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| FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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An internet news service ran a column with an interesting title: "If God is everywhere, why do so few people find Him?" It sounds like a good question, so let's try to answer it. God is everywhere. That is, God is omnipresent. "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament [space] showeth his handiwork. (Psalm 19:1). Again, "The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory" (Psalm 97:6). The whole creation witnesses to the God who brought it into being and who sustains its existence. Paul said, "The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead; so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1:21). No man has any excuse for not recognizing that God is. The witness is all around him and within him. Apart from God nothing has any meaning or any purpose. Apart from God there is really no such thing as logic, morality, history or destiny. So, why then do so few people find God? The answer in Scripture is unequivocal: "There is none that seeketh after God" (Romans 3:11). Men do not find God because they do not want to find Him. They may be forced by the sheer force of the evidence to acknowledge that God is but they are not willing to have God on His own terms. Men want a god, but a god of their own devising, a god they can accept or explain, not the one, true and living God of Scripture, who has fully, finally and exclusively revealed Himself in His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. This has always been the case. It is a myth that man is searching for God. Ever since Adam's fall, man has been running from God. It is God who does the seeking. He started with Adam and has continued seeking and saving that which was lost. Today, in our society of self-seeking, men are more than ever unwilling to seek the true God. The terms God sets down are offensive to them. "Repent and believe the gospel" (Mark 1:15) was Christ's opening public sermon in His earthly ministry. He has not changed His call. Repent? To most people today that word means nothing. The concept of having offended a holy God whose wrath justly hangs over them and must soon fall on them to their eternal destruction is entirely foreign. Most people have an overweening and utterly baseless sense of their own goodness. Jesus said that He did not come to call the righteous to repentance; only sinners need apply for grace. And that's one major reason so few people ever come to know God in Christ-they have never felt their need as sinners. Many who profess to want to know God are seeking Him in the wrong place. Mother Theresa was acclaimed as a saint but confessed that she never felt anything of the nearness or fellowship of God or His Son. She thought she would find God as she worked for the poor and she failed. She went to the wrong place, like many others thinking she could connect with God through her good works and religious rituals. Such an effort must always fail. Any supposed knowledge of God so gained is a delusion. God may be known only in Jesus Christ, His Incarnate Son. He is God's last word to the world (Hebrews 1:1-2). He calls sinners to repentance and faith in His atoning sacrifice and death-shattering resurrection. All who heed His call will most certainly know God and to know Him is to have eternal life. |
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| THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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In 1908, the Rev. Paul Wattson and Mother Lurana White, an Episcopal priest and nun, founders of a small Anglican religious community in the Franciscan tradition, in Garrison, N.Y., initiated eight days of prayer for Christian Unity between what were then feast days associated with Saints Peter and Paul. These two leaders and their Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement soon became Roman Catholics, so their week of prayer for Christian Unity was clearly shown in its true light: an attempt at promoting the return of all churches to the Roman fold. According to the New York Times the week of prayer naturally had little appeal to Protestants. That might have been true in 1908, though I doubt it because that very year the American Episcopal Church launched an abortive attempt at church union. That was followed in 1910 by the World Missionary Conference that met in Edinburgh, Scotland and that Conference marked the real beginning of the modern ecumenical movement. What started in Edinburgh in 1910 was consummated in Amsterdam in 1948 with the formation of the World Council of Churches. The WCC actively pushed the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Together with the Vatican, the WCC produced the prayers to be used in what was sanctimoniously termed the "Octave of Prayer." So all over the world, churches of many different traditions-Baptists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics-observed the same week of prayer and prayed the same prayers, all working toward the same goal. But the whole thing was a failure from the start. True, there was an imposing array of churches involved in observing the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity but in reality most ordinary church members could hardly have cared less. So this year, the centenary of the inauguration of the Week of Prayer has come and gone almost without notice. In a way that is good news-the goal of leading all Protestant denominations back to Rome has come unstuck, at least for the present. But in another way it is not. The Week of Prayer itself is a non-event. It was