Irish Roman Catholic nun, Peggy O’Neill, served as a sister in a religious order for almost fifty years. During that time, she had never heard the true Gospel. When it comes to the Gospel there can be no compromise, because the Gospel is the power of God for salvation.
False Teachers in the Early Church
In
the Bible we read of the churches in Galatia where false teachers were
leading people into another gospel. They were going back under law, for
as well as believing in Jesus Christ, they had to observe certain
religious laws making Christianity a set of rules and laws whereby they
had to earn heaven. Galatians Chapter Three tells us that Christ has
redeemed us from the curse of the law and that He is the end of the law
for righteousness. If we take Jesus plus any religious law as a means of
salvation we are fallen from grace. We cannot trust in law and grace at
the same time, so trying to combine the two, we put ourselves under
law. By adding anything to the finished work of the cross, Christ will
profit us nothing. Galatians 3:21 says that if righteousness comes by
the law then Christ died in vain. This is the seriousness of being under
the law–we have to be our own saviors and the Bible says that no man
can be saved by keeping the law. It is not surprising, therefore, that
the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians used strong words to
say that if anyone, even an angel from heaven were to preach another
gospel, let him be accursed.
My Attempts to Live by the Law
Like
the Galatians, I was trying to save myself by a combination of law and
grace. I was putting my faith in Jesus but also in my own actions,
trying to earn heaven and the things of God by doing the best I could
instead of receiving salvation as a gift. The Gospel was no longer Good
News, for the burden of salvation was on my back. In the end, I could
only hope to be saved in spite of all my attendance at Mass, the
sacraments, prayers, and other good works. By offering my own
righteousness as a means of being accepted before God, I was, according
to Galatians 5:3, making myself a debtor to the whole law. I was
obligated to meet a standard of perfection that equals that of God. I
had never understood how to trust Jesus and Him alone as my Savior. I
had not known that it was not by my performance, but by just believing
and accepting the perfect price Jesus paid when He shed His blood for me
on Calvary that I would be saved. When I heard the true message of the
Gospel, the truth set me free. I praise God that I am learning to depend
more and more on the Lord Jesus for my needs, both in this life and for
eternity.
Famine in Ireland
A catechism of the Catholic Church gives this teaching, “The Bishops have the mission of p reaching the Gospel to every creature so that all may attain salvation through faith, Baptism and the observance of the Commandments.” This preaches a gospel of works. B y mixing law and grace, the Catholic Church has fallen into the same error as the Galatians. A church that acknowledges much of the truth of the Word of God, but that misrepresents the Gospel is the kind of church into which I was born in Ireland. I was told it was the one true Church and for over sixty years, I never once doubted or questioned that.
The second of ten children, I
had the example of good parents who were faithful members of their
Church. Were my family to be judged by the teachings and traditions of
the Catholic Church, we could all reasonably hope for a place in heaven.
But the Bible tells us that we will be judged, not by the teachings of
any Church, but by the Word of God. “ The Word that I have spoken, the
same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48). In my young days,
there was not a single copy of the Bible in our home. Happily, today
things in that regard have changed.
Here in Ireland, we still talk
about the Great Famine of the 1840’s when the potato crop failed and a
million people died of starvation, while another million emigrated to
America never again to return home. Ireland in the 1990’s is a land of
abundance, but there is a famine of a different kind, a famine described
in the Bible “Behold the days come, saith the Lord God, That I w ill
send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for
water, But of hearing the Words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11). Those days of
famine have surely come to Ireland, yet it is encouraging to know that
more and more people have been meeting together for some years to study
the Bible and feast upon the Word of the Lord.My Mother’s Death in Ireland
In
England where I spent most of my religious life, I was an enthusiastic
believer in the Charismatic Movement, considered to have been a genuine
move of the Holy Spirit. I also attended some Christian meetings with
thousands of Christians from many nations. When I got permission from my
religious superiors to come home to care for my mother in the last six
years of her life, I had the opportunity to listen to Christian radio
programs where the Gospel of salvation was regularly preached. When my
mother died, aged ninety-five, I did not have an understanding of the
Gospel so I was unable to help her have an assurance of her salvation.
However, I recall with joy her words to me on the day she died, “I want
Jesus to come for me today.” These were precious words. Also during th
ose years at home, I had contact with a nephew of mine, Tom Griffin, who
had a godly influence on my life. He had joined a Christian church and
he introduced me to J.P. Walsh who was the leader of a local group in
weekly Bible study. All this eventually led up to my discovering the
unconditional love of God and the liberating message of the Gospel.
