Apostles

This article at Apprising Ministries really got me thinking. Much of today’s evangelism methods involve what I call the “John 3:16 Approach”, telling sinners that “God loves you, Jesus loves you, accept Him into the ‘hole in your heart’ and you shall be saved!”.

Ugh!

Yet, if we look closer at how the Apostles went about preaching the Gospel, we find that (while we acknowledge that God is love and concur with what John wrote in John 3:16 not a single mention of the “feel-good” message of “God loves you, Jesus loves you” is found, but what they preached was how lost people were, bound as slaves to sin, emphasizing on forgiveness of sin by Jesus Christ the Messiah.

Reading the article also reminds me of a great quote by A.W. Pink on present-day evangelism which I very much agree with:

The nature of Christ’s salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day “evangelist”.

He announces a Savior from hell rather than a Savior from sin.

And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of fire, who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness!

The very first thing said of Christ in the New Testament is — “You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” (not from the wrath to come)

Christ is a Savior for those realizing something of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, who feel the awful burden of it on their conscience, who loathe themselves for it, who long to be freed from its terrible dominion. And He is a Savior for no others.

Were He to “save from hell” those still in love with sin, He would be a minister of sin, condoning their wickedness and siding with them against God.

What an unspeakably horrible and blasphemous thing with which to charge the Holy One!

A.W. Pink

To read the full article, visit Apprising Ministries.

Recently in India, as many as 50 people in Kottayam district went blind after staring at the sun for a prolonged period of time looking for an image of the “Virgin Mary”.

Believing in false signs and wonders can be dangerous and even detrimental to one’s health as evidenced in the story. Yet throughout generations, man has been looking for divine signs and wonders to prove the existence of God and/or bolster their faith.

Many of us Christians shake our heads at that, but what we don’t realize is that in the Visible Church itself, many are looking for the same things.

I am not talking about the Roman Catholic obsession with miracles and apparitions of Mary (I don’t consider the Roman Church part of the Visible Church anyhow), but the obsession with signs such as tongues, healing, and other ‘miracles’ in some Christian circles.

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Daniel at Messy Pastor mentioned that in our zeal to observe the Sabbath on the proper day as sanctified by God, we shouldn’t fall into the danger of still being bonded by the old Laws as did the Galatians.

Previously, I have written quite a lot on the importance of observing the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week just as God had sanctified it.

That led me to earnestly read Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

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Norski’s comment on my post on Christian marriage and how he converted to Roman Catholicism because of what he believed to be Peter’s primacy got me writing a post on this finally.

I’ve always intended to write something on the topic, seeing that I had rejected Roman Catholicism in my journey to Christianity, but it seems that even talking about it can get quite a few people all riled up. However, I feel it’s better to write about it than to keep quiet.

Before I continue, let me make it very clear that I have nothing against Roman Catholics — my wife’s family is Roman Catholic and I have many friends who are Roman Catholics and we get along really well. What I have a problem with is the Roman Catholic Church’s claim to have power over Christians worldwide because of the ‘legitimate’ power of the pope passed on from Peter.

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