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…Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:Their feet are swift to shed blood:Destruction and misery are in their ways:And the way of peace have they not known:There is no fear of God before their eyes.(Romans 3:14-19)Romans 3 contains as a conclusion of the teaching of the first two chapters of Romans, a fourteen count indictment of the human race; all of it, gentile and Jew. The indictment consists of quotations from the Hebrew scriptures, especially Psalms and Isaiah. The...

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood:Destruction and misery are in their ways:And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their...

Ten years ago, Vitaly Mokrushin became the pastor of a Mennonite church in the town of Sol-Iletsk, in Russia’s Orenburg region, leading a small congregation of 20-25 people. The 42-year-old former locomotive mechanic found God in 1996. In the mid-2000s, he regularly visited the “Black Dolphin” prison colony. He visited prisoners on a weekly basis for several years, holding services, singing religious hymns, reading sermons, and using the prison’s PA system to communicate with inmates who weren’t allowed to gather in the same room. Roman Lunkin, a senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Philosophy, told Meduza...

What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. (Romans 3:1-4)In Romans 1 and 2, Paul has shown that all men, godless and pious, gentile and Jew, pagan and religious, are in desperate need of Righteousness with...

Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.(Romans 2:1)Being disgusted by the squalid effects of the morally ruined, spiritually bankrupt, reprobate world we have created for ourselves and our unfortunate children and grandchildren can be deceiving. It is normal and healthy to feel moral repugnance at the twisted,perverse ,obscene media culture of today, but that does not equate to being Righteous ourselves. That is the point Paul is making in the first 11 verses of Romans 2.To paraphrase verse 1, ‘Of...

“You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.” Gal. 5:4-5 On the heels of Gary's incredible article The Lawless Lawkeepers, I wanted to talk about why I am so fierce and tender about the gospel of grace. About why, until my dying day or my catching away, I will stand FOR salvation by grace through faith in the blood of Jesus alone, and against Lordship Salvation, fruit inspecting, and any “being made perfect through the flesh”...

Something eternally significant happened about 2,000 years ago.  Few people acknowledge it.  Even most of those who do acknowledge it with their lips, corrupt the truth and malign what happened by what they teach and how they live... Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God paid the penalty for all human sin and then rose again. The LORD Jesus Christ fulfilled the mission of the long-awaited Redeemer who had been purposed from before the creation of the world (1 Pt. 1:20; 2 Tim. 1:9; Rev. 13:8), promised to Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:15–16), prophesied of by Moses (Deut. 18:18;...

Almighty God saw our desperate need for His righteousness and for deliverance from the tyranny and bondage of our transgressions (Rom. 7:24-25). These have separated us from Him and have brought His wrath upon us (John 3:36; Gal. 1:4; Eph. 2:1-2, 14). In His great ETERNAL love Almighty God sent forth His only Son from Heaven’s glory to pay the price for our transgressions, to be our propitiation and to rescue us from the ETERNAL ramifications of our transgressions and godless folly (John 3:16-17; Rom. 7:24-25; Gal. 1:4; Eph 2:14; 1 John 2:2). If this is you my dear friend,...

A Disciples of Christ Church in San Diego that describes itself as "radically inclusive" has purchased a billboard atop a gay bar with a message to the LGBT community, declaring, "God takes pride in you, so do we!" The Mission Gathering Christian Church first promoted its billboard endorsing gay pride on Twitter last month as something that the Bible would also treat as that which is "right and good." "If you're looking for a sign... This is it. Our message of PRIDE coming in July. Check us out then join us to 'do what is right and good...' Deuteronomy 6:18,"...

Professor Ying Fuk-tsang, director of the divinity school at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, says that during the early years of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) some Christians became disappointed with church institutions. They thought God had taken away the power of Christianity to save humanity, so they joined the CCP as secret, or underground, members. He cited Yan Baohang, who was baptized when studying at the Fengtian (now Shenyang) Normal School and served as a trainee student secretary in the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). He was later sent to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland for further...

