Week 10

Mormonism
Most people today believe that Mormons are just another “Christian” denomination. It is not only not part of Christianity, but it is anti-Christian. They have twisted the most fundamental doctrines of the Bible. Here are a few

Source of Authority-They don’t take the bible as the infallible word of God and they don’t believe scripture was closed with the bible. They have 3 additional books; the Book of Mormon (which has changed in 4000 places since it was written in 1830), the Doctrine of Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. Their belief is that the Bible is correct as long as it is translated correctly. If the bible contradicts their teachings or their other books, then they fall back on “it is an incorrect translation”.

Trinity-Mormons believe in polytheism, many gods. The universe has many gods that produce spirit children. They believe in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, but they believe that these are three different Gods.

God-Their view is that God was once a man like us. Through self-effort and the father-god of his plant was able to work his way to receiving his own planet and now has a physical resurrected body. They believe through their own good works and the atoning work of Jesus we to can be god and have our own planet.

Christ-They acknowledge the divinity of Christ, but not by the bible’s standard. They believe that Christ, Lucifer, the demons, and mankind are all bothers and are spirit babies from our father-god. They believe that Christ was conceived by sexual relations between god and Mary. They also believe Jesus had many wives; Mary and Martha (the sisters of Lazarus) and Mary Magdalene.

Heaven and Hell-Mormonism teaches that there are three degrees of glory: Celestial (for good Mormons able to cease sinning in this lifetime), Terrestrial (for good people who do not comply with all the teachings of Mormonism), and Telestial (for those who have lived unclean earthly lives). They don’t really believe anyone will go to hell but a few that can’t be redeemed, sons of perdition. They used to put blacks in this category up until 1978. Their belief is that the people that half-heartily fought when Lucifer got mad at God’s decision to select Jesus and fought against Him and Michael were the black race.

There are many differences these are just a few. The main thing to realize is that the lingo is the same. They use works like “salvation through Jesus”, Grace, and Trinity, but their definitions are totally different

Our Visit
Joanna and I picked up Josh this time out to make our three person team. We were scheduled to visit a family from the Church’s school. The husband was there with their 2 children. We had a good visit. When I asked what his understanding of how a person goes to heaven, he gave a “faith” answer, in Jesus only. I asked him if he as put his faith in Jesus and he told us that he has recently done that and was starting learn more and grow as a Christian. He already had a Church that he was attending and was about to start a new bible study. We didn’t want to pull him away from his church, but did tell him about Victory since the school and church were connected, this way if he ever needed anything he would know a little about us. We prayed with him and encouraged him in his new walk with the Lord.

Prayer Request
Pray for the family of a boy that was just saved. Pray for my step-father-in-law. He has is battling cancer and is taking chemotherapy. Pray for our family has we go through this with him. We only have a couple weeks left pray for our FAITH teams.

Week 7

Buddhism

Buddhism was started by a man named Siddhartha Gautama, who later changed his name to Buddha. He was born in India, around where Napal is today. He was born into a Hindu family around 560 BC. When he was young, a seer said that he would be the greatest ruler ever and if he saw four things: sickness, old age, death and a monk that renounced the world, he would discover a way of salvation for everyone. To protect him, his father built a palace to shelter him from all this. The story goes that one day when he was 29 he did see all these things. He saw a man with sores, an old guy, a dead person being carried to his grave, and a begging monk who appeared peaceful and happy. So he left his family and ran away.

He shaved his head, put on a yellow robe and tried to find salvation by self-denial. When starving himself didn’t work, he sat under a tree for 40 days. There he experienced nirvana which means the “blowing out” of the flame of desire and the negation of suffering. It was here that he clamed that he found salvation and then changed his name to Buddha.

They believe that suffering is universal and nirvana will release you from that cycle, because you will be reincarnated until you are released. This suffering is because of our craving and selfish desires. To reach this state a person must overcome ignorance and eliminate these cravings. The way they say to do this is to suppress the cravings by the eightfold path: right viewpoint, right aspiration, right speech, right behavior, right occupation, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation.

