Category: paganism

How God Rules His World

~ Sherry ~ 10 Comments

This teaching series is well worth the listen. Part 2 makes me all the more glad that our Beloved delivered me from the demonic practice of worshiping Him in the same manner as the heathen do their gods, i.e., the Christ Mass and the Easter. Part 3 had me praising our Beloved for delivering me from the spiritual warfare of C. Peter Wagner and such like who rebuke demons after mapping to find out who they are. We surely are wrestling against the powers and the principalities of the air! But we must do it according to God’s holy Word. This series was an eye-opener for me and a great encouragement in my walk with our Beloved Savior and King.

 

Satan’s Churches Unite

~ Sherry ~ 6 Comments

Coexistence to Imitation to Idolatry

~ Sherry ~ 2 Comments

Israel’s fall into idolatry did not begin with open rebellion, but with compromise.

They did not fully separate from the nations as God commanded, and that small tolerance became the doorway to greater corruption. “They did not destroy the peoples… but mingled with the nations and learned their practices” (Psalm 106:34-35).

What began as coexistence became imitation. And imitation became idolatry. “They served their idols, which became a snare to them” (Psalm 106:36).

This is the pattern. When God’s people fail to remain distinct, they do not influence the world, they are influenced by it. “Do not be conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2).

So the issue is not just avoiding idolatry, but guarding against the compromises that lead to it.

Because idolatry rarely starts with rejection. It starts with resemblance.

~ Jeremiah Knight (X; Facebook)

“So they feared the LORD, but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.” 2 Kings 17:33

THEY FEARED THE LORD, YET SERVED THEIR OWN GODS

Mongrel Religionists

~ Sherry ~ 1 Comment

“So these nations feared the Lord and served their graven images, both their children, and their children’s children: as did their fathers, so do they unto this day.”- 2Kings 17:41

SO DO THEY UNTO THIS DAY,” said the writer of the Book of Kings, who has long since passed away unto his fathers. Were he alive now he might say concerning the spiritual descendants of these Samaritans, “So do they unto this day.” This base union of fearing God and serving other gods is by no means obsolete. Alas, it is too common everywhere, and to be met with where you might least expect it. From generation to generation there have been Mongrel Religionists, who have tried to please both God and the devil, and have been on both sides, or on either side, as their interest led them. Some of these wretched blenders are always hovering around every congregation, and my hope is that I may convince the consciences of some here present that they themselves are guilty, and that of them it might be said, as of these Assyrian immigrants, “They feared the Lord, and served their own gods.”

…The greatest curse, perhaps, that ever visited the world came upon it in this way. Certain vain-glorious preachers desired to convert the world at a stroke, and to make converts without the work of the Spirit. They saw the people worshipping their gods, and they thought that if they could call these by the names of saints and martyrs the people would not mind the change, and so they would be converted. The idea was to Christianize heathenism. They virtually said to idolaters, “Now, good people, you may keep on with your worship, and yet you can be Christians at the same time. This image of the Queen of heaven at your door need not be moved. Light the lamp still; only call the image ‘our Lady,’ and ‘the Blessed Virgin.’ Here is another image; don’t pull it down, but change its name from Jupiter to Peter.” Thus with a mere change of names they perpetuated idolatry: they set up their altars in the groves, and upon every high hill, and the people were converted without knowing it-converted to a baser heathenism than their own. They wanted priests, and, lo, there they were, robed like those who served at the altars of Jove. The people saw the same altars and sniffed the same incense, kept the same holy days and observed the same carnivals as aforetime, and called everything by Christian names. Hence came what is now called the Roman Catholic religion, which is simply fearing God and serving other gods. Every village has its own peculiar saint, and often its own particular black or white image of the Virgin, with miracles and wonders to sanctify the shrine. This evil wrought so universally that Christianity seemed in danger of extinction from the prevalence of idolatry, and it would have utterly expired had it not been of God, and had he not therefore once more put forth his hand and raised up reformers, who cried out, “There is but one God, and one Mediator between God and man.” Brave voices called the church back to her allegiance and to the parity of her faith. As for any of you who are trying to link good and evil, truth and falsehood together, beware of the monstrous birth which will come of such an alliance: it will bring on you a curse from the Most High.

Finish reading the sermon here: https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1622.cfm

A Call For Reformation

~ Sherry ~ Leave a comment

The Separated State

~ Sherry ~ Leave a comment

Come, ye children of God, you must stand out with your Lord outside the camp. Jesus calls to you to-day, and says, “Follow Me.” Was Jesus found at the theater? Did He frequent the sports of the racecourse? Was Jesus seen, think you, in any of the amusements of the Herodian court? Not He. He was “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.” In one sense no one mixed with sinners so completely as He did when, like a physician, He went among them healing His patients; but in another sense there was a gulf fixed between the men of the world and the Savior which He never essayed to cross, and which they could not cross to defile Him. The first lesson which the church has to learn is this: Follow Jesus into the separated state, and He will make you fishers of men. Unless you take up your cross and protest against an ungodly world, you cannot hope that the holy Jesus will make you fishers of men. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1906.cfm

