CT Studd gave up professional cricket to become a missionary to China, Africa and India. In a letter home, upon the approach of his soon death, C.T. Studd wrote of the outstanding events of his life:
“As I believe I am now nearing my departure from this world, I have but a few things to rejoice in; they are these:
1. That God called me to China and I went in spite of utmost opposition from all my loved ones.
2. That I joyfully acted as Christ told that rich young man to act.
3. That I deliberately at the call of God, when alone on the Bibby liner in 1910, gave up my life for this work, which was to be henceforth not for the Sudan only, but for the whole unevangelized World.
My only joys therefore are that when God has given me a work to do, I have not refused it.”
Going to be with His Lord in 1931, C.T. Studd’s last word he spoke was “Hallelujah”!
“Now and again, people would say (concerning her ministry in Hong Kong), “Isn’t it WONDERFUL that God would choose a woman to go? I would say, “No, it’s not wonderful. Excuse me for being rude about God, but He can pick who He likes.” I mean, it’s no more wonderful for Him to send a woman than a man, or an old man or young woman. He picks who He wants. That’s His business. It was God’s wisdom that sent me. I was just doing what He made me for. That’s no credit to me; it’s all credit to Him. If He’s made you for something, you just do it.”
In response to some comments and questions I have received on my previous post Labyrinths of Emerging Paganism I have decided that the best way to address these is through another post, and so, here it is.
The Lord has placed a burden on my heart for His Church and that’s the main reason why He had me to start this blog. It is not my intention that I offend anyone, especially my brothers and sisters in Christ, yet if I do so in the process of trying to speak the truth, then I am sorry, but it can’t be helped.
It is my strong belief that a Christian should have no association at all with labyrinths. I will tell you why I believe this to be so:
The first known labyrinth was found in Egypt 4000-5000 years ago. They have been discovered across Asia, the Americas and Southern Africa in different forms. Some turf labyrinths still exist in England, Germany and Scandinavia and these are considered to be associated with feminine deities and fertility rituals.
“The troja labyrinth and roma labyrinth have in the historic form a monster, a minotauros, inside, in the centre, a monster you fear to approach, a monster you need to overcome and defeat. With the building of the labyrinth in the Chartres Cathedral in France 1000 years later this seems to eventually change so that this labyrinth has a solemnity in the centre that you want to reach. According to historic traditions the Chartres Labyrinth was probably placed there by its master builder to protect the church from evil entering the church, because evil cannot pass the winding lanes of a labyrinth. This is in the same way as the Romans placed a protecting labyrinth inside their front door.” (http://www.lavigne.dk/labyrinth/e1intro.htm)
Dr Artress brought the labyrinth to Grace Cathedral (San Francisco, USA) in 1994, after having met and being heavily influenced by Dr Jean Houston, one of the main promoters of the New Age in North America (http://www.jeanhouston.com/blog/?p=170).
Dr Artress founded Veriditas in order to “facilitate the transformation of the human spirit through offering the Labyrinth Experience”. Contrast this with the Biblical belief that the human spirit is rather raised from death to life by the Holy Spirit through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ at the cross.
“Over one million people have walked this labyrinth to date. People from all different backgrounds and religions are using it. Jews, Buddhists and even Christians use the institute’s labyrinth. If one visists Grace Cathedrals web site you find it being inclusive, they offer every conceivable item, from New Age holistic to interfaith to the Koran. They are church that is not holding the Christian distinctive at all.” (source: http://www.letusreason.org/Nam30.htm)
“You walk to the center of the labyrinth and there at the center, you meet the Divine. The labyrinth is a large, complex spiral circle which is an ancient symbol for the Divine Mother, the God within, the Goddess, the Holy in all of creation. For many of us the feminine aspect of the Divine has been painfully absent from our lives, our spirituality, and our Western culture.” Dr Artress
2. Labyrinths Facilitate Geomancy
A labyrinth is designed to be geometrically perfect in order to facilitate “geomancy”.
