Category: Roman Catholicism

The Wise Wise Men

Saturday, December 20, 2014

“…There came wise men from the east… And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh” (Matthew 2:1,11 KJV).

When we see the Nativity Scene, we observe three wise men assembled around Baby Jesus’ manger. Actually, the Bible never indicates how many wise men there were, and the Bible never says they visited Christ as a baby.

According to the Bible, an indeterminate number of wise men from the east (Gentiles) saw the star of Christ in the east, so they travel to Jerusalem, inquiring where to find Christ, the King of Jews (verses 1,2). King Herod and Jerusalem are troubled, and Herod summons Israel’s religious leaders to tell him where the Messiah will be born. They tell him, according to Micah 5:2, “Bethlehem of Judaea” (verses 3-6). Herod then sends the wise men to seek Jesus, hoping to find and destroy Him (lest He become king and end Herod’s reign).

The star leads the wise men to Nazareth, where Joseph and Mary live in a “house”—notice this is not the manger scene. Also, note that Jesus is not a baby here, but a “young child” (verses 9,11). In fact, he is as much as two years old (verse 16). By the way, according to Numbers 24:17, that star—an angel (cf. Job 38:7)—that the wise men saw signified the Messiah-King of Israel… they were wise in that they recognized and followed it!

Interestingly, the wise men worship Jesus, not Mary and/or the angel, and they bring Him gifts of “gold, frankincense, and myrrh” (today’s Scripture)—frankincense and myrrh are aromatic gum resins burned as incense. Gold is for a King, frankincense is for a Priest, and myrrh is for a Prophet—Jesus is all three (Isaiah 9:6,7; Zechariah 6:13; Deuteronomy 18:15,18). Amazingly, Isaiah 60:6, written some 700 years beforehand, even prophesied Gentiles would bring God gifts of gold and frankincense. The Bible is an amazing Book!

Sadly, these Gentiles had more respect for Israel’s King than Israel. These wise men recognized fulfilled prophecy… they were wise men indeed!

Second of five special-edition Christmas Bible Q&As: “What is the ‘Immaculate Conception?’”

Silent Building #8

Monday, December 8, 2014

“And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building” (1 Kings 6:7 KJV).

God is doing something similar today, very quietly too….

We read in Ephesians 2:19-22: “[19] Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; [20] And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; [21] In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: [22] In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”

Father God’s will for us is that we grow spiritually. The Lord Jesus wants to not simply indwell us but feel comfortable, feel “at home,” in our inner man. His life will then become our life (for our Christian life really is His life!). Our identity in Christ is only in Paul’s epistles, Romans through Philemon: the Body of Christ is described nowhere else in Scripture. To focus on and apply to life other Scripture is to ignore your identity, overlook what God is doing today, neglect what God gave you, and so on.

Not knowing your identity detrimentally impacts your life. Satan’s assault against members of the Church the Body of Christ is to have them ignore Paul’s epistles. Once they focus on all the other Scriptures and apply them to their lives, they operate apart from the identity God gave them in Christ. Satan’s system causes us to focus on Israel’s prayer promises, Israel’s baptisms, Israel’s tithing, Israel’s miracles, Israel’s earthly kingdom hope, Israel’s material blessings, Israel’s laws, Israel’s feast days, Israel’s apostles, and so on (all found outside Romans through Philemon). No wonder people go around saying we are “spiritual Israel”—claiming Israel’s verses as our own leads to no other conclusion!

The only hope for the Body of Christ’s salvation from false doctrine and doctrinal confusion is to return to Paul’s epistles. Had we not left God’s Word to us, we would not claim God’s Word to others….

Our latest Bible Q&A: “Are lost people already forgiven?”

Arrayed in Hypocrisy

Friday, October 31, 2014

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity” (Matthew 23:27,28 KJV).

“Looks can be deceiving” is not only true during Halloweentime, but confirmed year-round within Christendom.

Today is Halloween, when children dress up and feign themselves to be creatures they are not. Likewise, many church leaders today wear “Christian” garbs, but their ministries do not bring the Lord Jesus Christ glory and honor. They promote their denomination, and seek to perpetuate it, rather than serve and exalt the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. The Bible manifests these who appear to be good, as “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

In today’s Scripture, Jesus Christ exposed Israel’s corrupt religious leaders who misled the nation in His day. In His Parable of the Tares, Matthew 13:24-30,37-43, Christ explained how just as He had sown good seed (wheat, believing Jews) in Israel, Satan had also sown tares/weeds (unbelieving Jews). Tares resemble wheat; unbelieving Jews resemble believing Jews. The unbelieving Pharisees and scribes, for instance, looked like God’s people (believing Israel). Judas Iscariot was another example of Satan’s tares—the apostles never realized who Judas really was until it was too late!

