Conclusion from Peru and Mexico

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."

I mostly agree with you.

I believe that the GENERAL Biblical RULE OF THUMB is to be gentle & conventionally loving in our exhortations.

I also believe that what God may call loving in a given situation will not always be seen conventionally as loving by onlookers. In general and most of the time, what’s loving is what most people would feel, see, construe as loving.

Now in a lot of situations, ‘most of the time’ would be 99.9% of the time. In others, 51% of the time.

King David had an interesting reply to his cohorts once when even his enemies were ranting at him horribly. You probably remember that.

Sometimes Ecclesiastes is more of an applical construction on reality than we would prefer to believe in our simplistic preferences for realities. Lots of things have fitting times and seasons and contexts that we’d prefer didn’t.

Thanks.

By the way, UC, one of my ancestors died on the walls of Constantinople at the side of Constantine XI in battle with the Eastern Barbarian Turks on May 29, 1453. He died for civilization and Christianity, UC. Generations of Eastern Christians have fought and died for that at the hands of the Mohammedans.

Like I said he must have been from the Augustinian [just war] wing of the EO not the compromised wing that collaborated with the Communists in Eastern Europe after WWII until a Protestant brought the Iron Curtain down in 1989. You are welcome ---

What about you Protestants? How many centuries have you been suffering for Christianity and Christian civilization at the hands of Islam? You think that Western Protestantism has the right to scorn the sacrifice of the Eastern Romans? My God, no wonder we're in the state we're in!

And just what has the EO done lately???? Does it support the Jewish people in their battle against Islam in Israel today or are those EO Patriarchs there siding continuously with the Muslims???? Wake up and smell the compromise and get off your high horse.

UC, the Greek partisan resistance on Crete delayed Operation Barbarossa.... Do you know what allies they were to the United States?

But that was Greek and Serbian not resistance from within the EO Church itself. These must have been secularists or fallen away EOs or from the Augustinian branch of the EO because they knew right from wrong and were willing to fight for it.

Or are you just a Mohammedan supporting neo con with no understanding of history or culture beyond the Eastern seabord who thinks its just peachy that America picks up the tab for KLA terrorism against our Christian allies because that man Bush has been advised by his Saudi business partners that Islam is the Religion of Peace and its good for business?

Are you signed up for the support of Israeli lobby here on Freerepublic or are you just another one of those EO hypocrites who opposes Islamic aggression except when it comes to taking over the land of Israel from the Jews.

In 1999, an American jet attacked an unarmed Serbian civilian train on a bridge. NATO briefed reporters about this, and showed footage taken from the missile approaching the train. based on the tape, it looked like the train appeared out of nowhere and the pilot didn't have time to divert the missile (since the target was the bridge, not the train). It all looked legit. Until it leaked out that the footage was played at three times the normal speed. It turns out the pilot not only saw the train approaching the bridge but waited until the train was on the bridge and then attacked a civilian object (a war crime). After hitting it once, he turned around and hit one more time (double war crime).

I know of no Evangelical who supported Clinton's NATO war against the Serbs, nor the diplomatic aftermath, nor our continual support of Muslim causes whether in Eastern Europe nor in Israel/Palestine. All evangelical ministries that I know spoke out vociferously against that aggression as a war crime by NATO and the U.S. against the Serbs, our longtime friends.

The Evangelicals spoke up and speak up for the Serbs as well as for the Jews facing Islamic terrorism in their own land. You speak up for the Serbs. Where is your voice for the Jews in Israel??? Is it silenced by your misguided theology????

"Like I said he must have been from the Augustinian [just war] wing of the EO not the compromised wing that collaborated with the Communists in Eastern Europe after WWII until a Protestant brought the Iron Curtain down in 1989. You are welcome ---"

UC what is it about some American Protestants that they simply cannot accept that other societies and Eastern Christianity in particular do not ascribe to their bizarre modern notions of theology or their Western Mohammedan or Manichean influenced notion of "just war". Why is it that Protestants simply cannot accept the reality of evil, especially in their own lives and in this society? War, UC, is always, always, always sinful. It may be unavoidable, but it is always sinful. Perhaps its that notion which Protestantism cannot accept or understand, sinfulness. Sin is not what you Protestants proclaim it to be, something the "unsaved" do which brings down upon them the wrath and hatred of God. That isn't even remotely what the scriptural word for sin, "αμαρτια" means. It means to miss the mark, the mark being Christ. Going to war is always missing the mark; it is never, ever, being like Christ.

