~ By James J. Fire
The Battle of Life Continues – From Victory to Vanquishment
Any believer who has experienced a spiritual victory exults in the joy of it; knowing assuredly that the LORD has been in the midst and has granted such to people like us: mere clay vessels in which the Holy One inhabits and has made us citizens of the kingdom of God!
A series of victories and blessings upon us (and God is ever willing and generous to pour such blessings) however can be a potential spiritual danger.
This is often why God must temper His outpourings, because as is often the case, this can lead our deceptive hearts to the lie that there is something about ourselves that is worthy to receive these things from God; that there is something about our own strength, and wisdom, and saintliness that has brought to us these victorious blessings and blessed victories.
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~~By James Fire
The ARMOR of GOD – What It Is and Its Functions:
EPHESIANS 6:11
Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
Taking a Stand
Remember that rallying cry by Aragorn, Captain of the Armies of the West and what he commanded of his men? “. . . STAND, men of the West!”
What about Wallace’ declaration of “FREEDOM”?
We likewise receive our own CAPTAIN of Salvation’s command here via Paul the apostle, to STAND FAST and we acknowledge our FREEDOM or LIBERTY in Christ, being made free from the Law, from the works of the flesh, from the destructive power of sin:
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~~by James J. Fire
As of this writing, the goal of the film AVATAR, to gross the 2 billion dollar mark is completely feasible; obviously it’s a smash hit with an extreme likelihood for a sequel, to which James Cameron seems agreeable.
I’d been hearing very good things about the movie, and when some from my church gave their ‘thumb’s up’ with no small amount of enthusiasm, I decided, being an avid fan of science fiction/fantasy, to go see it myself.
On the surface, the story of Avatar was very similar to other stories with the same thematic content. The outsider encounters the natives of the land, (sometimes) initially opposing them, but later becoming amicable to their culture, and eventually adopting it and them as their own.
We saw it in Dances with Wolves, we also saw it in The Last Samurai and several other films. The theme was successfully achieved in Avatar no less than these others, but what made this film stand apart was the beautifully alien aspects of the film.
Never before was I so awe-struck with the visual imagery of a film, not since the New Line Cinema cash cow of The LORD of the RINGS.
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~~ by James Fire
In the previous articles (parts 1-3) we delved into various aspects of the “Mother of Harlots” that is, the one world religious body as prophesied in REVELATION 17, and how different ecclesial forces are melding together. Two of the primary forces that are acting as catalysts for the emergence of the Mother are the Roman Catholic Church and the Emergent Church Movement.
There is a third force as well, one that has been a part of our society for about thirty years, the New Age Movement (more often today referred to as the New Spirituality).You will find that as you read the writings of New Age leaders and their Emergent Church counterparts, what they have to say on particular matters is virtually identical.
Some therefore conclude that the ECM is simply the New Age Movement dressed in evangelical clothes, while still denying the fundamentals of the faith (The New Age Movement is likewise old ‘Babylon-ish’ occult technique dressed up as well as 'cutting edge' spirituality).
The difference is that New Age dogma used to be a fringe element in our society; today Emergent church beliefs and practices are quickly becoming a majority voice: a kind of spiritual tsunami sweeping over the landscape, and it will wreak ruin and destruction for fundamental, biblical Christianity as far as its overt presence and viability where this nation is concerned.
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by Anne Kisly
All roads do not reach the same God, nor lead to heaven!
Since religious truth claims are objective, then the belief all roads lead to heaven is contradictory. Here is why. If all roads lead to heaven then all belief systems are true.
This has three major problems:
1. If all views are true then Christianity is true. The Christian belief Jesus is the only way to heaven and all other religions are false is therefore true. This contradicts the belief all roads lead to heaven. On the other hand if the statement Jesus is the only way is false, then Christianity doesn’t lead to heaven, contradicting all roads lead to heaven.
2. All roads cannot lead to heaven because the core beliefs or the central doctrines of all worldviews contradict each other. Let’s look at a few examples.
- Christianity teaches you cannot get to heaven by doing good. Islam teaches you must do good to get to heaven. These views are contradictory and both cannot be true at the same time.
- God is personal or God is impersonal. Christianity and Hinduism cannot both be true.
- Christianity says Jesus bodily rose from the dead. All other religions deny this event. Both cannot be true.
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~~ by James Fire
In today’s global climate of political entities and religious bodies we can see that from all fronts, the various elements of what we can call the ‘philosophy of Babel’ which will coalesce the many theses and anti-theses into a singular synergized whole, are working most effectively to bring about the goal of “. . . the god of this world . . .” (see 2 Cor. 4:4), that is a one world religion, operating hand in hand with the one world government, as stated in Revelation 17:3-5.
In a previous article HOW EASTERN RELIGION INVADED THE WEST, we examined the Hegelian Dialectic’s methodology in bringing Hinduism/New Age thought and practice into the Christian church, here in the West. There are however still more elements that are involved with this panoramic endeavor which we will look into in this ongoing series.
This article is entitled “How Near-Eastern Religion Invaded the West” and we will now turn our attention to something called Gnosticism; some of the founding philosophies of which were born in ancient Greece (thus “Near-East”), and how it has had a profoundly devastating effect on the 20th century church.
We will resort to the writings of Dr. Walter Martin, Norman Geisler, Roger Oakland, Greg Reid, and others to examine Gnosticism and how it influenced, even perverted Christian thought and the Holy Scriptures (which also attempted to undermine many of the exclusive claims of Christianity) and so we will examine the basis of the various Bible translations available today and their history. We will also take a look at how incontrovertible ties between Theosophical and New Age thought has influenced the Emergent Church Movement which seeks to do to the modern church, what Constantine desired and generally accomplished in the 3rd century church. All of this may seem a bit dry, but it’s necessary to lay the ground work with this information before we proceed.
Now what would an ‘oldy, moldy’ Greek philosophy/religion like Gnosticism have to do with the modern church today? Until you appreciate the foundations of this ideology, and the 20th century adherents that gave credence to its tenets, you would shrug off such an ancient belief system as having no significant relevance today. Do you think that Gnosticism is a long-dead philosophy and that there are no modern day Gnostics by name? If you do, you’d be wrong! I was surprised to learn this myself; look at these videos posted on youtube.com:
Gnosticism Revival Today
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~ By James J. Fire