But Satan’s counterfeit believers are not confined to Israel’s program. Today, within local assemblies of the Body of Christ, there are people feigning themselves to be Christians: For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).

Beloved, beware of the church leaders who are arrayed in hypocrisy, “and avoid them” (Romans 16:17b). If their teaching does not agree with the rightly divided King James Bible, you have no business as a child of God to be listening to them.

*This is excerpted from a larger Bible study with the same name. The Bible study can be read here or watched here.

Our latest Bible Q&A: “Should Christians celebrate Halloween?”

In Him and Not in Hell

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

“And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Philippians 3:9 KJV).

Before we can have a right standing before God, we must realize our wrong standing before God.

A dear lady I shared the Gospel with not many weeks ago told me, “I think I will go to heaven. Now if I commit some horrible sin just before I die, then I will go to purgatory.” Like so many, she needed to realize that the ultimate sin is to believe we can live a perfect life to make God so happy with us that He will have no choice but to let us into heaven, that we can supplement and/or substitute Jesus Christ’s life and righteousness with our own, that we call God a liar by saying our sin nature can still offer so much as one work that is pleasing in His sight, that Jesus Christ failed to do what we must do.

When I asked this lady on the basis of what five minutes her life would be totally acceptable to God, what five minutes of her living were 100 percent perfect and made her worthy of heaven, she confessed she had no such five minutes; that is when she realized that that failure is sin, that her lack of assurance was a sign she was headed to anywhere but heaven!

I began to share with her the wonderful news of God’s righteousness in Jesus Christ received by simple faith in Him alone (today’s Scripture). God is offering us a place in heaven as a free gift and we cannot work for a gift (otherwise it becomes a debt). If we so much as believe we can work enough to add to Jesus’s perfect sacrifice, then we are telling God we want to pay for our own sins; the place where God’s wrath against our sin is appeased, is the lake of fire, and it burns forever because God’s wrath against our sin can and will never be appeased apart from Jesus Christ’s suffering at Calvary. Let us be found in Him, and not found in hell!

Our latest Bible Q&A: “Why did God ask where Adam was?”

Zealous of G(o)od(’s) Works

Monday, October 13, 2014

“Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus 2:14 KJV).

Many people are passionate about many things, but we Christians should be zealous about “God’s works!”

On one hand, religion emphasizes religious works needed to please God, and thus pushes aside faith in Jesus Christ’s finished crosswork (the only work that is pleasing in Father God’s sight). On the other hand, these religionists will criticize us grace believers as being anti-good works. No, we are not anti-good works; they are anti-grace (and anti-faith). “And if by grace, then it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work” (Romans 11:6). “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace…” (Romans 4:16a). Faith is the only thing grace will accept!

Ephesians 2:8-10 says God does not save us unto eternal life on the basis of our works; after we trust Jesus Christ alone as our personal Saviour, the eternal life Father God gives us by grace through faith is a life to be filled with good works, the works He does in and through us: “[8] For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: [9] Not of works, lest any man should boast. [10] For we are HIS workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” It is “his working which worketh in [us] mightily” (Colossians 1:29), and our laboring together with Him (1 Corinthians 3:9).

What are the good works that Jesus Christ will do in us? Read Romans chapter 12, Ephesians chapter 4, and Colossians chapter 3 for starters. These are not good works we do to make Him happy with us; these are His works manifested in our lives! Let us be zealous in allowing God’s Holy Spirit to empower us to daily live the life He already gave us in Christ!

Our latest Bible Q&A: “Could you compare and contrast Peter’s ministry and Paul’s ministry?”

 

Glorious Freedom #5

Thursday, October 9, 2014

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1 KJV).

The chorus of Haldor Lillenas’ classic 1917 hymn “Glorious Freedom” highlights today’s Scripture.

“Glorious freedom! Wonderful freedom!
No more in chains of sin I repine!
Jesus the glorious Emancipator—
Now and forever He shall be mine.”

