Tut Tut, Naughty

Herodias was ambitious. She was fed up of her husband Philip's domineering attitude. Always had to be submissive to him as Tetrarch, or governor of Ituraea, a region north-east of Israel bordered on the west by the River Jordan, an area occupied by Syria today. To the west of the Jordan River was Galilee, which included the west coast of the Lake of Tiberias, governed by Philip's half brother, recently divorced Herod Antipas, and apparently childless. These two brothers were the sons of Herod the Great, who not only governed the whole of Israel and Judah, but he refurbished the Temple in Jerusalem, and also built a shrine enclosing the sealed entrance of the Cave of Machpelah close to the town of Hebron (see my blog The Stone Bible, 1st February, 2011) - before he died following the slaughter of the Innocents in 4BC.
Where her husband Philip was authoritative over his own household, Herod Antipas had a much more malleable character, a personality she can wind around her little finger. So after a massive bust up, she left her husband, and taking her beautiful daughter, settled into Herod's palace.
For some reason historians cannot seem to agree on, Philip could not gainsay his half brother. Instead he remained at his palace alone and defeated. Soon after, Herodias married Herod and began to rule over his house as well as over the region of Galilee.
Then John the Baptist called out to them as they passed by in their chariot, saying that it was unlawful to marry someone else wife while her husband was still alive.
Herodias was furious! How dare this itinerant preacher tell her what was right and what was wrong. She ordered Herod to arrest him and thrown into the palace prison, to await execution. At least Herodias succeeded in having John silenced, if not her conscience.
I suppose Herod would have wanted a super injunction if the law courts were able to hand it out in those days. Herod rather liked John, and was willing to have him talk in his presence. He certainly would not have wanted the general population outside muttering and tut-tutting over his misdeed. He felt guilty and exposed. But unfortunately, his conviction of wrongdoing failed to result in a conversion. Had it, Herod would have sent Herodias packing, and he himself making a journey to Jerusalem to sacrifice a sin offering at the Temple.
I guess this is the outcome of State religion, in force in Israel up to the Crucifixion. God through Moses had set up this State religion - with the Law, detailed instructions on how to live, along with animal sacrifices and a special set form of worship. These applied to every Israelite, regardless of whether the person wanted to love or honour God or not. It was a disastrous failure. God himself knew this from even before such a covenant was ratified. The Law and state religion does not save, rather, it condemns. It causes one to judge another, and to compare one person's character and actions with another, even if nobody is actually "white" (having a spotless character), if someone else is "black", then even if the one judging is "grey", in front of the "black" person, he'll appear as "white".
That was how State religion was lived out in at the time of Herod, John the Baptist, the Pharisees and soon after, Jesus Christ himself.
The Pharisees were so notorious in judging and finding fault in others that both John and Jesus denounced them for their hypocrisy.
Finding fault, judging and making comparisons gives the person doing these things a sense of superiority, or a sense of self righteousness, with a deceptive idea of reaching Heaven after death by self effort.
It was easy for Israel as a whole to exalt itself on a national level, this sense of moral and spiritual superiority. During the time of Christ, no Jewish person would enter a house of a non-Jew, or Gentile, no Gentile was to enter the Temple area of Jerusalem, and they were made to stay away from the Jewish home.
Even the Apostle Peter, leader of the early Church, had difficulty in direct communication with the Gentiles. With the case of the Roman Centurion Cornelious, Peter had to have a special vision from above before he was convinced that the Roman men who arrived were sent by God. And even at Cornelious' house, Peter said that it was an abomination for a Jew to enter a house of a non-Jew. Charming! Cornelious could have shown him the door.
Even some time later, while Peter was at last settling down to dine with Gentile Christians, he suddenly rose and left the room when news of Jewish believers from James were about to arrive. Paul had to rebuke him, and he did so in public too.
On the national level, England seemed to have taken over from Israel in morality and national superiority. No greater proof of this than William Blake's poem Jerusalem which asks whether the feet of Jesus Christ once trod this green and pleasant land. Despite that there is no historical truth that he ever set foot here, this did not stop the poem from being put to music in 1916 by Sir Hubert Parry to create a patriotic hymn sung as an alternative to the National Anthem.

