Works Righteousness?

I hear constant debates about grace verses works righteousness.  I have run into those who don't believe in baptism because they believe that it is a form of works righteousness.  Then there are those who will not do evangelism because it smacks of works.  And, please, don't call people to repentance because that is a form works righteousness.  Meanwhile the Jehovah's Witnesses are in our public parks and farmers market, and the Mormons are going door to door spreading true works righteousness of a false gospel.

This half-baked message of grace is often merely an excuse to avoid doing public evangelism because of fear.  Many churches have become places where hyper spiritual people hide from the world while debating about who the antichrist is or when the rapture is going to happen.

I say it is high time that we confront the cults

 wherever they raise their heads.  

And when the liberals say we are being judgmental,

 we should go after them as well.

While the Mormons are claiming that all of our creeds are an abomination and our professors are all corrupt, we should be saying, "Mormonism is a pack of lies that needs to be repented of".

Oh, as a side note, DON'T YOU JUDGE ME!

The Antichrist and a Jerusalem Temple

Theories on who the antichrist is have been raised and debunked since the early days of the church.  Irenaeus (A.D. 120-202), a disciple of Polycarp (who was a disciple of John the Apostle) wrote much in refuting ideas being presented in his day.  Numerous people whose names measured up to the numerical 666 have come and gone yet the end has not come.  Several decades after the temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed Irenaeus looked forward to another temple where the antichrist would reign for three and a half years.  Looking around us even in our day we can see the general definition of the antichrist present in many of our modern cults.

The preterist view presenting the notion that all, or at least most biblical prophecies have been fulfilled is a relatively modern cloud of deception that Christians run into today.  It leaves us with many unsolved questions however.  The early church in the second century, long after the temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Romans, were still looking toward a temple on Mount Zion in the city of David where the Antichrist would reign for three years and six months in Jerusalem.  Fast forward a few centuries and Catholic replacement theology did away with these second century hopes until when in 1948 Israel raised the star of David as a reminder that there is yet something more to this parcel of land that everyone fights over.  While second century saints were still being moved by the spirit of prophecy and casting out demons most preterists will claim that all of that stopped with the apostolic age.

So while Jerusalem has been trampled underfoot by Gentiles for nearly two thousand years we still look forward to the return of Christ who will destroy the lawless one whom Paul describes as taking his seat in the temple of God displaying himself as God (2 Thess. 2:3-10) that scripture may be fulfilled.  Yet all the while there will be many around us that will reject the truth, "and for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false, in order that they may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness" (2 Thess. 2:11-12).  Our hope is in the one "whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things, about which God spoke by the mouths of His holy prophets from ancient times" (Acts 3:21)

Barnes and Noble Drag Queen promo for kids

Barnes and Noble promotes the grooming of children

by highlighting Drag Queens reading to children.

There was plenty of police security July 6, 2019

in Kennewick, WA as the LGBTQ crowd promoted

their perversion to the kids at the Columbia Center Mall.

This is where we can vote with our feet and dollars and refuse to do any business at the mall and with any of those who promote such insanity. Brick and mortar stores are already hurting because of online sales.  Now this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back.  Pandering to sin is a bad business model.

Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea.  -Jesus Christ

How many baths make a Pentecostal?

When Solomon dedicated his temple to the Lord there was much fan fair and celebration.  The Holy Spirit came into the place in such an awesome way that the priest could not stand to minister.  This is the kind of event many of us long to experience and there have been many books written on how to achieve it.  More fasting and praying some say, while others say repentance is the answer.  I would like to suggest there is a bit more to it than either of those noble efforts.

During this temple event there happened to be 120 priests blowing trumpets.  These priests had washed in a bronze sea that held 3,000 baths (2 Chr. 4:2-6, 5:11-14).  This sea rested on the backs of 12 oxen each facing outward to the four corners of the globe.  Fast forward hundreds of years to the day of Pentecost (or Feast of Weeks, and what the Jews call Shavuot) when the followers of Christ were waiting for the promised coming of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem, there were 120 people from at least sixteen different nations gathered.  When the Holy Spirit fell upon these believers they received a message preached by Peter (one of the 12 Apostles) and 3,000 people were converted and baptized.

Comparing the numbers here suggests that it was not merely a result of a great prayer meeting of repentant saints but a divinely ordained time in God's plan for man.