You either come to God for forgiveness and salvation based on what the Savior Jesus did on the Cross, or you’re going to come under divine judgment and come to Jesus as your Judge. Which will it be? Carl
Category: Buddhism
Unconventional But It Worked
The following is a true story as told to me by my son-in-law who is a North American Mission Board missionary. Only the names have been changed.
While talking with a pastor friend, the pastor related how Young Man had just asked Jesus Christ into his heart, been born again, and joined the church. The pastor was concerned because Young Man had a lot of zeal but lacked knowledge on how to be a witness to his friends. He was afraid he would turn people away from Christ instead of drawing them to Him.
Meanwhile, Young Man was out witnessing to his friends about their need for a Saviour to escape Hell. He carried a cigarette lighter in his pocket. He witnessed to his friend Tim by grabbing Tim’s arm and putting the cigarette lighter underneath his forearm and apply the flame to the skin. You can imagine Tim’s surprise as he jerked his arm away from the flame.
The next Sunday, the pastor runs into Young Man before church and Young Man tells him how he had witnessed to Tim, his friend, with the cigarette lighter. The pastor realizing that he was right about the Young Man, says to the Young Man, ” I have to talk to Tim right after the service. Where can I find him?”
The Young Man says, “Oh, Tim is seated in the church, he wants to be baptized.”
Tim had received his friend’s unconventional witness concerning his need to have his sin washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ so he could escape the justly deserved flames of Hell. In other words, Tim was born again and wanted to follow the Lord in believer’s baptism to testify to the world that he had been born again.
Do you need the flame of a cigarette lighter applied to your arm to get your attention?
The New Testament warns us there is coming a day “when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed –for our testimony to you was believed.” II Thessalonians 1:7-10
Today is the day to believe on the Lord Jesus and what He has done for you at the Cross by shedding His precious blood so your sins could be covered. Do not put it off.
Carl
One Example of The Dangers of Yoga
AP Photo/Mariam Ilies
The following article concerns the arrest of a Romanian yoga guru who is the leader of a multi-national tantric yoga organization called Atman Yoga Federation and is charged with the indoctrination of his female followers for sexual exploitation. The sexual abuse of female and male followers by yoga gurus is well documented going back to when the Beatles started going to India in the 1960s to receive “enlightenment” which was actually a descent into spiritual darkness. Carl
PARIS (AP) – A 71-year-old Romanian yoga guru and 14 others were handed preliminary charges by a Paris magistrate on a raft of counts linked to an international ring that for years allegedly subjected followers seeking enlightenment to sexual exploitation.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said that six of the 15 people interrogated were ordered held on Friday, while nine others were freed but under judicial surveillance.
Gregorian Bivolaru was among two of the six handed a string of preliminary charges that included human trafficking in an organized band, kidnapping, sequestration or arbitrary detention of numerous people along with rape and “abusing the weakness of a group” via psychological or physical subjection. None of the 15 was named but a judicial source said that Bivolaru was among the two facing the longest list of charges.
A trimmed-down version of the preliminary charges were handed to the other suspects. An investigation will now determine whether the preliminary charges lead to a formal indictment and a trial.
The arrest this past week of Bivolaru and 40 others in the Paris region ended a six-year manhunt in several countries. The police unit that combats sect-related crimes freed 26 people described by authorities as sect victims who had been housed in deplorable conditions.
Accounts from alleged victims detailed in the French media portray Bivolaru as a guru who coerced women into sexual relationships under the guise of spiritual elevation in a career spanning decades and continents.
Bivolaru’s group, initially known as MISA, for Movement for Spiritual Integration Toward the Absolute, was later known as the Atman yoga federation. Non-consensual sexual activities under the facade of tantric yoga teachings were allegedly at the heart of the organization, according to a French judicial official who spoke last week on condition of anonymity because the person, like other judicial officials, wasn’t authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
The group’s “ashrams” were centers for indoctrination and sexual exploitation disguised as spiritual enlightenment, according to the official. One appeared to be exclusively dedicated to satisfying the desires of the leader, with women transported there from elsewhere, the official added.
MISA said in a statement on its website in Romanian that Bivolaru had been targeted by media campaigns since the 1990s to “discredit and slander” him, calling any charges against him in France “absurd accusations.”
The Atman federation meanwhile described the situation to The Associated Press in an email as a “witch hunt,” disclaiming responsibility for the private lives of students and teachers at its member schools. It also highlighted that some member schools had won cases at the European Court of Human Rights, demonstrating human rights violations against them.
The alleged sexual abuses spanned Europe. In 2017, Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation issued an international arrest warrant for him for alleged aggravated human trafficking. Bivolaru had obtained political refugee status in Sweden in 2005, which delayed legal proceedings in Romania. In France, yoga retreats were held in and around Paris and in the southern Alpes-Maritimes region. However, it was not immediately clear how long he had been in France.
Source: Breitbart News
World’s Greatest Problem
THE WORLD’S GREATEST PROBLEM IS LOSTNESS.
Today, over 3,000 people groups have no missionary presence and likely have no access to the Good News of Jesus Christ.
The lack of accurate knowledge about God’s saving grace is not limited to just these distant groups. You and I are surrounded by THE LOST every day regardless of what nation we live in.
Fellow Christian, what are you doing to fulfill the Lord’s commandment to:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you…” (Matthew 28: 18-20)
Do Something. Please!
Carl
How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization: An Interview with Vishal Mangalwadi – Part 2
PART TWO
Bible Gateway interviewed Vishal Mangalwadi about his book, The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization (Thomas Nelson, 2012).
How did the Bible trigger the West’s passion for medical advancement?
Vishal Mangalwadi: Mainstream Hinduism taught that matter (including the human body) was evil—illusion or maya. In contrast, the first chapter of the Bible declared the material realm, including the human body, to be very good. Genesis 3 taught that sickness and death came as a curse upon human sin. The Lord Jesus came to give us abundant and eternal life. His soul did not reincarnate. His crucified body was resurrected and glorified. The Bible teaches that God will resurrect our perishable bodies as immortal and glorified bodies.
Because of God’s high view of the human person, including his body, the Lord Jesus healed the sick and commissioned his disciples to a ministry of healing. Therefore, medieval Roman Catholic monasteries did not simply pray, preach, and practice piety. Many of them took care of the sick. They studied, and taught medicine. The Schola Medica Salernitana became the world’s first medical school in the South Italian city of Salerno. It grew out of a 9th century dispensary in a monastery. This monastic tradition blossomed into modern medicine after the 16th century biblical Reformation.
What is the biblical ideal of human dignity and how did it inform the West’s social structure?
Vishal Mangalwadi: Gautam Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, saw human life as suffering. Thomas Hobbes, the only atheist in English Enlightenment, viewed life as “nasty, brutish, and short.” Pope Innocent III detailed “The Misery of Man.” Secular intellectuals have no option but to see man as nothing more than an evolved animal.
Species, races, and individuals do not evolve equal. Evolution does not bestow any rights upon any animal. Western notions of human dignity, equality, and inalienable rights are the Bible’s unique contribution to the modern world. Pico della Mirandela (1463-94) articulated the Bible’s case for human dignity in An Oration on the Dignity of Man. His case rested upon (a) creation of man in God’s own image and (b) God’s incarnation in the Jesus of Nazareth.
God became man in order to save man, because man was made in God’s image – precious and immortal. Full implications of these doctrines are still being worked out. Yet, much of our future will be shaped by the question: Is man merely another animal (organic intelligence) or is he uniquely God’s image—so precious to God that He would come to this earth to save him?
How did the Bible equip the West to cultivate compassion?
Vishal Mangalwadi: Through parables such as that of the Good Samaritan, the Lord Jesus explained the command ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ He exemplified it by blessing those who cursed and killed him. Jesus courted the wrath of religious establishment by caring for the sick even on Sabbath. He reinforced prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos, by teaching that God’s holy law was made for man’s good. Therefore, a religiosity that did not care for individuals was worse than worthless. It was obnoxious. What we do for the littlest of his brothers, we do for him.
What is your response to people who say the Bible subjugates women?
Vishal Mangalwadi: The women’s lib movement started in America because social inequality between men and women was obvious. Many women got paid less then men for the same work. They were allowed to serve coffee after worship, but not communion during the worship. They could play piano in a church but not pray. Yet, crucial questions are: who told America that men and women were created equal; that sin brought subjugation as a curse; that the curse was nailed upon the cross of Calvary? The question that triggered my reflections was: Why didn’t the Saudi women burn their burqas and their bras? What empowered American women to launch the women’s lib movement? Was it because American women were more oppressed than the Muslim of Hindu women? Or was it because something had already made American women stronger than other women around the world? My counter-intuitive discovery was that it was the Bible that empowered women.
No culture has ever required a husband to love his wife. Every culture, including Jewish and post-Christian Western cultures, have permitted husbands to divorce their wives and/or take other women. In 1831-32, French magistrate Alexis de Tocqueville observed that American women had become much stronger than European women because the biblical ideal of marriage had had the biggest impact in America. No country in the world will even try to impeach a president who lies about his private sex life.
The Bible emancipated Western women because it alone asserted theological equality of male and female and also because it defined God’s idea of marriage as a one-man one-woman lifelong and exclusive relationship. A woman is liberated to develop herself and to strive for her dignity when she knows that her fallen husband is not permitted to despise her, divorce her, covet his neighbor’s wife or to take another woman as a girlfriend, concubine, or wife. He has to love her, irrespective of the level of her intelligence, charm, abilities, and fallenness.