Christ’s
Righteousness Available to Me “ Righteousness” was the key word that
opened for me the truth of the Gospel. I found the word in Paul’s
description of the Gospel in Romans 1:16. The Gospel “… is the power of
God unto salvation to everyone that believeth ; …for in it is the
righteousness of God revealed.” The righteousness of God–this is what is
required to get to heaven. What God demands is perfection: nothing less
than His own righteousness. This was something new to me for all I was
ever conscious of was my own righteousness and how I could save my soul.
I could have been compared to those Jews in Romans 10:3, “ For they,
being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish
their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the
righteousness of God.” I was ignorant of God’s righteousness. What it t
akes for salvation is a righteousness that equals that of God and I knew
that no one could ever reach that standard. This then is what the
Gospel is all about: what God demands, He provides. The Good News is
that if we believe in Jesus Christ whose death on the cross, burial and
resurrection has paid the price of our sin, we will be saved. The Bible
puts it this way, “ Jesus who knew no sin became sin for us that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). In
exchange for my sins, God will give me the righteousness of Jesus, God’s
righteousness for my sins! This is the Good News, the Gospel in a
nutshell.Salvation by Grace
God’s Word tells us that salvation is by grace alone. I soon found out why salvation is a gift from God and cannot be by works. Isaiah 64:6 says, “ All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” when compared with the infinite righteousness of God. All my best efforts, my faithfulness, my good works are nothing but filthy rags when it comes to earning heaven. I could never earn heaven, so Jesus did it for me. I just come to God empty handed, not with all my “great” keeping of la ws, my penance and my holiness. My dependence is totally on Jesus and what He has done for me. Paul, once a religious Jew who had strictly adhered to the law, came to the place where he said he wanted to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified. We too must come to that place of dependency, not on ourselves, not on Mary or any Church–all our dependency must be on Christ. We look to Him and Him alone. Even though our good lives will never gain heaven for us, there is a purpose in living an upright life in our day-to-day relationships with our families and others. This, too, is provided for by God’s grace in the direction of His Word and the power of His Spirit given to us the moment we believe. Salvation is on the basis of our faith in Jesus Christ, not on the basis of our conduct. That same faith keeps us trusting in Jesus Christ as we walk daily by His Spirit.
I had never heard the full story of
Redemption, how completely Jesus had dealt with sin to save us from
hell, “ the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false
prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever”
(Revelation 20:10). Jesus did not partially deal with sin. He did such a
complete and finished work that all sin was blotted out and washed away
by His precious blood. Sin, past, present and future, even those sins
not yet committed were forgiven two thousand years ago when Jesus died
on that cross on Calvary. God does not keep a record of the believer’s
sins. “ I, even I, am he who blotteth out thy transgressions for mine
own sake, and I will not remember thy sins” (Isaiah 43:25). The debt of
sin has been completely paid, yet not everyone will be saved. There is
one thing that will send people to hell. Jesus Himself spoke about it in
John 16:9, “ they believe not on Me”, a rejection of Jesus and the
salvation He gained for us. God does not violate the will of any person,
nor is salvation automatic. Man is born condemned, separated from God
as a son of Adam, but God’s will is for all men to be saved and to come
to a knowledge of the truth. For those who believe in Christ, “There is
therefore now no comdemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans
8:1).
God’s Justice Satisfied
“ The jury
is still out” is what a priest recently said in this context. According
to Romans Chapter Three, the jury has already pronounced the verdict,
“Guilty”. “ There is none righteous, no, not one.” The religious and the
unreligious are all guilty before God. In His justice, God had to
impose a penalty for sin, and since man could never pay that penalty,
God in His love found a way to do for us what we ourselves could not do.
He gave His Son, Jesus, who took all the blame for us and in our place
He was condemned to death. He died on the cross. Jesus was forsaken by
His Father. He descended into hell and took from Satan the keys of hell
and death. The heavenly courts of eternal justice were satisfied and the
believer’s debt was fully paid. On the third day Jesus was raised from
the dead by the Holy Spirit, Jesus the first born-from the dead, the
first born of many brethren. Man must accept Jesus’ sacrifice to be
saved and when he does, God accepts him on the basis of His Son’s
righteousness.