“An important fact to know is that geomancy and other occult arts are often incorporated in the building of labyrinths. Charles Gilchrist a labyrinth promoter states it has a direct connection to “Sacred Geometry,” a powerful potential as an oracle. And there are other “oracle systems” that are related to Sacred Geometry, Astrology, Numerology, I Ching, Rune Stones, and the Tarot….”
Through geomancy, labyrinths are designed to bring the walker into an altered state of consciousness, through meditating on physical movement. As Dr Artress states: “A labyrinth is a walking meditation…” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9rt39ieP5E)
“A labyrinth is unicursal – this means there is one open, unobstructed path the walker follows into the center and back out again. A labyrinth has only one path leading to the center and back out again with no dead-ends.There are three basic designs being used–the seven circuit, eleven circuit, and twelve circuit; the seven circuit is the most common design found today. It is described as you roam back and forth, turning 180 degrees each time you enter a different circuit. As you change your direction your awareness changes from right brain to left brain. They are right brain activity enhancers. So the claim is that the labyrinth can induce different states of consciousness. Others say It also helps balance the charkas, spiritual energy centers described in Hinduism.” http://www.letusreason.org/Nam30.htm
Once an individual is brought to an altered state of consciousness he/she is open to the deceptions of Satan.
I think it is important to note that no believer, no matter how mature or spiritual, is beyond being deceived. Satan is subtle, clever and the father of lies. We are no match for him. However if we sincerely love the truth, seeking after God wholeheartedly, He will deliver us from deception. On the other hand God does give people over to delusion if they refuse to love the truth:
“The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lieand so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12
3. God Forbids Using Pagan Practices to Worship Him
There seems to be an increasingly common misconception amongst Christians that something that is utterly ungodly and unholy can be “redeemed” if it is “Christianized”. This line of reasoning takes something secular or even pagan and tries to change it into something godly by using Christianized language. This reasoning has no basis in scripture. Redemption is the work of God, and Him only, through His Son Jesus Christ. We cannot change something that is detestable to God into something acceptable to Him, despite our sincerity. In fact it’s the very opposite. Rather than take on the pagan practices and beliefs of the world around us God commands us to :
“Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”2 Corinthians 6:17
For, as 2 Corinthians 6:14, 15 says:
“…. what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God.”
Just as God commanded the children of Israel to have nothing to do with the pagan practices of Canaan, but rather to destroy them, so we too are commanded to worship Him as He has proscribed. This is not a grey area – pagan practices are outright forbidden to God’s children.
“When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations.There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you.” Deuteronomy 18:9-14
Ezekiel 8 describes the abominations the Israelites had incorporated into their worship of God in the Temple.
The syncretistic absorbing of paganism into their worship of Yahweh rendered Israel “Ichabod” and brought the judgment of God upon them, just as the Canaanites had been judged for their pagan practices earlier.
The syncretistic blending of paganism into the Church will also bring judgment upon the Church.
As godly king Josiah “took away all the shrines of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger…” (2 Kings 23:19) so we too, as the Church of Jesus Christ need to be ruthless in our removal of pagan and occult practices from our own lives. As God called the Israelites to be a light shining in the midst of pagan idolatry, so too are we called to be the light of Christ shining in a dark world. This can only happen as we are wholly consecrated to God, separated unto Him.
It is my whole-hearted belief that any Christian involvement with labyrinths, (as with any other occult practice) needs to be repented of and renounced.
“In prison, the political officer asked me harshly, “How long will you continue to keep your stupid religion?”
I said to him, “I have seen innumerable atheists regretting on their deathbeds that they have been godless; they called on Christ. Can you imagine that a Christian could regret, when death is near, that he has been a Christian and call on Marx or Lenin to rescue him from his faith?”
The officer laughed, “A clever answer.”
I continued, “When an engineer has built a bridge, the fact that a cat can pass over the bridge is no proof that the bridge is good. A train must pass over it to prove its strength. The fact that you can be an atheist when everything goes well does not prove the truth of atheism. It does not hold up in moments of great crisis.”
“As there are many who believe they are Christians and in reality are not, we found that among the Russians there are many who believe they are atheists, but in reality they are not”
The Blood Moon will be visible in our sky’s here in Mid and Eastern Australia (!) tomorrow night (Passover night on Tuesday).
