1. R
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    23 Jun '18 08:005 edits
    Stumbling other humble seekers of Christ is seriously warned against.

    "He therefore who will humble himself like this little child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of the heavens.

    And whoever receives one such little child because of My name, receives Me.

    And whoever stumbles one such little child who believes into Me, it is more profitable for him that a great millstone be hung around his neck and he be drowned in the open sea.

    Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! For it is necessary for stumbling blocks to come, but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes, " (Matt. 18:4-7)


    An eternally saved person may be so severely punished in the kingdom age for his stumbling another Christian. I may think a fellow believer is child like in my hands and easy to put down. If I stumble one when I come before Christ it could be very serious.

    Such an unrepentant Christian might prefer that he had been attached to a huge stone and the stone dropped into the sea rather than face the discipline Jesus might have for him.

    Discuss.
  2. R
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    23 Jun '18 08:064 edits
    "
    And whoever stumbles one such little child who believes into Me, it is more profitable for him that a great millstone be hung around his neck and he be drowned in the open sea.

    Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! For it is necessary for stumbling blocks to come, but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes, " (Matt. 18:6,7)


    Jesus says it is necessary that His disciple endure stumbling, obstacles and offenses. This will help them to grow. They MUST live by the Spirit of Christ and deny their natural reactions. This is unavoidable.

    But WOE to the man through whom such offences might come. The warning includes those who are Christians.

    If you carelessly stumble a fellow Christian thinking he is childlike in his following of Jesus, unable to defend himself, vulnerable, you may boast in yourself now. But the day will come, if you do not repent, that it would be more profitable for you to have been drowned in the sea without a proper grave, with a heavy stone hung around your neck then to face the discipline that Jesus is prepared to give you.

    Discussion?
  3. R
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    23 Jun '18 08:20
    The previous warning about Christians stumbling other Christians. Then Jesus speaks of the seriousness of a Christian even stumbling himself.

    " If your hand or your foot stumbles you, cut it off and cast it from you; it is better for you to enter into life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire." (Matt. 18:8)


    In the time of reward and punishment for the millennial kingdom, some Christians who did not have a serious dealing with the stumbling of themselves because of where the feet took them or what their hands did, will be cast into the eternal fire.

    The fire is eternal. It does not say they are in the eternal fire for eternity. But Jesus will let some of us FEEL what it is like to go to the eternal fire because there was not a desperate disassociation with the sinful actions the members of their body carried out.
  4. R
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    23 Jun '18 08:332 edits
    " If your hand or your foot stumbles you, cut it off and cast it from you; it is better for you to enter into life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire." (Matt. 18:8)


    The warning is that the Christians should be serious to be freed from the sinning. You have to deal with the innermost motive of your sin at all costs. This teaching forces us to avail ourselves of Christ's grace with great seriousness.

    Your hand causes you to sin? Cut it off.
    Your foot causes you to go into sin? Cut it off.

    We have to speak to a experienced disciple like the Apostle Paul to get what this means. He pioneered into a life fully by Christ living in him.

    Paul said that by the Spirit we have to put to death the practices of the body. Jesus therefore did not necessarily mean to amputate your foot or your hand, which would not really do any good anyway.

    But as Paul pioneered into overcoming, he utilized the Holy Spirit to cut of the sinful tendencies in his members.

    " For if you live according to the flesh you must die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body, you will live." (Rom. 8:13)


    It is so serious that the Christian learn to walk by the Holy Spirit and put to death the stumbling practices of the body. This is the true way to cut off the sinful foot or the sinning hand.

    Some Christians may find out that such un-dealt with failure in the church age will result in being hurt by the second death in the kingdom age.

    " .. it is better for you enter into life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire." (v.8b)
  5. R
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    23 Jun '18 08:40
    To stumble other Christians is serious. Even to stumble yourself as a Christian is serious.

    Where do feet take you? You won't repent of the places you go?
    What does your hand do? You won't repent of what sins your hand causes you to sin?

    I need to learn to use the Holy Spirit to put to death the practices of the body. Paul pioneered into the victorious Christian life. He knew how to enjoy Christ's empowering to overcome the sinning members of the body.

    What about our EYES Christian brother or sister ?

    " And if your eye stumbles you, pluck it out and cast it from you;

    it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be cast into the Gehenna of fire." (v.9)
  6. R
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    23 Jun '18 08:531 edit
    Matthew 18:8 mentions thrown into the "eternal fire."

