Posted on 11/14/2017 2:24:54 PM PST by nickcarraway
Robert Jeffress spent Wednesday with Donald Trump, supporting the president during his fundraising visit to the Belo Mansion in downtown Dallas. On Thursday, the First Baptist Dallas pastor and Trump's biggest evangelical supporter had to do something a lot less fun — take to the Fox News airwaves to defend himself from charges that he is anti-Catholic.
Word of Jeffress' potentially anti-Catholic views bubbled to the surface this week when a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders about her boss's continued praise for the Dallas demagogue, given Jeffress' controversial statements about the Catholic church. Sanders said that she wasn't "aware of Robert Jeffress being anti-Catholic" and that she knew that he worked with Texas Catholics on events like the anti-abortion rights demonstration March for Life.
On Fox News, Jeffress repeated Sanders' line, confirming that he works with Catholics against abortion, and said that the characterization of his thoughts about Catholicism was inaccurate.
"What they did was they went back and recycled old quotes from years ago that were either completely manufactured at the time or ripped out of context," Jeffress said.
The Observer believes that Jeffress deserves a fair hearing about whether he was taken out of context, so we've taken the liberty of transcribing, in their entirety, Jeffress' comments about Catholicism and the Roman Catholic Church from a 2010 segment on his radio show Pathway to Victory.
"This is the Babylonian mystery religion that spread like a cult throughout the entire world. The high priests of that fake religion, that false religion, the high priests of that religion would wear crowns that resemble the heads of fish, that was in order to worship the fish god Dagon, and on those crowns were written the words, ‘Keeper of the Bridge,’ the bridge between Satan and man.
"That phrase, Keeper of the Bridge — the Roman equivalent of it is Pontifex Maximus. It was a title that was first carried by the Caesars and then the emperors and finally by the Bishop of the Rome, Pontifex Maximus, the Keeper of the Bridge.
"You can see where we’re going with this. It is that Babylonian mystery religion that infected the early church. One of the churches it infected was the church of Pergamos, which is one of the recipients of the Book of Revelation. And the early church was corrupted by this Babylonian mystery religion, and today the Roman Catholic Church is the result of that corruption.
"Much of what you see in the Catholic Church today doesn’t come from God’s word; it comes from that cultlike, pagan religion. Now you say, ‘Pastor, how can you say such a thing? That is such an indictment of the Catholic Church. After all, the Catholic Church talks about God and the Bible and Jesus and the blood of Christ and salvation.’
"Isn’t that the genius of Satan? If you want to counterfeit a dollar bill, you don’t do it with purple paper and red ink. You’re not going to fool anybody with that. But if you want to counterfeit money, what you do is make it look closely related to the real thing as possible.
"And that’s what Satan does with counterfeit religion. He uses, he steals, he appropriates all of the symbols of true biblical Christianity, and he changes it just enough in order to cause people to miss eternal life."
Basically, Jeffress believes that Catholicism is a counterfeit of genuine Christianity, descended from a Babylonian fish-worshiping cult. Its resemblance to the real article shows Satan's genius, Jeffress says. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the faith practiced by 70 million Americans.
Believe what Jesus is reported to have said in Scripture; or believe the above....29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” Since believing in the Lord Jesus means one will obey Him, as faith by nature effects and requires obedience (not as earning salvation but as a quality of living faith, (Heb. 6:9-11; 10:17; Ja. 2:17; 1Jn. 3:10; Rv. 3:2) thus it can be said that just as one cannot claim saving faith while serving idols or living impenitently after the flesh versus practicing righteousness, (Rm. 8:13;1Jn. 2:29) so those who claim to believe in the risen Lord Jesus need to characteristically be by obedient to the leadership among us, spiritual as well as civil. (Heb. 13:17; Rm. 13:-17; 1 Pt. 2:14)
But just as with the required obedience to those who sat in the seat of Moses, (Mt. 23:2) obedience to spiritual as well as civil is contingent upon their own validity and consistency with faith. (Ex. 1:15-22; Acts 4:19)
It is manifest that while Rome has positions of leadership, they are manifestly an aberration of NT leadership, which we not Catholic priests, and many things Rome requires belief in are not seen in the inspired record of the NT church , and which Rome is critically contrary to.
Thus if we were RCs and were committed to obeying Scripture we would be bound to dissent, while those who have left Rome for better pasture are not subject to the prelate of Catholicism any more than we are to the civil leadership of the city of Rome.
Then I would say that you have not seen much on the RF!
I understand you say this because as an apparent Calvinist you hold to OSAS, but besides that issue and texts to the contrary, we are dealing with RCs here, in which to be faithful to the faith they once received excludes them from salvation unless they repent from such aspects as believing they will finally realize salvation by atoning for sins and becoming good enough in Purgatory. And instead come to God as damned and destitute sinners and cast all their faith on the risen Lord Jesus to save them on His account, by His sinless shed blood.
As explained, they are not mutually contradictory, and God did indeed love those He damned, even lamenting, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! (Matthew 23:37)
And believers are to follow Christ who "is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2:2)
Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. (Ephesians 5:1-2)
Amen! We would like to think some truths don't matter in the spirit of cooperation or ecumenticalism. What precisely are we willing to give up to truly know God and to know God's truth?
I would submit to you that God is in control and though it may seem the "Devil is winning", he is not. Satan can do nothing without God's divine permission (see Job) and even when he may permitted to bring calamity on believers God uses it for our good to refine and strengthen us.