Roman wives were the victims of Rome’s playboy culture. Many of them followed and financed the Apostle Paul and (over time) won the Roman empire for Christ, because they understood better than modern feminists that Paul was emancipating them.
Men and women are equal, but husbands and wives (like parents and children and all other formal relations) have to live in a hierarchical relationship. No institution can function on the basis of equality-without-hierarchy. Christian marriages are being destroyed because the Western church has surrendered to the world’s folly that equality precludes authority. The Christian idea of marriage is unique. It can be sustained only if we take seriously the Bible’s idea of the fallenness of men and women and the necessity of wives submitting to fallen husbands, and husbands loving fallen wives.
How is human equality a biblical principle?
Vishal Mangalwadi: Sociologically, the modern idea of human equality was born when Martin Luther discovered the New Testament doctrine of the “priesthood of all believers.” Gradually, this truth began to challenge the West’s social/racial injustices.
George Whitfield was the first white revivalist in America, who began preaching to the blacks. His preaching evoked protests: “Do you really want us to kneel with our slaves and drink communion from the same cup?”
In order to counter deep rooted prejudices, in 1740, Whitfield began writing a series of articles. These explained how and why the Bible teaches human equality. Whitfield’s writings created the consensus which Thomas Jefferson articulated in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence as, “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable that all men are created equal.” By “sacred” Jefferson meant derived from sacred Scriptures. Under pressure from Benjamin Franklin, the Declaration was changed to read, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.”
To Indian sages, inequality was self-evident. That is why they invented the caste-system which still survives. Equality was “self-evident” even to American Deists because their worldview was shaped by the Bible. Now that evolution is shaping everyone’s intellectual lenses, only a fool will be able to assert that all men have evolved equal.
What role did the Bible play in the establishment of the university?
Vishal Mangalwadi: No Hindu ashram ever grew into a university. No Orthodox Christian monastery developed into a university in Eastern Europe, Greece, or Russia. Augustinian monasteries and Cathedral schools blossomed into West European universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Prague, Heidelberg, and Wittenberg because St. Augustine taught that the human mind was God’s supreme gift to mankind. The mind was made in God’s image, therefore, in order to be godly, one had to cultivate the mind as well as piety.
These monasteries were different than every other center of religious education. Young boys came to a monastery to learn to pray and become a priest. But in these monasteries they had to study logic, literature, philosophy, mathematics, and rhetoric as well. This is what created the West’s uniquely rational religious leader, who prayed as well as studied birds and the solar system.
Following the Reformation, Christian thinkers realized that God wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4-7). In order to know truth, man has to study three books: The book of God’s words (the Bible), the book of God’s works (in nature and culture), and the book of God’s reason (logic and mathematics that run the human mind and physical universe.) This insight was captured in Harvard Crest in 1643. VERITAS is written on these three books. Today, the university has degenerated into a factory producing laborers for the market and the state because, without God’s word, the university has been forced to shy away from the very concept of truth.
Since the Bible is not a “fax from Heaven,” explain how sentences written by humans can be considered the Word of God?
Vishal Mangalwadi: Prophet Elijah said to king Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word” (1 Kings 17:1). By the end of the chapter, the Sidonian widow of Zarephath exclaimed, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” (vs. 24). Eventually Ahab was forced to acknowledge that Elijah’s words—a man’s words—were, in fact, the word of God.
God said to Jeremiah, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth…I am watching over my word to perform it.” (Jeremiah 1:8-11). God’s word includes the words He gives His men and also men’s words which He watches to perform, fulfill, and honor. Daniel and his friends were willing to go into the lions’ den and fiery furnace because 70 years of Jewish history had confirmed to them that Jeremiah’s words, disregarded by their fathers, were in fact God’s word.
The gospel is that Jesus Christ died “according to the Scriptures,” was buried and rose again the third day, “according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). That means that Jesus didn’t have to die. In the Garden of Gethsemane Peter gave him the opportunity to evade arrest. During his trial, Pilate gave to Jesus plenty of room to escape crucifixion. The Lord Jesus sacrificed his life because he believed that the words of Scripture, written by fallen and fallible men, were in fact God’s words.
As you observe the West’s treatment of the Bible, where do you see western society headed?
Vishal Mangalwadi: Germany, the birthplace of biblical Reformation, became the arch villain of the 20th century, because during the 19th century, German theology undermined the Bible’s authority. I see post-biblical America as the greatest terror to the 21st century. I think the future of greed-driven American capitalism is best captured by James Cameron in his terrible, pagan, and commercially hit movie, Avatar.
Muslim nations cannot be the world’s biggest threats because while Islam can build a strong Caliphate, it does not and cannot build nations. Protestantism has built history’s greatest nations; therefore, the world has the most to fear from Protestant nations that destroy the very foundations of their morality and civility.
What are your thoughts about Bible Gateway as a way to reinvigorate civilization’s soul?
Vishal Mangalwadi: Bible Gateway is the only site I use to get into the Bible. (Though I am yet to cultivate the discipline to use everything that it offers.) I appreciate this interview because the new generation needs to learn why the Bible must be studied, trusted, obeyed, and applied.
Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Vishal Mangalwadi: Christianity has lost America because the church forgot that “God wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth…” for this reason Paul the apostle was appointed a “preacher” and a “teacher of the gentiles in faith and truth” (1 Timothy 2:4-7). The American church has the capacity to disciple the nation, but for over a century it has lacked the theology for discipling nations. It has been preoccupied with saving souls, not with discipling nations.
The good news is that the state of Minnesota just started an education revolution that can disciple America. Students will enroll in an accredited college, but go to the local church to study online as a cohort in a face-to-face mentorship with a credentialed Academic Pastor. A student will get a college degree for under $10,000 a year. Check out www.VirtuesCampus.com.
Bio: Vishal Mangalwadi, LLD, was born and raised in India. He studied eastern religion and philosophy in India, Hindu ashrams, and at L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland. He is a dynamic and engaging speaker who has lectured in 35 countries. He is a social reformer, political columnist, and author of 14 books. Christianity Today calls him ‘India’s foremost Christian intellectual.’
How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization: An Interview with Vishal Mangalwadi
(Blog note: every Christian needs to read this article. Please share it with someone you know. Carl)
Part 1
What triggered the West’s passion for scientific, medical, and technological advancement? How did the biblical notion of human dignity inform the West’s social structure and how it intersects with other worldviews? How did the Bible create a fertile ground for women to find social and economic empowerment? How has the Bible uniquely equipped the West to cultivate compassion, human rights, prosperity, and strong families? What is the role of the Bible in the transformation of education? How has the modern literary notion of a hero been shaped by the Bible’s archetypal protagonist?
Bible Gateway interviewed Vishal Mangalwadi about his book, The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization (Thomas Nelson, 2012).
Why did you dedicate The Book That Made Your World to Arun Shourie, a Hindu who is critical of the Bible?
Vishal Mangalwadi: In 1994, Arun Shourie, at that time one of India’s foremost public intellectuals, attacked Western missions and the Bible. He powerfully rehashed some of Thomas Paine’s arguments from The Age of Reason (1793-94). Mr. Shourie studied in the best Christian college in India before getting a PhD from an American university that had been founded by Methodists. I realized that this good and learned gentleman was clueless about what the Bible is and what it has done because his Christian professors in India and in America had no idea.
Therefore, moved by the Holy Spirit, I began responding to him with books such as Missionary Conspiracy: Letters to a Postmodern Hindu (1995), Fascism: Modern & Postmodern (1998—my intro to a book by Gene Edward Veith), and then The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization (2012).
In spite of Western skepticism, many Chinese intellectuals sense that the Bible was the foundation of the West’s amazing development. In contrast, Hindus such as Mr. Shourie follow ill-informed, in fact, arrogant and foolish, Western repudiation of the Bible. They think that India can be made a great nation by returning to Hindu worldview, which destroyed India in the first place.
One book will not convince skeptics, but it can become a seed that multiplies into many PhD theses, popular books, TV shows, and films. I dedicated the book to Arun Shourie to help intelligent Indians discover the rock upon which India can realize its potential to be a great civilization—a blessing to all the nations.
You write that your book is not so much about the Bible as it is about great literature, art, science, technology, heroism, and virtues. Explain what you mean.
Vishal Mangalwadi: My book is not “Bible study.” It is a study of the global impact of the Bible and it’s worldview. The Bible was the book of the last millennium. No other book was translated, published, distributed, studied, or debated like it. What impact did it have on the world? That is the question my book explores.
Why do you call the Bible the soul of Western civilization?
Vishal Mangalwadi: Although the West has amputated its soul, I call the Bible the soul of Western Civilization because it propelled the development of everything good in the West: its notion of human dignity, human rights, human equality, justice, optimism, heroism, rationality, family, education, universities, technology, science, culture of compassion, great literature, heroism, economic progress, political freedom. Take, for example, democracy.
The myth that modern democracy came from Greece was invented only in the 20th century by John Herman Randall of Columbia College (New York) and Mortimer Adler and Robert Maynard Hutchins of the University of Chicago. The reality is that in his classic, Republic, Plato, the greatest of Greek philosophers, had already condemned democracy as Mobocracy—the worst of all political systems. Plato proposed that the ideal republic should be ruled by philosopher-kings. His disciple, Aristotle, trained Alexander-the-Great to be a philosopher-king, who turned out to be one of the most ruthless conquerors in history. In turn, Alexander inspired India’s first empire builder, Chandragupta Maurya.