Relationship with God Restored in Christ
As
time went on, I saw that in the Scriptures our relationship with God is
based on both God’s grace and faith. His plan for our salvation is that
we should believe in Christ Jesus by grace through faith. “ For by
grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of ourselves, it is the
gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). Faith is not a gift we get from our
parents or from the church, “ Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by
the Word of God” (Rom 10:17). In God’s plan for salvation, faith itself,
by which we trust only on Christ and His completed work, is of itself
the work of God. This was the message Jesus gave the people in John
6:28-29 when they asked what they should do that they might work the
works of God. Jesus said to them, “ This is the work of God, that ye
believe on Him whom he [God] has sent”. I would have said that I had
always believed in Jesus, yet now I realize that I had not known the
real Jesus, the Jesus revealed in the Scriptures. I had known nothing of
the gift of righteousness He had to offer or of the complete
forgiveness of sin brought about by His death and resurrection. Titus
1:16 says, “ They profess that they know God, but in works they deny
Him…” I was carrying out religious practices that showed that I did not
know Him. I thought it was essential for my salvation to attend Mass
because I had not fully accepted His propitiatory sacrifice on the
Cross. I sought forgiveness for sin in the Sacrament of Reconciliation,
not knowing that Jesus had already reconciled me to God. As well as
depending on Jesus, I also depended on Mary , the saints, my penances
and good works, my hours of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament,
rosaries, scapulars, indulgences, purgatory. Paul uses a word to
describe the value of anything we try to do to add to the work of Jesus,
it is the word “ dung” (Philippians 3:8). All our good works are
displeasing to God if offered as a means of gaining heaven for ourselves
or for others, implying that what Jesus did on Calvary was not enough.
Repentance from Dead Works
According
to Hebrews 6:1, one of the foundations of the Christian life is
repentance or turning away from dead works. By dead works is meant
religious practices and good works performed either by oneself or
through the ministry of the church so as to obtain salvation. All these
works, no matter how righteous, are the filthy rags referred to in
Isaiah 64:6. They are what is called religion and religion is man’s
counterfeit for Jesus Christ. There is no promise in the Bible that says
religious people will go to heaven. On the contrary, Jesus called the
most religious people on earth in His time, the Pharisees, to
repentance. The Bible tells us that to be declared righteous before God,
the first thing we must do is stop working for it. This was very
strange to me, who as a Catholic had been led to put so much emphasis on
my own performance as well as on the ministry of priests. Once heard,
the Word of God must take first place and God’s Word in Romans 4:5 left
me in no doubt, “ But to him that worketh not but believeth on Him that
justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”
I
had never really believed, as I had never accepted salvation as a gift.
By God’s mercy, I was convicted of the sin of not totally trusting in
Jesus and His finished work. I repented from dead works and from
trusting in my own righteousness and I accepted the finished work of
Jesus on the cross. I had now really heard the Word of salvation and
with the Word came God’s gift of supernatural faith. As in 2 Corinthians
4, I believed therefore I spoke and committed my life to Jesus Christ
trusting in Him as my Savior. At that instant, God imparted to me His
righteousness. In my new born-again spirit, I was as righteous as God,
not because of any goodness of mine but because of Jesus. What had
happened to me is described in 2 Corinthians 5:17. I experienced
salvation. I was born again in the way that Jesus said to Nicodemus, “
you must be born again”. I was baptized with the only baptism that bring
s salvation, identification with Jesus Christ. For the first time I
knew that my name was written in the Lamb’s Bo ok of Life.
Baptism into Jesus Christ
What
had happened to me is what the Bible calls baptism into Jesus Christ.
Romans 6:3 , “ As many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were
baptized into His death”. Galatians 3:27 “ for as many of you as have
been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” There was no external
ceremony, no priest, no godparents. It was a matter between God the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and me. I had received the one baptism that
is necessary for salvation.
A short time
afterwards I was baptized by immersion in the Atlantic Ocean at a place
called Banna Strand in my native County Kerry. This baptism in water by
immersion is an expression of the inner change that had already taken
place in my spirit. It was a public confession of my belief in Jesus
Christ as Savior and a showing forth of His death, burial and
resurrection. Baptism in water does not make a person a Christian, it
shows that he already is a Christian. The Catholic Church has lost this
truth of the baptism into Jesus Christ, the baptism that translates us
from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God. For this reason it
can be said that many Catholics are Christian only in name.
