Let the Fire Fall: Gifts of Charismatic Prayer

The following article with commnetary below is from the Understand The Times International E-Update.
-SRN
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Let the Fire Fall: Gifts of Charismatic Prayer
http://www.catholicherald.com/articles/07ar ticles/charismatic.htm

Concurrent to the rise of secularism and cultural deformation in the 1960s was an outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit within the Catholic Church giving birth to what is known as the Charismatic Renewal. The movement within the Church is often associated with many of the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit such as praying in tongues, prophecy and healing. Although the renewal is characterized with the inclusion of these gifts, it does not necessarily define the movement.

The stirring up of the Holy Spirit, which directly initiated the Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church, occurred on the campus of Duquesne University in 1967. Students and faculty who were on retreat one weekend, simultaneously felt called in the middle of the night to enter the chapel and they began praising and worshiping. The Holy Spirit unleashed His gifts that night in a profound way. The greater awareness of the Holy Spirit and the new movement quickly spread throughout the nation and to different countries around the world.

Due to the fact that those who experience the gifts are not in full control, people must constantly discern the gifts. It must always “flow from God’s love. Love must be the motivating thing,” said Riggins. Another important factor is that it must not ever be contrary to the teachings of the Church. The Holy Spirit will never oppose its Church, nor will the gifts of the Holy Spirit ever divide the Church. “The Holy Spirit is a spirit of unity,” said Riggins. Also included in the discernment process is looking at the fruits, which the gifts bear. Among peace and joy, the movement should bring one to a deeper relationship with Jesus in the Eucharist, a greater devotion to the Blessed Mother and a more profound love for the Church and the Holy Father.

Comment from Understand The Times
For some time, Understand The Times has been attempting to warn Christians about an "ecumenical bridge" that is being established between the Roman Catholic faith and many charismatic evangelical "Protestant" believers. The bridge that is being constructed relates to a common belief in the term "Holy Spirit."

However, as the following article that we are highlighting points out, the Roman Catholic Holy "spirit" represented by a dove, has very different attributes than the Holy Spirit that is mentioned in the Bible. According to the article, the Roman Catholic Holy "spirit" "bring(s) one to a deeper relationship with Jesus in the Eucharist, a greater devotion to the Blessed Mother and a more profound love for the Church and the Holy Father".

The Bible does not support this Roman Catholic perspective of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, according to the Bible, points people to Jesus alone and the finished work of the cross - nothing about "Jesus in the Eucharist", nothing about "a greater devotion to the Blessed Mother", nothing about "a more profound love for the Church" (Roman Catholic Church), and nothing about a "more profound love for the Holy Father".

In the future, as ecumenism and apostasy abounds, unsuspecting Christians who are driven by experience as their measure of faith, will be drawn to the Roman Catholic Eucharistic Jesus by the signs and wonders that will be manifest in appearances of this "Jesus" in the Eucharist. Further, when messages from an apparitional woman claiming to be "Mary" the mother of Jesus (this woman is the Queen of Heaven and clearly not the mother of Jesus) direct the faithful to her son (The Jesus in the Eucharist), those who are convinced that the Roman Catholic Holy spirit is the Holy Spirit of the Bible, will also be persuaded.

We are living in very important days - the Bible calls the Last Days.

Read more articles like this at...
http://www.understandthetimes.org

Stopping the paganization of America

The following article can be found at WorldviewWeekend.Com

Stopping the paganization of America

When the paganization of America is reported in the New York Times, one begins to wonder if one needs a new pair of reading glasses.

On Oct. 6, 2006, Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times said that the number of Evangelical Christian teenagers could be declining rapidly from 35 percent among baby boomers to 4 percent among today's teenagers, "if current trends continue." The Times quoted many young Christians who had trouble keeping the faith in the midst of peer pressure, consumerism, cynicism, and lust inflamed by the mass media of entertainment.

