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Vol. 14 / Issue 31 / February 10 2011

Contents of this issue

Editorial

John MacArthur is Wrong! - Jesus: Utilitarian Genie - Part 5

Join us in Facebook



News Items (Common to all issues) :

Standing in the Gap - Fasting prayer on 8th Dec.. 2015

Download Articles in Handheld Computers

Please Join us in "Peace Prayer Room"

Your Spam Folder

Hindi / Malayalam/Tamil Bible Online

Through the Valley of Death

Free Tutorials for your Kids!

Allah and Elohim - Are they the same God? Book

Free E-Cards

Online Games for you!



Editorial

By Sherly Isaac

Revolution in Egypt reminds me of the great joy of freedom and deliverance. This is a country that saw only one president in thirty years. According to the locals the president did little for them and they wanted freedom and deliverance from their hardship, unemployment and poor conditions in which they are in. As soon as the news came that the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has resigned, people were jubilant and they started dancing, rejoicing and celebrating their new found freedom. Though it is a different story that we do not yet know who will run the nation and what would be the future of Egypt but still it was a moment of great joy for the people.

Every type of freedom and deliverance gives great joy to the person who experiences it. But freedom is not cheap while it has a price tag. The Egyptian freedom also did not come cheap as more than hundred people died before they got the freedom.

Probably some of us are born in a free country. Yet we need freedom from our sins, from our problems, from our sicknesses and from any wrong atmosphere in which we are in. Bible tells us in Romans 3:23, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And in Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." If we continue in our sins and in the bondages of sin then we will die and go to hell fire. But God came down in the form of a man to die for us and to take away our sins on the cruel cross so that we could have freedom and deliverance.

This freedom from our sins is also not cheap but had been bought by the precious blood of Jesus who gave His life and shed His precious blood on the cruel cross and gave Himself for us. Because of His great sacrifice, today we have this freedom from all our bondages, freedom from all sicknesses and freedom from all our troubles and problems. We read in the Bible Isaiah 53:3-6, "He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."

By giving Himself to be sacrificed, Jesus paid the price in full for our redemption in every area of our lives. If you come to Jesus He is ready to wash you clean and give you a new life. He is ready to forgive and forget all your sins and make you a new creation. Not only that, He would give you eternal life. When you are done in this world He will take you to heaven. This is what Jesus came for to give us - a wonderful life in this world and in the world to come. Do you want to have this wonderful life? Just come to Jesus, repent from your sins and invite Him in your heart as your Lord and Savior.



John MacArthur is Wrong! - Jesus: Utilitarian Genie - Part 5

By Vinod Isaac

To read previous or next parts please click on these links:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 29

Then John MacArthur writes something that is clearly making fun of the statements of Jesus. He writes, "where ministers view Jesus as a utilitarian genie. You rub the lamp, and He jumps out and says you have whatever you want; you give Him your list and He delivers".

Here is what Jesus said.
John 14:13-14, "And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.

John 15:16,"You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.
John 16:23-24, "And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.


John MacArthur is making fun of the very words of Jesus. Instead of trusting Jesus at His face value, he is teaching something that is totally opposite to what Jesus said.

A person who is a follower of Jesus is supposed to hear Jesus and do what He commands us to do. Here Jesus is commanding to ask. He says until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive. For what? That your joy may be full. I have absolutely no clue how a person can take these words of Jesus and twist it and say that if somebody is asking Jesus he is treating Jesus as genie. Jesus doesn't seem to feel that way in those verses to me. Bible doesn't say anywhere that if you go and ask anything to Jesus it will be equal to treating Jesus as genie. Especially such mockery of Jesus coming from a person who claims himself to be a true servant of Jesus is absolutely unthinkable.

I wish John MacArthur had believed in the Words of Jesus instead of making fun of those verses. He can try to explain away saying that everything we ask we don't receive and that will be another attempt to tell that Jesus lied in those verses. Jesus has said clearly that, "If you believe all things are possible". Of course Jesus is not going to give something that is harmful to us, doesn't mean that we cannot ask. He knows the best to give to us. Jesus is encouraging us to ask and here John MacArthur is discouraging people to ask anything from Jesus.

John MacArthur claims that he is preaching the true gospel and he claims that self-denial is true gospel. We have already looked that self-denial is not a gospel at all. We already looked that in the light of the Word of God, Jesus died on the cross for removing sins, for bringing peace and for healing. That is the true gospel.