Catholic Infant Baptism
Paul
in reference to the baptism into Jesus, speaks in Colossians 2:11 of
the circumcision of the heart, a circumcision made without hands. I was
one day old when I was taken to the local Catholic Church to be
baptized. The hands of the priest signed me with the sign of the cross,
anointed me with oil and chrism and put salt on my lips. There was a
laying on of hands and hands were used to pour water on my head. My
baptism, outwardly a beautiful and symbolic ceremony, was in reality
nothing but an empty ritual. Baptism in water is a biblical ordinance
that Christians obey after believing in Jesus. In the Acts of the
Apostles 10:44-47, there is an example of Christian baptism for New
Testament believers. In verse 47, baptism in water is given only after
Cornelius and his household were saved and filled with the Holy Spirit.
In Ireland there was an incident recently where a baby died, days before
it was to be baptized. That the baby died without baptism added to the
parents grief. The Catholic Church in her liturgy could only invite them
to trust in the mercy of God and pray for their child’s salvation.
However, according to the Word of God, that child went straight to
heaven. It is true that everyone is born in original sin (in Adam), but
Romans 5:13 tells that “ sin is not imputed where there is no law”. The
law does not apply until a child comes to t he use of reason or the age
of discernment. Paul wrote, “ For I was alive apart from the law once;
but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died” (Romans 7:9).
The false doctrines relating to baptism are a betrayal of the trust of
millions of sincere Catholics who are misled as to their true standing
before God in an area where their quality of life here on earth and
their eternity is at stake. Until about eight years ago, I would have
strongly opposed anything said against the Catholic Church, and even as I
set about writing this testimony, my intention was to avoid any adverse
criticism. But things have not worked out that way and any criticism of
mine is only of the system into which I was born.
Understanding the Bible
Some
people say that the Bible is hard to understand and this is true if one
fails to grasp certain foundational truths. One of those truths is the
concept that man is a spirit being with a soul (mind, will emotions) and
he lives in a body. In I Thessalonians 5:23 we see how God divides man,
“spirit, soul and body” and Hebrews 4:12 talks about the Word of God “
piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit”. Catholic
doctrine attributes to the soul what t he Bible attributes to the spirit
making no distinction between the two. Without a knowledge of this
distinction, there was much in the Bible that I could not understand. I
could not understand Scripture truths like the righteousness of the
believer or “as He is, so are we in this world”. To live the Christian
life it i s important to know how our spirit, soul and body function and
relate to one another so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, the
recreated spirit may dominate the body and soul which will not be free
from the presence of sin until the believer experiences physical death.
Some
time ago, a story was told in our church of a poor man who owned one
field. He had barely enough to live on, but had he known, he could have
been a wealthy man, for underneath that field was an oil well. This
man’s story is that of many of us Christians today. Inside us is a
spiritual “oil well”, and we are not aware of the limitless resources of
God within us. It is possible that the early Christians knew and lived
by the power of the Holy Spirit that was available in their born-again
spirits. With the true Gospel message, they turned the then known world
upside down in the first twenty to thirty years of Christianity. In our
born-again spirits, God has provided everything we need and His life
will be manifested through our lives to the degree that we renew our
minds with His Word and use the grace He makes available moment by
moment. The Bible tells us in I Corinthians 1:30 that Jesus “ …is made
unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” .
