Berita Mingguan 26 Juni 2010

HATI-HATILAH TERHADAP KRISTUS-KRISTUS PALSU
Tuhan Yesus dan Rasul-rasul memperingatkan akan kristus-kristus palsu. Tuhan Yesus bernubuat bahwa pada akhir zaman akan muncul banyak sekali kristus palsu. "Sebab Mesias-mesias palsu dan nabi-nabi palsu akan muncul dan mereka akan mengadakan tanda-tanda yang dahsyat dan mujizat-mujizat, sehingga sekiranya mungkin, mereka menyesatkan orang-orang pilihan juga....Jadi, apabila orang berkata kepadamu: Lihat, Ia ada di padang gurun, janganlah kamu pergi ke situ; atau: Lihat, Ia ada di dalam bilik, janganlah kamu percaya" (Mat. 24:24, 26). Kita melihat penggenapan nubuat yang menakjubkan ini dalam banyak kejadian. Ada kristusnya Katolik yang didominasi oleh ibunya, kristusnya Mormon yang adalah saudara Setan, kristusnya Saksi Yehovah yang adalah makhluk roh yang diciptakan, kristusnya Da Vinci Code yang menikah dengan Maria Magdalena, kristus revolusioner milik theologi pembebasan, kristus liberal milik kelompok Jesus Seminar, kristus mitologis yang hanyalah mitos kafir seperti Mithras, kristus yang kontemplatif dan asketik (petapa yang menyiksa diri) milik biara-biara, kristus homoseksual dalam drama Corpus Christie, kristus yang hippie dalam film Jesus Christ Superstar, kristus avatar milik Madame Blavatsky, kristus yang adalah guru timur dalam Injil Aquarian, kristus yang hanyalah nabi besar dalam Islam, kristus yang tidak menghakimi dalam The Shack. Kristus yang sejati dinyatakan dalam Kitab Suci, yang dibuktikan dengan "banyak tanda," dan Dia juga dapat dikenal dan dibuktikan secara pribadi. Rasul Yohanes menulis, "Barangsiapa percaya kepada Anak Allah, ia mempunyai kesaksian itu di dalam dirinya; barangsiapa tidak percaya kepada Allah, ia membuat Dia menjadi pendusta, karena ia tidak percaya akan kesaksian yang diberikan Allah tentang Anak-Nya" (1 Yoh. 5:10).

What is Balance?

Through the years I have been challenged many times to be more “balanced.” Recently I asked preachers to write and let me know if they are edified by this ministry. More than 200 replied in a matter of days and most were overwhelmingly positive. Three or four said that though they appreciated the material, they wished I was a little more “balanced.” What does this mean? I have been meditating and praying about this matter, and the following thoughts came to mind:

1. BALANCE MEANS PREACHING THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.

Paul reminded the Ephesian elders that he had declared to them “all the counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). This is the job of every preacher, but particularly of a pastor or a church planter. Every part of the Bible, every doctrine, is important. No preacher has the liberty to say “I will preach some doctrines, but the rest I am not responsible for,” or “I will just preach the Gospel,” or “I will just focus on this or that topic (the family, creation science, Bible versions, separation, etc.) and not concern myself with other things.”

Berita Mingguan 19 Juni 2010

80% REMAJA INGGRIS MELIHAT PORNOGRAFI

Sebuah survei di Inggris menemukan bahwa lebih dari 80% remaja berumur 14 hingga 16 tahun “secara rutin mengakses fotografi dan video pornografi keras” di komputer rumah mereka atau di telepon genggam mereka (“Third of Children,” Daily Mail, 7 Juni 2010). Lebih lanjut lagi, sepertiga anak-anak mengakses pornografi online sejak umur 10 tahun. Laporan itu mengatakan bahwa orang tua sepertinya tidak sadar akan bahaya terhadap anak-anak mereka dan dalam banyak kasus tidak mampu untuk mengimbangi anak-anak mereka yang jago komputer. Sebenarnya, para orang tua hari ini seringklai sendirinya kecanduan pornografi dan menjadi begitu bebal terhadap dosa sehingga mereka tidak peduli apa yang terjadi kepada anak-anak mereka. (Film-film hari ini yang memiliki rating-R akan dianggap pornografi beberapa puluh tahun yang lalu). Kita bertanya-tanya apakah hasilnya jika survei yang sama dilakukan di gereja-gereja yang mengaku menjunjung Alkitab.

WHY DOES GOD ALLOW SUFFERING?