William Blake

Jerusalem is still sung at sports venues, particularly at Rugby matches, at the Ladies Institute, and at the wedding service of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, in front of a worldwide audience of around two billion viewers. In Parliament there was a debate whether Jerusalem would become the official anthem for England, but nothing of this had so far been declared.
The statement, Our God is the God of England, I actually heard right here at Ascot Baptist Church during the early 1990s. I was the only one who disputed the statement. Most of the others in church at the time seemed to have accepted.
Jeremy Paxman backs this up in his book, The English - A Portrait of a People. In it, Paxman interviews performer George Formby, to which he replied that Englishness is very deep spirit of St. George. The idea of St George is to fight against evil. (P.81)
Paxman discusses how the English believed that they were a covenanted people of God which began to peak in the 18th Century, in very similar pattern to ancient Israel. Sir Edward Hine, for example, in 1879 delivered a lecture in Chelsea advocating the crackpot belief that Britain was Israel (literal bloodline) and America was the lost tribe of Manasseh, arriving into the British Isles centuries after the "Ten Lost Tribes" were led away to Assyria as told in the Old Testament.
The nation as a whole now rejects this idea, but still hold to its form. In my schooldays morning assembly always had a Christian element, and that's despite the rise in atheism, particularly among the boys. I have seen over the years the decline in the belief in God, let alone commitment, yet upholding its Christian roots and morals. Very much like ancient Israel.
One example I would like to quote here is the case of Donald McGill, (1875-1962) an artist who designed the saucy postcards sold at British seaside resorts. In 1953 he had his entire stock confiscated from a shop at Ryde, Isle of Wight, the result of churchy bureaucrats who wanted to keep control of public morality. In 1954 he appeared in Court and was fined £50, a lot of money in those days. He escaped prison by a narrow margin. But soon after, his saucy postcard business began to flourish across the nation. The public found those cards amusing, and refused to have their morals controlled. And the attempted ban did not result in any conversions to Jesus Christ as Saviour either.

Into more modern times, I can name three married celebrities who each betrayed their wives by sleeping with their mistresses. Each of the three attempted to hide their misdeeds by getting an injunction from the Law Courts. This means that they have their privacy protected from the Media. In other words, they can err without the public knowing anything about it.
These were public figures. One was the BBC correspondent Andrew Marr, who actually asked for his injunction to be lifted. In 2003, Andrew Marr traveled to the Galapagos Islands to advocate Charles Darwin for the BBC Greatest Briton of All Time competition, which by public voting, was won by Winston Churchill.
The second was Royal Bank of Scotland boss Fred Goodwin, who slept with a work colleague, and it is thought by many that this misdeed was connected to the banking crisis which brought along the credit crisis and eventual Recession in 2010.
But the most dramatic was the case of Manchester United footballer Ryan Giggs, who ordered an injunction after betraying his wife Stacey to sleep with Imogen Thomas. The injunction was a failure due to the many Twitter posts revealing the footballer's identity. When Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming revealed the footballer's identity to the House of Commons, Speaker John Bercow rebuked him, saying that Giggs' privacy should be respected.
But to me who don't follow football, where Ryan Giggs would have remained an relative unknown, except for those into football, now has become infamous across the nation. It was so unnecessary. For news of adultery among celebrities means little to us now. Giggs should have realised that the nation hardly tut tuts any more.

Andrew Marr, fan of Charles Darwin

Yet journalists such as the Daily Mail columnist Amanda Platell still advocates Britain as a cultural superior nation due to its Christian heritage, despite its departure from anything Biblical or spiritual. In this weekend's paper she criticized First Lady Michelle Obama who, with her President husband Barak, was visiting Britain, and was giving an emotional talk to some students at a London girls school about "Triumph over Adversity". Platell responded with these words:
Perhaps someone should have explained to the First Lady that this is Britain and we don't tend to go for all that schmaltzy, heart on the sleeve drivel.
Wow, I wonder how many people reading this turned to Jesus Christ for salvation?
Now let me get real here. There is only one message all Christians should deliver. That is to repent and believe in Jesus Christ and be saved from separation from God and eternity in Hell. There is no other way to Heaven other than trusting Christ and him crucified.
Enough of this idea that just because one is British or English and was baptised in a church as a baby, one can work his way to Heaven. And don't be deceived by the sight of coffins containing war casualties passing through Wootten Basset after their heroic deaths in Afghanistan. Unless they were converted to Jesus Christ while still alive, they would now be in Hell. War death does not save one's soul.
When in Athens, Paul looked at all the pagan altars surrounding him, most if not all had occult influence. But instead of lobbying the Government to have them demolished, as we would probably have done, he just heralded the Gospel of Christ. It was the same when the Apostle was at Ephesus. He did not talk against the Temple of Diana which dominated the city. He just preached the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and faith in him for salvation.
It is not the adulterous acts committed by celebrities that sends them to Hell, it's not trusting in the Saviour. Lobbying against an occult shop about to open in the High Stret will be of no benefit whatsoever. Rather, such actions would cause Christians to be seen as miserable fun-spoilers, and further alienate the unbeliever from the local church.
We as Christians now have only one message: Repent and be baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall receive remission of sins.
Who knows. If Herod Antipas heard such a message, he might have repented after all. Poor John. He told the governor that this act was wrong and he paid with his life.

Whoops! Not This Time...

