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 trust our spirit-filled pastors to recognize whether or not we truly are filled with the Holy Spirit and it’s mostly because of the fruit we bear (or DON’T bear).***
What makes your pastors better judges of people’s theological shape than the Catholic Church of Jesus Christ?
***Well, in my church (and I would suppose it would be in any other as well), our pastors are the ones who verify it. Both have the gift of prophecy and one has the office of the prophet. Prophets are to judge other prophets, as I recall. Usually the man who prophecies the most in our church, asks the pastor if he can give a word.***
Do you have, yourself, any evidence that such a thing is real? And do you know that this is by the power of the Holy Spirit rather than the great deceiver? The reason I ask is that satan’s most powerful weapon is his deceit. He will lay traps for all Christians and guide them in his ways. That is why I am so insistent that people really observe themselves and others when they claim that the Holy Spirit influences or guides them. That is also the aegis of the devil. Mere mortals may not know the difference.
***How do you know the HS doesn’t reside in Quix.***
I don’t. But I don’t know that He does. And I have no proofs that He does. The great deceiver may inhabit many and they may not know.
***But thankfully, most Presbyterian ministers are married. A celibate priesthood is just asking for problems.***
Then why is abuse among Protestant denominations approximately twice that amongst the Catholics?
***And Hebrews is NOT only discussing animal sacrifices. The writer clearly speaks of CHRIST’S one-time, accomplished sacrifice for His sheep.
No vain repetition required of the one and only sacrifice that takes away sin which we are to remember, not re-enact as if it was not final.***
Not vain. It is required. Jesus specifically wants us to recreate His Last Supper and Passion. I understand that you do not think of Augustine as particularly blessed, but understand, that he participated and approved the Sacrifice of the Mass, as did the Church right from the beginning.
***It was wrong for the Church to have officially stated, with the seal of the Pope, that people can pay to get their friends and relatives out of hell.***
The practice was to have the folks provide works in order to help those in purgatory. The intent (aside from a few local bishops who reaped their reward) was to have the prayers and the intents of the faithful mean something. It obviously was misused. Therefore the practice was for all intents and purposes, stopped.
***Also, there are conflicts between Vatican 1 and 2.**
Such as?
***Finally, assuming the “Church of Christ” formulate correct theology, then everyone else formulates incorrect theology including the Orthodox. I think they would have a problem with that statement.***
The Church of Christ most definitely includes the Orthodox. For those of the Reformed persuasion who do not believe that anything beyond yesterday matters, let me remind you that in the first millennium, most of the heretics were of the East and that the Latins held Orthodoxy. In the latter years, we Latins have strayed a tad and the Orthodox have held fast. It is a Catholic Church and not a Roman one. And I think that almost all of us understand that.
I think that it would be worthwhile from a Reformed point of view to understand that as well.
***Lest our Catholic friends say that this was a heretical doctrine, Augustine specifically references Cyprian, the great Church leader, as leading him to this truth.
Amen! Thanks for clarifying that for me. I’m sure glad he lived long enough to be sanctified to that level. :) Praise God.***
You want to be held to everything that Cyprian said? Or Augustine for that matter? Try my tagline and see what you may.
***I guess Augustine was ahead of many modern day Apostolics (no reference to Mark) who tell us that God is mono-faceted, i.e. that God is only the human understanding of love and since he is nothing else He never kills in the OT, etc.***
The OT Jehovah did certain violence to the Earth. It is striking the comparison to Jesus. Look at the Two Commandments of Jesus to the 10 Commandments and Deuteronomy. Look at the Sermon on the Mount (and the Plain). Jesus comes to us with love.
God’s doctrines v. 1.0 versus 2.0.
We got a better theology from Him than the Jews did. And they are our elder brethren whom we MUST respect and revere. They are God’s chosen people.
That’s a keeper! Well said, sister. Thank your husband for me.
“Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile show us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.
“Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God.
“That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.”
That sounds like adoration to me. Got it from an RCC site.
***“Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God.
“That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.”***
Yup. Idolatry. Mariolatry.
Imagine asking Mary to pray for us to the Lord God Almighty.
Such nerve.
Some twisting of words! “Give me Cromwell’s violent sweeping away of the altar’s pagan accoutrement’s any day”
LOL is right. You're a fine one to talk. I was actually only pinging those Catholics who have participated on this thread (I forgot at least one). If I really wanted to "gang up," I could have used my Catholic ping list. ;-)
Oh, but they read the Bible, don't you know? ;-)
Thanks for the insight. I figured it was along those lines.
This reminds me of the sin of the calf in Exodus 32. The conventional opinion among Bible scholars for many years was that the calf was another god that the Isrealites decided to worship when they thought Moses would not return. That opinion among Bible scholars is now changing and the text would seem to agree. The prevailing opinion now is that the calf was meant as a throne to Yahweh, replacing the ark of the covenant, since they thought they had lost their mediator, Moses. If this be the case then the sin of the calf is not a First commandment violation but rather a Second commandment violation.
I’m struck by the similtude of the sin of the calf and the temples of Rome. Like the Israelites, the Romanists set up their graven images and altars performing their ritualistic dances while the mediator, Christ, is in conference with Yahweh.
Even sadder, when reform is enacted to put away the graven images the people hearts remain cold to repentance and decry the loss of their graven images.
Everybody but the kitchen sink and me were pinged in response to my post 946.
For one thing (and this is a biggie) they know they are fallen sinners like everyone else who has ever lived on planet earth except Jesus Christ.
And thus they do not commit the blasphmous error of believing themselves to be "another Christ."
ROTFLOL!!!
The Los Angeles Archdiocese paid out over $600 million IN ONE DAY to settle sexual abuse claims against priests. That's ONE CITY in ONE DAY!!!
Keep putting money in those coffers, Mark. Half of everything you give goes to pay for the sins of "another Christ."
Not one cent of my Sunday offering goes to pay off anything but the building and mission funds and new Bibles for the pews.
If your own lying eyes don't tell you the truth, then believe the true statistics that say sexual abuse among Catholic priests is at least four times higher that in Protestant churches.
Thankfully this doesn't really effect me. I certainly don't plan on ever handing my kids over to a parochial school led by "celibate" men and women.
And I question the common sense of any parent who does these days.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.