4/28 – Wow where did the month go. This post and artwork by Elizabeth Prata caught my eye this morning. Follow this simple truth and read the short post Satan is a good counterfeiter.
4/7 – One of the sites I follow posted a Mike Ratliff 2019 post which if from John 6 one of my favorite chapters of the Bible. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.
4/4 – Clint Archer has a good post: Trial & Denial: Are You Ashamed of Christ?
Verses that come to mind are:
Matthew 5:10-12 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. 12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Romans 1:16-17 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
Btw there are two chapters in Wylie’s History of Protestantism Vol3 on Bloody Mary, well worth finding and reading. Here is an extract with more detail on Cramer that Archer referred to.
Cranmer still lived, but he was a too conspicuous member of the Protestant host, and had acted a too prominent part under two monarchs, not to be marked out for the stake. But before receiving the crown of martyrdom, that lofty head was first to be bowed low in humiliation. His enemies had plotted to disgrace him before leading him to the stake, lest the glory of such a victim should exalt the cause for which he was about to be offered in sacrifice. The archbishop was removed from the prison to the house of the Dean of Christ Church. Crafty men came about him; they treated him with respect, professed great kindness, were desirous of prolonging his life for future service, hinted at a quiet retirement in the country. The Pope’s supremacy was again the law of the land, they said, and it was no great matter to promise submission to the law in this respect, and “to take the Pope for chief head of this Church of England, so far as the laws of God, and the laws and customs of this realm, will permit.” He might himself dictate the words of this submission. The man who had stood erect amid the storms of Henry VIII’s time, and had oftener than once ignored the wishes and threatenings of that wayward monarch and followed the path of duty, fell by the arts of these seducers. He signed the submission demanded of him. The queen and Cardinal Pole were overjoyed at the fall of the archbishop. His recantation would do more than all the stakes to suppress the Reformation in England. None the less did they adhere steadfastly to their purpose of burning him, though they carefully concealed their intentions from himself. On the morning of the 21st of March, 1556, they led him out of prison and preceded by the mayor and alderman, and a Spanish friar on either side of him, chanting penitential psalms, they conducted him to St. Mary’s Church, there to make his recantation in public. The archbishop, having already felt the fires that consume the soul, dreaded the less those that consume the body, and suspecting what his enemies meditated, had made his resolve. He walked onward, the noblest of all the victims, his conductors thought, whom they had yet immolated. The procession entered the church, the friars hymning the prayer of Simeon. They placed Cranmer on a stage before the pulpit. There, in the “garments and ornaments” of an archbishop, “only in mockery everything was of canvas and old clouts,”7 sat the man who had lately been the first subject of the realm, “an image of sorrow, the dolour of his heart bursting out at his eyes in tears.” Dr. Cole preached the usual sermon, and when it was ended, he exhorted the archbishop to clear himself of all suspicion of heresy by making a public confession. “I will do it,” said Cranmer, “and that with a good will.” On this he rose up, and addressed the vast concourse, declaring his abhorrence of the Romish doctrines, and expressing his steadfast adherence to the Protestant faith. “And now,” said he, “I come to the great thing that so much troubleth my conscience, more than anything that ever I did or said in my whole life.” He then solemnly revoked his recantation, adding, “Forasmuch as my hand offended, writing contrary to my heart, my hand shall first be punished therefore for may I come to the fire, it shall be first burned.”
4/3 – Mike Ratliff has this early post with timely advice from Luther 500 years ago.
They aren’t godly enough to take the time to compare these verses with others. Instead, they take a verse here and a verse there. They pounce on a couple of words and distort them in order to obscure what the Bible means. If it were valid to tear one or two words from the text and forget about the rest, then I also could twist Scripture any way that I wanted.
But this is the correct way to approach Scripture: look at the entire passage; look at what comes before and after the verse. In this case, you will find that Christ speaks both as God and as man. This is powerful proof that Jesus is both true man and true God, as our teaching and faith hold. How can we explain that Jesus speaks as God and as man at the same time? He can speak either way, because he possesses both divine and human natures. If Jesus spoke everywhere as God, no one could prove that he was a true man. If he spoke as a man all the time, no one would know that he is also true God.
From Faith Alone A Daily Devotional
Rainbow Trout 