always the empty dream of professional ecclesiastics and had little interest for the people in the pew. However, its almost total dismissal by the great body of churchgoers results from the success rather than the failure of ecumenism-that ecumenism that has admitted Rome into the Christian fold, and in a position of leadership, so that if anyone dares to quote the old Protestant doctrine of Rome as antichristian he is scorned as an unchristian preacher of hate. Now accepting each other as equally Christian (and thereby denying the essential truths of the gospel, reducing such things as Christ's finished work on the Cross and justification by faith alone to the level of negotiable non-essentials), church people are more interested in their relations with a newly reinvigorated Islam. More and more they want to present a united front to Islam-which is ecumenism, church unity, at work with a vengeance. Since it is a unity that is fundamentally flawed by its departure from basic Bible truth, the front it presents to Islam will be just that, a front-a gutless, powerless religious paper tiger that will find it as easy to make peace with a Christless Islam as it did with an antichristian Romanism. |
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| WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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Newsday carried a report of a lighthearted moment in the British House of Commons: The beast of the Book of Revelation intruded into the banter of the House of Commons in London [January 10] when a motion calling for the disestablishment of the Church of England was numbered 666. The last book of the Bible says 666 is the number of a beast that "had two horns like a lamb, and ... spake as a dragon," and that "doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men." Bob Russell, a Liberal Democrat lawmaker, pointed out that "it is incredible that a motion like this should have, by chance, acquired this significant number." Such motions are used by members to publicize issues and other members may show support by signing them. By [the] afternoon [of January 10], three people had signed. Given that only three members signed the Bill, it is unlikely to be enacted into law. The Church of England is the national Church, established by law. And it enjoys special privileges. As long as it remained a truly Christian Church it stood as a safeguard for the British constitution. It guaranteed that the nation was self-consciously a professedly Christian nation, whose basic values and laws should reflect the spiritual foundations on which it was built. While I am no great admirer or apologist for the Church of England I am happy that for centuries the British constitution withstood many and varied attacks and, since the Glorious Revolution of 1688, has continued to give freedom to citizens of all denominations. However, the Church of England is hardly even a pale shadow of what it ought to be. Truth be told, it has often been a place in which good men and spiritual delinquents somehow held together in an uneasy alliance. In modern times, however, the Church of England has more and more disavowed its historic Protestantism and has elevated to its highest offices men who openly detest the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. It is an entirely ecumenical organization, seeking union with Rome. It is even worse, for at heart it is syncretistic, seeking union with religions that are openly heathen and anti-Christian. So one part of me would be happy to see the whole hypocritical show disestablished, as the Church of Ireland was in 1870. But I wonder what would follow. Britain has long since forsaken its Christian roots. It is utterly secular. The problem is that in the religious vacuum of the disestablishment of the Church of England, without even the semblance of a Christian basis for society, the door may be open for Islam to impose itself. That possibility is not as far-fetched as it may seem. I have reported how the bill to disestablish the Church of England bore the number of the Beast, 666. A coincidence, yes, but it serves to remind us of all that is wrong in England and of the dangers that lurk in the way. England's only hope is to cast off the bogus religion of an effete Established Church that is Christian in name only, that is not worthy of the name and that more and more displays on its forehead the mark of the beast, and to return to the genuine Christianity that put the Great in "Great Britain." |
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| TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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It's not too often that you get antiabortionists and pro-abortionists celebrating the same event as good news. When it was reported recently that the number of abortions being performed in the United States had dropped to 1.2 million a year, both sides found something to celebrate. It was good news. Or was it? 1.2 million abortions per year means that abortions are at their lowest since 1976. At least this is what a new report claims. Obviously, every abortion less than the grisly norm of recent decades is something to be grateful for. But a closer look at the underlying reality soon wipes the gloss off any celebration. Some researchers claim that the impositions of more restrictions on abortions accounts for some of the decline. If this is so, I rejoice and hope that more states will place more restrictions on the barbarism that is daily executed-an accurate word under the circumstances-in the nation's hospitals and clinics. A more immediate reason for the drop seems to be the widespread use of the controversial