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"Take
Heed" Ministries
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Cecil Andrews, PO BOX 13, Ballynahinch, BT24 8AL, Northern Ireland. Telephone/Fax 028 9756 5511. E-MAIL - takeheed@aol.com WEBSITE - http://www.takeheed.net |
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NEWS
FROM THE FRONT
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DECEMBER 2003
"Be not afraid or dismayed by reason of this great multitude for the battle is not yours but God's" (2nd Chronicles 20v15)
My sincere thanks to all
those who prayed specifically for the visit of Shaun Willcock during the
period 26 October – 9 November. During that time Shaun spoke at 17
meetings and his message shed much light on the reality of what has happened
and is happening in his homeland as he spoke of
‘Contending for Christ in South Africa’. For those with Internet
access his message given on 7 November can be listened to on www.sermonaudio.com/kilskeery
Alternatively you can obtain an audiotape of the talk from us [price
£2.00 includes p&p]. His exposure of the lie of the ‘modern-day
miracle that is South Africa’ should sound as a wake up call to God’s
people in these islands for the very same assault on the open preaching of the
unique Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ that took place in South Africa and that
is now enshrined in their Constitution and Laws is taking place in our homeland
and is very likely to be enshrined in the proposed European Constitution and
other laws under which we will have to live. Imprinted on all of these changes
are the fingerprints of the
CECIL ANDREWS
[PART 3] WAS - C S LEWIS - TRULY
‘OUR GREATEST CHRISTIAN WRITER’?
Following
on from our 2nd article in which we considered the doctrine of REPENTANCE
I want in this 3rd article in our series on C S Lewis to
consider his understanding of the doctrine of REGENERATION. To begin
with I want to consider 2 things namely – firstly, what is ‘regeneration’
and secondly, does sinful man have any input into his own ‘regeneration’?
In answer
to the first question – what is ‘regeneration’ let me quote from Vines’
Expository Dictionary of Old and New testament Words’. On pages 517-518
under the heading REGENERATION we read the following ‘Palingenesia
“new birth” (palin – “again”; genesis – “birth”) is used of
“spiritual regeneration” [Titus 3:5] involving the communication of A NEW LIFE,
the two operating powers to produce which are “The Word of Truth” [James 1:18;
1 Peter 1:23] and “The Holy Spirit” [John 3:5-6]…The NEW BIRTH and REGENERATION
do not represent successive stages in spiritual experience, they refer to the
same event but view it in different aspects. The NEW BIRTH stresses the
communication of spiritual life in contrast to the antecedent spiritual death; [see
Ephesians 2:1] REGENERATION stresses the inception of a new state of things
in contrast with the old’ [see 2 Corinthians 5:17].
Turning to
the second question – does sinful man have any input into his own ‘regeneration’
I think we need to consider carefully the Lord’s words to Nicodemus in John
chapter 3 where He declares the necessity of being “born again” [ie ‘regenerated’]
for entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. In considering question one we read that
in ‘the communication of A NEW LIFE’ there were ‘two operating
powers’ namely “The Word of Truth” [‘seed’ – see Luke
Any
resultant offspring has had no input whatsoever into his ‘first birth’ and in
like-fashion anyone graciously ‘born again’ [‘born of the Spirit’ – see John
3:6] has had no input into his own ‘regeneration’. As we read in Jonah
2:9 and Psalm 3:8 “Salvation is of, and belongs to the Lord”. God
does use other independent human agents to sow and water the ‘seed’ but
as Paul explained in 1 Corinthians 3:6-7, any ‘quickening ’ of
that ‘seed’ resulting in ‘fruit’ [‘new birth’] is entirely
due to God ALONE – “I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the
increase. So then, neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that
watereth, but God giveth the increase”.
I often
hear unregenerate people being urged to ‘exercise faith’ – but what is ‘faith’?
Well, we find the answer in Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”. This is something a “natural
[unregenerate] man” [1 Corinthians
Now, how
does C S Lewis view REGENERATION, namely ‘the communication of
A NEW LIFE’ as we learnt from Vine’s definition? Let me turn again
to his book ‘Mere Christianity’ and there we read on page 59 -
‘In Christ a new kind of man appeared: and the new kind of
life, which began in Him, is to be put into us’.