War happens and we, or at least many of us, have gone off to war and fought in one capacity or another and in so doing we have sinned. It is simply a self serving lie to say that war is ever good or OK or to proclaim "Gott Mit Uns". Can you conceive of a situation when going to war is an emulation of Christ? Remember the taunts the Lord endured at the Cross? Did He call down those legions of angels to destroy His tormentors? Our created purpose may be to become like God, but very, very, very few of us get there in this life and thus have to depend on God's infinite mercy. But that doesn't justify sin.

You know, UC, Protestant notions of sin have, especially of late, given us some rather depraved theological constructs. Germans of the WWII generation were able to look the other way when it came to the Jews because, after all, they were the enemies of the state and the state was justified, hardly sinful, in removing those Jews. This was preached from virtually every, but not all, Protestant pulpits throughout Germany during and before the War. And today, well today the "mainline" Protestant churches are telling us that the Holy Spirit is doing a new thing and that what was formerly sin by every Christians' definition is no longer sin but rather a sacred example of God's love for His people worthy of blessing within the ecclesial community. Is this the corollary of the just war theory, the blessed sodomite union? This doesn't come from Orthodoxy, UC, it comes from Protestantism's essentially selfish, self centered religious individualism. Its the same mindset, infecting Washington elites and so many of the denizens of FR, which justifies the destruction of Eastern Christian communities in partnership with Mohammedanism.

Finally, "But that was Greek and Serbian not resistance from within the EO Church itself." UC, you know, I thought your historical ignorance was simply contemptible. But its beyond that. It is aggressive but it is consonant with the dominant, aggressive ignorance of our politicians since Reagan. UC, thousands upon thousands of Orthodox priests were executed during WWII and in the aftermath of the War behind the Iron Curtain. Do you know who +Chrysostomos of Zakynthos was? Do you know who +Damaskinos of Athens was? Good Jews do! But you, an American Protestant, have absolutely no idea who they were or even the faintest notion of what the Orthodox did in WWII and afterwards, let alone what Orthodoxy has been doing for the 550 years since the fall of The City. It is beyond unacceptable arrogance for the likes of an American Protestant in 2008 to question the sacrifices of Orthodox people. If your attitudes reflect general American attitudes, no wonder so much, indeed most, of the world scorns us.

“I know of no Evangelical who supported Clinton’s NATO war against the Serbs, nor the diplomatic aftermath, nor our continual support of Muslim causes whether in Eastern Europe nor in Israel/Palestine. All evangelical ministries that I know spoke out vociferously against that aggression as a war crime by NATO and the U.S. against the Serbs, our longtime friends.”

Why have the evangelicals supported Bush and his consent to the Mohammedan destruction of Orthodox churches and communities in Kosovo? Do you know that our troops have been ordered to standby while howling mobs of Albanian Mohammedan terrorists sack churches there? Why have the evangelicals not spoken out, UC? Have they decried Bush’s blind support of the Islamist agenda of the Islamist Eastern Barbarian Turks in No. Cyprus? There are NO, NONE, ZERO Orthodox churches or people left there, UC. Does your 500 year old not Roman Catholic theology lead the evangelicals to support Mohammedanism when it comes to the Orthodox but to oppose it when it comes to the Jews?

Kindly name it.

That would be National Socialism.

P-Marlowe, National Socialism is a political system. Capitalism is an apolitical economic system. They are apples and oranges.

Judging from the reactions I see, I imagine there are those here who believe that attracting and hiring illegal aliens is a good thing for the country and businesses that are guilty are doing the right thing.

And a government failure to enforce existing laws prohibiting such practices is also a good thing. And having a potential fifth column in the country because of our border lawlessness must also be a good thing.

I am sorry I disagree. Just as capitalism did not do the right thing when it was using child labor, that same capitalism is not serving the nation's best interest by hiring illegal aliens for no reason other than personal profit.

And because a system based on greed is unlikely to police itself (based on previous experience), or intrinsically follow ethical principles or national interests, it has to be curbed in order not to subject everything to the love of money, including ethical standards and national interests.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that it is better to have than not to have and that it is better to have more than to have less. Capitalism is part of our human nature. But our desire, indeed—right to have and to have more, does not justify violating ethics of the society or jeopardizing national interests, just as not all speech is protected speech.

And the government is not serving the people's best interest by not providing protection and not enforcing the existing laws against those businesses that are hiring illegal aliens.

No matter how you dress it up, the root cause of illegal aliens in this country is free trade (capitalism): supply and demand. Illegal immigration will stop when the demand (by unethical businesses) ends. Once that happens, the supply will stop and reverse itself.

