B-2 PAST-WITNESSES
- Horatius Bonar - St Bonaventure - Richard Bonnke -
==horatius bonar====== |
(19 December 1808 – 31 July 1889)
|
Horatio Bonar Files
The history of six thousand years of evil has heen lost on man. He refuses to read its awful lesson regarding sin and God's displeasure against the sinner, which that history records. The flood of evil that has issued forth from one single sin he has forgotten. The death, the darkness, the sorrow, the sickness, the tears, the weariness, the madness, the confusion, the bloodshed, the furious hatred between man and man, making Earth a suburb of Hell -- all this is overlooked or misread. Man repels the thought that sin is crime which God hates with an infinite hate and which he, in his righteousness, must condemn and avenge.
If sin is such a surface thing, such a trifle as men deem it, what is the significance of this long sad story? Do earth's ten thousand graveyards, where human love lies buried, tell no darker tale? Do the millions upon millions of broken hearts and heavy eyes say that sin is but a trifle? Do the moaning of the hospital or the carnage of the battlefield, the blood-stained sword, and the death-dealing artillery proclaim that sin is a mere casualty and the human heart the seat of goodness after all? Do the earthquake, the volcano, the hurricane, the tempest speak nothing of sin's desperate evil? Do not man's aching head, and empty heart, and burdened spirit, and shaded brow, and weary brain, and tottering limbs utter -- in a voice articulate beyond mistake -- that sin is guilt? And do they not utter that guilt must be punished -- punished by the iudge of all -- not as a mere "violation of natural laws," but as a breach of the eternal law, which admits of no reversal: "The soul that sins, it shall die?" For without law, sin is nothing. "The strength of sin is the law" (1 Corinthians 15:56), and he who makes light of sin must defend moral confusion and injustice. He who refuses to recognize sin as guilt must dissolve the law of the universe or ascrihe imbecility and injustice to the Judge of all.
The world has grown old in sin. It has now more than ever hegun to trifle with it, either as a necessity which cannot he cured, or a partial aberration from good order which will rectify itself ere long. It is this tampering with evil, this refusal to see sin as God sees it, as the law declares it, and as the story of our race has revealed it, that has in all ages been the root of error and of wide departure from the faith once delivered to the saints. Admit the evil of sin with all its eternal consequences, and you are shut up to a divine way of dealing with it. Deny the evil of sin and the future results of that evil, and you may deny the whole revelation of God, set aside the cross, and abrogate the law. ---Horatius Bonar (The Everlasting Righteousness)
If sin is such a surface thing, such a trifle as men deem it, what is the significance of this long sad story? Do earth's ten thousand graveyards, where human love lies buried, tell no darker tale? Do the millions upon millions of broken hearts and heavy eyes say that sin is but a trifle? Do the moaning of the hospital or the carnage of the battlefield, the blood-stained sword, and the death-dealing artillery proclaim that sin is a mere casualty and the human heart the seat of goodness after all? Do the earthquake, the volcano, the hurricane, the tempest speak nothing of sin's desperate evil? Do not man's aching head, and empty heart, and burdened spirit, and shaded brow, and weary brain, and tottering limbs utter -- in a voice articulate beyond mistake -- that sin is guilt? And do they not utter that guilt must be punished -- punished by the iudge of all -- not as a mere "violation of natural laws," but as a breach of the eternal law, which admits of no reversal: "The soul that sins, it shall die?" For without law, sin is nothing. "The strength of sin is the law" (1 Corinthians 15:56), and he who makes light of sin must defend moral confusion and injustice. He who refuses to recognize sin as guilt must dissolve the law of the universe or ascrihe imbecility and injustice to the Judge of all.
The world has grown old in sin. It has now more than ever hegun to trifle with it, either as a necessity which cannot he cured, or a partial aberration from good order which will rectify itself ere long. It is this tampering with evil, this refusal to see sin as God sees it, as the law declares it, and as the story of our race has revealed it, that has in all ages been the root of error and of wide departure from the faith once delivered to the saints. Admit the evil of sin with all its eternal consequences, and you are shut up to a divine way of dealing with it. Deny the evil of sin and the future results of that evil, and you may deny the whole revelation of God, set aside the cross, and abrogate the law. ---Horatius Bonar (The Everlasting Righteousness)
Horatio Bonar
“For we are not saved by believing in our own salvation, nor by believing anything whatsoever about ourselves. We are saved by what we believe about the Son of God and His righteousness. The gospel believed saves; not the believing in our own faith.”
