Guest Post: The Love of God- Pt1

It has been suggested that the unique ability to form conceptual ideas and to express them in speech separates mankind from all lower creatures by a chasm that no evolutionary process could ever span. Although that is true, there is another capacity that separates man even further from animals. Paul explained it thus: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity [love], I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal” (1 Corinthians:13:1
). To put it in a contemporary context, without love man is a robot—a computer programmed to meaningless reactions. In a word, it is love that makes a human being.

God has given mankind marvelous abilities. Think of the great scientists and philosophers who have probed the mysteries of life; and the poets, novelists, and musicians who have expressed the depth of human experience in compelling ways. We don’t need to argue the absurdity of evolution to be convinced that the ability to look into the mysteries of the atom or to compose or appreciate an opera involves qualities that no animal could acquire by developing a larger brain and a more advanced nervous system. Marvelous as these capabilities are, however, they are not primarily what differentiates between human and animal life. It is love.

What do we mean by love? Certainly not the popular notion portrayed in today’s media. The bumper stickers, “Make love, not war,” reflect an all-too-common trivialization of man’s highest capacity. Love is far more than sex. Animals can enjoy that. And if real love is missing, then sex becomes a mere gratification of animal instincts that cannot satisfy the spirit of man.

Yes, there are similarities between human beings and animals as long as we live in bodies of flesh and blood on this planet. We have certain basic needs for food, warmth, and water. We know hunger and thirst, as do animals. We also experience powerful sexual desires and other fleshly cravings, but God intended these passions to be controlled by love. The will is no match for lust, but God’s love working in man can conquer evil with pure desires.

A failure to be motivated by God’s love brings defeat into our personal lives. There are those who can, for selfish motives such as the praise of others, seemingly conquer physical desires and remain faithful to God. True victory, however, is not necessarily won by those who, from outward appearances, seem to be victorious. If love—which Paul reminds us is the essential ingredient—is missing, then even a fiery death at the stake would be of no value in God’s sight.

Without love, Paul reminds us, we are nothing. That “nothing” doesn’t mean we don’t exist but that we are not what we were intended to be by our Creator. We are not fully human without love, no matter how much knowledge we have or how clever we are. It should be clear why this is the case. We are made in the image of God, who, speaking of Himself, has said, “God is love.” Thus, the very essence of the Creator who made man in His image must be the essence of man in the creature. And it is in the perversion of that essence that we have ample proof that something went horribly wrong.

We do not need to know Greek and the difference between the types of love (for which Greek has separate words) to realize that the love that Paul goes on to describe in 1 Corinthians 13 is beyond anything mankind usually experiences or expresses. There is a divine quality that shines through, a quality that rings true to conscience and condemns us. We cannot quarrel with the standard Paul sets. We know that true love ought to be precisely what he depicts, but at the same time we hang our heads in shameful admission that such love is beyond us. Nevertheless, we also know that somehow we were made for that very kind of love and that our failure to experience it is a defect for which we are responsible and for lack of which we feel a deep loss.

Paul is depicting a love that is not of this world. It is additional evidence that we were made for another world. We recognize it for what real love ought to be, and it strikes a chord in us like the description of a land we have never seen but to which we somehow feel we belong. We need read no other part of the Bible than this “love chapter” to know that man is a fallen creature. We can say, “I love you!” and perhaps not even realize that deep inside we really mean “I love me, and I want you!” Such is the tragedy of present human experience.

Nevertheless, those words, “I love you,” have the power to wonderfully transform both the person who speaks them and the one to whom they are spoken. They are the highest expression of which man is capable, as a creature made in the image of God. Some people find these words difficult to speak, and other people find them embarrassing to hear. What we all find nearly impossible to believe is that the God who created the universe has spoken these wonderful words personally and intimately to each of us. And He has done it in a way that no one else could: by entering into humanity and dying for our sins upon the cross. He has thus so fully proved His love that there is no excuse for our ever doubting it.

