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."
Ain't that the truth! The man who can't make a post without a supporting cast has the gall to complain about someone else pinging people.
AMEN!!! (for doc E)
Bless you for your kind words. Alas, I measure up to your affirmations too little, imho.
Nevertheless, The Author and Finisher of my Faith and of me—is STILL ON THE JOB, Praise His Name. And He will present me before The Father blameless as He has promised to do.
Health and wholeness, Dear Sister . . . May God heal your kidneys or give you new ones via His Providence.
And may your son find deliverance and wholeness as well.
Wrong again.
From fox news: (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,286153,00.html)
The mainstream media has all but ignored the recent Associated Press report that the three major insurance companies for Protestant Churches in America say they typically receive 260 reports each year of minors being sexually abused by Protestant clergy, staff, or other church-related relationships.
In light of the sex abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church beginning five years ago, religious and victims’ rights organizations have been seeking this type of data for years. It has been hard to come by since Protestant Churches are more de-centralized than the Catholic Church.
Responding to heavy media scrutiny, the Catholic Church has reported that since 1950, 13,000 “credible accusations” have been brought against Catholic clerics (about 228 per year.) The fact that this number includes all credible accusations, not just those that have involved insurance companies, and still is less than the number of cases in Protestant churches reported by just three insurance companies, should be making front page of The New York Times and the network evening news. It’s not.
I'll ask you to read post 1,018 to see the difference.
This has been your side's only defense and it's been dismantled.
RCC numbers include primarly priests.
Protestant numbers include, as you said yourself, "clergy, staff, or other church-related relationships" which we've seen when we read the actual article includes janitors, church workers, and members of the congregation.
So your comparison is ridiculous. But it is all you've got.
Well, that doesn't sound very Christian. :) I obviously can't speak for all "Protestant" missionaries, only my own. All I can tell you is that we don't practice anything like that. I am very sorry to hear that what you described has and is happening. That is certainly not what Christ had in mind with the Great Commission.
Yes, especially so since the topic of conversation was which side uses more "plain meaning". :)
“You’ll note my disclaimer of Cromwell, too. He was no friend to the Calvinists.
But Richard Harris swiping away the idols on the altar in the DVD of “Cromwell” is stirring.
IIRC he even turned the altar around to transform it back into a pulpit facing the congregation.
All in all, a terrific scene.”
Does it include blowing up ancient Buddhist rock carvings, too? Sorry, I mistook one religious fanatacism masquerading as a political system for another.
Cromwell’s wholesale genocide of the Irish people must also be thrilling.
This worship of the book is more and more resembling the tactics of the Moslems.
~Feel the love!~
Never fear, I’m sure someday those churches will once against be despoiled and desecrated for your enjoyment.
We have been told so in prophecy. So enjoy!
The TR priest in our area who died recently read souls.
I could be in confession and he would at once tell me what I needed to confess and who was impeding me, who I needed to avoid in charity and for my own sake, and how much more I needed to pray.
Not if someone wants to be called a Chirstian. :)
1 Peter was specifically written to mend those disagreements, and bring the followers of +Peter (and +james) and those +Paul into one fold. The rift between +Peter and +Paul was significant and serious.
Thanx, Quix. We’re all in process! I’m not what I was ‘yesterday’ and I’m not what I want to be, but God knows.
Christ never said His ministry and the ministry of His disciples was intended for the Gentiles to be come "New Israel" (new elect).
Jewish Christians considered Gentile Chritsians in the light Judaism: like Judaism considers Noahite Gentiles, not equals to the Jews.
But Paul went one step beyond simply making the equality sign between them; he actively deconstructed Judaism in his gospel and then tried to sell that as something Christ communicated to him but not to the people hwo faithfully followed Him.
No such attempt is made in the Gospels. Nowehere do the Gospels indicate that Christianity was to be a separate religion from Judaism, or that the Chirstians would not be the Law observing Jews. The idea of taking the message to the Gentiles is an after-taught, out of desperation, and something specifically prohibited by Christ Himself in the Gospels.
Paul literally turned the whole thing upside down and made a whole new religion, claiming, of course revelation after the fullness of Christ came and passed, that Christ was sending him subliminal messages to that effect. We will find out one day if Paul was lying or not, and if we have all been deceived.
He had a gift of knowledge. What a wonderful gift.
That rift was mended at the Council of Jerusalem in 49 AD after which Peter decided to concentrate on the circumcision [Jews] and Paul on the uncircumcision [Gentiles]. There was no rift after that --
LOL? We do not deny the Filioque in the Divine Economy (a theological concept you are apprently not familiar with). The Filioque is dead wrong when it comes to the eternal origin of the Holy Spirit as expressed in the Creed.
Cromwell didn't walk into a Roman Catholic church and knock over the idols, so you shouldn't feel so threatened.
He walked into a Protestant church that had turned the pulpit around to once again become an altar and he knocked over the idols on the pulpit.
Watch the film. It's a great scene.
"Any references to the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son does not imply heretical teaching that there is a double origin of the Spirit.
That is made perfectly clear from the proceedings of the Council of Florence refrenced above:
The Greeks asserted that when they claim that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, they do not intend to exclude the Son; but because it seemed to them that the Latins assert that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from two principles and two spirations, they refrained from saying that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
The Latins asserted that they say the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son not with the intention of excluding the Father from being the source and principle of all deity, that is of the Son and of the holy Spirit, nor to imply that the Son does not receive from the Father, because the holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, nor that they posit two principles or two spirations; but they assert that there is only one principle and a single spiration of the holy Spirit" [Council of Florence, Session 6—6 July 1439]
And has that pronunciation of dogma been rescinded in the Catholic church?
What dogma? The Catholic Church does not, and never did teach double origin of the holy Spirit. That is something taught only by heretics.
There is nothing to expand. The Creed deals with the origins of the Holy Trinity. There is also nothing to stop the Church from teaching those who are not undergoing catechisis the difference between the origin of divinity (the monarchy of the Father) and the Divine Economy of our salvation, in which the Holy Ghost is sent by the Father through the Son.
Catechism and Creed are two different things. You can expand all you want as an expansion, but not change the Creed.
This presumes that there is no authority at all besides an ecumenical council; in one swoop, you invalidate not only the papacy, but also the Roman patriarchy
It does not invalidate the papacy. It is latter-day Roman Catholicism that completely invalidates the council authority. In the Undivided Church of the first millennium, the pope was an integral part of the councils but not the sole or even the final authority. The 'authority" of the pope to proclaim dogma without a council is a Vatican I aberration.
I disagree with the Orthodox concern that somehow the Filioque Creed risks doctrinal confusion, because, as I wrote K, the creed plainly states that the Son is begotten of the Father.
Well, apparently it does.
But the decieved will never think of that possibility.
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