Later Alexander inspired Machiavelli’s The Prince—which examines how a successful prince acquires and retains power. Machiavelli was the flowering of European Renaissance that produced tyrants such as Napoleon. The biblical Reformation led to the birth of modern democracy. Without the Bible, western democracy will become obnoxious as did the Greek democracies.
To give another example, the West’s confidence in human reason came not from Greece, but from the Bible via Augustine. Hinduism, Buddhism, and their products such as Greek gnosticism knew that unaided intellect cannot know truth. The Enlightenment corrupted western confidence in reason by (over time) separating it from revelation. After Nietzsche and Freud, everyone knows that here is no reason to trust human reason, unless it is made in the image of Logos and strives to conform to it.
Why do you begin your book recounting the suicide of rock musician Kurt Cobain and then contrasting him with Johann Sebastian Bach?
Vishal Mangalwadi: The first chapter uses music as an entry point into the West’s soul. It contrasts Christian West with (post-Christian) West without its soul. The chapter inquires: What made the West a uniquely optimistic and musical civilization, able to sing “Joy to the world (fallen, miserable and full of suffering)?”
Bach and Cobain were musical geniuses. Both lost their parents at nine. Bach’s parents died and Cobain’s separated. Bach’s faith in resurrection enabled him to celebrate “The Passion” (Suffering) of St. Matthew and St. John. Cobain inherited Bach’s musical tradition without its philosophy. Therefore, his music could only scream at suffering, making him an icon of a generation lost without a map of reality. Buddhism offered no hope to Cobain. Therefore, he cursed life and committed suicide.
Buddhism originated in India. Its pessimistic philosophy gave us great art and literature, but no hope, music, or musical instruments. Islam (and Orthodox Christianity) also ruled out music; therefore, it too pre-empted development of technology.
The German publisher published 10,000 copies of the first chapter as a stand-alone booklet. It is proving to be an excellent work of worldview evangelism. I hope someone will print it in Japanese, since Bach is Japan’s fifth evangelist.
How was the Bible “the force that created modern India”?
Vishal Mangalwadi: Why are “native” Americans Indians? Why are “native” Australians Indians? Why is Indonesia, Indian-Asia? Why were Columbus and Vasco de Gama looking for sea-routes to India (and not to “Spice-land”)?
The European mind was fascinated with India, because India, not Japan, Korea, or China, is the Eastern-most land mentioned in the Bible (Esther 1:1). By “India” the Persians meant “Sindustan,” the land around the river Sind (now in Pakistan). Up until the 1850s, no one living in Bengal or Kerala ever thought that he was living in “India.” That is why Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824-1873), the pioneer of ‘Indian’ nationalism, actually wrote only about ‘Bengali nationalism.’
The pre-Columbus European concept of geographic India came from the Roman Catholic reading of the Bible. That is why Vasco de Gama’s coming to Kerala and Goa was the sea-route to “India.” Protestant reading of the Bible coined the ‘abstract’ concept of India as a geo-political nation state, half-a-century before England actually made India a nation in 1858. Prior to William Carey, no “Indian” had ever existed who started a paper (or organization) such as Friend of India (1818).
Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, persuaded British Parliament in 1833, that Britain must govern Indians in such a way as to train them to govern themselves as an independent nation. Macaulay grew up in the company of the evangelical member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, in the Calpham community. He followed up his rhetoric by coming to India to give us the ‘Indian Penal Code’ along with the Jewish-biblical idea of rule of law. He helped transform our education and civil services. He played a critical role in the establishment of our first universities in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras in 1858. These began as examination-conducting institutions to fulfil the vision of Macaulay’s brother-in-law, Charles Travelyan. The latter had defined the mission of Christian education in 1838 in his classic On the Education of the People of India. The objective of that herculean mission, he said, was to prepare Indians to govern themselves as a free nation.
After Macaulay and Travelyan, it took five more decades before an Englishman could inspire a few graduates of Calcutta’s Christian education to create the “Indian National Congress” (1885). Then it took 70 more years to prepare leaders such as Gandhi, Ambedkar, and Nehru, who could, in fact, lead and govern a free India.
India became a free nation in 1947. It could have attained that status if it had even one Indian, who thought of India as a nation during the “Mutiny” of 1857. When Indian soldiers started killing Englishmen and liberated Delhi, educated Brahmins and Hindu merchants organized prayer meetings around the country to pray for British victory over Indian mutineers. This was partly because the rebels who succeeded in defeating the British in Meerut and Delhi decided to revive the Mogul Empire by declaring Bahadur Shah as their emperor.
Most Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh soldiers and rulers disapproved of the revival of that exploitative and useless empire. Many decided to fight against fellow Indians to defend the British Raj. This was because, contrary to current, ill-informed (or deceptive?) debaters such as Shahi Tharoor, most of the Indians who actually lived under the British, perceived it as better than all other options available to “India”.
Mogul Empire had been so corrupt and inept that in 1738-39, the Persian invader Nadir Shah, met hardly any resistance as he travelled 1000 KMs. within the Mogul’s (Indian) empire, from Ghazani to Delhi to plunder the Mogul capital. The Empire’s rottenness had encouraged the Marathas to conquer and plunder Hindu and Muslim kingdoms. This threat of the Marathas and/or invaders from the Khyber Pass had forced Hindu/Muslim kings to take refuge under the Company Raj. Most Indians opposed the 1857 Mutiny, now called the First War of National Independence, because they could not trust Indians to rule India with justice and equity.
While the Hindu and Muslim rulers, intelligentsia, and merchants preferred the Company Raj over Indian rajas, it was the Bible-shaped conscience that saw the Company as a “gang of public robbers” (Macaulay) and its rule as the “rule of evil genii.” Yet, Independent India chose to remain a member of British Commonwealth and import its political, economic, and social ideals and institutions, because the Bible succeeded in (a) transforming India’s governance under the British, and (b) training enough Indians to govern India as a modern, democratic, nation-state.
Dr. Babu Verghese’s massive study, Let There Be India: The Bible’s Impact on Nation-Building, details how the Bible translators created modern India by turning our dialects into literary languages, bringing modern education, printing, literature, and modern press, and the modern ideas of human equality, dignity, and rights (his book is available from ManagerGoodBooks@gmail.com).
Part 2 will follow Part 1 on Psalm 119:38 Blog. Thank you, Carl
The Second Coming of Jesus to The Earth
Part Two – The Second Advent of Jesus, The Messiah
Lord Jesus’ SECOND ADVENT is when He physically returns to the Earth again. In light of the turmoil in the Middle East today, I thought we should republish this post.
In the larger scheme of end time prophecy, His return is at the end of the seven years of tribulations when the Antichrist will be defeated and destroyed.
JESUS IN HIS HOME SYNAGOGUE
When Lord Jesus read part of Isaiah 61 to announce that that He was the Messiah, He stopped halfway through verse 2 where it says “to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord” and did not read the second half of the verse which says,
“And the day of vengeance of our God…” Isaiah 61:2b
If He had read the second part He could not have said, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Because the second part has to do with His return to Earth as a Warrior King-Priest to reveal Himself to Israel, purify Israel and save Israel from the armies of all the nations of the Earth who will try to destroy her.
In God the Father’s plan, this day of vengeance had not arrived when Jesus was speaking in His hometown synagogue around 30 AD. By reading verse 2 and 3 we see what His Second Advent involves:
“The SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, FOR HE ANOINTED ME…TO PROCLAIM..
“…the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn,
To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a garland instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.” Isaiah 61:2b-3
This section of Scripture reveals a SECOND ADVENT and reveals the specialized task the Messiah, Jesus, will perform as Warrior King-Priest:
- …to proclaim…the day of vengeance of our God
- …to comfort all who mourn… in Zion
- …giving a garland instead of ashes
- …giving the oil of gladness instead of mourning
- …giving a mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting
- He will make the people of Israel into oaks of righteousness
- He will cause glory to rebound unto God, by the changes in the people of Israel.
The specialized task deal with two things: the day of vengeance and the salvation of Israel physically and spiritually. This is after the church has been raptured and at the end of Antichrist’s rule.
FIRST TASK – MINISTER TO THOSE WHO ARE MOURNING
The setting is the end of the seven years of tribulation and the Battle of Armageddon is ongoing. Armies from all the nations of the earth are besieging and close to overwhelming the defenders of Jerusalem. Some of Israel has fled to the wilderness (Petra), some have been killed by the invading armies and some are besieged in Jerusalem. Zechariah 13: 9 tell us that two-thirds of the people in Israel will die during this time but much of the Jewish population will have already fled to the safety of the wilderness. The one-third remaining in Israel will be refined or purified by the Lord.
It is my understanding that at that point in the battle, Jesus will physically set His feet on the Mount of Olives coming to help Israel and will reveal Himself to Israel. They will understand that He was their Messiah all along. This is why the Messiah’s specialized tasks mention mourning, ashes, and fainting. Listen:
Zechariah 12:9-14 NASBS
[9] And in that day I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. [10] “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. [11] In that day there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo. [12] The land will mourn, every family by itself; the family of the house of David by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself and their wives by themselves; [13] the family of the house of Levi by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself and their wives by themselves; [14] all the families that remain, every family by itself and their wives by themselves.
And again:
Ezekiel 20:43-44 NASBS
[43] There you will remember your ways and all your deeds with which you have defiled yourselves; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for all the evil things that you have done. [44] Then you will know that I am the LORD when I have dealt with you for My name’s sake, not according to your evil ways or according to your corrupt deeds, O house of Israel,” declares the Lord GOD.'”