Would God save us by grace through faith in Christ without Law-keeping (without our works) to only then demand that we must keep the Law to merit His fellowship and blessings? Preposterous! While a religionist preaches some sense of “grace,” you can be sure that a works-message will immediately follow in the same breath! “God is saving (?) you by His grace, but now you better get water baptized, give a tithe, and confess your sins, or your Christian life will be displeasing to Him and He will withhold His blessings.” Ridiculous!

Romans 6:14,15 confirms: “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.” If we want sin to rule our lives, Law-keeping is the answer. If we want holiness (Christ’s life) to dominate our lives, grace is the answer (Titus 2:11-15)! Grace is Jesus Christ’s performance on our behalf; He never fails. When Christ lives, and not us, we will not wallow and complain in sin’s chains; we will be free from that bondage, defeat, and misery!

One frequent objection is, “Preaching grace will cause people to live in sin!” Nay, beloved. Actually, people (naturally) “live in sin” already, having never known one trace of God’s grace. Every child of Adam lives in sin, so God does not take us out of Adam and put us into Christ just so we could continue “living in sin;” God put us into Christ to give us a new nature, a holy nature, that sin not dominate us. He gave us His grace, not His law, that sin not dominate us; His grace produces Christ’s life in us.

Jesus Christ freed us from sin, that, “Now and forever we will be His,” and “Now and forever He shall be ours!” 🙂

Glorious Freedom #4

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin” (Romans 7:24,25 KJV).

The fourth verse of Haldor Lillenas’ classic 1917 hymn “Glorious Freedom” highlights today’s Scripture.

“Freedom from fear with all of its torments;
Freedom from care with all of its pain;
Freedom in Christ, my blessèd Redeemer—
He Who has rent my fetters in twain.”

Our Apostle, Paul, was no “super-human;” just as human as we are, he worried, he struggled with sin, he grew exhausted when he attempted to live the Christian life. As we Christians often do today, he would forget the glorious doctrines of grace living in Romans chapter 6—our death to sin and our resurrection unto life for God’s glory—and he would lapse back into a performance-based acceptance system.

Before Paul was saved, as Saul of Tarsus, he was “a Pharisee” (Philippians 3:5), people whom Jesus repeatedly condemned for emphasizing outward performance and ignoring inward faith in God’s Word. Like we who abandoned legalistic religions or denominations would do today, Paul (now saved) would return to that old thinking, that old lifestyle of legalism (Law-keeping), and he would wind up defeated (today’s Scripture). He would ignore Jesus’ finished crosswork at Calvary as the power to save him from being defeated by daily sins.

We are free from fear with all of its torments, for our future is secure in Christ because of His performance and not ours (2 Timothy 1:12; Romans 8:35-39). We are free from care with all of its pains, for when we pray to Father God in light of His Word to us (Paul’s epistles), He gives us His peace (Philippians 4:6,7)—even in the midst of trouble (2 Corinthians 12:7-10; Philippians 4:11-13). We are free in Christ, for we function in Him as His (and our) Heavenly Father designed us, by faith allowing the indwelling Holy Spirit to work mightily in us to produce in us the Christian life (Romans chapter 8). Yea, Jesus Christ, our wonderful Redeemer, has freed us from Satan and sin! 🙂

Glorious Freedom #2

Monday, October 6, 2014

“But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life” (Romans 6:22 KJV).

The second verse of Haldor Lillenas’ classic 1917 hymn “Glorious Freedom” highlights today’s Scripture.

“Freedom from all the carnal affections;
Freedom from envy, hatred and strife;
Freedom from vain and worldly ambitions;
Freedom from all that saddened my life!”

Lost people view Christianity as bondage (due to strict denominational oppression) and their own lives as freedom (due to the deceitfulness of their own sinful hearts). Lost people assume they freely think for themselves and freely run their own lives—they succinctly declare that they are “not fettered to ancient texts of superstition and fiction” as we are!

Still, they fail to realize that they are captive, not free; they are slaves to sin, powerless to overcome it. Our Lord plainly declared that in John 8:34-36. Actually, the Pharisees resented Jesus for those words, even going so far as to say they “were never in bondage to any man” (verse 33)—they overlooked the hundreds of passers-by, soldiers who belonged to Israel’s overbearing Roman government! Even today, lost people claim to be free as they walk around wearing chains of sin.

