Send the Jews Home….

TBN is a very interesting network. I often watch it, puzzled and confused as their message often conflicts with God’s word.

The most recent program I have seen was this morning’s “Send the Jews Home” special. It focused on sending Russian Jews (many of whom just found out they WERE Jewish) ‘back’ to the promised land.

The program quoted Jeremiah, Isaiah and Daniel. “God wants His people back in their homeland.” Well, they may be able to quote book and verse but they are obviously not well versed in history! We see that the writers of the three above mentioned books were in captivity or looking forward as it was being prophesied that they’d go back into captivity (which they did) and have already been sent home once (which is what the Jews in the Bible were looking forward to and what God was promising to fulfill. From about 450 BC the Jews return to Jerusalem and the Promised Land and live there until the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

In 450 BC God fulfilled His promise to the Jews, and between the year 30 BC to 0 AD we see another of God’s promises come to fulfillment; Christ the Lord, born of a virgin as prophesied in Isaiah and died upon the cross, rising again on the third day, Christ sitting down on God’s right hand/side and taking His place as ruler of His Kingdom after His ascension, the institution of the Kingdom of God fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, the spread of the church with the epistles of the apostles and so on. We see clearly in books Acts through Revelation that the Jews are no longer God’s chosen people because what they were chosen FOR has come to pass: the nation through which the Messiah would come to save the world; this is the prophecy given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

We can also see in John 1:11 – 13 that Jesus came to His own people, the Jews, but they did not receive Him, they rejected Him and did not believe that He was the prophesied Messiah, but those who did receive Him were given the right to become the children of God (a term we see used only for the Jews up until this point)

Now, some Jews did receive Him, first of all His mother, Mary and earthly father Joseph, then His 12 apostles, later on we see Stephen, Paul (who was formerly known as Saul) and on the day of penecost we see about 3000 more added. But we also see that gentiles or non-jews are being allowed to become children of God in His kingdom (or church) with no formal physical actions as before required (circumcision) in God’s law. The Bible tells us that they were born not of blood (as in a jewish bloodline) but were added by God.

Today God’s chosen people are those who believe and obey the Lord Jesus Christ’s commandments and live by the authority of the New Testament. We can no longer truly call Jews His chosen ones. They served their physical purpose and had they all accepted Christ when He came might have had a more spiritual one as a nation, but they were expecting (and still are as I understand) a more earthly Messiah, one who would lead them in physical battle to earthly victory, who would sit on an earthly throne, but we can see now, having the fullness of God’s Word before us (the Bible) that they were mistaken. They had mis-interpreted God’s promise of salvation; they expected things to happen in tangible human terms and understanding, but when has God ever worked according to our [human] expectations? God saw a bigger picture, not just the salvation of a single nation but of all mankind for all eternity. How much grander that He included all men. He said He would do this very thing from the fall of man in the garden of Eden, that through woman’s seed the head of the serpent (Satan) would be crushed. Who will crush the head of Satan? Jesus will, He came through the seed of woman.

From the physical salvation of Noah and the 7 others inside the ark God foresaw a similar salvation, a spiritual one of those who, like Noah believed God at His word, only this time if they believed God the Son. Christ.

The Jews will forever wait for their physical salvation they expect will never come, it has passed them up. And those on the TBN program today are using prophetic scripture that has already been fulfilled by God. But I know the true purpose behind them wanting to get Jews to the ‘promised land’ – they are trying to help along their own prophesy of the rapture. They believe that a remnant of Jews will be saved and restored to their former glory as God’s people when Jesus comes the second time, but they are mistaken as well. But that is another story.

However I will say this, to those who believe that by shuttleing Jews to the promised land they can help God out with His fulfillment of the ‘prophesy’ they believe to come I have only this to say to them: Remember those in the Bible who tried to ‘help God out’ by expediting the prophecies… remember Sarah who God wasn’t working fast enough for, so she gave her handmaid Hagar to Abraham to conceive…it didn’t work out so well for her did it? Remember Moses that when he struck the rock thought it better than speaking to it as God said…he was sorry for trying to improve on what God had told him. Do not forget the Israelites who thought they knew better than what God had promised them, that they could defeat the Canaanites…things did not go very well for them either.

The same goes for you evangelicals. God does not need your help. If the prophesies that you believe to be true truly are the message you believe them to be, then how can you assume that God needs your help? Can not the Almighty who formed the first man from the dust of the ground not transport a few thousand Jews to where He wants them?

I do not believe your version of the end times, nor do I believe that you are correct in your exhausting interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, but I cannot deny you to practice and believe what you do for God alone can pronounce final judgement on any man. I will however warn you to be careful how you view God’s will…and do not insult Him by trying to speed things along.

Is the Pope Holy?

As many of you can guess I am not Catholic. There are many reasons for this but the one that stands out the most is that I question the Pope’s Holiness and Authority.

Now, many non-Catholic Christians seem to defer to the Pope calling him ‘his holiness’ or at the very least ‘father’ – I believe this a direct disregard (or at the very least ignorance) of the Scriptures. But this I will address later on. I feel there are things that must be pointed out first.

How can the Pope be Holy at all?

