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How to Change America
How to Change the World
An Editorial by Pastor Anton Bosch
Here is an excerpt from this article…It is excellent …Please read.
It is so easy to blame everyone else and to enumerate the nation’s and the church’s problems. But we often fail to recognize our personal problems and see that change has to begin with each one of us.
We want the Ten Commandments written in stone in the court house, but it is not written in our hearts. In fact, we can’t even recite them!
Full Article Link below
Often I hear Christians quote famous sayings from outside biblical sources. Some are fine but others make me cringe. For instance, once I read in a church bulletin a quote from Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau came from a family of Unitarians, criticized the church during his life, was a panentheist, was into Hinduism and Buddhism, and argued that all religions are legitimate. He was quoted as saying during the last years of his life, “A snowstorm was more to him than Christ.” Yet he is quoted in a church bulletin?
My biblical basis for rejecting philosophers is Colossians 2:8
“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after rudiments of the world and not after Christ.”
Anything that leads us into a worldview and away from a biblical view, removes the impact of God’s word.
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Question: “What is pantheism?” Pantheism is the view that God is everything and everyone and that everyone and everything is God. Pantheism is similar to polytheism (the belief in many gods), but goes beyond polytheism to teach that everything is God. A tree is God, a rock is God, an animal is God, the sky is God, the sun is God, you are God, etc. Pantheism is the supposition behind many cults and false religions (e.g., Hinduism and Buddhism to an extent, the various unity and unification cults, and “mother nature” worshippers).
Answer:
Does the Bible teach pantheism? No, it does not. What many people confuse as pantheism is the doctrine of God’s omnipresence. Psalm 139:7-8 declares, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” God’s omnipresence means He is present everywhere. There is no place in the universe where God is not present. This is not the same thing as pantheism. God is everywhere, but He is not everything. Yes, God is “present” inside a tree and inside a person, but that does not make that tree or person God. Pantheism is not at all a biblical belief.
The clearest biblical arguments against pantheism are the countless commands against idolatry. The Bible forbids the worship of idols, angels, celestial objects, items in nature, etc. If pantheism were true, it would not be wrong to worship such an object, because that object would, in fact, be God. If pantheism were true, worshipping a rock or an animal would have just as much validity as worshipping God as an invisible and spiritual being. The Bible’s clear and consistent denunciation of idolatry is a conclusive argument against pantheism.
Question: “What is panentheism?”Related to Process Theology, panentheism is essentially a combination of theism (God is the supreme being) and pantheism (God is everything). While pantheism says that God and the universe are coextensive, panentheism claims the God is greater than the universe and that the universe is contained within God. Panentheism holds that God is the “supreme effect” of the universe. God is everything in the universe, but God also is greater the universe. Events and changes in the universe effect and change God. As the universe grows and learns, God also increases in knowledge and being.
Answer:
Panentheism is most definitely not biblical. In fact, it is extreme heresy that impugns the character of God and makes Him more like a man. God is present everywhere (Psalm 139:7-8), but God is not everything. God knows everything, whether actual or possible (Psalm 139:1-6; Romans 11:33-35). God does not learn because He already has all knowledge. God is “affected” by things that occur in the universe, but only in that sin angers Him and holiness pleases Him. Our actions do not change God or impact His essential being.
The Bible presents God as holy (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8), sovereign (1 Chronicles 29:11; Nehemiah 9:6; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 37:20), omnipresent (Psalm 139:7-10), omniscient (Job 28:24; Psalm 147:4-5), omnipotent (Job 42:1-2), self-existent (Exodus 3:14; Psalm 36:9), eternal (Psalm 90:2; Habakkuk 1:12), immutable (Psalm 33:11; James 1:17), perfect (Deuteronomy 32:3-4), and infinite (Job 5:9; 9:10). None of these attributes are compatible with panentheism. God transcends all of His creation, and is in no sense limited or changed by events in His Creation.
Recommended Resource: Jesus Among Other gods by Ravi Zacharias.
July 4, 2010
JOHN NEWTON ON TRUE PATRIOTISM
From John Newton’s Letters:
True patriotism!
Dear friend,
Allow me to say, that it excites both my wonder and concern, that a Christian minister such as yourself, should think it worth his while to attempt political reforms. When I look around upon the present state of the nation, such an attempt appears to me, to be no less vain and foolish, than it would be to paint the cabin–while the ship is sinking! Or to decorate the parlor–while the house is on fire!
