THE FAITH PURE, BOLD, PRACTICAL
Fear God,
it is the
beginning
of wisdom.
When you
fear only God
you don't
fear man
(and man's
opinion
of you),
which enables
you
to pursue
wisdom.
What are the conditions of admission into Christ's Kingdom? Simply practical recognition of the authority of the sovereign.
- A. A. Hodge
Stick #2 is linked in the righthand margin...
I don't want to give the impression that the iMonk and centuriOn are where they're at permanently, necessarily; I just want them to see where they're at. And see the way back to the straight and narrow. And to see that the Way, once entered, involves effort and movement...
Five solas, doctrines of grace, covenant of redemption (Covenant Theology is not the servant of infant baptism), Traditional Text, King James Version only; doing the two great commandments of Christ at the practical level (i.e. actually doing them); and recovering by degree the full image of God. This is the foundation I stand on and build upon.
ESSENTIAL I ~ II ~ III ~ IV ~ V ~ VI ~ VII ~ VIII ~ IX ~ X ~ XI ~ XII ~ XIII ~ XIV ~ XV ~ XVI ~ XVII ~ XVIII ~ XIX ~ XX ~ XXI ~ XXII ~ XXIII ~ XXIV ~ XXV ~ XXVI ~ XXVII ~ XXVIII ~ XXIX ~ XXX ~ XXXI ~ XXXII ~ XXXIII ~ XXXIV ~ XXXV ~ XXXVI ~ XXXVII ~ XXXVIII ~ XXXIX ~ XL ~ XLI ~ XLII ~ XLIII ~ XLIV ~ XLV ~ XLVI ~ XLVII ~ XLVIII ~ XLIX ~ L ~ LI ~ LII ~ LIII ~ LIV ~ LV ~ LVI ~ LVII ~ LVIII ~ LIX ~ LX ~ LXI ~ LXII ~ LXIII ~ LXIV ~ LXV ~ LXVI ~ LXVII ~ LXVIII ~ LXIX ~ LXX ~ LXXI ~ LXXII
STICK DRAWINGS & DIAGRAMS 1 (Note on 1) ~ 2 ~ 3 ~ 4 ~ 5
--Fuse the Word of God into Memory, Will, and Understanding Prayer and Fasting -- (of --) Acute Warring of the Holy Spirit with the carnal spirit -- (storms struggled through; extending limits to glorify God by doing it when it's most difficult) |
(Short Essay On My Reading History)
The practical, experimental level of the faith (the Puritans called it experimental Calvinism) is for those ready to leave off laying the foundation over and over and begin building the house (see Calvin's commentary on Hebrews 6:1).
Psalms 27:11 Teach me thy way, O LORD, and lead me in a plain path...
"God examineth with trials, the devil examineth with temptations, the world examineth with persecutions."
- Henry Smith
"The word of God . . . is the light to our paths, the key of the kingdom of heaven, our comfort in affliction, our shield and sword against Satan, the school of all wisdom, the glass wherein we behold God's face, the testimony of his favour, and the only food and nourishment of our souls."
- Geneva translators, 10 April 1560
"When the heart is cast indeed into the mould of the doctrine that the mind embraceth - when the evidence and necessity of the truth abides in us - when not the sense of the words only is in our heads, but the sense of the thing abides in our hearts - when we have communion with God in the doctrine we contend for - then shall we be garrisoned by the grace of God against all the assaults of men."
- John Owen
"Where the Puritans excelled was at bringing this high view of God
down to the level of ordinary life. One Puritan woman - the wife of a
soldier in Cromwell's army - defined Christianity as
'that universal habit of grace which is wrought in a soul by the
regenerating Spirit of God, whereby the whole creature is designed up
into the Divine will and love, and all its actions designed to the
obedience and glory of its Maker.'
By defining the Christian faith in this way, she was making a
connection between the doctrines of grace and daily experience."
- the Doctrines of Grace,
Boice/Ryken
"Previously, men had looked to the Church for all the trustworthy knowledge of God obtainable, and as well for all the communications of grace accessible. Calvin taught them that neither function has been committed to the Church, but God the Holy Spirit has retained both in His own hands and confers both knowledge of God and communion with God on whom He will."
- B. B. Warfield (from his essay Calvin as a Theologian)
A plain path puritan. That means the faith that is pure, bold, and practical. Five solas. Doctrines of Grace. Covenant of Redemption. Experimental Calvinism. No clericalism, ritualism, formalism, or moralism. The devil's nightmare.
Holy Bible, AV1611
Iliad & Odyssey - Homer
On War - von Clausewitz
Wealth of Nations - Smith
Fourth Way - Ouspensky
Lives - Plutarch
History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides
"The fearful are in the forlorn of those that march for hell; the violent and valiant are they which take heaven by force: cowards never won heaven. Say not that thou hast royal blood running in thy veins, and art begotten of God, except thou canst prove thy pedigree by this heroic spirit, to dare to be holy despite men and devils."
- William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour
"As among all the doctrines of the gospel, there is none opposed with more violence and subtlety than that concerning our regeneration by the immediate, powerful, effectual operation of the Holy Spirit of grace; so there is not scarce anything more despised or scorned by many in the world than that any should profess that there hath been such a work of God upon themselves, or on any occasion declare aught of the way and manner whereby it was wrought... yea, the enmity of Cain against Abel was but a branch of this proud and perverse inclination."
