Posted on 01/27/2008 7:56:14 PM PST by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
January 25, 2008
ESV Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
In recent days I have spent time in Lima and Sullana Peru and Mexico City and I have discovered that people by nature are the same. Man has a heart that is inclined to selfishness and idolatry. Sin abounds in the remotest parts of the land because the heart is desperately wicked. Thousands bow before statues of Mary and pray to her hoping for answers. I have seen these people stare hopelessly at Mary icons, Jesus icons, and a host of dead saints who will do nothing for them. I have talked with people who pray to the pope and say that they love him. I talked with one lady who said that she knew that Jesus was the Savior, but she loved the pope. Thousands bow before Santa Muerte (holy death angel) in hopes that she will do whatever they ask her. I have seen people bring money, burning cigarettes, beer, whiskey, chocolate, plants, and flowers to Santa Muerte in hopes of her answers. I have seen these people bowing on their knees on the concrete in the middle of public places to worship their idol. Millions of people come into the Basilica in Mexico City and pay their money, confess their sins, and stare hopelessly at relics in hope that their sins will be pardoned. In America countless thousands are chained to baseball games, football games, material possessions, and whatever else their heart of idols can produce to worship.
My heart has broken in these last weeks because the God of heaven is not honored as he ought to be honored. People worship the things that are created rather than worshiping the Creator. God has been gracious to all mankind and yet mankind has hardened their hearts against a loving God. God brings the rain on the just and unjust. God brings the beautiful sunrises and sunsets upon the just and unjust. God gives good gifts unto all and above all things he has given his Son that those who would believe in him would be saved. However, man has taken the good things of God and perverted them unto idols and turned their attention away from God. I get a feel for Jesus as he overlooked Jerusalem or Paul as he beseeched for God to save Israel. When you accept the reality of the truth of the glory of God is breaks your heart that people would turn away from the great and awesome God of heaven to serve lesser things. Moses was outraged by the golden calf, the prophets passionately preached against idolatry, Jesus was angered that the temple was changed in an idolatrous business, and Paul preached to the idolaters of Mars Hill by telling them of the unknown God.
I arrived back at home wondering how I should respond to all the idolatry that I have beheld in these last three weeks. I wondered how our church here in the states should respond to all of the idolatry in the world. What are the options? First, I suppose we could sit around and hope that people chose to get their life together and stop being idolaters. However, I do not know how that could ever happen apart from them hearing the truth. Second, I suppose we could spend a lifetime studying cultural issues and customs in hope that we could somehow learn to relate to the people of other countries. However, the bible is quite clear that all men are the same. Men are dead in sin, shaped in iniquity, and by nature are the enemies of God. Thirdly, we could pay other people or other agencies to go and do a work for us while we remain comfortably in the states. However, there is no way to insure that there will be doctrinal accuracy or integrity. If we only pay other people to take the gospel we will miss out on all of the benefits of being obedient to the mission of God. Lastly, we could seek where God would have us to do a lasting work and then invest our lives there for the glory of God. The gospel has the power to raise the dead in any culture and we must be willing to take the gospel wherever God would have us take it. It is for sure that our church cannot go to every country and reach every people group, so we must determine where God would have us work and seek to be obedient wherever that is.
It seems that some doors are opening in the Spanish speaking countries below us and perhaps God is beginning to reveal where we are to work. There are some options for work to be partnered with in Peru and there could be a couple of options in Mexico. The need is greater than I can express upon this paper for a biblical gospel to be proclaimed in Peru and Mexico. Oh, that God would glorify his great name in Peru and Mexico by using a small little church in a town that does not exist to proclaim his great gospel amongst a people who desperately need the truth.
I give thanks to the LORD for allowing me the privilege of going to these countries and broadening my horizons. The things that I have seen will be forever engraved upon my heart. I will long remember the pastors that I spent time with in Peru and I will never forget Adolfo who translated for me in Mexico. I will relish the time that I spent with Paul Washer and the others. When I think of church I will forever remember being on top of that mountain in Sullana at that church which had no electricity and no roof. I am convinced that heaven was looking down on that little church on top of that mountain and very few people on earth even know that it exist. Oh, God I pray that the things of this world will continue to grow dim and that God’s people will be caught up in his glorious presence.
Because of the truth: Pastor: J. Randall Easter II Timothy 2:19 "Our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases."(Ps. 115:3) "He predestined us according to the good pleasure of His will."(Eph. 1:5) Those who have been saved have been saved for His glory and they are being made holy for this is the will of God. Are you being made holy? Spurgeon says, "If your religion does not make you holy it will damn you to hell."
