J W's Hatred of Truth
Labels:
Important messages
The
love of the truth
How important is truth? How important is it to love
truth? I cannot think of anything that is more important. The opposite of truth
is falsehood and falsehood invalidates every good thing. Joy, peace, humility,
righteousness, and all the other virtues in the world, have their counterfeits.
Even love, if it lacks truth, becomes a false love and is
probably the most deceptive of the whole spectrum of lies.
Love is of vital importance in Christianity to the degree
that the person, who does not walk in love, according to the Apostle John, “does not know God, for God is love” (1
Jn.4:8). The Apostle Paul ranks love above all gifts and virtues: “Now abide these three, faith, hope, and
love; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Co.13:13). Because this is so
and because the father of lies understands its power, he comes under the guise
of love and today millions of people are deceived… in the name of love.
Paul calls truth the
girdle of the armor of God (Eph.6:14) It ties the whole armor together and
without it, everything falls apart. Truth stands by itself and because of the
virtue of its very name, it cannot deceive. Truth reigns eternal. Christ
proclaimed, “I am the truth” and therefore everyone, who comes to Christ, must
face truth: “He who practices the truth
comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought
in God” (Jn.3:21).
Very carefully consider the following warning of Paul
to the Thessalonians and you will see that God values and loves truth more than
He loves men! “That lawless one will be
revealed… the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with
all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness
for those who perish, because they did
not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence
so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be condemned who did not believe the
truth…” (2 Thes.2:3-12).
The Individual Call
Labels:
Important messages
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone
hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with
him, and he with Me.” Rev.3:20
The
Laodicean identity
What we are considering in this lesson is a call of
Christ from outside the Laodicean church. From the very beginning of this
lesson, I would like you to notice two Greek nouns. One is apostasion and its feminine form is apostasia. The first means divorce
and the second means apostasy. They
are obviously very closely related in definition and a common meaning would be separation. When Paul speaks of an
apostasy in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, he is speaking of an end-time condition in the
church, which can easily be interpreted as a divorce from Christ… a bride gone her own way.
Would this not describe the situation in Laodicea? Christ
is outside seeking entrance and inside, the church is operating without the
presence and direction of the Lord. One of the evidences of the divorce is that
the mentality of the church is very different, even opposite, from the mind of
Christ. The church says, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of
nothing”; Jesus says, “You are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and
naked.” Not long ago, a believer told me that he had come out of a certain
group thinking that he knew just about everything. Shortly thereafter he joined
a good Bible study course and very humbly confessed, “I found out I knew nothing.”
The light of truth is painful to our spiritual eyes, when it gives us an
accurate picture of our condition.
Roots of Seventh-day Adventism
Labels:
Important messages
Miscalculated
prophecies and a blow in the head
In eight words, this is the story of the roots of
Seventh-day Adventism. It is the second in a series of three articles, in which
I am making an attempt to give the reader a basic knowledge of three major
cults, all having their origins in the United States. They are the Mormons, or
more formally, The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. The second cult is the Seventh Day Adventists and the third sect is the Jehovah Witnesses. I
entitled the first article, “The God of Mormonism” and you can read or review
it at the following link: http://calltocommitment.blogspot.com.es/2015/06/the-god-of-mormonism.html .
Let me list a
number of characteristics and ideas that these three groups have in common.
1. The founders had unstable spiritual beginnings that show no evidence of a biblical new birth, therefore they are not born or taught by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said that without the new birth it is impossible to “see” the Kingdom of
God (Jn.3:3). The apostle Paul tells us that the “natural man”, that is, man
alone without the Holy Spirit, cannot understand the things of God (1 Co.2:14).
Any person in that position is doomed to be led by his own mind into multiple
kinds of error (not to mention the fact that demon spirits will capitalize on
the attempt.). You will see all of them making an effort to fit the unspeakable
mysteries of God into the natural human mind, and rejecting all that their mind
cannot contain. This is the basic problem.
2. All
of the founders of these sects were people exposed to the gospel, but who rejected
the established churches of their day. They were anti-church people, who found a
new revelation. They taught that the churches were going in the direction of apostasy and could not guide their flock into truth.
3. The founders were largely ignorant
people with no good theological background or training.
4. You will find that none of them accept
or teach salvation that comes purely by the grace of God. They are all “works”
oriented.
5. All of them point to and are highly
dependent upon extra-biblical literature and teaching, without which no one can
be properly enlightened in their particular views of Christianity, and they
emphasize experiences, such as visions and dreams, through which they received
light concerning their callings and claims.
6. Physical and outward things, such as
food, days, baptism, and many like things play an important part in their
presentation of “salvation”. Authoritarianism plays a huge role in their
government and no kind of individualism is accepted. No move is made without
the express approval of leadership. A personal relationship with God and the
personal leading of God is not tolerated.
