Posted on 09/22/2001 10:00:05 AM PDT by BibChr
Christians are unpopular folks today. I mean by that, anyone who takes seriously biblical truth and biblical principles will find himself on the sharp end of angry stares if we dare speak the truth in the midst of today’s national crisis. To what do I refer? America has all of a sudden gotten very religious. There are vigils and candlelight prayer services on every corner. People who hadn’t said “God” except in profanity for years are all of a sudden very pious and reflective. Radio personalities who were focused upon tax cuts or some other political issue on Monday, September 10th are now mulling over the role of “evil” in our world. The past week has turned the landscape upside down in many ways, to be sure. Lest anyone think this new religiosity is a reason for rejoicing for Christians, it most surely is not. Oh yes, we are hearing old Christian hymns being sung. Ostensibly Christian churches were full this past Lord’s day. But there is no such thing as “partial Christianity,” nor is there any such thing as a Christianity that stands side by side with Islam, or Judaism, or Buddhism, and says, “We worship one God under many names.” And surely, there is no Christianity that does not speak of repentance from sin. The new religiosity of America has two basic foundational pillars: there is one God, unknown, but addressable under any variety of religious epithets, who has revealed absolutely nothing of objective value regarding His will regarding worship or human behavior; and second, this God has no wrath; knows nothing of sin or judgment; and hence, any person who dares to say that God would punish a person, or a nation, is a glowing heretic to the new American religiosity. The problem is easily seen: Christians believe, fundamentally, of necessity, that there is one true God. This true God is not Allah. This true God is not Krishna. This true God is not the god of Joseph Smith or Buddha or the Sikhs or the Bahais. Our God went to great lengths to differentiate Himself from all the gods of the peoples and religions that surrounded His ancient people, and that for a purpose He Himself proclaimed: He seeks true worship, worship based upon a knowledge of who He is in reality, based upon His revelation to man. He does not grant to man the freedom to make images of Him, to worship Him in a manner that pleases the creature rather than the Creator. God is particular about His worship. His worship is intimately, vitally connected to truth. Without truth, there is no worship of the Christian God. And the truth revealed by the Christian God in the Scriptures is without question when it comes to the matter of His law, sin, rebellion, punishment, wrath, and judgment. One of the most amazing things to observe is the willingness shown by “evangelicals” to jump right onto the “we shall never utter a word about wrath or sin or punishment” bandwagon. Is the remnant so small that almost no voices will be raised to cry out against this foolishness? To withhold the truth about sin and judgment out of fear of man’s opinions and feelings is to make the cross of Jesus Christ a travesty! There is no cross, there is no sacrifice, where there is no sin, no offense that demands forgiveness be wrought through His perfect sacrifice! The person who refrains from speaking of sin and judgment to “win” a person over is doing so through unfaithfulness to the very gospel itself! And to what has such a person been won over? Where is the gospel when there is no sin to be forgiven at Calvary? But it is right here that the new American religiosity clamps its hands over its ears and refuses to hear. America wants God’s blessing. America wants God to protect us from more horrific visions of airliners flying purposefully, relentlessly into our national monuments. We want God to be near us as we board our aircraft. We want Him to protect us from the horror of thinking about what it was like when the towers collapsed. We want Him to guide our military and allow us to flex our muscle and launch our missiles with impunity. We want a blessing God, a caring God, who simply panders to our wants and whims. This is the “God” of the new American religiosity. But what America does not want is a God who is holy, who is just, and who has revealed His will concerning how we, His creatures, are to live. America is a land soaked in blood. We glory in violence. We are so selfish, so bound in our avarice, fornication, and sexual lust, that we murder our own offspring in the womb (or at birth as in partial-birth infanticide). Our hands are covered in blood, and yet we think lighting a candle and lifting them up while mumbling “God Bless America” is going to bring God’s favor? Listen to the words of God to another nation that likewise was “religious” but refused to hear the word of repentance: “So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.” (Isaiah 1:15). Is America so arrogant, so utterly self-absorbed, so diseased by religious liberalism and philosophical subjectivism, that she thinks she can ignore all of history itself and demand from God blessings when she refuses to repent of her evils? Do we really need to be reminded that Planned Parenthood has killed more little children in our land in the week since the attacks than died in the attacks themselves? Are we so blind? Surely the scourge of abortion would be enough to warrant the unleashing of the wrath of God, but there is so much more! We are a nation on a crusade—a crusade to wipe from our history books every vestige of our former religious past. The religion of scientism, with its chief idol in the person of Darwin, has become enshrined in our very governmental policies. There is no creator, we are told, to express His law for us in the first place. We want to banish God and His law from our courtrooms, our schools, our every public institution. If God says it is wrong, we celebrate it. Every form of sexual debauchery is found in the land. The airwaves are filled with programs that exalt fornication and adultery. Major film stars are lauded for the most sinful lifestyles. Homosexuality is not only turned into an acceptable “lifestyle,” it is made a political right, a political force, a test-case for being properly “tolerant.” The list goes on and on and on. The widow and orphan is oppressed, while the nation indulges in every creature comfort, sits back in its luxury, looks about upon the bounty of the land, and says, “Ah, what the labor of my own hands, my own intelligence, my own insight, has accomplished.” Religious liberals may mock our “literalistic” reading of the Bible at this point, preferring to simply label us “fundamentalists” and ignorant, but the fact of the matter is, they know they could never win a scholarly debate on whether the Bible actually teaches that these things are sins which must, inevitably, bring God’s judgment upon a people. They know that is exactly what the Bible teaches. They are just embarrassed by it, and hence seek to suppress that truth. As I said, Christians who believe the Bible are an unpopular lot today. If they speak in accordance with the Word they may well find themselves being called "unpatriotic" and "judgmental.". In fact, given that the new orthodoxy demands of us the confession “Everyone is God’s child” over against such clear biblical teaching as John 1:12 (remember how Christians refused to say “Caesar is lord” and died as a result?), we must be ready to “count the cost” in engaging in formal, cultural “heresy” by speaking the truth. We need to realize: this new American religiosity can take on the same kind of fanatic zeal that kept the hi-jackers’ hands steady all the way to their end. May God grant His people the strength to proclaim loudly God’s demands upon a wicked nation, and may He be pleased to bring repentance and revival in a land where darkness reigns.
