{"id":683,"date":"2015-11-30T11:54:14","date_gmt":"2015-11-30T18:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/?p=683"},"modified":"2015-11-21T19:58:38","modified_gmt":"2015-11-22T02:58:38","slug":"spewing-vomit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/2015\/11\/30\/spewing-vomit\/","title":{"rendered":"Spewing Vomit"},"content":{"rendered":"

[From 2006 church newsletter]<\/p>\n

The other weekend, I personally experienced a most horrific sight.\u00a0 A commencement speaker for a graduating class suddenly and surprisingly threw-up on the audience!\u00a0 Vomited.\u00a0 Barfed.<\/p>\n

Of course, I do not mean physical sickness.\u00a0 I mean spiritual sickness.<\/p>\n

In Isaiah 64:6 describes sin as \u201cfilthy rags\u201d\u2014more precisely \u201cgarments of menstruation\u201d. Yes it is a repulsive thought; it should be.\u00a0 So, when I write about the verbal vomit\u2014the explicitly religious lies showered upon the graduates, families and friends\u2014I have biblical precedence.\u00a0 Isaiah 1:5 also relates sickness to the sin of rebellion.\u00a0 Overt false teachings from those in positions of authority and influence are especially sinful; therefore, they are a sickness as repulsive as \u201cfilthy rags\u201d.<\/p>\n

It is hard to know where to start since there was so much vaguely worded euphemisms and explicit denials of the uniqueness of Christianity.\u00a0 \u201cSpirituality\u201d\u2014that good-feeling of relationships with other people (or things?)\u2014was contrasted with \u201creligion\u201d\u2014that evil domain of \u201crules and regulations.\u201d\u00a0 He also advised the graduates to follow that \u201cinner voice\u201d we all have; they are to \u201cpractice\u201d using it because it gets better with use\u2014indeed, it becomes an unswerving guide to life against all advise from others!\u00a0 Naturally, the graduates were encouraged to \u201clook to themselves\u201d above all.\u00a0 And in good pagan fashion, they were admonished to find good friends\u2014not just everyday friends\u2014no, those friends that will \u201cnever judge you\u201d!\u00a0 And this is only a partial list.<\/p>\n

Why do I bother mentioning this? Were not the errors obvious?\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 It depends on the level of doctrinal and spiritual ability a Christian possesses. And it depends upon the level of zeal to recognize and avoid error. That is why immersion in the Word and prayer is important.\u00a0 When we realize how noxious sin and error is in the sight of God\u2014like Isaiah\u2014it should direct our expectations and passions accordingly.\u00a0 With this desire, we more readily recognize error.\u00a0 And protect our loved-ones.<\/p>\n

We should be sensitive to such errors and their level of harm (obviously some sins and doctrines are worse than others).\u00a0 And our children and young adults should be trained accordingly.\u00a0 Thus, we can avoid random sickness flying in our general direction.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[From 2006 church newsletter] The other weekend, I personally experienced<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[29,57],"class_list":["post-683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","tag-school","tag-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":685,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions\/685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}