I have great difficulty with this statement for this reason – Jesus Christ was
the INCARNATE Son of God whereas believers today are REGENERATE sons of God. To
my way of thinking Mr Lewis is as wrong here as was [the late]
Kenneth
Hagin Snr when he taught ‘Every man who has been born
again is an incarnation and Christianity is a miracle. The believer is as
much an incarnation as was Jesus of Nazareth’ [Quoted by Hank Hanegraaff on
page 383 of the hardback edition of his book ‘Christianity in Crisis’].
Jesus Christ was the SINLESS INCARNATE Son of God whereas believers are SINFUL
REGENERATE sons of God – yes, believers now have ‘spiritual life’ and their
personal hope and God’s earnest desire is that they should ‘be conformed to
the image of his Son’ [Romans 8:29] but we must never forget that the
INCARNATE Son of God was IMPECCABLE whereas sadly, as we all know from bitter
experience, believers are REGENERATE but PECCABLE sons of God – ‘If we say
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us’ [1 John 1:8].
Later on page 59 of ‘Mere Christianity’ Mr Lewis writes
‘There are three things that spread the Christ life to us:
baptism, belief, and that mysterious action which different Christians
call by different names – Holy Communion, the Mass, the Lord’s supper’.
When professing Christians use Christian terminology, their
understanding of that terminology must be framed in the context of the ‘faith
community’ with which they personally identify. [By way of
example, when a Mormon speaks of ‘salvation’ he usually has ‘resurrection’
in view whereas a Christian would have an altogether different theological
concept in mind]. So
when C S Lewis speaks of ‘belief’ sandwiched between ‘baptism’
and ‘Holy Communion’, it is patently
evident that his ‘belief’ is that the reception of what he calls ‘the
Christ life’ or what Christians would call REGENERATION comes to
a person via a SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM. On page 62 of ‘Mere
Christianity’ he writes ‘this new life is spread
not only by purely mental acts like belief, but by bodily acts like baptism and
Holy Communion…God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is
why He uses material things like bread and wine to put new life into us’.
These teachings would all be perfectly consistent with his own personal
identity with the Anglican Church and also with his ‘fellowship’ with active,
practising Roman Catholics. Each of their SACRAMENTAL SYSTEMS involve
‘belief’ or what I referred to earlier as ‘a conscious
decision coupled with religious ritual’ and the reality is that such ‘belief’
has no concord with the biblical teaching on REGENERATION.
In the light
of these teachings by C S Lewis I would once more challenge Derick
Bingham’s public assertion that Mr Lewis was ‘Our
greatest Christian writer’ for, in the light of what we have considered
to date, I believe that Mr Lewis was wrong in his teaching
on REPENTANCE and REGENERATION and in our final article we
will [DV] consider what Mr Lewis taught on the matter of REDEMPTION.
In our
June 2003 newsletter the lead article was entitled “Partial” Agreement to
“Plenary” Inspiration and was prompted by the public preaching earlier this
year by the assistant Pastor of a church that claimed in its Doctrinal
Statement to believe in ‘The plenary inspiration, sole and all
sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures’. The problem addressed in our
article was this assistant Pastor’s rejection in his sermon of belief
in a literal 6-day creation – a rejection that was subsequently endorsed by
his senior Pastor the following week.
A couple
of months ago I purchased a copy of a book first printed in 2001 called ‘In Six Days –
why 50 scientists choose to believe in creation’. The book
was edited by John F Ashton PhD and as a further response to the ‘rejection
sermon’ dealt with in my June article I want to publish some brief extracts
from this book by just a few of the very well qualified scientific contributors
to this book.
Dr Walter is head of the
Engineering Analysis and Design Department within the Energy Science and Power
Systems Division at the Applied Research Laboratory [ARL] at
‘Our world
suffers from the false notion established during the modern era that reality
and truth are limited to the empirical [relying solely on
experiment or experience or observation and not theory] and that man’s
knowledge and reasoning are our supreme guide. The concept of a living,
volitional, personal and loving First Cause is willfully rejected, even though
it is completely compatible with both science and the Bible…The principles and
observations of true science do not contradict a literal interpretation of
Genesis 1, but in fact offer support for the creation of all things in
six days!’
