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."
You know, Irish, thr last sentence of my post was "Money?" but I took it out before posting because it looked like I was "leading."
Trouble is, if the Bible is perspicious, there would be no need to buy such books. Something is amiss.
What? You don’t want my opinion on everything? :>)
“That only explains your personal opinion of Aquinas,Dear Brother, that is backed up with no substance.”
There isn’t enough bandwidth on this site to post the corpus of works of the Ante Nicene, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, sfa. Aquinas was simply outside the consensus patrum with regard to our ability in any fashion to partake in the ousia of God, even in terms of “seeing it” other than of course with Christ. I urge you to read The Fathers. At an absolute minimum, go to a library and get volume 4 of the Philokalia and read +Gregory Palamas’ “Topics of Natural and Theological Science”. For now, might want to consider reading this recent piece (remembering the distinction between hypostasis and ousia and ousia and energies):
http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/pappas_grace.html
Of course I do! :)
***You don’t want my opinion on everything? :>)
Of course I do! :)***
The most interesting thing is the journey to discovery of the alignment of opinion to fact. :)
But Macarthur can't preach against infant baptism to other protestants... oh OK. See protestants have those 'in house' disagreements which don't cause them to break fellowship either. Same as you.
Same reason Catholics do. Why do they preach on Sunday instead of just read the Bible aloud? I dunno. Why did Paul? Why did any of the Apostles? Why did Jesus open the scripture and explain how the whole thing pointed to him on the road to Emmaus? Whether it is verbal or written, we all do it.
God.
As for sounding like the UN, yeah, the UN does think it's God too and tries to usurp his place all the time.
As long as they quit proselytizing too.
***That said,I will refrain from arguing an over 1000 year old problem between us and Pray for complete unity for the leaders of both sides to figure out.
Me too. But we must point to our disagreements, remembering that they are “in-house,” and that the path towards full unity will be full of such.***
I pray for full union in my lifetime; I think that we have the path as clear as it ever has been and that we have a Pope that will take the West back to what it has lost, jettisoned or minimized. The obstacles are fewer now than there has been over the last millennium. It is both important and urgent, given the state of the world and the militancy of the Muslims.
Vienna is happening again right now and the lazy and stupid West either does not know or care about the ramifications.
trying to figure out how this instantly became a Catholic thread too.... again Catholicism isn’t mentioned until the comments section. Is there an effort to jump down protestant throats underway here? Or is this a continuation of a previous Catholic thread? I’ve had Catholics pinged to threads that really have nothing to do with Catholicism and they show up to bash well known protestant pastors who also weren’t the subject of the thread. What is going on?
Eastern Orthodox are not anti-western Catholicism and Catholic's are not anti Orthodox.
This MaC Arther guy is a hate monger like Obama’s pastor.
He preaches that Catholic's are not Christians.
You're talking apples and oranges.
Click on my profile page for the new guidelines to posting on the Religion Forum.
***trying to figure out how this instantly became a Catholic thread ***
It was made a Catholic thread in the first paragraph.
“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.”
***What is going on?***
Defenders of the Faith are taking their responsibilities a little more seriously these days.
“Is that what Jesus taught? Where is Christ in Prov 16? Therein lies the problem.”
If you wish to separate Christ from what we call the “Old Testament”, you and I cannot have a conversation.
You’ve got to be kidding. Christ not in the Word? Not teaching the Word? How ‘bout what the Lord Jesus said as recorded in John 6:70-71? “Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? He spake of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve.”
Sounds a whole lot like the message in Prov 16:4
People write books about the Bible and how to live in accordance with it for the same reasons as they preach and teach. Do people not teach what the Bible says, the context of the passage, the application of the text? It’s a normal process that comports with Paul’s instruction to the church.
Or are you merely being obtuse?
Being Roman Catholic does not make one a Christian. Nor does not prohibit one from being a Christian. The RCC has a lot of extra-Biblical doctrines that non-RCC Christians find repugnant - because the Bible tells us so. But most RCs don’t seem to care about Truth, only RCC dogma.
How can people who appear to have faith fall away from faith? Besides, Paul is saying "Let no one in any way deceive you" [2 Thes 2:3]." If you are "protected" (if God won't let you fall away) who can deceive you? Only believers can fall away from faith. Nowhere does it say it applies to those who "appear" to be faithful.
If the Reformed theology holds any water, then those who are predestined to be deceived WILL be deceived and it is not a matter of anyone LETTING themselves be deceived! Ergo, the Reformed theology holds no water. It's full of holes.
Kosta: "For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false" [2 Thes 2:11]!
FK: Paul is just saying that God will leave them to themselves
NO HE IS NOT! It clearly says that GOD will SEND deluding spirits to DECEIVE them. Which part of this don't you understand? Or is it that you must rationalize and deny everything and anything in order not to admit what is absolutely unambiguous????
Your own example that follows only confirms that God is INVOLVED in all this (accoridng to Paul), my emphases:
How is it THEIR perversion when God "gave them to shameful lusts"??? Paul is saying that we have no control over what we believe OR do, which includes with whom we want to share "shameful lusts," yet is is somehow OUR responsibility!
False.
Without God, men are incapable of seeing the light, so if God turns away then men WILL believe what is false.
The Bible also says that God inscribed his laws in our hearts. It's like saying God put money in our pockets. What we do with it, is our decision—to our benefit or perdition.
Read Hebrews 8. The end says (never mind that this only pertains to the Jews), with my emphases:
11 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, nor a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. [Heb 8:10-12]
It tells us (verse 10) that there will be NO NEED for PREACHING because men will KNOW God in their MINDS and will have His laws in their HEARTS.
What they do after that will be either their blessing (obeying the Lord) or their downfall (abusing the blesisngs He gave), because He has forgiven the sins of ALL.
False! Hell was not created for men but for the devil and his angels. (cf Mat 25:41). That some men will end up there is because they will decide to follow the devil (by choice). It's their decision, not God's. We have been freed by Christ, who is the New Covenant, to either come to Him or not.
I mean, if I and a non-believer were up for the same job, and God decided to reward me, then the other guy who was more qualified) was interfered with
What makes you think a believer is any better than the non-believer? How prideful of you!
God does intercede if our will is in harmony with His and our intentions are pure.
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