abortion pill RU 486. How many conceptions this early form of abortion has terminated is anybody's guess but one thing seems clear: America's abortion rate is not declining because of any revival of moral standards. Whatever the reasons, the trend was welcomed by both antiabortion and abortion rights advocates. If pro-abortionists are applauding these latest figures, believe me there is no real reason for pro-life advocates to celebrate. Let the figure sink in: this nation gives the sanction of law-indeed the protection of the Constitution-to the killing of one million two hundred thousand babies per year. And we are supposed to celebrate that as representing a drop of something like a couple of hundred thousand per year? Here's the cold reality. We live in a nation where sexual morality is trampled in the gutter. Young people who maintain virgin purity are often viewed as oddities. Living together without the benefit of marriage is so common that for anyone to raise an objection to it makes him sound as up to date as a dinosaur. This is the ME generation. Even the life of a baby can be snuffed out if it happens to inconvenience all-important me. With the availability of RU486 more women can live in sin and comfortably destroy any child they may conceive-all without the inconvenience and guilty feeling of having to undergo an abortion procedure. So despite the apparently encouraging figures on declining abortion rates the moral situation in America is as bleak and godless as ever. That's why these figures are cold comfort to Christians who oppose abortion on demand, as all Christians should. It's why we should continue to oppose the abortion industry by all lawful means. But it is also why we should realize that fighting abortion is not the great answer to America's moral depravity. More than ever we need to see this country caught in the spiritual blaze of the old-time preaching of the law and the gospel-the law to let men know what sin is and does and to drive them to cry to God for mercy; and the gospel show them that mercy in the person and through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the only real answer to the moral and spiritual needs of this or any other nation. |
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| MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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The Wall Street Journal recently ran a long article on the subject of church discipline. Titled "Banned from Church," the article ran with the subhead, "Reviving an ancient practice, churches are exposing sinners and shunning those who won't repent." It is a disturbing article for various reasons. First, it gives the statistic by scholarly estimates that about 10%-15% of Protestant evangelical churches practice church discipline. That means that in 85%-90% of these churches there is no such thing as church discipline. Given that the Journal article mentions things such as adultery, drunkenness and theft as some of the sins that the minority of churches are disciplining, we are left with the somber fact that in almost all America's Protestant evangelical churches grievous moral sins will go unaddressed and unpunished. That is serious. When you add that in mainline denominations church discipline is almost non-existent you can see that churches have made themselves very comfortable with sin in the camp. Is it any wonder there is so little blessing from God in their services? Second, some of the reasons given in the article for excommunicating people appear frivolous, or at least whimsical. Third, in most churches, especially in independent churches, there appears to be little or no established order for church government and for the process of charging and trying a member's sin. This has led to all sorts of public actions that are both unnecessary and often counter-productive. Fourth, I gather from the Journal article that in a great number of cases, members look at their sins, even those involving a loss of public testimony, not as so many attacks on the honor of the Lord or the testimony of His church but as purely personal affairs. Hence, if they confess their sins when confronted by their pastor, they treat that as a personal, confidential conversation and are ready to sue him if he brings it before the legitimate church authorities. The Journal article seems to draw no distinction between very different causes for church discipline. It treats people accused of adultery and those accused of speaking ill of their pastor as if they were morally equivalent. Unfortunately, even pastors often seem not be able to draw necessary distinctions in the severity of censurable conduct by their members. Many of them act solely on their own initiative. That is one reason why I am glad to be a minister of a Presbyterian church where I must act in accordance with clearly recognized principles for ensuring due process; and where I must act in concert with the elected elders of the congregation. When a member is disciplined, it is with a view to restoration. Here if a member feels aggrieved by a decision against him he has the right of appeal and may indeed ask the Presbytery (the combination of ministers and elders from a number of congregations) to reverse the decision against him. When all is said and done, the process of discipline is never easy, but it can be richly blessed by the Lord. Churches need to have properly established church courts (elder boards) and appeals processes; members need to respect them and abide by their decisions; and all together need to make the process one that will seek to restore the erring ones and reflect positively on the public testimony of the church. |
