Idolatry…

It is idolatry to worship the true God

by a wrong method.

Thomas Watson

Salvation-Through-Christ-Only

A Denunciation of Popery-Dr. H. Grattan Guiness

From Harold Vicknair via Gordon Kelse-Furr  :

61872_1596130350963_2332333_n
Taken from the floor of St Peters Basilica

Vatican comes from 2 Latin words
Vatis = profetic or diviner
Can = serpent or snake
Vatican = Divining serpent
( Rev 12:9) And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.

Cardinal Manning says: “The Catholic Church is either the masterpiece of Satan or the Kingdom of the Son of God. A sacerdotal order is historically the essence of the Church of Rome; if not divinely appointed, it is doctrinally the essence of antichrist.”

In both these statements the issue is clear, and it is the same. Rome herself admits, openly admits, that if she is not the very kingdom of Christ, she is that of antichrist. Rome declares she is one or the other. She herself propounds and urges this solemn alternative

You shrink from it, do you? I accept it. Conscience constrains me. History compels me. The past, the awful past rises before me. I see THE GREAT APOSTASY, I see the desolation of Christendom, I see the smoking ruins, I see the reign of monsters; I see those vicegods, that Gregory VIII, that Innocent III, that Boniface VIII, that Alexander VI, that Gregory XIII, that Pius IX; I see their long succession, I see their abominable lives; I see them worshipped by blinded generations, bestowing hollow benedictions, bartering lying indulgences, creating a paganized Christianity;! see their liveried slaves, their shaven priests, their celibate confessors; I see the infamous confessional, the ruined women, the murdered innocents; I hear the lying absolutions, the dying groans; I hear the cries of the victims; I hear the anathemas, the curses, the thunders of the interdicts; I see the racks, the dungeons, the stakes; I see that inhuman Inquisition, those fires of Smithfield, those butcheries of St. Bartholomew, that Spanish Armada, those unspeakable massacres.

I see it all, and in the name of the ruin it has wrought in the Church and in the world, in the name of the truth it has denied, the temple it has defiled, the God it has blasphemed, the souls it has destroyed; in the name of the millions it has deluded, the millions it has slaughtered, the millions it has damned; with holy confessors, with noble reformers, with innumerable martyrs, with the saints of ages, I denounce it as the masterpiece of Satan as the body and soul and essence of antichrist”

– DR. H. GRATTAN GUINNESS
The great Revival Preacher of 1859

Christian Liberty?

“G. 1 Cor. 8:4-13; Rom. 14:1-13; 1 Cor. 10:14, 18-21 — These passages concerning Christian liberty are discussed in more detail under Roman numeral IV. [Christian liberty can best be defined Biblically as “the freedom to engage in practices not prohibited by the Scriptures or denying oneself what is permitted (i.e., a moral choice of self-discipline) in order to be a more effective witness for God.” So the question must first be answered, “Is Christmas permitted?”] Briefly, some claim that Paul is teaching that the participation in pagan forms condemns no one, and therefore, participation in Christmas and its forms, even though arising out of pagan idolatry, is inconsequential. However, Paul nowhere approves participation in acts of idolatry, of which the participation in the pagan forms of Christmas comes dangerously close to doing. Instead, Paul is speaking of the liberty to continue in Jewish days of worship/festival that had been previously ordained under the Jewish law. There is certainly no liberty to bring outside pagan forms into the church’s worship services. Likewise, there is no liberty to Christianize Babylonian/Roman pagan holy days as special days.

Christians in the first century churches had the liberty to observe Old Testament holy days and feasts (days that had previously been revealed by God) if they were so immature as to do so. The weaker brother, Paul wrote, was at that time not to be censured for continuing to attach some importance to the Old Testament holy days, as a clear knowledge of their abolition in Christ was not yet given to him (the weaker brother). But to observe a pagan holy day is something this passage does not sanction. They certainly did not have the liberty to regard Babylonian/Roman pagan holy days (days that were invented by the devil) as special days. Again, that would have been idolatry, worldliness, and perhaps even a form of Satan worship on their part. Therefore, how can the observance of Christmas Day, or any other Babylonian/Roman Catholic holy day, be a matter of Christian liberty?

