The Modern Day Apostles: Threat or Treat?

These apostles and prophets do not want to simply establish themselves as self-styled leaders. It is to bring the kingdom of God to the earth. It is dominion teaching; they see a way to bring that dominion through an alliance with a government that seems to share their agenda-with a country that seems to have a “manifest destiny” and calling by God to bless the nations of the earth. As this movement builds momentum and many churches adopt such teaching the Biblical centred churches will again be persecuted. However, this time not from the World but from the “church.”

Our Cross and His Yoke

To take up this end of our yoke with Christ, in the sense of entering into the ‘fellowship of his suffering, being made conformable unto his death’ is no different essentially from bearing each his own cross as we follow Christ. As an old gospel song says, ‘He always takes the heavy end and leaves the light to me’.

Say what you want – if you got no hope you got nothing!

Apart from the knowledge of Christ there is no salvation. We are of God, and the whole world lies in wickedness in enmity and hostility to God. Without the shedding of Blood there is no salvation in any other, remission! Thus, for there is none other name under heaven – given among men, whereby we must be saved. Thus salvation is the revelation of Christ.

Self-Love

Our self-love keeps us from surrendering to the guidance of the will of God, and eliminates the sense of gratitude we should have toward God for all the blessings God lavishes upon us. By calling upon us to deny ourselves, bear our cross and hope for eternal life, even as we thank God for the blessings of this life, we are to abandon once for all the image of ourselves we have created through our blind self-love, in order to be conformed to the image of selfless and self-giving love that is revealed in Jesus Christ.

Bearing the cross

Human reason tells us to avoid dishonour and disgrace as the worst of plagues, but faith in Christ reveals to us that being reviled for the sake of his name is the highest honour we can receive in this life.

All Christians are called to Self-denial

Since we do not belong to ourselves, we should cease to live for ourselves, but should rather deny ourselves. We are not our own: in so far as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours. Since we belong to God, we should live and die for God alone, and order all parts of our lives by his will alone. Thus, we are God’s: let us therefore live for him and die for him.

Can Non-Christians Be Saved?

A love of believers in other religions and an appreciation for whatever true and good things there may be in these other religions should not blind us to their errors and defects. If Christ is the only Savior and all the other religions of the world deny this, then logically and necessarily all the other religions are dead wrong about this crucial point. It does not fol- low from this that non-Christians must be condemned, but that they must be told the truth, out of love for them and for the truth

Quantity of Faith Required?

Jesus exhorted His followers not to “labour for that which perishes” but to “labour for that which is eternal” (John 6:27). The prosperity gospel, by contrast, encourages Christians to focus on what they can receive from Christ in the here and now. Much so-called Christian television and radio programming today panders to what people’s “itching ears” want to hear: the promise of earthly gain.

Perverted Understanding of Faith

The Word-Faith teachings are corrupt. Their undeniable derivation is cultish, not Christian. The sad truth is that the gospel proclaimed by the Word-Faith movement is not the Gospel of the New Testament. Word-Faith doctrine is a mongrel system, a blend of mysticism, dualism and Gnosticism, that borrows generously from the teachings of the metaphysical cults. The Word-Faith movement may be the most dangerous false system that has grown out of the Charismatic movement so far, because so many Charismatics are unsure of the finality of Scripture.