It is this unparalleled manifestation of God’s love that makes Christianity what it is. There are many facets of our life in Christ that make it totally unique. Among the most wonderful distinctives is the relationship that each Christian is intended to enjoy with Christ himself—an intimate personal relationship that is not only unmatched by any other faith but is absolutely essential if someone is to be a Christian.

In contrast, for a Buddhist to have a personal relationship with Buddha is neither possible nor necessary. Nor is the practice of Islam impaired because Muhammad is in the grave. It is no hindrance at all to any of the world’s historic religions that their founders are dead and gone. Not so with Christianity. If Jesus Christ were not alive today there would be no Christian faith because He is all that it offers. Christianity is not a mass religion but a personal relationship.

At the heart of this relationship is a fact so astonishing that most Christians, including those who have known the Lord for many years, seldom live in its full enjoyment. It isn’t that we don’t believe it intellectually but that we find it too wonderful to accept its implications into our moment-by-moment experience of daily life. 

We are like a homely, small-town girl from a very poor family who is being wooed by the most handsome, wealthiest, most powerful, most intelligent, and in every way most desirable man who ever lived. She enjoys the things he gives to her but is not able to fully give herself to him and really get to know him because she finds it too much to believe that he, with all the far more attractive women in the world, really loves her. And to leave the familiar surroundings of her childhood—the friends and family that have been all she has known and loved—to go off with this one who seems to love her so much and to become a part of another world so foreign and even inconceivable to her is all too overwhelming.

Some of us grew up as children singing, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” and found a certain amount of childish comfort in its simple assurance at the time. We never matured in that love, however, because we were not taught to do so. Meanwhile, other loves entered into our lives and were given priority over the love of God. 

To be sure, we still read the love chapter (1 Corinthians 13) now and then and sing lustily (and at times even with great feeling) such classics as “The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell. . . .” But we are no longer children, and the simple fact that “Jesus loves me” has somehow lost its power for us. Not because it is intellectually too shallow but because its deeper implications, which we now begin dimly to perceive, are spiritually and emotionally too wonderful.

Like the small-town girl, each of us finds it very difficult to believe that Jesus really loves us. Although we appreciate His blessings, we find it difficult to become intimate with our heavenly Suitor, because it seems so inappropriate that the Lord of the universe should be wooing us. That He loves everyone and that we are included in that great love is too marvelous. My response falls far short of the joy that He intends for me. 

Thus the essence of the Christian life—its true source of joy and confidence and power—is missing in so much that calls itself Christian. We can be very fundamental, evangelistic, and biblical, yet not realize that the heart of our faith is missing. This sad fact is then reflected in the way we present Christ to the world.

Unfortunately, as we have seen, the church, early in its history, departed so far from the fundamentals of the faith that the essential personal relationship with Christ lost its importance and meaning. Eventually it was even denied to those who needed it by those who claimed to represent Him. Christ says, “Come unto me . . . I am the door . . . the way, the truth, the life.” The Church, however began to claim that it was the means of salvation and called the world to itself instead of to the One of whom Peter had said, “Neither is there salvation in any other” (Acts:4:12
).

Not only for Catholics but for many Protestants today as well, joining the church has become a substitute for an essential saving relationship with Christ. Although the Reformation repudiated a host of heresies, it left intact a great deal of “churchianity.” From that base, forms and formulas and attitudes have grown until, within much of Protestantism today, the affection and honor that Christ himself deserves is directed toward pastors and denominational loyalties. The passionate love that the bride ought to have for the Bridegroom is all too often deficient, if not lacking.

The love of God creates love for others whom He loves, thus providing the only true motivation for fulfilling the Great Commission. In preaching the gospel, we are to be messengers of God’s love, expressing and sharing it with the world. In making disciples, we are bringing others into a love relationship with Him. We’re not calling them back under the law but into the freedom of God’s grace. It is love that motivates us to obey in a way that legal obligation and fear of judgment could never do. As Jesus told His disciples: “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. . . .  If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepth not my sayings . . .” (John:14:21
, 23, 24).

