O you who love the Lord, hate evil! – Psalm 97:10 ~ There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. – Proverbs 14:12
A wonderful, uplifting sermon. Listen closely because he briefly mentions why there are those who do not attend church~
2 Kings 17 reveals that God’s patience does run out where the paganized worship of Him is concerned…christianized paganism leads to paganized worship of God which does descend into worship of another god, another Jesus. And, is not pagan/papist “holy” days, traditions and rituals, an idol when one cannot loose their grip of them when confronted with God’s Word saying, do not do as the heathen do for their gods in our worshiping Him? If one must justify, apart from scriptural authority, or, with scriptures contorted, doing that which God forbids then the thing being done is an idol.
Now, if God judged and punished the Israelites for their syncretic worship of Him, why do Christians believe they will get a pass for doing the same?
You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1Peter 2:5)
Paganism is the default religion of the human race. Without true, Biblical teaching we think like pagans. Many have rightly pointed out that Roman Catholicism is paganized Christianity. In that context, Luther fought to bring us back to the truth of the gospel as found in scripture alone. A concomitant teaching of scripture alone is the priesthood of every believer. Pagans typically wish to have a supposed holy man (or shaman) to stand between them and God, many Christians are looking for the same. False teachers and false prophets take advantage of this tendency to abuse the flock.
In Luther’s day the abuse came from the Pope and the hierarchy of authorities under him. In that context, some Christians from Bohemia wrote to Luther to ask what to do. The Pope was making them send people to Rome at their own expense and pay tribute to have authorized “priests” to head churches. Luther’s answer was the biblical doctrine of the priesthood of every believer. He claimed that the Roman Catholic priesthood was illegitimate and comprised of the unregenerate. As such, they were not truly priests. Luther identified seven functions of priests, and proved from scripture that each of these legitimately pertained to every true saint, born from above.
Today the doctrine of the priesthood of every believer is typically neglected. The implications of the doctrine are not on the minds of many Christians. In this vacuum, religious authorities do what Roman Catholic authorities did in Luther’s day – they abuse the saints. In this article we will examine the seven functions identified by Luther along with his Biblical proof. I will argue that Luther’s doctrine was indeed Biblical and needs to be brought back to the forefront of our preaching and teaching. If we are truly priests to God, we need to know the privileges and duties that attend this position we have in Christ.
What you are about to read is not my opinion. You are about to read facts which I will support using Scripture. I have no agenda other than my life’s purpose of being an ambassador for Christ.
Believe it or not, the celebration of Christmas, is not a celebration of the birth of Jesus as you were told in church or at school. Christmas has nothing to do with The Bible or with Yehoshua (Jesus’ real name). Rather, Christmas is a successful attempt to Christianize a previously pagan festival. The reasoning behind this passing off of paganism as Christianity is because as Europe surrendered to Christendom (a completely different phenomenon not to be mistaken for Christianity or Christ follower-ship), it became necessary in the eyes of the various kingdoms of Europe that merged with the Holy Roman Catholic Church to Christianize their pagan holidays and bring about a Catholic (the word Catholic simply means universal. It does not mean Christian) or acceptable holiday.
Thus Samhain became known as Halloween, the pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice known as Yule (hence the term Yuletide) became Christmas and the celebration of the goddess named Ēostre, became Easter.
In truth, whether called by their original pagan names or their new Christendom names, none of these festivals appear in the Bible (the King James Version deliberately translates Passover as Easter in Acts 12:4 mostly because of King James’ strong association with demonology, but all other translations reject that and left it how the original Greek Scriptures described it-Passover).
Continue reading here: https://www.nairaland.com/4919971/christmas-when-son-man-returns
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