Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: china

  • Denominations / Why can’t we all just get along?

    Denominations / Why can’t we all just get along?

    It’s a great question isn’t it? And from this street-level philosopher we might extrapolate questions like: “Why can’t all the church just get along?” or “Why can’t churches of ALL denominations just get along?” or “Shouldn’t OUR church teach tolerance of all poor street philosophers and inclusively preach THEIR philosophies from every religion?”

    THEIR Two-faced ‘Tolerance‘

    “Why can’t all the church just get along?”

    Because we are ALL sinners. WE accuse the brethren of OTHER denominations while lacking discernment of our own fledgling flock of philosophers.

    And this is NO different for the philosophers who deceivingly call THEMSELVES a ‘church.’

    Returning to close examination of the PLANK in OUR own ‘evangelical christian’ eye, let’s review the theological discernment shared in our previous two Saturday Posts:

    Christology and Theology may be at odds with prevailing social philosophy which USES a loose interpretation of the Bible to fill the house with non-committal christians.

    The shift from ‘accepting the existence of different views’ to ‘acceptance of different views’ .. is subtle in form, but massive in substance. To accept that a different or opposing position exists is one thing; to accept the position itself means that one is no longer opposing it.

    D.A. Carson, The Intolerance of Tolerance 

    Something’s wrong with our church!

    (So why not RECALL it & fix it?) QUESTION what OUR church teaches AND build it back to be all-inclusive and tolerant.

    In deconstruction everything is a SOCIAL construction, including the church.

    Darrell Harrison – Just Thinking podcast

    As a watchman on the wall Harrison points to the strategy of deconstructionist everythingologist preachers of the false gospel:

    Once WE accept the philosophy that the CHURCH is a SOCIALLY constructed system, NOT a divinely ordained institution that originated in the mind of God..

    • THEN the church falls into disbelief.
    • CONSEQUENTLY these fledgling lambs of the faith will be led to the slaughter.

    Deconstructionists

    • ASSUME a HUMAN faith which WE need to fix.
    • YET try to follow the illogic of philosophers who preach that:
      • ALL of these DENOMINATIONS ‘can just get along.‘
    Something's wrong with our church! church denominations

    Denominations / Divide and Conquer

    Why the attack on Christians?

    • Christians claim the LARGEST RELIGION in the world! [< 2 BILLION souls]
      • Worldwide about three out of every ten people are Christians.
        • In the U.S. about three out of four people claim Christianity as their faith (mostly Protestant) &
        • In Mexico and Brazil about 9 out of 10 claim Christianity (mostly Roman Catholic)
      • Roman Catholics are the largest denomination with about one billion communicants worldwide.
      • 12% of the world population claim Orthodox Christian denominations with about 40% of the 260 million living in officially atheistic Russia.
      • ~800 MILLION Protestant Christians [37% of the world population] can be divided into < 40,000 denominations

    Major Monotheistic Religions

    Why can’t believers in the One God just get along?

    • Islam claims almost 2 billion worshipers of Mohammed
      • Sunni Islam is the largest denomination with about <85% or about 1.6 billion followers
      • Shi’ism or Shia Islam is the second-largest Muslim denomination and divided into additional sub-denominations.
      • SEE THEIR intolerance toward OTHER religions below.
    • Judaism, the original Abrahamic faith prior to Jesus Christ (1st c. A.D.) and Muhammed (7th c. A.D.), retains just a remnant of the world’s population with >15 MILLION worshipers, further divided into several religious schools of thought, culture and worship.
    lines of division of Christianity chart
    Church Divided

    Catholic ‘kata-holos’ – universal

    • IF Catholic = Universal, how then can ‘christians‘ call BOTH the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox a ‘Christian Church?’
      • Did the fall of Rome or any empire of the world separate Christians from Christ?
    • Yet IF Universal = Catholic + EVERYBODY ELSE; the PHILOSOPHER then becomes the Pope with no clothes, as well as a stone ‘thinker’ with failed logic.
      • The religion of the Universal ‘Church’ is NO religion except ALL religions.
    • WHY can’t YOU Christians and non-Christians all just get along?
      • The Agnostic acknowledges that GOD IS; but like so many other truths, THEY cannot prove it.
    • On the other face of the religion of philosophy, an A-theist by definition professes a religion AGAINST the god of their philosophy.
      • ANY reasonably constructed religion accepted except the intolerance of Christians!
    WE will RECONSTRUCT from OUR common ground.

