Hi worm, (like your name by the by)
Appreciate your further comments here. I too have much the same sentiments percolating these days, our present state both in the moral decay in the world but more profoundly that which is diseased in the Body of our Lord ...
Mentioned my earlier experiences with this particular drug but thought I would share the outcome of the second go round. Was doing some work on the apartments where I live and had just got into a great heated argument with my wife over the very thing itself. In my anger and self-justification, stewing and likely being convicted simultaneously had climbed back up on a ladder that within a few moments had decided to collapse on me, sending me butt first to the pavement from a height of about 5 or 6 feet. In the spiral apparently put out my hand to brace and broke my wrist. It was [i]painful[/i] to say the least even under the heightened sense of effect of the speed itself, giving this quasi superman like quality that can feel little pain, similar to one long constant rush of adrenaline. I ended up literally crawling back into the apartment and unto the couch where I received a great deal of unwarranted sympathy after being so cross with the one that I loved.
Take it anyway you like and I am not one to attribute everything as a 'sign' from the Lord usually but it got my attention regardless. The next day I took the last of the bindle (what the druggies keep the powder in) and before my wife, opened it and spilled the remaining contents into the carpet. That was the end, rather the beginning of the end. It did help that there was some offset by the Vicodan for the still throbbing pain of the break to subsist in lessening the great draw that speed has on it's feeding for ever more and more fuel ... the coming off or withdrawal is something almost indescribable, it is the fact of that which keeps the addict in his addiction. Too painful and agonizing and far easier to be relieved by yet another feeding, a vicious, vicious circle.
But it would still be the weeks and months up ahead where the temptations would come on with a full head of steam, acquaintances and 'friends' always at the ready, still trapped asking, looking for sources of supply, that sort of thing. But even all this was different and while a particular battle all it's own, the pot was a even longer and more protracted battle after 20 plus odd years of daily usage. That was a ultimately spiritual battle that took many, many months to fight through, not in so called self will but in the self refutation, of truly giving up on completely different lines altogether. It was long and protracted. A death all it's own, one that the Lord was victor and conqueror over the man and the nature. Much, much more could be said.
I guess I am sharing all this to come along side you here while also trying to make something of a point as well. What I perceive far too often is that well meaning Christians can get all caught up in tactics and in trying to sort things into nice, neat and tidy categories. I keep hearing Paul's words here;
Rom 16:19 For your obedience has become known to everyone, and I am full of joy for you. But I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.
Surly he didn't mean ignorant and I believe he was attempting to foster that which we do find throughout scripture when it comes to meddling with things of this nature, this spirit. We don't need to know a lot of things and can end up with all kinds of notions by borrowing from scriptures and building whole cottage industries out of them. Don't we have that nowadays? "Deliverance" ministries and "Prophetic ministries", Healing ministries" and so on.
None of these things are in any way scriptural or even were actual with the Lord or the disciples as ideals or particular efforts, certainly in manifestations where they were warranted, but not as offices and constructs.
I realize that is not what you are saying and there is that recognition here that we can often be speaking in generalities to anyone happening upon these conversations, they are just expansions of thought.
Well said. Indeed it is true, what of the vast seemingly 'good' things out there, what is back of those as well? Not a pointed question just a furthering of the thought. Something I have been giving some musing to is the corruption of practically everything and how we can miss those because of their subtleties. As example, generally speaking the things that will alarm many Christians are the seemingly overt things. Rock music for instance, [i]It's of the devil![/i] Well you don't say! What about the sweet and sentimental, sensual aspects of Country Music or even "easy listening" ... harmless? Moreover and even greatly overlooked is Christian music itself ... but we have worn some deep grooves in that record in these parts.
You are correct, it is far deeper and more cynical and sinister than we even know.
Of course we don't warrant it, very much the reason we are in such need of it but I wonder if perhaps we are not seeing it as it historical is. Is revival not the great corrective? The breaking into this foul atmosphere of God Himself and always first into His own home to clean up by breaking down, bending us all to His will and desires? It must be first the church before anything else. This country and many others are reaping what they are sowing without a doubt. I am just as inclined to what this speaks as anyone;
"[i]God has revealed the coming judgment throughout the history of the human race. He revealed it in the Flood; He revealed it in the destruction of the Tower of Babel; He revealed it in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; He revealed it in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. And I believe He is revealing it in the wars of this twentieth century. We are making a mockery of our civilization, of our great advancement. The state of the world is a manifestation of the wrath of God. He has handed us over to evil. He is allowing us to stew in our own juice. He is withdrawing His restraining power in order to warn us to save ourselves from this “untoward generation,” in order to warn us to “flee from the wrath to come”[/i] (Matt. 3:7).
[url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&order=0&topic_id=17838&forum=34&post_id=&refresh=Go]Authentic Christianity[/url]
(Apologize for the continual repeating of this elsewhere, it just seems so prudent at the moment).
But I don't believe that the saints are to capitulate to a sense of abandonment either, that the gig is up and their is nothing left to do than to wait out the days. Again, not what you are forwarding perhaps at all but have heard similar sentiments expressed. If one was to really think about it, revival is the [i]last[/i] thing this nation would want it would be a full on collision with everything it holds dear both the world in it's ease and moreover the church in it's non-disturbance and comfortable stance not to offend anybody, especially itself.
