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Vol. 14 / Issue 45 / May 19 2011

Contents of this issue

Editorial

John MacArthur is Wrong! - Confession Useless -Part 13

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

If we look at the life of Jesus while He was on this earth, His life was a life of prayer. Often He would go to the wilderness or in some solitary place and would pray for hours. At times He even prayed the whole night. He was a man of prayer. When He preached to thousands, when He healed the sick, when He raised the dead, and when He was in continuous association with multitudes still He could find time to pray. Though He was busy, though He had to address large numbers of people, yet He would come back to the point where He would spend hours together with the Father.

Bible says in Mark 1:35, "Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed."

Mark 6:46, "And when He had sent them away, He departed to the mountain to pray."

Luke 5:16, "So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed."


Before He did anything He prayed. Even before choosing His twelve disciples, He spent whole night in prayer. Luke 6:12-13, "Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day, He called His disciples to Himself; and from them He chose twelve whom He also named apostles:"

Jesus though He being God in flesh needed to spend hours in prayer, then how much do we need to pray? Jesus spoke to His disciples in Mat 26:41, "Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

This was spoken by Jesus on the night just before His crucifixion next day. He knew about His coming death beforehand and also that His disciples would not be able to handle it. He also knew that all His disciples would forsake Him. In short Jesus told His disciples how to be prepared with prayer in order to face any big disaster or calamity that could come and not to be caught unawares in trouble without preparation.

Jesus set an example through His own life how to lead a victorious life through prayer and how to seek God and spend time with God. We need to pray so that we could be victorious in every situation of our life.

Jesus also reflected through His life what would happen when we spend time in the presence of our heavenly Father? The more we spend time with the Father, the more His holiness, the more His love, the more His kindness and the more His character will be reflected through our lives. The more we spend time with the Father, the more we become like Him and will adopt His qualities in our lives and the more we could know His heart. Jesus spoke again and again that He tells and does what ever He hears from the Father and what He sees His Father doing. John 15:15, "....for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you." And in John 5:19-23, "Then Jesus answered and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will. For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him."

Jesus also said in John 14:12, "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father."

All these things Jesus could do because He spent much time in the presence of God. If we spend much time in the presence of God, we can see mighty things in our own lives too.



John MacArthur is Wrong! - Confession Useless -Part 13

By Sherly 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

John MacArthur writes in his book titled, "Hard to Believe: The High Cost and Infinite Value of Following Jesus" (Chapter 6, page 102, Empty Words), "Back in Matthew 7:22, as we saw earlier, Jesus quoted those who will appeal to get into the kingdom by repeating "In Your name" three times. In other words, "We're not so self-centered. We've been casting out demons for You, and we've been doing miracles for You!" And we say, "These have got to be Christians." For some people, that claim will be legitimate, and the Lord will invite them into the kingdom.

But not every one who says that is going to enter, because not all who confess have been doing the will of the Father. In Matthew 7:23 the Lord made a confession, homologeo, of His own: "I never knew you." What a shock! He gave them a confession straight out of Psalm 6:8. They were banging on the door, saying, "Lord, Lord," and He responded, "Go away, I don't know you."


And further he writes, "Jesus sends away those who falsely claim to know Him because they "practice lawlessness" (Matt. 7:23). Instead of doing the will of God, and living by these righteous principles Jesus explained in the Sermon on the Mount, they live sinfully. It isn't what you say that proves the reality of yours faith, it's what you do."

I am not sure why John MacArthur wants to fit in his theology and wants to give an impression as if there is no use of "confession" at all. If you have read the Bible, you can understand that without confessing our sins to Jesus, without accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior we will never be able to have a relationship with Him. The first thing we need to do is to repent from our sins and turn to God. Jesus started His ministry saying, "Repent". Psalmist also says in Psalms 32:5, "I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD," And You forgave the iniquity of my sin." Bible also tells us in Prov 28:13, "He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy."

So the first step is to confess your sins and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior so that your sins could be forgiven. And you come to a relationship with God.

Matthew 7:22-23 talks about those people who had never known Jesus as their Lord and Savior, which means that their sins were not forgiven. Yet they were performing miracles in the name of Jesus. And because their sins were not forgiven, they continued in sin and Jesus calls them, "you who practice lawlessness!"

Again these verses give us a very clear picture that unless we confess our sins and turn from our sins, we have no part in Jesus.

John MacArthur further writes, "It means absolutely nothing to profess Christ if your life doesn't back it up. That's why Peter said that if you can't add virtue to your faith, you're not going to know if you're actually redeemed (see 2 Pet. 1:5-11?). That's what James meant when he said faith minus works equals zero (see James 2:17). The kind of "faith" that makes a verbal profession while the heart continues to pursue sin is no true faith at all. I think the epitome of taking the Lord's name in vain is not using His name as an expletive on the streets, but claiming Christ when He isn't yours."


Again it is wrong teaching to say that we should make a show of leading a righteous life and that we must not confess our sins or profess Christ in our lives. How a person whose sins are not forgiven could or will ever be able to show a righteous life? If he shows a righteous life but his sins are not forgiven then what is the use of showing himself as righteous or holy? But the Bible tells us in 2 Cor 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." When a person has received this new life then only he/she can live a holy life and show a righteous lifestyle.

At one point John MacArthur said that, "The word "know" in the Bible is used to characterize an intimate personal relationship." Yet he failed to tell us that how he is going to get this personal relationship with Jesus without confessing his sins.

John MacArthur quoted 2 Peter 1:5-11 and said, "That's why Peter said that if you can't add virtue to your faith, you're not going to know if you're actually redeemed" But Peter is addressing those who have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior as we read in 2 Pet 1:1, "Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:"

Here are all the verses, 2 Pet 1:5-11, "But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

Peter has made it clear that his audience were saved children of God as he says, "and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins."

Also James 2:17 does not say anything about a "verbal profession" or "a profession of empty words" or anything else but it says, "Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." If we go back and read some of the verses, it makes very clear that what James was talking here: James 2:14-16, "What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?"

So you can see that John MacArthur has tried to fit his non-confession theory everywhere. But he is completely mistaken. Without confessing our sins we cannot be saved from our sins nor can we have any part in Jesus. Nor can we have intimate relationship with God.



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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
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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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