“The total lunar eclipse on 15 April is one of two for this year, and will begin before the Moon rises, says Dr Nick Lomb, consultant astronomer and curator, Powerhouse Museum and Sydney Observatory…
Lomb says a twilight total lunar eclipse is quite rare.
“Just as the Sun is setting, the Moon will be rising, and it will be totally eclipsed, which should be fairly spectacular,” he says.
But because the eclipse will happen so low in the sky, to see it you will need to make sure there are no trees, hills or buildings in the way.
“The essential thing is to have a really clear view towards the eastern horizon.”
The Moon will already be eclipsed when it rises at 5:28 pm AEST, but at that stage the sky will still be quite bright, warns Lomb
“So it might be hard to see a slight reddish fudge on the horizon,” he says.
But wait five minutes for the Sun to set and you could be in for a treat.
“It’s a fair chance it will become a reasonably bright reddish Moon,”
says Lomb.
He says while the Moon is usually blood red, because the Earth’s atmosphere refracts light from the Sun, this colour is not guaranteed.
This is because the atmosphere could make the Moon too dark to see. But, says Lomb, since there is no volcanic activity around, this is unlikely to be a problem.
By 5:46 pm AEST, the Moon will be in the middle of Earth’s dark shadow and from 6:25 pm AEST it will start leaving the shadow.
Even if there are clouds, Lomb says people should still be able to see this partial eclipse, lasting until 7:33 pm AEST.
“Even if people can’t see the Moon when it’s red they should still be able to see the Moon creep out of the Earth’s shadow and that’s still interesting.”
You go along fine for a while. And then all of a sudden…another wave descends, and you are plunged beneath the depths of it. It encompasses you and you have no choice but to let it carry you along for a while.
Then after you’ve been thrown around for a bit, after you’re soaked through with tears and your heart pierced with pain and memories, the grief sets you down and rolls away again.
Until the next wave….
Last August my friend Jenny went to be with the Lord. It was sudden, unexpected.
Four days after Jenny went, my Grandma also went to be Jesus.
I went into shock when my Grandma went.
Jenny called me “her angel”….Jenny was “my Jenny”.
Grandma called me “dearest”…..I called her my “Granny Apple-Bee”, or GAB for short.
I miss them so much.
I don’t understand why they had to go at the same time.
But I know Jesus. And even though it was terrible and painful and incomprehensible, and sometimes still is, yet will I trust Him. He is my life. Without Him I am undone.
My Grandma’s favourite hymn was “I am weak, but thou art strong”. OH Lord help me.
My Jenny’s favourite song was “The Song of Moses”. I still haven’t been able to listen to it since she went home but I am putting the link here for you to watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF-Ald7IPfA in honour of her and my Granny-Apple-Bee. It is one of the most beautiful songs in the world, straight from Revelation 15.
I love knowing that they are with Him in heaven singing the Song of Moses and of the Lamb.
“The Lord Jesus calls people who realize they cannot function at all apart from His grace and empowerment. God chooses to use those individuals who know Him intimately! This is the primary qualification for service in the kingdom of God.”
In Matthew 24:3, when four of Jesus’ disciples asked Him “ . . . what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age”, before listing the events that would occur prior to the end of the age, Jesus warned them in Matthew 24:4 “ . . . Watch out that no one deceives you. . . . ” In Mark 13:3–5 and Luke 21:7-8 we also read about this interaction between Jesus and those disciples.
The first thing to note in the disciples’ question is that they linked Jesus’ coming again and the end of the age together. Jesus, in His answer, did not refute this so we can know that His coming and the end of the age will happen simultaneously. It may seem obvious but is, nevertheless, worth highlighting.
Following up on His warning to those disciples not to be deceived, He immediately warns them to be on the lookout for the appearance of false Christs’ and not to go running after them. Most Christians would automatically assume that, since they are followers of Jesus, know and regularly study God’s Word and regularly fellowship with other believers, such a thing could not happen to them. Clearly, in the way Jesus warned His disciples and ultimately us, that will not necessarily be the case and should be a sobering reminder to us that it is possible to be deceived. However, we surely can also take some comfort from Jesus’ answer when He tells us to “Watch Out”, meaning that if we are alert we can avoid being deceived.