Dr Sarfati is a research
scientist for Answers in Genesis in
‘Many people have the belief that “science” has proven the earth to be billions of years old, and that every living thing descended via evolutionary processes from a single cell, which itself is the result of a chance combination of chemicals…The Bible claims to be the written Word of God, completely authoritative on everything it teaches [2 Timothy 3:15-17] ...Romans 1:20 says “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse”. Upon seeing the wonderful works of design in this world I believe that the intellectually honest person must conclude that they were made by a great designer…I believe in a recent creation in six consecutive normal days because the only eyewitness tells us what He did, and He has shown that He should be trusted.’
Dr Roth is a former director
of the Geoscience Research Institute in Loma Linda,
‘there are many good reasons to believe in creation by God in six days. In fact, it seems to me that it takes a greater degree of blind faith [where there is no evidence] to believe in evolution than in the creation model of the Bible… While evolution proposes that life has been evolving for thousands of millions of years, creation suggests that God created the various forms of life in six days a few thousand years ago…Many have tried to reconcile the great differences between science’s evolutionary model and the biblical model of creation…“Theistic evolution” is one of these intermediary models. It proposes that God used an evolutionary process over eons of time…Another model is “progressive creation” where God occasionally creates more advanced forms of life over eons of time…there is no suggestion in the Bible that God created over long periods of time. There is only one model of creation in the Bible: God does it all in six days’.
CATHOLIC CATECHISM CORNER
NON-CHRISTIAN TEACHING OF THE
CATHOLIC CATECHISM [3]
For this our third look at a non-Christian teaching in the
Catholic Catechism I want to look at Paragraph 841 that states –
‘The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator,
in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the
faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God,
mankind’s judge on the last day’.
In this paragraph
841 the Catholic Catechism teaches that Muslims ‘adore’ [worship and
love intensely] the same ‘merciful
God’ that Christians ‘adore’ and
that because Muslims ‘acknowledge the
creator’ they are
therefore, because of this, included in ‘the plan of salvation’
or as Christians would say ‘saved’.
In my June 2003 NEWS FROM THE FRONT,
in the article entitled ‘All God’s Children’, I told of how the Belfast Telegraph’s
religious affairs correspondent, Alf McCreary had claimed that Christians and
Muslims worship 'the one God' and I went on to demonstrate that
Muslims do not worship the Tri-une God that Christians worship, the one true
God who has revealed the truth concerning Himself in the pages of His inspired
Word, the Bible.
As
we consider this paragraph 841 of the Catholic
Catechism, the question simply is this – can
anyone who rejects God’s revelation concerning Himself as Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, be a party to ‘the plan of salvation’ of this ‘one, merciful God’ as He is
referred to, in other words are they ‘saved?’ -
According
to the Bible those who are included in ‘the plan of
salvation’ or ‘saved’ must testify to an ‘experience’ and must also manifest ‘evidence’. Firstly, what is the ‘experience’ they must testify to? It is to having been ‘born
again’ or ‘spiritually
regenerated’ for Jesus said in John 3:3 “EXCEPT
a man be born again he CANNOT see the
Then
secondly, what is the ‘evidence’ that
those in ‘the plan of salvation’ or
‘saved’ must manifest. Well they must be
correct in their doctrine concerning Jesus Christ for we read in 2 John
9 “Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not
God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the
Son”. Look again at what
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The Koran |
The Bible |
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‘Praise be to God, Creator of the
heavens and the earth…There is no God but Him’ [Surah 35:1-3] Unbelievers are those that say
“God is the Messiah, the son of Mary”…Unbelievers are those that say “God is
one of three”. There is but one God. If they do not desist from so saying,
those of them that disbelieve shall be sternly punished…The Messiah, the son
of Mary, was no more than an apostle: other apostles passed away before him’
[Surah 5:71-76] ‘The Koran accuses the Jews of
corrupting the Scriptures and the Christians of worshipping Jesus as the son
of God’ [Introductory notes by N J Dawood page x]. |
“ In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth’ [Genesis 1:1] Referring
to Jesus Christ, the Apostle John wrote, “In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And
the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us…All things were made by him; and
without him was not anything made that was made” [John 1:1, 14 & 3]. Writing
to the Church in Colosse the Apostle Paul declared concerning Jesus Christ, “For
by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth…all
things were created by him and for him…and by him all things consist”
[Colossians 1:16-17] |
In
his book, ‘Plain talk on Colossians’ M
G Gutzke, when commenting on the verses quoted above wrote [page 19], ‘The One who is
responsible for creating all things and holding them by the word of His power
is none other than the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ’.