ALAMO-GIRL: the phenomenon of uncertainty. It seems to result from a sense of separate-from-God responsibility for doing good works and a lingering doubt that anything they could do would be good enough.
AMEN! This is the nagging fear and doubt that nearly drove Luther mad. In struggling to be righteous in his own mind and heart, and to perform enough good works he realized nothing he could do would be good enough to merit salvation.
FOREST KEEPER: Whatever God's threshold is, those who have done "enough" will see Heaven, and those who haven't done enough, regardless of faith, will be sent to the down escalator.
Exactly! As Forest Keeper and A-G both said so well, the imprecision and ambiguity of God's supposed "thresh-hold" of good works needed for salvation inevitably leads to anxiety and uncertainty and even to a kind of self-loathing because we fear the "thresh-hold" is beyond us.
And this error is exactly what Paul so lovingly works to dissuade us of. Who better than Paul to assure us of God's love? Paul, who hunted down Christians in order to destroy them. Who could be more foul than that?
And yet God chose him to illustrate that if and when God lays hold of a man, that man will finally see and know and believe not because it is his will to do so, but because it is God's will that he do so.
Knowing that, who can fear anything? Knowing that, who can doubt Christ's sacrifice covers their sins completely?
I didn't always believe this. But since I have, I have read the Scriptures with new eyes, and on every page I find my name, and the names of all those who love God. Why? Because He first loved us.
Blessed assurance. To the RCC it is the "sin of presumption." The Council of Trent actually anathematizes all those who believe in assurance; who believe they have been saved.
But to one who knows whom he has believed, assurance is a gift from God to confirm that our Father is faithful and His promise is true.
Calvin wrote that "the furnishing of the heart with assurance is more difficult than the communication of knowledge to the understanding."
How true we've seen this to be. Some say we blithely think we're saved and that's the end of it. But in reality while this fact may be easy to read in the Bible, it's not so easy to really, truly believe that Christ has done it all for us. Trusting God completely is not in our DNA.
But, by the grace of God, when we do manage to put all our concerns at the foot of the cross, our lives are different and our problems become surmountable because we know and believe and trust in the truth of Paul's words...
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." -- Romans 8:28
No wonder the world tries to dismiss Paul's certainty as being superficial or polemic. He was certain. He trusted completely. Within him there was no doubt.
And lest anyone should say we rely too heavily on "outside sources," anyone who reads the red letters of the Bible knows that Christ spoke in absolutes. His sheep were named from before the foundation of the world. He came to earth for the very purpose of dying in the place of His sheep. And we know for a fact that He will lead His sheep home because He rose from the dead to prove it all true.
So again I offer a few lines from Calvin who realized the temporal world was obscuring the work and purpose of the Holy Spirit. And nothing good can come from that mistake. Only more fear and uncertainty and loss which is the opposite of what Christ gives to His sheep.
"The true conviction which believers have of the word of God, of their own salvation, and of religion in general, does not spring from the judgment of the flesh, or from human and philosophical arguments, but from the sealing of the Spirit, who imparts to their consciences such certainty as to remove all doubt." (Commentary on Ephesians 208)
"These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God."—1 John 5:13.
John wrote to believers—"These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God." It is worthy of note that all the epistles are so written. They are not letters to everybody, they are letters to those who are called to be saints. It ought to strike some of you with awe when you open the Bible and think how large a part of it is not directed at you. You may read it, and God's Holy Spirit may graciously bless it to you, but it is not directed to you. You are reading another man's letter: thank God that you are permitted to read it, but long to be numbered with those to whom it is directed. Thank God much more if any part of it should be used of the Holy Ghost for your salvation. The fact that the Holy Spirit speaks to the churches and to believers in Christ should make you bow the knee and cry to God to put you among the children, that this Book may become your Book from beginning to end, that you may read its precious promises as made to you. This solemn thought may not have struck some of you: let it impress you now.
We do not wonder that certain men do not receive the epistles, for they were not written to them. Why should they cavil at words which are addressed to men of another sort from themselves? Yet we do not marvel, for we knew it would be so. Here is a will, and you begin to read it; but you do not find it interesting: it is full of words and terms which you do not take the trouble to understand, because they have no relation to yourself; but should you, in reading that will, come upon a clause in which an estate is left to you, I warrant you that the nature of the whole document will seem changed to you. You will be anxious now to understand the terms, and to make sure of the clauses, and you will even wish to remember every word of the clause which refers to yourself. O dear friends, may you read the Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ as a testament of love to yourselves, and then you will prize it beyond all the writings of the sages.."