Buddha clamed he knew how to get to nirvana, but what is was like when you got there he didn’t know. Buddha claimed to have found the way but Jesus said that He is the way (John 14:6). Buddha said that suffering comes from cravings and all desire was bad. Christianity says that suffering is caused by sin (Romans 8:18-23) and that we can have good desires like the desire to glorify and give glory to God (see Ps. 27:4, Matt 6:33). It all comes down to work, like all the other religions we’ve studied. People do have a “selfish desire”, a desire to save themselves and glorify our own deads. We can't save ourselves it is only God through Jesus Christ that can save and He should get the glory not us.

Our Visit

We had a scheduled visit to a family at the school. We never found that address but ended up close to a customer and friend of mine. This is a lady that has visited the church before and her son actually invited us the first time to victory. We had a great visit with her and invited her to Sunday school and a church. We prayed with her before we left.

Prayer Request

Pray for all our FAITH teams. Pray for a lady that the gospel was presented to and she accepted the gift of salvation. Thank God for moving in her life and allowing one of the team be involved.

Week 4

Judaism

This week we are studying Judaism. It is unique in that it is both a nationality and a religion. We have, what we call, the Old Testament in common with them. They pay particular attention to the first five books, called the Torah. They also have teaching of their rabbis, which mean master or teacher, written down in a book called the Mishnah. Another book that they use is the Talmud. This is about 36 Volumes and is based on the Mishnah with more material added.

Without going into a lot of detail about this religion, the main difference in Christianity and Judaism is Christ. Christianity has its roots in Judaism. Most of our favorite bible characters were Jews. Even Christ was a Jew. They would have followed some of the same practices and rituals as today’s Jewish people.

Like us they believe in one God and it is the same God we worship, the God of Abraham. They don’t believe in the Godhead being in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The especially don’t believe Jesus was the Son of God. Some Jews accept Him as a good teacher. Their belief in salvation comes from commitment to the one true God and through moral living. As Christians we know it is through Jesus only. We understand that we don’t live a moral life. We know that all have sinned and that there is none good. For this reason we need a savior, someone to pay that debt that we have and to redeem us. We are saved thought faith in Jesus (Romans 3:24).

Our Visit

One of my team members had to be out this week so my prayer partner stepped in and came with us. We had a couple scheduled visits. These were a couple families from the Victory Baptist School. The first one was a family that had a couple kids at the school with the oldest one being in 6th grade. This family has been at the school for 7 years. It was dinner time so we had a quick visit at the door. We stated the purpose of the visit and asked how everything was going and if there was anything the church could help with. Before leaving we had a prayer with the family. Or second visit was not home so we left a church brochure at the door.

On the way back to the chruch, Joanna gave a bible to a police officer and she had a short conversation with him. He was asking questions about Satan. As we were pulling off there were some young men at the liquor store, so we gave a couple bibles to them.

Prayer Request

There as been a lot of children in the church and school asking question about salvation and a few the visits were geared toward them. There was even one saved last night on a FAITH visit. Please pray for each of these children and that God will continue to show them of there need for Jesus.

Week 3

Greek Orthodox
This week we are studying the Greek Orthodox Church. They are a little similar to the Catholic Church, which they split from in 1054 A.D. The reason from the split is they wanted to keep the church the same as it was the first century.

The main difference in the two churches is the Orthodox Church doesn’t have a Pope. Even though they don’t have a Pope, they still have a succession from the original apostles to today’s archbishops sometimes called patriarchs or metropolitans. The Catholic Church is a succession from Peter to the Pope, but the Orthodox Church is from each of the apostles.

Like the Catholic Church, the Church has authority over scripture. This is because of their understanding of the bible. We understand the bible is the inspired Word of God. This Word has always existed and gave life to the Church. Their understanding is that the Church wrote the bible so that they have supremacy over it.

This picture above is the an example of an Icon that they pray to.