But obviously our economic system has no intention of policing itself for the good of the country, and with the government unwilling to use the existing laws to penalize such practices, the illegal immigration will continue as it has no reason to stop.

And among illegal migrants seeking jobs, we could have tens of thousands of enemy combatants crossing our southern border that we know nothing about. And if such illegals are granted amnesty (as Sen McCain wants) then we will grants legal status to the enemy, all in the name of free trade!

The culprit here is clearly the economic system (capitalism) that—out of pure greed—creates conditions attractive enough for illegals to come here in throngs, and the governments on all levels that are unwilling to force such business practices shut.

The alternative is not National Socialism (how ridiculous!), but a responsible government enforcing existing laws and forcing an end to demand that feeds illegal immigration. Or, alternatively, business that use illegal aliens voluntarily stopping their unethical practice (yeah right!).

In other words, either the government or the economic system needs to do something that is in the national interest because there is a clear and present danger of having a significant fifth column in this country aided and created by our unwllingness to stop illegal immigration.

How can we as a nation export our system as a country of laws if we are unwilling or unable to enforce our own and have an underground shady economy made up of millions of people who don't exist on the books?!

How can we offer ours system as a "model" if there are millions of people with potentially serious diseases who entered our country illegally and without medical documentation? Is this what we offer as part of our "freedom package?" Get real, all of you.

your position is worth having . . . It’s worth being forthright about enough to answer the question

Q, eocnomic system is one thing; political system is another. I am for responsible economic and political system. One that doesn't undermine national security.

If a business faulters because the workers are not doing their job, it doesn't mean the business is bad. It means it needs fixing. Criticizing unethical free trade and ineffective govenrment is not a call not for replacement, it's a call to bring both back to within social norms and roles that serve the best interests of the society.

A government that doesn't enforce laws is not doing its job of protecting the nation, but is aiding those who break the law. And a business that engages in illegal practices is mafia! Is this what we have become? A country of irrepsonsible governments and mafia? When it comes to illegal immigration, there are strong elements of both, and our national health and security are seriously undermined.

We talks the talk but we don't walk the walk. And other countries see that. How can we sell our system to the rest of the world (unless we shove it down their throat) if we say we are a country of laws when we have 13 million illegals with enough illegal jobs to sustain them, and a government that looks the other way?

Does illegal mean anything any more? Or are we going to play the Clinton game and say "depends what you mean by 'illegal'?"

It seems to me, Kolo, that they sometimes forget that Orthodox Christians are, after all, Christians. To side with Muslims against own fellow Christians is quite telling.

This Evnagelical Administration will not leave office without first recognizing Kosovo's independence as a final act of a string of acts aimed at promoting Mohammedans in Europe the way we helped build Taliban against the Soviets and then having to fight it.

The Catholic Church did not come to the rescue of Constantinople (save for a small contingent), nor did Catholic kings send armies to help Orthodox Christain Serbs at the battle on the Kosovo Field in 1389.

But at least the Catholic Church never, ever, sided with Muslims against other Christians! It took Protestant America to make that historical landmark.

So all those who laid down their lives for the liberation of Europe and the Balkans from the NAZIs in WWII were committing a grave sin by doing so????

Remember the taunts the Lord endured at the Cross? Did He call down those legions of angels to destroy His tormentors?

That was the saviour side of Him who came to offer grace and mercy. Read the rest of the scriptures and you will see the warrior side of Him as He dispenses justice to those who refused His offer.

You know, UC, Protestant notions of sin have, especially of late, given us some rather depraved theological constructs.

You still don't get it -- do you??? For atleast 100 years American Protestants who believe in the Scriptures have been at war with so-called American Protestants who don't believe in the Scriptures. Should the former surrender to the latter???? Is that what you would like to see????

Germans of the WWII generation were able to look the other way when it came to the Jews because, after all, they were the enemies of the state and the state was justified, hardly sinful, in removing those Jews. This was preached from virtually every, but not all, Protestant pulpits throughout Germany during and before the War.

So then was it sin to go to war against these Germans in WWII, or should we have looked the other way like you would have us do.

And today, well today the "mainline" Protestant churches

"liberal" Protestant churches

are telling us that the Holy Spirit is doing a new thing and that what was formerly sin by every Christians' definition is no longer sin but rather a sacred example of God's love for His people worthy of blessing within the ecclesial community.

Yes the liberals have abandoned the scriptures and in doing so have embraced sin.

Is this the corollary of the just war theory, the blessed sodomite union?