    Verse 9 changes it to "the Gehenna of fire" .

    So we know that the city dump outside of Jerusalem, where garbage and corpses were burned with other refuse was uses by Jesus as a symbol for eternal punishment.

    If the Christian's body members stumble him into sinning, whether feet or hands or eye, it is better for him to deal with the motive of such a sin down to the root, by the Spirit of God than to arrive before Jesus with incomplete dealings.

    Some of us Christians may be made to taste what it is like to be in the Gehenna of fire, the eternal fire for a period of time.

    There is this possibility. And if you stumble a meek and humble follower of Jesus. seemingly childlike to you in his faith, watch out. If you do not learn to repent and avoid stumbling other believers when you meet Jesus you may prefer that a heavy stone had been fastened to your neck and you be tossed into the sea in an ignoble way than to face His disciplinary dealing.

    Are you beginning to see how seriously we need to take being set free by the Spirit of Christ ?

    Okay. Discuss.
  7. Joined
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    23 Jun '18 09:034 edits
    Originally posted by @sonship
    If I choose not to with you that does not constitute a blog,
    So your comment (copied in below) was a specific jibe at me? A sort of preemptive insult in anticipation of possibly being challenged in debate? Well don’t worry I have no interest in your personal blog of copying ideas by Witness Lee.

    Posted by sonship
    There will be discussion, I promise, But not endless arguing with the narcissistic manipulators.
  8. R
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    23 Jun '18 09:11
    Anybody who wants to discuss something with divegeester, go ahead.
  9. R
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    23 Jun '18 09:301 edit
    It must be that using the Holy Spirit to deal with the motive of such sinful living is meant.

    If you cut off your sinning foot you still may travel to some evil place on crutches, or by car, or some other way. So it must not be that Jesus literally means to amputate the foot.

    If your left hand is prone to gambling and you cut it off you can still gamble with your other hand.

    But Paul stressed that the Christian has to SEE, to really SEE in faith that he has been crucified and buried with Christ and raised with Him to walk in newness of life.

    "What then shall we say? Should we continue in sin that grace may abound?
    Absolutely not We who have died to sin how shall we still live in it?

    Or are you ignorant that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? (Rom. 6;1-3)


    It is serious that the Christian go to God and ask Him to show him.
    We have to ask God to save us from ignorance. We have to ask God to open our eyes to really see what we have in Christ.

    Paul said "Are you ignorant?" .

    To cut off the sinful member of our body we need to see the power of the terminating death of Christ that is in the Holy Spirit and learn by faith to APPLY it.

    But I don't want to get into Romans 6 - 8 that much now. I have a desire to show how serious incomplete dealings with our lives may be when we meet Jesus.

    The scope of the following warning is wider than we know. It includes a wide scope of ways Christ can save us yet still cause us not only to lose a reward but to suffer loss.

    "If anyone's work is consumed, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire." (1 Cor. 3:15)


    There is room enough in this warning to INCLUDE the extreme end of things. Some Christians SAVED may be hurt of the second death, cast into the eternal fire temporarily, and put in the Gehenna of fire temporarily.

    This is the furthest pole of the negative chastisement that may await a Christian in the beginning of the next kingdom age.
  10. SubscriberSuzianne
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    23 Jun '18 11:12
    Originally posted by @divegeester
    So your comment (copied in below) was a specific jibe at me? A sort of preemptive insult in anticipation of possibly being challenged in debate? Well don’t worry I have no interest in your personal blog of copying ideas by Witness Lee.

    [b]Posted by sonship

    There will be discussion, I promise, But not endless arguing with the narcissistic manipulators.[/b]
    Because naturally everything, everything in this entire forum, is about you. This is how you always act, and that's why you often rebut people. You think that they think everything is about you, too.

    He was trying to be tactful and speak to someone who already interrupted him without calling him by name, but you and your grand narcissism thought that he HAD to be talking about you. At the point where sonship said the words you quoted, only one person had interrupted him, and that person was not you. Believe it or not, not everyone has thoughts of you foremost in their head whenever they speak, unlike you.
  11. Standard memberSecondSon
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    23 Jun '18 22:58
    Originally posted by @karoly-aczel
    So It's a win/win?
    Only when you're off your meds.
  12. R
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    24 Jun '18 01:131 edit
    So we saw that for a Christian to stumble a fellow Christian can be serious in its consequences. We saw that for a Christian even to stumble himself can also be serious in its consequences. Both are serious and grave.

