Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

The Church of Rome
Feb 24th, 2008
Weekly CommentaryArt Sadlier
Categories: Commentary;One World Church;Apostasy

This week there were two news items involving the Roman Catholic Church.

The FIRST news item read, "Secret documents from the archives of the Holy Inquisition today went on public show for the first time in Rome, though not the instruments of torture to extract confessions".(Times on Line, Feb.22, 2008)

Rome seems rather proud of the inquisitions, instead of being ashamed of what took place down over the centuries, at the command of the popes.

Two commentaries about the inquisitions. First we hear from a Roman Catholic.

"The horrid conduct of this Holy Office [Inquisition] weakened the power and diminished the population of Spain by arresting the progress of arts, sciences, industry and commerce, and by compelling multitudes of families to abandon the kingdom; by instigating the expulsion of the Jews and the Moors, and by immolating on its flaming shambles more than 300,000 victims. -- Jean Antoine Llorente Secretary to the Spanish Inquisition, 1790-92

Second we hear from John in the book of Revelation 17:6, "And I saw a woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with with great admiration (astonishment). See also verses 9 & 18

All down over the centuries the church of Rome has martyred the followers of Christ. The number of martyrs is in the millions, yet Rome is not finished with the killings, the greatest time of martyrdom is yet to come, in the tribulation period.

The SECOND news item reads, "China said Wednesday it had learned that the Vatican was prepared to sever all relations with Taiwan in order to forge long-suspended diplomatic ties with Beijing" (WND. Feb.21, 2008)

China is rapidly becoming one of the most powerful and influentual nations on earth, Rome wants to influence China. It is spiritual fornication for the church to enter into union with nations and kings. Revelation 17:2, "With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication."

From its very inception and all down the long ages, Rome has either dominated the nations or has sought to influence them. Rome will have one final opportunity to exercise control over the world-wide kingdom of antichrist. Read about it in Revelation 17:1-5

Get Into the Word and Get the Word Into You
Feb 24th, 2008
Weekly Bible StudyHugh Davidson
Categories: Commentary;Book Study;Exhortation

John 8:31-36, “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, we be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

Up until now Jesus’ message was very broad having a public appeal, but now His comments have become very specific and they’re aimed at those who really want to follow Him. And these were people who believed in Him in terms of who He was and the claims He made. And so, His message to them was simply this, “If you continue in My word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” To remain means to be obedient or to make a lifetime commitment to His teaching.

After all, true discipleship is something continuous. It’s not the guy who raises his hand in a meeting and never comes back again or the one who loses interest when he finds out his personal needs won’t be met but it’s the one who’s serious about his commitment. I remember when I was first saved, there was a group of us witnessing to people and handing out tracts on Yonge Street in Toronto and all of a sudden this loudmouth drunk came up and started yelling, “I know all about the Bible. I’ve accepted the Lord and I’m just as good as all of you are.” And then he started quoting Bible verses just to show us that he knew what he was talking about. What he didn’t seem to understand was that the issue wasn’t whether or not he knew the Bible, or whether he had accepted the Lord, whatever that meant or even how good he was. The issue was whether or not he was living in obedience to God’s word. And by his drunken arrogant behavior I suspected that he wasn’t.

And then Jesus tells them the fringe benefit of such a commitment was real spiritual freedom and what He was doing was emphasizing the nature of true discipleship. And He was teaching these people that faith involves obedience to the word of God. All of us need to have some system of discipline to make us obedient to the Lord and I believe this starts with developing a habit of getting into the word and then getting the word into our lives.

We all have habits and there are certain things we do everyday. Some have breakfast, have a shower and then go about their business. Some go to work and others might begin by reading the paper or watching the news. What I’m saying is, we’re all different in that we all have our own system of managing our time and doing the things we have to do. But, each of us needs to work in some time for studying the scripture as one of those things we do every day. And it doesn’t matter if you do it first thing in the morning or the last thing at night or some specific time during the day, but, we all have to set aside a specific time and we shouldn’t let anything or anyone interfere with our time in the word.

You see, without a steady diet in the scriptures our spiritual life will be a series of ups and downs. One day we’re up and the next we’re down and then there will be days when we don’t know where we are. The problem some of us have is that we go to church on Sunday and get well fed and then we starve ourselves until the next Sunday. If you did that physically you’d be sick half the time. And that’s why we need to set aside some time to be with God and learn from His word and that will give us a sense of consistency in what can often be a very inconsistent world.

So, in this passage Jesus is telling His followers that they need to be true disciples and discipleship begins with faith and this faith is strengthened by both our time in the word and our obedience to it and through our time in the word we’ll grow in our knowledge of God. So, can anything be any easier than developing a habit of spending time with God? Of course we’d all say no, but listen, there are things that happen that are simply unexplainable that will keep us away from the scripture.

Let me illustrate. When you decide you need to have regular devotions, for the first little while you’ll find every excuse in the world to put it off until later. You’ll tell yourself, I’m too busy this morning so I’ll find some time this afternoon. And then the afternoon comes and you’ll get busy doing the normal things of life and forget. Then you go to bed at night and you’ll say to yourself, “I’m too tired tonight but I’ll spend twice as much time tomorrow.” And the next day you’ll think of another reason to put it off but instead of feeling guilty you’ll probably say something like this to yourself, “Having devotions just isn’t for me. I’m just not the disciplined type.” And as soon as we believe something like that, the devil has us just where he wants us. Because he knows we know the Lord but he also knows that now we won’t have anything to sustain or motivate our spiritual life. And what would please the devil more than having a bunch of Christians who couldn’t care less about their own spiritual condition or the spiritual needs of the unsaved who are living around them.