Many wonder why God allows suffering and catastrophes.

To answer this we would say, first, that the trouble in this world is man’s fault, not God’s. When God made man in the beginning, there was no suffering. God made a perfect world for man to live in and provided for man’s every need. God placed the first man and woman in a paradise called the Garden of Eden and gave them only one commandment. But they were not satisfied with God’s provision and they disobeyed God’s commandment and fell into sin. As a result, the world became a place of evil and suffering. This is man’s fault. It is men that lie and cheat and steal and rape and kidnap and bully and kill.

Second, God is holy and judges sin. He is not only a Saviour, He is also a Judge. God warned the first man and woman, that if they disobeyed His law they would be punished, and that is what happened. Because of sin, the world came under God’s curse. This is described in Genesis chapter 3. It is God’s curse that is the cause of sickness and death and many other troubles that men suffer. Men are not innocent before God. All men have sinned and broken His laws; and all men, therefore, deserve to be punished.

Knowing God's Will

Enlarged June 9, 2010 (first published December 8, 2009) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org)

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness” (Romans 12:1-8).

Richard Foster: Evangelicalism’s Mystical Sparkplug

Republished June 10, 2010 (first published October 8, 2008) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org)

The following is excerpted from our book Contemplative Mysticism: A Powerful Ecumenical Bond, which is available from Way of Life Literature.
___________________

Richard Foster’s writings have been at the forefront of the contemplative movement since the 1970s. No one has done more than this man to spread contemplative mysticism throughout Protestant and Baptist churches.

Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline, which has sold more than two and a half million copies, was selected by Christianity Today as one of the top ten books of the 20th century. (For this review I obtained multiple editions of Celebration of Discipline, plus three other books by Foster.)

The Quaker Connection

He grew up among the Quakers (the Religious Society of Friends), was trained at George Fox College, has pastored Quaker churches, and has taught theology at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas, and at George Fox. One website calls him “perhaps the best known Quaker in the world today.”

The United Nations and the New Age

Enlarged June 15, 2010 (first published January 13, 2009) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org)

The United Nations is a hotbed of anti-Christian, New Age mysticism. With its one-world ambitions, humanistic philosophy, anti-Semitism, and syncretistic ambitions, it is an institution that is unwittingly making preparations for the coming of the Antichrist. It is an end-time Tower of Babel.

Many have criticized the United Nations and documented its failures, but typically they fail to see the underlying spiritual issues.

Conservative Americans have long warned about the United Nations.

In the early 1980s, the Heritage Foundation, which advised the Reagan administration, published a study concluding that “a world without the U.N. would be a better world.” Authored by Burton Pines, vice president of the foundation, the study accused the U.N. of being exceedingly anti-U.S., anti-West and anti-free enterprise and claimed that its characteristics were inefficiency, cronyism, high pay, lavish expense accounts, corruption, and illiteracy (Stanley Meisler, United Nations: The First Fifty Years, p. 219).

In 1983, the British newsmagazine The Economist described UNESCO staff as “trampled by a mixture of nepotism, maladministration, reverse racism, and an apparently incorrigible tilt toward the hardliners of the Third World.”

Berita Mingguan 12 Juni 2010

EDINBURGH 2010: KESATUAN YANG PALSU
Acara Edinburgh 2010 yang berlangsung minggu lalu adalah suatu perayaan ekumenikal ulang tahun ke-100 World Missionary Conference (Konferensi Missionari Dunia). Ini adalah suatu perayaan kesatuan yang palsu, yang membangun Gereja Pelacur di Wahyu 17, bukan jemaat sejati Yesus Kristus. Edinburgh 2010 mempersatukan secara campur aduk orang-orang Injili, Modernis, Roma Katolik, Ortodoks, dan Pantekosta. Ada Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodis, Anglikan, Baptis, apa saja ada. Olav Tveit, sekretaris jenderal dari World Council of Churches yang sangat sesat itu mengatakan, "Misi dan kesatuan adalah satu paket" ("Evangelicals, Ecumenicals, " Christian Post, 3 Juni 2010). Geoff Tunnicliffe, direktur internasional dari World Evangelical Alliance, mengatakan bahwa walaupun orang-orang Kristen tidak dapat sepakat dalam hal doktrin, mereka seharusnya "membangun jembatan, bukan menciptakan jarak." Konferensi itu disimpulkan dengan suatu "Seruan Umum kepada Orang-orang Kristen." Dalam Yohanes 17:21, Tuhan Yesus sama sekali tidak menyerukan kesatuan ekumenikal macam apapun. Yohanes 17 adalah suatu doa yang Yesus panjatkan kepada Allah Bapa, bukan suatu perintah yang Ia sampaikan kepada orang-orang Kristen. Dari konteksnya, jelas bahwa Yesus bukan sedang menggambarkan kumpulan orang di Edinburgh tersebut, dengan penolakan mentah-mentah mereka akan pengilhaman Kitab Suci yang tanpa salah, penerimaan evolusi, pembaptisan bayi, doa kepada Maria, theologi penggantian, theologi pembebasan, dialog antar-agama, injil sosial, bahasa doa pribadi, dan sekumpulan kesesatan lainnya.

