Ten Righteous Men
In Genesis, Abraham bargains with the Creator for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the end, the Creator tells Abraham to gather Lot (His brother) and as many of his family etc they can get, and get out of dodge, so to speak.
Regardless of the intent of the Creator toward the people who surround us, it’s probably a good idea to be one of the righteous.
You have to think about what this means; it doesn’t mean to be a sheep, or a pacifist, or a bible thumping self righteous ass. Abraham himself was commanded by the Lord to make war against Amalek.(Pascal reminds me that this is not true, it was lots captors and the raiders of Sodom, Gommorah, and Zoar that Abe went to war with) Lot himself had incestuous relations with his daughters. The Lords idea of righteousness is different from what Pat Robertson or Perry Stone says it is.
Be righteous. Not Self righteous. Be prepared. Be one of the saved, and not one of the lost. Be worth saving.
33 comments Og | Uncategorized
“The Lords idea of righteousness is different from what Pat Robertson or Perry Stone says it is.”
Yea. We all have flaws, some flaws worse than others. I agree, the Good Lord is less concerned with who you are right now and more concerned with the direction you are headed.
Thats tough for us to perceive when we look at the static experiences of reputation (what people have done) versus the dynamic vectoral of where we are going (what people truly want to become and why)
I’ve known people who have started out with a very solid set of ideals, habits and discipline and ended their lifes journey with a very dusty death.
Some people do not improve with age, nor do they grow wiser. Quite the opposite infact.
I think your point regarding Lot’s incest with his daughters is rather misleading.
The statement regarding the ten righteous men occurs in Genesis 18:32.
Lot’s incest with his daughters occurs after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, in Genesis 19:30-36. Additionally, the daughters got their father drunk; it is specifically stated that Lot was not aware of the incident.
I agree it is important to be righteous, not self-righteous. Lot was not a righteous man despite the incest. The incest had not occurred at that point in time.
God bless!
I think a better wording would be “don’t be self-righteous, be *in God’s righteousness*”. No human being can ever be *worth* saving; our part is to recognize that fact, which is where surrender comes in. Our righteousness is actually God’s righteousness, bestowed on us as an inheritance when we give ourselves over as slaves to Christ. Live completely in the Spirit, and you will be righteous without having to think about it.
That’s the goal, anyway. The “Christian journey” is the slow-but-sure process of getting there.
Joanna: Exactlyu- but I’m not talking about being saved by the Creator, as will eventually become clear.
Wayne: Nobody held Lot down and poured alcohol into him. A temperate man would not have allowed himself to be seduced- not that the daughters are blameless, but the point of the post was to make the point that even Lot, a “Righteous man” was not simon pure. Shit, he was not only willing but anxious to throw his virginal daughters to a mob of apparent perverts to save his skin and the skin of his “visitors”.
All of this goes to the point of: “”As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
You think you know what God expects of you? You don’t. You cannot.
Og:
I will grant your point regarding Lot’s lack of temperance. It is still salient that this occurred AFTER he was described as a righteous man.
I am also quite willing to concede your point regarding his “high esteem” for his daughters’ honor.
Both of the above points are good, especially the latter. I would have recommended using it in lieu of the one you chose.
God bless!
it isn’t lot’s temperance or lack thereof that is in question, his consistency is at issue but still not my point.
I realize this is kind of unfair but this post is really not meant to be a post about the Creator at all, and an upcoming post will explain more. I do understand the biblical references, and you’re correct as far as timeline is concerned, but again, not the point, which I promise I will eventually GET TO. Apologies for being deliberately obtuse.
Apropos Perry Stone- recently I came across a blog entry where the writer was adamant that we Catholics pray to Mary and to the saints. I’ve never been taught to do this. Anyone else get that line?
No. It’s fundamentalist propaganda designed to demonize Catholics. I hear it all over the place- ‘Mary worshippers!!!” To which I respond “Dumbasses!”
Another common one is “Praying to saints is like having a seance which is EVIL!!!!ONE11!!”. Apparently it’s OK to ask your asshole brother Ernie to pray for you, but not to ask the Mother of God to pray for you, or St Frances of Assisi, possibly one of the holiest men alive, to pray for you. Idiots.