In Christ, we are liberated from fleshly attitudes and likings; envy; hatred; strife (fighting); worthless secular goals; and all the other miserable actions that accompany our Adamic sin nature. After illustrating a horrible (sinful) lifestyle in verses 17-19 of Ephesians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul wrote: “[20] But ye have not so learned Christ; [21] If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: [22] That ye put off concerning the former conversation [behavior and lifestyle] the old man [old, Adamic, sin nature], which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; [23] And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; [24] And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” He then delineates grace living in verses 25-32, the eternal life God has for us in Christ. We are free from sin, and, as God’s Word rightly divided renews our minds, we see that everlasting life become evident in ours!

Glorious Freedom #1

Sunday, October 5, 2014

“In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7 KJV).

The first verse of Haldor Lillenas’ classic 1917 hymn “Glorious Freedom” highlights today’s Scripture.

“Once I was bound by sin’s galling fetters;
Chained like a slave, I struggled in vain.
But I received a glorious freedom,
When Jesus broke my fetters in twain.”

Prior to becoming a saint by faith alone in Jesus Christ, the sinner was “bound by sin’s galling fetters;” sin’s chains or shackles held the individual to the point of chafing or irritation. Once religiosity (religious works) and secularism (worldly works) were exposed as equally filthy in God’s sight, the sinner understood that they had nothing to pay to free themselves from their sins of the spirit and their sins of the flesh.

Whether struggling in a religious system (faithful giving, water baptism, prayers, church attendance, confessions, et cetera) attempting to gain God’s acceptance; or engaging in drunkenness, fornication, swearing, theft, and lying attempting to gain the world’s acceptance; one must perform to receive favor. The sinner finally realizes they know that the ultimate blessing is to be freed from such bondage, liberated from such a system of failure and misery, for they can neither fully gain God’s acceptance nor the world’s acceptance.

In John 8:34-36, Jesus told the Pharisees: “[34] Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. [35] And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. [36] If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” The Pharisees needed to be freed from their sins, especially their hypocrisy and works-religion!

By the riches of God’s grace (His work on our behalf), through faith alone in Jesus Christ’s shed blood, we can be crucified with Christ and “redeemed” (set free; today’s Scripture), for “he that is dead is freed from sin” (Romans 6:7). Verse 18 says, “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.” We are alive and free in Christ—not to live for ourselves, but to choose to live as the living dead people we are, saints alive with Jesus Christ’s resurrection life!

Pebbles of Paganism

Saturday, October 4, 2014

“Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy portion; they, they are thy lot: even to them hast thou poured a drink offering, thou hast offered a meat offering. Should I receive comfort in these?” (Isaiah 57:6 KJV).

Imagine Israel doing such foolishness right in front of JEHOVAH!

Today’s Scripture—whose context, verses 3-12, reprimands Israel’s pagan idolatry—says the Jews collected (mindless, inanimate) rocks from a riverbed, and then poured out drink offerings and offered meat offerings to them as if they were Almighty God (the living and true God was deeply offended, as today’s Scripture indicates).

How preposterous! Israel had willfully abandoned JEHOVAH’S words (the Old Testament Scriptures), and preferred to imitate her heathen neighbors in worshipping dead idols (the Gentiles’ spiritual ignorance and moral decay are clearly described in Romans 1:18-32). Throughout the Old Testament, we read about stone idols worshipped by Gentiles (Deuteronomy 29:16,17; Isaiah 37:19) and Jews (Jeremiah 2:27; Habakkuk 2:19)—those stone idols were believed to speak and teach!

Lest we dismiss this as “ignorance due to bygone primitivism,” or in case we look down upon Israel as if our “modern” world is any better, remember that, today, most peoples of the world “pay homage” (worship) to such non-living objects in this “scientifically advanced” 21st century! In their churches and homes, even among many “Christian” people, they set up statues of wood and stone, hang paintings of “holy” figures (artistic interpretations, not actual photographs!), and then bow or kneel before them and utter prayers. The paints, minerals, and plant fibers are dead, and yet they are assumed to be able to help those “genuflecting” before them!

Today’s Scripture is a strict reminder that any forms of idolatry will not comfort (delight) the God of the Scriptures. Beloved, even if that idolatry is called “Christianity,” images of stone and wood (at their root) are heathen. Those same worthless “aids of worship” that helped Israel to ignore JEHOVAH, aided JEHOVAH in proving to Israel that she was worthy of being evicted from His land (and He did just that!). Friends, let us “turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9)! 🙂