Apostolic
Leader Dies

Charismatic leader, Bryn Jones, died in San Diego about a week ago at the age of 63. ‘Charisma News Service’ referred to him as ‘well respected’, but it depends on who you are talking to.

Thousands have good reason to dismiss the man, such was his interference in their lives, which often led to personal ruin!

A companion who went with him on his preaching trip, Gareth Duffty, said that Jones had been ‘miraculously healed’ of a heart condition some years ago and was healthy. Was this a ‘miracle’ of Satan, which was partial in order to keep him in his heretical service?

We are urged never to ‘speak ill of the dead’…but Jones has been opposed by watchmen of the churches for a long time. Friends, Jones was a leader of charismatic heresy. He damaged many people’s lives. His fellow heretics may indeed respect him and his work, but I did not. How could I respect what is clearly not of God?

Consistently, I have openly stated that I refuse to respect godlessness (even if it is in myself). I refuse to respect those who mislead others and take them into error…and it is not beyond possibility that God removed the man from this earth for his long standing heresies. 

Now, Jones – who never repented of his errors - will see where his thinking has taken him. God help us all to remain on His side, and to resist the rapidly growing tide of charismatic and ecumenical error that continually washes on the shores of Christian thinking and life.

Predestination, etc

Through the website I receive many reactions to the doctrinal teaching of election and predestination. A growing number of Christians tell me how they had not given any thought to predestination until they read about it on our website. Others say they had not even been aware that the teaching existed, or that it was important!

Without exception, those who look at it in earnest come back to us and express their utter joy and gratitude, saying that they now know a real freedom in Christ, with great joy and inner peace!

Others absolutely loathe the teaching and call down fire and brimstone to devour me, believing (against scripture) that I am being unloving.

Some wish to know more, but constantly want every little text to say “this is about predestination”. If they come across texts that have no direct indication, they take this to mean that the teaching is not proved!

Snipers in the army often spend up to several weeks dug-in to a hillside or under trees and grass, never leaving their hole for fear of giving the game away. Folk who constantly demand ever increasing ‘proof’ for scriptural truths are like that. They dig in to their favoured views and cannot see the greater picture set out by God.

Predestination is made very clear in scripture. It is taught expressly without ambiguity. It is there to see in black and white. And its existence completely negates any idea of total freedom of choice, or ‘free will’.

Now, where a truth is set out so obviously, it must be accepted by Christians as God’s law. No matter how we perceive any other texts, all texts must conform to the doctrinal truth found in scripture.

Sometimes, we cannot grasp how a particular text supports predestination. Some will then think that predestination itself must be suspect. Friends, it is not the truth that is suspect, but our own meagre lack of understanding!

No text in scripture can contradict or oppose a stated truth. Therefore, even if we come across texts that appear to support, say, Arminianism rather than predestination, we must always, without exception, accept the teaching shown so clearly in scripture. This is a basic rule of scriptural interpretation.

Put it this way, if you buy a pot of paint and open it to reveal white paint, do you then say “Hm. But the instructions are in black. That must mean the paint is also black.”? No, don’t be so silly! Nothing in the instructions take away the fact that the paint is white, because we can see the paint is white!

In the same way scripture says that predestination is a fact. Therefore, to throw up isolated texts that appear to contradict this fact is disbelief, not faith. Those other texts cannot possibly contradict a clear teaching (as further investigation will prove). When we start with this assumption all will be revealed, because the enquirer has the right attitude and trust in God and His word.

Attitude affects the way we perceive things. Thus, a racist will hate all coloured people. A renegade will hate all authority. And a doubtful Christian will doubt anything that points to the truth.

Predestination is a fact. It is true. Therefore, I dislike having to spend a lot of time and energy trying to dot every ‘i’ and crossing every ‘t’, when scripture very clearly tells us that predestination is a plain fact.

My view is this – predestination is true, so it is not possible for any other texts to oppose it. For this reason I know, immediately, that an ‘interpretation’ that says the opposite is totally wrong, even without reading its details.

I do not need to spend hours proving my case with every single text, because predestination is so clearly taught in the Bible. As far as I am concerned the variety of texts that supposedly contradict this truth can wait until I get around to them. I do not fear that they oppose the teaching, because I know that the Bible is God’s word and His word cannot possible contradict itself!

This makes many people angry, but I have no time to prove what God has already proved in His word. Texts that supposedly teach the opposite do not teach the opposite. So, I rest in what I know to be true and leave the cynics to their own devices, unhappy and miserable in their unbelief.

SARS

As we know from the news, SARS is a virulent disease. Those who have it are immediately isolated, and rightly so. Some die and some do not. The latest news is that SARS is spreading rapidly.

When my wife and I arrived at Malta airport in early April, we were handed a leaflet telling us that if we had recently been to a country which had known cases, we were to go straight away to the medical office to be checked out.

Yet, SARS is a brand new threat. AIDS is devastating whole countries and millions, not dozens, are affected. The highest risk people are homosexuals, yet they are not tested unless they request it. Those who have AIDS are not isolated. Yet, AIDS is spread mainly by sexual immorality, which is the way of life in many countries now and can easily be stopped in its tracks.