In
his bible notes for Colossians 1:15-20 John MacArthur
wrote, ‘One component in the heresy threatening the Colossian church was the
denial of the deity of Christ. Paul combats that damning element of heresy with
an emphatic defence of Christ’s deity’.
Muslims and ‘experience’:
Muslims and ‘evidence’:
Are
Muslims who, according to
Concerning
the redeeming work of Christ on the Cross this is flatly denied and rejected by
Islam. In the Koran we read ‘They declared: We have put to death the Messiah, Jesus the
son of Mary, the apostle of God. They did not kill him, nor did they crucify
him, but they thought they did’ [a footnote says ‘or literally – he was made to resemble another for
them’]…they did not slay him for certain. God lifted him up to Himself’ [Surah
4:155-158].
John,
the beloved disciple of Jesus, who was without doubt included in ‘the
plan of salvation’ wrote “The Father sent
the Son to be the saviour of the world” [1 John
Islam
not only denies Jesus Christ to be ‘the Creator’ but also denies the divine Sonship of Christ and denies His
inherent divinity and this the child that we read of in Matthew
Muslims
know nothing of the ‘experience’ [being ‘born
again’] and demonstrate no ‘evidence’
[fidelity to Christ] that the Bible states are essential for inclusion in ‘the plan of salvation’ or to being ‘saved’.
Not only does
‘I
don’t know the answer to that but I can give some, my own theories. I think one
is the tremendous discipline that they have in Islam in the sense that there’s
a judgment if you do wrong and there’s the tremendous hope that people have if
you are Islamic. Suppose you die on a battlefield fighting for Islam the
promises they give you for the first thousand years would make any young man
say, “well I think that’s what I’d like to have”. They have so many things and
I think Islam is misunderstood too because Mohammed had a great respect
for Jesus and he called Jesus the greatest of the prophets EXCEPT
HIMSELF and I THINK THAT WE’RE CLOSER TO ISLAM THAN WE REALLY THINK WE
ARE’.
As
I watched Billy Graham utter these words I have to confess that a surge of
righteous anger came over me. Here was Billy Graham commending Mohammed for
saying that except for himself [Mohammed] Jesus was the greatest of the
prophets. All that came to my mind was the truth of Philippians
2:9 where Paul declares, “Wherefore
God also hath highly exalted him [Jesus] and given
him [Jesus] a name which is
above every name [including Mohammed’s] That at
the name of Jesus every knee [including Mohammed’s] should
bow…and that every tongue [including Mohammed’s] should
confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”.
In
Deuteronomy 18:15 Moses said
prophetically “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the
midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me, unto him ye shall hearken”. At the time of Christ’s transfiguration, the voice from
heaven proclaimed “This is my beloved Son [Jesus]
in whom I am well pleased: HEAR YE HIM” [Matthew 17:5}. Jesus was the great prophet, promised by Moses in the Old
Testament and recognised by many in the New Testament. In John
In
John
When looking at Billy Graham’s reply to David Frost’s
question, it really is no surprise that he was able to say, when interviewed by
Larry King, that he [Billy Graham] and the Pope [who certified the Catholic
Catechism to be ‘a sure norm for
teaching the faith’ – page 5] agree on almost everything.
They are certainly agreed in their error where Islam is concerned and in this
matter are doing nothing for the
ROWAN WILLIAMS and
CHRISTIAN INTEGRITY
In my September
2003 NEW FROM THE FRONT I wrote an article that I entitled – ‘Alf
McCreary and Christian Integrity’ and in it I pointed out how Mr McCreary,
who is the Religious Affairs correspondent with the Belfast Telegraph,
regularly writes articles and expresses opinions that are in total conflict
with public affirmations that he would have made at his ordination as an elder
within the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. At ordination he would have publicly
affirmed the Bible and the Westminster Confession of Faith to be his supreme
and subordinate ‘standards’ of faith.
In the
September article I gave examples of how publicly in his writings Mr McCreary
had shown scant regard for the truths taught in both those ‘standards’. I quoted a definition of ‘Christian
Integrity’ given by Pastor John MacArthur as being ‘the absence of
compromise and the presence of biblical convictions’ and concluded that Mr
McCreary’s views went ‘against all honest and rational thinking’. I was
basically saying that he was devoid of ‘Christian Integrity’ as defined
by Pastor MacArthur.