Read about the Laeodician church in Revelation.
Oneness says there is but only One God, who manifested Himself to humanity in 3 ways.
Here's one which deals with some of Western Islams camoflauging into something more palletable in the land of the free . Also on the same site there's this which helps one see the 'same God' lie for the falseness that it is .
God of Christianity vs. Allah of Islam
By Abdullah Al Araby
Both Christians and Muslims share belief in a sovereign Deity who is one, heavenly, spiritual, the creator of heaven and earth and the judge of all mankind. Christians call Him " God" and Muslims call Him "Allah". One may thus presume that the attributes of God and Allah are the same. A careful examination of the matter, however, will prove that it is not exactly so.
These four words say it all.
Love and peace.
Who the hell is forcing anyone to accept any of these gods? Mind your own fxx business. Its voices of intolerance whether from fundementalist Christian or Islam which is the trouble. Find God in your own way and dont feel that you have to destroy your neighbor to maintain your own faith. What a weak faith it is that cant stand proudly on its own.
By the way Judaism and Islam teach there is one god. Christianity plays around with three and calls it a mystery. Using the one god argument sounds a little hypicrital for a fundementalist Christian to attack other religions.
And by the way please tell me what denomination has the full truth on God's revelation to man. I dont want to put all my chips on one denomination only to find out they had some element wrong. So who is correct Southern Baptists or some other group? Is the pope the anti-Christ in your world view or merely mistaken?
No, they're a cult -- by definition. See Walter Martin's Kingdom of the Cults (a good reference book which I believe has been updated by a current author). Walter Martin is dead now, but his work is still valid.
Look at various "cult material" from authoritative Christian groups, which analyze this very thoroughly. It pays to know what constitutes Christianity from a Biblical perspective. And it's not everyone who says "I believe in God", or even "I believe in Christ." Even Christ Himself makes that very clear.
The two largest CULT GROUPS in this country are the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons (Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints).
BTW, I'm not a trinitarian.
How very true !!! I attend a very traditional, conservative church and we haven't replaced the "old sins". Yes, the pressure is there to do so, but we haven't caved. We have lost members (?????) because they don't want to hear about repentance, sanctity of life, the sin of homosexuality, etc. So be it. If they are offended by such preaching they are not truly seeking to worship the one true Triune God.
"Beware of false prophets" (Matt. 7:15). Those who do ministry in a way pleasing to people and against the will of God, those who do not warn against sin, those who twist scriptures and try to justify any manner of living, those assembly preachers who talk about salvation though they themselves are not saved, babblers, those who do ministry with smooth and cunning words to satisfy their lustful desires, those who are likened to dogs which lap up their own vomit, those who give importance to signs and miracles but leave out salvation and holy life- the scriptures warn that all the above kinds of people are false prophets. The Lord tells us to beware of such false prophets and depart from them (Matt. 7:15-23).
Islams founder and others who now claim to be related to Christianity = false prophets .
Cheese.
I didnt say a word in my post about Falwell, although he is a pompous fool. I criticised him last week for his foolish comments which Bush told him were wrong and inappropriate.
Those who preach hate against other religions and other denominations hardly have any reason to question someone's sanity unless they are un-christian. Turn the other cheek...
There is plenty of blame to go around.
Cheese .
Well, for one thing -- Islam is forcing others to believe this. They will kill their own, if they leave Islam for something like Christianity (for one thing). And they have built into their "religion" that they will ultimately force the whole world over to their belief (and by the "sword", too...)
Now, Christianity, as shown in the Bible, itself, does say that the whole world will come over to the true belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (which, by the way, is the same God of the Jews and the Christians). That's why the Islamic world is totally against Christians and Jews.
Now, in the Bible, it's Jesus Christ Himself who will establish His rule over the world in which He will rule with an "iron rod" over the whole world and do so from Jerusalem (His capital city).
It's not the Christians who will do so. It's directly by the hand of Christ when He returns. There's a big difference there. Christ will do this -- not the Christians in this world.
Now, what the Christians in this world are to do now is "proclaim the Gospel message" of Salvation to the world -- before the time comes when there is no more "choice" left for the person.
That time comes for us all -- either by death (after which comes the judgement, as told to us in the Bible) -- or at the time when Christ returns and the Kingdom is set up here on this earth (as it is in Heaven).
There is only one true God -- and there is no other besides Him and He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That's true for Christians and Jews (not counting the little matter of who is the Messiah, which will soon be "resolved"). All other so-called "gods" in this world (and in any other religion are all false gods). They will all be destroyed and all such other religions will cease to exist.
Repenting is a good habit to get into . I'm bookmarking this for later .
Cheese .
Jesus condemned this attitude, but it seems endemic to humanity.
And these threads will go on, and on, and on......
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