- John Owen, A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit
The antithesis of vanity is: faith. The antithesis of worldly pride is: repentance. The antithesis of self-will is: descent-of-the-dove God's will.
9 Comments:
But see I wasn't trying to be funny. The diagram describes John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Bunyan knew 'the Way' and he knew all the obstacles and detours and he knew human nature. He knew about the Slough of Despond and the Village of Morality. He knew it in himself and he knew it from observing them in Christians in his time (but human nature and the Way are universal and transcend history and culture).
Being on the Way is rare. It's a rare thing for a person to actually pass through that Wicket Gate. To get to it to begin with you encounter the Slough of Despond (an obstacle that defeats many) and you have to bypass the very oft-taken detour to the Village of Morality (where mainstream churchianity resides).
When you enter the Way you provoke real battle with your carnal nature, the world, and the devil. The people in the village of morality have drawn up treaties of compromise and peace with their carnal natures; have conformed to the world (and brought it into their theology and churches in such ways as replacing the fear of God with the fear of man; and aren't even bothered by the devil in any personal way because they are tame slaves of the devil already.
Entering the Way marks you. It is vertical movement and it causes the world to now 'notice' you; it makes the devil now 'interested' in you; and it cause your own carnal nature to fight back against you because you are now a real threat to its dominion inside you...
How do you make a 'vertical' movement and thus provoke this three-front battle?
By seeking and engaging influences that are above you (and that are real). That are above the common level of the world.
By developing yourself in areas and ways that don't correspond to your 'type'.
By the violence of being more awake in the moment and holding that state. This accumulates higher impressions and the Holy Spirit Himself into you.
By acting from God's will in real time rather than from self-will.
By truly fearing only God and not fearing man.
I've written about all the above and more on this blog, but they are subjects you have to be inwardly motivated to learn about and to do. Just reading about them when you havn't developed a real valuation for them they just go in one ear and out the other.
The most central thing that will provoke the three-front battle is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Your carnal nature will war with the Spirit in you, and the world will see the Spirit in you and confront you a thousand different ways to get you to expend that Spirit in negative (violent) or 'depression' sort of ways; and the devil will take a personal interest in you to tempt you and try to put fear into you, to accuse you and shame you and attempt to get you to destroy yourself.
Other things are required but the 'engine', so to speak, of real veritcal movement is being filled with the Holy Spirit and thus provoking the real three-front battle. In those battles you strive to basically glorify God more and more (all that means in terms of actions, thoughts, words, feelings, deeds). At first you'll fail and fall. Sometimes miserably. But you have to keep provoking the battle and pushing on towards the goal. You will develop in your ability to glorify God in the midst of the battles and to thus extend your limits and develop along the lines of sanctification, passive and active sanctification...
Yeah it is funny how each of their faces in those pics corresponded to where they resided in that diagram.
The self-satisfied Village of Morality guy and the "I suffer" Slough of Despond guy.
They don't exactly say regeneration and sanctification are identical, but practically this is how they live it. Reformed Theology - and hence the Bible - is very clear that sanctification involves both a passive and an active (i.e. effort) role, but the self-satisfied shallow types can see it.
(This is, of course, a different subject than off-the-mark Roman Catholic doctrine that deems sanctification to be the same as justification and that one can make efforts to save oneself...)
Maybe they do actually think regeneration and sanctification are the same thing, though if they do they need to look again at their Reformed systematic theologies and ponder whether they want to call themselves Reformed.
It's interesting that after the recent renaissance of Puritan writings there seems to be a backlash now against the Puritans due to the fact that the Puritans convict mainstream churchianity Christians on the subject of practical doing of the Faith...
I see what you're saying.
I use the biblical categories of fearing God or fearing man. This gets to the heart of it all. Once you truly fear only God you are separated from the world (and you know it because the world lets you know it, for one thing; i.e. you can't fear only God and still be in back-slapping league with the world. The world knows when you switch camps. When you switch from the camp of darkness to the camp of light. It not only happens in this physical world, but it happens in the spiritual world as well, and this can be 'seen' by people and the world in general. "You're not one of us." From your point-of-view you'll go through different phases where you'll try to pretend nothing's different, but the world will sneer at you. Then you go through the real baptism of fire separation. Then you get tough or you fall into a lame depression (Slough of Despond) or a lame community (Village of Morality). Or you go back to the City of Destruction pretending you're on the Way, but you never walk through the Wicket Gate.
I think ct now believes that Jeff really exists. Which is odd since she is the one who posts as Jeff.
Look at the deliciousness these devils experience when they lie. A pure devil trait.
(And...you ARE lying, anonymous. Think about that. You can get away with it because nobody can see your I.P. address, but God sees you lying. Any lie is a lie, and God hates liars. Do you care? This is not a moralising accusation, anonymous. This isn't a matter of judgment call. You are purely, blatanly lying. Repeatedly and with obvious satanic pleasure. Is this good for your soul? for your future?
Continue to lie because devils are petulant and hardened to do what God hates. But at least start to think about what you're doing...)
God can't trust you when you lie. It's not good when God can't trust you.
Your not God & you are Jeff ct.
You're sad.
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