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."
Thanks for your kind encouragements, Dear Sister in Christ.
To be consistant, why doesn't your tag line say I believe that "Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity"?
Thanks for your kind and thoughtful sweetness of notifying me and of using my humble words in any fashion.
I’m sure God will ‘bless’ you accordingly.
LOLOL. Goose/gander, and all that poultry stuff.
That’s baloney. Faith isn’t a Kierkegardian “leap of faith”. Faith is the hope in promises through the evidence of unseen things. God promised a Messiah and it was fulfilled. Evidence. You may not believe the evidence but that does not make it unprovable or incoherent.
In the end the Catholic faiths deny revelation, especially the Greeks with their faith in their pagan philosophers negative theology, and with this denial of revelation down goes the doctrine of God and especially the person and work of the Holy Spirit. With the Holy Spirit reduced to merely the power of God, rejecting his personhood, and with the rejection of revelation, then all revelatory religions are gnostic. Not having any transcendence to back their religious system they install a system of precedence that tries to mimic transcendence. When over time this system of precedence naturally fails the current man/god in power is said to possess the revelatory power to override past precedence. We see this with Mormons, Romanists, and Greeks.
One other interesting note to go along with the above and that is that heresy always tags along with those religions that believe revelation is still continuing on today.
No... even if thats what many do in some places..
Nicolaitans refers to conquering the "Laity"..
According to the greek construction of the word..
LOL. The Reformed haven't concocted anything. God reveals that truth in His holy word. And I, for one, thank Him every day of my life that that fact is true and has been made known to me by the Holy Spirit.
To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like?... Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it." -- Isaiah 46:4-5;9-11
"When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained" -- Psalm 8:3
"He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names." -- Psalm 147:4
"Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass" -- Job 14:5
"And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation" -- Acts 17:26 "And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.
But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows." -- Matthew 10:29-31 "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.
I believe the Scriptures. You believe something else.
What He gave us was a gift and the recipients are free to do what they please with it, to their benefit or demise. Otherwise it's not a gift.
The "gift" is Christ on the cross, the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."
Non-refundable. Non-returnable. Personally-inscribed. Indelible. One gift to pay completely for all the sins of His flock (Hebrews 10:10.)
As God wills.
And thus, gratitude is the proper perspective.
AMEN!
“In the end the Catholic faiths deny revelation, especially the Greeks with their faith in their pagan philosophers negative theology, and with this denial of revelation down goes the doctrine of God and especially the person and work of the Holy Spirit.”
Lucky thing the HS woke up after that 1500 year nap and inspired Calvin, eh? Left to the Orthodox, doubtless Christianity all over would have ended up resembling the smoking church ruins Bush’s foreign policy has created throughout the East. Looked at another way, maybe Bush’s destruction of Orthodox and Eastern Christian communities is the fulfillment of Calvinism’s purpose in the world. What do you think, tc?
AMEN! And God graciously raised Christ from the dead to prove it all true. Evidence.
In the end the Catholic faiths deny revelation, especially the Greeks with their faith in their pagan philosophers negative theology, and with this denial of revelation down goes the doctrine of God and especially the person and work of the Holy Spirit. With the Holy Spirit reduced to merely the power of God, rejecting his personhood, and with the rejection of revelation, then all revelatory religions are gnostic. Not having any transcendence to back their religious system they install a system of precedence that tries to mimic transcendence. When over time this system of precedence naturally fails the current man/god in power is said to possess the revelatory power to override past precedence. We see this with Mormons, Romanists, and Greeks.
AMEN!!!
In great part the Reformation was a restatement of the work and purpose of the Holy Spirit which the church in Rome had tried to all but obliterate.
"The Holy Spirit may be justly called the key with which the treasures of the kingdom are unlocked to us; and his illumination constitutes our mental eyes." -- John Calvin, INST. III:i.4.
Men love God to be everywhere except when he is on his throne. When he is there, he is revealed to be Sovereign. As you noted in one of my favorite verses, nothing, not even something insignificant as the death of a little bird, happens apart from the Father. It is in him we breath and move and have our being.
Not even random seeming events are beyond the LORD: The lot is cast in the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.
Let those who oppose the Reformation, who act as the enemies of God, remember that they are but the clay and have no right to demand: “What are you doing?” It is only for men to bow before the Lord and acknowledge he is the the Alpha & Omega, the beginning and the end. What is so insignificant that it is beyond the perfection of God? Even the wind and waves know his voice and obey. OF him, FOR him, and TO him are all things.
“Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD?” ~ Exodus 4:11
I also believe God. I love Him and I trust Him.
When I cry [unto thee], then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God [is] for me.
In God will I praise [his] word: in the LORD will I praise [his] word.
In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.
Thy vows [are] upon me, O God: I will render praises unto thee. For thou hast delivered my soul from death: [wilt] not [thou deliver] my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living? - Psalms 56:8-13
“Faith isn’t a Kierkegardian “leap of faith.””
2Cr 5:7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
Jhn 20:29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed [are] they that have not seen, and [yet] have believed.
The word for believe is the same for evidence produced by sight and that produced by faith.
Besides, it's never a good idea to go to suspicious websites which might be contaminated with viruses.
Thanks. That's fascinating.
AMEN!
And on the "knowing" whom we believe.
Gnosticism is a belief in the knowledge itself; as if knowledge alone were the cause of some desired result.
Christian confidence is in God alone who brings us to the true knowledge of Himself and our place within His creation.
It's all about the source.
“The Reformed have concocted this myth that God is there to control everything on this little speck of dust.”
From this passage it seems that is exactly what God does.
Deut. 8:7, “For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.
10 When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee. Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God,
which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;
Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;
Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee,
and that he might prove thee,
to do thee good at thy latter end;
17 And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.
But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
19 And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish. As the nations which the LORD destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God.”
And I hope that I see you there as well. I would like to see all the sincere followers of Christ all over the world to be there.
***insist on worshipping your church instead of Jesus ***
We don’t do that, so there’s one pitfall out of the way. :)
***‘reformed’ are evil and going to hell’***
I believe that Reformed theology is evil, but many of its followers are well intentioned and sincere.
***I may not see you at the pearly gates. I would be very sad if that were the case.***
If I am not granted salvation and eternal life in Heaven by the Lord, I will be more than just sad. Thank you for the sentiment; I appreciate it more than I can say.
***Your church didn’t GIVE us the Bible. God did. He used your church to preserve it, PERHAPS, but the Bible doesn’t belong to your church.***
Not perhaps. We wrote it, translated it, kept copies, decided upon its content and distributed it to the whole world.
No, the Bible doesn’t belong to the Catholic Church; it is instructed to disseminate it to the whole world.
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