Conclusion from Peru and Mexico

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."

FK: "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?"

....... You disagree with a LOT of what we think, teach, and do. Especially you disagree with us about what we're doing with the Eucharist. We say,"There are amazing graces available to the devout and penitent here," and you say,"No thanks," politely.

Well, as regards transubstantiation, we say "that's not true", politely. :) But that still prompts the question of why we would nevertheless be unwelcome to share in the celebration of the Supper with you. The way you present it, it seems like the graces you offer, including the accompanying theology, are actually mandatory or else you close the door. Any Roman Catholic would always be welcome to partake of the Lord's Supper in any Bible-believing church. We only ask that any partaker honestly consider himself a believer.

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.

Ah, I didn't understand your reaction and so I went back and studied everything that's been said. My response, that you're alluding to, was based on your saying this:

And the sacraments are not denied to anyone in extremis in any event.

I had never seen the word "extremis" before so I just assumed it meant somehow separated from the Church, like someone who was unrepentant. But now I've looked it up and see that it really means something much more like: "close to death". So, I owe you an apology. I totally misunderstood.

I have to say I think you are really misunderstanding what we say. Specifically in the first point, We may claim "superiority" in terms of the plene esse of churchiness, but that is not "across the board" because we are not claiming personal moral superiority in the individual persons of our people or clergy. I do not claim to be morally or spiritually (whatever that might mean) superior to you, and I don't claim that my pastor is morally or spiritually superior to yours.

We Do claim a "superiority" (a superiority by gift) in the "means of grace" (the sacraments), and that would be in terms of reliability or assuredness.

I'm up on this because at the request of my pastor I wrote an "epistle" to some Episcopalians who were thinking about converting and who needed to wrap their minds around what it meant when we said that their sacraments were invalid. I said, inter alia that we would not say that God had certainly NOT acted in those "attempts" at sacramental ministration, but only that he sho' 'nuff, you can take it to the bank, acts in those of the Catholic Church. (If you want, I can email you the article. It's good for sleeplessness. Most people read two sentences and doze right off.)In any event, claiming plene esse of churchiness is to be distinguished from claiming superiority across the board.

Okay, WE're patronizing and condescending? Have you read some of the characterizations on your side? "Anti-Christ"? "Whore of Babylon"? "Magicsterical"?

Now I don't think those are patronizing and condescending, as it happens, though some of them are needlessly and uselessly hostile. But let's look closer.

In general Protestants talk about an "invisible" Church, loosely attached or related (if it is attached or related at all) to ecclesial-type organizations. I would say you don't even want to be or think it possible to be what we mean by "The Church." So we AGREE with you that your organizations are not a Church as we think Church to be. It seems hard to call agreement arrogant and condescending. You don't even WANT to be what we think the Church is. There's a disagreement on the nature of "Church", and is it arrogant of us to think we're right but not arrogant of those who disagree with us to think THEY're right?

Anyway, a lot of the rest of what you're writing seems to me to confuse the claim of the plene esse of Church with moral superiority. The image I want is that of a lot of sick scoundrels and fools in charge of the best pharmaceutical supply-house in the world. And if somebody says, "How good can the medicines be if those guys are so sick?" I'll answer, "You should see them without the medicine!" If I haven't persuaded you of the distinction or that one in no way implies the other (not in my alleged mind, anyway) let me know.

But that one Church is only you guys and no one else ...

No. The FULLNESS of Church is only we guys. To me at any rate that's an important distinction.

You guys validly baptize. If someone who could show that he'd been baptized in water in the name of the Trinity in the "up-in-the-holler, snake-handlin', poison-drinkin', hard-shell, foot-washin', two-seed in the Spirit, baptized by fire, Holiness Gospel Assembly", we will NOT make OUR ceremony and sacrament of baptism a condition of admission to the sacraments. How much less so if he was baptized in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. You read most of the sho' 'nuff Scriptures. You pray, or some of you do (as a few of us do), devoutly, and you commend and commit your lives to Christ. A lot of what you teach and preach is very fine indeed, and the manner of its expression ought often to be an example and rebuke to some of our preachers and teachers. I can with real spiritual benefit listen to some evangelical radio stations.

We're not saying you ain't got nuthin'. We're saying you don't have it all, all of what the Church offers. I'm not trying to sell the Catholic Church here. I'm trying to clarify Dominus Iesus and the gloss that came out afterwards -- and to de-fang it a little.

As far as the Pope holding all aridly authority goes, if you have the time, check my tome on another thread. Such brilliance can not be repeated too often, it'd be like champagne for breakfast. (Not to self: confess lack of humility ...) To sum it up, I think the Lockean/Montesquieu-ian view of polity is not appropriately applied to the governance of the Catholic Church. And specifically, when the Pope, say, defines the Assumption, a lot of Protestants think of that as a kind of sua sponte, executive function, but it's way more like an exercise of what we in the US would think of as judicial function (if we want to try to force it into modern political categories). The question is nattered about for a hundred or a thousand years and the Pope is petitioned and nagged and counseled and advised and argued with, and finally he says, "Okay. Enough already. Here's what we teach: blah blah blah, I declare and define, blah blah blah. Roma locuta, causa finita, next case."

