It is a great joy to read your Bible and find it speaking to you on the issues of today.
Our school has printed the following text on the presentation label inside every Bible given to school leavers: “When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee,” Proverbs 6:20-22.
The Word of God does indeed speak with those who come to its pages with earnest faith. May we be given the grace to say with the child Samuel: “Speak; for thy servant heareth,” 1 Samuel 3:10.
May the following thoughts be instructive and of a benefit and blessing to you all.
Sincerely in Christ’s name,
Ivan Foster
water color by John Everett Millais (c. 1860)
MEN WHOSE RELIGION IS NOTHING BUT AN ACT!
“But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in,” Matthew 23:13.
I recall, as if it were but yesterday, the first time I heard Dr Paisley preach on this chapter, in my early days attending his church in 1964. He was defending himself yet again against the railing accusations of ecumenists and modernist ministers, who had accused him of being ‘unChrist-like’ whenever he condemned in strong Biblical terms those guilty of denying the truth of the Bible!
I was thrilled to thus see that the enemies of God could be answered directly, unsparingly and powerfully from the recorded words of the Lord Jesus Himself.
I believe I learned a lesson back then that has lasted a lifetime!
1. The word ‘hypocrite’ is particularly applicable.
The Greek word from which the English word ‘hypocrite’ comes is hupokrites. It carries the meaning of an actor, stage player. It refers to someone who is merely pretending to be someone he is not in reality.
How wonderfully precise and accurate is such a word in describing men who daily masquerade as being men that in truth they are very far from being! The term ‘Pharisee’ has entered the English language and it is used in a derogative manner when speaking of one noted for his religious falsity.
Most Protestant ministers begin their ministry by publicly swearing to believe creeds and confessions that essentially date back to the days of the Protestant Reformation. Despite years of modernism and ecumenism, most professedly Protestant churches have at least some of the basic elements of Biblical religion laid down in their foundational doctrines.
By confessing such doctrines as theirs, the men who then go on to deny and undermine these truths are indeed hypocrites, merely actors playing out a role and that for money! (more…)
Here is further evidence of the dominant position into which the practisers and promoters of the perverted lifestyle of the sodomites and their evil associates have come.
