having the same worth or value. I don’t believe, however, it is an underlying assumption. He calls for discernment on the part of church music leaders, but doesn’t get into what that discernment looks like as it pertains to style. I find no faulty assumption, just an article with a limited focus.
I really do want you to develop your thoughts on why you think certain styles of music are inherently unbiblical. You mentioned modern, country, blues, rock, alternative, industrial, metal, stadium rock, speed metal, punk, gothic, hip-hop, and all “course” rhythms, and in one foul swoop denounced them as irredeemable styles. I really find that fascinating and troubling. Perhaps you could simply explain for us why you believe God-honoring music and these styles are mutually exclusive.
I only read about 1/3 of these posts, but it is making me very sad.
“These men and women were ready to live and die for Love; yet somehow they had gone from fighting the enemy to bickering and fighting each other. I thought through what I could say to encourage them again. With all the strength of my voice and my heart I commanded: “Unified diversity! Functioning as one body. Every part encouraged by the other. No one independent of another….Beautiful bride, body of Christ. One flesh abiding, strong and unifying. Fighting ends in forgiveness, unite and fight all division, Beautiful bride.”
“I see Christ giving grace to the humble, and law and warnings of wrath to the prideful. What pattern do you see in His dealing with people in the New Testament?”
Doing things that were revolutionary in His day. Teaching those that were ready to listen. Healing peoples that others saw as lost causes. Rebuking those that lived hypocritical lives. Having compassion on people that others forgot. Et tu, Brute?
Its great that you talk about a wrathful God. Preach a message about hell, fire, and brimstone to a youth, and they will just shrug it off. I’ve talked with kids that are okay with going to Hell, because no one has shown the gospel. Teach a youth that there is a God that loves them, about Christ, and their lives will begin to change. Teach them what love is and how to love as He loves us. That, in said love we must be obedient (to scripture) and that His love never fails. At least, that’s a short version.
“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.” 1 John 4:16-17
-it is not fair to simply go up to someone and tell them that they are a sinner and going to hell, rather, we must, in a loving way, help THEM come to the logical conclusion that there is a problem, and that they are in need of the Saviour Jesus.
“In this sad time I hate the company of most professors of Christ. I will take the company of saved sinners any day, but they are hard to find.”
and
“Any fool can get decisions for Jesus, but it is another thing to be used of God when He gives birth from above to a person dead in sin.”
By what method are you judging people? How do you determine someone that is living for Christ versus someone going through the motions? Are we all not sinners even though we have been reborn in Christ?
Earlier you said “No one loves like they should. I don’t love like I should.” And with the scripture I inserted earlier, “Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. ” What is love? I believe I posted that earlier (1 Corinthians 13:4-8(1)). So I guess in the end we’re all saved sinners, right?
I’m curious to see the CCM thing…
@ Pulled from the Fire and dead_light,
I wanted to pick your brains about something.
In your conversation there’s been a lot said about God’s wrath and love. I can see there is disagreement over some of this. I don’t think anyone on this thread is denying that God hates sin or that Jesus was a true friend of sinners. But I believe each attribute of God can only be understood in the light of His other attributes. In other words, His love can only be understood in the light of His wrath, and vise versa.
God not only hates sin, he also hates sinners (Ps 5:5). He calls those who do unrighteousness “abominations” to Him (Deut 18:12; 22:5; 25:16; Prov 3:32; 16:5; 29:27). Our sin is an affront to His majesty and that makes it ugly and offensive to God. Yes, it is also true God loves the world he made (John 3:16) in the sense that God has been tremendously patient with sinners (2 Pet 3:9), showering them with many common mercies (Matt 5:45). Above all He shows His love by continuing to give a rebellious world clear revelation of who He is, first in nature (Rom 1:18-20; Acts14:16-17), and second in the ultimate revelation of His Son (Heb 1:1-3). Nonetheless, God does not suffer someone’s rebellion forever. God will send rebellious sinners to hell, a place of eternal, conscious torment (Luke 16:19-31).