    Let’s invite the Pope to confess OUR sins against indigenous Americans of the past. He could wear a chief’s bonnet in place of his Roman MITRE. (Just instruct his holiness NOT to mention Jesus Christ.) He could help save OUR environment.

    AND cultural Jews – they’re like us, so we can study their original faith. (Just don’t mention that Jesus called some of them ‘whitewashed tombs‘ or Christian claims that JESUS and the Father are ONE, or many other intolerant things JESUS said.)

    Of course we have common ground with our Muslim brothers. (Maybe we can get them to give women some rights if we accept some of their very good examples of regular faith.) WE even know some at work (and they are all hard workers) who have even accepted Christians into THEIR Islamic faith and married into THEIR Muslim family.

    coexist and tolerance = apostasy

    Religion is a dirty word in the 21st century public square and an evangelical Christian the most offensive icon of intolerance to be mocked in social media.

    Roger@TalkofJESUS.com

    Other Faiths & Many Truths (not to mention ‘gods‘)

    Let’s talk about culture. (WE can create it better.)

    • The CURRENT WORLD POPULATION includes nearly 8 BILLION human souls.
    • There are 18.6 million Asian Americans living in the US, making up 6% of the US population
      • Nearly 400 million Christians live in Asia (5 regions), while just 230 million Christians live in N. America.
    • China has a population of 1.4 BILLION souls and although officially the PEOPLE are ATHEISTS, more Christians evangelize their faith in China than in much of the U.S.
      • Unofficially, Chinese folk religions comprise ~22% of the population, Buddhists ~14%, Christians about 5% (~74 MILLION disciples of Christ) PLUS 52% of the Chinese population are “unaffiliated” with ANY religion [probably safest even for many Christians]
        • (Could the intolerance of evangelical Christians in America become the official ‘freedom FROM religion’ in the U.S.?)
      • Open Doors USA estimates the number of Christians in China to be 96,700,000
    • #India, a mostly English-speaking country [in addition to Hindi] increasingly embraces Hinduism
      • with 1.25 BILLION believers worldwide.
      • A Pew research study comparing religions shows a growing intolerance of ‘minority monotheistic religions’ such as Islam & Christianity.
      • The persecution of Christians in India is intensifying as Hindu extremists aim to cleanse the country of their presence and influence. Open Doors ranks the level of persecution as comparable to that of Iran and India’s Islamist neighbors of Pakistan & Afghanistan.
    Intolerant Karma

    Not only do a majority of Hindus in India (77%) believe in karma, but an identical percentage of Muslims do, too.

    A third of Christians in India (32%) – together with 81% of Hindus – say they believe in the purifying power of the Ganges River, a central belief in Hinduism.

    Source: PEW RESEARCH CENTER

    YET note intolerance of many surveyed in 2019-2020 in India:

    • ..members of India’s major religious communities often don’t feel they have much in common with one another.
    • Many Indians, across a range of religious groups, say it is very important to stop people in their community from marrying into other religious groups.
      • Roughly two-thirds of Hindus in India want to prevent interreligious marriages of Hindu women (67%) or Hindu men (65%).
      • Even larger shares of Muslims feel similarly: 80% say it is very important to stop Muslim women from marrying outside their religion, and 76% say it is very important to stop Muslim men from doing so.
    Who is my neighbor?

    Denominations of Neighborhoods

    It’s NOT just the Church which divides itself, but socially constructed systems of cities, communities, clubs, political parties, schools, work.. and yes, shunned minorities (like Christians) NOT tolerated by the majority.

    To further quote the PEW study:

    Indians, then, simultaneously express enthusiasm for religious tolerance and a consistent preference for keeping their religious communities in segregated spheres – they live together separately. These two sentiments may seem paradoxical, but for many Indians they are not.

    The study goes on to mention the mythical ‘melting pot’ approach of ‘other’ countries. NO forced integration there, just two-faced tolerance of paradoxical convenience.

    WHY can’t WE all just get along?

    Integration of culture (or religion) risks ruining the unique values of individuals, as well as trespassing upon any inviolable Truth part and parcel of those individuals who cling to our worship of the Lord our God and Jesus Christ.

    IF our evangelical Christian denomination is NOT different from the religions of the world, the philosophers of humanism, the teachings of the false prophets or the inclusiveness of all the idols which are NOT God, THEN WHY would any soul from another culture come to the community of faith in CHRIST JESUS or fellowship of love and worship of God by grace?

