We all think that the world is "getting darker..." umm... THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE! Darkness is not a "thing..." It cannot grow but it CAN DIMINISH!
Darkness: a : devoid or partially devoid of light : not receiving, reflecting, transmitting, or radiating light darkroom>b : transmitting only a portion of light <dark glasses>
If we take this further: obscurity; concealment:
The darkness of the metaphor destroyed its effectiveness.
5.
lack of knowledge or enlightenment:
heathen darkness.
6.
lack of sight; blindness.
What if...WHAT IF... the reason the world has gotten darker is NOT because Jesus is headed back but because CHRISTIANS stopped spreading their candle light!!!??
Now, if THAT is the case WE CAN BRING LIGHT TO THE DARKNESS!! WE ARE THE LIGHT...Christians, if bad things are happening, if darkness is all around, perversion, death, hunger... this is NOT the work of Jesus coming back, it's a result of the dimly lit lights of Christians...One candle can SPREAD LIGHT TO 1,000'S UPON 1,000's UPON 1,000'S!!!!
YOU have THE MOST POWERFUL FORCES IN UNIVERSE LIVING INSIDE OF YOU!!
Did you know your JOB AS A CHRISTIAN is to BRING JUSTICE to the weak, abused, sick, lame, WIDOW, and FATHERLESS!
Could it be, that the evil in this world isn't a result of a greater number of people being led by the devil but a greater number of so called Christians who go to church, pay their tithe, do the "Christian thing..." but at the end of the day, they are not actually FOLLOWING THE LIGHT, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ to over come sin?
If so... THIS IS THE GREATEST NEWS IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!!!
The Light of the Gospel
2 Corinthians 4:4 Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God,[a] we do not lose heart. 2 But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice[b] cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants[c] for Jesus' sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
You mean I don't have to change evil people but all we need to do to change the world is walk in the light ??? Woo hoo!!!! Let's get this LIGHT SHOW STARTED!!!!
The world has gone through SEVERAL dark ages... Christians were thrown to lions in the 1st Century and forced to meet in secret and underground cave systems called catacombs
There was the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, and up until the late 1500's the Church kept the Word of God out of the common language so the people's minds were DARKENED to the truth and many people were punished in wild ways, and even BURNED AT THE STAKE! But something AMAZING HAPPENED during the 16th-17th Century THAT DIRECTLY affects us TODAY!
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| William Tyndale being burned at the stake |
Men and Women FILLED WITH the power of God and his LIGHT BURST onto the scene in a not so quiet fashion...
Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenburg declaring the corruptions in the Church and called for "pure religion" and undefiled... Across the pond, an Englishman named William Tyndale set out to translate the original Greek and Hebrew into an English Bible for the first time... he was later betrayed to the authorities and strangled then burned at the stake... but the fire he lit changed the ENTIRE WORLD! 
A clergyman hopelessly entrenched in Roman Catholic dogma once taunted William Tyndale with the statement, "We are better to be without God’s laws than the Pope’s". Tyndale was infuriated by such Roman Catholic heresies, and he replied, "I defy the Pope and all his laws. If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause the boy that drives the plow to know more of the scriptures than you!""Let it not make thee despair, neither yet discourage thee, O reader, that it is forbidden thee in pain of life and goods, or that it is made breaking of the king's peace, or treason unto his highness, to read the Word of thy soul's health—for if God be on our side, what matter maketh it who be against us, be they bishops, cardinals, popes."
http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/scholarsandscientists/william-tyndale.html
"William Tyndale could speak seven languages and was proficient in ancient Hebrew and Greek. He was a priest whose intellectual gifts and disciplined life could have taken him a long way in the church—had he not had one compulsion: to teach English men and women the good news of justification by faith.
Tyndale had discovered this doctrine when he read Erasmus's Greek edition of the New Testament. What better way to share this message with his countrymen than to put an English version of the New Testament into their hands? This, in fact, became Tyndale's life passion, aptly summed up in the words of his mentor, Erasmus: "Christ desires his mysteries to be published abroad as widely as possible. I would that [the Gospels and the epistles of Paul] were translated into all languages, of all Christian people, and that they might be read and known."
Timeline | |
1456
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Gutenberg produces first printed bible
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1479
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Establishment of Spanish Inquisition
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1488
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First complete Hebrew Old Testament
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1494
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William Tyndale born
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1536
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William Tyndale dies
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1555
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Latimer and Ridley burned at stake
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It would be a passion, though, for which Tyndale would pay dearly.