Judgement is coming on May 21st, 2011. The Bible guarantees it!
That was the cry of one Californian evangelist, 89 year old Harold Camping, who by means of his followers across the United States, invested millions of dollars in billboards declaring that the Rapture of all Christian believers will take place at 6.00pm Pacific Time on Saturday May 21st. This announcement did not remain an isolated incident restrained within a few streets of a city, but rather spread right across the USA and even crossed the Atlantic to reach us here in the UK. As the radio broadcast was boldly made while I was at the gym, I would not be surprised that it was also broadcast across the Pacific Ocean to reach Australia and New Zealand too. After all, the Rapture is an event of such geographic magnitude, it had to be broadcast worldwide.
So how did this evangelist arrive at the conclusion that May 21st, 2011 was to be the day? By doing some math by deciphering certain "hidden codes" found in the Bible. This has reminded me of the time, not that long ago, when some Jewish scholars have found the name of Adolf Hitler by deciphering the codes, they say, were found in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, which forecasted the end of the world then.
Yet all this despite what Jesus Christ himself had plainly said just before he was crucified:-

No-one knows the day nor the hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father...Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. Matthew 24:36,42.

But what is exactly the Rapture? It has become quite a common word used these days. Even Richard Dawkins used it in his book, The God Delusion.
There are two passages in the New Testament which seem to teach it, both of these texts were part of Paul's letters, one to the church in Corinth and the other to the church in Thessaloniki. They describe the sudden disappearance of Christian believes to heaven, first the dead in Christ rising followed by the living, "in the twinkling of an eye" which indicates suddenness. Here are the two passages.:-

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead shall be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must be clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."
"Where, O death, is your victory?
"Where, O death, is your sting?!
1 Corinthians 15:51-55.

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede them who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself shall come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord for ever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.
I Thessalonians 4:13-18.

Thessaloniki

There are those, like myself, who believe that this event, known as the Rapture or the Translation, will occur sometime in the future, but nobody knows when. They believe that the Lord has deliberately withheld the date, to make the event always imminent, so believers should expect it to occur even in their lifetimes. This encourages the believer to "keep watch", just as Jesus himself exhorted.
There are other Christians who do not believe in the coming Rapture. Among those there are some who say that the Rapture was coined up by Jesuits Ribera and Bellarmine in 1591, after the Council of Trent. Their aim was to protect the Pope from the Protestant accusation of being the Antichrist, predicted is yet to come, in the Bible.
But which ever the case may be, now that it is at present Sunday morning of the 22nd, and not as much as a sneeze had taken place, it is of my opinion that Harold Camping has done a serious disservice to both the Bible and the Christian faith.
We are living in the days where the historicity and truthfulness of the Bible is constantly being attacked by both evolutionary scientists and atheists, and by general secularism, particularly here in the U.K.- where it has one of the lowest church attendance in population density in Europe. In other words, Christians are being made to look foolish.
This plays right into the hands of atheists. In the USA, I read online, that they were already planning parties to revel in such foolishness.
I can imagine right now Richard Dawkins smirking at the non-event, knowing full well that his scientific theories will triumph after all. And he will draw more and more disciples, eventually turning the majority in this nation into an anti-God and with a strong unbelief attitude.

Richard Dawkins

Dating prophecy is not new but it is dangerous in a way that first, it weakens the testimony of the Christian faith and makes it all the more unappealing to the unbelieving population. Secondly there is a serious loss of creditability to the one who made it, if his prediction did not come to pass by the date he had set.
Californian Bible scholar Hal Lindsey was a case in point. One of his books was The Late Great Planet Earth in which he believed that the future Antichrist was alive and feeding his soul with quests for power and knowledge as he wrote and published his book in 1970. He also believed that Armageddon would take place around 1990. Later he released another book, The 1980s Countdown To Armageddon, in which he documents on the rise of the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal, overtaking that of the United States, making the USSR a dangerous and threatening world power, with its sole aim of turning the whole planet Communist, especially the United States. That was before the collapse of Communism in the 1980s itself. So far, in 2011 we are still here. And it is my opinion that Lindsey had lost a lot of creditability, especially among the U.S. Senate, where I once read that The Late Great Planet Earth was taken notice of by them.
Then again, back in the 19th Century, a small organisation which was to call itself Zion's Watchtower Society formed in New York in between 1870 and 1875 under the tutelage of Pastor Charles Taze Russell. It began to expand across America very rapidly, and their members, Jehovah's Witnesses, won converts across the Atlantic. In fact, according to William Schnell, in his book 30 Years A Watch-tower Slave, the world was meant to end in 1914. When the Great War broke out that year, fulfilling Jesus' prediction of "Nation rising against nation" the Watchtower Society gained enough creditability to win over the population of Germany to the extent of becoming the State religion, which was only thwarted by the outbreak of World War II.
According to Schnell, the end of the world was postponed until 1924, the year the Kingdom of Christ was meant to begin. When nothing supernatural occurred, the Society re-interpreted Scripture to predict that 1924 was the beginning of "The Last Generation", mentioned by Jesus Christ in Matthew 24:34. Calculating that a generation was to last 40 years, the Battle of Armageddon should have taken place in 1964. It was after this that the "movable prophecy" teachings of the Watch-tower were put on the back shelf in order for the organisation not to crumble.
Dating prophecy in regard of when the world will end is forbidden in the Bible. Such attempts makes the Bible and the Christian faith appear ridiculous. It does not give God any glory, rather it turns agnostics in to atheists, it causes atheists themselves to smirk with satisfaction, and most seriously, it keeps many from trusting the Lord Jesus Christ to save them and receiving eternal life God gives to all who believe in him.
We as Christians need to watch and wait for his coming, which remains an ongoing process generation after generation. The formation of the state of Israel in 1948 gives a clue that the End Times is soon, according to many Bible scholars. But dating prophecy is wrong and no one, Christian, secular or of another religion should attempt at it.