My Religious Order
At seventeen, I left home to enter the Order of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. This is an International Order founded by Fr. Jean Pierre Gailhac at Beziers in the South of France. I spent the first seven years of my religious life in France and then after training as a teacher in England, I devoted thirty-five years to teaching in parish schools governed by the Local Education Authority. Side by side with life as a teacher was my religious life considered by me to be the highest calling. During all my years in the convent, I never had any reason to think otherwise. After the period of six years at home caring for my mother, I would have returned to the convent to work and share with the nuns I respected, loved and knew so well. A younger sister of mine, Carmel, is a member of the order and she is presently teaching African children in Zambia. However, it was not possible for me to return to the convent as I no longer could agree with the teachings and practices of the Catholic Church. Soon, I no longer viewed the religious life as being the highest calling. Richard Bennett, once a Dominican priest writing in an article, “Is the Religious Form of Life Designe d by God?”, says that the Bible has ordained only three different institutions: the family, the church and the state. Religious life could not be reconciled with the Word of God.Freed from the Law
Having
been under law for so much of my life, the Epistle to the Galatians is
of particular interest to me. In addition to being subject to the Ten
Commandments and other church laws, religious life has its own rules,
constitutions and vows. The Bible, however, speaks of only one law for
New Testament believers, not the law of works, but the law of Jesus
Christ, a law written on our hearts. Jesus Himself is the reality of the
Mosaic Law which like everything else in the Old Covenant was only a
type and shadow of things to come. “The Commandments of Ordinances were
nailed to the Cross”, and the part that remained was the spirit a nd
intent of the law – that we love God with all our hearts and our
neighbors as ourselves. This law is the very nature of Jesus Himself
living today through an individual in the flesh. He is not looking at
our outward observances. He wants to find people who yield themselves to
Him so completely that He can live His nature in them from the inside
out. We have a description of the nature and character of Jesus in
Galatians 5:22-23, “ the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control”. On
earth Jesus was a living manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit. This
is not a list of pleasant qualities that improve our personalities, but
the character of Jesus Christ. In our lives it is manifested when by
grace through faith we allow His Spirit rather than our sinful natures
to be in control. Romans 8:29 says that God has predestined believers to
be conformed to the image of His Son. In our lives there can be joy
instead of discouragement, peace rather than confusion and strife, the
loving, wholesome word instead of the impatient or unkind word.
Instead
of subjecting ourselves to the law of Moses, we let Christ live His
life in us through His Spirit who enables us in our weakness. This is
the law Jesus referred to in Matthew 5, “ that whoever shall do it and
teach by example shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Religious life with its rules and vows is not God’s way as defined in
the Scriptures. Religious vows of poverty, chastity and obedience are
not found in Scripture. Jesus directs us in Matthew 5:34-37, “. .Swear
not at all, neither by heaven, for it is God’ s throne, nor by the
earth, for it is his footstool…neither shalt thou swear by thy head…but
let your communication be ‘Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for whatever is more than
these cometh of evil.” What is spoken of in the New Testament is the
priesthood of all believers. Peter writes that every true believer is a
member of a “ royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9). Jesus is our High Priest
and beli evers in Christ are priests with a divine call and purpose to
offer up spiritual sacrifices, the sacrifice of a yielded heart,
offering praise to God in all things and invited to a ministry of
intercession on behalf of others.
One Mediator, Jesus Christ
The Epistle to the Hebrews was written to bring people from the Old Covenant way of serving God into the New Covenant realities that Jesus Christ brought into effect. Sad to say, the transition has not yet been made two thousand years later. The Catholic Church still has the law and the priesthood. In her liturgy there is the sacrifice and the altar, priestly vestments, incense, candles, all of which were essential to Jewish religion and worship. These were Old Testament types and shadows of things to come. The Catholic Church has Christianized Judaism and not come into the New Covenant established by the finished work of Jesus on the Cross. For years, at Mass, I heard the words, “This is the blood of the New and Everlasting Coven ant.” I knew little or nothing about that Covenant. I was operating under an Old Covenant mentality. The Catholic Church ordains priests to perpetrate the Sacrifice of the Cross, claiming that God still needs to be appeased for sin. To quote from a Catholic catechism, “Each sac rifice of the Mass appeases God’s wrath against sin.” Contrary to this, God says in His Word, “ So have I sworn that I would not be wrath with you or rebuke you.” And in Hebrews 8:12, “ I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more”.A priesthood and sacrifice of atonement to cover for a broken law were imperative under the Mosaic
Law,
but in New Testament times, there is no law, no priesthood (apart from
the priesthood of believers) and no sacrifice (Jesus Christ paid the sin
debt in full). We no longer need priests to stand before God as
mediators, nor has any believer more direct access to God than another.
We are all invited to come boldly to the throne of grace, to come to our
Father, standing in the righteousness of His Son which is imputed to
all who believe in Him. We can directly worship, find mercy and help in
every need. Like so many men and women in religious orders, priests are
men whose desire is to love and serve God, but the Roman Catholic
priesthood dishonors Jesus Christ and His once-for-all Sacrifice on
Calvary. Their role as mediators usurps the present-day ministry in
heaven of Jesus Christ, our only Mediator, Advocate and High Priest.