And fundamentalist evangelicals and others have chosen to go to war against the sodomite invasion. So are they committing sin???? People in our churches have risen up and gone to war against the curse of abortion. Are they also sinning??? You seem to think that Jesus commanded you to go to surrender, but Jude says "contend" for the faith.

This doesn't come from Orthodoxy, UC, it comes from Protestantism's essentially selfish, self centered religious individualism.

And those EO's and other religionists who hide in their churches and behind their sacred icons aren't selfish and self centered, concerned only for their own safety and security????

Washington elites and so many of the denizens of FR, which justifies the destruction of Eastern Christian communities in partnership with Mohammedanism.

Well maybe if you learned to fight for a just cause instead of just yourselves and alongside those who know a just cause from an unjust one, including those Jews fighting for their own homeland in Israel, things might go better for your EO churches and communities.

In the meantime you have the audacity to demean the lives of all those in western Protestantism, including the lives of Jews, Catholics, et al who laid down their lives to free others from tyranny. Protestant blood was spilled to free the Balkans in WWII and yet in your Greek Orthodox religion they committed a grave sin in doing so ---- unbelievable.

*** MB: ***Intriguing. Hypothetically, what happens to the Reformed if they resist this desire?***

IT: Sometimes, like Jonah, they do resist. Didn’t work for Jonah, won’t work for us, either.

***MB: So therefore, there would be no reason to avoid committing future sins, since they are already forgiven.***

IT: Theoretically, yes. Practically, no. Once you are forgiven, there is a strong desire to do what God wants.***

Are you saying that there is only a tendency coming from desire to avoid future sin?

***We still sin. but we do now have the desire to avoid it, because it doesn’t really make us happy, Obeying God does.***

The prime motivation of sin is the immediate gratification, or surface happiness, that it brings. For example, the sin of theft. It brings instant gratification because one has material goods.

Are you saying that the Reformed do not, for example, steal, because it no longer brings them that instant gratification?

***My point has been, and continues to be, that the Orthodox represents a wrong view of scripture. ***

Based upon what?

***What you see today is the Latin Church moving towards the wrong view of the Orthodox. It’s rather astonding that you would admit the Orthodox held the heretical views and then want the western church to move towards you.***

Held. As in a thousand years ago. We have drifted steadily to the left as we were influenced by the Protestant Reformation. We need the Orthodox in order to restore the Western Church.

***I have gone into a number of fundamental Protestant church of all denominations and heard the same basic doctrine, that Christ died for your sins and that He arose. I might disagree with some of the biblical interpretation but it doesn’t undercut the primary message of the gospel. ***

Most of the Reformed churches indulge in various levels of Gnosticism and are steadily losing members. Most of the non Reformed are crashing and burning or bubbling like water in a cauldron and fracturing before our very eyes.

The Gospel seems to be given a spin by all those that I have viewed according to the plans or the financial shading of those that are giving it.

***God has granted us the scriptures; scriptures that the Church from the earliest days have deemed inspired but which you have gone on record as doubting. You won’t find that in fundamental churches where we believe in the scriptures. 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. ***

The Catholic Church decided on the content of Scripture and has presented it to the heathen world.

***If the Eucharist was so central to your beliefs, then there is really no reasons the Orthodox and Catholics can’t patch things up tomorrow.***

It is religious pride. It is something that we are attempting to remedy right now. What do the Protestants have to say about their thousands of denominations?

One that doesn't put greed ahead of the nation. At this moment, we have 13 million illegal aliens in this country because American businesses are willing to hire them as cheap labor, and the government (servants of the poeple!) look the other way. How patriotic is that?

Not very patriotic!

However, assuming this is all due to greed is not seriously looking at the problem. We have a labor shortage in this country with lower paying jobs. If you look at the number of abortions in this country from 1975-1987 (someone born in 1987 is 21 today) that's 12 years with 1 million plus babies killed per year. We have created this labor shortage by killing unborn babies.

Building a wall will stop the flow across the border, but it does not correct the underlying problem. We have so little regard for life we kill our own.

***I, too, am appalled at the way republican politics has gone. They’ve become democrat lite, and I’m convinced McCain is being shoved down our throats because they think he’s got integrity and can beat Hill or Obama. I’m not sure if there’s a deeper motive in all this, but the media is sure in on it. Sigh.***

Rush called it two years ago. McCain is the consequence of allowing the Democrats to take control of the House and Sentate. The Republicans are now panicking and grasping at any straw that the national media is saying has any chance against the Democrats.

The media likes McCain because he is morally flexible to the point where he is indistinguishable from the Democrats. He also does not get along with the conservative base, which the liberals who make up the media absolutely appreciate.

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.