Monday, August 26, 2019

Is It Sin To Call Upon Men To Know The Lord?

In my last posting I called or invited all to know the Lord. Let me give this homily on that subject, beginning with a citation from a leading Hardshell apologist and debater of the 19th century.

Wrote Elder Lemuel Potter:

"If any man claims to be teaching men to know the Lord, I want him to show me his authority for it. The commission does not say any thing about teaching men to know the Lord. Aquila and Priscilla taught the way of the Lord more perfectly to Apollos, but they did not teach him to know the Lord. The New Testament says, “Thou shalt not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, to know the Lord for all shall know him, from the least unto the greatest,” and it has never contradicted it, and as it says that, and not one syllable of authority to any man to go about teaching sinners to know the Lord, I want to know why that does not look like it belongs to the new dispensation—the new covenant. I would as soon a brother would say he could impart eternal life as to say he could teach men to know the Lord." (Debate on Foreign Missions-Chapter 14 - MR. POTTER’S SEVENTH SPEECH) Potter - Yates Debate (See HERE for the rest of the citation)

First, of all, it is sin NOT to teach men to know the Lord and to love and fear him, and to believe all that he has communicated to men. Therefore, in not teaching men to know the Lord, it is the Hardshell who is sinning.

So, who is sinning, the Hardshells or I?

What Hardshell wants to come and discuss it? To be sure, one of us is sinning in this regard! Either I am sinning in telling men to know the Lord (PB position) or the Hardshells are sinning in not doing so.

What think ye? Important question to know the truth concerning, hey?

Also, answer this question: does regeneration bring one into a knowledge of the one true and living God, and of the Lord Jesus? If not, then the above passage about coming to know the Lord cannot be regeneration, right? But, if not regeneration, then it must be a conversion experience. And, this being so, is it not right to call upon men to come to know the Lord in conversion?

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