Jesus said
Mat 11:28, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Mat 11:29-30, "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."


It looks that John MacArthur is preaching exactly the opposite of what Mat 11:28-30 says. Jesus is the one who gives rest not your self-denial. There is nothing you can do to earn salvation. All you have to do is repent of your sins and ask the Lord Jesus to become your Lord and Master.

John 1:12, "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:

Rom 10:9-13, "that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For "whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved."


Paul is making very clear on how a person can get saved. He is asking to do the following

1.) Confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus
2.) Believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead

Paul says again in Rom 1:16,17 that a person is saved by faith and that the just shall live by faith.

Rom 1:16-17, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith."

Then Paul says that God will judge according to his gospel, not according to John MacArthur's gospel.

Rom 2:16, "in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.

Paul even goes further and says that if any one preaches another gospel let him be accursed.

Gal 1:8-9, "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.

Why Paul needed to say that? Because of the Jews who were compelling believers to do it by the works of law not by faith. When John MacArthur is saying that the true gospel is of self-denial that is exactly what it is to obtain salvation through our own efforts of works of self-denial. And Paul warns very clearly that accursed is anyone if he goes astray from the 'gospel of a person' who gets saved by confessing his sins and believing in Jesus.

When John MacArthur is talking about self-denial he is trying to please his audience because they get a sense of satisfaction that they have contributed something to earn their salvation. He is feeding their ego that they don't want anything from God for free. They want to earn by self-denial to obtain salvation. Anybody who has a part in it gets a self satisfaction and it looks that John MacArthur is using that by which he is playing games with his reader's eternity. He is creating a sense in the people that they are doing something for God. God doesn't need you to do it, we are doing it to earn it, kind of thing. That's why he is calling those words 'genie', playing with the ego of people that, "hey you don't need to come to Jesus to ask things, you can earn it by self denial." Instead the need is that a person should humble himself completely and come to Jesus and ask Him for forgiveness of sins. A person need to humble himself so much that he has to say to the Lord, "Lord I don't deserve it, still please forgive me." In the same way a person has to humble himself before the Lord and ask for all the needs of his life.

Mat 7:7-8, "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."

When John MacArthur is using words like genie he is turning people away from Jesus, so that they would not come and ask Jesus with confidence.



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Standing in the Gap - Fasting prayer on 8th Dec.. 2015

As the Bible says in Ezekiel 22:30 "So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it." And also the Bible says in Numbers 16:48, "And he (Aaron) stood between the dead and the living; so the plague was stopped." We have fasting prayer every second Tuesday of each month. Our next fasting prayer meeting will be conducted on 16th Nov. 2015

Download Articles in Handheld Computers

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Please Join us in "Peace Prayer Room"

If you have any prayer request please join us any time at our New Chat Room at http://insearchofpeace.org/prayer If any of us available in prayer room, we will be praying online otherwise you can email your prayer request to feedback@insearchofpeace.org

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Hindi / Malayalam/Tamil Bible Online

Now you can read Bible in Hindi online at http://www.hindibible.org
in Malayalam online at http://www.malayalambible.org
in Tamil online at http://www.hindibible.org?ver=tamil

Through the Valley of Death

As many of you know that in the year 2005, our dad was very sick even unto death. God miraculously healed him. We have compiled it in a book form. I sure believe that it will inspire you and encourage you greatly.

This book is available for purchase at JasmineCorp Store

Free Tutorials for your Kids!

Now you can learn Graphics and web designing online. These tutorials are free but you may need to get login ID by registering yourslef. Currently tutorials for Paint Shop Pro, HTML and Dreamweaver/Fireworks are available but in future more tutorials will be added.

Check the tutorials at:http://jasminecorp.net/tutorial

Allah and Elohim - Are they the same God? Book

Now available "Allah and Elohim - Are they the same God" Available at JasmineCorp Store, and "Is Jesus God?" Available at JasmineCorp Store,

Both books compares the Bible and the Quran and read eye opening facts about Jesus, God of the Bible, Allah and Islamic faith. I am sure that you want to read this.

Also read:
Book Title: Is Jesus God?
Author: Sherly Isaac
ISBN: 0759628092
http://insearchofpeace.org/books.htm

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