There are so many religions, let alone Christian denominations, how can anyone know what to believe?  And even if Jesus is the truth, which denomination can honestly claim to be the "closest" to the truth?  Who are the real Christians? Everything is Counterfeit Christianity For starters, it is important to understand that Judeo-Christianity predates all modern religions, beginning in the 20th century BC when Abram heeded God's call to migrate to Canaan.  His monotheistic faith not only set the stage for the Bible to be written, but also for the coming of the Messiah (the Redeemer of mankind).  Judaism proper—adherence to the...

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Just over two months ago, as winter landed its final blows of snow in New York City, Michael A. Walrond Jr. of Harlem's 10,000-member First Corinthian Baptist Church landed an ideological blow of his own in traditional Christendom.Walrond, who was named "One of the Lord's Foot Soldiers" by Newsweek magazine, told his congregants that the belief that anyone who doesn't believe in Jesus is going to hell is "insanity.""There was a time when you would see people in the pulpit say, 'well, if you don't believe in Jesus you going to Hell. That's insanity in many ways because that is...

Is Jesus really the only way? In an environment of such plurality and diversity this really seems an implausible or even arrogant claim of Christians. When confronted with the exclusive claims of Christianity, the question on many people's minds is how can Christians be so narrow as to believe that all non-Christians will be excluded from heaven? There are plenty of good people who are not Christians. Do Christians think they are better than others? So the question often put to Christians is what about a person, a good person who has been good all their life ... will they...

Salvation and Church The teaching of ‘no salvation outside the Church’ is important and one that must rightly be understood Msgr. Charles Pope 3/14/2018 Question: I hear the Catholic Church teaches there is no salvation outside the Church. This would seem to condemn most to hell. Or am I missing something? — Name, location withheld Answer: It is in fact a doctrine of the Church often repeated by the Fathers of the Church and taught formally. However, it must be understood properly. The Catechism of the Catholic Church has this to say by way of explanation: “‘Outside the Church...

Pope Francis was tasked on Sunday with answering a challenging question by a little boy, who asked whether his late atheist father, described as a "good" person, is in Heaven. According to Catholic news site Aleteia, the encounter took place when the Vatican leader was meeting with parishioners of St. Paul of the Cross before celebrating Mass. A boy identified only by the name Emanuele was invited to whisper a question he had for Francis, which he did, but was too overcome with emotion to repeat it in public. The pontiff then shared with the parishioners what Emanuele had whispered...

Calvinism affirms a doctrine known as the perseverance of the saints according to which the truly regenerated disciple will persist in faith. In the words of the seventeenth-century Puritan William Secker, "Though Christians be not kept altogether from falling, yet they are kept from falling altogether."Calvinists insist that perseverance of the saints is a scriptural doctrine. As Paul says in Philippians 1:6: "he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."In addition, Calvinists have also often argued that perseverance has a clear pastoral advantage in that it grounds our...

JN 18:1—19:42 Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to where there was a garden, into which he and his disciples entered. Judas his betrayer also knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. So Judas got a band of soldiers and guards from the chief priests and the Pharisees and went there with lanterns, torches, and weapons. Jesus, knowing everything that was going to happen to him, went out and said to them, “Whom are you looking for?” They answered him, “Jesus the Nazorean.” He said to them, “I AM.” Judas his...

This is what Easter means to me: life from death and life evermore I look at my life before Christ and I am struck by the fact that it doesn’t seem like my life. I was born again on Palm Sunday in 1980. I was thirty years old. That has been thirty-eight years ago. When I was first saved, I mourned for all the years I had spent wasting my life trying to do it on my own. I remember praying and asking God to give me as many years to serve Him as I had wasted denying Him. Now,...

How do you get saved? Notice in Romans 10:10 you believe with your heart and confess with your mouth. So, unless you followed that process you are not saved. Notice, that word confess means to say the same thing. So, you have to believe something from the word and say it to be saved. But, not just saved as in born again because that word saved if you look in the Strong's Concordance means healing, deliverance, preservation, do well. Notice, all those things are connected to your mouth(words). And The Bible shows that for Proverbs 12:6&18 says, "The mouth of...