Faithful unto Death

Shortly after 18^th April I received an Internet link that posted a report under the heading – “A letter to the Global Church from the Protestant Church of Smyrna”. The link was

http://izmirprotestan.org/docs/Letter_to_the_Global_Church.pdf

This report gave the horrific details of how 3 Christian leaders in the area of Smyrna in Turkey had been savagely butchered to death by members of a Muslim ‘tarikat’ – a group of Islamic ‘faithful believers’. These 3 brothers in Christ, missionary and father of 3, Tilman Geske, pastor and father of 2, Necati Aydin, and former Muslim [like Pastor Aydin] Ugur Yuksel had all been involved in both printing and proclaiming God’s TRUTH and had arranged to meet with these Muslim men to give them a Bible study. Tragically this was merely a ruse to lure God’s servants to a meeting where they would be martyred for seeking to spread God’s TRUTH.

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‘Sunday Worship’ – BBC Radio 4: 29th April 2007

Jesuit-led ‘service’ for mostly ‘gay’ congregation

On page 41 of the Daily Mail of Friday 27th April 2007 their lead article by Simon Caldwell stated the following – ‘The BBC is to relay a “gay Mass” from San Francisco this Sunday, the first time such a service has been broadcast. The 50-minute Mass at the Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in the predominantly gay Castro district of the city will feature prayers and readings tailored for the gay community…Its parish priest, Father Stephen Meriweather blesses participants in the San Francisco’s annual gay pride march…Last night a media watchdog said Sunday’s radio broadcast was “bound to cause offence” to mainstream Christians…However Father Donal Godfrey, the U.S. Jesuit priest celebrating the Mass said he was delighted the BBC was “exploring how gay people fit into the perspective of the Christian narrative”. “Being gay is not special,” he said. “It’s simply another gift from God who created us as rainbow people”…The preacher will be James Allison, a homosexual British Catholic theologian and author of “Is it ethical to be Catholic? – Queer perspectives”.

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WIKIPEDIA ‘Encyclopedia’ on Cecil & Creationism

Braehill Baptist meetings available to watch

I was recently informed by a Christian friend that there was an entry concerning myself on the ‘WIKIPEDIA Encyclopedia’ website. This particular website was in the news just last week in an article in the Daily Mail of 11 April 2007 under the heading ‘Minister tells pupils to use the website that makes up facts’. This is part of what that article said –

‘Teachers criticised the Education Secretary yesterday after he encouraged pupils to use a controversial Internet encyclopedia to research school work. Alan Johnston hailed WIKIPEDIA as a more appealing version of the revered Encyclopedia Britannica. Yet the unregulated site has been dogged by rows over inaccurate entries because anyone can enter or alter the information themselves’…Founded in 2001 in America, WIKIPEDIA has more than 1.6 million articles in English alone. Anyone can edit entries although WIKIPEDIA insists the sheer numbers of users ensures errors are swiftly corrected’.

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‘The Bible’ – What Alf McCreary didn’t write

In his Belfast Telegraph article of 14^th April 2007 entitled ‘The ultimate guidebook to the meaning of life’, the ‘Religion Correspondent’, Alf McCreary reflected on a Channel 4 TV documentary called ‘The Bible Revolution’.

There was a particular passage in the article that impacted forcibly upon me. What ‘impacted’ upon me was not what Mr McCreary actually wrote but rather what he did not write. Let me first quote what the passage as he wrote it said –

‘The Bible was available in England during the Middle Ages, but only in a Latin translation which the vast majority of worshippers did not understand. Indeed, the Church was so worried that people might read the Bible for themselves that anyone who campaigned for an English version was regarded as a dangerous heretic.

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‘Appendix’ to – The ‘gospel truth’ according to ‘Father’ Paul Symonds

Following the posting of The ‘gospel truth’ according to ‘Father’ Paul Symonds to our website I received the following email on 5 April 2007 –

Dear Mr Andrews,

Just as a matter of accuracy, I should inform you that Fr Paul Symonds is no longer a Jesuit priest. He resigned some time ago from the Jesuits and is now a “diocesan” priest. In other words, he is a priest now under the authority of a bishop within a diocese, rather than a priest under the authority of an Order. This is a very significant difference in status which you may wish to reflect in a revised version of the currently inaccurate article you are running on your website.

I do hope you won’t mind this correction. The truth matters.