Genius translator
He was a native of Gloucester and began his studies at Oxford in 1510, later moving on to Cambridge. By 1523 his passion had been ignited; in that year he sought permission and funds from the bishop of London to translate the New Testament. The bishop denied his request, and further queries convinced Tyndale the project would not be welcomed anywhere in England.
To find a hospitable environment, he traveled to the free cities of Europe—Hamburg, Wittenberg, Cologne, and finally to the Lutheran city of Worms. There, in 1525, his New Testament emerged: the first translation from Greek into the English language. It was quickly smuggled into England, where it received a less-than-enthusiastic response from the authorities. King Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, and Sir Thomas More, among others, were furious. It was, said More, "not worthy to be called Christ's testament, but either Tyndale's own testament or the testament of his master Antichrist."
Authorities bought up copies of the translation (which, ironically, only financed Tyndale's further work) and hatched plans to silence Tyndale.
Meanwhile Tyndale had moved to Antwerp, a city in which he was relatively free from both English agents and those of the Holy Roman (and Catholic) Empire. For nine years he managed with the help of friends to evade authorities, revise his New Testament, and begin translating the Old."
http://www.william-tyndale.com/tyndale-bible-history.html
With a CLASH and A BOOM! Christianity was ripped wide open...(see some of the reformers below)... The Bible was being translated IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE PEOPLE! The veil was being torn away and men's hearts were being torn open!!! The scriptures laid bare the VICTORIOUS CHURCH, not a weak, beggarly people... and Christians fought the good fight, many died but their deaths sparked more and more fires... Those fires spread across the world, and the Pilgrims took their one little candle and spread the torch of freedom and religious liberty to follow God as one sees fit to the WHOLE WORLD!!
Blackstone (1723-1780) was an English scholar whose Commentaries on the Laws of England was the basis for American law
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| The above really should be flipped... it was Locke who influenced Blackstone |
Human laws, Blackstone believed, were like scientific laws. They were creations of God waiting to be discovered just as Isaac Newton had discovered the laws of gravity a century before. “Thus we say, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations.” Law flowed from the superior to the inferior, be it God, monarch or nation, and the inferior was compelled to obey. He acknowledged humans as “the nobelest of all sublunary beings, a creature endowed with both reason and freewill” but decreed that there were “certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby freewill is in some degree regulated and restrained” and that God gave “the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws.”In fact, in American and British colleges used his commentaries for years after his death in 1780.
http://www.earlyamerica.com/early-america-review/volume-2/sir-william-blackstone-in-america/
Locke (1632-1704) could read the Bible in English because of those who lit their candle and were willing to DIE to keep it burning...
(See below for the amazing comparison between John Locke and our two most important founding documents)
Time would spare me from going through the ENTIRE timeline of Christian history from Galileo to Christopher Columbus....John Calvin to John Knox....John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress which is one of the best selling books of all time... Christian scientists who glorified their Creator Johann Kepler, Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle
John Milton who wrote Paradise Lost
Evangelists George Whitefield, the Wesley brothers, and Jonathan Edwards.And ALL of the founding fathers!!!!
.Every single one of these people LET THEIR LIGHT SO SHINE BEFORE MEN!!!
Evangelists George Whitefield, the Wesley brothers, and Jonathan Edwards.And ALL of the founding fathers!!!!
.Every single one of these people LET THEIR LIGHT SO SHINE BEFORE MEN!!!
You see, all throughout history, the way that evil was eradicated or at least dimmed, was THROUGH THE LIGHT OF GOD'S PEOPLE!! We are NOT the Israelite under the law anymore, we are believers, who through one right thought of humility and reverence to our holy God, can SPARK A FLAME and set the world ABLAZE!!!
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| THIS is the Light of the World!! |
When we see evil, WE CAN'T sit by and say "well, it's just getting worse..." At the moment, we need to mentally and spiritually get before the Lord and pray for his Light to shine on our hearts!!! We can STOP evil! We can STOP perversion! It's sooo easy... but we need to take a minute and take stock and reevaluate our form of "Christianity..." If we are not different than the world, if people don't look at us and say "whoa, this world is dark, but you are shining bright..." then something is wrong,
Abortion,Drugs,Alcoholism,Divorce,Rape, Incest, Gangs, Pollution, Hunger, Sickness... you name it... anything you would call "darkness..." It's merely THE ABSENCE OF A CHRISTIAN SHINING THE LIGHT OF THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST!! When you hear BAD NEWS... GIVE GOOD NEWS!!! Find Christ in and through everything!!!! Don't ignore evil in anyway...but OVERCOME IT HEAD ON!!!
