Yesterday I was trying to sort out an administrative issue at work: my boss delegated this do me, and by the end of the day I was needing to talk to him. Because I had identified the problem, but I did not have the authority to direct: I could suggest solutions, but have to work by consensus.
And consensus takes time you do not have when you need a solution by tomorrow morning. Now, Christ was asked by whose authority he talked. His answer was consistent. The Father is my authority: I am not from here. I am from him.
And if you do not believe in Christ, that what he said is true, you will die in your sin.
So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” So the Jews said, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
(John 8:21-30 ESV)
Now we are told we cannot say this. We are deemed intolerant. Christ himself taught that he was but the only way to salvation: and as Paul notes in Romans (I am not going to put all of today’s lectionary up: the NT text is Romans 5) that through the acts of Christ, including dying on the cross and rising again, he has made the curse of death go away.
Christ will conquer all the enemies and all the false Gods, and the last enemy to be destroyed will be death. But the enemy wants us silent.
Seek and ye shall find” – these are the words under which developers of a new Orthodox search engine, deemed to filter the web and connect worshipers, pushed their test run button. But the site was hacked just five hours after it appeared online.As the Russian Orthodox Church is gaining broader parish in the country and across the world, one Russian feature film director, Yury Grymov, decided to try and connect like-minded people by creating an Orthodox search engine and social network.
The results of his labors saw the red ribbon cut Tuesday – but the victorious moods did not last for long.
“Yesterday we launched the site in the test run mode. But after just five hours of work it was attacked. I am so surprised and upset that constructive ideas are like burrs in the saddle to some,” Grymov told TASS on Wednesday.
The site still remained non-operational by Wednesday night, with the main page claiming a DDoS-attack.
The protests and trolling and the hatred of the SJW are immaterial. Chulthu may appear strong, but he will be as destroyed as Astarte, Ba’al, Jupiter, Odin, Loki and Tane Mahuta.
For they do not give salvation. Christ alone does. To him alone belongs our worship.
And truth has never tolerated error.