I would be curious to hear God’s conversation with Jack Chick, when the time comes.
I would be curious to hear God’s conversation with Jack Chick, when the time comes.
I can’t snark about this. It would probably be one of the most heartbreaking things you’d ever hear.
Part of the problem is that many Protestants also believe that there is no immediate judgment, that we all “hang out” or whatever awaiting the General Judgment at the end of time, so those who died before us cannot intercede anyway. Then again they think I’m anathema for the idolatry of worshiping a cookie that I believe becomes the body, blood, spirit, and divinity of Jesus once its consecrated, so if we RC’s, Orthodox, and Copts all got it wrong, one nice thing about hell will be all the company I’ll have. But I’ve seen some Protestants do more with the one or two Sacraments they have in righteousness vs. some Catholics with the full slew of 7.
I’m a simple dummy, so don’t go by me, but I think God sees a total difference between someone who falls 1000 times and still tries to steer himself right, vs. someone who tries to insist that his way is not only not wrong, but a preferred way to do things, making a virtue out of a vice. That not only goes for mainstreaming all sorts of sexual practices as a healthy alternative equal to the norm (oops can’t call anything a norm anymore, either), but filth in culture like cussing and an excruciating attention to anatomic detail in violence (as hard as Hitchcock’s films were, you never saw the act) in the name of “keeping it real” and being genuine to how reality is, making family dirty laundry a worthy thing for public exhibition on TV, the mom & dad family being the minority, people marrying for 5-10 years and then swapping out for another spouse, trading in for a new model, etc.
I never was this serious, but since 2006 have been “taking stock” in what IS, and how to be ready. The way birds and animals all go quiet and sequester themselves away right before a tornado. I really think we are in a “Europe 1938” state of being, the last bit of down time before a big ole Reckoning.
“I can’t snark about this. It would probably be one of the most heartbreaking things you’d ever hear. ”
lol. Bring it. Or better yet, feature it on your blog. The Chicksters are some amazing people.
Most interesting post, Og, and comments too. I’ll be looking for your continuation, with anticipation.
Thanks for this.
” I really think we are in a “Europe 1938″ state of being, the last bit of down time before a big ole Reckoning. ”
Aye.
Things are gettting really out of whack so there are a variety of different ways the engine of civilization will break. I wonder what will be the form of this Reckoning.
Maybe it will be in the form of the Stay-Puff Marshmellow Man. :)
Stay-Puff Marshmellow Man:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JVkonHpxKk#t=15s
Well, It sure beats a 50 foot tall George Soros.
Heh.
Be worth saving.
Now, a religious pedant would go nuclear on you for that!
However, it is a point to ponder. None of us can ever be worth saving, but since we have been saved, so to speak, how ought we live? As someone worth the effort. It is a small juxtaposition of faith and works, of imputed righteousness and implied obligation under same.
It makes for a good meditation, where ever else you go with this.
“Now, a religious pedant would go nuclear on you for that!”
Indeed! Mostly because that imbecile Calvin got so many people “believing” that Salvation is a destination, and not a journey.
John 3:16 is the ticket, folks. You can accept it, and have it in your hand, but unless you get on the bus, you ain’t going nowhere.
lol. Bring it. Or better yet, feature it on your blog. The Chicksters are some amazing people.
Heh. Much as I’d like to snark snark snark all the way to snarkytown, like I said, I just can’t. Imagine a loving parent who is deeply, deeply disappointed in his child, not in an angry way but in an “oh, how I wish you’d listen so I could bless you” way, and then amp that up to, say, INFINITY. And the child just. Won’t. Listen. Like I said: Heartbreaking.
Oh, lord, that made me giggle.
I wouldn’t claim Jack Chick as a child, if I were his mother. Jack Chick is who God sent to show us how NOT to be Christians.
And yet God claims him. I’m not trying to be saccharine here. It genuinely makes me sad.
Debbie Downer mode: off.
LOL!