“Bar enash is Aramaic for ben adam, son of man, (hu)man.”
But the writer of Daniel uses both ben and bar and adam and enash in the first 7 chapters. I throw that in for the next comment also.
“You do realize, I hope, that chapters 1 through 7 of Daniel were written in Chaldean (Aramaic) and not in Hebrew.”
I am aware of this theory but, as you expect, don’t buy into it.
Curiously, Protestants pick and choose from these variants,
Don’t we all!!
Amen
So given my choice of accepting a group of old men telling me what I should believe or a group that tells me to read the word of God and form my own opinion, I'll choose the latter thank you. After all, the scriptures don't tell me Mary is the Queen of heaven, all of heaven tremble at her might and we are to venerate her. Old men who don't have anything else to do tell us that.
Amen! And as we've been told, this "group of old men" follows a church that produced "most of the heresies that sprang up in the first millennium."
“Thank you to Alamo-Girl and Forest Keeper for two splendid posts!”
Oh, and thank you Dr. Eckleburg and Alamo-Girl and Forest Keeper and irishtenor and wmfights and Quix and the_conscience and, let me see, oh yes I see that hand over there, thank you too, for the splendid posts!
I don’t know how I ever could have won this beautiful award without your help.....Oh, that’s another thread.
Sheeesh, what is this, Valentines Day?
He is not necessarily facing risks. Six month deployments may or may not be risky. It's routine in peacetime and in wartime. He can't tell you where he is going because there is no need to know. Classified information is shared on the need-to-know-basis only.
Just because I may have been on the same base with him, or even in the same command, doesn't mean he would tell me where he was going unless my job required me to know that.
The EO does not accept +Augustine's "just war" theory, never have and never will, even though ti is actually quite reasonable (only as a last resort, never preemptive, and only in defense). The RCCs stick to +Augustine's definition. The Orthodox Church never endorsed any war, although it offers prayers and blessings to solider who are about to face possible death going into combat. That was the prevailing attitude of the early Church, based on Gospels.
The Protestants use the expanded Reformed definition developed in the 17th century onward by various authors, which is more like the OT fundamentalist approach (somewhat based on the "natural law") that the Reformed share with their Israeli friends and Muslim counterparts, namely "I am only doing what God wants me to do." The OT and the Koran are full of such self-rigtheous examples.
I have no clue when he did it. But I recently saw President Bush and Saudi King, whose country has been supporting and financing Palestinian Entefada against Israeli occupation, as two buddies. Apparently, any lack of democracy, freedom of speech, or any rights for women, do not seem to upset our close friendship with the Wahabbi Saudi fundamentalists. I guess all "friendships" have a "price."
We have no problems supporting those who support and finance those who bomb Israeli pizza parlors, as long as they let us drive our SUVs for a nominal price of oil.
But of course, some people who want to monopolize what is American patriotism will not mention greed and business interests that often hurt our national interests.
Let's look at the open-border policy the current Administration has tolerated. We currently have an estimated 13 million illegal aliens. We have no way of knowing how many of these people are criminals, foreign agents, terrorist fifth column, how many of them carry dangerous diseases (they didn't check in with our Health department or get necessary immunizations), genetic diseases, etc.
Our newly emerged Republican front runner form Arizona is actually on record favoring amnesty for these illegal hordes, yet he is willing to commit our troops to Iraq fior 50 years in necessary to fight terrorists before they can enter the US! Well, out of those 13 million, chances are they are already in the US! while we are figthing them "over there."
You do the math. Say that, being very, very conservative, out of the 13 million, only one percent are foreign agents and Al-Caida operatives, and 99% are just "regular" illegals who pose no threat. That makes an army of 130,000 potential enemy combatants within our borders! Talk about a Trojan Horse!
And what has our Administration done to prevent that? Zero, zilch, nothing, nada. You know why? Because it's good for business. It makes business owners happy. They get cheap labor; who cares that greed and catering to greed jeopardizes our security and the health of our citizens!
Good old capitalism at work. It knows no boundaries. As long as it can make profit, it's good.
But, there are laws passed by the Congress that provide for stiff penalties for employers who hire illegals. Trouble is, no one is enforcing the law. We could rid this country of all illegals if we started to penalize the business that hire illegals. You cut out the demands and the supply stops. once they couldn't work they would go back to where they came from all on their own. Imagine that!
No walls needed, no need to National Guards, no need for more border agents, hi-tech cameras, vercroweded administrations and jails.
