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Fear or Faith?

th1b.taylor

Member
<style type="text/css"> <!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } A:link { so-language: zxx } --> </style> Jermiah 34:1 – 35:19


Because we do not listen to God today our nation is in very bad condition. As a people we have elevated ourselves to supersede God and in many cases to remove Him from our lives completely. This is not a new condition for any nation of the world, in fact, it is very common. And when we look back at history we find that when a nation refuses or ceases to obey God, they are defeated and, or, are taken over, usually by a terrible ruler as a punishment.


This is when people cry out to God and return to Him. A little noticed recent event of similar circumstance is the near history of the South of Sudan, now known as the nation of Southern Sudan, still not much noticed. The people of northern Sudan were Islamic Followers and were the rulers of the nation. ¨I know,¨ but please pay attention to truth in events and ignore empty and hollow words. The Arab Islamic, the African Islamic, the American Islamic and every other Islamic Believer, for all of their empty claims, hate Jews and Christians and are duty (see that word, duty) bound to exterminate us. There are 164 verses in the Qu´ran that called for the ¨Humane¨ Killing of the Followers of the Book and the Jewish Believers.


For those of us that believe and obey, nothing is frightening! We are expectantly excited but not frightened. For myself I learned obedience at the hand of my Stepfather, who loved me enough to punish me and explain to me why, and in the US Army. There were times in combat that I was mortified at my surroundings but the standing order to get my helicopter ready to fly always propelled me into service. In addition to the command to, ¨Fear not,¨ we are commanded into action by the last three verses of Matthew in the Great Commission.


So you see, it is much like being a professional soldier, will you obey? Or will you sit in place waiting for your head to be removed? There is a proven rule of life on this Earth that has only been defeated twice and that was at the hand of God. The two to beat it were Enoch, who walked with God, and Elijah, who was removed in a Fiery Chariot. For everyone else the rule applies, ¨For every birth there is one death!¨ So you and I both were born for the first death and you, like I, being a Christian cannot die the Second Death, so why fear any way?


May God always bless you and give you the strength to remain, forever true to Him, God bless!
 
Thanks for your post. I am not afraid to die, although that is easy to say at this moment. I will even forgive my executioner, and that is easy to say also. In the end either I will believe God is Holy and fear nothing or believe He is not and go crazy.
 
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Thank you for your perspective, it is encouraging. Before I went to war I was under a First Sergent that in my tour of Germany made Sergent Major, we all called him Daddy Himes. He took me under his wing and refused to let me go to Vietnam. He was a War Veteran with a chest full of medals and I was a Lifer with five years of service and a Specialist Fifth Class, up for promotion to Staff Sergent and I wanted those medals!

Daddy Himes assured me that I did not ever need to go to Vietnam and I told him that I was not afraid to die. He said one of the most true statements I have ever heard, ¨ i´m sure you´re not but only stupid and crazy people are not afraid when they enter Combat and those die right away!¨ I can now add to that that a man that claims to have fought and was not afraid is a liar and most likely never served! If the above is not true, he or she needs to be institutionalized!

Having said all of that, my mission was Insertion/Extraction and Close Combat Support and while I was often scared to death I overcame the fear and I served those men on the ground without failure, so did all of the Black Bandits and Killer Spades. On my Unit´s web site we allow the children of the men that died to join. Once we were asked how was it that her dad volunteered for the mission that he died on? Before I could tell her one of our pilots told her that her dad had been assigned that duty because he had not, previously, refused to fly such missions and that this was the rule in our world. The lessor men quit flying before or after their first mission, usually after walking the flight Line and seeing the condition of our birds and observing the bullet holes being patched every day. In short, her dad was a real life Hero and she should always remember that.

And the lesson from both Korea and Vietnam is that when cowards control brave men, they are not allowed to win and our God and out LORD is not a coward, He hung on that cross when He did not have to. Should we do less?
 
Because we do not listen to God today our nation is in very bad condition. As a people we have elevated ourselves to supersede God and in many cases to remove Him from our lives completely. This is not a new condition for any nation of the world, in fact, it is very common. And when we look back at history we find that when a nation refuses or ceases to obey God, they are defeated and, or, are taken over, usually by a terrible ruler as a punishment.

Well, let's put this theory to the test.

As lamentable as you may imagine our current predicament here in the good old US to be, surely we are in a better shape than, say, medieval Europeans who toiled for centuries under war, famine, the plague and a whole host of other unpleasant phenomena no longer seen in our time.
Funny, though, because all these people were as pious as they came.

You may recall that professing any doubts about Holy Mother Church and the truth of Christianity would guarantee you'd be placed in the loving care of the Inquisition.

Also, if your theory holds water, the more religious, excuse me, the more Christian a nation is, the better off it would be.

Interestingly, the exact opposite is true.
The more secular a society is, the higher it ranks on every single index we use to measure its health, as shown by the Human Development Index (HDI).

List of countries by Human Development Index - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The same holds true within our shiny nation.

List of U.S. states by HDI - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


One would expect the Bible belt states to be the proud benefactors of the grace bestowed upon them by God.

Not so.

Texas ranks 38 while the godless denizens of New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts enjoy the most peace and prosperity.

It is therefore that your lugubrious warning about the lack of piety and its dire consequences seems to be barren of any truth.


Greets,

Ignatius
 
Wow, a human development index and golly it shows those godless New Yorkers are in paradise while Texans are almost in hell. I've been to both and I question that their study holds water.
 
Well, let's put this theory to the test.