Vagabond!

Sitting at the cafeteria at Coral Reef Water World, close to my home, I was at a state of half-slumber after a gym workout and sauna session. Then I suddenly perked up, as if someone had tapped me on the back of the head.
In sauntered one off-duty staff member, who made his way to the buffet to queue up with the other customers for some refreshments.
This bodybuilder actually worked in the kitchen of the very buffet he was waiting at. In a few years he could have a superb, Truly-Ripped physique, if he steers his weight training gym workouts in the right direction alongside a proper, high protein diet.
My emotion started to rise. As I put out my hand to reach his, he took it, and I held it tightly. After a short conversation, all I could say was,
I've been to Santa Monica as well.
For instead of the characteristic blue uniform which distinguishes every Coral Reef staff from the public, he sauntered in wearing a black tee shirt with the lettering blazing across his chest:
SANTA MONICA.

Santa Monica

Why the emotion? Because seeing his tee shirt image brought back memories of this Californian resort which is actually a district of Los Angeles.
There were questions I would have wanted to ask this guy. Did he go as a backpacker? If so, did he stay at the superb H.I. Santa Monica Backpackers Hostel on 2nd Street, close to the famous pier? The same place where I stayed in 1995 and 1997? Did he stroll though 3rd Street Parade, a traffic-free avenue with bushes trimmed to look like Dinosaurs proudly showing off to the crowds? And did he wander through the excellent indoor shopping mall with a wide choice of attractive eateries? And did he stroll to the end of the pier to watch the sunset while the gulls encircle the air above, and then occasionally perch on one of the safety barrier posts, along with a pelican on another? How I would have loved to hear his stories.
But the more I got to know this fellow, the less convinced that he had ever set foot on the Californian coastline. As many of these working men, as opposed to gap-year students, he would have much preferred to fly out for a break in such places as Iberia with a group of mates to what really amount to a glorified boozing session. And the tee-shirt? Either somebody else brought it back as a present, or it was bought at a fashion boutique in the West End or even at a nearby town of Reading.
And that's what seem to be the experience I have seen of Britons traveling overseas. In groups. And booze, plenty of it. I'm not talking about escorted tours here. Rather, I'm referring to an informal group of mates flying out to have a good time. In a group, each feels safe in the company of others. Whether someone falls ill, or drank too much and is sick on the sidewalk, or has picked up a bug from the hotel pool, or suffered a bout of diarrhea, or for that matter had his wallet or bank cards pick-pocketed, in a group there is that assuring feeling that with such support, a crisis overseas is minimal and one can ride it much better in company.
It is very different to what I call travel.
When I say travel, I mean TRAVEL!
One term I came across while browsing an American website, was the word vagabond. It simply means to travel aimlessly, without too much planning, or even no planning at all. It describes a lone backpacker. A lone backpacker is vulnerable to anything that goes amiss. There is no support from others. Just a piece of paper called an insurance policy making him believe that he has peace of mind.
If you click on this page, December 2010, one of my articles, on being single, describes some of my experiences as a "vagabond", along with a later article, Jerusalem which detail some extraordinary experiences as a lone backpacker in the Middle East.
But this sort of travel does carry risks which are not felt so badly by those who travel in a group, whether escorted or informal. These are my experiences:
1976 - Catching a bug while in Israel. I was down with a fever for three days in bed at a home of an Arab family who offered hospitality.
1981 - Having all my travelers cheques pick-pocketed while standing in a packed train on route to Florence from Pisa. When I arrived at Florence, I came across this pensione, a hotel with shared, dormitory-style bedrooms. There was a bed available and I took it. Later that day I noticed all my money gone, and it could not have happened on the worse moment, Friday evening, after all the banks closed for the weekend. So instead of "living it up" in this artistic city, I spent more than an hour feeling very foolish at a police waiting room to register the loss, a necessity before I would be eligible for a refund from the bank.

