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 don't know what other eople think until they say it, and even then I dont know what drives them, unless they tell me that too. No mind-reading here.
“I didn’t phrase is very well. I lumped the Creator and the Source sloppily and I deserve to be “scolded” for this”
I knew that. It was just a little jesting, not scolding.
“The Father incomprehensible,
the Son incomprehensible,
The Spirit incomprehensible ...”
Maybe that’s what God means when he invented women in His image!
O.K.
Can't have any of that can we?
***MB: If you witness to the non elect, are you taunting them with what they cannot have?
IT: You apparently have not been used by God as a tool to bring someone to Christ. ***
That is not answering the question.
If you witness to a Reformed non elect about the Good News of Jesus Christ, since the non elect know that they are the non elect, is it the equivalent of waving salvation in their faces in a mocking fashion, since they can never achieve it?
***God uses whom he will and what he will to bring his children home.***
No question about that. My question is about how witnessing affects the Reformed non elect.
***We do not know who the elect are, so we are charged to witness to all what we know about the love of God. That is why we spend so much time with you, because we love you in Christ.***
And I appreciate that time; I may not always show it effectively, but since I think that all men are brothers in Christ by His Grace (although there are many who reject that Grace and therefore separate themselves from Him), that I agree that all men need to be informed about the Good News. I believe that evangelization needs to occur and that we need to share with all. Based upon Scripture (the Great Commission) and the Church’s teachings.
I still don’t understand the point of bringing the Gospel to the non elect under Reformed theology, if not as a taunt.
I know. You didn’t attribute an agenda. An agenda was attributed though, but not by you.
One of my conjectures is that God made the sexes so that when we get to heaven and meet angels we will already have experience dealing with rational creatures utterly unlike ourselves.
It hurt me more than it hurt you.
I hope you've learned your lesson, young man. Harrumph, harrumph.
***Just have FAITH, the LORD takes care of the rest.***
Are you not required to be baptized? Are you not required to repent?
***Jesus said he wouldn’t lose any that are his.***
Is that what He said? John 10:28. No one can take them out of My hand.
It does not say that they cannot walk away. The Sermon on the Mount tells of many ways that man can walk away and what will happen if he does.
***Who can walk it without His help?
Nobody. Who says they are trying?***
We understand that Jesus shows us the Way. We must walk it. I understand that the Reformed do not believe that they need to walk anywhere. The belief is that they are already there.
***I think I’ve seen that picture. Whenever I see it I always wonder what that very dark straight line is that comes down from the top and then wraps around under the chin area. Very strange.**
I don’t recall anything like what you are describing. If you find a link, please let me know.
***Works are essential for fulfilling God’s plan for His children:
Eph 2:10 : For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.***
So what happens if you don’t? What are the works essential for? How are they essential?
***I get the impression that the Latin view is that works and faith are two completely separate things, which must be independently chosen by any prospective or actual believer.***
We believe that if one believes then one must follow the edicts of the Sermon on the Mount et al. Non performance is indicative of flagging or little faith.
*** That is, I could ask why shouldn’t Catholics feel they can sin all they want to during the week, and then simply clean it up with a confession and a couple of “Hail Mary’s”.
***
Because that is not true repentence; if you intend upon committing the same sins over and over again, then one remains in that state of sin.
***A true Reformed is a true believer, changed by God. That person will WANT to do works of his own “free will”.***
But if the Reformed have every action in their lives dictated and controlled, there is no free will and the works are mechanical only.
The Catechism means what it says:
***1495 Only priests who have received the faculty of absolving from the authority of the Church can forgive sins in the name of Christ.***
In other words, it is a passed office that is given under the authority of the Church which was given that office and the means of passing it on by Jesus.
***1497 Individual and integral confession of grave sins followed by absolution remains the only ordinary means of reconciliation with God and with the Church. ***
Ordinary means. That phrase means that this is the usual methodology that the Church is authorized to do. This does not mean that it is the only means. Normal and usual is what is authorized to us by God. He limits us to what He has instructed us. We do not limit Him.
