Posted by Khew Chee Keong (202.166.126.231) on January 11, 2003 at 18:25:02:
Hi, Elder Yong. Had a nice discussion with a friend at work who is an atheist.
We spoke of the degrading of the character of man-kind as the world progresses.. Then came a topic that the character of man isn't very much degrading as compared to ancient times. He propose that man in the past ate human flesh in order to survive which is un-ethnical.
Now, man-kind realizes this and changes. Like to hear your views regarding this. Besides that, have in mind a few more questions:
1) Man-kind learn from history that they change for the better, is it true? How to explain the worsen situation that happen to the people of Israel? They had lots of histories of God who led and guide them, but from old Testament, we see that they do not change for the better, however.. Need God to rise up people, judges, prophets to constantly remind them..
2) Learn from history.., is it the only way we can prevent further mistakes made? It seems like man have to make mistakes first before he can improve. (related to my question asked earlier about 'Mistakes')
3) It is man original sin that has caused him to 'naturally' be inclined towards committing sin. We have to let the Word of God guide our thoughts and life in order to prevent sins made and God do uses our mistakes to teach us a lesson.
i) Heard from many talks that when we quiet our mind, we can hear God speaks to us.. Is this a soft prompting? When making a decision, sometimes we hear a voice or sub-conscious thought guiding us.. How sure are we that these are not our own emotions thoughts with our fallen reasoning inside and that these are from the Holy Spirit?
ii) And some other times, when we do our quiet time, we came across a verse in the Bible and the verse encountered seems to tally very much with the problems faced recently and very much likely, we may straight away concluded that God is speaking to us through His Word and it gives us comfort.
Problem is: Are the context, background applicable to us, now? Because many a times, the verse in the Bible is relating to the issue that happen in that time, e.g Paul's time or have some culture background within. Except for general lessons by the writer that can relate to any time of the world e.g. Romans 12:2, etc,
How can we prevent the case that we make the verse in Bible to 'suit' our situation we are in and use it to comfort ourselves esp. when one is spirtually down, we can be more vulnerable to mistakes?
Thks again for your patience in reading. Take Care.
God Bless,
zhiqiang