Be Ye Separate

~ Sherry ~ 3 Comments

You remember John Knox’s memorable saying, when he turned the Romanists out, he went straight away to pull down their chapels. He gathered the mob together, and began to overhaul the whole of their places of worship. Why should John Knox meddle with them? ” I’ll pull the nests down,” said he, “then I shall be sure that the birds will never come back.” So I would today. I would not only drive away the birds-the sin, the evil; but I would pull down the nest, so that there will be no temptation to you to come back again to the sin. “Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will be a Father unto you.” Come out from the world, ye children of Christ. Have naught to do with their enjoyments, nor with their devices. Follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Go not a whoring after these iniquities, but drink thou waters out of thine own cistern, and be thou always ravished with His love who is thy Lord, thy husband, thy hope, thy joy, thine all.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/2ch/31/1/s_398001

Christians Losing Discernment

~ Sherry ~ Leave a comment

What an interesting article! I did not know that there can be no such thing as Christian Rock music. This article, What’s Wrong With Christian Rock?, will explain why. When it comes to Christian music I stumble alot with discernment. Its tough, but its so very important to do it and after reading this article, I understand the importance more than ever.

Here’s an excerpt:

To give an example of thinking of those who listen to “heavy metal,” I had a few email exchanges with a young man who emailed me asking why it was wrong for him to listen to Christian metal. He believed that he was helping people to be saved by Jesus Christ because he was relating to them with that music, and he used 1 Cor 9 as a reference to back up his claim (something his youth pastor probably taught him).

For though I be free from all [men], yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all [men], that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with [you].
-1 Corinthians 9:19-22

With this verse, the young man wrote to me, “Paul said that you have to become what you must to relate to people to enable them to be saved.”

I asked him a question to gauge who I was talking to, and whether or not he studied the Word of God to have a proper understand of what Paul was writing in 1 Corinthians, “Let’s assume your interpretation of this scripture for a moment. Does that mean if I want to reach pagans, I must start practicing witchcraft, and God approves of me practicing witchcraft?” (admin note: this sounds like those who say they celebrate X Mass, even knowing its pagan/papist roots, to spread the Gospel)

He responded, “If you consider the gospel put into a secular band to be witchcraft then yes and I’d also say God approves of that. I don’t know about you but I can’t see sin in that.”
(Read “Halloween: Are Christians Lovers of Death?” here at creationliberty.com for more details about the sin of witchcraft)

If Phil is saved (I don’t know him well enough to know if he is or isn’t), he obviously has no discernment of Scripture because even though witchcraft is labeled as abomination unto God, this young man believes that using sin will preach the Gospel. As I have written before in many articles, we cannot pick out one section of a verse and make an entire doctrine out of it when there are other correlating verses we must take into consideration to establish a proper interpretation of Scripture. We don’t become alcoholics to save drunkards, we don’t become slothful to save the lazy, and we don’t become witches to save pagans because we don’t use our liberty in Christ to satisfy our flesh. (bold mine)

For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
-Galatians 5:13

A guy named Mike also wrote me with a similar argument, saying, “1 Cor 9:20 has been taken out of context many times, true. But if it doesn’t mean adapting who we are to the customs of those around you in order to win souls what does it mean?”

For example, money is not evil, but the love of money is evil. The Bible condemns the obsession over material things. Money does not have a conscience; good can be done with money, and evil can be done with money. The Bible tells us that one day, money is going to be converted into a system where the mark of the beast will be involved (Rev 13:17, and that is a spawn of Satan. When Satanism gets into our currency, what does the Bible say to do? DO NOT TAKE THAT MARK under any circumstance. (Rev 14:11) Will you be able to use money (buy/sell) if you don’t take the mark? Nope. God is showing us that when money goes Satanic, you should not have anything to do with it, and God takes it so seriously, that Revelation 14 describes people going directly to hell for taking that mark.

Likewise, music is not evil, but the obsession with music is evil. Music does not have a conscience; good can be done with music, and evil can be done with music. But when Satanism is poured into music, should we (as born-again Christians) turn around and use that music for God’s glory? Be careful how you answer that question, because to say ‘yes’ is the same as saying, “I will take the mark of the beast and use it for God’s glory.” There is a line God draws on what we do, but Christians today tend to take a lackluster approach to the devices of Satan.

I’m not saying a Christian isn’t saved because he/she listens to rock/metal music, but I am saying that many use that music to replace studying the Word of God, and what you listen to WILL affect your mind and heart. Many are addicted to the music, and in unrighteous fashion, end up using God’s Word as a justification for their carnal addiction. The young men who emailed me have spent so much time listening to the teaching of Christian rock, they have lost sight of what the Word of God teaches us. Though there may be Christians who listen to that type of music, it can destroy their discernment, and Satan will take advantage of them.

Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.
-2 Corinthians 2:11

Here is that article again: What’s Wrong With Christian Rock?