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| FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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Here's a report that has some common sense and a lot of ominous signs undergirding the events it covers. The Archbishop of Canterbury recently joined the Communities Secretary Hazel Blears for the launch of a government consultation supporting inter-faith dialogue among Britain's faith communities. Dr Williams and over 200 representatives from a cross section of church, inter-faith and community organizations joined Mrs. Blears and Cohesion Minister Parmjit Dhanda for the start of the "Face-to-Face and Side-by-Side" consultation. The consultation will look at the inter-faith work currently underway in Britain and will recommend ways the government can support these initiatives in order to foster integration and social cohesion within the community. It comes in response to the report "Our Shared Future" published by the Commission on Integration and Cohesion published last June, which acknowledged the role faith groups play in reducing ethnic and social tensions. The Communities Secretary said: "Faith groups are a key part of the way we respond to the challenges we face from building strong resilient communities to tackling anti-social behaviour." The consultation, which runs through March 2008 "provides us with an opportunity to find out how Government can best support dialogue between faith groups and the circumstances in which inter faith activity is helping to make a positive difference," Mrs. Blears said. "By learning how we can all better work in partnership with each other to increase inter-faith dialogue and social action we can ensure that this activity results in tangible and positive change within local communities in terms of increased cohesion, greater community empowerment and resilience to extremism in all its forms,' the Minister said. Now, one can understand that it is necessary for the government of any country with a multi-cultural population to have leaders from each section of the community sit down and discuss how to avoid potentially deadly confrontations. But there is something very sinister when a socialist government sets up a religious gathering of all sorts of religious leaders with a mandate to find ways to remove "misunderstandings" and other causes of inter-cultural tension. Inevitably, there will be a call for the cessation of Christian missionary work among other religious groups-though Britain's communal troubles have never been the result of Christian witnessing. Some years ago the world Council of Churches proposed a moratorium on Christian missionary activity in Africa-thankfully ignored by Bible believers. It is to be feared that if it suits the secular government's agenda to placate irate ethnic or religious minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, it will use the power ceded to it to get involved in inter-faith work to crack down on any form of vibrant Christianity. It is a big mistake to establish a godless government as the broker among varying faiths and especially as it will work on the assumption that Christianity, to which Britain owes its existence, is just another one of those faiths. This will be a story to watch in 2008. |
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| THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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EthicsDaily.com is a Baptist internet site dedicated to nurturing good relations between Baptists and Jews. It is also a site that promotes the politically correct environmental cause and tries to give it a Scriptural twist-going so far as to reinterpret Christ's great proclamation of His messianic calling (Luke 4:18-19) as a pro-environmental statement! For the last few years this site has selected a "Baptist of the Year" and for 2007 decided to confer the honor on Al Gore. Here's what the editorial says: Al Gore is EthicsDaily.com's pick as Baptist of the Year for 2007. He has pressed for the global good with a compelling message about the danger of climate change and a clear call for moral responsibility, knitting together science and faith, reason and passion. He has refused to be distracted by the character-assassins, the fear-mongers, the science-deniers and the merchants of short-term gain. He has remained faithful to his mission of protecting the earth and its inhabitants. In the opening paragraphs of his Nobel Peace Prize lecture, Gore said, "I have a purpose here today. It is a purpose I have tried to serve for many years. I have prayed that God would show me a way to accomplish it." With an acknowledgment of Providence, Gore tethered his speech to his moral vision. He quoted the Bible, refused to make God responsible for human inaction, called squarely for an ethic of love for neighbor, confessed human failure and placed moral authority at the tip of the needed plan for planetary redemption. His address was profoundly Christian without being offensively so. "The earth has a fever. And the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself. We asked for a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth. And the consistent conclusion, restated with increasing alarm, is that something basic is wrong," he said. "We are what is wrong, and we must make it right." The EthicsDaily.com editorial went on to blast Baptists for all but ignoring St. Al. Regrettably no Baptist has received less applause from Baptists than Gore, a shameful but not unexpected reality from a people snarled in religious fear, suspicious of science and stuck in the rut of spiritualized reading of the Bible. Now I wonder where in all the Bible any Baptist, or