Concerning those who have fled to the wilderness:
Ezekiel 20:33-38 NASBS
[33] “As I live,” declares the Lord GOD, “surely with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out, I shall be king over you. [34] I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out; [35] and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face. [36] As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you,” declares the Lord GOD. [37] “I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; [38] and I will purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Thus you will know that I am the LORD.
Can you imagine what it will be like for the Jewish people to realize that Jesus of Nazareth was their Messiah all along? To realize that all the judgements that they as a people had endured over 2000 years could have been avoided. Is it any wonder that Ezekiel 20:43 says speaking about the Jewish people who realize this, “you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for all the evil things that you have done.” The shock of the realization and then the remembering of all they had done individually and nationally. It will be a time of “being stunned” by what is being revealed to each individual.
But…now we see the reason that the Messiah will comfort all who mourn in Zion, giving a garland instead of ashes and a mantle of praise for the spirit of fainting! Though this realization that Jesus is the Messiah will happen to the remaining nation, it is through personal repentance and faith in Jesus the Messiah that the Jewish remnant will be born again. That is what “…by themselves…” in Zechariah 12:12-14 means.
It will be a glorious transformation of Israel that will rebound to God’s glory.
Ezekiel 39:25-29 describes this time:
[25] Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, “Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for My holy name. [26] They will forget their disgrace and all their treachery which they perpetrated against Me, when they live securely on their own land with no one to make them afraid. [27] When I bring them back from the peoples and gather them from the lands of their enemies, then I shall be sanctified through them in the sight of the many nations. [28] Then they will know that I am the LORD their God because I made them go into exile among the nations, and then gathered them again to their own land; and I will leave none of them there any longer. [29] I will not hide My face from them any longer, for I will have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel,” declares the Lord GOD.
Isaiah 61: 4-9 describes what the Lord will do for Israel after they acknowledge Him and repent of their sins:
[4] Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins, They will raise up the former devastations; And they will repair the ruined cities, The desolations of many generations. [5] Strangers will stand and pasture your flocks, And foreigners will be your farmers and your vinedressers. [6] But you will be called the priests of the LORD; You will be spoken of as ministers of our God. You will eat the wealth of nations, And in their riches you will boast. [7] Instead of your shame you will have a double portion, And instead of humiliation they will shout for joy over their portion. Therefore they will possess a double portion in their land, Everlasting joy will be theirs. [8] For I, the LORD, love justice, I hate robbery in the burnt offering; And I will faithfully give them their recompense And make an everlasting covenant with them. [9] Then their offspring will be known among the nations, And their descendants in the midst of the peoples. All who see them will recognize them Because they are the offspring whom the LORD has blessed.
PROCLAIMING THE DAY OF VENGEANCE – THE SECOND TASK
The second task of Jesus during His second advent is to proclaim the day of vengeance. To understand this let us begin with Isaiah 63: 1-6 which is a picture of Lord Jesus on this day. Note what Lord Jesus says in verse 4.
Isaiah 63:1-6
[1] Who is this who comes from Edom (modern day Jordan)
With garments of glowing colors from Bozrah (Petra),
This One who is majestic in His apparel,
Marching in the greatness of His strength?
“It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.”
[2] Why is Your apparel red, And Your garments like the one who treads in the wine press?
[3] “I have trodden the wine trough alone,
And from the peoples there was no man with Me.
I also trod them in My anger And trampled them in My wrath;
And their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments,
And I stained all My raiment.
[4] “For the day of vengeance was in My heart,
And My year of redemption has come.
[5] “I looked, and there was no one to help,
And I was astonished and there was no one to uphold;
So My own arm brought salvation to Me,
And My wrath upheld Me.
[6] “I trod down the peoples in My anger
And made them drunk in My wrath,
And I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”
(Clarification added)
Did you notice in verse 4 that Jesus said the day of vengeance was in My heart? Remember in Isaiah 61:2b the Messiah would proclaim the day of vengeance? Here we have Jesus The Messiah proclaiming this when He physically comes to Earth to destroy all the armies intent on wiping out Israel and the Jewish people.
After the day of vengeance is finished, Lord Jesus will establish His earthly kingdom in Jerusalem for a thousand years. The new temple described in Zechariah will be built and from there He will rule all nations. Isaiah 61: 10-11 describes the Lord Jesus at this time:
Isaiah 61:10-11
[10] I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. [11] For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, And as a garden causes the things sown in it to spring up, So the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.
JUDGE – THE FINAL TASK OF THE MESSIAH
After the thousand years, the Great White Throne judgment will occur. Read Revelation 20: 11-15.
All the dead who rejected Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior will appear before the One whom God the Father appointed Judge of all mankind, Jesus Christ Himself (Acts 17:31). The book of life will be opened and the books containing the deeds of each individual will be opened. The people will be judged according to their deeds written in the books. Those who have rejected Lord Jesus as Lord and Savior causing their name NOT to be written in the book of life will be thrown into the place prepared for the devil and his angels forever (Matthew 25:41), the lake of fire.
The followers of Jesus Christ will inherit a new heaven and earth where they will dwell forever. Read Revelation 21: 9-22:7.
Dear Reader, where will you go? Will you be thrown in the lake of fire or enjoy eternity in the presence of Jesus in the new heaven and earth? You must decide this side of death. Follow Jesus…you will not regret it!!
In two different post we have discussed the two appearances of the Lord Jesus on Earth and the difference of each. We are in the first advent and the second advent is steadily approaching.
Even so, Amen. Come, Lord Jesus (Revelation 22:20)
Carl
Mysticism and The Coming World Religion – Part 2 (Revised)
May 1, 2023
T. A. McMahon
Originally published November 1, 2016
As noted in Part 1 of this series, there is a coming world religion (CWR), and it is advancing rapidly. One of the significant elements that expedites its growth is mysticism, which is a belief system that ultimately rejects teachings that involve objective laws, rules, requirements, obligations, dogmas, doctrines, and the like, in favor of subjective experiences and intuitive feelings.
The goal of the CWR (also known as the religion of the Antichrist) is to bring all religions under its patronage and control. Since all religions have doctrines that separate them from one another, even to the point of hostility in some cases, their doctrines must be compromised or altered in order to be acceptable to all—or they must be removed altogether. Mysticism facilitates doctrinal compromise because of its subjective nature. In other words, the objective meaning of a doctrine must give way to one’s subjective interpretation, i.e., how one feels about it. When such a belief system is in place, there can be no absolute truth; so-called truth is whatever an individual feels it is. It’s in the mind of the beholder.
Religions that are heavily legalistic in their theology must change in order to fit in with the ecumenical CWR. Two such religions are Roman Catholicism and Islam. In part one of this series we documented how the Church of Rome is well along the way of shifting from its highly legalistic system of rules and obligations toward a more mystical process. The Catholic Church has more than a billion followers, and they also must be included in the religion of the Antichrist. Islam, too, has greater than a billion adherents, so it also must become a part of the CWR. However, it is legalistic—and aggressively so—in its doctrine and practices, far more so than any other religion in the world. Consequently, many doubt that it could ever change.
Some have suggested, therefore, that the religion of the Antichrist will be Islam itself. For that to happen, the conversion of the world to Islamic beliefs would follow its historical method, which is at the point of a sword. Although that worked to a large degree in the past, it falls far short of what is necessary to spiritually transform the entire world. Additionally, there are obvious problems for this belief system regarding the coming religion of the Antichrist. The fact that the entire world will worship the Antichrist as God is inconsistent with and opposed by the Muslim worship of Allah. Sharia law, which is the Islamic code of law, is derived from the Qur’an and the Sunnah (Muhammad’s teachings and examples). Consequences for disobeying Sharia laws are the harshest among religions. Its rules are overtly abusive regarding women. Furthermore, Islam’s collectively intense hatred of Jews and Christians, as well as “all infidels,” is diametrically opposed to the CWR’s necessary ecumenism. These doctrines of Islam work against its efforts to attract followers to the coming world religion. What then, if anything, is there within Islam that might reconcile the billion-plus Muslims to the religion of the Antichrist, with its mystical underpinnings? The answer is Sufism.
Sufism is the mystical Islamic belief and practice through which Muslims seek to find the truth of divine love and knowledge by way of a direct personal experience with Allah. This is Islam in the throes of experiential and subjective beliefs and practices. Being functionally at odds with Sharia laws and practices, many Sufi practitioners reject the rules of Sharia outright, regarding mysticism as the most direct way to achieve union with Allah. Moreover, where it has been historically practiced throughout the world, Sufism has had no problem coexisting with other religions. This is not the case, as we’re well aware, for Islamic Sharia Law.
One mystical aspect of Sufism is for its practitioners to put themselves into an ecstatic trance or altered state of consciousness through whirling. These individuals are known as Whirling Dervishes. According to one source, “The hundreds of the Dervish twirling rotations (20-30 per minute) coincide with the theta rhythm in the brain, and the chanting (they repeat the word ‘God’ [more likely ‘Allah,’] about 99 times) makes the dancers dissociate from reality and enter a different state of mind. When the ceremony is over, the dervishes return, side by side, in front of the sheikh [master and guide] and then move to another room to meditate. The physiological goal of the whirling is for the dervish to ‘empty’ himself of all distractions” (https://bit.ly/3ZgY9sm). It should be obvious that this is just another form of Eastern mystical meditation along with the contemplative forms practiced by more and more professing Christians in the West.