It is a tragedy that we so easily forget the glory and wonder of God’s love, not only as the joy of our lives and the motivation for obedience but also in its relationship to the gospel as well. We can present the truth of John:3:16
, for example, as a judicial act on the part of God and forget that the verse begins, “For God so loved the world. . . .” The work of salvation was conceived and executed by divine love. We can present the gospel correctly and remain true to its basics concerning the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ in our place for our sins, and forget—and thus not convey to others—the heart of God, which is the very heart of the message.

Some of the classic old hymns expressed it so well: “Son of God ’twas love that made Thee die, our ruined souls to save. . . .” Another exults, “O love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul on Thee. . . .” “O, the wonder of it all!” exclaims yet another. Charles Wesley put it so powerfully: 

            And can it be that I should gain

            An interest in the Savior’s blood?

            Died He for me, who caused His pain?

            For me, who Him to death pursued?

            Amazing love, how can it be, 

            That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me!

Many preachers attempt to entice the world to “come to Christ” with the popular offer of lesser rewards: health, prosperity, an improved society, and long life upon earth, when the real essence of salvation is to know God and to be partakers of His love and life. A rejection of the gospel, therefore, is the rejection of God himself and His love.

Man’s problem is not that he was driven from an earthly paradise, but that he was separated from God’s presence. That is the great tragedy. Those who seek to recover the physical benefits of Eden, to restore paradise without the missing Presence, to establish a kingdom without the King himself reigning in power and glory, have misunderstood both problem and solution. Our purpose is to reawaken a hunger for God himself and to stimulate the wonder, worship, and love we ought to have for Him.

Knowing that He loves us not because of anything in us but because He is love tells us something else that is very important: God loves all mankind with the same love. There is no special reason why He should love one of us more than another. He is no respecter of persons; there is no favoritism with God. And here we see another reason for rejecting the view that God does not love all mankind enough to want everyone to be in heaven. There is no basis in man (all have sinned and the hearts of all are the same) for God to love some and not others—but neither is there any basis in God for His loving one but not another. Thus we are told that He “so loved the world” that He sent His Son into the world “that the world through Him might be saved.” There is no greater love anywhere!

By Dave Hunt
https://www.thebereancall.org/content/love-god-part-one

Guest Post: God is Love

Today, exactly as the Bible prophesied, man grows ever bolder in his defiance of God.

One basic element common to the rejection of Christ in the world and contempt for sound doctrine in the church is the lack of musing, i.e., thinking and reasoning carefully, especially about God, His Word, and His will. Instead, the chief pursuit of the world—and, sadly, of many Christians—is amusement. We are too busy entertaining ourselves to think of God. As atheism rejects theism, so amusement stifles musing.

Let’s swim against the tide and muse together. God called to Israel: “Come now, and let us reason together...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword...” (Isa:1:18-20
).

That cry comes repeatedly from God’s heart, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth...I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel...doth not consider” (Isa:1:2
,3).

God’s reiterated pleadings for Israel to repent surely indicate that He was not the cause behind their sin. He had not foreordained their rebellion and judgment. They were not doing His will. The God of Israel reasons in vain with His chosen people: “I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate. But they hearkened not....Wherefore my fury and mine anger was poured forth...” (Jer:44:4
). Obviously, God had not predestined their wicked behavior and doom, or He could not have called their idolatry “this abominable thing that I hate.”

Nor is the selfishness, jealousy, and hatred; the fornication, adultery, and divorce; the homosexuality, lesbianism and rejection of marriage as God ordained it; abortion and other murders; ethnic and religious wars and other violence so rampant in today’s self-centered world any more God’s will than was the wickedness in Noah’s time. That world was destroyed in the flood. Today’s world is ripening for an even worse outpouring of God’s wrath against sin.

Man was made in God’s image (Gen:1:26
,27)—not physically but spiritually. “God is a Spirit” (Jn:4:24
) with no physical form. Man was to reflect the moral and spiritual character of God in all that he thought, said, and did. Eden's Garden was not only a paradise of physical beauty and abundance beyond our imagination, but also a spiritual paradise as well—a bit of heaven on earth.