For everyone there is a straw that breaks the camel's back. When 9/11 happened, so many joined the military...for me, a friend of mine posted an article of such perversion yesterday that it twisted my stomach so bad I couldn't take it, that's it ya'll, we're bringing the Gospel!!!!! ... Listen, I want to know the evil that is happening,but, at least for my family, we're turning a corner to VICTORY! We're not turning a blind eye but we're not going to moan and groan.. Christ took the keys of DEATH AND HELL! "Oh death where is your victory, oh grave where is your sting!?"... When we see these great atrocities, we are not going to look away... we are going to look at that evil straight in the eye and say "every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is LORD OF ALL!!" We're going to be that good Samaritan, pick up the broken, and bring the LIGHT of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!!! William Bradford, Governor of the Pilgrim's Plymouth Plantation, was a man of God. His famous quote goes something like this "As one SMALL candle may light 1,000, so the light here kindled has been shown unto many..." The world is dark, but not because of the prevalence of evil, but the lack of our Christ Light shining... The world seems like a black hole but it's not... If I'm standing in a pitch black room full of people with unlit candles, God can light my candle and within minutes, that ONE LITTLE FLAME can light up a town, a country, the world!!! Will you join me? When you see evil atrocities, will you point them out AND bring the Gospel of VICTORY!! Will you say "God who Created the HEAVENS AND THE EARTH has FULL JURISDICTION here...and there is a NEW SHERIFF in town!!" Many great men and women gave their lives for the Gospel.... Many were shut down by their leaders, such as the man who felt God wanted him to be the first to translate the Bible into English. Did you know his Church superiors didn't want him to? That he had to flee England to do it, and then the English copies that made it into England were confiscated and he was strangled and burned at the stake? But his light...HOW GREAT was his light!!! He let it shine and MILLIONS have come to the light of the Gospel due to this one man standing up to corruption in the Church...
John Locke and The Declaration of Independence/Constitution
The similarities go beyond the structure of government; they share fundamental beliefs about natural rights, the role of government, where government gets its legitimacy, how a government can lose legitimacy, when a people are allowed to disobey or revolt. The Declaration of Independence reads like a re-articulation of parts of Locke's Second Treatise. The Preamble to the Constitution reads as if it borrows heavily from Locke as well.
Here are just some small examples.
Declaration:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness--
Locke:
The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it...reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.
Declaration:
That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.
Locke:
Every man being, as has been shewed, naturally free, and nothing being able to put him into subjection to any earthly power but his own consent; it is to be considered, what shall be understood to be a sufficient declaration of a man's consent, to make him subject to the laws of any government.
Declaration:
that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it
Locke:
Whensoever therefor the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and...endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people;...they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands...and it devolves to the people
Declaration:
But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government
Locke (quoting Barclay to reinforce his point):Wherefore if the king shall shew an hatred, not only to some particular persons, but sets himself against the body of the common-wealth, whereof he is the head, and shall, with intolerable ill usage, cruelly tyrannize over the whole, or a considerable part of the people, in this case the people have a right to resist
And Locke, himself:
When any one, or more, shall take upon them to make laws, whom the people have not appointed so to do, they make laws without authority, which the people are not therefore bound to obey; by which means they come again to be out of subjection, and may constitute to themselves a new legislative...being in full liberty to resist the force of those who without authority would impose any thing upon them.
The fundamental principles the Founders espoused were nearly all articulated a hundred years earlier by John Locke in his Two Treatises on Government. Given that Locke was widely popular in the American colonies at the time, it's likely they read him (and as highly educated men with well-articulated views in political philosophy it would be baffling if many of them hadn't). And William Blackstone was even quoted and used in many supreme court decisions, especially in the 18th Century
http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3469&context=penn_law_review
Precursors to the Reformation
John Locke and The Declaration of Independence/Constitution
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness--
The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it...reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.
That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.
Every man being, as has been shewed, naturally free, and nothing being able to put him into subjection to any earthly power but his own consent; it is to be considered, what shall be understood to be a sufficient declaration of a man's consent, to make him subject to the laws of any government.
that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it
Whensoever therefor the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and...endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people;...they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands...and it devolves to the people
But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government
When any one, or more, shall take upon them to make laws, whom the people have not appointed so to do, they make laws without authority, which the people are not therefore bound to obey; by which means they come again to be out of subjection, and may constitute to themselves a new legislative...being in full liberty to resist the force of those who without authority would impose any thing upon them.
http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3469&context=penn_law_review
John Wycliffe
John Wycliffe (1330–84) attacked what he saw as corruptions within the church, including the sale of indulgences, pilgrimages, the excessive veneration of saints, and the low moral and intellectual standards of ordained priests.