We would have 13 million fewer people using gas-guzzling cars and therefore greater supply and lower gas prices. And, more importantly we could concentrate on those who contine to cross into our country illegally or who, despite inability to work decided to remain. In both cases, we could assume that they are here for sinister reasons and not simply job-hunting, and we could hunt them down mercilessly.
But our Administration made sure little old ladies are prodded and poked at airports in order to prevent potential terrorists from entering the country! Why would terrorists try to come in through the airports when our southern border under this Administration and all previous Administrations is wide open!?
In your idealistic weltanschauung you simply don't see the sad realities that are actually making us less safe and more vulnerable, and our efforts overseas counterproductive. I have always maintained that as much as capitalism doesn't want educated consumers, democracies don't want educated voters. They want gullible consumers and gullible voters. And that's what we have, in my opinion.
Consumerism did. Not "Presbyterian Revolution." Profit motive. Love of money. Attachment to the world. Love of the world. All the things the NT speaks against. The EOC is concerned with the world to come. Our spiritual state.
It doesn't seem to place too much emphasis on the here and now. We are not building a kingdom of God on this earth. Judaism teaches that but we don't. Our goal as EOP Christians is to imitate Christ in our daily life, following the examples of His own life revealed in the Gospels.
That encompasses both giving thanks to God for his abundant blessings and making sure they are not squandered on sinful things.
Ping to 1626. I don’t know how I missed your hands.
What verses?
Kosta: You do realize, I hope, that chapters 1 through 7 of Daniel were written in Chaldean (Aramaic) and not in Hebrew.” BD: I am aware of this theory but, as you expect, don’t buy into it.
LOL! The Jewish Encyclopedia writes:
It also mentions that there are scholars of every kind with all sorts of theories...but that's what we have and that's what we have to work with. Speculation is acedemic lexury.
Kosta: Curiously, Protestants pick and choose from these variants,
BD: Don’t we all!!
The Protestants are supposed to accept only the Hebrew Bible. But, then, they wouldn't be Protestants if they didn't protest their own rules.
It seems, however, that all the mumbo-jumbop variants of the supposedly pristine "word of God" seem to have no effect on your desire to comment, no matter how divergent they may be theologically.
I've tried to say this on other threads and been told that I "don't respect the Jews for keeping accurate transcriptions of the OT".
Without desiring any thread/topic hijack here, I was wondering what is your take on the OT: Has that been accurately transcribed throughout the generations, and/or can we rely on, say, the Dead Sea Scrolls to "prove" that the OT has remained "infallible" (as some might use the term) throughout the centuries?
I understand.
He is a navy seal. With the training he has received he isn't on the sidelines. He is one of the finest young men I've ever had the pleasure to know. He graduated from college, had a good job the war started and he signed up as an enlisted man.
And, yes, blue-duncan, every day is a day of love (or Valentine’s Day) for us!
And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. – Matthew 22:37-40
It always seems to come back to this: Who do you believe?
If we believe God directly, we will have His many blessed assurances both by the words of God and the power of God.
Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: - Luke 24:25
For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.
But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called [me] by his grace, To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus.
Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother. – Galatians 1:11-19
Well that explains why the Byzantine Empire fell to the Moslems, and why Hitler found the Balkans such easy pickings, and why those who do believe in a just war had to rescue the people in the land of the EO during WWII.
***The HS leads all believers at varying paces, and all believers reflect the HS’s leadership to varying degrees.***
The very term “lead” indicates that there are those who choose to follow, and, by corollary, those who choose to not follow.
***You can’t tell me that if you could snatch any two Popes from history and throw them in the same room they would agree on everything important.***
No, but I would tell you that the Church is not the Pope, nor is it any or all of them. It matters that the Church is correct, not any man within it.
***The failure of the Jews was always part of His plan, which fit neatly and perfectly with His plan to then bring in the Gentiles, as a group.***
Are you saying that God really didn’t mean that the Jews were the Chosen People? Was God lying? Did He really mean that by “Chosen People”, he meant chosen for hell? This does not follow Scripture in any way.
***Not in the sense that I think you mean it. God is simply not a failure. :) Does it make no sense at all that God used the failure of the Jews to usher in the inclusion of the Gentiles, and that it was all planned? It flows perfectly to me. I mean, we DO have the luxury of 20-20 hindsight. This part is supposed to be easy. :)***
God tried everything to lead the Jews to Christ, short of frogmarching them. Isn’t this an indicator that if He didn’t do it with the Chosen People, He doesn’t do it to anyone else?
We’ve been doing a Beth Moore study of Daniel and she claims the same thing, that part of it’s written in Hebrew and the other isn’t.
Stuff like that. 8~)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.