7.
They
all experienced rapid growth and today number in the millions on a world-wide
basis.
A Romanian Hero
Labels:
personal testimonies
 |
| Nicolae Moldoveanu (1922-2007) |
Romania is rich in heroic Christians. Usually we look
for outstanding men and women of God in the distant past, centuries ago, in
times so different from our own that it is difficult to identify with them.
However, in Romania some of their heroes are still
alive and others have not left this world so long ago. We know of them from the
testimony that they have obtained in the middle of the Twentieth Century. Who
has not heard of Richard Wurmbrand, the Romanian Lutheran pastor of Jewish
descent? He was tortured for his faith for 13 years in a communist prison,
while his wife worked like a man in the construction of a state canal.
Songs
composed without paper or pencil
I listened today to an interview with Nicolae
Moldoveanu. Observing the man in the video, he probably would not have liked
the title of this article. I would explain that I did not write it for him, but
for the legacy that he left behind, demonstrating the fact that God is still
doing His work of grace in the lives of individuals and the glory goes entirely
to Him. Outside of Romania, he is not as well-known as Wurmbrand, but just the
same, he is a hero of the faith. He was born near Sered River in Moldova. In
the year 1938 at the age of 16, he was converted to Christ. In 1940, he wrote
his first Christian poem and began to arrange songs, as well. Still a teenager,
his compositions were used in Christian songbooks.
A Birthday Affirmation
Labels:
Important messages
I solemnly reaffirm on my seventy-first birthday: Not to conform to the tendencies of the times, which insist on only positive "truth", but to declare TRUTH... PERIOD... regardless of its unpopularity. Society has gone mad in its hatred for God and is now coming after His people. There is only one hope and that is a restoration of the fear of God... Join with me in the prayer that our Lord taught us to pray: "Hallowed be Thy name", even in this godless society, even in a chuch plunging head-long into apostasy, and in my life, above all, sanctify Your name!
From the Daily Meditations in the Psalms which I compiled from my notes on the Psalms many years ago.
July 14
Psalms 64:7-10
8. But God shall shoot at them with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded.9. So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves: all that see them shall flee away.
10. And all men shall fear, and shall declare the work of God; for they shall wisely consider of his doing.
10. The righteous shall be glad in the LORD, and shall trust in him; and all the upright in heart shall glory.
Trust the Lord for Everything
Labels:
Important messages
It’s the Lord’s
Day believer; spend some time meditating on the things of God...
“Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God
to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.” Hebrews 13:7
The writer of
Hebrews refers to the ones who evangelized the Hebrew Christians. They spoke
the word of God to them, the gospel which brought them salvation by grace
through faith. Now he speaks of the conduct of these Christian leaders, beyond
their evangelism. It depicted a life of faith; a life of trusting the Lord. Not
only is faith the means that brings us salvation, but it defines the whole of
the Christian life. On old hymn says, “Those
who trust Him fully, find Him fully true.” Therefore true Christianity is
called The Faith, and its leaders
must be an example to the believers of a life of faith. He who does not lead in
faith, is not qualified as a leader.
 |
| C. H. Spurgeon |
We will go to
that great Christian leader, who has taught the church, not only in his
lifetime, but continues to do so through his written works. Not only did he
lead his church in London, but he continues to lead believers of all
evangelical denominations around the world, who are edified by his anointed teaching.
Charles Spurgeon
was a God-made preacher. Is there another kind? Without formal Bible training,
he disciplined himself and enrolled in the school of the Spirit. He began to
preach as a teenager and caught the attention of a Christian leader in London,
who invited him to preach there. He became a London pastor at the age of 19,
clothed with godly wisdom far beyond his years. He was short and stout and not
very handsome. His attraction was the Word of God. The time came, when there
was not a building in London big enough to hold the crowds that came to drink
in the Word, as it was poured out through the lips of Charles Spurgeon. His
secretary claimed to see angels over the hills of the resort town in France,
when Spurgeon died there, trusting the Lord.
Intense Desire
Labels:
Important messages
In
the article entitled, How Deep the
Father’s Love for Us, I tried to show the depth of His love basically
through the apostle John’s statement, “Jesus
knowing that His Hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the
Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:1). We noticed
that the Greek phrase “to the end” implied
something more than an end to a time element, in which he expressed His love.
In fact, it described the unending extent of His love, which had no limits.
John’s
comment is given along with his account of the last supper, particularly the
washing of the disciples’ feet, which took place, for whatever reason, on Thursday
night before Passover. Jesus’ crucifixion is less than 24 hours away and He is
crucified as the lambs are being slain for the Passover meal. At the completion
of the article, I mentioned that we would take up two more verses of Scripture,
Luke 22:15 and Revelation 3:20. So now
we return to that evening, just as the Passover supper is to begin, when Jesus
states:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
Recommended Books