Our Visit

Our plan was to visit a family that attends Victory Baptist School. That family wasn’t home so we visited their neighbor. I remembered the neighbor form a few weeks ago. I meet them at another Church member’s house which lived across the street. Before the visit, I felt that I didn’t go their with the right attitude or heart, but God quickly showed me that he planned this visit. This family of two boys and a mother just lost their father/mother. We were able to share God’s word and pray with the mother before we left. Also before we left we arranged for another group to visit that would be better suited to minister to her needs and would be the Sunday school that she’d attend.

On the way back to the Church I gave my Bible to a lady at a carwash. She seemed very thankful to receive it.

Prayer Request
Pray for the family that we visited that the love and comfort of God will show through our Church in this time of need. Pray for a guy that I went to school with that heard the gospel last Sunday. Pray that he will realize his need for a savior and that he will “accept this free gift”.

Week 5

Going into today I was excited. It was an election day and there is a polling place located in the community center across from the Church. Usually there will be people on the Church property holding up signs pushing their candidate or issue. Since they can’t be on the grounds of the polling place, they stand on the sidewalk by the Church. One time I went with another FAITH member and was able to present the gospel to those standing around. We have these “poll questions” that our Church uses to find out how we could better serve the community. The last question is “In your opinion, what do you understand it takes for a person to go to heaven”. If we get anything but a “faith” answer, we present the gospel. Unfortunately this was just a small election and nobody was out pushing for his or her cause, it was just an annexation vote.

Class was good we studied about the “A” in FAITH. A is for available. God’s forgiveness is available to us. It is available to all of us. John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Even though it is available to everyone it is not automatic. Jesus says in Matthew 7:21 “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven”. There are a lot of people out there that believe that everyone will be saved or that all religions lead to heaven. They read into John 3:16 and say see He died for all of us, so we all are going to heaven. We need to also look at the “whosoever believeth in him..” This is why the “F” that we studied last week is so important. Every one has sinned and needs forgiveness. That forgiveness is in Jesus only. If we don’t understand our sins, how can we receive or even understand the cure. We compare ourselves too much to other people (horizontally) and not to God and His holy standards (vertically).

In class we also learned that people often ask “How can a loving God send someone to hell?” Again, the need to understand who we are (sinners) and who God is (Holy and Righteous). Like an earthly judge, if a convicted criminal went unpunished then the judge would be corrupt. The same with God, we wouldn’t think that God would let a murder or a rapist go unpunished would we?. How about a lair, a thief, or a blasphemer? When Jesus was talking to Nicodemus in John 3:18, a few verses after John 3:16. He said “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already”. Jesus didn’t come to lead people to hell they are already on their way. He came to save us from it.

Our Visit

We had a ministry visit, the Parsley’s. Mr. Parsley has cancer and has not been able to leave his home for a while now. One of the FAITH teams has been tried to visit with them each week. Last week a FAITH team didn’t visit and they disappointed. Even though a FAITH team didn’t visit, there have still been visits from the pastor and friends during other parts of the week. We had a real good visit and we talked about how we miss them in Church. Mr. Parsley was a little emotional telling us that they miss being in Church. We learned more about them. This is one of the preachers at our Church. The few times I’ve heard him preach, I came away blown away at the talent God has given him. Since his eyes had gotten bad, he couldn’t read the passages out of the bible. He would recite them from memory, word for word. He is a great inspiration for me and I’d bet a lot of people in our Church too. We had an overall good visit. We prayed with them before we left.

Prayer

Pray that Mr. Parsley would get healthy enough to make it to Church again. Pray for the son of my daughter’s teacher. I’ve found out tonight that he had to go in for emergency surgery on his appendix. Pray for my team members both of them work at our school and this is a busy time for them. Pray for the lost and that I’d have more courage about sharing the gospel.

FAITH Is Starting

A new semester of FAITH is about to kick off at Victory Baptist Church and I wanted to find a way to keep my prayer partners informed with visits I make through FAITH. FAITH is an evangelism strategy and teaching that our Church uses to lead people to Christ. It involves going door-to-door sharing the gospel as a 3 person team. Our ultimate goal is to see lost souls saved.

I plan on sharing my experiences and some my thoughts as we lean how to present the gospel in a biblical way. The objective in this blog may change and I might even go in a different direction as the semester progresses.