I cannot help comparing the way the world has jumped to deal with SARS, when they have brushed the real cause of AIDS under the global carpet! Have you given money to help those with AIDS in Africa, or in this country? Have you been emotionally swayed by those haunting photos of little babies dying with AIDS? Well, maybe it is time for a reality-check!

AIDS is directly caused by sexual immorality and promiscuity. Its main cause is not just immorality, but a sexual perversity condemned outright by God. Those who give to help people with AIDS are supporting immorality and sin! How many charities dealing with AIDS do so without discrimination? How many tell sufferers the Gospel, or that they are sinning? How many tell sufferers that their disease is the result of sin? (Yes, some are affected indirectly, but this does not detract from the facts).

If a charity decided to tell the truth – that AIDS is a direct result of sin (sexual immorality) and that the ONLY way to stop it is to be celibate until heterosexual marriage – then I would contribute. But I refuse to help promote the idea that ‘anyone’ can contract AIDS. You get it if you live sinfully!!

As I said, there are some exceptions, such as babies born to women who have AIDS, women who are married to homosexuals, drug users who use needles already used by homosexuals, and so on. But, it is homosexuality that originally spread AIDS, as early official health figures prove.

If governments dealt as urgently with AIDS as they are now doing with SARS, we would see the end of AIDS in such large numbers. But they won’t, because too many government ministers and others are themselves promiscuous and sinful.

“We are Borg…”

No, don’t go all huffy on me…humour me! Not all illustrations need to come from scripture…In the sci-fi series Star Trek, the ‘Borg’ consisted of composite beings made up partly of humanoid creatures and partly of machine bits linked to a central ‘brain’.

Borg spaceships toured the galaxies looking for other humanoids and when they found them they would issue a warning…”Resistance is futile. We are Borg. We will assimilate you.” Then, they’d zap the poor humanoids and add mechanical bits to their bodies, tapping in to their brains to share whatever they knew. The central ‘brain’ would coordinate everyone so that they would act together without thinking. Once assimilated, no Borg could act alone, but had to strut the ‘party line’.

In Malta, many folk have the name ‘Borg’ and, sadly, their fate is not really any different from the defenceless humanoids in outer space who were taken-over by the Borg.

Yes, the space Borg are mythical. It’s just a story – but their similarity to those taken-over by the Catholic church is striking. Just look at the icons everywhere, the lit crosses on houses and hotels, the colourful processions, the human-sized statues depicting Biblical scenes, the presence of so many convents and vast cathedral-size churches in every tiny hamlet, and the mini-icons and messages on the buses. The RCC has done a great ‘Borg’ job – they have certainly assimilated the Maltese!  The Maltese Catholics are nothing like those in the UK. The Maltese are 100% Catholic in everything and they show it pictorially.

As the Maltese prepare to join the EU, they are already well-attuned to the RC base of the Union. They will have no problem with Papal interference and Vatican-style regulations. Indeed, they could show the Vatican a thing or two about total subjection to a false religion, because they actually believe in it!

Like the mythical Borg the people of Malta are assimilated, but by the RCC. They do its bidding and are a hard preaching ground. The mythical Borg were finally defeated by removing individual Borg and showing them their individuality, which then spread through the whole Borg populace like a virus. Will God spread such a virus amongst the Maltese? Is anyone able to do the job, and been called to it?

Is It Right?

Longstanding readers know that this ministry does not simply accept the status quo in theology or in our churches. We question even the most cherished beliefs and practices. Hence this article…

A recent event prompted me to ask if missionaries have the authority to leave their children for many years whilst they do the ‘will of God’?

I can’t relate the event for reasons of confidentiality, so the questions must be general. A Christian couple decided to leave their baby girl in the hands of their family whilst they went off to China. There they stayed until they retired. By that time the baby had grown to a forty-plus year old woman.

The trouble was, the young daughter resented being abandoned by her parents and decided to take on the persona of a ‘mental illness’. (No – I’m not sending personal responses to critics who claim mental illness is genuine!).

In my earlier days I, too, accepted the usual argument that couples often had to leave behind their children in order to obey God on the mission field. But, I questioned this idea as I learned more of God. Now, I doubt very much if God gives a child to a couple only to tell them to leave it alone for ‘His sake’. Is it for ‘His sake’? Or is it just the usual (mistaken) pseudo-Christian idea of obeying God?

The mission field holds many questions for me. Are missionaries really called by God – or are they escaping to enjoy a personal desire? Are women called to preach on the mission field – when women are told to remain silent in the churches? Does God give the precious gift of a child, only to remove the parents and cause enmity between them and the child?

The missionary couple in my illustration now have to cope with a daughter who can no longer relinquish her abnormal mental response to being left alone. They now attend a church infamous for its Toronto Blessing involvement and use of occult practices. Does this answer my questions?

Evolution of Cash

UK bank-notes have had famous figures on their face, including Dickens and Florence Nightingale. Now, UK notes will bear the face of Darwin. We should ask “Why?”

His fame is based entirely on a false notion that has harmed the whole world. The hypothesis of Evolution has influenced and manipulated every aspect of social life, education and law, with disastrous results. Truth has been crushed by heretical science and teaching, and society runs riot as a result.

So, why is Darwin, of all people, gracing our bank notes? Why not ask the Bank of England this question? At least the work of Dickens was declared to be fictitious and never pretended to be real. Darwin’s ideas remain unproved and unproveable. So why depict him as some kind of national hero?