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.

BAHAISM and the Spirit of the Antichrist

 The Bahai concept of religious unity and international government is closely linked to the many other religious groups involved in the ecumenical movement, and at times associated with the "New Age" movement.  They are highly evangelistic in promoting their views.  Bahaism began in Persia as an offshoot of Islam, with Mirza Ali Muhammed (1819-1850).  In 1844 he announced that he was the Bab (the Gate) who would be the forerunner of the "Promised One" who would be a manifestation of God.  After his death, one of his followers, Baha'u'llah (the Glory of Allah), came to believe that he was this "Promised One".  Bahaism is considered a heresy by most Muslims and thousands have been murdered by fundamentalist jihadis.

Baha'u'lah claimed himself to be another manifestation of Christ and the fulfillment of the prophecy by Jesus in John 14:16-17 in which there was to come a SPIRIT or Comforter which would be with us forever.  Baha'u'llah however died in 1892 at the age of 75 and no longer with us.

Baha'u'llah's son, Abdul Baha, brought the new religion to the United States in 1912 and built a $2.5 temple in Wilamette, Illinois.

Bahai temple in Wilmette, Illinois

In Bahaism the Biblical and historical version of Christianity is modified.  Christ is robbed of his incarnate deity by placing him on the same level as the other religious teachers.  He is also accorded a position inferior to that granted to Baha'u'llah.  Bahais do not believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ, the inerrancy of the Bible, eternal punishment, a literal Hell, the blood atonement of the cross, nor Satan and his demons whom Jesus dealt with throughout his ministry.  Yet, they claim that Baba'u'llah taught the same things as the Bible.  Jesus' true believers have to deal with the Devil and resist his demons (Mark 16:17-18).

The Bible tells us the true Comforter, or Holy Spirit, came to us at the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:21) and gave power and supernatural gifts to the believers as a witness for God's kingdom.

Bahaism is a prime example of Jesus' words in Matthew 24:11, when he spoke of the end of this present age.  "And man false prophets will arise and will mislead many."  Then concerning the Bahais plea for world peace they avoid apostle Paul's warning of the true visitation of the Day of the Lord.  "While they are saying, 'Peace and safety!' then destruction will come upon them suddenly like birth pangs upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape" (1 Thess 5:3.

Apostle Paul wrote these extremely strong words concerning those who would follow after a false gospel, "But even though we or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1:8-9).

The Bible says in John 3:36, "He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."  Therefore, it is necessary that we repent of any false gospel and turn away from any sin or deception, and "be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall received the gift of the true Holy Spirit.  Jesus said that otherwise we shall die in our sins and be thrown into the lake of fire, which is the second death or Hell. (Acts 2:38, Rev. 20:15, 21:8)

Bahai Temple, Haifa, Israel

Why Benjamin Franklin became a Deist

Why Benjamin Franklin rejected his Presbyterian roots

There are many reasons a politician might reject being affiliated with a particular religious denomination.  In his early teens Franklin had exhausted the books in his fathers library which for the most part were related to bible study and religion.  He left home at seventeen looking for work in the printing business and ended up in England for over a year.  Returning to America in 1726 he was about twenty years old.  As he began to prosper in the printing business he was consumed by reading.  Though he seldom attended church he never abandoned his belief in God.  His view of the Presbyterian religion however he came to reject.

"I had been religiously educated as a Presbyterian; but though some of the dogmas of the persuasion, such as the eternal decrees of God, election, reprobation, etc., appeared to me unintelligible, others doubtful, and I early absented myself from the public assemblies of the sect, Sunday being my studying day, I never was without some religious principles.  I never doubted, for instance, the existence of a Deity- that he made the world and governed it by his providence - that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man - that our souls are immortal - that all crimes will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter."

In Philadelphia, a Presbyterian minister encouraged him to attend his church but it was short lived. "Had he been in my opinion a good preacher, perhaps I might have continued...but his discourse were chiefly either polemic arguments, or explications of the peculiar doctrines of our sect, and were all to me very dry, uninteresting, and unedifying; since not a single moral principle was inculcated or enforced; their aim seeming to be rather to make us Presbyterians than good citizens."

After five Sundays of this experience he gave up on public assemblies and pursued his own studies on Sundays with the help of a liturgy and form of prayer of his own that he composed (1728) entitled, Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion.  He admitted that his conduct might have been blameable but he made no apologies.  Of his thirteen virtuous goals the final was to imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Reverend Whitefield came to preach from Ireland in 1739 Franklin became one of his great admirers and supporter.  Whitefield was not shy about calling out the errors of clergymen who shut him out of their churches.

When it came time for the Americans to pick up weapons to defend themselves against their enemies Franklin was more than a bit frustrated by the hypocrisy of the pacifist Quakers.

The Rock ain't Peter

Who is the Rock?

So this is what the Lord GOD says: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; the one who believes will never be shaken. (Isa, 28:16)

According to Roman tradition
 Peter is the rock and  foundation of the church. 

 But what does the bible say?

Throughout the bible the rock is actually God.  A few examples make it clear.  In the Song of Moses (Deu. 32:4) we read, "The Rock!  His work is perfect."  This is certainly not something we could say about Peter who was prone to jumping to conclusions and being carried away by peer pressure.  Apostle Paul had to rebuke him publicly for hypocrisy (Gal. 2:11)  Who did apostle Paul say was the rock? "and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ" (1 Cor. 10:4).  So neither Moses or Paul thought Peter was the Rock.

Psalm 62:1-2

"My soul waits in silence for God only; from Him is my salvation.

He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken."

Notice that God is our salvation, not the church.

A Psalm of David reads, "The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge." (2 Samuel 22:2-3, Psalm 18:2)

Those that prefer Peter as their rock apparently do not read the Old Testament or care what it says.  When one places there faith in a church or person rather than Christ they are setting themselves up for a painful disappointment.