lol. (You knew it was coming...)
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 do not reserve a right to pick and choose. It is what sets us of the Church of Christ apart from the Reformers. I accept that the Church of Christ formulates the correct theology and teaches the Word of God correctly.
Else, it is the chaos of Protestantism. The Democracy, as some have claimed. I do not believe that the Risen Lord is about diversity and about the agreement of elders. I believe that God has spoken and we must listen.
Augustine ties most of his work back to Scripture. But he has dived into heretical ponds. I pray that you separate the good from the bad.
No, I don't think it's a waste of time. I was, rather, stating where the logic leads, if you insist on a theology which states that "works" have no effect on salvation. Because preaching the Gospel is "a work."
Bible-believing Christians, however, know ....
Are you suggesting, then, that I don't believe the Bible?
lol. (You knew it was coming...)
In this case I am represenitng the Orthodox view and the officuial teaching of the whole Church for the first 1,000 years.
Check out New Advent on the Filioque.
Outdated. That text is written in 1912 or so. The Catholic Church has abandoned its Teutonic theology of Frankish thugs who accused the Greeks for having "removed" the Filioque! Talk about ignorance...
Orthodoxy is the odd-man out in this regard.
Then the Latin Church was professing error at every Ecumenical Council, until the 11th century. Then the 9th century Pope who ordered silver plates engraved without the Filioque and mounted on the walls of the Vatican was a "heretic."
This is like someone who believes in a flat earth telling me I am odd for professing a round earth. You make me laugh.
As Christ told us in the excerpt from Luke, preaching the Gospel is our "duty."
Good works are the evidence of our salvation; not a requirement for it. A works-based salvation is denounced throughout Scripture.
But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." -- Romans 4:4-5"Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
Or read the entire book of Ephesians. Or Hebrews.
That Greek Orthodox Bible gets smaller every day, doesn't it???
There was a Protestant/Reformer/whatever he wants to call himself that argued against making the numbers argument, that the Lord was on his side and that consisted a majority, and here you are making the numbers argument.
Romans 12:
For by the grace given to me I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than one ought to think, but to think soberly, each according to the measure of faith that God has apportioned.
Okay. And this means what, from an anti Catholic stance?
The Church reaches out to everyone in Orthodox lands. Its presence is pervasive. What it does not do because it cannot is be everywhere all the time. I have watched Protestant “missionaries” in Greece at work going door to door in Orthodox towns and villages and cities with invitations to “glendis”, parties, especially for the youth. Once there, like here, the party turns put to be a come on for preaching whatever version of Christianity the particular sect is pushing. FK, some of these groups even use “American food” which used to be a big thing in Greece and still is in Eastern Europe, as a come on with teens. They use “rock show” type services to attract the youth and then tell them their parents are idolaters (it happens right here on FR as you know) which a good number of the kids, being kids and rebellious, buy right into. Its even worse, I am told, in Russia where these so called missionaries get people into their clutches by feeding them and then telling them that they were hungry because the Russian Orthodox Church is evil and their hunger is God’s judgment on them. Now, I have not seen this myself, but two young women very close to my family who went to Russia and worked with The Church there reported these things.
“I’m just surprised at any attitude that says: “better to rot in hell than to be Protestant”.”
But we don’t believe that those who have not been baptized will rot in hell. We don’t know that at all. We do believe that much of the theology preached by Protestants is heresy. The Fathers teach us that heretics are the enemies of God. Frankly that has dramatic consequences as +Isidore of Pelusium taught:
“Just as the fishermen hide the hook with bait and covertly hook the fish, similarly, the crafty allies of the heresies cover their evil teachings and corrupt understanding with pietism and hook the more simple, bringing them to spiritual death.”
Spiritual death, FK. None of this applies here. This isn't an Orthodox country and we have a different system here. It works fine here, but it is divisive and destructive in countries where this isn't true. This is not to say that in America the Orthodox don't view Protestant theology to be heretical with the consequences I spoke of. There are those Orthodox who argue that we in the West are not even remotely good Orthodox because we believe that a social system which has no established church and allows full freedom of religion is a good thing. In fact, the daughter of dear friends married one such Orthodox, a foreigner, and he refused to have the wedding here because we are weak tea Orthodox in his eyes. I think he is just about the biggest jerk I have ever met. Its sad that that fine American Orthodox girl has now given up her family and life here to live with that creep in Dog Vomitania. But I digress...........
***lol. That same “barbarian” ethos created this country.***
Not really. It created the banking community centered in Montreal and in New York.
So what if William Wallace’s last word was Scotland? He was still a barbarian. He was no more advanced than the Visigoths who sacked Rome. Or the Huns that ravaged Europe. Or the Celts. Or the Saxons. Or the Jutes.
You may feel allegiance to the Scots; you may even admire them (as I do). But the Scot possess no secrets of salvation. Only the Church of Christ does.
Show me where Augustine claims that the many are predestined to hell.
Your argument isn’t with me; it’s with Rome.
Welcome to the discussion, my friend.
Most of us Romanists will side with the Orthodox in terms of the Filioque. It is not an issue.
These fine Reformed folks are claiming that Augustine in his sane years does not belive along the same lines as the Church today. That given, they claim him for the Reformed side, based upon his 30 years of heretical beliefs.
Protestants make a distinction between justification and sanctification and both are under the umbrella of salvation. Justification before God involves no amount of works and is strictly by the instrument of faith based on the perfect righteousness of Christ.
It is also important to note that the works component in sanctification comes with a decidely different motivation than the Greeks or Romans. For the Greeks and Romans the works component is motivated by a desire to acquire merits for final salvation. Those who believe in the doctrines of Grace approach works from a different motivation. Having an assurance that they have been reconciled to God through a work of someone else outside of themself, Christ, the motivation for works is one of extreme gratitude.
I believe the Scripture record is clear that our justification is none of our own doing and works reflect a truly reconciled sinner.
There is the Catholic Church. There is not Rome. I understand that the Reformed need to get hung up on such things.
Must be the Puritan / Presbyterian thing.
?
Braveheart's last word was "Scotland!"
If that's "barbarian," may I have some more, please?
In Wallace's case, that would be Catholic barbarian, of course.
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