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."
I need to get back to you on this, Manfred.
Some of the verses do seem to indicate heavenly rewards, but most of the them don’t call it out specifically. Interesting post, though. Did you find this on a website?
Randy Alcorn is a former pastor and author, founder of Eternal Perspectives Ministry - http://www.epm.org/ He has much biblical analysis on this topic and that’s where I looked to for much of what I posted in my last response to you.
I guess that for me the clinching argument is John 14:2 and the commentaries that such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine had on it.
Okay, I’ve learned something. Thank you.
I truly wish and pray each of us would truly love the Lord Jesus and obey Him as He has commanded us. Walk in the spirit and many thanks for your courteous and sometimes rambunctious conversation.
But how would you know that if you did not have the Scriptures to tell you that??? And when Scripture says "Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart", the God you are supposed to love is the God who gave us the Scriptures, right????
As Jesus put it, You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. (John 5:39-40)
Jesus is telling them and you that He is the God of the Scriptures. You cannot have the one without the other. Read the verses before that:
"And the Father himself who has sent me, has borne witness of me. You have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his shape, and you have not His word abiding in you, for whom he has sent, him you do not believe." [John 5:37-38]
How does anyone claim with an honest heart that they love the God revealed in the Holy Scriptures, while at the same time trying to minimize those same Holy Scriptures of that God. It's a package deal. One cannot love God without also loving the Scriptures that He gave us.
AMEN!!!
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." -- 1 John 1:8
I ask my RC friends who they would rather be employed by? A boss or a father?
A man labors for a boss to please him and get a paycheck. A man labors for his father because his father loves him.
One is recompense; the other gratitude and love.
But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." -- Romans 4:4-5"Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
Can God justify a person in His sight when that person is NOT actually righteous? There are two, and ONLY two schools of thought in the Christian world.
And, there is Sola Fide, by faith alone that a man is justified. This is the view of Luther and the Reformers. Justification is forensic. We are declared righteous through the imputation of the "alien" righteousness of Christ to us.
I am in Christ Jesus who became for me wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and REDEMPTION.
I have coram deo (righteousness before God). God justifies the ungodly.
I have coram hominibus (righteousness before man). This is by works of faith. As James said, "I'll show you my faith...."
It is faith alone which saves, but this faith is never alone. Faith without works is dead.
Rome is wrong. Let her repent of her vain attempts to become righteous and her blasphemies against Christ. Let her discard her filthy rags and embrace the righteousness from God. Let her take up the message of outreach: God sees men righteous solely because of the blood of Christ. Simul Iustus et Peccator. Your contribution to your salvation: your sin. God's contribution to your salvation: the grace of God which was shed. God justifies the ungodly. This is the message of salvation. This is the message of the Reformers.
Let Rome repent and her sisters with her. Let her take up the battle cries of the Reformation and be reformed by the Word of God....
Sola Scriptura
Sola Gratia
Sola Fide
Solo Christo
Soli Deo Gloria
Wonderful article. Thanks for posting it. All too true, I’m afraid. Sigh.
I think this the result of them teaching an exclusivity that is not found in Scripture. The praying to statues, seeing apparitions that are believed to be Mary, the adoration for Mary that sure looks like worship from the outside, and the ever increasing supernatural powers attributed to Mary are all permissible because of the teaching of exclusivity.
I think the missionaries encounter problems from the RC's because by introducing the preeminence of Scripture the argument for exclusivity falls apart and a great deal of what they do comes into question.
There’s no doubt that many Catholics have been martyred, just as there are many other Christians who dare to share their faith and stand strong have been.
[Righteousness] shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification. ~ Gospel truth.
Sola Fide!!!
Amen!
When I describe the role of works in the Christian's life I take those who are parents to the image of a Kindergarten open house. As you look along the walls you see really bad art drawn by the kids, it does nothing for you until you see your own child's handiwork and it is absolutely beautiful. Your child is thrilled to give it to you. Is it really beautiful or is it pleasing because your child child drew it?
It's the same with God. Everyone's work is filthy rags until they perform those works out of a loving response to the free grace God has poured over them. Then, and only then, is it pleasing. And now the work we offer up to a loving Father is in love and gratitude instead of a pathetic bribe attempting to placate a wrathful judge.
No, I don’t think any really would. That’s something we need to leave to God, for HIM to convict them through His Word or through the HS. Mxxx
No, I don’t think any really would. That’s something we need to leave to God, for HIM to convict them through His Word or through the HS. Mxxx
Amen. Thanks.
Mary:No, I don’t think any really would. That’s something we need to leave to God, for HIM to convict them through His Word or through the HS.
We have to try though. If we just throw up our hands and say "we don't agree, but that's okay" we fail to serve our Saviour. We never know who has been quickened by God.
Titus 1:13-14 This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth.
Always nice to see your posts.
I’m learning to not only believe in Christ, but to put my faith and trust for my whole life in His hands.
Ah, but our God is even the God of our falling shorts. (smile)
“We never know who has been quickened by God”.
May the saints preserve me!-—I found something where we can agree. :-)
“There is cause for rejoicing here.”
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.