{"id":664,"date":"2008-03-25T11:52:42","date_gmt":"2008-03-25T19:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2008\/03\/25\/the-declension-of-good-movements\/"},"modified":"2008-03-25T11:52:42","modified_gmt":"2008-03-25T19:52:42","slug":"the-declension-of-good-movements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2008\/03\/25\/the-declension-of-good-movements\/","title":{"rendered":"the declension of good movements"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More notes from my 1980 Church History class with Dr Panosian. This one is a series of steps a nation or a denomination might take in devolving downward. It sounds a lot like the Judges cycle, but it is more complicated than what you usually hear on that one.<\/p>\n<p>The cycle begins with Bondage, which is broken by Spiritual Faith&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The whole list follows below:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bondage<\/li>\n<li>Spiritual Faith<\/li>\n<li>Exercise of Courage<\/li>\n<li>Establishment of Liberty<\/li>\n<li>Prosperity<\/li>\n<li>Abundance<\/li>\n<li>Selfishness<\/li>\n<li>Complacency<\/li>\n<li>Apathy<\/li>\n<li>Dependence<\/li>\n<li>Bondage<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>At the end of my list, I have this note:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The point of reference must be external, not internal&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>That last note is somewhat ambiguous, with the passing of time, I am not entirely sure what it refers to. I assume this: wherever you are in your own movement\/denomination\/nation, you are likely somewhere within this cycle. If your point of reference is internal (measuring yourself among yourselves), your evaluation of your state will be skewed. You won&#8217;t see yourself rightly.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, if your point of reference is external (say, the Bible, or the Lord Jesus Christ in all his glory and holiness), your state will become crystal clear.<\/p>\n<p>I suppose this list can be a measure of individual spiritual life as well, to some degree (I don&#8217;t think someone with true saving faith will descend into the bondage of his previous lost condition). It is possible that when one is &#8216;settled on his lees&#8217; that he can become entangled and in bondage to the things of this world, unfit or less fit for the Master&#8217;s service.<\/p>\n<p>Personally, I worry that I am well past the courage stage, and the establishment of liberty stage. I feel much in need of revival. How about you?<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px\" height=\"50\" alt=\"don_sig\" src=\"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/don-sig17.png\" width=\"150\" border=\"0\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More notes from my 1980 Church History class with Dr Panosian. This one is a series of steps a nation or a denomination might take in devolving downward. It sounds a lot like the Judges cycle, but it is more complicated than what you usually hear on that one. The cycle begins with Bondage, which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2fYWj-aI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}