“Dead, alive, bound, then free. If all Christians that were bound [from sin] would get freed of their graves clothes, the world would sit up and listen. Don’t be an enslaved Christian. The One who has the power to raise the dead also has the power to free us from sin.”
~Alan Redpath (Referring to Lazarus being freed from his grave clothes in John 11:43)
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I agree with Redpath’s statement, but Redpath was a Keswick mystic: “Set your soul still, silent unto God, and give the Holy Spirit time to quicken and deepen in you the assurance that God will grant Him to work mightily in you. As you wait before God in that silence, He sees in it the confession that you have nothing, no wisdom to pray aright, no strength to work aright, no power of your own to live aright….Noise is not a symbol of Power! It is the shallow stream which babbles! The deep water is still and powerful…The man who gazes upon and contemplates day by day the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, and who has caught the glow of the reality that the Lord is not a theory but an indwelling power and force in his life, is as a mirror reflecting the glory of the Lord.Give up the struggle and the fight; relax in the omnipotence of the Lord Jesus; look up into His lovely face and as you behold Him, He will transform you into His likeness. You do the beholding–He does the transforming….Beloved Christians, learn to wait before God, for that waiting means …your separation from everything, your surrender and preparedness for all the Spirit will do in you, then go out to claim the fullness of His power and blessing.”
Redpath also said: “When GOD wants to do an impossible task He takes an impossible man and CRUSHES him.” This reminds me of Spurgeon who said: ” “Whenever God means to make a man great, He always BREAKS him in pieces first.” It also reminds me of my former Pastor when he was teaching on a Calvinist concept of Determinism: “A tragedy comes…there is a purpose in it…so what if God needs to hammer something out in your character and He puts you in the forge and He beats you up, and puts you on the anvil and He begins to BEAT THE SNOT UP OF YOU.” Likewise, Piper retweeted Matt Chandler, who wrote: “Whom God will use mightily he wounds deeply.” Accordingly, Tozer stated: “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.” There is a Reformed poem that has this stanza:
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
After my former Pastor talked about God beating the snot up of us, he went on to relate many of the personal evils, diseases,and injustices that had been suffered by us his congregation and then said: ” “Every stroke of the hammer on the anvil will make sense on the other side of this life. I can’t tell you that it will make sense here and now, but i will tell you God has decreed it.”
Does God beat His wife, the bride of Christ, into forced submission? Does God hurt and wound His bride deeply? Does God break and crush her to pieces by beating the snot out of her?
Isn’t that the religion of Islam?
Qur’an 64:11 No calamity occurs, no affliction comes, except by the decision and preordainment of Allah.
Bukhari:V7B71N665 The Prophet said, ‘No contagious disease is conveyed without Allah’s permission.
My question back when my former Pastor ascribed this character to God, is the same one I have today, where is the love in such a view? And how can I differentiate Islam from the doctrine that is expressed as these theologians?
Scriptures again and again teach that God has given men the choice in both salvation and in sanctification. He does not force His way in. He stood outside like a gentleman knocking on the Laodicean church door:
“Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.” Revelation 3:19-20
Note, He didn’t say “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll forcefully blow your house down.” People are able to choose to “grow in the grace” of the Lord Jesus Christ; 2 Pet. 3:18 indicates choice.
What about God’s forbearance: “God shows forbearance in that He holds back the judgment the world deserves: “Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, FORBEARANCE, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?” Romans 2:4 KJV
“The fruit of the Spirit is forbearance” (Galatians 5:22). Forbearance is also a legal term which means to voluntarily refrain, delay, or suspend enforcing a legal right, especially enforcing the payment of a debt. As the Lord instructed: “forbearing one another in love” in Ephesians 4:2, in the very next chapter, Ephesians 5, He ascribes how this type of love in marriage is to ensample how Christ loves the church. This love that Christ has for the church is portrayed as nourishing and cherishing as the husband does his own body.
Let’s look at this reverse, ===>> IF<>IF<>IF<>THEN<>THEN<<===would assume that a husband regularly engages in self-harm. Because reasoning forward, how he treats his own body is how he is to treat his wife, which is how Christ treats the church.
To further show how absurd this premise is, consider that In the Old Testament, self-harm was a common practice among false religions. First Kings 18:24-29 describes a ritual in which those who worshiped the false god Baal slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom. Because of this traditions of pagans, God made a law against this sort of practice in Leviticus 19:28. In the New Testament, self-harm was associated with someone who was possessed by demons (Mark 5:2-5). It was characteristic of behavior caused by evil spirits.
Forbearance teaches the opposite of force in this age of grace.
Paul affirms this forbearance of demand when he said:
"Nor did we seek praise from you or from anyone else, although as apostles of Christ we had authority to demand it. On the contrary, we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother caring for her children." 1 Thessalonians 2:7
Food for thought
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What was omitted without the arrows: “Let’s look at this reverse, IF God beats His wife, the bride of Christ, into forced submission. IF God hurts and wounds His bride deeply. IF God breaks and crushes her to pieces by beating the snot out of her. THEN it follows that this is how a man is to treat his wife. Not only that, this THEN would assume that a husband regularly engages in self-harm. Because reasoning forward, how he treats his own body is how he is to treat his wife, which is how Christ treats the church.