The various exercises of mysticism are similar throughout the world, even where there has been no connection between the cultures or people groups. For example, Sufi meditation and yoga employ the same lotus sitting position and a hasta mudra (with the thumb curled and touching the tip of the forefinger). Sufi whirling has the same effect as the uncontrollable shaking in the Dynamic Meditation practiced by the followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The Sufi Shaykh is similar to the guru in yoga in terms of the practitioner’s absolute submission to him and obedience to the guidance given. In some practices, the Shaykh is a transcended spiritual entity channeled by the meditator.
The Encyclopedia of Islam lists a number of manifestations found within the meditation practices of Sufism, e.g., “barking and howling” (MacDonald, D. B. “Darwish [Darwesh],” Encyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition, edited by: P. B. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs, Brill Online, Augustana, 21 Sept 2009), behavior that was also exhibited through the so-called impartation of the Holy Spirit in places such as the Toronto Airport Vineyard, Pensacola and Lakeland, Florida, International House of Prayer (IHOP), and Bethel Church in Redding, California, among numerous others.
These experiences taking place throughout the world should offer more than a hint that spirit entities, contacted through altered states of consciousness and meditation, as well as some people’s faith in the false signs-and-wonders methods, have been facilitating Satan’s goal of seducing and controlling the consciousness and beliefs of mankind. “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Timothy:4:1).
Mehmet Oz, better known as Dr. Oz, is someone whom I would describe as the poster boy for everything that I’ve been noting in this article, which is the acceptance of all religions in the formation of a one-world religion. He is a Muslim—a Sufi Muslim. He is also a New Ager and a national spokesman for Transcendental Meditation or TM (https://bit.ly/3GjqXKc). TM is the pseudo-scientific title conjured up by Hindu guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The Maharishi, who came to fame as the spiritual advisor and guru to the Beatles, began teaching meditation in US schools as the Spiritual Regeneration Movement, but it was shut down because the courts realized that it was clearly a religion. The Maharishi simply renamed it The Science of Transcendental Meditation (emphasis added). This incredibly important alteration was not only successful in promoting his Hinduism in schools, but it also opened the door for other pseudoscientific forms of meditation such as Mindfulness and MindUP, which have been overwhelmingly accepted by our school systems here in the US.
To continue reading click here:
Mystical Revolution and Reiki Energy
The following video presentation is by the late Ray Yungen. He is sharing how the past New Age movement has been absorbed by today’s culture. Toward the end of the video, he explains Reiki Energy and how prevalent it is in today’s culture.
Ray Yungen, author, speaker, and research analyst, studied religious movements for over twenty-five years. His love for Jesus Christ and for people and his exuberance for life are reflected in his writing. He is the author of several books and booklets and lecture DVDs dealing with the New Age and mysticism, and how these relate to biblical prophecy and the church.
If you are interested in any of Mr. Yungen’s written material, please click here.
May the video open your eyes to the advances the occult is making in the West. Carl
Did Jesus Study in India Under Gurus?
Question: The gospels are silent about the approximately 18 years between the last time we hear of Jesus in the temple as a boy of 12 (Luke 2:41–52) and the beginning of His ministry at about 30 years of age (Luke 3:23). I have come across the report a number of times, not only in The Aquarian Gospel, but in newspapers as well, that during these missing years Jesus was in India studying under the gurus. The wisdom He acquired there supposedly became the basis for His ministry. Why not?
Response: The most widely circulated report involved an alleged Nicholas Notovitch, who claimed that while traveling in Tibet in the late 1800s he was told by Tibetan lamas that a record reporting the visit of Jesus existed in a Himalayan monastery. In the early 1900s another visitor to Tibet was allegedly told the same thing. However, no one capable of reading and translating such “records” ever saw them, no copy was brought to the West for examination, and now the story is that the “records” have been destroyed.1
If the Bible were based upon no better evidence than that, the critics would have justifiably dismissed it long ago. Yet such speculative claims are instantly given credence by those who demand proof for anything the Bible says. That double standard betrays an intense bias on the part of skeptics who claim to be interested only in the truth.
All of the Evidence Is to the Contrary
First of all, there is not a particle of historical or archaeological evidence that Jesus ever visited India, much less studied there. Moreover, this theory is refuted by everything that Jesus said and did during His ministry. The teachings that Jesus brought to the Jews were in agreement with all of their Scriptures (which He frequently quoted as authoritative) and without the slightest taint of either Hinduism or Buddhism. Had He studied under the Masters of India or Tibet, He would have been obligated to uphold their teaching and to honor His guru. In fact, His teachings were the very antithesis of Eastern mysticism of any kind.
Furthermore, the New Testament account, which holds together consistently, is not compatible with Jesus ever having made such extensive travels. The people in his hometown of Nazareth knew him as “the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joses and of Juda and Simon” (Mark 6:3). The implication certainly is that He was a familiar hometown personality who had grown up and continued in the local community, not that He was a Jewish Marco Polo who had traveled to exotic and distant places.
Friends and acquaintances were astonished when Jesus suddenly began to travel about Galilee and preach to great crowds. To family and neighbors it was a scandal for Jesus to present Himself as a religious teacher. They treated him with a contempt born of familiarity, not with the awe they surely would have given one who had traveled widely and studied in such far-off lands as India and Tibet.
Every guru who comes to the West lauds and honors his Master, because every Hindu, including the gurus themselves, must have a guru whom he follows. Yet the alleged “Guru Jesus” never referred to His guru or quoted any religious writings except the Jewish Scriptures. He claimed to have been sent not by some Master in the East but by His Father in heaven (John 5:23, 30, 36; etc.), a term unknown to the gurus and hated by the rabbis.
The gurus claim to be men who, through yoga and ascetic practices, have attained to the mystical “realization” that “Atman [individual soul] is identical with Brahman [universal soul]” and have thereby become “Self-realized” gods. Had Jesus studied under them, He would have taught the same delusion. Yet in complete contradiction to that impossible dream and far from claiming to be a man struggling upward to godhood, Jesus presented Himself as the very I AM (Yahweh) of the Old Testament, the God of Israel who had stooped down to become a man:
If ye believe not that I AM, ye shall die in your sins. . . . Before Abraham was, I AM. . . . Now I tell you [this] before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I AM. . . . A little while, and ye shall not see me . . . because I go to the Father. . . . I came forth from the Father and am come into the world; again, I leave the world and go to the Father. . . . I and my Father are one. [Emphasis added] (John 8:24, 58; 13:19; 16:16, 28; 10:30)
Irreconcilable Differences Between Christ and the Gurus
The gurus deny the existence of sin or of any absolute moral standards. Each person’s dharma is different and an individual matter to be discovered on the mystical journey to union with Brahman. In complete contrast, Christ claimed to be the “light of the world” (John 8:12), whose very life exposed the evil in mankind. Moreover, He promised to send the Holy Spirit to convince the world of “sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8). Jesus announced that He had come to call sinners to repentance (Mark 2:17) and to save them from eternal judgment by His sacrifice of Himself for the sins of the whole world.
Christ’s life and teachings stand in the fullest contradiction to the Hinduism He would have learned in India had He studied there and which He surely would have practiced and taught to the Jews when He returned to Israel. This theory finds absolutely no support in the New Testament record given to us by eyewitnesses:
- The gurus teach a continuing cycle of death and reincarnation, whereas Jesus was resurrected as He said He would be, and He promised the same deliverance from death to His followers. Reincarnation and resurrection are opposites; one cannot believe in both.
- The gurus teach a continual returning to this earth in life after life to work out one’s supposed “karma,” while Jesus taught forgiveness of sins by grace, thus fitting one for heaven.
- To the gurus, heaven is a mystical state of oneness with the Absolute. Jesus, on the other hand, taught that being in heaven is to dwell forever in His Father’s house of “many mansions” (John 14:1–4).
- The gurus are all vegetarians. Jesus ate the Passover lamb, fed the multitudes with fish, and even after His resurrection ate fish as a demonstration to His doubting disciples that He was bodily resurrected and not a “ghost,” as they supposed.
- There have been thousands of gurus, but Jesus claimed to be the one and only Son of God, the only Savior of sinners.
- The gurus teach that there are many ways to God. Jesus declared: “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me” (John 14:6).
- Everything Jesus said and did opposes the teachings of Hinduism and Buddhism and disproves the false claim that He studied in India or Tibet.
This fraudulent theory demonstrates once again how impossible it would be to invent a fictitious history of Jesus and to make it fit into actual events on this earth. The erroneous theory that Jesus studied in India under the gurus simply won’t fit into the New Testament record at all—and if it did, the New Testament would be incompatible with the Old instead of being its fulfillment, as it had to be. Nor would either the Old or New Testament records fit into the history of the world unless both were true. The perfect harmony of Scripture with established history is revealed by any careful and honest study of both.
1. Larry Whitham, “Book backs theory Jesus visited India before public life,” in Washington Times, November 27, 1987, p. E6.
—An excerpt from In Defense of the Faith (pp. 123-27) by Dave Hunt
Source: Berean Call
“The Bible Is a Dirty Book”: Unbelief and Hatred for the God of the Bible
KASPARS OZOLINS
This month, Loren Seibold, editor of Adventist Today, wrote a provocatively titled piece: “The Bible Is a Dirty Book: …which also contains the words of eternal life.” This title, while clearly intended to grab attention, in no way exaggerates the author’s true feelings toward Scripture. For as I read it, I was taken aback by the content no less than I was shocked by the title. Thus it is that the formerly feigned reverence for the Word of God by progressive Adventists gives way to unveiled contempt.