What a glorious relationship Adam and Eve enjoyed! The Garden was a symphony of God’s glory expressed in the exhilarating oneness of a man and a woman joined in that first marriage by God Himself: the ecstatic, untainted happiness of selfless love displayed in words and deeds of continual kindness, thoughtfulness, grace, mercy, pure goodness, and compassion, each seeking only the other’s joy in the wonder of intimate companionship!

When His creation of the universe, the animals, and man was finished, God pronounced it all to be “very good” (Gen:1:31
). Then what went so horribly wrong? How could man, made in the image of God, have such deep hatred against his Creator and such determination to take his own way and flaunt his rebellion before the compassionate and holy God to whom he owes his very existence?

The Bible calls this enigma “the mystery of iniquity” (2 Thes:2:7
) and declares that its secret source is in the depths of man’s heart: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within...” (Mk 7:21-23).

The heart is not only the seat of the emotions but of the will—like a fortified castle to which each person holds the only key: “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Prov:4:23
).

I will never forget the interview on TV of a Canadian who had been arrested in Saudi Arabia and falsely accused of terrorism. Under continuous torture, he “confessed his guilt” before he was released. That terrifying experience taught him two things: 1) torture can be so excruciating that the strongest person can be made to “confess” to anything, even that he murdered his mother, or God; and 2) yet no torture, no matter how unbearable, can make the victim believe what he is forced to confess.

There is a place deep inside where the real person guards his secret thoughts and true intentions. Solomon warns his son that what a man says is often a deceit to hide what he really is inside (Prov:23:6-8
).

The Bible repeatedly calls this inner stronghold “the heart” or “the will.” Without it, one has no individuality—nor could one love another or receive love. God has so made us that even He cannot force us to believe anything. He reasons with us in the gospel to persuade us of the truth; but, sadly, most people do not listen to reason and insist upon pursuing the broad road to destruction though they know where it leads.

The world is filled with stubborn, disobedient youths who’ve grown up in rebellion not only against their parents but against all authority, especially God. The carrot of amusement that is offered even in the church has only led them further from in-depth thinking, i.e., musing. The result is “unreasonable and wicked men [who] have not faith” (2 Thes:3:2
).

The hidden bastion deep within can be either the throne of a selfish tyrant ruling others, or the seat of selflessness poured out for others in genuine love and compassion: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Mat:16:25
); “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit...” (Jn:12:24
).

God did not make us robots. In spite of the denial by Luther, Calvin, and many evangelical leaders today, God gave man a will to freely choose to love or to hate Him, to receive Christ as Savior and Lord or to reject Him. God wants man to trust Him so fully and to love Him so deeply as to give Him the keys to this inner fortress of the heart, holding nothing back: “my son, give me thine heart” (Prov:23:26
).

God doesn’t want to trick us or to superficially persuade us by our emotions. He wants to win our hearts with His truth and love. “Know therefore...in thine heart...the LORD he is God” (Deut 4:39); “thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deut 6:5); “The LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deut 13:3). God’s command for all to love Him with the whole heart proves His love and desire for all mankind to be saved. It would be unreasonable for God to command any to love Him whom He does not love enough to do all He could to save them, but has instead predestined to hell.

“Only fear the LORD, and serve him...with all your heart...consider how great things he hath done for you. But if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed” (1 Sam:12:24
, 25); “turn ye even to me with all your heart...rend your heart, and not your garments” (Joel:2:12
, 13); “If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest [be baptized]” (Acts:8:37
); “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and...believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom:10:9
).

Creation’s most powerful witness to its Creator is found in DNA. Digitally organized instructions for building and operating trillions of cells as one body are inscribed upon DNA in encoded language that only certain protein molecules can decode. Everything written has an author! And the author of this amazing pool of intricate information could only be an infinite Intelligence, the One who created and sustains all by “the word of his power” (Heb:1:3
).

