Here we go again…

Ken Silva reports about Katharine Jefferts Schori, head of the Episcopal Church, as she uses twisted scripture about promises made by God to Jews and those of Ishmael, and her feelings as justification for saying Jews and Muslims are saved even if they do not claim Jesus as Savior:

So clearly, the other Abrahamic faiths have access to God the Father, without (noticeably pauses) consciously going through Jesus. I also look around at people from other faith traditions; ah, and there’s some great examples out there like Mahatma Gandhi, or the Dalai Lama, ah, who – or Thich Nyat Hahn – who shows us what look like fruits of the Spirit. Who show us in their lives, what we see as godly behavior.

If I deny that person has some access to God – because of the evidence I see – I think I’m doing something pretty close to the sin against the Holy Spirit… I believe that the whole world has access to God. I just not too worried about the mechanism…because in some parts of Christianity, we have turned salvation into a work; that you have to say, “I claim Jesus as my Lord and Savior,” in order to be saved. That turns it into a work; it denies the possibility of grace.

Of course, the promises from God to Hagar about Ishmael became reality, but they did not include the Messianic line or salvation apart from Christ. They were about his descendants becoming a great people, which they have. Of course it is a small step from there to admitting all into the universalism tent with the usual suspects such as Gandhi leading the way. A few scriptures will suffice.

Galatians 1:6-9
1 Timothy 2:5
1 John 4:3

We have been covering the ECUSA and their descent into apostasy, and

here,
here,
here,
here,
and here

are some of our previous updates.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

EVERYTHING!

Christians do not observe the Jewish Day of Atonement.

Asking for an “Atonement Offering” flies directly in the face of Jesus' atonement for our sins on the cross of Calvary. Offering God money for atonement is a form of denying Christ's sacrifice.

The old covenant was with the Jews, not with “you’s”.

People think that modern day Judaizing doesn’t happen today but here we have a clear example of it. No it isn’t asking for circumcision to become a Christian, but that isn’t all Judaizing was about, it was also about doing Jewish works in order to be a better Christian as we see typified here. When Paul was writing Galatians, some were saying that you had to be Jewish to be saved, or that you had to do Jewish customs to be an advanced disciple. Wrong, dead, damningly wrong. Jesus was and is the substance that filled in the shadows. The tabernacle, feasts, and all those ceremonial trappings, customs, rituals, and offerings were all symbolic of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:3-4 / Luke 24:27 / John 5:39, 6:29-58 / Galatians 4:9-10 / Colossians 2:17 / Hebrews 10:1,14). They were types, and Christ is the antitype. You don’t go back to the type when the antitype has come. You don’t then go back to the type or try and reinvigorate or reinvent the type as a new form of blessing. Feasts, etc., don’t bring a new or extra blessing. “Jesus plus” types of false gospels elevate man and diminish God. If we have to do something then Jesus’ payment wasn’t enough, His value wasn’t great enough to fully pay for my sin, or to secure blessings or sanctification.

Yes, we can give the benefit of the doubt and say they aren’t trying to get you to give for forgiveness of sin, but they are trying to get you to give to them in order to receive a special blessing, and they are doing it based on a false teaching, false teaching of the worst and first sort to the Christian world, Judaizing. We don’t go through the steps anymore that is the old covenant which pointed to Christ, and to do it again, that is to retrace and rework the steps Jesus fulfilled, that isn’t what following Christ is about.

Those seven blessings, whatever they are, have been obtained in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). To go back and try to get them now for yourself is blasphemous and again saying Christ’s atonement was insufficient for you to have them, or that you must “work” to obtain them (which would be modern day Judaizing). Christ is the fulfillment of the tabernacle and IS our tabernacle; He is the real Tabernacle in heaven (Revelation 21:3).

You will not honor God with your atonement offering, and you will not receive some extra seven fold blessing other supposedly less informed or less spiritual believers will not get. Instead you will blaspheme His Son, Jesus Christ, and if, like this sign, that atonement is money well, then Acts 8:20 speaks plainly to you. Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.

Of course they might say, “no we love God, it is all about Jesus, that is why we are doing this!” Look at the teaching at face value. It is as if they believe that Jesus has given them all the spiritual, or eternal blessings, but they obtain the material, or temporal blessings by their works. And they believe that if they have faith in them they will get what they think they are promised. You do NOT please God apart from Jesus, and Jesus does NOT go back with you to try and re-fulfill the types and shadows. If you turn back to types, you have turned away from Christ.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Look the Part?

For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
(Matthew 23:25 – ESV)

Recently the leaders of a large, well known church had been questioned about some of their business activities and spending of donations, and other seeming inconsistencies to the Christian life. One such item was the fact that these leaders had undergone numerous sessions of cosmetic surgery. This is not meant to demean plastic surgery in general, and especially reconstructive surgery, which may be necessary after a tragic accident and disfigurement. It isn’t wrong to be dignified and try and look your best.