Wellllll, I guess we should schedule and stage the
‘Water fight of the dueling linguits, lexicons et al’
then.
I frequently agree, and that rather affectionately, with such a huge percentage of what you say.
In so many words? Across the board superiority? I really don't think so.
I ask not to pick nits but because I want the claims to be understood precisely. I'd be glad if I understood 'em precisely myself, as a matter of fact.
I've said before, one would think that the best way to assess hospitals would be on length of stay and mortality rates. But one of the reasons good hospitals lose a lot of patients is that they get the ones no one can heal.
I used to say to myself, "Don't confuse the salesman with the product." Now I'd add, and don't confuse the customers with the product either. The weak, the not very thoughtful, those who relapse into sin often ( Margaret of Cortona comes to mind) MAY come to the RC Church because they can't even pronounce pre-destination, but they can hear that God loves them, they can experience that love in the sacraments and devotions, and little by little, in ways marred by habitual vices and disabilities, they may show only to God and the really discerning the spiritual change in their lives, while all we note is the garrulousness, querulousness, and B.O..
Christ says "my Church" which you interpret to mean ONLY your particular Church. If that's what Christ really meant, then I would expect to see a difference between "your people" and "my people".
Um, we have more parties? with better wine? (Okay, The Episcopalians have us beat on that ....)
But seriously, it would be nice if our adversaries more often took the trouble to hurl back at us what we really do say, and not paraphrases which, intentionally or not, end up being tendentious. It is especially remarkable since there was a great deal of Protestant outrage over the "clarifications" to Dominus Iesus when they came out. I can't find the thread now.
I THINK what we say is there IS only one Church, period. The "fullness" of that one Church and her benefits (for example, all the sacramental means of grace) is available in the catholic Church (NOT just the RCC). Other ecclesial assemblies have access to a hindered communion with the catholic Church and similarly impeded access to the sacramental means of grace. For example baptism and (I think marriage (under certain broad circumstances -- for example, no RCC person has suggested that the boss-lady and I need to get re-married) are valid and bona fide and so forth.
That is not the same as, it's different in important ways from, saying that we are the ONLY Church and you are no church at all.
Further -- I tried this before -- the clergy do not claim so to speak "personal" gifts. Ordained, they rise up from their knees the same idiotic poltroons that they were when they knelt before the bishop. But now they are idiotic poltroons marked with and for an office.
Clipping a dog's ears may in fact hinder rather than help him track with his nose (since a hound's ears trap air around his face so he can enjoy the bouquet of eau de deer-poop or fox-sweat) but it won't change his orneriness. Neither will the "character indelibilis" of ordination make a tractable and intelligent poodle out of a froward mutt. It'll just make a mutt with tidy ears.
We trumpet from as high and acoustically gifted a place as we can, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels!" Indeed one of the proofs of the earthen-ness is not the simplicity of a Cure d'Ars or the persistence of a DeSales, but the asininity of the priest or bishop or cardinal or abbot who acts like he's the bees-knees.
One more wheeze: Abbots and Bishops present themselves to Dominic to assist, they say, in the work of evangelism. They have retinues and are splendidly mounted. We all admit this is embarrassing. But if we must boast in our men, let us first acknowledge the luxurious clergy and only then boast in Dominic who not only invites but persuades these men who want to lord it over others to send their horses and retinues home and to join him barefoot on the road.
We may have suffered with the shame of slave-holding Jebbies, but we also have a bishop who put a southern parish under interdict when it refused to integrate. That's not so very shabby.
But I guess I can see how one might think we do.
I think that the notion (See the Articles of Religion from the Book of Common Prayer - on predestination and election) that when the damned hear the proclamation of P + E it just exacerbates their damnedness, and, I suppose, as such, could be seen as the justice of God. After all, the teaching goes, all deserve to be damned, some a predestined for forgiveness, the rest get what they deserve.
So what you're telling me is that I am not welcome to partake of your Eucharist, but a lying, cheating, murdering, raping, unrepentant Roman Catholic is perfectly welcome to and it is proper for him to receive it? That sounds pretty wild. :) I was under the extremely strong impression that a person had to be worthy to receive the sacraments (other than confession), and that a priest should deny them to someone he knows to be unworthy.