The gospel is the incredible message that Jesus is Lord of the world (Rom 1:1-4; 10:9), the promised Messiah and rightful King. He is a King who has come once to this earth to offer sinners gracious pardon, offered to those who repent of their sin and confess Christ as Lord. But the gospel is not merely an invitation to be accepted, it is a command to be obeyed. When the King returns, he will come “with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thess 1:7-9).
The glorious truth of the gospel is that this King bore our sins in his body on the cross (1 Pet 2:24), that God made His own Son a guilt offering (Is 53:10), and there He was wounded, crushed, and forsaken by His Father (Is 53:5; Matthew 27:46). There He bore the Father’s curse for our sin (Gal 3:13). Instead of the blessing of God’s face shining on Him (Num 6:24-26), the Father’s face was turned against His own Son (Ps 34:16).
When we preach a message of love to lost souls, God’s wrath against sin must be mentioned, otherwise it is a distorted view of love. The apostle John says this much. Right after stating “God is love,” he writes, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10). To understand love, we must understand “propitiation”—the radical truth that God wrath was turned aside to His own Son on the cross. If we downplay wrath, we downplay the true definition of God’s love.
CS Lewis said as much in his famous essay, “God in the Dock.” Lewis points out that one of the main differences between modern and ancient man is that ancient man believed that the gods were his judges, and that he was at their mercy. Modern man rather believes that he is God’s judge; God is on trial. This is one reason why sin is a lost word in our culture today: man simply doesn’t believe he will stand before the Judge.
When someone is truly converted from rebellion and idol-worship to obedience and God-worship, the cross not only convinces him of God’s incredible love, but of God’s vehement hatred of sin. The ugliness of Jesus on the cross should be a glaring picture to him that his sin is ugly. Martin Luther said this when he wrote, “You must be overwhelmed by the frightful wrath of God who so hated sin that he spared not His only begotten Son. . . . The whole value of the meditation of the suffering of Christ lies in this, that man should come to the knowledge of himself and sink and tremble.” John Calvin wrote, “When we behold the disfigurement of the Son of God, when we find ourselves appalled by His marred appearance, we need to reckon afresh that it is upon ourselves we gaze, for He stood in our place.”
To downplay someone’s sin or the reality of hell is one of the most unloving things one can do. At the same time, to downplay the joy of being forgiven, the joy of His fellowship, is also a gross injustice to God’s glory. Belief it or not, so-called “hellfire preaching” can be done lovingly and enthralling way. This video with John Piper says it very well.
We should contend for these hard and glorious truths, but we should also contextualize those truths for every culture and subculture. Here’s a really good message from the 2006 Desiring God Conference about how we should both contend for true theology and contextualize it for a variety of cultures. Its lengthy, but very informative.
Do you both agree or disagree?
On the matter of music, this article by Tim Keller is quite good: “Evangelistic Worship.” The context about worship services and evangelistic gatherings, so not directly applicable to WCS performances per se, but I thought the perspective was refreshing.
Pulled from the Fire,
From the Bible God uses a lot of things that may not appear right or safe from ‘Man’s’ perspective, but He uses them in many ways. One could argue that war is not right or safe, but God has used war time after time in the Bible.
Have you ever struggled with an addiction to pornography?
The reason I choose not to debate theologies is simple. Everyone from different denominations believe that their beliefs are the only true beliefs one can follow. Take a Baptist or Catholic discussion about their beliefs and you will see a big difference between the two. Most of the people who claim ‘their way’ is the only way are simply being self-righteous and trying to ‘prove’ their point.
I think the Gospels speak for themselves. I am not asserting that one man’s opinion is as good as another, and no one can know for sure, so let’s move on. Your statements however make it appear that you are the only one with the ‘right’ answers which in turn, makes your statements appear to be self-righteous. I pray that is not the case, and we are simply misunderstanding what you are saying.
I think for you to make the statement that I may need to understand things like how salvation works in order to carry on, tells me that you are under the assumption that I do not know how salvation works.
Granted I don’t know you, and you don’t know me but I do not make any assumptions about where anyone’s walk with Christ is at because in all honesty I do not know.
What kind of music do you listen to out of curiosity?