Seibold’s article gives some initial examples of explicit wording and sexually graphic content from Scripture, before moving on to his real objection to the Bible (what he calls “the worst pornography”): its graphic violence. Particularly objectionable to the author is the fact that God is portrayed as commanding the Israelites to slaughter their enemies, seemingly indiscriminately. Seibold cites Deuteronomy 20:16–18 as an example (in the outdated KJV for maximum effect):
But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee…
The three dots at the end of the quotation conceal the entirety of verse 18. This was probably done by Seibold in order to make God’s command appear as unreasonable and offensive to modern ears as possible. The inhabitants of these cities were decreed by God for destruction “that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the LORD your God” (v. 18). Sin is deadly, and a deadly serious matter, at that. But that’s not at all how a modern religious person would view these things.
Seibold is equally incensed at another passage, Numbers 31:17–18:
Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.
His response is incredulous, outraged, and mocking: “Seriously? God said you should ‘keep the little girls alive for yourselves’? Since their virginity is particularly noted—uh, what exactly did God intend you to do with them?” Seibold completely leaves out the entire context of Numbers 31, namely that it was commanded as a response to the Midianites’ incitement to sexual sin and spiritual adultery at Baal Peor (Numbers 25).
God did not command the Israelites to keep alive little girls for the perverse satisfaction of Israelite men.
God did not command the Israelites to keep alive little girls for the perverse satisfaction of Israelite men. Instead, this passage protects the innocent Midianite women who had not participated in this horrific sin against the Israelites. However, it seems that Seibold does not care about these details, but is instead trying to drive home his point: The Bible is a dirty book.
A Christian attitude toward Scripture
I routinely tell my students in class that it is right for believers to wrestle with challenging issues in Scripture, such as the highly controversial “Canaanite genocide” issue. When we read the text faithfully and contextually, good solutions often present themselves, as shown above. But even when we may not get the full picture, or when the solution is not as satisfactory as we might wish, the Bible’s inner theological coherence keeps us grounded.
I routinely tell my students in class that it is right for believers to wrestle with challenging issues in Scripture, such as the highly controversial “Canaanite genocide” issue.
God is the author of all life. God gives life, and takes life. God has the right and prerogative, as Creator, to take human life (especially in a context of human sin and rebellion). Furthermore, God has the right to use human instruments as a chosen vehicle of divine justice. Governments are charged with carrying out God’s judgment, for example (Rom 13:4). So the difference between vigilante vengeance and legitimate justice is partly due to whether or not God has authorized a particular agent (such as the Israelites) to carry out his judgment.
Noted Old Testament scholar Tremper Longman helpfully describes some of what is going on in these difficult narratives: “We should not be amazed that God ordered the death of the Canaanites, but rather we should stand in amazement that he lets anyone live. The Conquest [of Canaan] involves the intrusion of the ethics of the end times, the consummation, into the period of common grace. In a sense, the destruction of the Canaanites is a preview of the final judgment.” Notice that the Israelite conquest represents something out of the ordinary. But sooner or later, judgment will come to all sinners, hence our dire need for the gospel. Listen to the sobering words of the Lord Jesus, in response to the crowds who told him about a horrible thing that Pilate had done to some Galileans (Luke 13:2–5):
Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
One day God will set to right every injustice. But that includes the injustice of every sinner, both great and small. That is why these stories about God’s righteous judgment being executed in this life ought to fill us with wonder at the gospel. They ought to make us love the Savior who bore our own judgment in his body so that not one drop of condemnation would fall upon those who believe.
This is what I mean by a Christian attitude toward Scripture. It is fine to have unresolved questions, to seek answers from the text, to wrestle with Scripture. But it is never right for a Christian to question Scripture’s trustworthiness or its goodness, because to do so is to question the trustworthiness and goodness of its Author. There is a very particular attitude toward Scripture which God has promised to honor: “But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my Word” (Isa 66:2).
An unbelieving attitude toward Scripture
If you dig down deep enough (though it is perhaps surprising to some), one key aspect of false religion and unbiblical worldviews is an unmistakable hatred for the God of the Bible and for what the God of the Bible has said in his Word. I said “dig down” because sometimes this reality is hard to uncover, though it truly is there. Some individuals, after reading Seibold’s article, might counter that he doesn’t really hate God, only that he has misunderstood what the Bible actually claims about God and his interactions with human beings.
While I do think Seibold has twisted the sense of some of the passages he cites in his article, he seems to have a much bigger and fundamental issue with the Bible than merely the odd verse. Listen to his fairly clear evaluation of Scripture:
Someone is going to say here, “You’re trashing the Bible.” No, I’m trashing one very bad way of reading it. The Bible contains the words of eternal life, but not every word in the Bible is a word of eternal life. Much of it is terribly hard to understand—but even when understood, there’s a surfeit of really bad theology, a horrible lack of respect for human life, and much that is utterly irrelevant to spiritual growth. In its pages some great “holy men of God” did convey to us the astonishing love of God and God’s desire to save us. But it appears some of the words in the Old Testament and Revelation were written by angry, vengeful men—or, in Ezekiel’s case, possibly even mentally ill men.
Things are even further clarified when one pays careful attention to the author’s use of pronouns throughout the article:
- “[this] surely isn’t inspired by my God”
- “a God worthy of our worship has to be better than the god [sic] pictured in Numbers 31:17-18.”
- “our God isn’t always accurately depicted in the book that was written about him.”
Those are fairly shocking admissions. Sometimes Seibold seems to even move past the idea of the God of the Bible merely being a literary invention of its authors: “Undoubtedly some angry person thought God felt that way, but I’d want nothing to do with a God who actually thought that was a good idea [emphasis added].” And again: “It is impossible for me to believe that God insisted on so much violence—and if God did, that’s not a God I can worship or regard as holy in any way [emphasis added].”
If Seibold hates the God of Scripture, just what sort of God does he profess to worship? What are his criteria for sorting through those parts of this “dirty book” he can accept?
If Seibold hates the God of Scripture, just what sort of God does he profess to worship? What are his criteria for sorting through those parts of this “dirty book” he can accept? His instructions at the end begin with a summary statement: “[T]o be a holy and godly person takes more than just following the Bible.” Ultimately, he claims “we Christians must read it through the lens of Jesus.” In fact, Seibold explicitly sets up a sharp contrast between Jesus and the God of the Old Testament:
When Jesus said, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father,” he was correcting the Old Testament. He was illustrating, by his life, that that picture of God was erroneous. That’s why he didn’t say, “If you’ve seen what the Father did in the Old Testament, well, that’s what I’m like.” Because he wasn’t.
Nevertheless, even Jesus can be a fallible guide to what Seibold’s God is like. For among his illustrations of the Bible as a “dirty book” is even a passage from the New Testament (Revelation 19:19–21). This prompts him to lament: “The New Testament, which introduces us to the wonderful figure of Jesus, is not entirely free of taint in this regard either.”
Ultimately, the only fully reliable guide to what Loren Seibold’s God is like is Seibold himself (along with his like-minded Adventist friends). The technical term for this mode of thinking is idolatry.
The Doctrine of Scripture and the Doctrine of God
The rejection of the trustworthiness of Scripture is not peculiar to progressive Adventism, but lies at the very heart of the entire movement, as its prophetess acknowledges:
The Bible is written by inspired men, but it is not God’s mode of thought and expression. It is that of humanity. God, as a writer, is not represented. Men will often say such an expression is not like God. But God has not put Himself in words, in logic, in rhetoric, on trial in the Bible. The writers of the Bible were God’s penmen, not His pen. Look at the different writers (Ye Shall Receive Power, p. 225).
Adventists can (and do) make adamant claims about Ellen G. White’s high view of Scripture, as did GC President Arthur Daniells, at her funeral in 1915: “No Christian teacher in this generation, no religious reformer in any preceding age, has placed a higher value upon the Bible.” But White’s teaching of “thought inspiration” is not an isolated phenomenon. It is fundamentally linked to her vast universe of writings that present an alternative worldview (the Great Controversy), an alternative god (“the three great worthies”), and an alternative salvation (the Three Angels’ messages).
The more fundamental reality of false religious systems is not their faulty doctrine of Scripture. It is their faulty doctrine of God.
The more fundamental reality of false religious systems is not their faulty doctrine of Scripture. It is their faulty doctrine of God. And at the very heart of a faulty doctrine of God is a rejection and hatred of the God of the Bible. As Calvin famously stated: “When the Bible speaks, God speaks.”
To reject the words of the Bible is not merely to claim to have a different hermeneutic; it is to reject the God of the Bible Himself. †
Kaspars Ozolins was born in Latvia to an Adventist family. They moved to Los Angeles where Kaspars attended Adventist elementary and high schools in Glendale, California, and his father was an Adventist pastor. He met Ieva, his wife, while studying in Latvia before pursuing a doctorate at UCLA in historical linguistics. After Kaspars completed an M. Div. at The Master’s Seminary in Sun Valley, California, he served as a research associate at Tyndale House in Old Testament and the Ancient Near East. He is now on the faculty at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary as Assistant Professor of Old Testament Interpretation.
Conversation With a Truth Seeker
As a result we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by the craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ….. (Ephesians 4: 14-15)
It is a blessed thing to see Christians who are builded up by the spirit of God and accordance with the truth. But so many always seemed to be running after some new thing, never seeming to have any discrimination. Let me give you an absurd case.
Years ago as I sat in my office in Oakland there came in through the book room a man whose very appearance betokened a heretic. He was tall and gaunt, had long flowing hair coming down over his shoulders, and a long unkept beard. He came up to where I sat writing. I did not like to be interrupted, for I felt that he was going to waste my time with some religious oddity. He said, “I gather, sir, from the books I have seen in the window that you are a truth seeker, and I thought I would come in and have a chat with you.”