    The Christian cannot leave his lust unchecked.
    He may be saved forever. But the God wants us to avail ourselves of the Spirit of Christ with such a seriousness that we would not tolerate our besetting weakness to defeat us.

    Some Christians who do not realize the seriousness of incomplete consecration may be put into the fire of Gehenna. This will not be forever. It will be for some period of time.

    Jesus says it would be better to enter into life missing a hand or missing a foot or missing an eye than to retain them and be so punished.

    The motive of our sinning must be dealt with with utter seriousness.

    If we realize that we cannot make it it will drive us deeper into dependency upon Jesus Christ. He can overcome for us within us. But we have to call on Him and abide in Him.

    And we better be merciful to others. If we are strict and exacting towards others but loose and tolerant towards our own failures, we are for a stricter examination before Christ with stricter punishment.

    For the kingdom of the heavens it is better to be accomodating towards others and strict towards yourself to seriously depend on Christ.
  13. R
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    24 Jun '18 01:413 edits
    In Matthew 5:21-22 Christ teaches another serious lesson about consequences to the saved.

    "You have heard that it was said to the ancients, You shall not murder and whoever murders shall be liable to the judgment.

    But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to the judgment.

    And whoever says to his brother, Raca, shall be liable to the judgment of the Sanhedrin;

    And whoever says, Moreh, shall be liable to the Gehenna of fire." (Matt. 5:21-22)


    Some Christian teachers will tell you "Oh this is just tough talk for the Jews." Don't you believe that. We Christians cannot say everything hard in the New Testament was meant for the Jews and everything easy was meant for the Christians.

    When I lose my temper with someone, especially a brother in Christ, and call him a name which amounts to "Raca" or "Moreh' sometimes I fear. God's record is infallible. Though I know I am redeemed forever the kingdom to come is strict in its requirement of the highest level of morality.

    "Raca" i am told is equivalent to "good for nothing!"

    "Moreh" is equivalent to "fool!".

    Paul used some strong rebukes in the New Testament. But it is not easy to speak this way with a pure motive. If you lash out to a brother in Christ in anger you have to be careful not to go too far.

    I don't want to be brought to the edge of the eternal fire for calling a Christian brother - "Moreh!" . I would not be able to stand the punishment.
  14. R
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    24 Jun '18 01:451 edit
    Look again.

    " ... and whoever says, Moreh, shall be liable to the Gehenna of fire."


    Once Sealed Always Sealed yet liable to the Gehenna of fire.

    Once Save Always Saved yet liable to the Gehenna of fire.

    This is in the same book which says by grace we have been saved through faith and that it is the GIFTS of God. Same book.

    How can one whom Jesus comes back for and resurrects and glorifies his body and perhaps raptures him make him liable to the Gehenna of fire for failing to realize the seriousness of name calling?

    Some of the answers to this I do not know too well. Maybe I don't know how to explain it.

    But it says what it says. And the one who spoke about the GIFT of God is eternal life also said he and his co-workers knew the fear of the Lord. They labored to present the Christians under their care full grown in Christ.

    Second Corinthians 5:11

    Berean Literal Bible
    Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men. And we have been made manifest to God, and I hope to have been made manifest in your consciences also.

    New American Standard Bible
    Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God; and I hope that we are made manifest also in your consciences.

    King James Bible
    Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.

    Christian Standard Bible
    Therefore, since we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade people. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your consciences.


    "Christ in you the hope of glory ... Whom we announce, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man full-grown in Christ." (See Col. 1:27-29)
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    24 Jun '18 01:571 edit
    Originally posted by @sonship
    Stumbling other humble seekers of Christ is seriously warned against.

    [quote] [b]"He therefore who will humble himself like this little child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of the heavens.

    And whoever receives one such little child because of My name, receives Me.

    And whoever stumbles one such little child who believes into Me, it is [i]more[/ ...[text shortened]... stone dropped into the sea rather than face the discipline Jesus might have for him.

    Discuss.
    “Discuss.”

    This means to Christians here, if they shake another Christian’s budding faith, they had dam well better make sure they are right to do so. Otherwise, leave it to someone else to stumble them.
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