The rebellion of Satan and man brought destruction to the entire order in the universe. The ongoing result has been natural disasters and a growing pool of disease and deformities among men and animals: “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together...” (Rom:8:21
, 22). Even some cells no longer follow the instructions encoded in the DNA, resulting in cancer.

In spite of overwhelming and indisputable evidence bombarding him daily, man refuses to obey his Creator. He is thus a spiritual cancer on the earth, doing “that which [is] right in his own eyes” (Judg 17:6).

God would be justified in wiping man from the earth—which He almost did with the flood. We would not be alive today had Noah not “found grace in the eyes of the LORD” (Gen:6:8
). And why is God gracious and merciful to rebels? Only because of His boundless love revealed in Christ Jesus!

Christ’s sacrifice for sin is the great proof of God’s love for all mankind: “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom:5:8
). The unspeakable horror of sin is revealed in the creatures’ mocking, scourging, and nailing their Creator to the Cross. And as sinful, rebellious man does his worst, God’s love shines all the brighter: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34)—and to answer that prayer, the Father punishes Christ in full for the sins of the world, past, present, and future.

In loving response to rebellious man, who desires to tear Him from His throne, God sent His Son to become a man through the virgin birth and to pay the full penalty His own infinite justice required for sin. Indeed, He could do no other. What? Could do no other? Yes, for “God is love” (1 Jn:4:8
,16).

There is a vast difference between saying that God is loving, and that God is love. The words, “God is,” are coupled with many glorious promises—and warnings: God is, “thy refuge” (Deut 33:27); “my strength and power” (2 Sam:22:33
); “gracious and merciful” (2 Chr:30:9
); “a very present help in trouble” (Ps:46:1
); “my defense” (Ps:59:17
); “good to Israel” (Ps:73:1
); “faithful” (1 Cor:1:9
; 10:13); “true” (Jn:3:33
)—“a consuming fire” (Heb:12:29
), etc. But these expressions describe how God acts, not what God is.

Love is the very essence of God’s being. He cannot but love. Though love that is truly selfless is rarely seen on earth, every person knows that such love is of God. That recognition is like a haunting memory deep in man’s heart of a paradise long lost.

When Adam and Eve rebelled against God, they suddenly realized that “they were naked” (Gen:3:7
). Not that they were without clothes (see TBC, Feb and Oct ’02), for that had been true since their creation. Made in the image of God, they must have been clothed in the very light of God: “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 Jn:1:5
). It has been well said that “we are like mirrors whose brightness, if we are bright at all, depends entirely upon the sun [Son] that shines upon us.”

Sin stripped the first man and woman of all that God had intended for them as creatures made in His glorious image. The reflection of His glory no longer shone out through them. They were spiritually and morally naked. What a tragedy! And today man is still naked before his Creator, missing the glory that once clothed his first parents: “for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom:3:23
).

The love, which is God’s very essence, is missing because we have been separated from Him by sin. There is a bitter aching in the heart that nothing but God himself can satisfy. God is calling us to be reconciled to Him: “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jer:29:13
).

Most members of our tragic race turn to everything but God in an attempt to satisfy the longing that only He can fill: “Be astonished, O ye heavens...and be horribly afraid...saith the LORD. For my people have...forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns...that can hold no water” (Jer:2:12
,13).

Some, however, will not be satisfied with anything less than God himself. With the Psalmist, they cry, “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God...” (Ps:42:1
, 2). This is not a thirst to have one’s “needs” met or to see miracles that excite the flesh. This is a deep thirst to know God himself in such a close relationship as to become all that He desires one to be. Is this the passion of your heart—of mine?

In Christ’s prayer to His Father, He expresses the earnest desire that God’s perfect love would indwell and be manifest through those who know and love Him: “that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them” (Jn:17:26
). What a prayer from the heart of the One who longs to “bring many sons unto glory” (Heb:2:10
) in His likeness (1 Jn:3:2
)! Hear David’s earnest expectation: “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness” (Ps:17:15
).