When the Bible says “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) how can one man, chosen by human fallible men be deemed sinless? There was only one sinless human in all of history – Jesus Christ. So that would mean the Pope cannot be sinless. Secondly let us look at history vs. Catholic tradition/doctrine : Catholic doctrine implies if not directly states that the Pope is God or Christs’ humanly representation, no we don’t really have to go even that far, let us say that Catholics’ hold true that God indirectly appoints the pope as His chosen vessel. Now let us look into history a bit; for how many hundreds of years -off and on- has the papacy been filled by and exploited by corruption and those seeking and selfish gain and power. How can we say that a God who is perfect and cannot make a mistake would appoint or even allow an appointment of such corrupt men as His representation of what so many regard as his church?

Not to mention that under certain papal reigns happened such horrendous acts as the inquisition and murder and torture of ‘fellow’ Christians under the excuse of supposed heresy? How did these Popes allow the use of such Old Testament type punishments rather than what Christ taught in His New Testament? Patience, Love, Gentleness and on and on? These ‘representatives’ of Christ certainly did not have any such Christ-like qualities about them at all!

Lastly, that the Bible tells us

Not to call any earthly man ‘father’ – Matthew 23:9 (How then should you call a priest or other higher clergyman ‘father’)

That there is no favoritism with God – Ephesians 6:9 (Why then would He choose a favorite among men to be His ‘earthly representative’?)

That “no man comes to the Father but by Me(Jesus)” – John 14:6 (so how can an earthly man make intercession for us if the only way to come to God is by Christ?)

That Christ himself makes intercession for us to the Father – Hebrews 2:17 (and the whole book of Hebrews explains how He is our one and only High Priest, perfect and blameless)

So how can the pope be holy? He can’t. He is not. No Pope ever has been, no pope ever will be. The pope himself must know this, in his heart of hearts, he must know that he is not near to God in holiness and that in fact he is a pretender. According to Catholic tradition the Pope is not merely a man, but second to Christ. How can he dare to compare himself to Christ? It is blasphemy!

The Religion of No Religion

Atheism today is on the rise. The reasons abound, but are any of them vaild excuses for the lack of Godliness that surrounds us? In my opinion, no.

I am not an expert on atheism, nor do I profess to be. The atheists I have come into contact with recently seem intent on one thing: preaching.

Sounds bogus, right? Not so. Infact, the atheists I’ve spoken to personally are often as heated about their message as any southern Baptist preacher I’ve met. Now, realize that I’m not lumping you all together (as a few Atheists I’ve met tend to do with Christians) because I realize there are as many sects and levels of atheism as there are denominations and non-denominations of Christians. There are many atheists or non-theists if you will, who are quite content to go about their lives happily as long as they aren’t bothered by fundamentalists or holy-rollers, and even then will take it in stride as one of life’s many uncontrollable situations or circumstances.

There are however, a surprisingly large number of those who want to ‘convert’ you to their way of thinking. They want the world rid of what they consider to be non-thinkers – (a term I hear used very often, as if we (deists) believe some fraudulent hype that will poison our minds as well as our water supply.)

They preach free thought and freedom from mind-slavery, an existance of answering to no ‘higher power’ but one of ‘reality’ (i.e. sense-mindedness) where if you can touch, see, hear, taste or smell, then it’s real, but if not, then it does not exist. Where belief is not a personal choice but a physical effect.

Tell me, please how these people are better than those they ‘preach’ against? They say that Christians are just wanting you to be on their side, that they want you to not think for yourself but to listen to and believe them instead. Well, isn’t that what they(atheist preachers) are asking me to do to? To listen to their point of view as if I’m mentally challenged and cannot decide for myself whether I believe in a deity or not?

Do you (you know who you are) not think that every (Chritian/Muslim/Jew/Pagan) does not have a moment in their life when they sit up and say, “I’ve been told such and such all my life, what do I personally believe? ” Do you think us simple minded sheep? And whether or not you do, how do you think to win us over to your argument by treating us as if we are simple?

I think the real problem here is not that you are worried for us, but simply that you cannot accept that someone else does not accept your personal belief system/way of thinking/ logic/reasoning. I think you take this as a personal blow to your ego and logic and I believe it is a mark of insecurity, one you may not even realize.

My reason for believing this is that so many atheists I have spoken to that have this ‘preaching to the lost’ method are former deists. So many have said, “yeah, I was raised Catholic/Mormon/Baptist/Methodist and then I wised up to how things really are.”

Many will use the excuse that they are so against religion in general because it is the reason for most of the worlds’ wars/famine/sickness/crime/etc. But I think perhaps it is just a cover for their feelings of hurt or dissappointment in a God who didn’t deliver when they expected or needed it most.

Now realize that, once again, I’m not lumping you all together. But I have noticed this pattern repeated in my extensive personal expiriance. It seems that most atheists who were raised that way (again, in MY expiriance) are the more complacent ones.

So many atheists I’ve spoken to vehemently deny that it is a religion in any way shape or form. Please allow me to give the definition of religion as stated by Merriam Webster : a personal set or institutionalized system of attitudes, beliefs, and practices.

Sounds to me like you got yourself a religion right there. A religion of ‘No Religion’ – since neither of us can prove the existance or non-existance of God beyond a reasonable doubt then we both, my friend are going on faith. You a faith in see it, touch it, it’s real, I on a faith of hope and belief that all thing as they are could not just accidentally come to be.

We live in a free country, free to practice and worship (or not) as we see fit. Why can we not just agree to disagree?