In reply to:
[color:"blue"]IMO, this is all one needs to consider to know if this is pleasing to God. Simple, eh?

[img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/yep.gif" alt="yep" title="yep[/img] Very simple indeed! [Linked Image] So, it would seem that you are saying that we don't need nobody to tell us 'bout nuttin. All we need is to "think" what we are doin' is pleasin' to God and it is, eh? [img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/scratch.gif" alt="scratch" title="scratch[/img]

Well, I sure hope this is NOT what you are suggesting. [img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/laugh.gif" alt="laugh" title="laugh[/img] First of all that text from Proverbs is teaching something entirely foreign to this idea. What it is saying that the very heart of man is expressed in his thoughts. Thus if a person thinks he is worshiping God through "Metalcore" or during a drug "high", etc., it reveals the doctrine of God that this person has. It is NOT saying that whatever you "think" is right, is right or any such novelty. [img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/wink.gif" alt="wink" title="wink[/img] In the N.T. the Lord Christ made a similar statement: Matthew 24:28 (KJV) "For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." In the not so distant past, there was a saying that went, "You can always tell a man by the clothes he wears." Now, granted, the uninspired adages can be poked full of holes to suit one's purposes if the heat is turned up. But the truth that all these sayings are conveying is that men will express themselves outwardly according to what they believe (think) inwardly. The doctrine of total depravity and conversely of regeneration teach the same truth..... man is able to choose and will only choose that which is most important to him at any particular moment. That is, the nature of man dictates what he will say and choose.

So, it isn't what a person's intention is that determines what some act truly is or in this particular issue, if it is glorifying to God or proper worship. A person can run around buck naked through the streets and adamantly declare that he is just communing with God in nature, etc.. [img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/drop.gif" alt="drop" title="drop[/img] We need an OBJECTIVE standard by which to judge ALL THINGS.... and that one standard is the Scriptures.

"Without absolutes revealed from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers." - John Owen (1616-1683)
In His Grace,


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simul iustus et peccator

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