― Horatius Bonar, The Everlasting Righteousness
Horatio Bonar Files
Let us speak reverently of the Jew. Let us not misjudge him by present appearances. He is not what he once was, nor what he yet shall be.
Let us speak reverently of the Jew. We have much cause to do so. What, though all Christendom, both of the East and West, has for nearly eighteen centuries treated him as the offscouring of the race? What though Mohammad has taught his followers to revile and persecute the sons of Abraham? . . .
Nay, what though he [the Jew] may have a grasping hand, and a soul shut up against the world,--a world that has done nothing but wrong and revile him? What though he may inherit the crookedness of his father Jacob, instead of the nobility of Abraham, or the simply gentleness of Isaac?
Still let us speak reverently of the Jew,--if not for what he is, at least for what he was, and what he shall be, when the Redeemer shall come to Zion and turn away ungodliness from Jacob [Isa. 59:20; see. Rom. 11:26].
In him we see the development of God's great purpose as to the woman's seed, the representative of a long line of kings and prophets, the kinsmen of Him who is the Word made flesh. It was a Jew who sat on one of the most exalted thrones on earth; it is a Jew who sits upon the throne of heaven. It was a Jew who wrought such miracles once on our earth, who spoke such gracious words. It was a Jew who said, "Come unto me and I will give you rest;" and a Jew who said, "Behold I come quickly, and my reward is with me." It was Jewish blood that was shed on Calvary; it was a Jew who bore our sins in His own body on the tree. It was a Jew who died, and was buried, and rose again. It is a Jew who liveth to intercede for us, who is to come in glory and majesty as earthly judge and monarch. It is a Jew who is our Prophet, our Priest, our King.
Let us, then, speak reverently of the Jew, whatever his present degradation may be. Just as we tread reverently the level platform of Moriah, where once stood the holy house where Jehovah was worshipped; so let us tread the ground where where they dwell whose are the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and of whom, concerning the flesh, Christ came. That temple hill is not what it was. The beautiful house is gone, and not one stone is left upon another. The seventeen sieges of Jerusalem, like so many storms rolling the waves of every sea over it, have left few memorials of the old magnificence. The Mosque of the Moslems covers the spot of the altar of burnt-offering; the foot of the Moslem defiles the sacred courts . . . But still the ground is felt to be sacred; the bare rock on which you tread is not common rock; the massive stones built here and there into the wall are witnesses of other days; and the whole scene gathers round it such associations as, in spite of the rubbish, and desolation, and ruin, and pollution, fill you irresistibly with awe . . .
So it is with the Jew,—I mean the whole Jewish nation. There are indelible memories connected with them, which will ever, to anyone who believes in the Bible, prevent them from being contemned; nay, will cast around them a nobility and a dignity which no other nation has possessed or can attain to. To Him in whose purposes they occupy so large a space, they are still “beloved for their fathers’ sake” [Rom. 11:28]. Of them, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever.
--- Excerpt from Horatius Bonar (The Jew):
Let us speak reverently of the Jew. We have much cause to do so. What, though all Christendom, both of the East and West, has for nearly eighteen centuries treated him as the offscouring of the race? What though Mohammad has taught his followers to revile and persecute the sons of Abraham? . . .
Nay, what though he [the Jew] may have a grasping hand, and a soul shut up against the world,--a world that has done nothing but wrong and revile him? What though he may inherit the crookedness of his father Jacob, instead of the nobility of Abraham, or the simply gentleness of Isaac?
Still let us speak reverently of the Jew,--if not for what he is, at least for what he was, and what he shall be, when the Redeemer shall come to Zion and turn away ungodliness from Jacob [Isa. 59:20; see. Rom. 11:26].
In him we see the development of God's great purpose as to the woman's seed, the representative of a long line of kings and prophets, the kinsmen of Him who is the Word made flesh. It was a Jew who sat on one of the most exalted thrones on earth; it is a Jew who sits upon the throne of heaven. It was a Jew who wrought such miracles once on our earth, who spoke such gracious words. It was a Jew who said, "Come unto me and I will give you rest;" and a Jew who said, "Behold I come quickly, and my reward is with me." It was Jewish blood that was shed on Calvary; it was a Jew who bore our sins in His own body on the tree. It was a Jew who died, and was buried, and rose again. It is a Jew who liveth to intercede for us, who is to come in glory and majesty as earthly judge and monarch. It is a Jew who is our Prophet, our Priest, our King.