With love in Christ,
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‘Alarm Bells’ – Rob and Kristen

When Pastor Gary Gilley was here as the guest of ‘Take Heed’ Ministries [March/April 2006] I asked him to speak on 2 specific issues. One was the ‘seeker-sensitive’ or ‘user-friendly’ approach to preaching the Gospel as promoted in Rick Warren’s ‘Purpose Driven Movement’. The other was what has come to be known as ‘The Emerging Church’. This is a very loose ‘coalition’ of post-modern pastors and conference speakers. Many view Brian McLaren as being the main Emerging ‘guru’ and Gary Gilley devoted time in his talk to exposing some of the heresies of this man. I too have also addressed Brian McLaren in the article found on this link – https://www.takeheed.info/news-from-the-front-december-2006/

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“Love Wins” by Rob Bell

In recent weeks much of professing Christendom has been buzzing with comments and reviews of Rob Bell’s latest book called ‘Love Wins’. On Premier Christian Radio in the UK Rob Bell has been airing an advert for his book and he is very keen to emphasise that in apparently “only 12 verses” does the Lord Jesus Christ make direct reference to ‘hell’ – the clear inference by Mr Bell is that ‘hell’ obviously does not figure all that highly in God’s thinking if it is “only” mentioned 12 times by His Son.

This is a very deceitful and deceiving line of approach by Rob Bell – consider how many times the Lord mentioned the absolute necessity of being “born again” in order to see or enter “the Kingdom of God” – in John chapter 3 the Lord mentions it directly or indirectly about 5 times – that is a lot less than His 12 references to ‘hell’ so does that mean the need to be “born again” is of even less of a consideration in God’s thinking than the question of ‘hell’?

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The ‘gospel truth’ according to ‘Father’ Paul Symonds

[PDF]

In the latter part of February I received a phone call from a Christian man who asked me if I had heard that Ballymena was awash with rumours that a local Roman Catholic priest had ‘got saved’ and that he was buying gospel tracts in the local Faith Mission bookshop and distributing them.

I asked the caller if he could give me the name of the priest at the centre of the rumours and he said he was sure it was ‘Father’ Paul Symonds. I wrote an article about Paul Symonds in my June 2006 News From The Front newsletter called ‘The “Ecumenical Wizardry” of Jesuit Paul Symonds’ and that newsletter can be accessed on –

https://www.takeheed.info/news-from-the-front-june-2006/

I chose the title of that article deliberately because this Roman Catholic priest verges on the brink of having the ability to ‘cast a spell’ over his listeners and to ‘hoodwink’ people who, with their professed theological ‘know-how’, should not be subject to what is clearly a ‘strong delusion’ that he is putting forth.

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News From The Front – March 2007

Dear praying friends,

The quotation that I gave in our December newsletter from the article at the front of our gift Study Bible provoked some very favourable feedback and also stirred memories of some lines that tell of how God’s Word is like an anvil that over the centuries has resisted the hammers of error. These lines, written by someone unknown [but not to God] go as follows –

Last eve I passed beside a blacksmith’s door and heard the anvil ring the vesper chime: Then looking in, I saw upon the floor old hammers, worn with beating years of time. “How many anvils have you had,” said I, “to wear and batter all these hammers so?” “Just one,” said he, and then, with twinkling eye, “the anvil wears the hammers out, you know.” And so, thought I, the anvil of God’s word, for ages sceptic blows have beat upon; Yet though the noise of falling blows was heard, the anvil is unharmed . . . the hammer’s gone. One friend also shared these lines from the front of her father’s Bible – Prove all things by the Word of God….all ministers, all teaching, all preaching, all opinions, all practices — prove all by the Word of God. Measure all by the measure of the Bible. Test all in the crucible of the Bible. That which can abide the fire of the Bible receive, hold, believe and obey. That which cannot abide the fire of the Bible, reject, refuse, repudiate and cast away.

If professing Christians were more knowledgeable of ‘the anvil’ and used it to “prove all things” there would a lot less need for the cry of ‘Take Heed’ to go up. But the need is still there and so we do value your love and support of us.

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The ‘testimony’ of Tony Campolo

tony-compolo

I am indebted to my good friend, Roger Oakland, of ‘Understand the Times’ for the following very illuminating commentary on portions of a book authored by Tony Campolo entitled ‘Letters to a young evangelical’. Herewith is Roger’s commentary and I will add some final thought at its conclusion.

Tony Campolo is professor emeritus of sociology of Eastern University in St. David’s, Pennsylvania. He is founder of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education and the author of many books. He is a well-known conference speaker who is noted for his agenda to liberalize evangelical Christianity in order to make it acceptable for the twenty-first century. One of his recent books is titled Speaking My Mind: The Radical Evangelical Prophet Tackles the Tough Issues Christians are Afraid to Face. On the back cover, the following statement is made:

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