When our Lord Jesus was upon earth, He refused to get involved in disputes or politics, “Friend, who appointed Me a judge or arbitrator over you?” Luke 12:14. “My kingdom is not of this world! If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight!” John 18:36. God’s children belong to a kingdom which is not of this world; they are strangers and pilgrims upon earth, and a part of their Scriptural character is, that they are the “quiet in the land.” Psalm 35:19.
Satan has many contrivances to amuse people, and to divert their thoughts from their real danger!
My dear sir, my prayer to God for you is–that He may induce you to employ the talents He has given you, in pointing out sin as the great cause and source of every existing evil; and to engage those who love and fear Him, (instead of wasting time in political speculations, for which very few of them are competent,) to sigh and cry for our abounding abominations, and to stand in the breach, by prayer, that God’s wrath may yet be averted, and our national mercies prolonged! This, I think, is true patriotism–the best way in which people in private life may serve their country.
I consider the ungodly as saws and hammers in the hand of the Lord. So far as they are His instruments, they will succeed–but not an inch further! Their wrath shall praise Him, and be subservient to His designs!
If our lot is so cast that we can exercise our ministry free from stripes, fines, imprisonments, and death–it is more than the gospel has promised to us! If Christians were quiet when under the cruel governments of Nero and other wicked persecutors, when they were hunted down like wild beasts–then we ought to be not only quiet but very thankful now! It was then accounted an honor to suffer for Christ and the ‘offence of the cross’!
Those are to be greatly pitied, who boast of their ‘liberty’–and yet they do not consider that they are in the most deplorable bondage as the slaves of sin and Satan, under the curse of God’s law and His eternal wrath! Oh! for a voice to reach their hearts, that they may know their true and dreadful state–and seek deliverance from their horrific thraldom! May you and I labor to direct them to the one thing, which is absolutely needful, and abundantly sufficient.
If I had the wisdom or influence to soothe the angry passions of mankind–I would gladly employ them! But I am a stranger and a pilgrim here in this world. My charter, my rights and my treasures, are all in heaven–and there my heart ought to be. In a very short time, I may be removed (and perhaps suddenly) into the unseen and eternal world–where all that now causes so much bustle upon earth–will be of no more importance to me–than the events which took place among the antediluvians!
In the hour, when death shall open the door into eternity–many things which now assume an ‘air of importance’, will be found as light and unsubstantial as a child’s dream!
How crucial then, is it for me–to be found watching, with my lamp burning, diligently engaged in my proper calling! For the Lord has not called me to set governments right–but to preach the gospel, to proclaim the glory of His name, and to endeavor to win souls! “Let the dead bury their own dead–but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God!” Luke 9:60. Happy is that servant, whom his Master finds so doing, when He returns!
As you have forced me to respond–both duty and love have obliged me to be faithful and free in giving you my thoughts.
I recommend you to the care and blessing of the great Shepherd and Savior; and remain for His sake, your affectionate friend and brother,
John Newton
http://gracegems.org/Newton/135.htm
Taken from The Berean Call
Andrew Strom is selling a book…..and this is the video documentary he has produced to promote it.
Now, I think people should see this video but I hesitate to promote Andrew Strom. He has professed to “come out” of the prophetic movement, yet he still promotes prophetic utterances over the Bible. There is a string of predictions about the economy on his website which he is defending.
In this video he says that Kundalini “maybe produces animal noises” but neglects to explain that a false spirit often speaks in another language.
This is a dangerous omission.
Read this from a Kundalini Teacher:
Most kriyas are simple tremors or twitches as tension held in the body, releases. However, they can be quite complex movements, breathing patterns, (pranayama) vocalizations, visions,… the body will do whatever it needs to do, to facilitate the blockage being cleared, and it has all the wisdom of the Collective consciousness, to draw upon. So, a Kriya may take the form of an African Dance, a Sanskrit song, an Aboriginal drum chant, or anything. Energy clearing techniques that have been used by different cultures for thousands of years, tend to have a higher resonance in the Collective, and the body-mind guidance will make use of that unconscious information, bring it forth.
That is why people who may never have studied Hatha Yoga, find their bodies wanting to assume Yoga postures, or why people who do not speak a foreign language may find themselves spontaneously chanting in Sanskrit.
Strom also states that all this started in the year 1994, which may be the case for the Toronto Church, but I was exposed to these manifestations while visiting a church in Seattle in the year 1969. I remember that the all ushers were dressed in white uniforms as they collected the people laying and flaying in the aisles. They used cots to cart them off.
DiscernIt 
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