Psalm 14:1: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good”.
Psalm 53:1: “The fool says there is no God”.
Hosea 4:6 (NKJV)
6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge,
I also will reject you from being priest for Me;
Because you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children.
This is what has happened to the United States, and indeed the whole world, even in the cradle of the founding of the Holy Bible, (no longer used) in the Church of England. The West officially has turned away from the word of God *Jesus Christ our “Redeemer”, as the Episcopal Church I went to as a child was named!
I give glory to only the Lord, who is the master of my life, despite my falling short of my calling often. The man who ministered to me was outside the mainstream, just as I have always been outside the mainstream of formal systematic theologies having so-called “learning disabilities” (Dyslexia) since birth. Yet God has seen fit to use my handicap to help others since I was used as an example to teach graduate students at Johns Hopkins University in Phonetics.
I have always been hungry to learn greater truths, and if I couldn’t receive my training from traditional universities, I went elsewhere! This is the beauty of living in America, there are many routes to success, and I never allowed myself to play the victim, but rather an overcomer with the Lord’s help. In which all things are possible. One of the earliest prayers I prayed was for the Lord to show me his truths directly, rather than some guy in wool pants and a blazer!
After being terrified of items flying off the shelves in our basement when I passed by, or the pokey-man poking me through my mattress at night under my bed, I needed some real answers and not just from your run-of-the-mill Church people who were all around me, yet had little understanding of the human soul, demons, and even the ability to walk in a deeper spiritual level with our Lord within their own understanding.
To present the late Dr. Micheal Gross, in “churchy terms” I’m pretty sure he had all the giftings of a modern-day Apostle (short of raising a person from the dead). Plus a vast knowledge of the spiritual world, and the Bible, unsurpassed by anyone I have met since!
In most cases, this has been a great frustration for me to shoulder within the mainstream of most churches. In the West, they do not receive well the things possible of walking in the Holy Spirit of God, probably because most have never even seen this is possible! We struggle so much with our own flesh and intellectual understanding of theology, that most cannot grasp direct and personal instruction from “The Teacher”, who Jesus promised to send us for our personal understanding once we have been begotten from above, because of what Jesus did on the cross for all humanity!.
I was trained up predominantly as a Calvinist, “chosen before the foundations of the earth” to know the Lord. However. In my humble;e opinion this is what happens when we try to intellectually understand the scriptures, without seeking the greater spiritual truths from our Lord. The Bible is not contradictory, yet it often seems like that because of our limited understanding of who God is, and his attributes.
Was Larson thinking about this doctrine?
Simply put, I surmise that the problem is that man thinks on a linear level, yet God is Eternal, with no beginning and no end. When we try and put our own understanding of God, the spirit world, and how things function we cannot without the direct intercession of the Holy Spirit! This is how God the Father designed it to be so that we do not go off half-cocked with our own theology.
Starting in 1 Samuel 19 where Saul Tries to Kill David we see God’s intervention of David’s “predestination”, for the simple fact that David sought the Lord for his help. Some cannot get past the word “Predestination” and will argue that God’s Sovereignty cannot be changed, however, it indeed can be if the Lord wills to extend one’s life, or even shorten it because of gross disobedience after we are “Born Again” in our Spirit. Another problem which I call “HARD” Calvinism, is that God cannot violate anything he has said, including the teaching of giving all humanity a “Free Will” either to accept Jesus Christ’s provision on the cross or reject it. Now, God foreknows who will come and chose them before the foundations of the earth, and yet all still have the chance to be saved, simply because of who God is, Eternal (like a circle) with no begging and no end, as opposed to how we think, in the linear – like a short time scratch on a giant sphere!
A good short book to read is called “The Sovereignty of God” by, A.W. Pink to give you some insight into walking in the Holy Spirit of God.
This is “deep stuff” theologically speaking, but it is much better to seek the Lord in these matters than to hold to a denominational doctrine. Some may find this foolishness, yet spiritual things are always seen as foolish to our natural minds. It is always better to be a spiritual man, than just an intellectual one, for the simple fact that the spiritual man depends upon the Holy Spirit of the Lord, rather than on himself and his own estimations.
This is what the Christian life is all about, dependency on God, rather than independence from him!
Mine has been a rough life in many ways in learning humility so that the Lord could make me useful to him. Yet, I have been extremely blessed, especially in the Jubilee year of 1998 when the Lord provided me with my Wife. All things were restored to us both, after decades of what the locust had eaten!
I can tell you that this was the closest time in my life in which the Lord powerfully and consistently spoke to me.
After that time we came into the 9-11 attacks on our country by Islamic extremists, my military mobilization, and then just over a year after returning home, my near-death experience in water survival training with the Army. Yet even in that experience, Jesus lay shoulder to shoulder against me, and then orchestrated everything in my favor, including a candidate for President (John McCain) lighting a fire under my military medical discharge board to look into my medical retirement.
After those events, it was the Lord who moved me from the Presbyterian Church of America where I was married, into the leadership of a small Baptist Church, in which he provided me with an accreditation from Emmanuel Baptist University in addiction counseling, given my training while in street ministry for six years.
One thing that I have discovered, short of publishing an article on the web, is that you cannot share everything learned with others that is spiritually discerned and given to you personally. One reason is human nature, as you might blow away the average congregation and PO the Pastor!
I believe that one-on-one ministry is best. People must be directed to you by God and need to hear only what you can offer them.
Everyone wants to be “King of the Hill,” yet Jesus said the meek will inherit the earth.
Lightship Ministries 