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Daniel of Doulogos Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
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Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich

His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole

[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train

This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos

Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead

There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
 
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Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Engendered Truth
Imagine, if you will, a man who (after watching Peter Jackson's rendition of "the Lord of the Rings") so identifies with the elven character of Legolas, that he begins to believe himself to be an elf trapped in a human body.

Now imagine that this person is so obsessed with the notion that he was born an elf in a humans body, that he contracts a plastic surgeon to surgically alter his ears to resemble the (pointy) ears of a Tolkien elf.

Now imagine that after the successful surgery, his ears are pointy, and because he looks more like an elf than he used to, he begins to expect that everyone else has to agree with him, that he is now an elf. Perhaps he goes so far as to refuse to use "human" restrooms, and wants society to build "Elven" restrooms for himself.

Question: Is the man now an elf?

Question (the follow up): Is mankind obligated by either this man's "ear reassignment" surgery, or this man's own personal conviction that he is an elf, I say, is mankind obligated to agree with this man? Should mankind now think of this man as an elf?

My Opinion: Personally, I think the answer is no. No one becomes obligated to refer to another person as anything other than what they are, even if they have undergone surgery to make them look or (superficially) function otherwise.
posted by Daniel @ 10:35 AM   7 comment(s)
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
The citation for : have you no wish for others to be saved?
Hello Internet.

Here is a quote you have probably read before:

"Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that." - Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

You may also have seen it the quote prefixed to a larger paragraph, as though this were the paragraph from which the quote was lifted:

"Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that.The saving of souls, if a man has once gained love to perishing sinners and his blessed Master, will be an all-absorbing passion to him. It will so carry him away, that he will almost forget himself in the saving of others. He will be like the brave fireman, who cares not for the scorch or the heat, so that he may rescue the poor creature on whom true humanity has set its heart. If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for." - Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

As it turns out, this paragraph is a hash of three quotes, the above quote, and thoughts snipped out of two different Spurgeon sermons (numbers #284, and #349):

The saving of souls, if a man has once gained love to perishing sinners, and love to his blessed Master, will be an all-absorbing passion to him. It will so carry him away, that he will almost forget himself in the saving of others. He will be like the stout, brave fireman, who careth not for the scorch or for the heat, so that he may rescue the poor creature on whom true humanity hath set his heart. - Charles Spurgeon, One Antidote for Many Ills (Sermon #284, November 9, 1859, see: http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0284.htm)

"...if sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies; and if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay, and not madly to destroy themselves. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for." - Charles Spurgeon, The Wailing of Risca (sermon #349, December 9, 1860 see: http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0349.htm)

The original quote however is taken from a sermon preached by Spurgeon in 1888 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle entitled, "She was not Hid" (see: http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols34-36/chs2019.pdf) and is pulled from the following paragraph:

"But the confession had to be made for the sake of others. Do any of you wish to live unto yourselves? If you do, you need saving from selfishness. I have seen it brought as a charge against evangelical religion that we teach men to look to their own salvation first and that this is a kind of spiritual selfishness. Ah, but if that salvation means salvation from selfishness, where is the selfishness of it? It is a very material point in salvation to be saved from hardness of heart and carelessness about others. Do you want to go to Heaven alone? I fear you will never go there. Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that. What is the most natural plan to use for the salvation of others but to bear your own personal testimony?"

It took me a while to source that, so I figured it would probably be good to provide the citation here, should anyone else be looking to find it.

Grace and peace.
posted by Daniel @ 10:58 AM   8 comment(s)
 
 
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