Given that knowledge, it is critical that we have sound doctrine. Over time Israel and Judah corrupted their view of God to such a point that they turned to paganism. It is important we do not do the same.
The battle isn't in the lost and dying world that rejects Christ. The battle is within the church against those who would see the gospel corrupted.
ad seg?
A LOT of 'religious' organizations do this!
What the HELL are they afraid of?
Don't MOST threads do this?
After a 100 or so replies?
(Unless it's one whose main theme is Rome's 'Mary' and how absolutely necessary it is to include her in ALL your dealings with Christ and the Father.)
Now now...
Let’s not try to explain logically an act that is mainly emotional.
Fight the good fight of faith;
take hold of the eternal life to which you were called,
and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
1 Timothy 6:12
Damned if I know; but if the board chooses RED for the color of the carpet in the foyer; then I am outta here!
Ad Seg=Administrative Segregation, AKA the hole, the bucket, PC, solitary confinement.
A LOT of 'religious' organizations do this!
What the HELL are they afraid of?
They might be afraid of the truth. Then people might think they are not necessary, and not give them money anymore. That might not be the only thing, but is probably one of the reasons.
I guess some people just are not going to be convinced that God doesn't hate other people.
I cannot understand wanting to believe in a God who hates people when Scripture goes to such lengths to show that God loves people.
Even in the OT, when God brought judgment on Israel for disobedience, it wasn't quickly or gladly. He spent years appealing to people to repent and turn, sending them warning after warning.
Psalm 103:8-14 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.
I'll tell you a little story: in 1988 I was a United Nations Truce Supervisor in the Sinai. We had 14 American, 13 French, and 15 Soviet officers in our unit and our duties put us out on outpost at six different sites from el Arish to St, Catherine's at the south end of the Sinai.
We'd spend a week on out post at a time we usually ended up with one Soviet as a partner for that week (we preferred the French because they were better cooks). The Soviets were well-indoctrinated Communists or they wouldn't have been picked to be with us "enemies" and they would almost always launch into atheist monologues before we got everything unpacked for the week.
I would carefully and politely discuss my believer's point of view coupled with discussions about the mathematical difficulty of accepting the idea that everything in existence was a result of random chance.
Over several of these discussions, we got to discussing Christ and Christianity and the stark difference between faith and disbelief. A Greek Catholic priest buddy of mine got me a stash of Russian-Language Bibles to pass to them (which was hazardous for them, since we had a KGB Resident on the team who was closely watching them).
After several months of these discussions, one by one seven of the 15 privately asked me to help them and their families get baptized. I am the Godfather of several Russian children (which is a little unique for a Marine Officer).
I didn't insist that they become Roman Catholics - I only cared that they find their way to Our Lord. We don't gather the flock for Jesus by yelling at everyone: we call them as our Savior and his disciples did.
As to "Once Saved, Always Saved," there is so much Scripture that positively undergirds that viewpoint, with only a few rather weak and cloudy or ambiguous passages that may be interpreted to support either OSAS or Arminianism, that brings me to the conclusions as follows:
(A) If the term "everlasting life" or "eternal life" can ever cease through the will of the giver or the recipient, it is not eternal and any Scripture employing it would be meaningless.
(B) If a (hu)man can lose his/her salvation through passive mindset or active rejection, then keeping it inherently requires engagement in beneficial works, which is "earning one's way to heaven," with the reward of salvation bestowed only when death terminates one's earthly occupations of mind and body; rather than being a free gift bestowed at the outset of conversion.
(C) IF (and no doctrine should be based on a conditional statement of this kind) I should be brought up again before the Eternal Judge by the Accuser of the Brethren as to having fallen and violated one or another or several of the ordinances of the law whether unwittingly or deliberately, I would be found guilty, would lose my salvation, be again condemned to Hell, without hope of ever getting it back again. If so, I guarantee you both of us have already lost our salvation forever.
(A) and (B) are conjoint stipulations, which places the burden (C) of being saved on the works of the (hu)man no matter how minute the prerequisite, and thus God's Grace can no longer be free to the recipient of it.
I choose OSAS as the only justifiable Scriptural alternative, and if I am wrong, in this I will not have made a mistake.
In actuality, it is only the regenerated one who knows (ἐπιγινώσκω = epiginōskō = totally conversant with, through prolonged personal experience) the permanence and life-changing effect of the indwelling Spirit of Christ, who would never choose otherwise.
I guess some people just are not going to be convinced that God doesn't hate other people. I cannot understand wanting to believe in a God who hates people when Scripture goes to such lengths to show that God loves people.
Which response ignores what I said, and is a false dilemma, for as doctrinally explained, Scripture teaches that God hates, abhors, and is angry with the lost, and we ourselves were object of His wrath, and God He will send the lost to Hell and "despise their image," (Psalms 73:20) none of which corespond ot love for them, but all of which are negative dispositions, yet are not opposed to God loving the same as Christ dying for them all supremely examples.
While to us here the Biblical idea of hate versus love are mutually exclusive, this is manifestly not so in Scripture, and while we may feel better not telling souls of God's negative disposition to them in His justice, it is in the light of this that mercy is appreciated.
Thus the Holy Spirit by Peter convicted the 3,000 in Acts 2 that they were guilty of not recognizing their Biblical Messiah, and were implicit in His killing and whom the Lord would make His footstool, which resulted in their cry, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?."
In dealing with doctrinal difficulties, including the fact that God sends judgments while also preventing evil, what is emotionally appealing must be not be the basis for our conclusions, as some do in Theodicy , but must go wherever the Truth leads, even if it seems contradictory to us.
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