Let us, then, speak reverently of the Jew, whatever his present degradation may be. Just as we tread reverently the level platform of Moriah, where once stood the holy house where Jehovah was worshipped; so let us tread the ground where where they dwell whose are the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and of whom, concerning the flesh, Christ came. That temple hill is not what it was. The beautiful house is gone, and not one stone is left upon another. The seventeen sieges of Jerusalem, like so many storms rolling the waves of every sea over it, have left few memorials of the old magnificence. The Mosque of the Moslems covers the spot of the altar of burnt-offering; the foot of the Moslem defiles the sacred courts . . . But still the ground is felt to be sacred; the bare rock on which you tread is not common rock; the massive stones built here and there into the wall are witnesses of other days; and the whole scene gathers round it such associations as, in spite of the rubbish, and desolation, and ruin, and pollution, fill you irresistibly with awe . . .
So it is with the Jew,—I mean the whole Jewish nation. There are indelible memories connected with them, which will ever, to anyone who believes in the Bible, prevent them from being contemned; nay, will cast around them a nobility and a dignity which no other nation has possessed or can attain to. To Him in whose purposes they occupy so large a space, they are still “beloved for their fathers’ sake” [Rom. 11:28]. Of them, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever.
--- Excerpt from Horatius Bonar (The Jew):
==St. Bonaventure======
We must suspend all the operations of the mind and we must transform the peak of our affections, directing them to God alone. This is a sacred mystical experience. It cannot be comprehended by anyone unless he surrenders himself to it; nor can he surrender himself to it unless he longs for it; nor can he long for it unless the Holy Spirit, whom Christ sent into the world, should come and inflame his innermost soul. . . .
If you ask how such things can occur, seek the answer in God’s grace, not in doctrine; in the longing of the will, not in the understanding; in the sighs of prayer, not in research; seek the bridegroom not the teacher; God and not man; darkness not daylight; and look not to the light but rather to the raging fire that carries the soul to God with intense fervor and glowing love. The fire is God, and the furnace is in Jerusalem, fired by Christ in the ardor of his loving passion. . . .
Let us die, then, and enter into the darkness, silencing our anxieties, our passions and all the fantasies of our imagination. Let us pass over with the crucified Christ from this world to the Father, so that, when the Father has shown himself to us, we can say with Philip: “It is enough.” We may hear with Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you”; and we can rejoice with David, saying, “My flesh and my heart fail me, but God is the strength of my heart and my heritage forever. Blessed be the Lord forever, and let all the people say: Amen.”
--St. Bonaventure (1221–74). In The Journey of the Mind to God
If you ask how such things can occur, seek the answer in God’s grace, not in doctrine; in the longing of the will, not in the understanding; in the sighs of prayer, not in research; seek the bridegroom not the teacher; God and not man; darkness not daylight; and look not to the light but rather to the raging fire that carries the soul to God with intense fervor and glowing love. The fire is God, and the furnace is in Jerusalem, fired by Christ in the ardor of his loving passion. . . .
Let us die, then, and enter into the darkness, silencing our anxieties, our passions and all the fantasies of our imagination. Let us pass over with the crucified Christ from this world to the Father, so that, when the Father has shown himself to us, we can say with Philip: “It is enough.” We may hear with Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you”; and we can rejoice with David, saying, “My flesh and my heart fail me, but God is the strength of my heart and my heritage forever. Blessed be the Lord forever, and let all the people say: Amen.”
--St. Bonaventure (1221–74). In The Journey of the Mind to God
==richard bonnke======
Reinhard Willi Gottfried Bonnke (April 18, 1940-Dec 7, 2019) is a German charismatic Christian evangelist, principally known for his gospel missions throughout Africa. Bonnke has been an evangelist and missionary in Africa since 1967.
Jan 2, 2015: Charisma: What Reinhard Bonnke Told Thousands of Youth at Onething
Reinhard Bonnke has led 76 million people to the Lord during the course of his 60 years in ministry. The evangelist that has had over one million people in his meetings declared to the over 20,000 conference attendees in Kansas City that "America will be saved."
Reinhard Bonnke has led 76 million people to the Lord during the course of his 60 years in ministry. The evangelist that has had over one million people in his meetings declared to the over 20,000 conference attendees in Kansas City that "America will be saved."
