For What Do We Have to ENVY Them?

By Jason Lovelace

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This article is a response to They ENVY Us

http://in-reason-i-trust.xanga.com/729686136/they-envy-us/

 

In response to In_Reason_I_Trust  

http://in-reason-i-trust.xanga.com, I’d like to ask a few questions.  First being in my mind is this:

 

Why should I be Envious of NOTHING?

 

After all, what do Agnostics base their beliefs on?  Nothing.  What kind of hope for the future do agnostics have?  Nothing.  What kind of eternal hope do agnostics have?  Nothing.  When agnostics come and stand before a Holy God to be judged, what will they have to defend themselves?  Nothing.

 

In all honesty, when we get right down to it, what do agnostics like In_Reason_I_Trust (IRIT) have to offer?  What do we Christians and believers have to be envious of? 

 

The answer is:  NOTHING.

 

So, please, someone refresh my memory:  Why, again, should I be envious of an agnostic?

 

As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour, and on whom I have based my life, both now and eternally, I have no need to be envious of anyone who claims to be an agnostic (really, all atheists are agnostics), whether this agnostic has a billion dollars, or that agnostic can (and probably does) have sex with whomever s/he wishes, or this agnostic over here has access to every single car type on the planet.  Why?  Simply because the things of this world are passing away…

 

IRIT states that Christians (yes, IRIT does talk about religion in general, but his photographs and cartoons make it plain who he’s trying to needle) have no fun, and are missing out on the fun of sex.  But are we really?  And, if we are all honest with ourselves, what are Christians REALLY missing out on when we abstain from sexual sin and choose to wait for marriage?  Let’s keep in mind that agnostics such as IRIT have absolutely nothing – yes, NOTHING – to offer, especially when we are talking about things greater and deeper than this world and all its baubles and attractions.  Let’s be honest, folks:  what truly lasts in this world?  Looks?  Everybody grows old and loses their youthful beauty.  Money?  Money is as fickle as a person’s feelings.  Gold and jewels?  All of them are basically fuel for the fire.  Love?  If we’re talking about the world’s idea of love, that’s even more fickle than money!  What is truly lasting?

 

Nothing.

 

So this is the first question I have for IRIT:  Why should we be envious of agnostics, Pagans, and Satanists?  When we see that ultimately, these people have nothing  to base their hopes and futures on, why, really should one such as myself be envious?

 

Hedonistic pleasure leads to messed up minds.  Emotional and physical attachments are hard to break, and even someone as callous and cold as IRIT states he is (albeit in this article indirectly) has some affect in their lives.  We forget, too, that such hedonism brings about diseases such as AIDS, Gonorrhea, Syphilis, Herpes, Genital Warts, all of which are completely, or have modern strains that are, incurable.  Again, what do I have to be envious of?  What was it gain that IRIT stated that Christians have to be envious of?

 

I’ll say it:  NOTHING.

 

IRIT also states in this article that Christians are imprisoned.  How so?  Why is it that hedonists, agnostics, lovers of self, Pagans, and Satanists are allegedly free, yet someone such as myself is bound?  By what am I bound?  By my Christian Beliefs?  By the Bible?  By Jesus Christ?  How can IRIT’s words be reconciled to the following:

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

– John 8.32

 

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

– Galatians 5.1

 

“If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

– John 8.34

 

“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.”

– Galatians 5.13

Now if IRIT and those who believe as he does think that we, Christians and followers of Jesus Christ, are enslaved and imprisoned, how is it that Jesus and Paul both state clearly that we are free?  The simple fact is that IRIT and people like him who choose to do the will of themselves are, essentially, enslaved to themselves, their desires, and their pleasures.  Here is what the Lord Jesus says concerning living the hedonistic lifestyle in any form:

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, ‘Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.’”

– John 8.34

Right here Jesus is saying that those who live in sin (as IRIT boasts of, and as do those who regularly post agreements on his site) are enslaved to it.  What is the end of slavery to sin?

“For the wages of sin is death…”

– Romans 6.23

 

“…sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”

– James 1.15

Excuse me, what, again, did IRIT say with a lot of clarity that I have to be envious of concerning him and those that live like him?  What, really, imprisons a Christian?

 

Oh…that’s right:  NOTHING!  Or wait, I’m supposed to be envious that IRIT and his like are courting…..death? 

 

Hmmmmm….that doesn’t seem to be a lot of which to be envious.

 

You see, folks, God gets right down to the nitty-gritty; he cuts to the quick:

^“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.  For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.  And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

– Galatians 6.7~9

What IRIT fails to believe and read in the Bible is that God promises that those who sow to themselves, who sow to the flesh will reap corruption. 

 

So I ask again:  what enslaves us Christians?  What keeps us imprisoned?

 

I ask because the Bible seems to say that sin enslaves….but living by the fruit of the Spirit, having God as a guide, and having Jesus living inside is what freedom is all about.

 

And what is this freedom?

·          Freedom from an eternity of torment and spiritual death and separation from God (see Revelation 20).

·          Freedom from sin and the enslaving tangles of sin in this life (Hebrews 12.1)

·          Freedom from guilt and the past (Psalm 103.12)

·          Freedom form the clutches and enslavement of the Devil (so much for Satanism [John 8.32~36])

·          Freedom from religion which is full of more rules than simply following Christ (Jesus sets out two, and only two, rules by which we are to live, and on which everything else in the Bible is based:  Matthew 22.37~39; Mark 12.29~31; Luke 10.27)

·          Freedom from Darkness (See John chapters 1 and 3)

·          Freedom from Spiritual Blindness (see John 9)

·          Freedom from Eternal Death (See John 11)

What is it, again, that IRIT offers, that is freeing as this?  What part of believing in Christ is enslaving?

 

Again, of what do I have to be envious of IRIT and other agnostics?

 

Oh…..that’s right:

 

NOTHING

 

Remember, Folks, when there is nothing to offer, nothing given as an alternative to the Everlasting, we have nothing to be envious of!!!!