A Different Perspective on Middle- East Affairs.

 

 

What to Watch?

     

 

 Our series on Middle- East Affairs are almost here to explore a post-modern narrative with back story, thoughts, news and insights. Sometimes dry, sometimes  a touch zet.

 

Cease- Fire Update

Has Hamas and Israel rejected cease-fire and release hostages deal? Yes? No? Which do You think would come to pass?

Tell us! Let us know.

Opposing views always welcome.

As you might be aware,  Israel and the political wing of Hamas rejected cease-fire negotiations.  

Both parties have  Not  reached their own expectations for agreement. 

To some this was a foregone conclusion with ensuing tensions rising. The Middle East region continues to darken as each party considers their  secret options. 

What did you predict? Had you hoped for a temporary peace? A cease-fire plus hostage release ?

Thank you for reading this article. You are most welcome to comment. 

I recommend the Gatestone Institute for more information and incisive essays on Middle East Affairs.

Gatestone Institute.

 

 

Brokenness,

The refinishing of antique furniture is an awesome process. Strong chemicals strip away the old varnish. Then sandpaper machines sand it down, exposing all the crooks, nooks, and crannies that need repair. The sanding continues until the surface is even. Then it is varnished, over and over until it has a smooth, refinished surface. It is varnished until it gets back the glory of its originally intended look.

God will strip you down. He will sand and sand. He sands until He exposes every scratch, every nook, and every cranny. This is the part that hurts the worst. This is the part where most believers will cry out to the Lord in pain. This is the part when we must trust that His grace is sufficient. God follows the sanding process with the varnish. This is the point at which the life of Christ shines through in the life of the Christian. Your identity in Christ begins to reveal itself, and you’ll find power you’ve never had because you’ve been broken.

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 Tony Evans,  Book of Illustrations: Stories, Quotes, and Anecdotes from More than 30 Years of Preaching and Public Speaking

 

 

 

 

Reworked: The Problem of Evil (B)

Of course, we all know of things that are evil or events that are bad or good. Perhaps the most frightening of evil or the lack of Good can be portrayed in films, in particular horror! Although much is evident in our World every day.

While such films, books and actual supernatural events are played out in reality, many don't realise the enormity of believing that all truths are equally valid.

 This belief of  such equality blunts our reasoning and awareness of the truth in a world of so-called truths that are relative to each other but not absolute.  That there is no evil or bad!  If every truth is equal or relative to each, then there is No absolute right or wrong.  No right or wrong!  I repeat that phrase: No right or wrong!  So many come to the adverse conclusion that goodness is somehow bad. That bad is somehow good.  Why do I say that?  Because most, if not all, concluded that God's goodness is somehow wrong? 

 Because most don't believe that God has their best interests at heart. They flatly reject him.  Why?  That is what most men, women, boys, and girls believe is true! When people reject God, they reject Good, believing that there are 100s of 10,000s of truths--all are equally true or good. Also, when most people reject God, they believe in anything. Becoming believers in any lie, not actual truth. Having now believed in a lie, they believe in one absolute lie that, ultimately, nothing is true.  They are then cast adrift upon a perfect storm of chaos.

 

 While that is perfectly true, knowing that is only a portion of the recognition and understanding of the presence of evil.  Are we able to solve evil after we have reached an understanding of it?  Perhaps? Read on.

Although I wire- frame an approach to understanding evil, I do not hope to summarize or adequately contribute anything new.

However, I hope to accomplish a little with these few words in this post.  You may have wrestled, recently in the light of recent events, with this very topic.

On your bed, with friends, with relatives, in reading, online or on TV, sharing your ideas and thoughts about the recent event of former President Trump assassination attempt in the USA.  So controversial, unfailingly political and even generally clear yet to many muddy from conspiracy theorists to the unanswered questions from the populace, the assassination attempt 'event' clearly divided the Western World.  Even prepared the Middle Eastern World to the proposition that God Almighty Himself is looking after former President Trump.  Perhaps the unbelieving World as well.  You might think that Christians would say that because God does everything in their World!  But here is where the rubber meets the road.  What do you believe?

 It has even come to light that Big Tech Giants waded in, "mistakenly" censoring some news of the event.

