In Support of Nathan Bickel

• Posted by Hassan Nurullah August 24, 2011 - Filed in Faith - #  - 282 views

  

   

  In support of Nathan,
  
  He was exactly right when he said to Keven:

“You should evaluate your Christian roots. Your [spiritual] acceptance of Glen Beck is, just plain, pitiful. Not being able to distinguish Glen Beck and his Mormonism as anti-Christ and anti-Christian, is not very bright on your part. Christ called his followers to be "wise as serpents and harmless as doves." Kevin - you need to work on, being "wise as a serpent."”
  
  He may have said it more roughly than some would like, but when you read what he wrote, he is not doubting Keven’s faith in fact Nathan’s statement assumes Keven’s faith. Or he would not have suggested that Keven do exactly what the apostle admonished the believers of his day to do:
  
  2 Corinthians 13
  1 This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.
  2 I told you before, and foretell you, as if I were present, the second time; and being absent now I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that, if I come again, I will not spare:
  3 Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward is not weak, but is mighty in you.
  4 For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.
  5 Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?
  6 But I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates.
  7 Now I pray to God that ye do no evil; not that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is honest, though we be as reprobates.
  8 For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.
  
  The well regarded Barnes’ Notes on the Old and New Testament offers a useful commentary:
  
  “Examine yourselves - see the note on 1 Corinthians 11:28. The particular reason why Paul calls on them to examine themselves was, that there was occasion to fear that many of them had been deceived. Such had been the irregularities and disorders in the church at Corinth; so ignorant had many of them shown themselves of the nature of the Christian religion, that it was important, in the highest degree, for them to institute a strict and impartial examination to ascertain whether they had not been altogether deceived. This examination, however, is never unimportant or useless for Christians; and an exhortation to do it is always in place. So important are the interests at stake, and so liable are the best to deceive themselves, that all Christians should be often induced to examine the foundation of their hope of eternal salvation.”
  
  In his commentary on the same verses; Matthew Henry points out something enormously valuable for this thread:
  
  “13:1-6 Though it is God's gracious method to bear long with sinners, yet he will not bear always; at length he will come, and will not spare those who remain obstinate and impenitent. Christ at his crucifixion, appeared as only a weak and helpless man, but his resurrection and life showed his Divine power. So the apostles, how mean and contemptible soever they appeared to the world, yet, as instruments, they manifested the power of God. Let them prove their tempers, conduct, and experience, as gold is assayed or proved by the touchstone. If they could prove themselves not to be reprobates, not to be rejected of Christ, he trusted they would know that he was not a reprobate, not disowned by Christ. They ought to know if Christ Jesus was in them, by the influences, graces, and indwelling of his Spirit, by his kingdom set up in their hearts. Let us question our own souls; either we are true Christians, or we are deceivers. Unless Christ be in us by his Spirit, and power of his love, our faith is dead, and we are yet disapproved by our Judge.”


  
  The apostles were considered mean in their day as well for pointing out deception amongst the believers and for admonishing the people to examine themselves. But the point the apostles were making is that if you examine yourself, you should also examine the apostles by the same criteria, you are to prove them as well as yourself.
  
  This has to be applied to any person you ally yourself with spiritually--including Glenn Beck! If the Apostles admonished us to examine their own doctrines and lives, how much more should we examine our contemporary heroes who are much further away from the Lord’s ministry on earth than the very apostles who walked with him.
  
  If the apostles did not want the believers of their day to take them at face value, what do you think our position on men like Glenn Beck should be today?
  
  An examination of what a person believes has to go deeper than the statement Keven read on the LDS site.


  
  “Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and the Son of God. He is our Redeemer.”
  
  

Satan himself and all of his demons know this statement is true! It is vitally important that we apprehend exactly who the LDS say Jesus Christ is to determine if they are truly “in the faith”.
  
  Keven ignored every question I asked him in this thread, most tellingly the one where I asked him why he thought Jesus asked his disciples: “Who do men say I am?” This is an enormously important question, because the Lord warns the disciples that there will come many false Christ’s, especially in the latter days.
  
  We have to hold on to orthodoxy.
  
  "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." I Thessalonians 5:22
  
  This is why creeds are useful, in the traditional orthodox Christian creeds you get a good outline of the ontology of Christ and the faith’s soteriological teachings.
  
  This is a link to the LDS’s articles of faith.
  
  http://mormon.org/articles-of-faith/
  
  One of the first things you notice is the lack of a complete ontological portrait of Jesus Christ. This is because they do not want the world to dismiss them out of hand as a false religion.
  
  The Mormon cannot confess that Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost because they don’t believe that, they believe that god the father of Mormonism, physically laid with the virgin Mary.

Therefore, the Mormon also cannot confess that Christ was born of a virgin, because Mary had intercourse with the father. Brigham Young clearly taught this in the Mormon “Journal of Discourses” volume 4, page 218. Here is a link to the BYU Mormon Scripture citation index and the aforementioned citation.
  
  http://scriptures.byu.edu/
  
  “Things were first created spiritually; the Father actually begat the spirits, and they were brought forth and lived with Him. Then He commenced the work of creating earthly tabernacles, precisely as He had been created in this flesh himself, by partaking of the coarse material that was organized and composed this earth, until His system was charged with it, consequently the tabernacles of His children were organized from the coarse materials of this earth.
  
  When the time came that His firstborn, the Savior, should come into the world and take a tabernacle, the Father came Himself and favored that spirit with a tabernacle instead of letting any other man do it. The Savior was begotten by the Father of His spirit, by the same Being who is the Father of our spirits, and that is all the organic difference between Jesus Christ and you and me. And a difference there is between our Father and us consists in that He has gained His exaltation, and has obtained eternal lives. The principle of eternal lives is an eternal existence, eternal duration, eternal exaltation. Endless are His kingdoms, endless His thrones and His dominions, and endless are His posterity; they never will cease to multiply from this time henceforth and forever.”
  
  So here we see that the father himself conceive Christ on earth, instead of the Holy Ghost overshadowing the virgin Mary. This negates the prophecies all throughout the Old Testament that confess the miraculous birth of our Savior by a virgin.
  
  Again, Christ asked: “Who do men say I am?”


  
  Brigham Young doubles down on this belief of a natural birth for Christ in volume 8 page 115
  
  “While brother Joseph was referring to the providences of God, I was led to reflect that there is no act, no principle, no power belonging to the Deity that is not purely philosophical. The birth of the Savior was as natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood—was begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers.”
  
  We also see in the passage from volume 4, that the Mormon god was once as we are but he is now exalted and has “gained” eternality. “And a difference there is between our Father and us consists in that He has gained His exaltation, and has obtained eternal lives.” This is in stark contrast to the Alpha and Omega revealed in the Holy Bible.
  
  The Mormon god began as a man. The Holy God of the Holy Bible has no beginning.
  
  If Beck believes in this god and this Jesus, is he really your Christian brother? Or is he a part of a false faith teaching the doctrines of devils leading men to hell by means of another gospel? Is he a believer or an unbeliever?
  
  Everything in the LDS articles of faith is antithetical to Biblical doctrine.

   

  * If you have not read the thread associated with this note here is a link *
  
  

  http://www.freedomtorch.com/blogs/1608/3679/empty-gestures