any sane man for that matter, ever found any reference to "planetary redemption" as being part of the mission of God's people or any people. I will not again repeat the constant stream of criticism that the science behind Gore's doomsday scenario is flawed; that the current trend is part of the endless fluctuations of climate; that man's efforts can and will make no difference to trend; and that anyway, who can say that the current situation is the optimum one for the earth? What I will say is that what Al Gore is promoting is not Christianity but socialism on a worldwide scale. His vision is the old liberal notion that lay behind the "social gospel." It was proved a myth back in the 1920s and will be proved a myth again. It is not part of Al Gore's mission to bring in the new heavens and the new earth (for what else is "planetary redemption"?). It is not the Church's job to save the universe but to preach the gospel. That is not "the rut of a spiritualized reading of the Bible." It is the plain meaning and message of the Word of God. You can follow St. Al or you can follow St. Paul who refused to preach any other message than Christ crucified. You can have St. Al if you want. I'll go with St. Paul, even if Al is designated Baptist of the Year. |
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| WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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Baroness Paisley, the wife of Dr. Ian Paisley, is a member of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Britain's parliamentary system. Recently the Lords were discussing the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill and she took the opportunity to speak powerfully on the subjects of the creation of animal/human embryos, cloning and abortion. She denounced the measures before the House as being against the Holy Scriptures and noted that some leading researchers had abandoned cloning and embryo creation because with their ability to produce stem cells from a patient's own skin cells they looked on cloning as unnecessary. Moving on to the subject of abortion, Baroness Paisley entered a strong objection against moves by abortion supporters in the British Parliament to force the abortion laws currently in use in England on Northern Ireland, where there is widespread opposition to them. She went on to describe the evil of abortion in terms that the House of Lords must rarely hear. She spoke of it as a "massacre" and as "murder" and equated it with the evil of slavery. Here are her stinging words of rebuke of pro-abortion forces. She said that Northern Ireland would not be bullied into accepting England's abortion laws by "activists whose ideas and actions have brought about the massacre of more than 7 million innocent unborn children in the years that this Act has been in operation on the mainland. It is difficult to comprehend the enormity of this murder campaign, and how many scientists, musicians, doctors, teachers and business men and women have been flushed down the sluices of our hospitals and clinics. We hear complaints about the brain drain, but it never seems to be recognised that the surgeons who advise women and carry out their wishes are the people who drain the brains, together with the lifeblood, dismembered limbs and bodies and crushed skulls of their silent victims. I wonder whether the women who abort their children and those who carry out the gruesome execution of these innocent and defenceless living babies ever think that they are emulating Herod in the horrific campaign that he perpetrated on innocent victims in his day. It is heartbreaking to think that any man or woman who has sworn to preserve life is instead wilfully and systematically doing what only God Himself has the authority to do-sons and daughters of Herod indeed." Man, that is strong stuff! But it is stuff that the noble Lords needed to hear. Too often politicians debate the issue as if it were merely a theoretical question. It is not. We are talking about real, living babies whose bodies and brains are being hacked to bits, their skulls crushed and their lives "terminated" at the behest of a mother or her doctor-not to save the mother's life, mind you, but usually to safeguard her imagined comfort level. Uncompromising voices in high places are rare but sorely needed. The House of Lords heard some home truths about the vicious trade of the abortionists. I hope Gordon Brown's government will take heed. Britain prides itself in giving a lead to the world in its rejection of capital punishment but still allows the barbarity of executing pre-born children. It's time to change all that and make the United Kingdom-and, one would hope, America as well-havens of safety for the "poor innocents" whose blood is the shame of civilized nations. |
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| TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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Yesterday I dealt with a protest from a Roman Catholic who objected to my frequently exposing and opposing the Church of Rome. Another correspondent had much of the same concern. He left a brief message on our web page to ask when there is so much hope in the gospels why do I preach hate? Now I must confess that this sort of mindset really concerns me. To many people there is no place in the gospel ministry to expose and condemn even the most egregious departures from the truth as it is in Jesus. To condemn anything as unbiblical or antichristian is, in their eyes, to "preach hate." Now let me ask a question or two. Did the Lord Jesus Christ preach hate when He excoriated the Pharisees? He called them "hypocrites" and asked them "How