In 1950, 70 percent of all British children had a working knowledge of the Bible. Now, it's about 4 percent. The children without a working knowledge of the Bible no longer understand the biblical perspective, Thou shalt not steal, lie, lust, etc., and are susceptible to the winds of every crazy belief system that comes along.

Click here to read entirte article...

http://www.worldviewweekend.com/secure/cwnetwork/article.php?ArticleID=1173

The Christianizing of Ancient Idolatrous Worship Practices - A Review Of The Video "God's Fingerprints In Japan"

SRN Suggets reading:

"A Review Of The Video "God's Fingerprints In Japan"

by Mike Oppenheimer, Let Us Reason Ministries, 5/06

"...In his search for the creator God in Japan Kikawa has built a cross cultural relationship by Christianizing ancient idolatrous worship practices, making people think through his presentation that nearly every people group/culture has truths about God that were put by God in their culture-and that they knew him."
http://www.letusreason.org/ecumen8.htm

Read the following articles:
(1) A Review Of The Video "God's Fingerprints In Japan"
(2) Hirata Atsutane in Kami
(3) Gateways to God, Sumo wrestling and the way of Tea
(4) Communion with Tea, Buddha and Endorsements

Purpose Driven Resisters - Must Leave or Die Those who oppose the "program" are called leaders from hell.

Article from Lighthouse Trails Research Project

Purpose Driven Resisters - Must Leave or Die Those who oppose the "program" are called leaders from hell. 

 

"The phone calls and emails started coming in about three years ago. Sometimes the caller was in his mid-eighties, sometimes the caller was crying. But all of them had the same kind of story to tell - when their churches decided to get involved with 40 Days of Purpose, everything began changing and when they questioned these changes, they each soon found themselves silenced, ostracized and eventually without a church to attend. Now today, nearly five years after Purpose Driven Life was released, thousands of believers are scattered throughout the world, having been ridiculed and demoralized for even just the slightest questioning of the Purpose Driven program. In one email we received, the young man was handed a letter from his pastor. The letter had been written by a Saddleback field representative who told the pastor to do what he had to do to get rid of those opposing the new program.

 

According to Rick Warren, these people are resisters and are standing in the way of Purpose Driven progress. In a June 14th article written by Rick Warren on his website (What Do You Do When Your Church Hits a Plateau? ), Warren told pastors and church leaders not to be discouraged about slow change in their churches. He told them it would take time ... and in many cases it would take these resisters either leaving the church or simply dying. Warren stated:

If your church has been plateaued for six months, it might take six months to get it going again. If it's been plateaued a year, it might take a year. If it's been plateaued for 20 years, you've got to set in for the duration! I'm saying some people are going to have to die or leave.

 

Moses had to wander around the desert for 40 years while God killed off a million people before he let them go into the Promised Land. That may be brutally blunt, but it's true. There may be people in your church who love God sincerely, but who will never, ever change.

 

Read Entire Article...

Purpose Driven Resisters - Must Leave or Die Those who oppose the "program" are called leaders from hell.

http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/resistersdieorleave.htm

Christian or Christ follower

Christian or Christ follower

Article from the Lighthouse Trails Blog

 

Christian or Christ follower. It's a distinction that is being made more and more today, and often the latter term, Christ follower, is replacing the former term, Christian. Even many Christian leaders are making the switch. But just what does it mean? Emerging church leader, Erwin McManus says his "goal is to destroy Christianity as a world religion and be a recatalyst for the movement of Jesus Christ." In McManus' book, The Barbarian Way, he talks about being "awakened" to a "primal longing that ... waits to be unleashed within everyone who is a follower of Jesus Christ." McManus says that the "greatest enemy to the movement of Jesus Christ is Christianity [i.e., Christians]." A video series on YouTube.com called "Christian No More" (by Christian Community Church) exemplifies this view by portraying those who call themselves Christians as shallow church-goers who wear suits and ties, have Christian bumper stickers on their cars and prefer the King James Version. This video is evidence that it is increasingly more popular to call oneself a Christ follower rather than a Christian.