Florence, Italy

When I told the hotel proprietor of my plight, she was kind enough to give me a panettino for prima colazione, at a hotel which don't normally serve breakfast to its guests, and she gave me a few lire to buy something to eat during the day. Such was a weekend which I had absolutely nothing to live on until the Monday, when I had the bank refund, after which together with the hotel tariff, I had to pay for the bread and repay the loan. Was I pleased to board the train for Viareggio, a random stop on the west coast of Italy.
1995 - I would think that booking a hostel in New York City would have been easy-peasy. After all, it was September, the kids were back at school, the students had returned home. So after being told over the phone that there were no places left, after arriving in New York, I went from one hostel to another, until I came across this seedy hotel on 8th Avenue and West 52nd Street. I had already knew of this hotel, I had spent a night there soon after landing at J.F.K. Airport that evening in 1978, after a good search around.
As before, I looked out across the avenue at a deli, closed for the night, as I was unable to sleep at one in the morning. Outside, a group of young Afro-Caribbeans were having a brawl, their loud voices carried through the street. In my room, the floor was populated with cockroaches scurrying across and under the bed.
Yet I was happy. Another adventure as a vagabond was about to begin, including sleeping at the Huckleberry Hostel in the suburb of St Louis, Missouri, where there were dead 'roaches in the food pigeonholes and a live mouse scurrying across the kitchen. And yet I made friends with someone who gave me a spare Greyhound map of the USA.
It was that same hostel which had toilet cubicles fronted by those Old West Saloon double swing doors. So the embarrassment I felt answering a call of nature and risking having other people looking straight in!!! Door-less loo cubicles I also came across in the San Diego area. Maybe the discomfort I felt in using them shows that I'm very British after all.
And the year 2000. That's when Alex, my wife and I decided to celebrate our first wedding anniversary by doing perhaps the last backpacking holiday in Israel. She was 18 weeks pregnant with our first daughter Rosina when we touched down at Lod Airport. Two days later, we began to make a bus journey from Tiberias to Haifa, then on to our hotel in Ishfya, some miles away on top of the Mt Carmel ridge, which separated the port of Haifa from the Mediterranean coastline.

My wife at Eilat, Israel

What I didn't realise as we arrived at the bus depot in Haifa was that the Rosh HaShannah or the Jewish New Year was about to start, and with just about the whole of Israel shutting down, the city was like a ghost town. The only form of transport still running were taxis.
As if to echo Florence of 1981, we were absolutely penny-less. But this time not as a victim of a pickpocket, but from my own lack of foresight to visit a bank while we still had the chance. Stuck with a wedge of useless travel cheques, Alex and I made our way across the city, and began the long ascent up the stairs passing through narrow alleyways as we slowly made it to the summit of Mount Carmel, allowing us a terrific view of the coastline below us. But with heavy rucksacks and an unborn child to boot, we made our way along the road which was meant to take us to Ishfya, eventually.
When we realised we still had a long way to go, we sat on a roadside bench, my face in my hands, in despair. Not so much for myself, since I had spent many nights away from home under the stars. But I was concerned for my wife and her condition.
Soon a taxi pulled up in front of us and the driver leaned out and asked in English where we want to go.
"To Stella Carmel in Ishfya! But we have no money on us whatsoever!"
"Get in!" The driver ordered as he got out to open the trunk to accommodate our luggage.
Inside the car, the driver actually gave us ten shekels! He then explained that he pastored a church nearby, and could not pass by two stranded travelers without lending a hand.
Backpacking. There is something about it which no group travel can match.
There are highlights in the experience, like from the bottom of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, after a day's hiking, looking up at the magnificent display of stars in the clear night sky, seeing thousands of stars I was never able to see from above the UK! Or likewise in Australia, looking up at the Southern Cross, directly overhead. And snorkeling above the corals of the Great Barrier Reef. But the most astonishing moment was in 1997, when the Greyhound bus I was on took a service stop between Townsville and Cannonvale, on the East Australian Pacific Highway linking Cairns with Brisbane and Sydney. As I sat alone at a table at the cafeteria, another bus pulled in for the same reason, and its passengers lined up at the buffet counter. Presently, while meditating, a voice calls out:
"FRANK!"
I looked up. I was alone, over 10,000 miles from home. Nobody knew me here. As such, I did not recognise the stranger standing right next to me.
"Yes, I'm Frank, but who are you?"
"You don't remember? I gave you the spare map of the USA in St Louise two years ago. Remember? That dingy hostel?
Yes, I remember that well. Backpacking - or Vagabond. With all its high points, it is an unforgettable experience.
But it's coping with the low points which turns travel into a real, true-to-life adventure.
Oh well, I guess it's off to the boozer...

Royal Wedding, Stoicism And The Great Wedding In Heaven

How I enjoyed watching on television the wedding between Prince William and Catherine Middleton!