The History of the Temple Mount

June 3, 2010 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org)

Recently I stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and wondered at the past, present, and future of this amazing place. The story of the nation Israel is largely the story of the Temple Mount, and it should interest every believer, because it is at the heart of Bible prophecy and our own future is tied up with it.

The Bible says that God has placed Jerusalem at the center of the nations to be a light to the world (Ezekiel 5:5). It is Israel’s failure to live up to this calling that has brought such great trouble upon her and upon the city that lies at the center of her hopes and aspirations.

Jewish tradition says that Adam and Eve were created on Mt. Moriah, but the Bible does not confirm this. In fact, the biblical description of the location of the Garden of Eden places it farther north in association with the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Berita Mingguan 05 Juni 2010

JOHN HAGEE DAN CHRISTIANS UNITED FOR ISRAEL MENOLAK MENOBATKAN ORANG YAHUDI
John Hagee, pendiri dari organisasi Christians United for Israel, menolak usaha-usaha untuk menobatkan orang-orang Yahudi. Ia mengatakan, "Aturan pertama yang dipegang oleh Christians United for Israel adalah bahwa tidak akan ada penginjilan dalam acara-acara kami. CUFI eksis hanya untuk menghormati dan mendukung umat Yahudi, tidak pernah untuk menobatkan mereka" (Hagee, "Why Christian Zionists Really Support Israel," 13 Mei 2010). Ini bukanlah tujuan Rasul Paulus 2000 tahun yang lalu. Ia tidak takut mempersalahkan Israel tentang pemberontakannya yang tegar tengkuk terhadap Allah dan juga penolakannya terhadap Mesias, dan dia jelas tidak ragu-ragu untuk menobatkan orang-orang Yahudi sebangsanya bagi Yesus. "....Paulus dengan sepenuhnya dapat memberitakan firman, di mana ia memberi kesaksian kepada orang-orang Yahudi, bahwa Yesus adalah Mesias" (Kis. 18:5-6). Kita simpati dan tidak membenci Israel, sesuai dengan Kejadian 12:3, tetapi itu tidak berarti mengabaikan dosa-dosanya dan keperluannya akan keselamatan. Sungguh, cara terbaik untuk memberkati Israel adalah dengan memberitakan kepadanya Injil yang mulia.

WHAT DO I DO WITH A CHILD OUTSIDE MY HOME?

April 1, 2010 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org)

The following message is by Pastor Terry Coomer, For The Love Of The Family Ministries (Ministry of Hope Baptist Church, P.O. Box 94985, 6929 John F Kennedy Blvd., North Little Rock, AR 72190, 501-515-3296, TLCOOMER@juno.com, www.fortheloveofthefamily.com, www.hopebaptistlittlerock.com)

These messages may be copied in their entirety to help Christians in the rearing of their children for God, strengthening their family, and their marriage. They are not to be changed in any manner or to be sold. This header must be on any copy. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the author.

I have given this article quite a bit of consideration and prayer, and it is my prayer that it will be a help to many. My wife, Kim and I have had the opportunity to have For The Love Of The Family meetings in many different churches. Some churches are smaller churches and some are larger churches. However, one theme that comes up in every meeting is, “Pastor, I do not understand why my child who grew up in this church, went to this Christian school, or was home schooled etc. does not want to live for God?” They are living a horrible sinful and in many cases a wicked life. They are doing damage to themselves and others. The parent is distraught and many times is weeping as to what went wrong. Then other people will come up and say, “I now understand what happened, why did I not hear this before now?”

Well, I understand those comments. The parent is at a loss as to what they can do now. Quite frankly, when the child is out of the home as an adult, you don’t have nearly as much influence in their life as you did when they were home. This matter has to be approached in a different manner. It will require some real effort on the part of the parents.