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."

ROTFLOL!

You can get off the floor, now.

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.

Really? I "demeaned" it because I said our economic system is undermining the security of the American people by hiring illegal aliens? Incredible! I "marginalized" it it—how? I "ultimately denied it validity and worth" because it is obvious that breaking the law and hiring illegals is not a role model of something that's good for America?

I don't demean the bible, I certainly don't marginalize it, and I do question it. And, that's wrong? I guess it offends those who believe in "official truth" and illegal immigration as a necessary evil that somehow 'good' for the country! And I distort things? LOL!

You are on the wrong website, Kosta...

That's your reply to my comment about capitalism using child labor, namely "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?" Incredible! next thing someone will tell me will be that somehow slavery wasn't such a bad institution...after all, Protestants used their interpretation of it form the bible to justify it. Talk about turning everything upside down!

The ruthless capitalism of Industrial Revolution did not stop hiring children on its own but had to be forced to stop the practice. That means the system did not intrinsically police itself or follow ethical principles, never mind any compassion.

Capitalism is not "based on greed."

Well, tell that to Big Oil. What exactly is "profit motive?"

Capitalism is not "unlikely to follow ethical principles."

I guess that's why we have all those ("nazi" and "commie") laws on the books about child labor, trusts, and so on. If capitalism was likely to follow ethical principles, no such always would have been necessary.

Capitalism is not "unlikely to follow national interests."

I am not sure about all capitalism, but American capitalism for a long time did have a protectionist and national interest in scope. All that went out the window when capitalism became "global."

And capitalism does not "have to be curbed."

Its past is a vivid proof that it does. Of course, you can always put your head in the sand and pretend the sun doesn't shine.

That is a prescription for fascism

You don't even know what fascism is. It's not business, for sure. American laws curbing business practices are not 'fascist' laws.

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

You are mixing Bolshevism with Fascism. I suspected that much. No one was required to give up private property in Nazi Germany (at least not the Germans). Huge corporations like , Mecedez-Brenz, Krupp, etc. existed as private ownership. It was the Bolshevik system in Soviet Russia that confiscated private properties and and made everything state owned.

And last time I checked the only people in America who taking my rights away are some ultraconservatives and illegal aliens, both of whom are tolerated and encouraged by the current Administration.

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...

So, I take it you are in favor of such abomination? There were always masses of people wishing to better their own lives and seeking freedom and opportunity in America. Always! They all had to get in line, fill out their paperwork and wait.

Those who overstayed their welcome were deported. Businesses were fined severely for hiring illegals and the laws were passed specifically for that purpose because in the past people were trying to better their lives and took many routes to accomplish that. That didn't change.

What changed is that not only is our Republican Administration willing to look the other way at a potential threat to our nation with tends of thousands of potential enemy combatants entering the country, but our businesses are willing to hire illegals for pure profit, and couldn't care less that they are breaking the law (which no one is enforcing) or that this is creating a stampede that is carrying people with potentially deadly diseases as well as potential terrorists.

Capitalism was responsible for transforming these United States into the one and only super power on the planet

That's ridiculous. It was what we did with capitalism and how we used the opportunities that popped up in front of us. It was our foreign policy that made us great. We won a lot of little and big wars. War was good for America. What made us a superpower was also the fact that previous superpowers imploded as eventually will happen with us. Sooner or later, every empire runs out of steam.

Capitalism didn't make the Soviet Union a super-power. It certainly wasn't England's claim to fame. And Rome was not exactly "capitalist' or excessively democratic.

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.

It is a lie that we only promoted freedom and democracy. You obviously never heard of Papa Doc in Haiti, or various little or big dictators that we propped up as our puppets all over Central and South America and the Carribean, and indeed around the world. American Indians certainly don't share that opinion.

Your statement sounds like some propaganda poster, the world through rosy glasses of idealism. You haven't been around much, have you?

The principles of our capitalistic economic system are reliable and productive. The principles are reliable and productive, but the practice isn't! if everyone behaved according to the established principles of the society we wouldn't need corrective laws.

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

I was talking about public SAFETY! In fact that's all I was talking about—public threat of illegal immigration! The health danger and the terrorist danger, the Trojan Horse. Our businesses that break the law to hire illegal aliens are creating demand for jobs that bring more and more illegals into the country because it is profitable to hire illegals over Americans citizens.

And the government is doing nothing to stop the businesses from hiring illegal aliens although such books actually exist and call for stiff penalties, stiff enough to make businesses reconsider their unethical conduct. Once the businesses stop hiring, the illegals will leave. The biggest problem presently with illegals is that we don't know who is entering our country, while we are trying to keep our enemies at bay overseas. It's all about the security.

But this was an absolute jewel:

The $1.25 fruit bowl you had for breakfast would cost you $5 without the low-waged manual labor to pick that fruit.

So, we are willing to sell our safety for $3.75 so we can have a fruit bowl for $1.25 ??? (who has fruit bowls for breakfast?!?) No, thanks, I will pass.

I suggest you go broad brush up on the Croatian Catholic Ustashi, then that mass murdering frequent visitor to the Vatican named Anton Pavelich, then his immediate superior and collaborator Archbishop Alois Stepinac convicted after the war and then rewarded with a Cardinal's hat...

I see you've read up on the Ustashe and the sad fact that some Catholic officials were implicated indirectly and directly in the Croatian death camps for the Serbs, Jews and Gypsies, where unspeakable atrocities have been committed.

You are also right that some Croatian Vatican officials provided a "ratline" that enabled many an Ustasha official to slip out of the post WWII communist Yugoslavia. In fact, Ante Pavelich ended up in Franco's Spain at first, a country that was openly pro fascist (with the hand salute and all) for many years after the end of WWII and was also on very good terms with the US.

But you are wrong that the Catholic Church (beginning with the Vatican and the Pope) endorsed, planned, executed, supported or condoned or knew in full what Croatia (NDH) did with the Serbs. It was not a Catholic operation, UC. To claim that is a gross mischaracterization of facts.

On a local level, some Catholic clergy crossed the line and engaged in actual killing, but most were simply obeying their bishops in forcibly converting the "heretic" (Orthodox) Serbs as per State of Croatia executive order signed by Ante Pavelich, and because the Vatican at that time still supported re-absorption (Uniatism) of Eastern Orthodox into the Roman fold.

Pavelich's state proposed the "final solution" for it Serbian population (at that time it was 25%; in 1990 it was 12.5; today is less than 4%— it's the largest ethnic cleaning in the Balkans, and no one in Washington talks how bad that is).

That final solution was named the Solution of Threes. One third of the Serbs was to be forcibly brought back into the Roman fold; onenthird was to be killed in several concentration camps, the largest being Jasenovac (Yasenovats), and one thrid was to be deported to Serbia proper. All tis was a croatian state doing. Whatever Catholic officials were involved it was not the policy of the Vatican State.

Needless to say, Cardinal Stepinac was condemned by a communist court. You recognize communist courts? I am not sure if he was implicated, if he knew and if he condoned. I can't judge that. It is certainly not a clear-cut case.

And no, the full extent of the atrocities committed by Croatian nationals and Bosnian Muslims was not known, just as the full extent of the Holocaust was not known until American Actually walked into those camps and saw the piles of bodies and the ovens.

As far as I know, there is no proof that the official Vatican was involved in any of that. If you can provide indisputable proof, then please do.

However, once the extent was known the US did not pressure Franco to spit our Pavelich to face a trial for crimes against humanity and America's Orthgodox allies. Pavelich died 14 years after the end of WWII and never faced a trial.

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