Wednesday, December
11, 2013, 9:45 a.m. – the Lord Jesus put the song “Unless You Are Born Again” in my mind. Speak, Lord, your words to
my heart I read 1 John 1-2:6 (ESV).
Introduction to 1
John: Excerpt (Zondervan NIV Life Application Study Bible)
“The
main problem confronting the church of this time was declining commitment: many
believers were conforming to the world’s standards, failing to stand up for
Christ, and compromising their faith. False teachers were plentiful, and they
were accelerating the church’s downward slide away from the Christian faith.
“John
wrote this letter to put believers back on track, to show the difference
between light and darkness (truth and error), and to encourage the church to
grow in genuine love for God and for one another.”
Truth vs. Error
I quoted this section of this introduction to 1 John because
I believe it speaks accurately of where we are as a church here in America
today, and perhaps in other nations throughout the world, as well, which is a critical
spiritual issue facing the church. I also believe the Lord Jesus would have me
address a very serious false teaching of global proportions that has recently
surfaced out of the Roman Catholic Church, because many throughout the world –
believers in Jesus Christ, non-Catholics and non-believers, alike – are being
captivated by its message and many are “falling in love” with the messenger,
the “New World Pope,” as he was titled by Time Magazine when he appeared on the
cover of the magazine in March of this year. He came to the forefront again
today as Time Magazine named Pope Francis - the “New World Pope” - as “Person
of the Year.” So, I did some research on the pope.
I read Pope Francis’ Letter to La Repubblica: “An open
dialogue with non-believers,” dated September 11, 2013. He was responding,
apparently, to a letter the founder of the magazine had addressed to the pope
publicly in the July 7th edition of the magazine. Then I read “The
Pope: how the Church will change,” dated Oct 1, 2013, which was written by the
magazine’s founder, “Eugenio Scalfari,” and which supposedly represented a
face-to-face dialogue he had with the pope. I will just hit some of the
highlights of these two articles, because there is just so much there, and so
much of it is written or spoken in such an obscure manner that it was difficult
for me, in places, to discern where the pope was headed or what he really
meant, as it seemed to jump around quite a bit.
To the pope, the “most urgent problem” facing the church
today was two-fold: 1) “youth unemployment,” and 2) “loneliness of the old.” He
believed this to be the “most urgent” and the “most dramatic” of all the
problems the church faces. Wow! When the atheist founder of the magazine
suggested to him that his friends thought the pope might try to convert him (to
Christianity and to faith in Jesus Christ), the pope said, “Proselytism is
solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen
to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.. This is
important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world
is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the more
important thing is that they lead towards the Good.”
Proselytism “refers to the attempt of any religion or
religious individuals to convert people to their beliefs, or any attempt to
convert people to a different point of view, religious or not” (Wikipedia). So,
youth unemployment and lonely old people is “most urgent,” according to the
pope, but trying to lead people to saving faith in Jesus Christ is “solemn nonsense.”
Wow! And, not only that, but he said we need to expand our thinking, as long as
it leads toward “the Good.” When asked of the magazine founder the “single
vision” of the Good, and to tell who decides what is good, the pope reportedly
replied, “Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage
people to move towards what they think is good… Everyone has his own idea of
good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives
them.” Again, Wow! Is not the “single vision” of what is good God? And, is he
not the one who decides what is good and what is evil, and not man?
[Disclaimer: After
much outside criticism of these remarks purportedly made by the pope, the Vatican
has removed the magazine’s write-up of the conversation from their website, and
apparently the pope is saying his words may have been misunderstood. As well, the
magazine founder is stating publicly that perhaps he may have written words
supposedly from the pope that may not have been his. But why did they wait
until after the write-up of the interview had been met with much criticism before
coming out with these “disclaimers,” and why did they post the interview on the
Vatican’s website to begin with?]
Then, the pope went on to define “agape love” as “love of
others, as our Lord preached. It is not proselytizing, it is love. Love for one’s
neighbor, that leavening that serves the common good.” He continued, “The Son
of God became incarnate in order to instill the feeling of brotherhood in the
souls of men. All are brothers and all children of God… Agape, the love of each
one of us for the other, from the closest to the furthest, is in fact the only
way that Jesus has given us to find the way of salvation and of the Beatitudes.”
Again, Wow!
