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."

Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes [Job 42:4].

What is he repenting, and abhorring himself for when that same book tells us Job was "blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil." [Job 1:1]?

Matt, 4:1, “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”

I know what St. Matthew says. It doesn't answer my question if there was ever any doubt that Christ would not resist evil.

But consistent with the pre-divine Jesus Gospels, the author says Jesus was led by the Spirit. The Spirit here means the the Spirit of God, which in the Judaic sense does not mean a divine Hypostasis but the power of God.

So, then, Christ, whose both divine and human natures are in perfect harmony (basic orthodox Christology), had to be tested by His own divine nature and "needed" the Holy Spirit to "guide" Him! Hmmmm.

Matt. 26:37-39, “And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

More consistent writings indicating that Matthew's Gospel doesn't treat Jesus as divine, but as Jewish messiah. The Church interprets it through the Christological dogma declared later as something that was understood all along, namely that Christ suffered in His human nature and had fears and felt pain, but there was never any chance that He would have done anything that was not in harmony with His divine nature, which is the same nature is of the Father and the Spirit.

Matt. 27:46, “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Of course, the Church here also tries to rescue the non-divine Jesus of St. Matthew by saying that, on accepting the sins of the world, Jesus felt the same separation we feel form Him when we sin. But that would mean that He actually sinned and distanced Himself form Himself.

Of course, your quote makes perfect sense if He is taken to be a non-divine Jewish messiah that Jews expect to this day.

And while you are at it, why not also mention John 14:28 "for the Father is greater than I." How Trinitarian is that?! And this was written at the end of the first century by St. John who believed that Jesus was divine (but apparently not as divine as the Father!). Is there any wonder that heretics also quote from the same New Testament?
Even John's own Gospel has enough spiritual food for Arians to feed on.

Heb. 5:7-9,”Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;”

Wonderful! I love your quotes. Look what it says here: (1) Jesus had to pray to the one who could save him form death! (2) Jesus had to learn (3) He was a Son!, (4) was made perfect (complete) through suffering.

Why would they pray to any one but the Father when He is the one Jesus commanded us to pray to? Jesus intercedes for us and the Holy spirit helps our infirmities in prayer.

So, He is not equal to the Father and we are not to worship Him, but only ask Him to intercede with the Father on our behalf? Hmmmm. Yet we all supposedly believe in one and the same God?

No, it [Christ's divinity] is introduced in Matt. 1:23, “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us

I disagree. There is nothing here to suggest that the child is God, only a favorite of God. This is consistent with the rest of St. Matthew's presentation of a very human Jesus.

***The Church viewed Cassian’s teachings as heretical. Shouldn’t that be sufficient?***

Let’s see what New Advent says:

The three opposing views have been summed up briefly as follows: St. Augustine regarded man in his natural state as dead, Pelagius as quite sound, Cassian as sick. The error of Cassian was to regard a purely natural act, proceeding from the exercise of free will, as the first step to salvation. In the controversy which, shortly before his death, arose over his teaching, Cassian took no part. His earliest opponent, Prosper of Aquitaine, without naming him, alludes to him with great respect as a man of more than ordinary virtues. Semipelagianism was finally condemned by the Council of Orange in 529.

The fact that semipelagianism was condemned is the entire basis of everything that you consider heretical or not? Do you really mean to say that?

***What evidence do I need? I’m not the one who sits in judgment. I’m merely stating venerating statues made with hands is idolatry. Let him who have ears hear.***

You are judging. Let him who has brains think.

New Advent is helpful:

Two questions that obviously must be kept apart are those of the use of sacred images and of the reverence paid to them. That Christians from the very beginning adorned their catacombs with paintings of Christ, of the saints, of scenes from the Bible and allegorical groups is too obvious and too well known for it to be necessary to insist upon the fact. The catacombs are the cradle of all Christian art. Since their discovery in the sixteenth century — on 31 May, 1578, an accident revealed part of the catacomb in the Via Salaria — and the investigation of their contents that has gone on steadily ever since, we are able to reconstruct an exact idea of the paintings that adorned them. That the first Christians had any sort of prejudice against images, pictures, or statues is a myth (defended amongst others by Erasmus) that has been abundantly dispelled by all students of Christian archaeology. The idea that they must have feared the danger of idolatry among their new converts is disproved in the simplest way by the pictures even statues, that remain from the first centuries. Even the Jewish Christians had no reason to be prejudiced against pictures, as we have seen; still less had the Gentile communities any such feeling. They accepted the art of their time and used it, as well as a poor and persecuted community could, to express their religious ideas.

The Christian sarcophagi were ornamented with indifferent or symbolic designs — palms, peacocks, vines, with the chi-rho monogram (long before Constantine), with bas-reliefs of Christ as the Good Shepherd, or seated between figures of saints, and sometimes, as in the famous one of Julius Bassus with elaborate scenes from the New Testament. And the catacombs were covered with paintings. There are other decorations such as garlands, ribands, stars landscapes, vines-no doubt in many cases having a symbolic meaning. ***

I thought that you guys trumpeted loudly and repeatedly that you were the most akin to the early Church. Why do you not practice what the early Church practiced? I notice that you also don’t believe in transubstantiation. Another significant departure from Christian beliefs. With the difference between yourselves and the Church, I think that the term Christian applied to the Reformers is very weakly linked and getting weaker with every new development in theology.

***So, what is the meaning of venerate?***

St. Thomas declares what idolatry is in the “Summa Theologica”, II-II:94, and explains the use of images in the Catholic Church (II-II:94:2, ad 1Um). He distinguishes between latria and dulia (II-II:103). The twenty-fifth session of the Council of Trent (Dec., 1543) repeats faithfully the principles of Nicaea II:

[The holy Synod commands] that images of Christ, the Virgin Mother of God, and other saints are to be held and kept especially in churches, that due honour and reverence (debitum honorem et venerationem) are to be paid to them, not that any divinity or power is thought to be in them for the sake of which they may be worshipped, or that anything can be asked of them, or that any trust may be put in images, as was done by the heathen who put their trust in their idols [Ps. cxxxiv, 15 sqq.], but because the honour shown to them is referred to the prototypes which they represent, so that by kissing, uncovering to, kneeling before images we adore Christ and honour the saints whose likeness they bear (Denzinger, no. 986).

***The Orthodox view was built on a synergistic model that believed in man’s will to change his life. Their touted saint is none other than Saint Cassian who had a great influence on the Orthodox view. On the other side was the Latin who branded (at least initially) Cassian as a heretic, favoring Augustine’s view of salvation as a gift from God. After all, it does state that in scripture although few actually believe that it is a GIFT; instead thinking they did something (had faith, was baptized, etc.). Few look upon the church/Church as the “chosen” nation of God. Instead most veiw it as the “chosing” nation of God.***

I guess that you’ve hung out with a different crowd than I have. All Catholics that I know or know of consider the Grace of God to be the foundation of one’s salvation. It is in the Catechism; it is in the Gospel and it is what we believe.

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.