“You are mistaken,” I said; “I am not a truth seeker at all.”
“Oh, you are not; may I ask why you are not?”
“Why, because, sir, I have found him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and therefore my seeking is at an end. Once I was a truth seeker, but now I am a truth finder, for I know Christ.”
“Well, but are there not many things that you still need to know?”
“Oh, yes; there are a great many things that I need to know, but I have found the great Teacher, and I am not going around seeking truth any longer. He instructs me through his Word.”
“Well, as for me, I am always seeking; I go anywhere and everywhere that I think I can learn more.”
“Yes,” I said, “I was reading of you in my Bible the other day.”
“Of me?”
“Yes.”
“What did it say about me?”
“It said, ‘Ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.’”
“Why, that has no reference to me,” he said.
“Pardon me, but you said that you are always seeking and if a man is always seeking he is never finding. But, you see, those of us who know Christ have found him and have been found of him.”
Then he began to impart some of his weird gospel to me and said, “But you don’t know who I am.”
“No,” I said; “beyond what is written here I do not know who you are.”
“I am one of the 144,000 of whom you read in Revelation.”
“What tribe, please?” I asked.
“Well, the Lord knows; I don’t,” he said.
“Then you will have to excuse me for not taking your word for it and really believing that you are one of the 144,000.”
“But have you not heard that the first resurrection has already taken place?” he asked. “I am in my resurrection body.”
“Oh, I am dreadfully disappointed,” I said. “I never thought it would look like that. I thought it was to be something beautiful.”
Maybe I was a little discourteous to the poor old gentleman, but he was so indignant he turned and cursed me in the name of the Lord and tramped out knocking his shoes against the floor to shake off the dust as a witness against me.
“Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (II Timothy 3:7)
Source: H. A. Ironside, LITT.D, In The Heavenlies [Ephesians] (Loizeaux Brothers, 1937) pp. 197-199
If you are a truth seeker seeking to know the truth of the universe, let me point you to Jesus Christ who made the universe. He is, as revealed in the Holy Bible, The Truth. Once you meet Him, your journey will be at an end.
Speaking of Jesus, it is written:
And He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. For by Him all things were created, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities –all things have been created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
And He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first born from the dead; so that He Himself might come to have first place in everything. (Colossians 1: 15-18)
Following The Teacher,
Carl
Isn’t It Narrow-Minded To Claim That Jesus Is The Only Pathway To God?
It certainly would be narrow minded if Christians were saying “Jesus is the only way because he’s my way”, or if they were just trying to edge out the competition from other religions. But this idea did not originate with some pastor or theologian. It goes back to Jesus himself. He’s the one who said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
People who bristle at this idea are ultimately arguing with Jesus — not with the Christians who are simply trying to be faithful to his teachings.
But was Jesus narrow minded? Well, in a sense he was. In fact, in the Sermon on the Mount he said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7: 13-14).
If Jesus was right about this, then he was being appropriately narrow minded. He was being like parents who are narrow enough to insist that their children walk on the sidewalk and not in the street, or a doctor who limits his prescriptions to medicine that will actually help people rather than poison them, or the airline pilot who restricts his landing options to that narrow path to life called a runway, rather than trying to put the airplane down on a cornfield or a beach.
You see, we really want narrow approaches — as long as they are based on truth and point us in the direction that’s best for us.
Jesus gave us every reason to believe he was telling the truth and that he loves us enough to lead us towards forgiveness, life, and an eternity with him.
“I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” JESUS in John 10:9-10
Source: Lee Strobel, The Case For Christ Answer Booklet (Zondervan, 2017), p. 35
Revival Comes To Myanmar
If you access news from Asia, you will know that for decades—and especially during the past four or five years—the military junta that rules Myanmar has increasingly committed atrocities against their own people.
Whatever chaos your country may have faced during the last few years of Covid lockdowns, it is probably little compared to the people of Myanmar, who in addition to Covid restrictions, have been forced to endure civil war, a genocidal campaign by the government, indiscriminate shooting of people in the streets, starvation, deprivation, economic collapse, and a military that has systematically raped and slaughtered many segments of the population, especially in the Christian tribal areas.
There is clear evidence that the evil genocide sweeping Myanmar has been conducted with the explicit help of the Chinese Communist Party, which seems to view Myanmar as a virtual vassal state of China. The bullets, bombs, tanks, and even air assaults have been done with machinery supplied by China. The stories and pictures we have seen from Myanmar are too gruesome to share here.
Amid this chaos, the stubborn pride that has kept generations of Buddhist Burmese from believing in Jesus Christ has been eroded, and in their state of humiliation and brokenness, tens of thousands of Burmese have repented and given their lives to God. Truly, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).
From across the densely populated plains of Myanmar—inhabited by Buddhist peoples like the Burmese, Chaungtha, Mon and Rakhine—reports have emerged of families and sometimes whole communities being transformed by the Lord Jesus Christ. People who were dead in their sins have been given new hearts; the hopeless now have hope and purpose in their lives; families that have worshipped idols for centuries are now praising the Living God; and many broken people are being put back together as the Lord Jesus has pity on the suffering Burmese and declares: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” (Romans 9:15).
Despite the wonderful breakthrough among groups in Myanmar that have long been considered resistant to the Gospel, the revival at this stage is numerically small compared to the tens of millions of lost Buddhist people there. But it is a blessed start. Please pray the Holy Spirit will continue to fan the flames, and that millions of people throughout Myanmar will find Christ and glorify His Name.
God is doing a new thing through this revival. In the two centuries since Adoniram Judson arrived in Myanmar, the Christian landscape in the country became very denominational, reflecting many of the divisions seen in the Western world. Countless Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican, Assemblies of God, and other churches filled the land. The faith of many Christians became nominal and dry, however, and the Body of Christ was in desperate need of a heavenly visitation.
The current revival has almost exclusively occurred through house church discipleship networks, where faith has been stripped of many man-made religious traditions and brought back to its basic, pure form. Gone is the division between paid clergy and “laymen.” Now, new believers from this revival are considered “kings and priests to serve our God” (Revelation 5:10), and all members of the Body of Christ are encouraged to use their God-given gifts to build up others and to reach the lost.
The current move of God is also unlikely to produce a single visible church building. Myanmar does not need one more cathedral or church building. Now, tens of thousands of newly redeemed brothers and sisters with a simple yet powerful faith gather in homes, basements, shops, halls, thatch huts, teahouses, or wherever else they may choose to meet.
Here at Asia Harvest, we have never had any interest in funding church buildings or visible places of worship. In fact, in the 35 years we have been serving in Asia, we have helped local believers plant thousands of fellowships of vibrant believers, but not once have we ever funded or constructed a church building.
There are practical reasons for our stance. In the countries we serve in, church-going Christians are easily identified and persecuted by militant Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, or Communists. Our goal when we help Asian believers establish a fellowship is that it is flexible from the start and able to go “underground” as soon as it needs to. It’s very difficult for the enemies of the Cross to destroy God’s children when they cannot locate them easily and there are no buildings adorned with crosses that point the way for the persecutors to go.
The nature of the current revival, which has been gathering steam for several years, is that many thousands of sinners have repented and surrendered to Jesus Christ. Each believer then disciples others, and in that way the Gospel has spread rapidly to their friends and relatives, who then share it with their contacts. Like every movement where many people come to faith there are challenges, but the Holy Spirit has brought peace and love to communities that for centuries had been trapped in spiritual darkness and depravity.
In this remarkable recent photo from Myanmar, new believers—mostly people from a Buddhist background—joyfully receive Burmese Bibles for the first time. Similar scenes are being repeated throughout the country as revival spreads.
A Rare Opportunity to Impact an Entire Country
Although no one except God currently knows the extent of the revival in Myanmar, what we can tell you is that when our co-workers there (who we have known for 30 years) began to field requests for Burmese Bibles, in a short space of time requests flooded in from more than 100 different Myanmar church and ministry leaders, begging for the Word of God so that new believers could be established in the faith and the gains from the revival would not fall by the wayside.
(Note: Although the Bible Society exists in Myanmar, Bibles tend to be very difficult to obtain from them and are priced so high that most normal believers cannot afford to buy a single copy.) All Bibles provided by Asia Harvest are distributed free of charge to believers, via existing ministries, which have to account for what they receive by sending us reports and photos of their distributions.
As a result of this first round of requests, we have printed 80,000 full Burmese Bibles, and as you read this newsletter they are being distributed to grateful believers throughout Myanmar. At $3 each, the amount of money needed to do such a project soon becomes large, but we are thankful for our supporters who have prayed and given to our Asia Bible Fund, which allows us to implement large printings like this.
After the initial 80,000 Bibles have been distributed and reports have been received, we envisage there will be a need for at least another 80,000 Burmese Bibles, plus thousands more in other minority languages. We will then evaluate the project, but in our experience in China and other parts of Asia, when much needed Bibles reach thirsty and desperate new Christians, the result is that the Scriptures act like fuel being added to a fire, causing the blaze to burn much brighter. This, in turn, results in a surge in the number of new believers, who also need Bibles, and so the need escalates.
As we were writing this newsletter, our long-term Myanmar Bible co-workers sent us this message: “Including the 80,000 now being distributed, we have received requests to print at least 150,000 more Burmese Bibles. Because of the civil war many people are turning to Christ. Buddhism doesn’t help the heart, but Jesus does.”