Interestingly, most of those leaders who seem to be downplaying the name Christian and promoting the appropriation of the term "Christ follower" are contemplative spirituality proponents. One contemplative advocate, Rick Warren, has the term throughout his pastors.com website. Lee Strobel refers to it in his book Case for Christ (Student Edition), and Wesleyan pastor David Drury has a Christ Follower Pop Quiz on his web site to help determine if you are really a "Christ follower."

This theme of anti-"Christian" sentiment is not going to disappear any time soon. Book titles, for example, express this growing attitude. One book, Why One Can Be a Christian or a Christ Follower (But Not Both), by Floyd Henderson, is a case in point. Emerging church leader and labyrinth promoter Dan Kimball has a new book coming out next spring called, "They Like Jesus, But Not the Church....

Read Entire Article...

http://www.fromthelighthouse.com/blog/index.php?p=444&more=1&c=1

Greetings once again!

Amidst working through more emails, we have received some very encouraging letters and also some very sad ones too. Periodically people will share their own stories about how their churches are embracing contemplative spirituallity, New Age mystical techniques, yoga, etc.

People also share about how their church leadership frowns upon them as they ask why the church is not teaching the Bible, but instead Rick Warren's book.

We have recently posted more articles regarding these dangers of these things at our SRN Blog and our Contemplative Emerging Church deception Blog.

These two articles below help to shed a bit of light on what Bible believers are up against nowadays!

pseudodidaskaloi' - The Cut & Paste Hermeneutics Of Rick Warren
by Jacob Prasch, Moriel Ministries, 12/14/06

BIBLE BUTCHERY - How To Make God’s Word Say Whatever You Like And Ignore What God Said It Actually Says - The Cut & Paste Hermeneutics Of Rick Warren and The Gnostic Interpretation Of The Parables By Brian Maclaren & Peter Tsukahirawww.moriel.org/articles/discernment/church_issues/pseudodidaskaloi.htmemerging church

How to Know When the Emerging Church Shows Signs of Emerging in Your Church
http://www.understandthetimes.org/commentary/c54.shtml

I have also received correspondence from Christian who have gotten into alternative therapies, new age healing, and Kundalini [yoga] arousal, contemplative meditation, etc. Although these people are Christians, their lives have been dramatically affected by occult influences. This ought not to be.

Sadly, many leaders in churches nowadays are "doing church" by integrating Gnostic mysticism and ancient rituals into church services. These include but are not limited to utilizing mantras, praying with crystals, centering prayer, visiaulizing Jesus [which one?], incense, candles, venerating images and icons, walking labyrinths, etc.

A simple reading of Jeremaih chapter 7 and 8 reveals what our Holy God thinks about mixing pagan religious practices with the worship of the One true God - Jehovah - Jesus Christ!

Beware friends, New Age Gnosticicm and Ancient Mysticism re-labeled for Christians is not of the God of Holy Scripture! We understand that post-modern leaders want to reach out to poeple, but this is Christian chicanery - artful subterfuge, Trojan Horsism, masquerading as "true worship".

Queen of Peace - Queen of All

Queen of Peace
by Roger Oakland

A number of articles are beginning to appear on the Internet suggesting that the current Islamic-Pope Benedict controversy may soon be resolved by a coming peace plan that will be initiated by the Roman Catholic Mary – the Queen of Peace. This plan would be mutually agreeable to Rome and Islam.

For example, you can read the following two articles:

• Our Lady and Islam: Heaven’s Peace Plan http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/OLISLAM.HTM


• Mary and the Moslems http://spiritdaily.com/sheenmuslims.htm

Earlier this year, Eternal Productions published a book titled Queen of All: The Marian Apparitions plan to unite all religions Under the Roman Catholic Church by Tetlow, Oakland and Myers...

Read Much More About Queen of Peace...

at Understand The Times International

Christianity Today Admits Evangelicalism's Laodicean Character

"Red sky at morning,
sailor take warning,

red sky at night,
sailors delight."