This is more than a restoration of the love that Adam and Eve experienced in the Garden. That intimate relationship they had known with their Creator could be, and was, lost. What the new creature in Christ is brought into is infinitely better and can never be lost. Christ told a troubled Martha: “Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Lk 10:42).

Paul prayed that the Ephesian believers would come to a full understanding of “the hope of his calling” (Eph:1:18
). Wonder of wonders, God will eternally restore naked sinners “unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus” (1 Pt 5:10)!

The new birth through faith in Christ begins a new and eternal life. Christ lives in us, but we must diligently partner with Him: “work out [not work for] your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians:2:12
,13); “whereunto I also labor, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily” (Col:1:29
).

May we each have that same steadfast purpose in our hearts as we eagerly await His return. 

By Dave Hunt

https://www.thebereancall.org/content/god-love-newsletter-classic

Guest Post: Preparation for Antichrist

We noted in the last newsletter that since the Antichrist is a counterfeit "Christ" there must be a large "Christian" church on earth to recognize, support and worship him. Of course, this is where the apostasy which is now gathering momentum leads: to the formation of just such a church, which will be the apostate bride of the Antichrist, as the true church is the Bride of Christ. The religion of ancient Catholic Rome—paganism under a thin veneer of "Christianity"—must become the world religion in partnership with Antichrist's world government through the prophesied political revival of the Roman Empire. The partnership between emperor (Antichrist) and the pope must be revived as well.

The Antichrist will be worshiped by the entire world. To make this possible, apostate "Christianity" must enter into union with all of the world's religions—while at the same time there must be a recognition of the importance of "spirituality" by the secularists. As one syndicated columnist put it in an article titled, "What Part Will Religion Play in Emerging Global Struggles?":

In Chicago, which was once considered the heart of Midwestern America, there are now more Muslims than Methodists, more Buddhists than Presbyterians, more Hindus than Congregationalists....In the future, the majority of Christians will be living in the Third World....It's not particularly chic to mix talk about religion and politics, but there is a connection.

An ecumenical union of all religions is seen to be essential, for there can be no political peace without religious peace as well.

The ecumenical movement that will unite the entire world under the Antichrist has now gathered irresistible momentum. Following up the mention of some of the leading ecumenical groups in the May newsletter, the magnitude and prestige of this movement can be seen in one dominant organization: The Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders on Human Survival. Its stated purpose is to "combine legislative common sense with eternal spiritual values."

The Global Forum began in October 1985. While the United Nations was celebrating its 40th anniversary, ten "spiritual leaders," two each from the world's five major religions, and eight elected officials from parliaments on five continents, met together at psychology's New Age center in Tarrytown, New York to explore ideas for ecological salvation and world peace. Out of this meeting grew a working partnership between the world's religious and political leaders—something which had been unthinkable since ancient Rome.

The politicians belonged to the Global Committee of Parliamentarians on Population and Development. The religious leaders had been invited by the Temple of Understanding, long headquartered at the "Very Reverend" James Parks Morton's infamous Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. As early as 1975 the Temple (Morton is president), known as "the spiritual UN," had sponsored a week-long "Spiritual Summit Conference" which culminated in "addresses at the United Nations by representatives of five major faiths," with Mother Teresa as the keynote speaker (May 1990 TBC).

The interrelationship of vast networks of ecumenical groups may be seen in the fact that Temple of Understanding director Daniel L. Anderson also heads the North American Interfaith Network, while Morton is a co-chairman of Global Forum. NAIN sponsors, among other things, the annual North American Assisi, one of many similar conferences now held around the world as follow-ups to Pope John Paul II's October 1986 gathering of representatives of 12 world religions in Assisi, Italy for a day of world prayer for peace. Assisi was a deliberately ecumenical and New Age addition to Catholicism's day of prayer for world peace traditionally called by the popes on the "Feast of the Holy Mother of God."