Mariolatry
The
same can be said of the place given to Mary, the mother of Jesus. She
is given titles that rightly belong to God, even the Father, Son and
Holy Spirit. She is called Mother of Mercy , the All Holy, Mother of the
Living, Seat of Wisdom, Gate of Heaven, Advocate, Mediatrix,
Co-Redeemer, the litany goes on and on. Pope Benedict XIII wrote, “The
Blood shed for us an d those members which He offered to the Father, the
wounds He received as the price of our liberty are no other than the
flesh and blood of Mary. Thus she with Christ redeemed mankind.” Medical
science, however , confirms that a child gets its blood from the
father.
Therefore, the blood of Jesus was the
blood of God (Acts 20:28) the precious blood of the Everlasting
Covenant. We were redeemed with “ the precious blood of Christ, as of a
lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19). Pope Paul VI in
“The Credo of the People of God” gave Mary her newest title, Mary,
Mother of the Church. In John 19:27, the words of Jesus from the cross, “
Behold thy mother!” , are interpreted as a declaration of Mary to be
mother over the whole church. It is significant that in John’s three
epistles there is not even a mention of Mary’s name, neither is there a
reference to her in any of the other New Testament epistles which were
written to the churches for guidance in matters of doctrine, worship,
and church discipline. Had John interpreted the words of Jesus from the
cross as the Catholic Church has done, he would surely have exhorted
people to look upon Mary as their mother to whom they could entrust
their cares and petitions.
There is no biblical
evidence of anyone praying to Mary or giving her the hyperdulia type of
veneration recommended by the Catholic Church. The present Pope, John
Paul II, speaking of Mary’s suffering said, “It was on Calvary that
Mary’s suff ering beside the suffering of Jesus reached an intensity
which can hardly be imagined from a human point of view, but which was
mysteriously and supernaturally fruitful for the redemption of the
world.” It is not surprising that a church which emphasizes the
necessity of good works for salvation would find in Mary a supreme
example of human merit. Notwithstanding her exalted position in
Catholicism, Mary was a human being and like any believer, she performed
works of righteousness during her lifetime. However, the words of
Isaiah 64:6 apply to her, the same as to all mankind, “ All our
righteous nesses are as filthy rags.” Mary’s suffering therefore could
make no contrib ution to the redemption of the world. With no support
from God’s Word, the Catholic Church in numerous papal encyclicals has
loaded Mary with every honor, unrestrainedly exalting her power and
excellency thereby laying the foundation on which has been built the
great edifice of Mariolatry–the idolatrous worship of Mary. We thank God
for Mary, a wonderful woman of faith and obedience to God. Elizabeth in
her greeting said, “Blessed is she that believed”.
For centuries,
Satan has been using a counterfeit Mary to deceive millions of devout
Catholics. Deception was the device he used in the Garden of Eden when
he tempted Eve and it is the device he uses today. The Bible, in 2
Corinthians 11:14, tells us that Satan comes as an angel of light.
Examples of this are apparitions at places like Lourdes and Fatima.
People are called to pray the rosary, do penance, make reparation to
Mary’s “ Immaculate” heart. Only fai th in Jesus Christ can save us,
there is nothing we can do apart from Him that has eternal value. These
messages are lies of Satan, twisting the truth of the Gospel. The only
means of uncovering these deceptions is the Word of God. Jesus Himself
dealt with the temptations of Satan in the wilderness by using the words
of Scripture (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10).The Good News
At
one of the last provincial assemblies of the order which I attended
while still a religious, I remember a Scripture that was read: “ See, I
have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root
out and to pull down, and to destroy and to throw down, to build and to
plant” (Jeremiah 1:10). Jeremiah lived to see this prophecy come true.
People world-wide as they hear the Gospel and look to the Word of God
for truth, are able by the grace of God, to leave behind religious
traditions and unbiblical beliefs long held sacred by themselves, their
fathers and their forefathers. New wine has to be put into new
wineskins. People are leaving denominational churches, each with its own
particular religious laws which only serve to divide the Body of
Christ, and coming out into fresh ground to live the Christian life as
outlined in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles.
In
Romans we read of Gentiles, sinners who were not seeking after God but
who were made righteous by faith, while the religious Jews who were very
zealous, doing everything they could, were not made righteous before
God. The religious Jews were holy and zealous but misdirected as it says
in Romans 10.2, “ They have a zeal for God, but not according to
knowledge.” Some people find it hard to accept salvation as a gift.