Many Christians believe that we are nearing the end of the age and that many of the signs Jesus and other prophets spoke about are beginning to manifest themselves. That being the case, we are surely nearing the time when Christians could face being deceived. So what are we to do and to watch out for?
If we stop to think about what we are to watch out for, surely some answers are already staring us in the face? The main one, we would suggest, is the falling away from the faith, or apostasy, that is continually taking place today and the deception that goes with it; a situation ripe for false Christs to appear and be followed. In Matthew 24:10 Jesus said it would happen. These are His Words: “At that time many will turn away from the faith . . . . .” In many Christian denominations we constantly see God’s Word being changed and watered down by their leaders and accepted by many in their congregations. In doing so these leaders and congregations have not only moved away from God’s Word but are also setting themselves up to be deceived by false Christs. It seems easier for them to fall into line with secular standards than keeping to God’s standards.
The uncomfortable reality is that you will know you are on the right track not to be deceived when you start being persecuted! In Matthew 24:9 Jesus said: “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.” Some Christians around the world are already facing such persecution.
We believe we need not only “Watch Out” but need to warn other Christians not to become complacent or compromise God’s Word, in addition continually asking God to help us keep to His path. Of course, we also need to carry on with our efforts to bring the Gospel to the notice of others who do not yet know or have a relationship with Jesus.
(Note: All quotes are from the NIV Bible.)
Chris, from our fellowship, has an interest in Bible prophecy and from time to time will share his views with us on current events and how they relate to prophecy in this new series “Bible Prophecy”.
“If Jesus had preached the same message that ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified.” (Leonard Ravenhill)
“What are you doing?”
“WHAT are you doing?”
The man was standing on my right hand side, and he was very, very close. Yesterday morning I was preaching in the city. It had been a great morning, with very little resistance to the gospel. In fact, astonishingly, people had been quite open to it. As soon as I’d started preaching some individuals had immediately come over to talk to the others and ask for tracts (I’ve never seen that before!). But then this man: he couldn’t have been standing more than a foot away from me. It made me uncomfortable.
“What are you doing?” he said to me again.
“I will talk to you when I’m finished,” I said, momentarily pausing from preaching. I could see that he wasn’t about to go anywhere soon.
I turned my back to him slightly and kept going, trying to ignore him.
I usually get nervous when I go to the streets, but I’ve never been afraid. There is a difference.
Something the Lord has caused me to see is that when I am sent somewhere by the Holy Spirit, then I am going in the authority of Jesus Christ. I am going in His Name. It is like an ambassador being sent from the US to another country. He goes with the authority of the US and with the strength of the US behind him. When we go out from Jesus’ presence into the world we go as His ambassador. We go under His authority and we have the whole of Heaven behind us, supporting us, cheering us on.
“…and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him, who fills all in all.”
JESUS IS LORD!
There is nothing to fear when we walk with the King of kings, the Lord of Lords.
Back to that man standing close to me: as I spoke with him it became obvious there was a proud, religious spirit manifesting. (…”You don’t know the Bible….You don’t know Jesus….I know Jesus…I know Him better than anyone, better than He knows Himself…“) – and, yes, he actually said that.
The Holy Spirit was grieved by this and He had me take authority over the situation. I had no choice but to tell him politely but firmly that his heart was not right, that he was wasting my time and that I was ending the conversation with him. I walked away. As Christians we are to show love to people but zero tolerance to Satan.
“I am well assured that I did far more good to my Lincolnshire parishioners by preaching three days on my father‟s tomb than I did by preaching three years in his pulpit.” John Wesley
“I can easily see why the folks at home want to eliminate Hell from their theology, preaching and thought. Hell is indeed awful unless its preaching is joined to a life laid down by the preacher. How can a man believe in Hell unless he throws away his life to rescue others from its torment? If there is no Hell, the Bible is a lie. Unless we are willing to go to Hell on earth for others, we cannot preach it.”
Grace and Truth 