Lack of Pride Is a Sin - Robert Schuller
Robert Schuller, Sr.: The motive of why He came in a child? Because
His ultimate purpose in coming in the incarnation was to bring dignity back to the human family. We lost our dignity when Adam walked out of the Garden of Eden and his chevrons of power were removed. He walked out of the Garden of Eden, a nobody, when he was a somebody.
The great loss and the great sin is the loss of healthy human pride in his place shame, disgrace. We live in sin in this world, you know it when you see shame instead of honor. So he came as a baby in a manger with smells, why? To bring dignity to the child, to bring dignity to the poor, to bring dignity to the oppressed, to bring dignity to the marginalized and to the have nots.
- No, the reason God came was to save us from our sins, not to give us dignity
- Sin is anything that offends God, and pride is one of those offenses
- For Schuller, "sin" is a four-letter word
When Is a Murder Not a Murder?
I'm glad people agree that two people were murdered in the Laci Peterson case, Laci and her unborn child. So why do these same people think that it's okay to murder their own child while in the womb? Could it be simply because it's a matter of convenience to them, and so it's not murder, but when it doesn't involve them, it is murder? Your comments are welcome.
More From Joni
When asked on December 7th's Bible Answer Man show what she would say to those who would hold that if she had enough faith she could get up out of that wheelchair, she replied:
"Well, I believe that that is up to my heavenly Father's overarching decree and perfect plan in my life. Romans 12 says that God's plan in my life is good and acceptible and perfect. God wants me to want Him desperately and I'm grateful that He's given me the gift of this wheelchair in which I can be daily and constantly reminded to do just that. Maybe the really handicapped people are those who cruise through life and forget and are ignorant of their blessings, who don't need God so desperately and thereby live life on automatic cruise-control. They are winning no eternal reward. They do not enjoy the closeness and sweetness and fragrance of union and intimacy with the Savior that sometimes I do, and for that I am deeply grateful for this wheelchair. If I was healed now it would be great for a while, but a year from now I might be planning a ski trip and driving a new car with my hands and feet, and maybe I would have forgotten about such a miraculous blessing and I wouldn't need God as desperately as I do now."
Joni Eareckson Tada Book On Healing
Joni Eareckson Tada has announced that she is working on a book for Zondervan on healing. This is a reaction, she says, to seeing people in wheelchairs coming forward in crusades like Benny Hinn's and being wheeled back out again, disappointed. Should be a fascinating book.
On December 8, 1999, Joni Eareckson Tada was on the
Bible Answer Man, and made the following devastating comments about Word-Faith teachings:
"Kenneth Copeland or Kenneth Hagin or Benny Hinn - they've never called me and asked me to come on their program.
"...I had read some portions of Scripture that seemed to indicate that if God's Word abided in me, and I abided in Him, I could ask whatever I wished and the request would be fulfilled and my joy would be brighter. I took that to mean that God wanted me healed. And my sister packed me into her station wagon and a couple of friends, and we drove down to the Washington DC arena and Kathryn Kuhlman swept on stage and praise choruses and testimonies and songs and all of us in the wheelchair section, we kind of like with baited breath were waiting and wondering, and nothing happened. In fact, the ushers came up to all of us in the wheelchair section, about 35 or 40 of us, and said, "Let's escort you all out early so as not to create a traffic jam, and so there I was, Hank, number 15 in line of 35 people in wheelchairs or on crutches, waiting at the stadium elevator to go up to the parking lot, and we could still hear the distant strains of the organ and piano - Kathryn Kuhlman's meeting was still going on - and I looked up and down this line of solemn-faced individuals and saw so much disappointment, and I thought 'Something's wrong with this picture. Either I wasn't reading God right in His Word or God is not coming through on His promises.' And I knew that wasn't true, and so Hank, it was that experience that drove me into God's Word so deep I started reading people like R. C. Sproul and J. I. Packer and Jeremiah Burrows and John Owen and Jonathan Edwards and other contemporary authors - Dr. John MacArthur, there's so many. I really dove into God's Word with both sleeves rolled up to understand the Lord's perspective on healing and I can say now that I am so grateful for the wisdom of God."
Oral Roberts' Failing Theology
On August 16, 2004, on Benny Hinn's show "This Is Your Day" Oral Roberts made the following statement:
"Jesus of Nazareth wants to heal you, He wants to prosper you, He wants to do good to you, He wants to make you happy, whole and normal. If you believe it say 'Amen'"
This clip is a video statement made by Oral Roberts back in his early days. Benny Hinn showed this old clip immediately after an 86 year old Roberts gave a message at a Benny Hinn crusade in Anaheim this year. Before giving his message Roberts walked out to the platform flanked by two assistants holding him and Roberts had to give his message while sitting in a chair. It was obvious Oral Roberts had some medical problems that come with age.
Did he not have enough faith to be healed, does Jesus stop healing once you get to a certain age, or is Roberts' "Jesus of Nazareth wants to heal you" message bogus?
Martin Luther On the Importance of Doctrine
Lest there be those who think that correct doctrine isn't important, listen to the words of Martin Luther:
The great difference between doctrine and life is obvious, even as is the difference between heaven and earth. Life may be unclean, sinful, and inconsistent; but doctrine must be pure, holy, sound, and unchanging. Life may show omissions and come short of what doctrine calls for. But from doctrine (says Christ, Matt. 5:18) not a tittle or letter may be omitted, however much life may fail to meet the requirements of doctrine. This is so because doctrine is God's Word and God's truth alone, whereas life is partly our own doing. On this account doctrine must remain entirely pure. God will have patience with man's moral failings and imperfections and forgive them. But He cannot, will not, and shall not tolerate a man's altering or abolishing doctrine itself. For doctrine involves His exalted, divine Majesty itself. In the sphere of doctrine, therefore, forgiveness and patience are out of order.[1]
[1]What Luther Says: A Practical In-Home Anthology for the Active Christian, comp. Ewald M. Plass, (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1994), 417.