Jeesh, why don't we just discuss every important issue in one post and crash the system? But let's move on to faith and works:

If Christ really truly died once and for all for the sins of the elect, then further human atonement would not be necessary. Since the Church teaches that after belief future works are required to be saved, then the threshold of salvation being certain for all time will only be crossed based on a work of a man.

First of all, we should insert "ordinarily" before "required". If you get hit by a truck and in hyour expiring breath you conceive inwaqrdly that Jesus really IS Lord and you want Him for your personal savior, don't worry, you're in. (In purgatory, probably, but you're still in.) But if you miraculously recover, it would be a good idea to get Baptized.

Anyway, the hidden assumption is in the last prepositional phrase, "of a man". The "works" and their "merits" ARE graces. There's as fine a statement of this as I've ever read in this Month's (that is, April) First Things. I can't find my copy in the swamp here and it won't be online until next month's issue is published. But the author has the wisdom and perceptiveness to agree with moi that both works and their "merit" are gifts, not "earned" in any simple sense. If I do something right, (I'll let you know what that happens, if ever) it will be a gift from God, from conception to willing to performance. And the sequel, presumably beneficial to me somehow, will also be a gift.

Haven't you ever done something right and been flooded with not pride but gratitude? For it was Christ who xworked in you, both to will and to do.

As far as my take on Col 1:24 goes (and I do hold that Paul is, dramatically and not to be taken over-simply, saying that in some way there is room in Christ's work for Paul's suffering as a useful addition) I think the word "Rejoice" in "I rejoice in my sufferings" is overlooked. Paul's suffering and the works in which God summons us to walk are not burdens but gifts in which to rejoice. They are themselves salvation working in the "now", as one might say.

Sure because of our brokenness and failure of vision they sometimes seem like burdens we must carry, but they are privileges and gifts which God offers us.

I cannot help thinking that it will be good for the conversation to have discovered that you think WE separate works and faith and I think YOU do.

Enough already. I hope this was at least clear.

***No one can have true faith and then not do works. ***

I would agree with that from a Catholic perspective. But I would disagree with the idea that only true faith brings good works. Therefore good works is evidence only of faith and not proof.

The heathen can do good works and the Reformed elect can do evil. Which proves nothing.

The question still stands: what is essential about good works from a Calvinist perspective other than the fact that is a nice thing to do and is mentioned by Jesus. What happens if one of the elect simply neglected to do good works? Does it have any effect on his salvation (I understand that the Calvinist says no)? If not, then what does it have an effect on?

***But I thought that the Catholic position was that through Apostolic succession any priest had the authority to absolve sin based on John 20:23. I have been told that Heaven accepts the decision of the priest (even one who has wrongly been fooled). That doesn’t match what you are saying.***

You appear to be correct. The Catholic doctrines that I have scrutinized support that. Based upon the passages in Matthew and John, that is the case.

***That is the classic difference between God’s POV and man’s. Men fully experience free will, so it is fully real, for us. On a higher plane, God is in control. ***

Sounds like rationalizing to me. :)

It really comes down to if you believe the sacrifice at the cross was sufficient.

Well the way I'm following the argument these days leads me to ask "Sufficient for what?" or "What does being saved on earth 'look' like?"

Clearly in some, in the most important sense, it is all-sufficient. But still ...

I'll argue it offers the privilege of working with God, of taking up our (adopted) sonship by doing (poorly) what we see the Father doing. If what you see as the burden of works is instead the gift, privilege, and honor of works, we have another way of looking at the problem.

I say again, Paul rejoices at his sufferings and that in his flesh he completes "what is lacking in Christ's afflictions ...". This is the same Paul who, more clearly than anyone else in the NT proclaims the completeness and sufficiency of Christ's suffering, and who also urges the Philippians to work out their own salvation (!) in fear and trembling (! again!), for God works in them both to will and to do.

So the language here is, at the simplest level contradictory, I think. I mean either Christ worked out our predestined salvation or not, huh?

But if doing good works is not something with which we are burdened but the work of God in us, then ONE solution is to view, as I've said, works and their "merit" as further gifts, as the working out in our lives of God's plan for us. Or, to say it another way, we are saved from futility into meaningful works, while we live, and (intercession of the saints anyone?) after we die.

This is why, in a round about way, I don't get into the donnybrooks over predestination and irresistible grace and the rest turning us into automata. The interaction between our willing and God's willing in us is just mysterious to me.

To oppose too simply God's action as simply external to us and our action as isolated from God seems to me to fail to be in line with the fullness of the Pauline message or of our experience.

And again, when you do something right, are you proud or grateful? Isn't it precisely then that you see that God was at work in you both to will and to do and that it was all gift?

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