Rowan Williams,
the current Archbishop of Canterbury, would at his being ordained to the
Anglican ‘Priesthood’ have made similar public affirmations to those made
publicly by Mr McCreary except that Mr Williams’ subordinate ‘standard’ would have been the ’39 Articles of Religion’. I want to quote some sections from those articles
as follows –
Article XX11 ‘The Romish
Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons. Worshipping and Adoration, as well of
Images as of Relics and also invocation of Saints is a fond thing vainly
invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture but rather repugnant to the
Word of God’.
Article XXV ‘…There are two
Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel, that is to say, Baptism
and the Supper of the Lord. Those five commonly called Sacraments, that is to
say, Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony and Extreme Unction are not to be
counted for Sacraments of the Gospel…The sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon or
to be carried about…’
Article XXV111
‘…Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the
Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by holy Writ, but is repugnant to the
plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament and hath given
occasion to many superstitions…The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was not by
Christ’s ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up or worshipped’.
Article XXX1 ‘…the
sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said that the Priest did
offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt
were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits’.
It is clear from the statements just quoted that any
ordained Anglican ‘Priest’ of whatever rank, should, if they have the slightest
modicum of ‘Christian Integrity’ residing within them, shun any Christian
fellowship with those against whom these Articles direct their
warnings and rebukes, namely the Practices and ‘Priesthood’ of the Roman
Catholic ‘Church’. However, despite these Articles supposedly
constituting the subordinate ‘standard’ of Rowan Williams’ faith, they did not prevent him, in his capacity as
Archbishop of Canterbury, of wending his way to grovel before the Supreme
Pontiff of the Roman Catholic ‘Church’, the ailing Pope John Paul 11. This is how
the Roman Catholic Zenit news agency reported the meeting between the Pope and
Mr Williams –
‘the
first visit of the new primate confirmed the cordial personal bond between the
Pope and the Anglican leader. Dr. Williams, 53, thanked the Pope for the gift
of a pectoral cross, sent from the
The
result of the visit, Vatican Radio reported Sunday, has been to emphasize "the will and
commitment to reach the goal of full communion." Zenit
continued ‘The Anglican
archbishop stressed this spirit with innumerable gestures, including kissing
the Pope's hand at Saturday's audience. At that moment, he was wearing the pectoral cross
that John Paul II gave him on the occasion of his enthronement, and the
episcopal ring that Pope Paul VI gave one of his predecessors, Archbishop
Michael Ramsey’.
Amongst
the errors identified in the sections already quoted from the
Articles were ‘invocation of Saints’ and ‘the sacrifices
of Masses’ as being ‘blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits’. How ironic then, that on the very day after
Rowan Williams [who supposedly agrees with these warnings in the Articles about
Roman Catholic practices], met the Pope and kissed his hand [as an expression
of his desire of reaching ‘full
communion’ with Rome] that
that very same Papal hand would be holding up for worship and adoration ‘transubstantiated’ bread and wine during a ceremony where the Pope was
creating three new ‘saints’. This was part of the Zenit news agency report of
the event –
‘In a two-hour-plus
Mass, John Paul II canonized three missionaries of the 19th and early 20th
centuries…The Pope gave Communion personally to about 30 people during the
Mass. He pronounced the canonization formula in a clear though shaky voice. He
appeared to regain his energy at the end of the Mass when greeting the
pilgrims… Before reciting the Angelus, John Paul II invited the pilgrims to
invoke the Blessed Virgin Mary, especially this month, when the Year of the
Rosary closes. He reminded them that he plans to go on pilgrimage Tuesday to
the Shrine of the Virgin of the Rosary in
In expressing a desire for ‘full communion’
with a Roman Catholic system that the ‘39
Articles’ correctly
identify in Article X1X as having ‘erred not only in their living and manner of ceremonies but also in
matters of faith’, like Alf
McCreary, Rowan Williams, has shown himself to be devoid of ‘Christian Integrity’. Paul, writing prophetically in 2 Timothy 4:3 tells
of the time when professing believers “will not
endure sound doctrine but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves
teachers, having itching ears”. In
the likes of Alf McCreary and Rowan Williams we see such teachers being ‘heaped
up’ by doctrinally
illiterate professing believers.
Plans and Prayers
A number of plans for
the year 2004 [DV] are
currently taking shape and I would very much covet your prayers
for them. The details to date are -
I have been invited by the United Protestant Council to speak at their Annual Public Meeting on