The main role of Asia Harvest in this move of God in Myanmar is to provide the Word of God to new believers. We expect to be busy doing this for at least the next few years. Please pray with us for the success of this project, so that God’s flock may be spiritually nourished and anchored in truth and grace.
We hope to give updates on the revival and testimonies from Burmese believers in future newsletters. It is a great privilege to be involved, and we see it as a wonderful, God-given opportunity to impact not only a people group, but an entire country for the kingdom of God.
ASIA Bible Fund
Current totals: 19,134,787 Bibles printed in 156 languages.
The Asia Bible Fund provides the Scriptures in numerous languages of China, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and anywhere in Asia where God’s people need His Word. These Bibles are distributed free of charge, equipping the Body of Christ and helping fuel the flames of revival.
Each Bible costs just $3.00 to print and deliver. We also print millions of Gospel booklets for evangelism through this project.
We invite you to join hands with us in praying for the revival in Myanmar. Please pray that all 150 people groups there will soon have vibrant Christian communities that are reaching the lost and glorifying the Living God.
If you would like to help provide Bibles to new Christians in Myanmar, please fill out the yellow response form in this newsletter and send it back along with your gift. One-time or monthly donations to the Asia Bible Fund or our other projects can be made via our secure website.
As always, our policy is that 100 percent of donations received for a project will only go directly to support that project. Nothing is taken out for administration or any other expense.
Chinese province’s new ‘Smart Religion’ app makes Christians register to attend worship services
By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor
Christians in China’s populous Henan province are now reportedly required to register on a government app to attend worship services and must make online reservations before taking part in worship, according to a report from a U.S.-based human rights group.
The app, called “Smart Religion” and developed by the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Commission of Henan Province, asks believers to give personal information, including their name, phone number, government ID number, permanent residence, occupation and date of birth to receive approval to attend a service, ChinaAid reported this week.
It’s a requirement not only for churches but also mosques and Buddhist temples, states the group, which documents religious persecution in China and supports Chinese prisoners of conscience.
Henan has one of the largest Christian populations in China. Local Christians say the cumbersome application procedures have reduced the number of believers attending churches. According to the Texas-based nongovernmental organization, many elderly people and those less tech-savvy may find it challenging to access the app. However, officials say such people will be assisted.
Once allowed into a place of worship, believers must also have their temperature taken, the group said, commenting that the app may be related in some way to COVID-19 restrictions.
ChinaAid contends these management measures were not implemented to protect people’s religious rights but rather as a means to achieve political purposes.
“This so-called ‘Smart Religion’ online application has been officially launched in some parts of Henan. In August 2022, the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau of Puyang County in Henan and the Henan Billion Second Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. signed a project contract for the ‘Construction of an Independent Command Platform for the Management of Smart Religion,'” China Aid Special Correspondent Gao Zhensaithe wrote.
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Grave Knowledge
If everyone knew what the dead know, the whole world would be worshipping Jesus. Author Unknown
Trials
“Trials rightly faced are harmless, but wrongly met become temptations to sin.” (A.T. Robertson)
“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4)
The apostle Peter exhorts those in the dispersion along the same line:
“ In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (I Peter 1:6-7)
James says that though we may be surrounded by trials, let our joy be whole or unmixed, not just “some joy” mixed with grief. I must realize that the very foundation of my religion, my faith in what God has done through His Son Jesus, will be tested by the devil using circumstances, accusations, condemnation, people of other faiths or no faith (communism) and people, some close to me and some unknown.
We are all are in need of “endurance” or “patience” that James says these trials will produce in our lives IF we allow it. Robertson says the original Greek word means “remaining under, staying power”, that under the pressure of trials you will have the ability to stay faithful to Lord Jesus.
Lord Jesus, in Revelation 2:10 tells the believers in Smyrna (modern day Turkey),
Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.
We in North America or Europe, read this and go ho hum, but this is a daily reality for many of our brothers and sisters in communist Red China, Vietnam, North Korea and other countries ruled by communism. It is also a daily reality in countries ruled by Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other false religions.
Religious persecution is coming to the United States, Europe, Canada and other currently free countries. Are you ready? Have you made up your mind? Are your children and grandchildren ready?
May no trial, person or set of circumstances cause us to deny our Savior today or ever. May our faith in Jesus and God the Father be the most precious thing in our life… so much so it is worth dying for. Tens of millions died for their faith during the Inquisition, under the Romans, and under communism in the 20th century and today.
May you walk in “hupomonen”….staying power. Holy Ghost empowered staying power!
Carl
An Example of The Difference in Western Christianity and Asian Christianity
During the years when I spoke in hundreds of meetings around the world, I found it increasingly difficult to effectively communicate testimonies from the church in Asia to believers in “free” countries. Often when I spoke in meetings, people looked at me as if I had just dropped in from another planet.
I became aware that the spiritual dynamics of the persecuted church in Asia were completely different from those in western Christianity. The differences were so stark that I sometimes felt I was interacting with two different faiths. Even the most basic understanding of God’s character appeared to be fundamentally different.
For example, on one occasion in China I shared a powerful testimony from the Mru tribe of Myanmar. The Mru number about 25,000 people, most of whom are Buddhist. The gospel had recently experienced a breakthrough among them, and several Mru villages had turned to Jesus Christ. The Buddhist monks were furious when they heard about it, so they hired two gangs of thugs and sent them to the Christian villages to beat the believers, rape the women, and burn down their houses.
Armed with chains and machetes, the first group of thugs made their way on foot to the Christian area. Before reaching their intended destination, however, a freak electrical storm descended on them as they traversed a mountain pass. All of the men were killed by lightning. The lightning also struck the 400-year-old Buddhist temple in the Mru township, burning it the ground.
The second mob of would-be persecutors traveled to the Christian villages aboard a large raft. As they made their way down the river, a thick fog suddenly enveloped them, making it impossible to see where they were going. A barge sliced through the fog, struck the raft, and hurled the thugs into the rapids, where they all drowned.
When news of these events reached the Mru communities, the fear of God fell on them. Realizing that the Living God had displayed his awesome wrath, hundreds of people turned to Christ and repented of their sins.
When I shared this testimony with the Christians in China, they literally jumped up and down with joy and shouted “Hallelujah!” at the top of their voices. They rejoiced in the judgments of God, as the Bible says, “Zion hears and rejoices and the villages of Judah are glad because of your judgments, Lord” (Psalms 97:8).
Just a few weeks later I found myself standing in front of a congregation in Texas. As I shared the same testimony from Myanmar, I looked out at a sea of grim faces staring back at me. There was no rejoicing in that meeting and not a single “Hallelujah” was uttered.
After the service, an elderly lady came forward to confront me on behalf of the other church members. She strongly rebuked me with the words, “Our God is not like that brother. Our God is a loving God!” I noticed many people behind her nodding their heads in agreement
Like that congregation in Texas, many believers imagine God to be a cuddly, teddy bear-like figure whose main purpose is to encourage and bless them. They think God is so gentle and loving that he would never harm a fly, and Christians who dared to mention his wrath or coming judgments are often pushed into a corner and considered a threat to the peace of the church.
With such a skewed, chummy attitude toward God, it is no wonder that many Christians no longer fear Him. They love to hear about how John reclined at the dinner table by leaning against his best friend Jesus, but few remember that the two men met again many years later. This time the resurrected Lord was dressed in the robes of a Roman judge. John, who was absolutely terrified, wrote, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead” Revelation 1:17.
Source: Paul Hattaway, An Asian Harvest (Monarch Books, 2017), p.262-264 (Excellent book which I recommend and can be ordered at Asia Harvest.)
Hammers on an Anvil
Last eve I paused beside the blacksmith's door And heard the anvil ring the vesper chimes; Then looking in, I saw upon the floor Old hammers worn out with beating years of time. "How many anvils have you had," said I, "To wear and batter all these hammers so?" "Just one," said he and then with twinkling eye, "The anvil wears the hammers out, you know?" And so I thought, the anvil of God's Word For ages skeptics' blows have beat upon. Yet, though the sound of falling blows was heard, The anvil is unharmed, the hammers are gone. John Clifford
“ALL FLESH IS LIKE GRASS, AND ALL ITS GLORY LIKE THE FLOWER OF GRASS. THE GRASS WITHERS, AND THE FLOWER FALLS OFF, BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD ENDURES FOREVER.” Peter – I Peter 1:24-25
Where Should We Start Our Search For Truth
There is a simple shortcut to truth: start with the Bible first and investigate it thoroughly. Why start there? Not just because the Bible claims to be the only inspired Word of the one true God who created us. It also claims that all of the world’s religions and their scriptures are false and actually in the service of Satan. The Bible calls Satan “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4) and thus the author of its religions. So if the Bible is true, we have saved ourselves a lifetime of vain searching through false systems.
In fact, we can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that every word in the Bible is true. The Bible has several unique features not found in the scriptures of the world’s religions, making it possible to substantiate its claims. Christianity is not a philosophy, mystical experience, or esoteric practice [but] is based upon undeniable and historical facts. The Bible stands on a four-fold foundation, every part of which can be examined and verified: 1) prophecy foretelling events and doctrines in advance, 2) fulfillment of those prophecies in detail, 3) secular history testifying to the fulfillment of prophecies and events, and 4) factual data corroborated by archaeology and science. None of this is the case with the teachings or scriptures of any of the world’s religions. —Dave Hunt[Excerpt taken from Seeking and Finding God (Bend, OR: TBC, 2007), pp 66-67) – Berean Call
Psalm 119: 38 