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."
Sorry, kosta. Your argument only supports what the Bible teaches: God calls each person to repentance and salvation individually. He called the nation of Israel out from the pagan nations but the nation of Israel was not redeemed as a group. Neither is this church or that group. God saves individual souls, not groups.
Truth be told, FK, a year ago I wouldn't have believed if someone told me (some, maybe all of the) Reformed believed God makes devil children. Today, sadly, I know they do because they say so.
Kosta.
No matter how you look at it, any omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent being in either directly involved or indirectly involved with power to interecede in any event that happens in all of history.
Many simply don’t like to admit that.
I never said God saved groups. I said God burdened groups (as well as select individuals) with righteousness. The entire Jewish nation was burdened with righteousness, so that through their righteousness the God of Abraham would be the light to all nations, but they didn't live up to it, just as none other has or would have. Being "chosen" is not a club membership, but a burden of righteousness to do God's work, and no group has been specifically selected for that task like the Jews have.
Kosta. No matter how you look at it, any omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent being in either directly involved or indirectly involved with power to interecede in any event that happens in all of history
Well, the Reformed are free to believe what they want. To say that God creates devil children and gives them to unlucky parents is not what Christ taught us to believe. If that's what they believe then they are not Christians as far as I am concerned, but a Christian cult.
You’re missing the point kosta.
Any God who is tri-Omni is going to be culpable. There’s no dodging it.
The only counter argument is to claim that God is NOT Tri-Omni in some form or fashion.
LOL. I hear ya.
LOLOL. Count it all for joy, FK. Your Scriptural, God-glorifying, patient posts have been a blessing to all who reads them.
No faith required???
"Whatsover is not of faith is sin." -- Romans 14:23
How is a man saved? By simply being "meek?" By simply becoming "poor in spirit?" By simply having "hunger?"
Or do the meek and the poor in spirit and the hungry become saved by being given faith in Jesus Christ to satisfy all their needs?
"And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." -- John 6:35
"He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." -- John 7:38
"Be not afraid; only believe." -- Mark 5:36
No wonder Luther was so furious when he opened the Bible and read it and saw how far the then-prevailing church had strayed from God's word.
Post Tenebras Lux.
Maybe we don't read the same Bible.
It's not the Bible that differs, but our eyes and ears.
"Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments." -- Psalm 119:73
yeah... well I was wondering where that came from already at post #2 considering the article...
The seal doens't prevent anyone from sinning. The baptized still sin! As far as Adam and Eve are concerned, they were under Grace. When we are baptized, we are restored to grace and, just as Adam and Eve could fall away, so can we.
I said that man cannot break God's seal. You said that Adam and Eve did just that. I asked for an explanation of what seal they were under, and I still don't know. We are not told that Holy Spirit indwelt them when created. And if anything, wouldn't you say they were under law instead of under grace?
In fact, the Beatitudes tell us what is required to get into heaven and there is not a trace of any faith mentioned in them! (Paul didn't invent that yet)
This is a good description of someone who lives under the Law and not under grace. Paul spoke often of this:
Rom 6:14-15 : 14 For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace ? By no means!
Gal 2:21 : I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"
Gal 3:18 : For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.
Gal 5:4 : You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.
Wow! I guess for your sake you had better hope that Paul was making all this stuff up too! :)
Yeah, we should be like Christ in our hearts, pure, and we shall see God. Is your heart pure?
Sure, Matt. 5:8 says that those who will see God (the elect) are blessed and given a pure heart.
And speaking of minority elites, what are the "elect" if not the minority elite who get a limo ride to heaven just because. Talk about exclusive faith!
I admit that it does sound ridiculous that God might get to choose His own elect. I mean, who does He think He is, anyway? Everyone knows that man is autonomous and self-determined. Only he has the power to control his own destiny. And this view isn't elitist at all! :)
If you are predestined to be saved, you are as good as saved (I believe those are your words), so that your statement above is patently false, that is—if you consider yourself Reformed. If you are saved from before the foundation of the world, then we all don't start unsaved.
Within the context of the conversation I used one of the four different but correct uses of the concept of the word "saved" that the Bible either explicitly or implicitly uses. I listed them recently. I will again if you like.
FK: Your passage supports my case. For example: ... "When God is said to have sealed the Redeemer, the meaning is, that he has attested his divine mission (Joh 6:27). Circumcision is a seal, an attestation of the covenant (Rom 4:11). ...
Kosta: Circumcision is a mark. It could just as well be cutting off your nose. It's a pagan custom of marking a tribe.
God Himself instituted circumcision, so if you want to call that pagan that is up to you. :) But the point is in its permanence. You can't undo a circumcision any more than you can unring a bell. Yet, Apostolics claim that they CAN undo the seal of the Holy Spirit, in clear violation of scripture.
Good answer, Dr. E.
Lots of tribes mutilated their bodies precisely for that reason: it cannot be undone. So, what you are saying is that God wanted man to mutilate himself as a permanent "seal" and yet Paul says circumcision we can do without? (of course he did, because the Gentiles would not have come in numbers; smart move).
Yet, Apostolics claim that they CAN undo the seal of the Holy Spirit, in clear violation of scripture
Where does the scripture say we cannot break the seal? BTW, you are wrong about not being able to undo the circumcision. Circumcision is actually reversable without surgery.
And I can (again) give you a list of all things the Bible says that save us. The point is that those who are predestined to be saved are not born unsaved. Therefore we are not all born "unsaved." Being saved, no matter what cherry-picked meaning you wish to attach to the word, means just that, and is "as good as" having been saved.
If you are predestined to be saved you will be saved (acc. to Reformed theology) and you have been saved before you even existed, so at your birth you were never lost.
Heb.11: 6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
I know that is the position, but I think we'll have to have a friendly disagreement about it. :) Of course all sides interpret and in some cases it seems like a real "stretch" to another side, but when I look at this as a big picture, the pattern I see is that the Reformed say the totality of scriptures "trump" the verse here or there that doesn't seem to fit at face value, whereas, the Apostolics seem to hold that extra-scriptural Tradition "trumps" all scripture, regardless of whether the passage is in the majority or minority as compared to the totality of scripture. That is, the Bible is not allowed to defend itself. Even if there were ten verses that strongly supported a point, they would all be interpreted away if they disagreed (at face value) with what the Church teaches today.
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