I’ll be praying for you, I would ask that you pray for me also, but my part of the conversation ends here. I think the debate that has occurred because one woman has decided to share her heart about their struggle with pornography is now shaping into a debate for one man to prove that everyone else is wrong and he is right. I no longer wish to be adding fuel to the fire here.
Sorry to be so vague, Luke,
I aim to use scripture in a future post to show that WCS is not a valid ministry.
I also hope give clear testimony on how Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), as a whole, aggravated my struggle with porn.
By CCM I mean any MIX of religious words with a modern, country, blues, rock, alternative, industrial, metal, stadium rock, speed metal, punk, gothic, hip-hop, or course type of beat (you get the idea, maybe we could call it MBRAIMSRSMPGHHCTOB for short).
Hi Whitt,
I appreciate what I think you are tiring to express, and I can at least understand your annoyance with me, given your perspective. I am challenging what I see to be unfounded and dangerous modern traditions. This has never been well received in any age.
Whitt wrote:
“Please don’t put limits on what God can do in the lives of someone, or what He can use to reach out to others to bring Himself glory. There are many here that have already limited what God can do.”
Witt, here are some questions to think about:
If the Spirit told you one thing and the Bible another, what would you do?
Can the Word and the Spirit ever disagree?
Just because God uses something, does that mean it is right or safe?
Whitt wrote:
“For the ones who have never struggled with it, that may be commenting here, please do not judge us that have struggled, because you don’t know how devastating it can be to your life, and how hard it is to overcome”.
Friend, try asking questions and speaking directly; something like this: “mister, I wonder if you belong on this site. This site is for people who struggle with porn, do you struggle with porn? I think WCS has helped me, so if you are just here to make trouble, please quit posting”.
Whitt wrote:
“Everyone has their own theology that they believe is what is right, I am not going to argue that.”
Oh Whitt, please understand. I was out of control and near the bottom when I got saved, and the modern church put a band aid on my fatal wound and I began to rot again. My struggle to understand truth from error is a life and death one.
It seems like you may be asserting something like this “one man’s opinion is as good as another, and no one can know for sure; so let’s move on”.
If this is what you are tiring to say I would only say this: My dear friend Whitt; be careful, one day you may NEED to understand things like how salvation works in order to carry on.
I am very grateful that it seems like we are starting to dialog. This is grace!
DL wrote:
“but strictly communicating that He is wrathful is not truth. You forget about all the acts of compassion, of the agape love.”
I see Christ giving grace to the humble, and law and warnings of wrath to the prideful. What pattern do you see in His dealing with people in the New Testament?
I don’t strictly talk about God’s wrath, but I do discern what is needed. In this superficial, fat cat, complacent, and prideful generation I tend to talk about God’s wrath.
As far as AGAPE love goes, be careful what you teach! What would have happened if the prodigal son would have come home drunk with a whore? Where would the modern churches’ doctrine of unconditional love be then? Besides, all of God’s love to the sinners He saves is CONDITIONAL upon the finished work of Christ. And God demands repentance (abandoning all alliances; Christ must now come first), faith, and obedience from all who profess to be His.
God is not going to send people to hell while He has agape love for them. Think about that. Too many people (professors included) think God is a God of slack. He is not. All sin is dealt with in hell, or on Christ. And God is not playing games. It is not an age of love and then an age of wrath. Life AND death are held out to all NOW; God commands all people everywhere to repent and believe in His mercy in Christ, under the threat of eternal hell fire. Please, DL, don’t ever set one attribute of God against another. This is a very bad habit of the modern Church; don’t learn it.
DL also wrote:
“WCS reaches out to…people that other churches / ministers / Christians ignore and consider too far lost.”
Well, I also have not forgotten my native people, as a matter of fact, I prefer to reach out to the roughest people I can find. Funny thing is that it is had to find one sinner even among the down and out; everybody is doing just fine with the Lord. Same goes for “Christians”, most are too found to be lost, too saved to be really saved. In this sad time I hate the company of most professors of Christ. I will take the company of saved sinners any day, but they are hard to find.
As one old grace preacher once said “The problem is not getting people “saved”, the problem is getting them lost”. This is the challenge of our day. Any fool can get decisions for Jesus, but it is another thing to be used of God when He gives birth from above to a person dead in sin.
