Friday, March 26, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
A Call to Die
this post is originally found at a voice crying out...
“The cross is laid on every Christian. It begins with the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with His death—we give over our lives to death. Since this happens at the beginning of the Christian life, the cross can never be merely a tragic ending to an otherwise happy religious life. When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at His call. That is why the rich young man was so loath to follow Jesus, for the cost of his following was the death of his will. In fact, every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts. But we do not want to die, and therefore Jesus Christ and His call are necessarily our death and our life.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)
What Does It All Mean?
Olive Tree Ministries
I believe I have studied under the best of the best teachers when it comes to what the Bible lays out for us in the last days. Many are dazed at the rapid decline of America. The passage of health care wasn't about health care; rather, the socialization of America. America just came under the power of Saul Alinsky. But some of us, while grieved, look at the broader picture. So, this is how I see it.
Revelation, chapters 13 and 17, lays out a coming one-world political system, one-world leader, one-world religion, and a one-world financial system (cashless). We don't know when this will all be implemented, but we do know the biggest factor holding up the one-world order has been America, the superpower like no other.
In the coming system, all nations will likely be "equal." That is, there will be no superpower other than, perhaps, the European Union - a consortium of powerful European nations. Even some individual nations in Europe are crumbling as I write this so some of those nations will band together and become the end-time power. Economic chaos is likely to level the playing field of all the world's players on this strange chessboard.
Continue reading here...
Monday, March 15, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Is Roman Catholicism Biblical?
by John MacArthur
In today's spirit of ecumenism, many evangelicals have called for the Protestant Church to lay aside its differences with Rome and pursue unity with the Catholic Church. Is that possible? Is Roman Catholicism simply another facet of the body of Christ that should be brought into union with its Protestant counterpart? Is Roman Catholicism simply another Christian denomination?
While there are many errors in the teaching of the Catholic Church (for example its belief in the transubstantiation of the communion wafer and its view of Mary), two rise to the forefront and call for special attention: its denial of the doctrine of sola Scriptura and its denial of the biblical teaching on justification. To put it simply, because the Roman Catholic Church has refused to submit itself to the authority of God's Word and to embrace the gospel of justification taught in Scripture, it has set itself apart from the true body of Christ. It is a false and deceptive form of Christianity.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Deliverance: From the Temporal World to the Eternal Kingdom
By John MacArthur
We have taken a break from our study of the gospel of Luke for the last five weeks, and now this is the sixth week in which I have spoken to you on the subject of deliverance, the neglected doctrine. I have done this because I feel obligated before the Lord to give you an understanding of the current state of the evangelical church. I do it with some reluctance. It doesn't make me happy to do this, it makes me sad. I don't like to have to point out many of the things that I've pointed out but they are the truth, and that is my responsibility before God.
What I have been saying to you is that evangelicalism is in a desperate situation. And that desperation is made manifest by its inability to distinguish who is a true Christian. We have abandoned any clear understanding of what it means to really be saved...we, in the sense, of broad evangelicalism.
Those of us who teach the Bible, those of us who uphold sound doctrine have to rise up and speak the truth. I've tried to show you the breadth of this problem and I want to conclude comments on people and issues with a particular focus this morning.
Through the years we have all become influenced by Billy Graham. One way or another he has, for us, been the spokesman for evangelical Christianity. He has become the symbol of gospel preachers to the world and even to the church. He, more than anyone else, has influenced evangelicalism through his preaching, through his cooperative evangelism, through his influence on Wheaton College, Fuller Seminary, Christianity Today and many other agencies.
There is an article in a journal that comments and reviews his autobiography, Just As I Am. And I think it's worth giving you some insight into that because I think it points out the breadth of this problem. The editor of the journal says, "While Graham has become the very symbol of gentle, compassionate and loving evangelicalism, he has also become the symbol for evangelicalism that speaks cautiously, politically and non-theologically. He was never able to escape the fuzzy a-theological pragmatism of modern evangelicalism. It is Billy Graham more than any other figure in this century who helped to create by his overwhelming persona the present evangelical crisis which threatens to destroy the very institutions and causes in which Graham invested his life and energy for over 55 years," end quote
Signs of the Times and the Return of Christ
Live for Eternity
Oh, live for eternity!
(Mary Winslow)
What poor creatures we are--if left to ourselves!
What a mercy there is One that loves us better than we love ourselves, and will watch over us all our journey here, and who has engaged, by all the varying dispensations of His providence, to prepare us for that blessed home He has gone to prepare for us.
And oh, what a place will that be!
Love Him supremely!
Live for eternity!
Live for Jesus!
Have much to do with Him!
This world is not worth living for!
Its honors, its riches, its glories are things ever passing away; but the love of Jesus is as eternal as Himself.
Oh, live for eternity! The glory of this world is fading, and is soon gone, and gone forever!
Again I say, live for a glorious eternity!
If you could have the glory, the wealth, and the honors of this world laid at your feet--how short would be the empty enjoyment of them.
Then, live and act with reference to eternity!
And oh, the glory that awaits the true follower of Christ, who has cast overboard all that the world calls good and grand, and taking the Bible as his directory, walks as Jesus did.