Yet when some of us refuse to regard the pagan holy days as special days, we are the ones often referred to as the “weaker brother” in this matter! Are we opposed to such days because we are “weak in faith”? Faith would be defined as believing what the Word of God says about a matter and acting upon it. It was by faith that we stopped regarding pagan holy days as special days. Would we be more mature Christians if we would start regarding such days again? It would certainly be much easier on our families and us” (Dr. Scott Johnson).

Obedience in Our Worship

Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day.  For this was a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob. – Psalm 81:3,4

Obedience is to direct our worship, not whim and sentiment: God’s appointments give a solemnity to rites and times which no ceremonial pomp or hierarchical ordinance could confer. The Jews not only observed the ordained month, but that part of the month which had been divinely set apart. The Lord’s people in the olden time welcomed the times appointed for worship; let us feel the same exultation, and never speak of the Sabbath (Lord’s Day) as though it could be other than a ‘delight’ and ‘honorable.’ Those who plead this passage as an authority for their man-appointed feasts and fasts must be moon-struck. We will keep such feasts as the Lord appoints, but not those which Rome or Canterbury may ordain.

“For this was a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob.” It was a precept binding upon all the tribes that a person should be set apart to commemorate the Lord’s mercy, and truly it was but the Lord’s due. He had a right and a claim to such special homage. When it can be proved that the observance of Christmas, Whitsuntide and other Popish festivals were ever instituted by a divine statute, we will also attend to them, but not till then. It is as much our duty to reject the traditions of men as to observe the ordinances of the Lord.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

Treasury of David, Psalm 81

Fearing the Keeping of Holy Days & the Spiritual Bondage of Christmas, Easter, Etc

Galatians 4:9-11King James Version (KJV)

But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?

10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.

11 I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.

2 Peter 2:21King James Version (KJV)

21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.

http://www.sermonaudio.com/playpopup.asp?SID=6914121226

From the comment line:

Asa (6/12/2014)

from Arizona
“ Great Sermon! ”
Good warnings about bringing pagan and Old Testament worship in the New Testament church. The sun has risen the shadows are ALL gone ! Still Waters Revival Books (6/18/2014)

from Edmonton, Alberta
“ The Spiritual Bondage Of Christmas, Easter, Etc. ”
Well said Asa! The following quote is interesting and sadly demonstrates how far our generation of Protestant and Reformed churches have fallen into the spiritual bondage of keeping Pagan and Roman Catholic holy days, which are not authorized by God in the Bible: In 1899, the General Assembly of the PCUS was overtured to give a “pronounced and explicit deliverance” against the recognition of “Christmas and Easter as religious days.” Even at this late date, the answer came back in a solid manner: “There is no warrant in Scripture for the observance of Christmas and Easter as holydays, rather the contrary (see Gal. 4:9-11; Col. 2:16-21), and such observance is contrary to the principles of the Reformed faith, conducive to will-worship, and not in harmony with the simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” – Kevin Reed, Christmas: An Historical Survey Regarding Its Origins and Opposition to It (Free Online Book at http://ow.ly/yacpW).

 

Please Don’t Twist Matthew 7…

21766503_10155762980459680_9094561823669579599_n

A Call to Separation – A. W. Pink

XMas by A.W. Pink

Sermon-A Holy God and Holy Days

http://www.sermonaudio.com/playpopup.asp?SID=1225111136427

Deuteronomy 7:5King James Version (KJV)

But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

Two ways to approach celebrating man-made “holy” days:

unbiblical way-you can celebrate anything so long as God does not forbid it in His Word (yet, He does forbid paganism mixed in with the holy worship of Him!)

biblical way-you can only celebrate that which is found in God’s Word and only in the way that is according to His Word

17df6bb4c2f46d65b340212ca9d688ab