“That makes it too easy”, was one comment I hear d. And another, “There
must be a catch somewhere.” Obviously for some, the Good News is t oo
good to be true. That salvation is unmerited and undeserved is the
offence of the Gospel. That is what upset the Jews in Jesus’ day and
what upsets religion today. Religious Jews crucified Christ and
persecuted the early Church and it is still religious people today who
come out against the Gospel. Good people who want to maintain their own
goodness are sometimes hard to reach with the true Gospel. For them, the
Good News becomes bad news. If God were to ask us what we had done to
entitle us to enter heaven, a true Christian would say it was nothing he
had done, but that he had put all his trust in Jesus. An axiom to
remember is: “Religion is built on what man does for God. Christianity
is built on what God has done for man.”
The Great Commission
Before
ascending into heaven, Jesus gave the Great Commission to His
disciples, “Go into t he whole world and preach the Gospel.” God has
given us a ministry of reconciliation and we need to make sure that we
ourselves have the true message described in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21. We
are not to be engaged in reconciling people to God either by the
Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession) or by any other action of man.
Reconciliation is something that happened at the Cross of Calvary. In 2
Corinthians 5:20 we read that we are to be ambassadors for Christ, His
personal representatives, pleading with people to be reconciled to God.
God is extending the hand of friendship to us. Will you grasp that Hand,
will you believe in what God says His Son did for you on Calvary? Will
you repent of your dead works and accept God’s gift of Righteousness in
order to be saved?
To carry out this ministry,
Jesus told His first ambassadors to wait until they would be “endued
with power from on high.” Here Jesus was referring to t he baptism in
the Holy Spirit, He Himself being the Baptizer. His disciples needed the
power of the Holy Spirit that would enable them to preach the Gospel.
Like them, we all need the special anointing of the Holy Spirit to help
us to carry out our ministry, “ Not by might, nor by power, but by my
Spirit saith the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). The Holy Spirit is now
here on this earth convicting the world of sin. The sin He is most
concerned with is the refusal to believe in Jesus Christ and His work of
salvation. Our ministry is to tell the Good News to everyone we can.
The price of redemption for all men has been paid. Forgiveness is
available to all who will believe. Peace is possible even in this life.
It is the responsibility of every believer as an ambassador for Jesus
Christ to make known to the world, the Good News of the true Gospel.
The Power of the True Gospel
Ever
since I came to know Jesus, my desire has been to share with others
about the salvation we have in Jesus. “ There is none good but one, that
is God” (Matthew 19:17). Once we understand this truth, we know we
cannot depend on ourselves or any person living or dead. We need Jesus
and belief in Him is what God asks of us. My favorite salvation
Scripture is what Jesus Himself said to Nicodemus, “ Unless a man
is born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” Being born
again and believing in Jesus is ther efore one and the same. I had often
heard the story of Nicodemus but it took over sixty years for me to
understand the message. I had followed the traditions and doctrines of
men never asking myself what Jesus meant by the term ‘born again’. Jesus
referred Nicodemus to the brazen serpent that was lifted up by Moses in
the desert, symbolic of Himself Who would be lifted up on the Cross.
Believe in Jesus and you will be born again, you will be saved.
The
first Christians preached with great power as we are told in the Acts
of the Apostles and Paul said that his message was not with wise,
persuasive words but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power so that
people’s faith might not be in men but in the power of God. The Gospel
is not only about what Jesus did two thousand years ago but about what
He is doing today. It is the power of God to those who believe.
A Message for the Reader
In
this testimony, I have taken the opportunity to share some of the
truths from God’s Word that were unknown to me for years. I wish to
conclude by returning to the wonderful message of the true Gospel. It is
a simple message, yet one that is hidden from millions of people today.
The Gospel is the story of the power of the precious blood of Jesus,
shed for you on the cross at Calvary, “The Story of the Great Exchange
”, God’s righteousness for our sins! For he hath made him, who knew no
sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in
him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Dear reader, the
moment you are convicted of your sin and see that there is no way to
save yourself, that salvation is only possible by believing in the
finished work of Jesus Christ–His death, burial and resurrection–is the
moment of your salvation. You can know for certain that heaven is yours
for all eternity. It is the grace of God made available to us as a gift
that is received by faith, “ while we were yet sinners, Christ died for
us” (Romans 5:8). God is faithful to all who seek Hi m, “ a broken and a
contrite heart, O God thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 51:17). “Whosoever
shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21)
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