EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/9/2025 7:39 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Truth:
“The Test of Christian Hospitality”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 John 9-13
Message of the verses: “9 Anyone
who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have
God; the one who abides in the
teaching, he has both the Father and the Son.
10 If anyone
comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your
house, and do not give him a greeting; 11 for the one who gives him a greeting
participates in his evil deeds.
12 Though I have many things to write to you,
I do not want to do so with paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and
speak face to face, so that your joy may be made full. 13 The children of your
chosen sister greet you.
This
evening I will continue quoting from the sermon by John MacArthur that I spoke
about in the last SD, and as I mentioned this will take a while to get through
it as I don’t want to put too much on each day so it will be easier to
understand what is written.
“And
in fact, the latest wave is aw, the whole deal might not even be necessary.
Might not even be necessary. I can’t resist reviewing something that I said to
you - couple of years ago. This view has risen to the forefront in
evangelical theology. This idea - we have these people who aren’t sure
what the gospel is. We have these people who are embarrassed by the gospel and
they’re trying to tweak it and take out anything that’s offensive. And then we
have the people who aren’t sure we need to even bother with the gospel. And
they all call themselves evangelical Christians.” I assure that I am not one of these people,
as I know what the gospel is and know how to tell others the truth of the
gospel, and that is why I take time each day to write my Spiritual Diaries and
put them onto my blogs each day. Jesus
gave us this order 19 “Go therefore and make
disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the
Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching
them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to
the end of the age’” (Matt. 28:18-19).”
“And this last group has come up
with a view called “natural theology,” and that says that man by his natural
reasoning powers, apart from written revelation, apart from Scripture, apart
from the gospel, man by his natural reasoning powers can discern that there is
a God. And if he can discern there is a God and desires to know that God, God
will accept his rational effort to know Him without requiring belief in the
gospel, without requiring the knowledge of the name of God or any of His
revelation, without requiring any knowledge of Jesus Christ. Sinners can get to
heaven without the Bible and without the knowledge of the gospel.
“Now, this has always been Roman
Catholic theology, but it’s never been Protestant evangelical theology. It was
Pope John Paul II who said, “All who live a just life will be saved, even if
they do not believe in Jesus Christ.” That’s Catholic theology. The new Roman
Catholic catechism says, “The biblical teaching that salvation only comes in
response to faith in Jesus Christ is to be rejected. It is unreasonable and
cruel. The heathen are saved if they just live good lives.”
“Well, that’s Catholic theology and
yet I told you a couple of years ago that well-known evangelists have said
this: They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts
that they need something that they don’t have and they turn to the only light
they have, and I think they’re saved and they’re going to be with us in heaven.
Even though they don’t know Jesus? Or His name? This is a sort of “natural
theology” idea that you ascend as high as you can get and God says that’s good
enough. You sort of crawl up this rational ladder to the point where you
believe there’s a God.
“There’s another view that even goes
beyond that, it’s called the “wider mercy” view. And this view, the advocates
of this view say people can actually be saved through non-Christian religions.
The first view would say that they sort of have to believe there’s a God up
there and come to that God. And the second view says that they may be aided by
their false religion.
“Clark Pinnock says, and I quote,
“When we approach the man of faith other than our own” - another
faith - “it will be with a spirit of expectancy to find out how God has
been speaking to him and what new understanding of the grace and love of God we
may ourselves discover in this encounter. Our first task in approaching another
people, another culture, another religion is to take off our shoes, the place
where approaching is holy. We may forget that God was there before our
arrival.”
“What in the world are you saying?
These people who are engaged in non-Christian and false religions know God?
That God is speaking to them? And God has been there before we arrived with the
gospel? He adds, “God has more going on by way of redemption than what happened
in first-century Palestine.” He does? He has more going on by way of redemption
than what happened in first-century Palestine? Are you trivializing, minimizing
the work of Christ?”
5/9/2025
7:52 PM
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