Wycliffe also repudiated the doctrine of transubstantiation, held that the Bible was the sole standard of Christian doctrine, and argued that the authority of the Pope was not grounded in Scripture. Some of Wycliffe's early followers translated the Bible into English, while later followers, known as Lollards, held that the Bible was the sole authority and that Christians were called upon to interpret the Bible for themselves. The Lollards also argued against clerical celibacy, transubstantiation, mandatory oral confession, pilgrimages, and indulgences.
John Huss
John Huss (1369–1415) — A Bohemian priest, excommunicated in 1410, and burned at the stake for heresy in 1415. His death lead to the Hussite Wars in Bohemia. Huss followed Wycliffe's teachings closely, translating Wycliffe's Trialogus into Czechoslovakian, and modeling the first ten chapters of his own De Ecclesia after Wycliffe's writings. He believed in predestination, regarded the Bible as the ultimate religious authority, and argued that Christ, rather than any ecclesiastical official, is the true head of the church.
Prominent figures in the Reformation
Martin Luther
Martin Luther (1483–1546) — In 1517, nails his 95 Theses onto a Wittenberg Church door. These theses were Latin propositions opposing the manner in which indulgences (release from the temporal penalties for sin through the payment of money) were being sold in order to raise money for the building of Saint Peter's in Rome.
Huldreich Zwingli
Huldreich Zwingli (1484–1531) — Swiss theologian and leader of early Reformation movements in Switzerland. Vigorously denounces the sale of indulgences in 1518.
John Calvin
John Calvin (1509–64) — Calvin was a French theologian and reformer who fled religious persecution in France and settled in Geneva in 1536. He instituted a form of Church government in Geneva which has become known as the Presbyterian church. He insisted on reforms including: the congregational singing of the Psalms as part of church worship, the teaching of a catechism and confession of faith to children, and the enforcement of a strict moral discipline in the community by the pastors and members of the church. Geneva was, under Calvin, essentially a theocracy.
John Knox
John Knox (1513–1572) — An ardent disciple of Calvin, Knox established Calvinistic Protestantism as the national religion of Scotland. He left a powerful political legacy within the Calvinist or Reformed branch of Protestantism, a political legacy known asPresbyterianism.
Henry VIII
Henry VIII (1491–1547) — In 1533, Henry was excommunicated by the pope for marrying Anne Boleyn and having the archbishop of Canterbury sanction the divorce from his first wife, Catherine. In 1534, Henry had Parliament pass an act appointing the king and his successors supreme head of the Church of England, thus establishing an independent national Anglican church.
Theological Issues of the Reformation
The theology of the Reformers departed from the Roman Catholic Church primarily on the basis of three great principles:^[2]^
- Sole authority of Scripture,
- Justification by faith alone, and
- Priesthood of the believer.
Sola Scriptura
Sola Scriptura (by Scripture alone) was one of the watchwords of the Reformation. This doctrine maintains that Scripture, as contained in the Bible, is the only authority for the Christian in matters of faith, life and conduct. The teachings and traditions of the church are to be completely subordinate to the Scriptures. Roman Catholicism, on the other hand, holds Scripture and Tradition to be of the same inspired Deposit of Faith.
Sola Fide
Sola Fide (by faith alone) was the other watchword of the Reformation. This doctrine maintains that we are justified before God (and thus saved) by faith alone, not by anything we do, not by anything the church does for us, and not by faith plus anything else. It was also recognized by the early Reformers that Sola Fide is not rightly understood until it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of Sola Gratia, by grace alone. Hence the Reformers were calling the church back to the basic teaching of Scripture where the apostle Paul states that we are "saved by grace through faith and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God," Eph. 2:8.
Priesthood of all believers
The third great principle of the Reformation was the priesthood of all believers. The Scriptures teach that believers are a "holy priesthood," 1 Pet. 2:5. All believers are priests before God through our great high priest Jesus Christ. "There is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus," 1 Tim. 2:5. As believers, we all have direct access to God through Christ, there is no necessity for an earthly mediator. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox concept of the priesthood was seen as having no warrant in Scripture, viewed as a perversion and mis-application of the Old Testament Aaronic or Levitical priesthood which was clearly fulfilled in Christ and done away with by the New Testament.
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