The sight of thousands of people lining the route from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey raised my emotions, and the cheers as first the Groom, then the rest of the Royal Family, then the Bride, at that stage still considered a commoner, made their short car journey to the Abbey.
And as the Groom placed his ring on her finger, the Bride's status changed from a commoner to the Duchess of Cambridge and a Royal.
Endless commentaries were given for Catherine's dress, comments like "fantastic!" and "Spectacular!" Everyone loved it. Catherine herself grew up to be startlingly beautiful, and little wonder that she was the perfect fit for the Groom who will one day become King of England.
Equally impressive were the crowds who attended the pageantry. Estimates reckon around two million spectators gathered in Central London for the occasion, a small proportion of the two billion who watched it on television globally.
What I loved about the whole spectacle was how the crowds lining the route cheered vocally and allowed their emotions to show amidst the sea of Union Jack flags waving in the mild air.
I believe too that the prayers of many were answered when not a drop of rain fell throughout the whole occasion. During the last three of four days preceding the Wedding, the Met Office warned that a scattering of heavy showers, in places even accompanied by thunder, would attempt to put a damper on the celebrations. But even if that had been the case, I doubt that it would have spoiled much, with the exception that the journey from the Abbey to the Palace would have had the newlyweds in a closed-in coach instead of the open-top one which made the couple clearly visible to the bystanders and TV audience alike.
And how the spectators cheered as the newly married Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were driven back to the Palace!

High emotions! Does this make Britain less stoic? No, I believe it does not. Stoicism is a reaction, in contrast to panic, in the face of a crisis, whether it's an airline in distress or financial difficulties. Stoicism is about getting to grips in solving the problem instead of running away, flustering or getting tied in knots with panic. The 33 Colombian miners who were trapped for six weeks in a sealed chamber underground were a good example of stoicism. They prayed daily and waited patiently for rescue to begin. The South American disaster was also proof that stoicism is not uniquely British.
As stoicism being uniquely British is the opinion of some newspaper journalists which at times really ruffle my feathers!
Amanda Platell and Melanie Phillips, both Daily Mail columnists, have written articles about "the decline of stoicism in Britain" since the death of Princess Diana in 1997. According to Platell and Phillips, the British have become a sentimental, mawkish, weepy and emotional society, with Phillips adding of the decline of masculinity.
To them, that's bad. Is It? Does it really weaken masculinity?
If so, then the Lord Jesus Christ was a wimp. He wept in public on two separate, recorded occasions. The first was over the fate of Jerusalem, the second over the death of Lazarus.
But it would also mean that today's pageantry would have been different if Platell and Phillips had their way.
Instead of cheering crowds, the route would have been lined with an orderly crowd of stiffly dressed men and women, gently clapping without a single voice heard as the Royal procession passed by. The Queen would have looked ahead sternly instead of waving to the crowds and the newly weds would have also been concealed inside a coach, almost oblivious to the sound of clapping outside. In short, the day's event would have resembled more like Remembrance Sunday than a wedding.
As it was the crowds expressed their emotions of excitement and joy without reserve, as it should be. A wedding is a joyous occasion, a cause for celebration.
Having been to a wedding reception in the Middle East myself, I can assure that the Bible indeed sees a wedding as a joyous occasion. The wedding at Cana was attended by Jesus Christ himself, who turned water into wine, not wine into water as these columnists believe should have been done.
In the Book of Revelation, John gives us a glimpse of the unrestrained emotions of rapturous joy as the Bride is presented to the Groom.

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang:
"Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and
wisdom and strength
and honour and glory and praise!"
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:
"To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honour and glory and power,
for ever and ever."
The four living creatures said, "Amen",
and the elders fell down and worshipped.
Revelation 5:11-14.

And also this:

Then what I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like a roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:
Hallelujah!
For the our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad
and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
and the bride has made herself ready.
Fine linen, bright and clean,
was given her to wear."
(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)
Then the angel said to me, "Write:
'Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!'" And he added, "These are the true words of God."
Revelation 19:6-9.

The heavenly Bride of Christ is the Church. We are the Bride of Jesus Christ if we trust in him to save us. On that wedding day in heaven emotions will run high. No British stiff upper lip then!
The wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton was a joyous occasion. Everyone there had the right to shout with joy!
After all, in heaven, it would be impossible to hold under restraint any emotion then!
Wishing the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge a happy future together.
HOORAY!!!

Good Friday? I'm Confused!

The Easter Weekend. Like everyone else born in the UK and grew up in a Christian environment, we all believe that Jesus Christ was Crucified on a Friday and then rose physically from the dead early Sunday Morning. Thus we say that he was in the tomb for three days.

This has been our tradition for some 1,700 years. It was formalised by the Roman Catholic Church early in its history and it passed unchallenged into the Reformed churches who continued to worship on Good Friday. Even today, I was at Ascot Baptist, my home church, worshipping on Good Friday.
So far so good.
Except that ever since I began to read the Bible from 1973, I felt uneasy about a Friday Crucifixion. Especially when the Lord Jesus was speaking openly and was making predictions about himself. And this appears at just one verse in the whole Bible, Matthew 12:40, which reads:
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
With a statement like this, a Friday Crucifixion doesn't seem to make sense. And again, why couldn't have Jesus simply said "Three days" and left it there? Rather, was he deliberately trying to tell us something?
A Friday crucifixion may have found its place if three days and two nights were on his mind - Friday afternoon, all day Saturday and Sunday morning before daybreak. Even on the Hebrew clock, when the new day begins at sundown, the same would still apply. Friday would end at sundown, and Saturday would have ended at sundown the next evening, making all of the second night as part of Sunday itself. It would still be two nights, not three - small hours Saturday and small hours Sunday.
Again, as with the previous two articles, I will try and keep this one as simple as I can.