That first exploratory meeting in Tarrytown in 1985 was followed by the April 1988 Global Survival Conference in Oxford, England, which brought together about 200 spiritual and legislative leaders from 52 countries. "For five days parliamentarians and cabinet members met with cardinals, swamis, bishops, rabbis, imams, monks....Among them: the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, the Archbishop of Canterbury...Cardinal Koenig of Vienna...Carl Sagan, Vice-Chairman of the Soviet Academy of Sciences Evguenij Velikhov, Gaia scientist James Lovelock ...Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova." The conference was covered by media teams from 35 countries.

Conferees issued a joint "Final Statement of the Conference," which declared: "We have met at Oxford bringing together our individual experience from the parliaments and religious traditions of the world ...brought together by a common concern for global survival, and have entered into a new dialogue on our common future....We have derived from our meeting a vivid awareness of the essential oneness of humanity...the realization that each human person has both a spiritual and a political dimension. We acknowledge the inadequacy of attitudes and institutions within all our traditions [including Christianity] to deal with our present global crisis....We have explored the nature of the relationship between political and religious life, and...have agreed that we [political and religious leaders] both need and desire to work together...and shall promote at regional, national and local levels all possible collaboration between spiritual leaders and parliamentarians....Each one of us has been changed by our Oxford experience...and [we] have undertaken commitments that are irrevocable."

Global Forum next sponsored a four-day symposium at the Aspen Institute in June 1989. It brought together 21 of the world's leading journalists to dialogue with experts, political and religious leaders on global survival issues. Harvard University and Global Forum are hosting a further ongoing series of seminars. As a recent history of this remarkable movement declared, "The momentum is growing: The Global Forum dialogue of spiritual and parliamentary leaders now is being replicated worldwide at local, national and regional levels."

The latest major gathering was the January 15-19, 1990 Moscow Forum co-hosted by what the program called a "unique alliance": "the Supreme Soviet, the country's first freely elected parliament; all faith communities of the USSR, coordinated by the Russian Orthodox Church; the USSR Academy of Sciences; and the International Foundation for the Survival and Development of Humanity." Moscow saw more than 1,000 participants from 83 countries call for a "new planetary perspective" involving a "new spiritual and ethical basis for human activities on earth." In his address to the Forum, Mikhail Gorbachev called it "a major step in the ecological consciousness of humanity." He drew cheers from delegates when he pledged "to ban nuclear tests completely, for all times, and at any moment, if the U.S. does the same...[and] to open our territory for inspection...."

Laying the foundation for the coming world religion, ecological concerns are being expressed increasingly in pantheistic/New Age terms as though the universe were a living and even conscious entity (the Gaia hypothesis) with whom we must make peace and live in harmony. Calling spirituality"common to all humanity," New Age physicist Fritjof Capra defined it at the Moscow Global Forum as "the experience of being connected to the cosmos as a whole...a sense of belonging that gives meaning to life." Capra recently founded The Elmwood Institute, dedicated to "the convergence of politics, ecology and spirituality."

In his keynote speech at Moscow, U.S. Senator Al Gore declared: "I do not see how the environmental problem can be solved without reference to spiritual values found in every faith." He is not referring to biblical Christianity, but to an ecumenical world "spirituality" based upon what he called a "new faith in the future of life on earth...[providing] higher values in the conduct of human affairs." The final "Moscow Declaration" called for "a global council of spiritual leaders" and the "creation of an inter-faith prayer...." It declared, "We must find a new spiritual and ethical basis for human activities on Earth: Humankind must enter into a new communion with nature...."

In his address to the Moscow Forum, Gorbachev had called for "a new contemporary attitude to Nature...returning to Man a sense of being a part of Nature." Global Forum's newsletter, Shared Vision, declared that "we need to remember our natural origins and re-learn how to love and respect nature. The love of our eternal parents, Earth Mother and Sky Father, is all embracing...."