Agape love is god-like love, i.e. it is loving others like
God loves us, because it is rooted in God, not in man, and is not conditional
based upon the one being loved, but is based in the love of God within the one
doing the loving, i.e. God loving others through us. Yet, the pope excluded the
preaching of the gospel of salvation from that love, but Jesus’ main mission
was to save us from our sins and to free us to walk in his righteousness and
holiness, which is the essence of the gospel. Only through faith in Christ can
we have such a great salvation, so to exclude the preaching of the gospel
(winning souls to Christ) from agape love is ludicrous! We are not all children
of God. Only those who believe in Jesus Christ are his children. He also
suggested that our goal should NOT be to try to win people to faith in Jesus
Christ, their only hope of salvation, but we must restore hope to the young
people, help the old, spread love, etc. But the love he is speaking of is not
divine love, it is human love, and it is selfish in nature, not god-like, for
it seeks to be one with the world and modern culture which feeds the sinful
desires of humans, instead of seeking Christlikeness.
Then, he went on to deny the deity of Christ: “Jesus is my
teacher and my pastor, but God, the Father, Abba, is the light and the Creator.”
This goes directly against Jesus’ own claims, as well as it goes against the
teachings of the apostles, particularly here in 1 John 1 and in John 1 in which
John makes it quite clear that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is also God, our
creator, who was with God from the beginning, and who is God, the second person
of our triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So, he must not believe in the
trinity, either. One of the biggest reasons Jesus was hated was because he claimed
to be who he was – God. The other main reason he was hated was because he
confronted people with their sins and he told them they must turn from them and
that they must walk with him in submission and surrender if they want to have
eternal life with God in heaven. Jesus was not hated and crucified because he
was Mr. Nice Guy who just “loved” on everyone, as the pope and others like him
seem to infer. The pope is a strong global voice for oneness of religion among
many faiths and including non-believers (atheists), so watch out! He is not a
voice of reason, but he is a tool of Satan to pull believers away from pure
devotion to Jesus Christ.
Walking in the Light
That
which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our
eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word
of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and
proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made
manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so
that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the
Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that
our joy may be complete.
This
is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light,
and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while
we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in
the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the
blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word
is not in us.
My
little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But
if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also
for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know
him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep
his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his
word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we
are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in
which he walked.
Again, God is not in everyone. We are not all God’s
children. The primary way in which God demonstrated his love for us was in that
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He gave up his life for us so we
could be free from the control of sin over our lives, free from slavery to
self-pleasure, and so we could be free to walk in Christ’s righteousness and
holiness. And, the only hope we have for our future is to trust him with our
lives by humbling ourselves before him in turning from our lifestyles of living
for self and sin, by being transformed (born again) of the Spirit of God, and
by turning to God to walk in his purity and holiness the rest of our days,
allowing him to live out his life through us. And, that is the only true hope
for the future we have to give other people, too.
Yes, we should care for the poor and needy, and lift up the
fallen, and help heal the sick and injured, and care for the lonely and the
oppressed, but where is agape love if we deny our Lord Jesus and we refuse to
share the only hope with the world that there is? We have no fellowship with
God if we do not walk in the light of his word, his truth, his purity,
righteousness, holiness and his love, and if we continue to walk in the
sinfulness and selfishness of our own human flesh. We should not follow in the
ways of the pope or in the ways of the self-created concept of the Jesus he
would have us believe in, but we are to walk in the ways of Christ as recorded
in God’s holy word, the Bible, as witnessed to and as written about by the
apostles, and as demonstrated to us by the life of Jesus Christ and by his own
words. That means we have a responsibility to not compromise, blend, or dilute
the true gospel in favor of this one-world everybody love everybody religion
that is absent of the only true hope there is. We need to hold fast to the
truth of the gospel, not deny our Lord, and we need to keep sharing the gospel
of salvation so people can be saved.
Unless You Are Born
Again
An Original Work / November 3, 2013
Based off John 3:1-21
Nicodemus came to
Jesus.
He acknowledged God
was with Him.
Jesus said, “You can’t
see heaven
Unless you are born
again.”
“How can a man be born
when he’s old?
Can he enter into his
mother’s womb?”
Jesus answered, “Flesh
is flesh,
So of the Spirit, you
must be.”
Jesus said to
Nicodemus,
“You’re a teacher, and
yet you don’t
Understand of what I
tell you,
Because you will not believe.
“For God so loved the
world that He gave
His one and His only
Son for your sin.
So, whoever believes
in Him
Has eternal life in
heav’n.
“Light has come into
the world,
But human beings love
the darkness,
Because their deeds
are so evil,
So in truth, they
stand condemned.
“Everyone who
practices evil
Fears that the Light
will expose his sin.
Yet, whoever lives his
life by the Light
Does so through his
God.”
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