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."
Indeed.
Along the way in my 61 years, I learned that some folks’ opinions were worth a lot more than others’ were.
And, that I could profit from prayerfully pondering such folks’ opinions.
I guess they teach different things in the RC edifice schools.
It seems to me that you’ve said some incredibly strong things about Quix to not know him that well.
Fascinating.
You have to get in the
INSINCERE GROVEL
line . . . the back of it.
Is Roman Catholicism reformed and what is called reformed in reality orthodox?.. NAH! they are both reformed from orthodoxy because orthodoxy is much simpler and more primitive than them both..
Great distinction.
And according to my usual desire to rewrite, even better than the word "testing" might be the word "trying," since "test" implies an uncertain outcome, and with God all things are certain. And we know that all things works to strengthen His family, one way or another.
"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
Even the difficult stuff, the sad and lonely and worrisome stuff, is for our benefit to bring us to Him.
"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts" -- Psalm 139:23 "Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?" -- Jer. 9:7 "And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God." -- Zech. 13:9 "But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." -- Job 23:10 "Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress." -- Psalm 17:3 "For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried." -- Psalm 66:10 "Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him (referring to Joseph, son of Jacob.)" -- Psalm 105:19 "The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth." -- Psalm 11:5
And finally, we have Paul's assurance...
And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." -- Romans 5:3-6 "And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
Thus Christ's comforting guidance...
"In your patience possess ye your souls." -- Luke 21:19
That's a start. 8~)
“You have a hamper?”
I thought that was what the chair or floor were for, but as part of her saintness project/miracle, K has patiently over the years tried to train me to drop them in the “hamper”. I have progressed to opening the cover and settling for a jump shot from the corner. If they make it in, a success, however K isn’t amused. I don’t think saints have much of a sense of humor; self-denial and all that stuff must take it’s toll on some things.
I’m sure somewhere in her prayers she has pled, along with David, “It is enough: stay now thine hand”
And be sure to bend your knees, shoot from the wrist and release the underwear above your head (unless you're still wearing it, in which case, Kay has bigger problems than laundry.)
***If you can’t articulate the criticism you’re leveling at me, don’t expect me to help out.***
Oh, but you are helping out by pointing out the problems with, and the contradictions that are endemic in Reformed theology. I have thanked you in the past, and will continue to thank you.
You are worth an army of Catholic apologists.
I don’t know that you have 61 years of experience, what the experiences that you do have consist of, and of what use they are put. You are an online entity.
I do gather that they have not been used to understand the Church. I suppose that that is one difference in Catholic experiences, regardless of age.
That has to be the one of the silliest things I have ever seen written on any religious forum.
If that were the case than you would all believe that Eucharist is literally the Body and Blood of Christ and living a sacramental life.... Thus being united.
The reformation and the reformers did not unite anything, including themselves
What the reformation has lead to is -divisions upon divisions leading to thousands of protestant communities with various beliefs all claiming the Holy Spirit leads them.
The fruits of the reformation is the spirit of confusion.
The spirit of confusion is NOT the Holy Spirit!
The only thing protestants seem to be united in is attacks on the Catholic Church.
It was in the same fashion of those who wanted Christ crucified that the reformers in their pride sought out to TRY and divide and destroy the Catholic Church.
The gates of hell did not prevail as Christ promised and it is the protestant churches that ended up divided.
Silly question. Because we have objective proof that it is! :)
Our liturgy predates all other extant liturgies, and it just happens to be the liturgy used at the same time the Church canonized the Bible. Same mindset, same liturgy, same Church. To the best of my knowledge there wasn't any other at that time. It has to be pure because it canonized the NT, whose selection of books you use as scripture.
But, on the other hand, there are those who claim that the Church didn't do it (despite documents to the contrary), but claim, without any proof whatsoever, that the HS put it all together and simply handed it to the bishops, which of course, is nothing short of a fairytale.
These are the same people who persistently avoid to comment about the evidence of the existence of prehistoric animals because such a reality, and fact, interferes with (even threatens) their fairy tale beliefs.
Purity of Eastern Orthodoxy does not require an a priori belief. It is not a solipsistic fantasy based on self, nor on Gnostic self-righteousness. It is a historical fact that it is the most unchanged and oldest form of organized Christianity, and reflect in its totality the worship and the teaching of the Church that claimed the same heritage from the beginning when it canonized the New Testament.
How's that poultry, Dr. E?
God has no reason to test anyone.
***It seems to me that you’ve said some incredibly strong things about Quix to not know him that well.***
I have no knowledge about saying incredibly strong things about Quix.
I have said some things about what Quix has posted. Unlike some, I am able to differentiate between the core of the individual and words that that individual has posted online.
If people persist in confusing the two, I suppose that they will continue to cuddle a feeling of righteous persecution in their bosoms. To each his own.
Why, thank you, Mark, for such a great honor.
(Oh, where are my notes...how does my hair look...here they are...)
And I'd like to thank my mother and my father and all the Romanists who made this moment possible.
But most of all, I'd like to share this golden compliment with the multiplyng-by-the-grace-of-God throngs of reformers who proclaim "Christ alone!"
"One man of you shall chase a thousand: for the LORD your God, he it is that fighteth for you, as he hath promised you." -- Joshua 23:10
Amen.
***Is Roman Catholicism reformed and what is called reformed in reality orthodox?.. NAH! they are both reformed from orthodoxy because orthodoxy is much simpler and more primitive than them both..***
What a fantastic post. Do you mind if I ring up kosta and Kolo? Maybe we could be the ones grinning and giggling like third grade girls this time.
Amen! "Christ alone!"
Aren’t these goodie bags great? 8~)
You mean the New Testament that is imperfect and imprecise and some of it just plain wrong?
That New Testament?
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