Yeah, pretty much. What can I say? It's your haircut, man ... Get a new do and we'll talk it over.
NO as a matter of fact you aren't welcome to ambulate in of a Sunday and present yourself, mouth open, like unto a little bird in the nest, you anabapdiss (or whatever you are), you.
But, wait! There's an escape clause. If you're in extremis and we have no reason NOT to believe that you've been baptized with water in the name of the Trinity, open wide, soldier, 'cause here He comes. There might be a, "Yo, Lissen up: Are you sorry for every bad thing you ever did?" first if you looked like you were going to stay alive long enough to engage in that dialogue. (A nod or grunt or sign which could be interpreted as an "uh-huh," would be all you'd have to say. Think you can remember that? Repeat after me: "unnngh." Good!)So as long as that's true, we're going to take you seriously on that, in the normal course of business.
But when the ship has broached and she's dis-masted and rail under water, AND there's a ghost of a whisper of a hope that you'd really like the most Holy Sacrament of our Lord's Body and Blood we're going to commend you and the sacramental interaction to God.
But should you miraculously recover and not even talk to a priest about the possibility of joining up, you will have incurred seriously bad mojo.
For all the facetious lingo, I THINK that's pretty much doctrine and practice.
We're going to do what we can -- which, we'd all agree isn't much -- to get you into heaven. Most of the time that reasonably involves saying to people who choose not to be Catholic, "Hey! It's better over here, why spend your money, etc., take two Isaiah 55s and call me in the morning." But when the compost hits the air-conditioner, we're not going to catechize you to make sure you're orthodox, we're going to give you the best we've got.
Also, No a lying, cheating, murdering, raping, unrepentant Roman Catholic is NOT EITHER perfectly welcome to receive it. If he does so unrepentantly he just exacerbates his already mortal state of sin. VERY bad mojo.
But again, if he's croaking, as far as sacramental ministrations are concerned, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. God knows if he's repentant.
Still. I'd think about a haircut ....
Just sayin'
Yeah, pretty much. What can I say? It's your haircut, man ... Get a new do and we'll talk it over.
NO as a matter of fact you aren't welcome to ambulate in of a Sunday and present yourself, mouth open, like unto a little bird in the nest, you anabapdiss (or whatever you are), you.
But, wait! There's an escape clause. If you're in extremis and we have no reason NOT to believe that you've been baptized with water in the name of the Trinity, open wide, soldier, 'cause here He comes. There might be a, "Yo, Lissen up: Are you sorry for every bad thing you ever did?" first if you looked like you were going to stay alive long enough to engage in that dialogue. (A nod or grunt or sign which could be interpreted as an "uh-huh," would be all you'd have to say. Think you can remember that? Repeat after me: "unnngh." Good!)
But when the ship has broached and she's dis-masted and rail under water, AND there's a ghost of a whisper of a hope that you'd really like the most Holy Sacrament of our Lord's Body and Blood we're going to commend you and the sacramental interaction to God.
But should you miraculously recover and not even talk to a priest about the possibility of joining up, you will have incurred seriously bad mojo.
For all the facetious lingo, I THINK that's pretty much doctrine and practice.
We're going to do what we can -- which, we'd all agree isn't much -- to get you into heaven. Most of the time that reasonably involves saying to people who choose not to be Catholic, "Hey! It's better over here, why spend your money, etc., take two Isaiah 55s and call me in the morning." But when the compost hits the air-conditioner, we're not going to catechize you to make sure you're orthodox, we're going to give you the best we've got.
Also, No a lying, cheating, murdering, raping, unrepentant Roman Catholic is NOT EITHER perfectly welcome to receive it. If he does so unrepentantly he just exacerbates his already mortal state of sin. VERY bad mojo.
But again, if he's croaking, as far as sacramental ministrations are concerned, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. God knows if he's repentant.
Still. I'd think about a haircut ....
Just sayin'
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