Using similar pantheistic/New Age language, John Paul II has promoted a kindred concept in numerous speeches. In his 1990 World Peace Day message on the Feast of the Holy Mother of God, the Pope said, "A harmonious universe is a cosmos endowed with its own integrity, its own internal, dynamic balance." Addressing a prayer gathering of "Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and others, he told participants that their efforts were unleashing profound spiritual energies in the world and bringing about a "new climate" of peace. The Pope pledged that "the Catholic Church intends to 'share in and promote' such ecumenical and interreligious cooperation."

Testifying how far the Catholic Church has already gone in promoting "ecumenical and inter-religious cooperation," the entire May/June 1990 edition of The Catholic World is devoted to Buddhism. Articles include "The Buddha Revered as a Christian Saint" and a flattering biography of "His Holiness the Dalai Lama." The Tibetan Buddhist leader has frequent contact with Catholic leaders. He met twice with Pope Paul VI and five or more times with John Paul II, whom he calls "an old friend." "Both of us have the same aim," says the Dalai Lama, who was also, of course, present at Assisi.

The Pope's September 1989 speech to Catholic and Buddhist monks, who had been visiting one another's monasteries in order to further Catholic/Buddhist "dialogue," was revealing. He told the Buddhists: "You were welcomed by Benedictine monks whose motto is precisely PAX—peace. You have encouraged one another to promote this peace of which our world is in such dire need. All human persons...must commit themselves to the cause of peace....You, as monks, make use of...prayer and the search for interior peace....Your dialogue at the monastic level is truly a religious experience, a meeting in the depths of the heart...."

Writing in The Tibetan Review (and quoted in Catholic World), a Buddhist monk evaluated the goals of this "dialogue":

The unity of religion promoted by the Holy Father Pope John Paul II and approved by His Holiness the Dalai Lama is not a goal to be achieved immediately, but a day may come when the love and compassion which both Buddha and Christ preached so eloquently will unite the world in a common effort to save humanity from senseless destruction, by leading it toward the light in which we all believe.

A month before his death, Catholic monk Thomas Merton had told an ecumenical conference in Calcutta, "My dear brothers, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to discover is our original unity." Merton had earlier written that "Buddhism and Christianity are alike in making use of ordinary everyday human existence as material for a radical transformation of consciousness." He was convinced that the transformation of consciousness which Zen Buddhism calls "the Great Death" was identical to what Christians call "dying and rising with Christ"that both led to the same "death of self" and to a "new life" not found in some future paradise, but in "living here and now."

Of course, the obvious difference is Christ himself and His historical death, burial and resurrection on this planet for our sins, to reconcile us to God. It is this essential uniqueness which ecumenism eventually denies. Paul didn't try to die to self through mystical techniques popular not only among Catholics/Buddhists/Hindus/New Agers but increasingly so among evangelical Christians. His death to self came about by faith in the finished work of Christ: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me...." (Gal:2:20
).

In a Time interview (5/28/90) concerning his two audiences with the Pope, Billy Graham said, "I have spent considerable time with the people around [John Paul II]. I could sense they recognize that they have an affinity with Evangelicals. They have suddenly realized that these are the people who are closest to them theologically." In fact, the Pope, at the same time he tells Graham, "We are brothers," has been warning Catholics against nonecumenical evangelicals. Meanwhile, Pat Robertson is recruiting "conservative Catholics and evangelical Christians" as the "invisible army" of a new Christian Coalition that he hopes will turn America back to God and eventually land him in the White House.

Earlier this year at its annual convention the Michigan Episcopal Diocese refused to vote upon the resolution that "Jesus is the Christ, 'the only name given under heaven by which we may be saved.'" The resolution was called "flawed because it presumes to define the ways in which God is able to work," and "divisive and demeaning to people whose faith in God is as strong as ours though it is differently defined." A substitute resolution was voted upon and passed to the effect that Episcopalians would recommit themselves to proclaim a "Good News" that offended no one.

The apostate church is growing in all denominations. "Positive Christianity" is the enemy of souls. Do not seek to please anyone except our Lord himself. And do not be afraid of the cost, for "The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe" (Pro:29:25
).  TBC

By Dave Hunt

https://www.thebereancall.org/content/preparation-antichrist