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."
Yes everything is find. My Internet connection has been reduced and I have been extremely busy the rest of the time. My son won first place in his high school science fair and is moving on to the regionals. Talk about miracles!!!! My wife and I told him to do some simple little thing but we insisted he do it well. All we were interested is that he get an "A" for his project. You could have knocked us over with a feather when they called his name out as a first place winner. (about 10 first place winners out of 550)
Well enough yaking... (the world doesn't need more yaks)
I would certainly agree with your first (transcending natural laws) and third (enlightening the human mind) examples. I would have a problem with "moral" miracles. I'm not quite sure what that would be. Thomas More refusal to accept King Henry's leadership as the head of the Church of England, doesn't speak to me as a "moral" miracle but rather someone who simply believes, rightly or wrongly, in his Church. You could say the same thing about Wycliff or Jan Hus but I doubt if you'll find the Church crediting Wycliff or Hus as a "moral" miracle.
Sorry for the double post. I got this weird error and then it posted again. Now everyone will have to suffer through my dumb jokes twice. :O)
Doesn’t make it twice as dumb, though :>)
If you're going to misrepresent what I am saying we might as well go back and argue theology.
Is their theology as deeply flawed as we see elsewhere? If not, they should probably welcome them, support them and point them in the direction of the muslims.
So, then you must think the Orthodox are not Christians if they need to be evangelized. And just whose theology are you teaching them? Your own? Or is there some "official Protestant truth" that all have to subscribe to? Is it some Protestant "magisterium" that decides who is a Christian and who is not?
For Protestants to call Orthodox un-Christian and in need to be evangelized is like a thief calling cops "bad guys."
Protestants have no business evangelizing Orthodox Russia. There are billions of people who don't know Christ all over the world. But, it 's safer to try to make Russians into "Christians" then to try to evangelize Muslims. You have 1.2 billion of them in this world. But they tend to decapitate Christian ... and that's probably more where their zeal to evangelize stops.
Forest Keeper and I had this discussion a while back. The verse simply says believers. Just like the verse before: those who believe and are baptized shall be saved. It doesn't mean "some" of those who believe and are baptized, HD. It means all who believe and are baptized shall be saved (I emphasize also shall be; it doesn't say are).
It's just like the verse where Jesus says He was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel that Protestants suddenly lose their "eyes" and cannot see the word only. Similarly, they cannot see that Christ is speaking to the disciples only at the Sermon on the Mount.
Funny "visions" and "hearings" Protestants have. Selective, just like their verses.
***Similarly, they cannot see that Christ is speaking to the disciples only at the Sermon on the Mount.***
Must be another Bible. Mine says that he was speaking to GREAT CROWDS in Matthew 5. Not just a few disciples.
As I said in the prior post:
Is their theology as deeply flawed as we see elsewhere? If not, they should probably welcome them, support them and point them in the direction of the muslims.
Clearly you feel intimidated by evangelists, is this because the EOC is so inexperienced in this area? As old as the EOC is I would think there would be a lengthy history of sending evangelists through out the world. Yet most people know very little about the EOC.
Mark 16:15 And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."
Perhaps this fell between the cracks:
KOSTA50 SAID:
I am not opposed to Mark 16:17-18. I am simply asking where are those signs the verse speak of as a promise to the believers?!
= = = =
How often are those signs in your local congregation and to what extent . . .
i.e.
How often in terms of times per service or some such?
How dramatically?
How miraculously?
Your post reminds me of something from the great Reformed theologian, Herman Bavinck.
A dogma is not based on the results of any historical-critical research but only on the witness of God, on the self-testimony of Holy Scripture. A Christian believes, not because everything in life reveals the love of God, but rather despite everything that raises doubt.In scripture too there is much that raises doubt. All believers know from experience that this is true. Those who engage in biblical criticism frequently talk as if simple church people know nothing about the objections that are advanced against Scripture and are insensitive to the difficulty of continuing to believe in Scripture. But that is a false picture. Certainly, simple Christians do not know all the obstacles that science raises to belief in Scripture. But they do to a greater or lesser degree know the hard struggle fought both in head and heart against Scripture.