    IF our GOSPEL of eternal life in the Lord Jesus Christ promised in Scripture is ONLY available to those who will repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, WHY would a denomination or church tolerate ANY teaching which might lead many lost sheep into the dark deceptions of death’s doctrines?

    so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be slandered.

    1 Timothy 6 – Instructions to Those Who Serve

    If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself. 
- I Timothy 6:3-6 New King James Version

    So withdraw yourself from such as cannot tolerate OUR intolerance FOR refusing to once again crucify Christ.

  • Apocalypse 9 – the Wrath of the Lamb

    Apocalypse 9 – the Wrath of the Lamb

    We live now in a day of grace – but there is coming a day when the man that spits in the face of God shall meet His judgment.

    Dr. W. A. Criswell on Revelation 1:19

    Disaster on the Whole Earth

    Perhaps you remember recent disasters or recall the terror of some singular event of history.

    • 20th century natural disasters illustration of storm devastating city
      20th c. Disasters
    • world trade center towers burning on 9-11-2001
      TERROR! of 9-11-2001
    Deadliest Natural Disasters From The 20th Century

    Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter

    The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John 1:19 KJV

    In the opening of the sixth seal Jesus Christ reveals to John an apocalypse of terror, which we might pray will not occur in our brief mortal days.

    apokalypsis of Good News

    The Seven Seals

    In case you joined our series late:

    OR the intro:

    where I first quoted from the Sixth Seal Rev. 6:16-17.

    Apocalypse – a mystery of Good News Unsealed

    The Sixth Seal

    Terror! – Cowering in the Wrath of the Lamb

    November A.D. 1945 – Nagasaki three months after dropping of ATOMIC BOMB!

    You can hardly image the devastations, the losses of so many lives, the traumatic terror of the sole survivors of unspoken disaster.

    • August 1931, Yangtze River, China #1 20th c. natural disaster
      • 30,000 sq. mi. flooded, 40 million homes destroyed, 15% of crops destroyed
      • > 3 million, 700 thousand deaths, many from starvation & disease.

    Do you recall from Apocalypse 7 – Death & Hell follows him the fourth seal deaths of 25% in China would be a hundred times that?

    • > 360.7 MILLION souls!
    9 AUG, 1945, explosion of Atomic Bomb 2000 feet above Nagasaki, Japan.

    We needn’t attempt to measure the devastation of nuclear holocausts beyond that of just two cities in 1945 Japan to realize that when a time of the wrath of God is to come upon the world at the end of these last days its terrorized creatures, men of dust and ashes, will hope to hide from Almighty God.

    Revelation 6:

    12 I watched as the Lamb broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became as dark as black cloth, and the moon became as red as blood.

    Would a nuclear blast above your city or an even more powerful manifestation of the Lord God not do the same in an instant? It would blacken the sun, cloud the moon and choke God’s breath of life from the atmosphere!

    13 Then the stars of the sky fell to the earth like green figs falling from a tree shaken by a strong wind.

    The Apostle John sees them as stars, but the science of these last days tell us that even an asteroid (let alone many meteors striking the earth) would destroy life as we know it. And ‘mother nature’ never caused it, nor could sinful scientists prevent it. Just imagine the force of a hurricane throwing the hard surfaces of space onto the homes and workplaces of your existence.

    14 The sky was rolled up like a scroll, and all of the mountains and islands were moved from their places.

    It is a hail storm, a tornado; the eruption of a volcano swallowing up the earth and pouring fire into the cities; a hurricane and tsunami billowing waves of destruction into the unsuspecting great cities by the sea.

    Terror at the Wrath of the Lord!

    Then everyone—the kings of the earth, the rulers, the generals, the wealthy, the powerful, and every slave and free person—all hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains.

    Revelation 6:15 NLT

    NO, it will not be only on earth — but from beneath it and into the depths of the seas the vengeance of Almighty God will finally punish the wicked and sinners..

    • Deaths of 25% of Mankind; >1 BILLION, 961 MILLION
    • > the TOTAL POPULATIONS of Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Northern America, (including the U.S.) and Oceania.
    Apocalypse 7 – Death & Hell follows him

    16 and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us..

    and hide us

    from the presence of Him who sits on the throne,

    and from the wrath of the Lamb;

    for the great day of their wrath has come,

    and who is able to stand?”

    Revelation 6:16b-17 NASB
    Is your name in the Book of the Lamb?