That isn’t the point, but the answer given pointed to something far more serious. The reason this struck such a discordant note was that the one man who was asked about it said that they did it because they were TV personalities and that they had to “look the part”. Believe me, friend, they do, they look exactly like the part that Jesus warned us about. Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves (Matthew 7:15 – ESV).

These TV Pharisees are selling the gospel of themselves. Jesus said He was the way the truth and the life, but these pied pipers to perdition twist that to mean the way out of poverty, the truth of prosperity and the life of wealth and ease. Jesus, if He is mentioned at all, is simply the way to a perfect job, perfect kids, perfect spouse, perfect house, perfect car, etc.

Well many know Christianity isn’t about all that but these “evangelists who don’t know the Evangel” go personal with it; to be a Christian star they must have perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfect skin, or whatever. Is this what Jesus wants us to aspire to? Now it is okay to be on TV, don’t misunderstand me, but shouldn’t they be showing their audience the beauty of Jesus, instead of themselves?

Our verse today also applies to how we see ourselves as Christians relating to the outside world. The book of Colossians talks of walking in wisdom to those outside the faith (Colossians 4:5-6). This doesn’t mean, “If you become a Christian you will look like me”; that is setting up YOU as the model! Now your life should be a model, which points to Jesus, but Jesus didn’t have perfect hair or teeth or that kind of thing (Isaiah 53:2). Jesus wasn’t in it for the wealth He had left the source of heaven and put on humanity (Philippians 2:5-11). Christianity is not a ticket to the upper class it is a narrow highway into the upward call and that isn’t upward mobility, friends.

So they wanted to look the part of a successful Christian leader, well, I thought the Apostle Paul already described that for us in the New Testament. I wonder if he would have wanted to get a little nip and tuck after the beatings he received? Perhaps this is what he meant when he said he bore in his body the marks of Jesus (Galatians 6:17).

Christian, you don’t need cosmetic surgery; we need (and they need) radical heart surgery instead. Then we will be able, as Paul exhorts us, to shine as lights for Christ (Philippians 2:15). Jesus said we aren’t supposed to hide our light under a bushel (Matthew 5:15). Well, we shouldn’t hide it under a bushel and shouldn’t hide it under a cloud of makeup either. What role are you playing? Do you look the part?

Antichrist

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

(John 14:6 - ESV)

She has said it before, as we have documented, and now she is at it again, in official capacity, denying the supremacy and sufficiency of God’s saving work in Jesus Christ. By stating that there may be other roads to God, she is not lifting up the name of Christ, and so she is, in the very real sense of the word, anti-Christ, or against Christ as being all in all. You can say you are for Jesus all you want, but Jesus demands total allegiance. Now I will agree with her and all other apostates in this sense: As we said in our last sermon all roads do lead to God, but only ONE road will lead to God justifying us, all the other roads lead to God condemning us. Here are some of the details and a link you can follow to the video of the webcast.

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA, Katharine Jefferts Schori made another statement not supported by the Bible, saying that Jesus is the Christian way to God, but perhaps not the only way.

Schori told members of the Episcopal Church in a live webcast that for "Christians to assume that God may not act in other ways is to put God in a very small box."

Adding to her assertions, Schori remarked, "Our call is to be invited into conversation with people who have different understandings, and perhaps to see a larger vision of God in the midst of that."

Source: CBN News

Now God put Himself in that wonderful “box” called the Bible, and to deny the exclusivity of Christ, especially after Christ Himself declared it (John 14:6), as well as the Apostles (Acts 4:12 / 1 Timothy 2:5), is to diminish Jesus and His preeminence (Colossians 1:18). All this talk of God without the mention of Jesus Christ shows that she has not the One True God, for she dismisses the Savior, the ONLY savior, and places God in a role that He does not assume, one of saving people without His Son.

Now just think about it for a second: what is going on here? Think, think, think…when you say that perhaps there are other ways, what you are doing is diminishing the fact that Christ is what it is all about, you are saying that something less than all the people that will be saved will be saved by a knowledge and belief in Him, and this diminishes the glory of Christ for something else. Even if intended to be compassionate, our compassion for humanity is superceded, well it should be, it must be, superceded by a passion for the glory of God in Christ.

I ask you; does this type of statement give more glory to Christ, or less? This woman might answer that it gives more glory to God, not less, but indeed, it gives less glory to His Son, which is giving less glory to the true God. By not ascribing all glory to Christ, she is antichrist, and her denomination, if it accepts this declaration as given in an official speech, is also antichrist. She either does not know God, or she has turned away, I fear forever.

We have been covering the ECUSA and their descent into apostasy, and
here,
here,
here,
and here

are our previous updates from several months ago.