In the year that a young Martin Luther made his pilgrimage to the Vatican and took part in their selling of indulgences to buy the dead out of Purgatory for the church treasuries, there occurred the death of a Cardinal, and Dr. Luther recounted the astonishing tale.
At the time of my being in Rome, said Luther, there died a Cardinal very rich, and left behind him great store of money; shortly before his death he made his will, and laid it in a chest where the money was. After his death the chest was opened, and therein, by the money, was found lying a bull, written on parchment, with these words:
Dum potui, rapui; rapiatis, quando potestis.
Translated the note said, "I extorted and oppressed as long as I was able; while ye have power, get what you can."
Martin Luther
In the above, one can see the education the Lord provided Martin Luther in Rome, so that armed with Bible, he was Inspired to a revolution in emancipating all Christians from the whore of babylon and giving them the choice in that responsible liberty to come to the feet of Christ for the Gift of their Salvation.
I have pondered for the greater part of my life as most have about the reality of "predestination" as the Scriptures speak, and in Luther's writings I have found a like conclusion, that indeed all come to this world having already chosen Salvation or Condemnation, and each of us simply lives out the role of our choice.
To quote Dr. Luther, as I have been Inspired as of this point on the blog in this direction, and believe it is for absolute purposes in what will appear, the following is the Martin Luther discernment of this predestination.
"The world grows worse through the doctrine of God’s Grace and preaching of the Gospel; for when they hear that after this life there is another, they are well enough content with this life, and that God should keep the other to himself; if they may have here but only good days, honour, and wealth, that is all they care for or desire."
I have read of near death experiences and there are hints in this, which speak of predestination in what I have come to believe. I believe that there is a group of souls in Heaven. I recall a woman who was burned critically and died, going to Heaven, where in speaking with a relative, she was asked by a startled young man. "What are you doing here???? You are not supposed to be here!!!!"
That young man she was told was her son yet to be born. She came back to earth and did indeed have this child.
In enough examples linked to Biblical Scripture, Jeremiah 1:5 for example, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." speaks of God the Father and Jesus the Creator knowing the Prophet before he was formed in his mother.
In other near death experiences I have heard of people choosing to come to this world, sometimes with birth defects like Sarah Palin's son for an express purpose to be worked out.
So when Pharoah's heart was hardened, to show God's power, and Pharoah is spoken of in hell, then there is a reality, that people are shown lives before they arrive here, and the majority of them chose things that appeal to them in beauty, fame, power, money, selfish skills to feed their own worth, and the few choose to fight the good fight and trust in Jesus Deliverance and Salvation, with the reward Promised after this life.
It is an interesting thing this reality, for satan would whisper to the weak how they are already doomed and insanity they would then act out destructively or for the sinner, they would take it as license to say, "I am going to hell anyway so I might as much enjoy sinning then".
None of the excuses or fears justify any action, for it is always will, in personal will, which makes the final choice.
The majority though upon being shown Oval Offices, bank accounts or bounding athletics, chose that gift over the Gift of Life. That is not to say that a President does not go to Heaven as George Washington is in Heaven, but it is to relate how many people while in Heaven seek their own interests or upon seeing a hideous path chose self destruction, instead of diligently looking toward Jesus in being carried through.
I make no pretense in but for the carrying of Jesus and the Holy Ghost letting me clutch to a fragment of will to not give up, I could be any of the most heinous creatures of the planet. For what satan has inflicted upon me or TL, no one has any excuse in saying they could not do the right thing, because I should have perished among the damned long ago.
Each person has the weak points and lengthy trials to overcome in the strength of God, and the requirement is to hold on and continue to do the right thing, even when it is Jacob and Rachael cheated for decades by her father or King David hunted as an enemy of the state and existing in caves because "God said something better was coming" and it seemed never to come.
All credit of good in me goes to God. I am filled with revulsion in the Cardinal extorting and oppressing those under him, and the only advice was to get more gain while you could, to be so seared to not consider the sufferings of others nor to contemplate a Judgment for all of his sins.
It is a sad thing to see all the wasted lives here, to know that they could have had so much more. I do not regret for them damnation though, as it is their choice, and their damnation means the Gift of Christ while offered to all, has a price in His Sacrafice and it has a condition in my choosing Christ and trying daily to do the right thing in following God's rules.
With TL as I have come back to the LC I was, before this trip to Sodom and the warnings of the blog, in study of honorable souls like Joan of Arc, George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Martin Luther, I perceive the change is for purpose and this Lot longs to be washed of the filth of this world to seperate out from the immoral and disgusting. Sin has no appeal for me nor any of it's vain trappings. I have come to the moral child I was with the definitive rules from God which I found Peace in and which afforded me pride and joy in by doing what was right.
"I will do right daily and tomorrow I will try to do better".
Lame Cherry
nuff said
"Colax, Sycophanta, Cacoëthes; these sins and blasphemies are almost alike the one to the other, only that they go one after another, as a man going up the stairs and steps ascends from one to another.
Colax, in my opinion, is he that in Terence they name Gnatho, an ear-scratcher, a dissembler, a trencher-licker, one that talketh for his belly’s sake, and is altogether a man-pleaser. This is a sin of mankind, whose intent is to get all they can though others are hurt thereby.
Sycophanta is such a dissembler, traitor, and backbiter that would earn a grey coat. This sin is nearer allied to the devil than to mankind. Gnatho acts his part in the comedies, but Sycophanta in the tragedies. Phormio, in Terence, is a very honest person, nothing, or very little, stained with the other two vices.
Cacoëthes is a wicked villain, that wittingly and wilfully prepareth mischief."
Martin Luther. Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther
agtG