Sunrise over Eastern Scotland - October 27, 2006

Here is another small news clip illustrating the fact that the red sky warning of the Laodicean age has come. The signs of end times apostasy are everywhere folks. Only the spiritually blind or immature believer cannot see them.

When Christianity Today, a publication noted for its incredible lack of discernment, mentions that we are in the Laodicean age, we must really be pretty far down the road of evangelical apostasy.

The author of the Christianity Today article boasts,

"We now have institutional resources and influential churches to a degree barely hoped for 50 years ago. Our people are better educated and more affluent."

We remark...

Yes, many Christian people are well educated and affluent, and they are promoting Christian yoga, Christia inner-healing, Christian visualization, Christian levitation, Christian heat healing (reiki), Christian labyrinths, Christian 'centering prayer', Christian mantras, Christian chanting, Christian drumming, Christian altered states of consciousness, Christian 'breath prayers', Christian dream interpretation (Christian psychics), Christian barking, Christian rolling, Christian holy laughter (see Hindu cults), Christian uncontrollable crying, Christian spasmotic jerking, Christian slithering (like snakes) etc. ad nauseum.

But all these things, that many so-called well educated Christian leaders are endorsing are not only unbiblical, they come from the world of the occult. See Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Serpent worship, Eastern Guru cults, the Kumbha Mela (30-70 millions Hindu worshipper festival seeking an experience) etc.

The signs of the times are all over the place and the place to look for answers is no longer to be found in many pulpits. Believers need to read the Word of God and test all things, regardless of who is preaching and teaching them, oursleves included! 1 Thessalonians 5:221 and Acts 17:11 still apply.

Jude 3-4 says it correctly that false teachers have "crept in unawares". In our day thay have come in with their contemplative, new age, and occult spirituallity and techniqes. They have "Christianized" these and have produced a generation of sign seeking spiritual junkies who will not stop until they are bloated with spiritual quick fixes. "Experience" - the root and foundation of occultism, has been repackaged and pawned off on undiscerning church-goers as the "New Spiritual Formation". The clarion call of the Christian church in our day is no longer "study the Word of God and show thyself approved unto God, a workmen that needeth not be ashamed...", but, "experience the God within as you hear the inner-voice, sense His presence, and chant your Christian mantra." This is Hinduism for the West!

No wonder that the Laodicean age has come! The flock is eating poisonous weeds just as fast as the compromised publishing houses, bookstores and pulpits can produce them. The sheep have been fattened up for the kill and the doors of slaughterhouse apostasy are swinging wide open to the masses.

Lord Jesus come quickly!

-SRN
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CHRISTIANITY TODAY ADMITS EVANGELICALISM'S LAODICEAN CHARACTER
(Friday Church News Notes, October 27, 2006, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)
- An editorial posted to the Christianity Today web site on October 19, 2006, inadvertently admits the Laodicean character of contemporary evangelicalism. The article, "Let's Improve the Public Perception of Evangelicalism," frets about public misperceptions of their movement, especially that "in the public's mind" evangelicalism is "linked with extreme fundamentalism." Horror of horrors! For 50 years the New Evangelicals have been trying to portray themselves as the reasonable, scholarly, positive face of Christianity, but society still thinks they are just fundamentalists. It is laughable. The author recounts the beginnings of modern evangelicalism as follows: "Let's agree that the word evangelical still works, but not like it did when the pioneers of the neo-evangelical movement adopted it. At that time, it signaled their positive stance for the gospel along with a fresh, non-fundamentalist agenda of cooperation and cultural engagement." Observe that the writer admits that New-Evangelicalism is this generation's heritage, and he glories in the fact that evangelicalism has rejected separatistic fundamentalism for a "positive stance." This confirms what we have long said, that evangelicalism and neo-evangelicalism have become synonyms over the past 50 years. The author then boasts about evangelicalism's greatness as follows: "We now have institutional resources and influential churches to a degree barely hoped for 50 years ago. Our people are better educated and more affluent." The Lord must be terribly impressed. "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" (Rev. 3:17).