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."
***Get over yourself.***
It’s not about me.
***Yeh we all need to learn more about the Roman Catholic Croatian Ustashi and their operations there in the Balkans under the Nazis and the hundreds of thousands of Serbs that they tortured and slaughtered.***
Yes we do. Wrong is wrong. The Croats were wrong, and the Serbs, allied with the Soviets, were also wrong. Yugoslavia is fascinating to the point where all sides were wrong, and no good came out of it. I have had some very good Serbian friends who had some very pointed thoughts about the Croats.
Tito simply made things worse.
As The Church defines sin? Yes, absolutely. Bad things happen in a fallen world.
“That was the saviour side of Him who came to offer grace and mercy.”
What sort of comic book theology is this? The “saviour side”? This is so absurd you couldn’t have made it up. Its vaguely Mohammedan, but I suspect you picked this up from some preacher along the way. Do tell us who. :)
“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????”
I could not care less what Protestants do if they will just stop letting their modernist “theology” so influence American foreign policy that it feels morally justified in partnering in the destruction of Eastern Christian communities and cultures. Why don’t you limit your attacks to the “so called American Protestants” and leave us Eastern Christians alone.
“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.”
Again, YES! Should we have looked the other way. No, should we have as Christians gone to war? No, even if that meant dying. But we are human, fallen humans and until and unless we attain a state of perfect theosis, we will go to war and that’s sinful. But you don’t understand sin or for that matter even its consequences or why sin is of concern to Christians so you come up with a just war theory. Without it, your elect are sinners, aren’t they and that would never do.
“Yes the liberals have abandoned the scriptures and in doing so have embraced sin.”
You mean the scriptures The Church, that bunch of old Greek speaking bishops, put together for you? Those scriptures? What would I, a Christian who worships God the same way they did and believes the same things they did know about that. I mean, clearly the HS simply went to sleep after the canon was closed and didn't stir again until the protestant Revolution when he told a bunch of Germans and a Frenchman that what The Church had believed the previous 1500 years was a devilish trick...right? Sort of sounds like the Episcopalians' justification for blessing sodomite unions, but what would I know.
“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.”
You can ask this of a Greek? How many Jews did your people hide in your village, UC? Can you name the partisans in your family who fought as irregulars against the Nazis? Can you recite the names of your cousins who were executed in reprisals by the Nazis? Do you know the names of your relatives killed by the godless communists? Silly, spoiled Amerikanaki!
“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.”
Never, ever will you see this in an Orthodox country but we won’t pretend that the war that liberated us was somehow less sinful because the enemy was evil and the war was forced on us. Sin is sin, UC. It is always wrong. Saying otherwise makes one no better than the promoters of sodomite unions or jihad!
I just realized you have done to capitalism what you have been doing to the Bible -- demean it, marginalize it, and ultimately, deny its validity and worth.
And because (capitalism) 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
You are on the wrong website, Kosta.
Capitalism is not "based on greed."
Capitalism is not "unlikely to follow ethical principles."
Capitalism is not "unlikely to follow national interests."
And capitalism does not "have to be curbed."
That is a prescription for fascism. Marlowe was correct. What do you think the Germans were told when their private property and civil rights were taken? They were told to stop being "selfish" and give for the good of the fatherland, the state.
And we see how well that turned out.
No matter how you dress it up, the root cause of illegal aliens in this country is free trade (capitalism): supply and demand.
Kosta, in all seriousness, that is one of the goofiest things I've ever read on FR. Period.
The "root cause" of illegal aliens is the elected government in a free country being overwhelmed by masses of people wishing to better their own lives and that government dragging its feet on doing the difficult work of sorting this out because it is not a small problem; it is a voluminous problem. The $1.25 fruit bowl you had for breakfast would cost you $5 without the low-waged manual labor to pick that fruit. Thanks to abortion and a lower birth rate this country does not have the manual labor force it requires to keep the economy running. God willing, that trend will be reversed, but until then, the jobs will be filled by those who want those jobs.
The culprit here is clearly the economic system (capitalism)
Capitalism is not a "culprit." Capitalism is the soundest, sanest, most equitable means of allocating resources on this earth. Capitalism was responsible for transforming these United States into the one and only super power on the planet as well as lifting third world countries out of the deathgrip of poverty and the true greed of despots (Greece included,) and it will continue to do so for as long as men know the difference between socialism and capitalism, and choose the latter, by the grace of God.
In other words, either the government or the economic system needs to do something
The principles of our capitalistic economic system are reliable and productive. The government needs to handle the problem because the government's job is public safety, not regulating the markets or instituting socialism in place of capitalism.
Please give us the name of the "economic system" which you find preferable to that "culprit," capitalism.
K:Self-protection is "normal." Organizations are 'organisms" of sorts and tend to protect themselves. But that is true of Apostolic Churches and Protestant communities alike. You will find corruption everywhere.
Thank you we agree!
Accepting the historical truth of how large organizations react, especially when they have the power of the state behind them, Christians only have one source to draw upon to determine the correctness of a church's teachings and practices Scripture.
When Christians don't measure all teaching and practices by Scripture you end up with all kinds of beliefs and practices that were not present during the Apostolic Era. The dogmas surrounding Mary are a perfect example of this.
***Bad things happen in a fallen world.***
Part of our Judgement is how we deal with the fallen world. The Reformed do not appear to have such a burden.
