June 6, 2009

An Unexpected Confrontation

Today Jeramy and I decided to take a walk around our neighborhood and get some exercise.  As we were heading up the hill from our townhouse a black man with a book in his hand, determined to speak with us, began admiring our children.  Immediately he asked us if we were Bible readers.  After naming specific books, Proverbs, Psalms, Romans and Ephesians, he continued to speak with us regarding spiritual things.  

My first immediate inclination in response to how quickly he began to speak of divine things cautioned me to think that he was either a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon.  After offering us an extra-biblical book, Jeramy asked by whom it was published and my suspicions were confirmed - Jehovah's (FALSE) Witness.

Perhaps you've been stopped by them before, even at your doorstep.  My Dad was an object of such proselytization before he came to the Creator and Redeemer, who is God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, as revealed in Scripture.  The only infinitely valuable being able to endure infinite wrath against a Holy God as He became sin on our behalf.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word WAS God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
John 1:1-3

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana

This heresy is just the Arian heresy (300AD) recycled in 1872 by Charles Russell.  The Church addressed Arianism back in the 300's but when it later revived, where was the church leadership at that time to refute it and herald a Sovereign Savior, Lord and God, Jesus Christ?  This sect of false religions have totally taken certain Scriptures out of context and preached a bad news gospel.

They know their bad translated text very well and can 

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.
1 Peter 3:15

In fact, I believe this man might have been a preacher of such heresy.  But these individuals won't go back to the original Greek and Hebrew.  They don't spend time learning those languages to understand that their "scriptures" are full of calculated heretical support for the propagation of this false teaching and as a result make it very difficult to be dissuaded by actual Truth, who is the Great I AM, Jesus Christ.

The eye is the lamp of the body;  so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
Matthew 6:22-23

Do you ever feel like living and preaching the Gospel is an uphill battle?  I think that it's more difficult to correct someone's false doctrines than to preach to those who've never heard.

Praise God that it is HIS grace that saves individuals and not our efforts to work with Him, but only our obedience to His glory, which He affects anyway, again, all to His glory!


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