In the old Testament, soon after the children of Israel were lead out of Egypt and settled near the foot of Mt. Sinai, the Ten Commandments were given. This was followed by many laws and regulations for daily living. Among these laws, the Passover was instituted. In fact the Passover was instituted while the Israelites were still in Egypt. It was to mark the anniversary of the deaths of the firstborn of their Egyptian taskmasters, allowing Israel to escape in haste. What the children of Israel had to do was to kill a lamb, sprinkle its blood on their doorposts, roast it and then eat it with bitter herbs and unleavened bread. That night, when the Angel of Death visited Egypt, he passed over every house which had blood on its doorposts, resulting with all in the house spared from death.
Then the anniversary of this event was to be celebrate every year at the specific day, week and month.
The exact details being this, at the Spring month of Nisan:
10th Nisan - Lamb selected.
14th Nisan - In the afternoon, lamb killed, roasted.
15th Nisan - early at night, Passover lamb eaten, first day of unleavened bread, which is to last a full week.
If this is compared to the Passion of Jesus Christ, the events would unfold like this:
Sunday 10th Nisan - Jesus Christ enters Jerusalem on a donkey and reveals himself as the Jewish Messiah (i.e. Christ) to the crowd waving palm leaves.
Thursday 14th Nisan - after sundown - Last Supper with his disciples, in the Garden of Gethsemane, betrayed by Judas Iscariot, arrested, brought to the Jewish hall of judgement, at daybreak, brought to Pilate. All leaven removed from every Jewish household, hence "the day of Preparation."
Thursday 14th Nisan - Midday, Christ Crucified. At 3.pm, Jesus Christ dies, Passover lambs slaughtered in every Jewish household. The body of Jesus taken down from the cross and buried.
Friday 15th Nisan - First day of Unleavened Bread, or a "high day" after sundown the freshly roasted Passover lamb is eaten.
Saturday 16th Nisan - Normal weekly Sabbath.
Sunday 17th Nisan - before daybreak, Jesus is resurrected, stone covering the tomb's mouth is rolled away, Mary and her companions bring spices to further anoint the body, resurrection revealed and disciples told.
So to make it simpler:
Sunday 10th - Triumphal Entry.
Thursday 14th - Crucifixion, death, burial.
Friday 15th - A "high day".
Saturday 16th - Normal Jewish Sabbath.
Sunday 17th - before daybreak, Resurrection.

Thus the three days were:
Thursday late afternoon, about three hours of daylight left.
All day Friday.
All day Saturday.
The three nights - as we understand them:
Thursday night
Friday night
Saturday night.
As the Jews understood them:
Friday morning
Saturday morning
Sunday morning.

Therefore is the idea of a Thursday crucifixion the correct one?
That's how it looks to me.
The idea of a Friday crucifixion, I think, stemmed from the reading of the Gospels when the writers insist that the death of Jesus took place "on the day of preparation for the Sabbath." But that Sabbath was not the weekly Saturday Sabbath, but "a high day" (John 19:14 AV.) In other words, the first day of Unleavened Bread, or Passover Week, which fell on a Friday.
In John 18:28, the Jewish accusers refused to enter Pilate's hall, for fear of defilement, "because they have yet to eat the Passover". (So the Passover wasn't eaten yet.)
But what about Matthew's account of Jesus eating the Passover with his disciples?
Jesus sent two of his men to be lead to a large room to prepare it for that evening. It was still Wednesday Nisan 13th when the room was located and prepared. The meal they ate that night was the Last Supper, not the Passover, and when they all sat at table, it was after sundown and as such, it was already Thursday the 14th, the same day as the crucifixion and the death of Jesus Christ timed to coincide exactly with the killing of the Passover lambs across Israel.
A Thursday crucifixion? I would guess that most if not all Christians reading this would dismiss it as fantasy from an over-emotional manual worker lacking education.
But I would recommend reading How Close Are We? by Dave Hunt, who gives a thoroughly in-depth investigation of the passion week and presents it in easy to understand yet accurate scholarship.
A Thursday Crucifixion satisfies any doubts I might have had on the most crucial point of the Christian faith. If something does not add up, it would be much more difficult to stay firm in the faith during difficult or testing times. To know how thoroughly accurate the Bible is, and always have been, is the sharp sword that would make old Mr Doubt run away without looking back!

Once Saved Always Saved - Part 2 - Holiness is Fun!