Luke asked:
“My question is why someone with our theological framework must necessarily believe God dislikes (or hates) WCS’s approaches.”
I believe I can show that any CCM ministry is unscriptural, but it might take a while. I will get to work!
Hope to talk with you all again soon.
@Pulled – I assume by “CCM” you are talking about Contemporary Christian music as a whole genre? Would it be any musical group featured in CCM Magazine? Just want to make sure I understand what you are talking about.
“He is to be worshiped, not pitied”
No argument here. But strictly communicating that He is wrathful is not truth. You forget about all the acts of compassion, of the agape love. Living as a light, and loving people (showing God’s love through how you live your life) is the greatest way to live. He is to be feared and loved, and we must show that in our own lives.
To be a Christian is to love Christ, and follow Him. To follow His teachings and make every effort to understand what He says. A Christian is someone that lives it (the gospel). Not simply saying, quoting, or instructing others. they must live it.
Yes, I’ve read the Bible a number of times. I am currently studying Proverbs. As of late, I’m in an Old Testament class, and try to take one class (3 credit hours) a semester. A class on The Book of Romans has been my favorite (though very in depth when learning the Greek). I study scripture daily, with at least 2 different translations. Oh, and I’m going through C.S. Lewis’s “Mere Christianity” book.
Then your definition is right when you say chaff. By what you said earlier, with regards to chaff, you implied that anyone in church because of a friend’s love was a false Christian. I still hold that friendship-evangelism works. It gets people (friends of mine) so start to ask the same questions you did (what is the gospel, what did Christ do on the cross, and what is a Christian? ). They begin to search for their answers, and through that learn and start to live the Gospel.
“I will just say this; when people say they are serving the Lord Jesus while in front of them a man with a pig’s head, banging his head and beating on a drum, I am prone to get upset. I think God is angry at this.”
and
“A real Christian knows a little about the true nature of God, sees Him as his King, reads and loves His word, and makes an effort to obey what he reads and comes to understand.”
How do you know that this is not right then? Do you know the will of God for these people? I believe that God is using them in that ministry to reach people that many churches have forgotten. Talk with them sometime when they are in your area again. You’ll see that they do love Christ, and are very zealous for Him. They go through a number of Bibles a year simply giving them out to people that they pray with. People that other churches / ministers / Christians ignore and consider too far lost.
Yes, DL is fine.
I am not going to get into any theological debates with anyone, I’ve been following this comment thread since it started, and think it is wonderful that everyone has felt compelled to share their thoughts on this.
I do think that there are a lot of people here who have put limits on what God can do through a band like WCS, or through any of us for that matter.
Personally speaking, I don’t think our minds can possibly comprehend the extent of God’s love, and His power to change lives. Everyone has their own theology that they believe is what is right, I am not going to argue that.
I will say that there is not a single person commenting here, myself included, that can fully understand God’s love for us. We can read about it in scripture, but who do we think we are that we can decide how God should work?
The devil has a lot of people right where he wants them, I can see that from reading through these comments.
God is bigger than the ideas of everyone commenting here. I love you guys very much, and its great that we can share our opinions or our convictions with each other. But how many of you have really read what Veronica is saying here?
This website is devoted to a ministry of helping others with their struggles with pornography. Her story is about sharing their struggles with that, in hopes that someone will relate to that, and know that they are not alone.
She is asking that we choose integrity daily. For some of us, who have struggled, and are struggling, it is a choice that has to be made daily. For the ones who have never struggled with it, that may be commenting here, please do not judge us that have struggled, because you don’t know how devastating it can be to your life, and how hard it is to overcome. We can’t do it on our own, but only through the power of Christ.
Please don’t put limits on what God can do in the lives of someone, or what He can use to reach out to others to bring Himself glory. There are many here that have already limited what God can do.
Hi dead_light,
Sorry we are not communicating well. I think the differences in our systems could best be seen in this comparison:
http://www.the-highway.com/compare.html
We still disagree; people don’t want to know the real Lord Jesus Christ; the One on a throne, God of very God, the One with rights to everything and every body, the Judge who is coming back with His garment dipped in the blood of His enemies Rev 19:11-13. The Lord Jesus Christ is THE KING. He has the power of life and death in His hand. He is to be worshiped, not pitied. He is not in glory crying over the lost hoping they will “give him a chance”. This modern idol needs to be pulled down.