can ye escape the damnation of hell?" Was that hateful? Or was it a ministry of truth by which he warned souls who were in danger of being subverted by those false teachers? Did John the Baptist preach hate when he addressed the religious leaders as a "generation of vipers?" Did Paul the Apostle preach hate when he confronted Bar-Jesus, Elymas, the false prophet who had a hold over the Roman deputy Sergius Paulus, addressing him thus: "O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness?" According to our politically correct age all these would be examples of preaching hate. But that is ludicrous. In every case the exposing and opposing of false doctrine and those who promote it or evil men who would corrupt the morals of God's people is an essential part of a faithful ministry. Christian love must commence with a love for God and His truth. Only then may it be genuinely exercised toward our fellow man. It would be hateful and despicable to be censuring and condemning on a narrow denominational basis, saying in effect that if you don't agree with me in all my points of view you must be condemned. But to say, "I love God and His Son supremely; I love the gospel He has revealed in Christ; I love the souls of men; I love the Church of God which Christ has purchased with His own blood; therefore I am bound to expose and oppose every perversion of the gospel and every religious movement that is an insult to God and that is blinding and destructive to the souls of men"-I repeat, to say this is not narrow-mindedness but Christ-mindedness. The Apostles actually named men whom they opposed (e.g. Paul; John). They were right. You cannot allow false prophets and false teachers to roam unhindered in the Church. So again I make it clear that I cannot just sit back and say nothing as Rome continues her assault on God's truth and her deception of the souls of men. So if I have been critical of Rome, it's because fidelity to the gospel demanded it. If that offends you, I am sorry-not sorry that I have stood for God's truth but sorry for you that you are more concerned about offending the pope and his friends than Jesus Christ and His faithful people. As Luther said, "Here I stand; I can do no other; so help me God." |
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| MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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Recently I received an email from a man who objected to what he considered unnecessarily negative comments I have made about the Church of Rome and the Pope. He went so far as to suggest that we rename the broadcast, "The Fallacies of the Catholic Church," or "Why the Catholic Church Isn't Following God's Call," or "Let Dr. Alan Cairns Tell You What's Wrong with the Catholic Church." He wanted to know why I would talk about the Roman Catholic Church. He suggested that it may be to help Protestants "to define what it means to be Protestant and not Catholic" or "to offer Protestants a sense of their faith identity." My correspondent told me how in the past year he has come to know how dependent he is on God and how through Jesus Christ he is made new. Now he tries to live each day to love God and his neighbor. With all that he professes "my love for the Catholic faith and my new found joy in the Priests and how they live their loves [a Freudian slip perhaps, but I am sure he meant love their lives], the sacraments, the communion of saints, intercessory prayer, and my Pope. I realize the bible says nothing explicitly on ANY of these matters. And that's okay for me. We can agree to disagree. But hearing your program only makes me feel further from my protestant brothers and sisters and makes me feel like I need to have my guard up. This does not move me closer to my goal of Love." First of all, I have to thank the gentleman for writing. I appreciate that. But he is laboring under a grievous misapprehension. It may not matter to him that some of the most fundamental matters in the faith he professes to love do not appear in Scripture but it does matter to me. You see, that's the very heart of the controversy with Rome. Rome assumes the power to define doctrine that has absolutely no basis in God's word and is in many instances diametrically opposed to what is revealed. These are not small issues. They have to do with the great cardinal truths of the gospel. Consider this. If the Bible is right then Rome is totally unbiblical-that is, unchristian-on the following key issues: - The finished sacrifice of Christ at Calvary
- The sole mediation of Christ
- Justification by faith alone-that is, the way of acceptance with God
- The meaning and significance of the sacraments
- The sufficiency of Scripture
- The exaltation of the bishop of Rome to be a Pope
- What happens to souls after death-she has invented the dogma of Purgatory
- The merit that finally gains heaven-she makes it the merit of a person's own works
These are just some of the issues. They are not insignificant matters. They go to the very heart of the gospel. Since Rome is a dominant force in the world today, claiming over a billion adherents, it follows that any man who sets out to be faithful to Christ and His gospel will have to Let the Bible Speak against the pernicious errors of a system that is binding and blinding millions. Remember if the Bible is right, Rome is wrong at just about every essential point of the gospel. My correspondent may say, "For me, that's okay." It is not okay for me. I can bring the good news to needy souls only as I distinguish it from counterfeits that pose as the message of God to men. So I'll keep exposing and opposing Rome. |
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