Sunday, December 30, 2007

EXHORTATION: According to the Scriptures (By Dave Hunt)

The Bible makes uncompromisingly clear to all mankind its claim to be the infallible, inerrant Word of the only true and living God. It denounces all other gods and scriptures as false, as well as the religions they represent. Of Jesus, God's Word declares, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (Jn 3:36). Peter told Jewish religious leaders (and was beaten, imprisoned, and killed for testifying to Christ's resurrection): “There is none other name...given among men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Such unequivocal statements cannot be misunderstood. Jews would not have been persecuted and killed had they presented Yahweh as just one more god to be added to the Roman Pantheon. Christians were considered an even greater threat because in obedience to Christ they preached the gospel everywhere and thereby “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6 ). Even they would not have been persecuted and killed had they presented Jesus Christ as merely one of many possible saviors. It was their firm proclamation of Christ's claim, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me”(Jn 14:6), that threatened Caesar and aroused such vicious hatred. Today, however, to avoid the objectionable exclusivity of their faith, “Christians” often compromise and many ecumenically deny the biblical gospel.
Christianity is a biblical faith, and the Bible is not an “ecumenical” book. It makes no compromise with any of the world's religions. Those who support ecumenism to any extent, no matter how loudly they defend their orthodoxy, are not Bible-believing Christians. At worst they are deliberate frauds; at best they are confused into simultaneously professing two contradictory beliefs (syncretism). Which do they really believe? Speaking out of both sides of their mouths is a popular ploy today of both political and “Christian” Leaders.
The New Testament explains, “That he, by the grace of God should taste death for every man” (Heb 2:9). That death would have had to include the experience of the “lake of fire [which is] the second death” (Rev 20:14) for all mankind for eternity.
May we stand firm in our love for all, robbing no one of heaven by compromising the biblical gospel, which alone is “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom 1:16.)
Dave Hunt.
(Culled from The Berean Call, Dec 1, 2007)
See full article at www.thebereancall.org/node/6242)

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