    ..Then a white robe was given to each of them..

    Revelation 6:11 – to the saints from Martyrs + the saints cry out
    apokalypsis of Good News

    Can you stand for the opening of the seventh seal?

    WAIT for a time; for first these must be sealed.

    Revelation 7 | iiiiiii |Complete Jewish Bible
    To be continued...
  • Times of Difficulty

    Times of Difficulty

    Joel 1:

    Has such a thing happened in your days,
    or in the days of your fathers?

    3 Tell your children of it,
    and let your children tell their children,
    and their children to another generation.

    While disasters loom and chaos rules, talking heads debate over who said what about the rein of evil isolated in time or place.

    I’m outraged!

    (But it's not what you think.)

    One death causes lingering debate, then a couple dozen again across the sea.

    http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/31/asia/india-child-deaths/index.html
    India – 2 million child deaths/year

    Yet  what of a crisis in a hospital in India where 68 children died   because of a financial dispute over who would pay for oxygen?

    What of 250 dead, lost to floods in Nepal, India and Bangladesh?

    Would a press so entertained over a single firing dare mention 28  deaths from a national election controversy in a poor country like Kenya?

    These acts of violence by evil men of many races and differing religion are not news. Extreme political positions and taunting of opposing opinion are nothing new under the sun.

    Hidden in the headlines of Shiite Islam vs. Sunni Islam in Iraq (along with Syria, another war no one has won) we see starving children, victims of war’s atrocities, malnourished and wounded, gleaning fields for a few bites to eat. Least of all world-wide entertaining news would never herald the passing of 100 souls from hunger each and every hour!

    https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/china-commits-staggering-23-million-abortions-per-year-according-to-us-stat
    China commits ‘staggering’ 23 million abortions per year, according to US State Dept.

    Could self-defining generations of sexually active ‘single’ women ever be chastised for their ‘right’ to end the lives of more than 25 million babies so far this year?!

    [ctt title=”Could the two most populous countries in the world ever be held accountable for all the babies and young children who have died? ” tweet=”https://ctt.ec/j1nfg+” coverup=”j1nfg”]

    When will the LORD finally say, enough is enough?

    Genesis 6:

    5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

    Exodus 12:29

    At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock.

    The Lord intervenes

    You may not have read from scripture of the great power of the Lord, though you witness the magnificence of His Almighty hand every day. Recall (or read for the first time) how a prayer reached the hearing of the Lord and the Lord saved Israel.

    2 Kings 19:

    5 When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, 6 Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me…

    15 And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said:

    [ctt title=”“O Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth.” tweet=”“Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the heights? Against the Holy One of Israel! 2Kings19:” coverup=”iFGf9″]

    16 Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. 17 Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands 18 and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. 19 So now, O Lord our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone.”

    35 And that night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians.

    And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. 36 Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at Nineveh.

    Judgment of the Lord

    Not so remarkable that the Lord of all the heavens and earth, the Lord who makes the sun and moon and stars to move; not so awesome that 185,000 men or all the first born of Egypt should unexpectedly be struck down.

    Have you heard of the Lord’s covenant to never destroy all mankind by flood? Do you believe that? You who cannot gaze upon the brilliance of the sun the Lord has placed in the heavens, uncover your ears to hear his warnings to repent!

    His patience withholds fire and brimstone from the destruction of evil, yet their judgment will come. In the Person of Christ Jesus the Lord has come to man and He will return.

    Cover your eyes and open your heart. Look only to Jesus and no false man, dead or in power, mortals who cannot save your eternal soul.

    Joel 1:

    15 Alas for the day!
    For the day of the Lord is near,
    and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.

    Joel 2:

    Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
    for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near,
    2 a day of darkness and gloom,
    a day of clouds and thick darkness!

    Return to the Lord

    12 “Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
        “return to me with all your heart,
    with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
    13     and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
    Return to the Lord your God,
        for he is gracious and merciful,
    slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
        and he relents over disaster.

    The Lord Will Pour Out His Spirit

    28 “And it shall come to pass afterward,
        that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
    your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
        your old men shall dream dreams,
        and your young men shall see visions.
    29 Even on the male and female servants
        in those days I will pour out my Spirit.

    30 “And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. 31 

    The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.

    32 [ctt title=”And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. ” tweet=”Christ Jesus is Lord! A new heavens and a new earth await the Lord’s return.” coverup=”W2wAz”]

    To be continued…