Damn, let me know that private number you have to the Almighty. I never once heard God claim Jack Chick, only those who are willing to walk the walk and talk the talk, which Chick clearly does not. If God claims Jack Chick I’m anxious to welcome eternal damnation.
Hmmmm… Jack Chick… it sounds like a rather sad story between you and him, Joanna.
Though I really do not know what went on, I do think it important to say this counter-balance to your sorrow:
Good people for whatever their logic or reasoning, do wrong things. Even (gasp) Christian people or people who call themselves Christian and yet in their hearts are not, etc…
Its a fact of life.
I am sure that, if there is a heaven where we have eyes to see like here on earth, you will notice people there who you thought would not be there (and vice-versa). That would certainly be the final test of your soul entering eternity – that is certain.
Afterall, G-d is the final judge of our souls.
I don’t know what Jack has done or why, but I thought I would at least say this as you had loved him very much at one time. I would think that your love for him would count for something: you must have seen something within him that was worthy.
Og is aware I was disappointed that he brought up the incest event that was subsequent to Lot being given a ticket out of Sodom. I had said that my view on what would trigger Armageddon is informed by the 10 righteous man standard, and then he thought of a direction for which this was only the beginning.
But since he DID bring up the incest, and since he and others hold the incest against Lot’s virtue, I gotta ask then to consider this: Was Lot’s act really an error or the wish of God Himself? If you realize whom was descended from Moab, one of the children of those two incests, then those who were ready to condemn Lot ought maybe ought to reconsider. It’s doubly ironic too due to one of the other issues that arose in this thread. :)
If this was the direction in which were going Og, then I apologize for stepping on your punchline.
Was Lot’s act really an error or the wish of God Himself?
We may know that someday, but until then, all is conjecture.
Given subsequent, Godly world changing events, I think we already know — in our hearts at least.
Well, we can think we know. never forget isaiah 55
God gave us minds approaching His so that we can detect HOW the moral relativists — who’ve done so much damage — are only taking advantage of the paradoxes life introduces into dilemmas that face us. Moral absolutes are absolute until circumstances occur that put them in conflict, at which point one absolute beats out the other. There are times we must judge, hence the task of judges and juries. And there are times we need to be less cocksure. Just at there are understandings He gives some more than others so that we often seek those people out, He also expects us NOT to heed those very same people in other aspects and in differing times. A great man, seeing he is great, may come to expect we’ll believe it’s only rain when he pees in our ear — Donald Trump for instance, or Newt Gingrich.
Okay, I think I’ve been seriously misunderstood here.
— When I said God claims Jack Chick, I meant that in the “We’re all God’s children” way, not in the “Well done, son” way.
— When I imagine him facing God, I picture someone who goes on and on about all the “good” he thinks he did, and then God shaking his head sadly and saying, “Sorry, but that’s not quite what I meant. Stop bothering the sheep and go over there with the goats, now.”
Cond: What the hell are you talking about? If you’re referring to Jack-my-ex, that’s a completely different Jack. (Although he did end up putting the Jack in Jackass.) Jack Chick writes ridiculous evangelical pamphlets. Look him up on the Googles; you laugh until after a while it stops being funny because it’s just. So. Stupid.
Sheesh. I thought y’all knew me better than that.
I’m yanking your chain, Joanna.
if Jack Chick is one of God’s, I’d hate to see the rejects.
Heh. It’s really hard to tell with you, sometimes.
Jack Chick reminds me of the guy who loudly proclaims he does everything the boss tells him, except he never bothers to listen to the instructions to the end, so he ends up causing a mess of trouble and getting fired (like, recently, my horrible superviser, mwa ha ha). He’d get along well with my sister and my brother-in-law.
Have you seen any of the Jack Chick parody stuff? it’s magically delicious.
Inside voice please, Joanna.
Thanks!
Cond,
This is my icy stare of death. It’s telling you that you are not my mother, nor are you the proprietor of this establishment. Those are the only people on this planet, at any given time, who are allowed to hush me.
It’s also telling you that you don’t know me anything like as well as you seem to think you do.
Understood, Joanna.