As lamentable as you may imagine our current predicament here in the good old US to be, surely we are in a better shape than, say, medieval Europeans who toiled for centuries under war, famine, the plague and a whole host of other unpleasant phenomena no longer seen in our time.
Funny, though, because all these people were as pious as they came.

You may recall that professing any doubts about Holy Mother Church and the truth of Christianity would guarantee you'd be placed in the loving care of the Inquisition.

Also, if your theory holds water, the more religious, excuse me, the more Christian a nation is, the better off it would be.

Interestingly, the exact opposite is true.
The more secular a society is, the higher it ranks on every single index we use to measure its health, as shown by the Human Development Index (HDI).

List of countries by Human Development Index - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The same holds true within our shiny nation.

List of U.S. states by HDI - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


One would expect the Bible belt states to be the proud benefactors of the grace bestowed upon them by God.

Not so.

Texas ranks 38 while the godless denizens of New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts enjoy the most peace and prosperity.

It is therefore that your lugubrious warning about the lack of piety and its dire consequences seems to be barren of any truth.


Greets,

Ignatius

Yup, the study has nothing to do with religion or not!

Of course it has to do with economic development. And the U.S. is very high still.

And living in "the Bible belt" has nothing to do with "more prosperity & peace!" It is known "secular" health fact that those living in the north & colder weather- are thinner in general than those living in the warmer south.

So work & exercise & enjoy!
 
Well, let's put this theory to the test.
Letś begin with a little background so that you know who it is that your dealing with. I was born in the Bible Belt but like most of us from the South, I was born to an Atheist Mother and Father and was raised to be an Atheist Criminal. When God spoke to me in November of ´66 I ran from Him for the next 23 years and better. Now I´ll deal with your assertions about a personal relationship you seem to know little to nothing about.

As lamentable as you may imagine our current predicament here in the good old US to be,
Having the past 66 1/2 years past as experience to draw from I imagine very little about the condition of the world nor about this nation. For you to have ¨assumed¨ that I did is a positive mark of youth and the lack of experience.

surely we are in a better shape than, say, medieval Europeans who toiled for centuries under war, famine, the plague and a whole host of other unpleasant phenomena no longer seen in our time.
That is a mighty narrow perspective. There possibly has never been more than one or two years that there was not a war, somewhere in the world. We, humans, are a people composed of two very opposed ideas, good and evil. Every time the evil people of this world have acted out the good humans have acted to stop them.

Funny, though, because all these people were as pious as they came.
Are you, honestly, that unstudied? From the time of the advent of Jesus there has never been more than 1 or 2% of the world population that were Christians. And then you ere and tag us as pious? We, just like you, are sinners! (Romans 3:10 & 23) The difference is that we have admitted our sinful and lost condition and have accepted the gift Jesus/God offered from and by His presence on the cross.

You may recall that professing any doubts about Holy Mother Church and the truth of Christianity would guarantee you'd be placed in the loving care of the Inquisition.
As I studied and have learned from that study being made a soldier was much better than the usual death sentence and you using a very dark period of growth for the world to rationalize the corruption and intentional ignorance of the well educated man of today?

While the ¨Mommy made me do it¨ type excuse is very popular with your generation, it will not fly in the face of God on Judgment day. There is no rationalization or excuse for unrepentant sin.


Also, if your theory holds water, the more religious, excuse me, the more Christian a nation is, the better off it would be.
What you term theory is fact! And if you are going to use the World´s terminology and tell me that the US is a Christian nation I´ll need you to get here ASAP to slap my back, chest or better yet, my face to stop me from gagging! There is less than 1%% of the people in this country that worship and obey God ad of that small number (as per a mid-eighties study by the Barna Group) less that 2% of those in the Church are true Christians.

Interestingly, the exact opposite is true.
The more secular a society is, the higher it ranks on every single index we use to measure its health, as shown by the Human Development Index (HDI).
I notice that this has already been dealt with and I second that comment from my brothers.
 
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Wow, a human development index and golly it shows those godless New Yorkers are in paradise while Texans are almost in hell. I've been to both and I question that their study holds water.

Yes. If the data doesn't confirm your previously held belief, it must wrong.

I am sure that the scientists and statisticians who have provided us with this index are all hanging their heads in shame after reading your argument which you have been kind enough to back-up with so much relevant data.
 
The United States has a strong Christian (particularly Protestant) history, and it seems to rank pretty high on the scale, according to the link you provided. I think its worth noting that the US outranks Canada (less religious than the US) and some EU countries (same deal).

Also, I've lived in the Bible belt my whole life. The problem with the Bible Belt isn't Christianity (a lot of that is fading anyway, and many "Christians"--past and present--weren't all that Christian), its poverty and the host of ills associated with poverty (obesity, smoking, drug abuse, lack of education, family violence, divorce, etc.).

I think its also worth noting that most of the countries high on the list, even if they're now post-Christian, developed in part because of secularized Christian concepts absorbed into their culture. The nations at the bottom of the list seem to be largely Muslim.

Are you going to argue that Islam breeds misery? I certainly will, because I'm a Christian and I think Islam is a violent, miserable false religion, but will you look at the data you've provided and state the obvious?
 
Ignatius J. Reilly


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reba
 
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Please take it to PM per ToS Reba
 
Editing and deleting of posts is at the discretion of the Mods and Admins. Refusal of membership and suspension or termination of existing members is at the discretion of the Administrators. Openly challenging a Mod or Admin is frowned upon.

Please take it to PM per ToS Reba
 
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