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."
What about it? Is it important that every "i" is dotted and every "t" crossed? The important thing is, as +John Chrysostom said:
But if there be anything touching times or places, which they have related differently, this nothing injures the truth of what they have said. And these things too, so far as God shall enable us, we will endeavor, as we proceed, to point out; requiring you, together with what we have mentioned, to observe, that in the chief heads, those which constitute our life and furnish out our doctrine, nowhere is any of them found to have disagreed, no not ever so little.
But what are these points? Such as follow: That God became man, that He wrought miracles, that He was crucified, that He was buried, that He rose again, that He ascended, that He will judge, that He hath given commandments tending to salvation, that He hath brought in a law not contrary to the Old Testament, that He is a Son, that He is only-begotten, that He is a true Son, that He is of the same substance with the Father, and as many things as are like these; for touching these we shall find that there is in them a full agreement.
The point is that all this actually happened, at a very specific time and place in actual history. You referenced the Creed about the Holy Spirit, the "Lord, the Giver of Life," and that same Creed attests to this specific historical reality with the words "under Pontius Pilate." It happened. "I believe..."
Now, if you really care about dotting every "i" and crossing every "t", +Augustine attempted to do just that.
Jesus never used the word(meme) heretic..
Only prideful arrogant men in Rome and to be honest other places do that..
The Kool Aid in Rome has a strange taste..
Yet you accuse others of having ESP.
I was with you up until you qualified it.
Why does it bother you If there were certain gnostic things that the Church might have destroyed?
My question dealt with how you justify destroying things under the auspices of the magisterium. Because God told them to? How do you know? Did God give them an explicit, "secret" command to destroy things held by others who claimed to have a "secret" knowledge? How ironic...
This happened a long time ago when this kind of thing was the norm. We have different assumptions associated with our age and are guilty of many sins ourselves, so we dare not judge them personally lest we be judged. But that doesn't change the fact that it was wrong.
I doubt you would have no problem destroying pornography in the name of God. Right?
Apples and oranges. The first case dealt with books, or written words. Why would words need to be countered with force?
But to answer your question: No, I do not think that God "calls" us (or whatever) to break into other people's homes and enforce a morality code. Good laws do not make good men, and the ends do not justify the means.
I'm sorry to hear that. It happens to often and the only people who win are the lawyers. I hope any children caught in the middle are okay.
Neither of these are proof of (or against) God.
Only if you're not looking.
This is pretty powerful stuff. I think you can make a case that to not preach THE GOSPEL when given the opportunity is to deny Jesus.
No. Mainly I learned it from the Gospel of Saint John:
I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.I particularly desire to draw your attention to verse 16.As the Father knoweth me, even so I know the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.
And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. -- John 10:14–16
Also recently I have had inspiration along ecumenical lines from Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI....
Good grief, Kolokotronis, how on earth did you manage to connect those dots??? A-G, last I checked, hadn't rejected the Church! That would be to reject Christ, and that she could never ever do!!!
You can take my word for it. Or not. Your judgment in this redounds on you.
Is the above biblical?
I ask that as a Roman Catholic, who is often criticized by members of the reformed sects for honoring the tradition of Magisterium of the Church....
Did you learn that from the Screwtape Letter?..
Forgive me Kolokotronis, but in my view the pride in this case is all yours. AG is not "outside The Church." Unless you mean to say that The Church itself is God, displacing God Himself.
I'll hazard she doesn't believe that any more than I do.
Churches, however divinely inspired, are still human institutions, and so susceptible to sin, to judgments made by fallen human nature....
I do not place my safety in human institutions. And I doubt AG does either. That seems to be the point you continue to miss.
BTW, I don't think this makes me a "disrespecter of churches," let alone of God.
Quite the contrary!
And so I join my dearest sister in Christ in saying: All glory be to God!
No problem, sfassisi! I very much enjoyed hearing from you. :^)
Jeepers, hosepipe -- are you sourcing the statement you captioned in your last to me?
LOL!!!
However, that very thing does seem to be at the bottom of The Screwtape Letters.
Take heed, people.
God's blessings be with you always, dear brother in Christ!
Did you learn that from the Screwtape Letter?..
“Is the above biblical?”
Not that I am aware of. +Nilus of Sinai, though a noted theologian and biblical scholar of his time, also wrote from his own ascetical experience. Does something need to be “biblical” to be of value to our theosis, bb? Surely you haven’t fallen that far from the Magisterium, have you?
+Nilus was canonized by The Church; the one which established the canon of the NT. He is considered an Eastern Father. That is sufficient for any Catholic absent a demonstration that a teaching of a Father is outside the consensus patrum. Are you aware of anything written by +Nilus which is outside the consensus patrum, bb? You may not like what he said; there is no question but that he would soundly and loudly reject any notion of a sort of Universalism in Christianity; in fact, just as both the Latin Church and Orthodoxy declare such notions heretical today.
“Forgive me Kolokotronis, but in my view the pride in this case is all yours.”
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, bb. I am far too prideful, of that I am certain.
“Did you learn that from the Screwtape Letter?..”
Oh no, hp; its far older than that, 5th century.
“Sorry the Screwtape crack was for Kolokotronis.. My bad..
Carry on my lovely.. Arrrrgh..”
hp, just as a matter of curiosity; do you believe demons exist?
Absolutely I've cast them out of a number of poor wretches worshiping their churchs...
Enslaved by strange dogma and indoctrination..
Demons are nasty little vermin..
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