***What sort of comic book theology is this?***
I’m sure that we have several dozen versions of it Sunday mornings on the TV.
***I could not care less what Protestants do if they will just stop letting their modernist “theology” so influence American foreign policy that it feels morally justified in partnering in the destruction of Eastern Christian communities and cultures. Why don’t you limit your attacks to the “so called American Protestants” and leave us Eastern Christians alone.***
It is unconscious. They simply don’t know. Part of the miracle of the Reformation was the ability to ignore most of Christianity.
***Should we have looked the other way. No, should we have as Christians gone to war? No, even if that meant dying. But we are human, fallen humans and until and unless we attain a state of perfect theosis, we will go to war and that’s sinful. But you don’t understand sin or for that matter even its consequences or why sin is of concern to Christians so you come up with a just war theory. Without it, your elect are sinners, aren’t they and that would never do.***
Something that I am (Augustinian influenced) guilty of as well. Something about the Crusaders with broadswords just kinda gets to me.
***You mean the scriptures The Church, that bunch of old Greek speaking bishops, put together for you? Those scriptures? What would I, a Christian who worships God the same way they did and believes the same things they did know about that.***
Christianity started, to most of these folks, from 50 to 100 years ago.
***How many Jews did your people hide in your village, UC? Can you name the partisans in your family who fought as irregulars against the Nazis? Can you recite the names of your cousins who were executed in reprisals by the Nazis? Do you know the names of your relatives killed by the godless communists? Silly, spoiled Amerikanaki!***
You are merely posing an academic question to folks who aren’t academic.
***Sin is sin, UC. It is always wrong. Saying otherwise makes one no better than the promoters of sodomite unions or jihad!***
Sin is not wrong if you are of the elect, doncha know? It is merely a step along the way to one’s salvation and if it affects that majority bound for hell, it is of no consequence.
All I can say is God Bless them. There are times in the face of evil you must stand and fight.
Luke 22:36 Then He said to them, "But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one".
“Sin is not wrong if you are of the elect, doncha know? It is merely a step along the way to one’s salvation and if it affects that majority bound for hell, it is of no consequence.”
Like all heretical teachings, this one is best known by its rotten fruit, an example of which is our recent foreign policy. It sure fits in well with Mohammedanism (another sort of heresy), though, doesn’t it!
If Milosevijc hadn't been such a horses rear end we might actually have been on Serbia's side.
Was the Civil War wrong? Was it sinful for union soldiers to go to war and die to free men and women they didn't even know?
Was it sinful to fight the Nazi's?
Was it sinful to fight a cold war, that got pretty hot in various parts of the world, in order to crush communism?
Come on, get some perspective. There are times that we must stand and fight. When Jesus said to turn the other cheek He did not say turn and run away. You stand your ground in the face of evil. The Nazi's were evil. The communists were evil. The muslims are evil.
Man are you wrong. Take off the self proclaimed martyrdom and look at the situation as it exists.
Where are these terrorists coming from and who is supplying them? Iran. If we move on Iran militarily there is a very real possibility that nationalist pride would support the mullahs and any hopes for change there would end. Also, how much support do you think you would find with the media. Has the media been honest in reporting the radical change going on in Bosnia, and Kosovo?
Finally, if we turn all our energies to correcting the mistakes we made in supporting the Bosnians what happens on the bigger battlefronts of Iraq and Afghanistan?
The Roman church after gaining state recognition has always sought to centralize power in itself. Do you believe that the EOC believing itself to be equal in authority had anything to do with this?
War is indeed sinful.
The Civil War was sinful on both sides. But look at the atrocities on both sides. How can you call any of them moral. The Nazis were wrong and therefore we had to take the measures that we did. But I challenge anyone here to call the firebombing of Dresden moral. Come on, anyone? Is there an answer to this?
Jesus does allow us the right for self protection to a point. But only to a point. The high priest’s ear was restored because Jesus didn’t consider even His own death to be justification for that level of violence.
We may protect one’s self, but not aggressively pursue world domination, according to Scripture. Jesus admonishes us to allow our enemies to pluck our beards. I do not detect that except with derision amongst the fundamentalists. I quoted this recently on a post and had the post replied to with the general thought that I was a masochist and that I enjoyed being a martyr.
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.
Regardless of a person's eschatology support of Israel is the right thing to do. I am critical of Israel for a lot of things, including the strong arming of EO to give up their land, but I still support them.
***Like all heretical teachings, this one is best known by its rotten fruit, an example of which is our recent foreign policy. It sure fits in well with Mohammedanism (another sort of heresy), though, doesn’t it!***
It appears to be of little consequence to the true Bible believers (tm). Since their belief in Bibliolatry is absolute, then they are simply competing head to head on equal terms with those who believe in the Koran.
I believe in my book.
I believe in my book.
Throw stones.
Wonderful point. McCain thinks embryonic stem cell research is okay. Bush and conservatives have always recognized the slippery slope this is.
***Bush and conservatives***
Bush is not really a conservative. He never has been. My support for him was a compromise.
McCain is a much larger compromise.
Tell that to your church.
WF, the answer to all your questions is Yes.
“McCain is a much larger compromise.”
McCain has been on the payroll of the KLA terrorists for years. A vote for him is a vote for Mohammedan terrorism and terror in the Balkans.
“Do you believe that the EOC believing itself to be equal in authority had anything to do with this?”
Equal in authority to whom, WF? Rome? Our systems are very different, WF. Authority resides in completely different places in each.
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