The Roman Catholic Church - It's Dogmas and Destiny: Part 1

By James Fire

The following series is compiled from two different teachings given at church; their respective titles are: Biblical Christianity vs. Roman Catholicism (given last month, and more recently:) The Roman Catholic Church, Mysticism and the Emergent Connection to a One World Religion.

Once again, we must remind ourselves why we are here: we are not here to disparage, to ridicule, to put down or to bash religions; we are here for truth and to expose falsehoods where ever they may be.
In order to know what is true and what is false, you must know what the truth is.

The truth is the standard by which all statements, beliefs, doctrines, practices are measured against in estimating their truthfulness or falseness. This is the essence of discernment, or the ability to judge right from wrong, truth from deceptions.

Charles Spurgeon once said:

“Discernment is not knowing the difference between what is true and what is false; rather it is knowing the difference between what is true and what is almost-true.”
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LIVING IN THE LAST DAYS SERIES - Part 1

by A.M. Kisly

PART I

THE RIGHT PERSPECTIVE IN THE LAST DAYS

I have been wanting to write a series on this topic for many months, yet it seems many road blocks have prevented me from doing so. It's been a crazy year with family illnesses, tragedies and crises one after the other. Though I have been called away for many months and unable to contribute much in the way of articles, the burden of the Lord to produce a series such as this, has finally come to pass.

I did not write the following series, but have been given permission by the writer, QUEK KOH CHOON, to re-post this series for you. He and I share the same burden for the Church, and I'm thrilled to be able to make this available to you. You will be blessed!

I pray that you are encouraged and provoked by the Spirit of the Living God to be determined to live well for the Lord God in the last days.

The daily news is like reading the ancient prophecies of the Old and New Testament. It's hard to keep ignoring the truths in biblical prophecy when we see things coming to fruition before our eyes. So what then does it mean for us? If you know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of your life, this series will provide the right perspective believers should have as they live as God's children; the various problem areas believers will encounter as faithful Christians and disciples of the Lord in the last days; and what we can do to ensure that we stand and not fall in the last days.

If you haven't yet received salvation, it is time to come to Jesus. It is time to receive His wonderful gift of salvation through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is time for repentance. It is time to confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God hath raised him from the dead and be saved!

Let's get started!

"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness," 2 Peter 3:10-11

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A Study in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans – Parts 1 & 2: “On the Road of Righteousness” Chapter Eleven – The Remnant of Israel

~ By James Fire

[note to readers: due to the length of this study, I've divided it into two parts, both have been posted in this one article.]

PART ONE of CHAPTER 11

Early on in the book of Genesis we see the development of two cities: Jerusalem (formerly Salem) and Babel (later, this abandoned city-state becomes an empire, Babylon). These two serve as the dual themes in the Scriptures that portray the work of God – Jerusalem and the work of man and Satan – Babylon.

It’s important to note that in the book of Revelation; both cities are in view, having a longevity that spans nearly the whole of human history. But only one work endures beyond this present reality of creation: Jerusalem, in the form of the eternal New Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven, but is nonetheless the habitation of all the “seed of Abraham” which numbers as “the stars of heaven and the sand on the seashore” (GEN 22:17; HEB 11:11-13) – that is, the seed of believing Israel (the sand on the seashore, referring to the earthly kingdom of the Messiah) and the church (the stars of heaven, referring to that heavenly kingdom of the LORD Jesus Christ, the Head of the church and His bride); ROM 10:11-13.

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A Study in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans – “On the Road of Righteousness” Chapter Ten – Israel, the Church & Biblical Faith

~  By James Fire

Once again we shall delve into the Scriptures and learn what we may, by the grace of our LORD Jesus Christ, our Teacher (EPH 4: 20-21) concerning the nation of Israel and God’s plan for them, a glorious plan which shall be revealed (I believe) quite soon and for which the Gentile nations shall (in that Day) glorify “God in the Highest, and on earth peace, good will toward [all] men” (LUKE 2:14).


Israel Replaced?

As mentioned previously, the false doctrine of Replacement Theology has produced a rather skewed view of Scripture and often muddies its clarity with the distinctions between Israel and the church – these two entities have different origins, different missions and different destinies.

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EMERGENT is REGURGITANT – Part Two:

By James Fire

SECTION ONE -

SAME OL’ SAME OL’ –

The title of this series reveals my view of the Emergent Church Movement (ECM) as being the same old, tired doubt and denigration of God’s Word that has been occurring in our world ever since the garden of Eden when the Serpent first said, “Yea, hath God said . . .?” but has returned in our day with new vigor and ambition.

The Gnostics proposed the same question.
Various esoteric societies revealed in the world for these many centuries have asked the same question.
Religious Institutions that have sought to usurp the authority of God’s Word with their own dogma and traditions have aggressively asked this same question (Like the Roman Catholic religion which we touched on in part One).
The liberal so-called Higher Critics and Bible scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries (we took a brief look at these in part One) have raised this same question.
And now we have the same question regurgitated by these Emergent Church advocates and leaders.
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EMERGENT is REGURGITANT – Part One

By James Fire

PRELIMINARY INTRODUCTION and EXAMINATION –

A few months ago I was perusing the site, Christian Book Distributors (CBD) and discovered an Emergent book (sadly, lots of these on CBD these days) by Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones entitled An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, Baker Books, 2007. It comprises a series of articles (25 in number) written by various Emergent advocates and leaders.

Realizing that most of all our articles for TTUF and its associate sites that focus on the Emergent Church Movement are based on critiques, evaluations and information provided by other Christian discernment ministries, I decided to ‘go to the horses’ mouth’ as it were and examine one of these books for myself.

I purchased this book (retail price was $16.99, but I got it for a mere $3.99 – so I felt good about spending so little on it) and once it arrived, began to digest it (talk about some serious indigestion!).

Once I started, jotting notes and Scripture references in the margins (a rather easy task as this was a trade paperback with wide margins), I quickly understood that I would have to address a couple of issues before diving into my own critique of these Emergent folk.
~*First of all, we all recognize the fact that this movement didn’t spring up spontaneously, though it seems to have since the mid 90’s, with very little mention of it prior; there were formative influences and factors that led up to it, stretching back to the 19th century. This movement makes the claim that because we live in a ‘post-modern’ world, the church must therefore adapt its methods and means of relating to the world with an equally post-modern approach to the Gospel and Christianity in general. Obviously what preceded the post-modern paradigm was the Modernist movement.

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