Though you may disagree with it, evil is a valid subject of philosophy-- and beyond.  Whatever your worldview, you are debating with yourself or others.  After all, you want answers.  I am providing a tenuous framework with my thoughts underlying the "event."

 An honest debate needs to be presented clearly and disclosed to all.

 

With that, I present a view on evil.

Wrestling with the problem of evil, Augustine defined evil in purely negative terms.  Evil is a lack (or negation) of the Good.

 

Only that which was first good can become evil.  Evil is defined against the backdrop of the prior concept of the Good.  Evil depends on the Good for its very definition.  We speak of evil in terms of unlawful, injustice and lawlessness.  As a parasite depends on its host for its existence, evil depends on the Good.  If anything were wholly or purely evil, it could not exist.  Why?  Evil is not a substance or a thing.  It is a lack (or negation) of the Good.

 

At this, Augustine seems to define evil in purely ontological terms.  If this were the case, Augustine would have to say that evil is a necessary consequence of finitude.  God cannot create a "perfect" being.  To do so would be to create another God.  Even God cannot create another God, because the second God would be, by definition, a creature.

 

To avoid the ontological necessity of evil, Augustine turned to free will.  God created man with free will in which he also enjoyed perfect freedom.  Man had the faculty of choosing what he wanted.  He could sin and had the ability not to sin.  He could choose evil or not.  But he freely chose to sin.

 

As a result of the first sin, (disobedient evil) he lost his freedom but not his free will.  He was plunged, as a divine punishment, into a corrupt state known as original sin, losing the ability to incline himself to the things of God.

 This resulted in man's absolute dependence on a work of divine grace in his soul (the core of the heart, mind, emotions ) if he were ever to move toward God. 

Fallen man is in bondage to sin.  He still has the faculty of choosing, a will free from coercion, but he now is free only to sin, because his desires are inclined only toward sin and away from God.  Now the ability not to sin, is lost and in its place is the inability not to sin. 

 

With this view Augustine and others combated those who argue and deny original sin.

Many argued that the first sin affected Adam alone and that everyone can live perfect lives. 

Of course this view is fundamentally opposed to reality.  Man is unable to live free from evil or sin.  But the Eternal One has provided a way back toward Good.  He sent His Son to rescue humankind from their evil state by paying for the penalty of evil disobedience himself to make upright-- the wretched.  He paves the way to wholeness, peace, love and healing for the individual receiving with the availability of Heaven.

Thanks for your patience.  All errors are mine.

 

Based initially on the book Ideas Have Consequences by R C Sproul.

Your views and comments are most welcome, whether for or against or to amplify.

 

Provision

NORMALLY, when people eat a balanced evening meal, it includes vegetables. Those vegetables will have been purchased at a grocery store. Of course, a grocery store bought the vegetables from someone who farmed and harvested them. The farmer had those vegetables to sell because he planted seeds in the ground. The land in which the seed was planted was also supported by both rain and sunshine. Rain and sunshine are dependent on heaven.
Rain from heaven must come down upon the land in which the seed has been planted—so the fruit and vegetable can sprout, so the farmer can deliver it to the grocery store, so that we can pick it up when we go shopping, so that we can have a nice evening meal. If a person gets stuck appreciating the grocery store, then they’ve missed the source.
The grocery store is simply the mechanism of delivery. Now, if God stops the sunshine and rain, stops the replication of the seed, or does not allow the land to be fruitful, then there is no trip to the grocery store.


Tony Evans:  Book of Illustrations: Stories, Quotes, and Anecdotes from More than 30 Years of Preaching and Public Speaking.

Butterfly

 

A CATERPILLAR is ugly, slow, slimy, and it takes all day to go two feet, but when it undergoes the process of metamorphosis and the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, something beautiful is born. Metamorphosis is the process of something at work on the inside trying to show up on the outside.

There’s only one reason a butterfly can fly: its wings are strengthened by the work it does to break through the cocoon. If a bystander were to slit open a cocoon prior to the butterfly breaking itself loose from the cocoon, it wouldn’t fly. Its wings are developed through the struggle. No struggle, no flight.

Every Christian is a butterfly waiting to happen. A saint may feel like a caterpillar or even think they look like a caterpillar, but the idea is to work out their salvation in the midst of adversity because God is at work within them to do His good pleasure.

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^{by PastorTony Evans.}