There is not a single Christian who has not in his or her own way learned to know the antithesis between the “wisdom of the world” and “the foolishness of God.” It is one and the same battle, an ever-continuing battle, which has to be waged by all Christians, learned or unlearned, to “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).
Here on earth no one ever rises above that Battle. Throughout the whole domain of faith, there remain “crosses” (cruces) that have to be overcome. There is no faith without struggle. To believe is to struggle, to struggle against the appearance of things. As long as people still believe in anything, their belief is challenged from all directions. No modern believer is spared from this either. Thus for those who in childlike faith subject themselves to Scripture, there still remain more than enough objections. These need not be disguised.
Their are intellectual problems (cruces) in Scripture that cannot be ignored and that will probably never be resolved. But these difficulties, which Scripture itself presents against its own inspiration, are in large part not recent discoveries of our century. They have been known at all times. Nevertheless, Jesus and the apostles, Athanasius and Augustine, Thomas and Bonaventure, Luther and Calvin, and Christians of all churches have down the centuries confessed and recognized Scripture as the word of God. Those who want to delay belief in Scripture till all the objections have been cleared up and all the contradictions have been resolved will never arrive at faith. “For who hopes for what he sees?” [Rom. 8:24]. Jesus calls blessed those who have not seen and yet believe [John 20:29].
No, I am annoyed by them! Just as I am annoyed by LDS and WT people peddling their heresy to Christians.
Your assertion that Orthodox theology is "deeply flawed" is laughable. The part that is serious is that they dare to evangelize Christians. I ask you by whose authority? Whose theology are the Protestants peddling in Christian Russia?
As old as the EOC is I would think there would be a lengthy history of sending evangelists through out the world
As far as I know, before Orthodxy was enslaved by the Ottomans, they Christianized all the lands to the east and North of Constantinople, including Russia.
During the 500 years of Ottoman empire they couldn't. During communism they couldn't. Today, the Orthodox have very active missions in Africa and other parts of the world where there are few, if any Christians, which is where all evangelists ought to be.
The Orthodox, no matter how much they disagree with Protestant theology, are not so un-Christian as to evenagelize Protestant countries, such as Norway!
Yet most people know very little about the EOC
I can't help the ignorant. A cursory interest in Christianity would soon lead one to discover that Eastern Orthodoxy is the second largest Christian group in the world.
It didn't fall through the cracks. I have no cue what you are asking.
What is your point?
And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot. - Deut 29:2-5
And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. – John 6:65
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: - John 10:27
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. - John 6:63
Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? - Isaiah 53:1
No, it's the same bible.
There is nothing here to suggest that anyone but His disciples were in the mountain. All this says is that He saw the crowds and went into (eiV) the mountain, it doesn't say He went to them, or that they followed Him. It does say that His disicples followed Him and caught up with Him, and He becgan to speak to them. We don't know where the crowds were relative to where Jesus was. But we do know that His disciples were with Him and thye heared Him.
Matthew 7:28 “When Jesus had finished saying these things, the CROWDS were amazed at his teaching...”
Read the WHOLE thing.
??? No one but the apostles heard the Sermon on the Mount?
Where do you get this stuff?
Yet this error does fit with the absurd amount of power you invest in "other Christs." No wonder you so easily dismiss the Scriptures if you don't think they were written with your ears in mind. And now you even deny the ears of thoses the Bible says were actually present.
Have you read the concurrent verses in Luke 6?
And they that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God..." -- Luke 6:17-20 "And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judaea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases;
It's even clearer in versions like the NASB...
who had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were being cured. And all the people were trying to touch Him, for power was coming from Him and healing them all. And turning His gaze toward His disciples, He began to say, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God..." -- Luke 6:17-20 "Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place; and there was a large crowd of His disciples, and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon,
Cheer up, Kosta! God willing, Christ was addressing the Sermon on the Mount to you, too.
That's easy. In high school I played the trombone in our jazz band. In Senior year I had the featured solo for our rendition of Lionel Ritchie's "Truly". Right before a big-deal competition, I dedicated it to my then number one squeeze (now wife), and it's been our song ever since. :)
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY EVERYONE!! :)
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