About ten years ago I started to ask some questions; what is the gospel, what did Christ do on the cross, and what is a Christian?
Do you want a wake up call? If you ask your friends, pastors, or parents these questions what you likely get is this: “the gospel is that if you ask Jesus in your heart you will be saved”, “Jesus died on the cross so that everybody can get saved if they want to”, and “a Christian is some one who has asked Jesus in their heart”. All this is modern error; and if anyone cares not whether he has these questions right or not, he proves that he is lost and as cold as ice.
A real Christian knows a little about the true nature of God, sees Him as his King, reads and loves His word, and makes an effort to obey what he reads and comes to understand.
Dead_light, have you ever read the Bible? I hope you are better than I was. To my shame I was a Christian over 7 years before I did. This plan is the way I first read the Bible and continue to read it. It is interesting way to read; one reads from four different books at the same time!
http://www.mountzion.org/PDFs/mdbr.pdf
By chaff I mean the false convert, the one who is trusting in his works and not Christ. This work may be a decision he made, a card he signed, his baptism, or even his repentance. I don’t pretend to know who they are in your circle. The problem I have is more with modern leadership that has created systems that make lots of chaff, like decisionism. Read about it here:
http://www.mountzion.org/PDFs/dreg.pdf
Dead_light wrote:
“1 Corinthians 13:1-3
If you have (not) love, you are nothing. What was it that Christ said was the greatest commandment? Love.
Love is: 1 Corinthians 13:4-8(1)”
Love to God first, right? If we don’t love truth, we don’t love God. And our love to God better eclipse all others completely according to the words of Christ. Luke 14:26
Dead_light wrote:
“Looking at how you write and what you say, it seems that you have forgotten this. Am I preaching a “hippie-lovefest”? No. But I am saying that you must not forget to love, because He loves you.”
Since I have covered this protest in previous posts I will not repeat myself here. I will just say this; when people say they are serving the Lord Jesus while in front of them a man with a pig’s head, banging his head and beating on a drum, I am prone to get upset. I think God is angry at this.
Jer 8:19b…Is not the LORD in Zion? is not her king in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange vanities?
Dead_light wrote:
“And to be honest, I dont agree with everything Luke says. but we should not judge one another on where we stand with Christ. The kid you hear cussing may be the same one that God is working on to break drug or alcohol addiction. God works in us all differently.”
He calls us all to repent and believe, right? Acts 20:21
“And the personal attack on his education was childish. I’m sure you do not know him, so to say something like that makes you out a fool.”
It was a mistake to point out Luke’s education, but it was not an attack.
I wanted to warn you all, because to me, Luke clearly was coming across as a liberal in his posts. It would have been plainer to just say that; my mistake. This whole thing has been a mind bender for me. I am shocked that anyone of Luke’s caliber would defend WCS. I thought it was only base fools like me that got caught up in stuff like WCS.
As far as your comment that I have judged Luke, I disagree; I don’t know where Luke is with the Lord, and honestly, I never spent any time wondering if he is a true believer or not. He is obviously highly educated, intelligent, and thoughtful. I hope to be forever different in my approach with posting in the future because of my contact with him. This is all a bit new to me. I have never done anything like this before. I had doubts that I would ever get to post a second comment; that is one reason I hit so hard on the first one. I would like to be more disarming, like Luke has been.
As far as looking foolish, I am getting used to it. I take it to be a step in the right direction given how smart the world and the modern church have evolved to be. 1Cor 1:18-32
“P.S.
My name’s not Neil :)”
Sorry. Dark_light, can I call you DL?
@Pulled – Thanks for the helpful links. I, for one, agree with everything you’ve written here. I think I’m in full agreement with your Reformed theological framework (as far as I can tell). I am also very saddened by how the gospel has been reinterpreted around man-centered thinking. Decisionism is unfortunately rife in the church today.
My question is why someone with our theological framework must necessarily believe God dislikes (or hates) WCS’s approaches.