Holiness is fun!
This is the follow up of the last blog about the Calvinism/Arminian debate. If you wish to refresh on my last post, just click on the "Older Post" prompt at the foot of this page.
It was a typical Sunday morning at Ascot Baptist Church, my home church where I attend regularly. During the sermon, Phil Rogers, our Elder, came out with these words:-
Holiness is Fun!
I was somewhat stunned. To me, "Holiness" had always conjured up in my mind of a group of monks chanting in the monastery, way out in the countryside, separate and away from the hustle and bustle of life in the secular world.

Or I imagine a "holy person" so pious, that whenever he looks at me he could see into my soul and mentally judges me, and I turn away to avoid that look.
Holiness is nothing like that.
Jesus himself said that holiness is fun. In John 15:10-11, he says:
If you keep my commandments (that is, to love one another) ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
Jesus also said:-
Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels in heaven over one sinner that repents. Luke 15:10.
Just imagine it. Our God is a happy God! Because somewhere in the world somebody had just got saved, and received the free gift of eternal life. And here and there someone is saved all the time. So the heavenly party never ceases. The believer is a gift from the Father to the Son for dying for his sins on the cross. So I can imagine a Heavenly Christmas morning that never ends. Gift after gift is received by Jesus Christ from God the Father, the myriad of angels shout for joy and everyone is having fun. The party is enhanced further by millions of saints (Christian believers) who have already died and entered glory. Their thunderous shouts of praise are twofold: first at a conversion of a sinner to saint on Earth, and the death of a Christian as he then enters the glories of Heaven, very much like the winner of an athletic foot race crossing the finishing line and breaks the tape.
Exhilarating!
God is a happy God. He loves us immensely. We are a gift to the Son from the Father, and there are no unwanted presents either. God does not make mistakes. That's why I firmly believe in Once Saved always Saved.
If there is such a doctrine so strongly debated, it is this one. Once Saved Always Saved seems too good to be true. In fact, all it says that there is absolutely no way a sinner can do anything to merit grace. Instead, the Good News of God's Grace is proclaimed, and the hearer believes, his faith resulting in salvation. Another name for "Good News" is the Gospel.
Once Saved Always Saved has been the cause of this Big Debate for nearly half a millennium and which shows no sign of slowing down.
In this article we shall look into further into the debate and what is it about Calvinism which Arminians and other non-Calvinists so dislike about it.
When one talks or reads about this debate, the issue is almost entirely about Once Saved Always Saved. This issue being: Are we as believers eternally secure in the hope of entry into Heaven after death? Or can we fall away, lose our salvation and end up in Hell? In other words, in this case the believer, rather than receiving a free gift from God through grace, he is on probation, to see if he is worthy enough to be saved.
But eternal security is only a part of what Calvin advocated. His whole treatise involved five points with which each initial letter spell the acronym TULIP.

To deciphering this acronym, we get this result:
T Total depravity of the sinner
U Unconditional Election
L Limited Atonement
I Irresistible Grace
P Perseverance of the Saints

It's the P in the last article which the debate really is centered on, which we get the modern terminology, Once Saved Always Saved.
But for anyone who sees Limited Atonement as something akin to blasphemy or grossly unfair, it simply means that Christ died for the Church. This means that the power of the Atonement is effective to everyone who has faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour. Each believer who has this faith becomes a member of the Church, which is the family of God, with God himself as his Heavenly Father. But the power of the atonement is for each person who believes, or trust in Jesus Christ to save him. To those who refuse to believe, the Atonement has no effect on them.
Thus Jesus himself said while at the Temple in Jerusalem:
And (Jesus) said, Therefore I say unto you, that no man can come unto me, except that it was given unto him of my Father
John 6:65.
He also said, in John 10 that the Jews did not believe because they were not of his sheep. His sheep hear his voice and follows him (because they are his sheep already, apparently not because they have just decided to follow him) and he gives them eternal life (free gift of grace) and they shall never perish (eternal security) - my Father, who gave those sheep to me (as a reward for his coming Crucifixion) is greater than all, and no one is able to pluck them from his hand (so God can't be beaten by human will).
In John 17 we see Jesus praying for first his immediate disciples, than for all believers to come. On more than one occasion Jesus emphasised that each disciple was given to him by God, indicating that they were already his from eternity past. He also says that all that are his belongs to the Father as well, indicating that very believer belonged to God from eternity past, for there is absolutely nothing that could happen without God knowing about it beforehand. In plain English, God knew every single work, thought, feeling, speech and action you would ever say, think, feel and do before you were even conceived!
Thus where TULIP is explained: Total depravity, is where it would be impossible for anyone to come to God in his own power. Yes, many people are good to others, kind, compassionate and generous to each other, but because of our fallen natures, these virtues are of no use to God.
It can be likened to a glass of clean water to a thirsty person, it is desirable. But just one tiny drop of ink, and the thirsty person would not touch it, even if there is only a very slight discolouration.
All this seems to indicate the U in Tulip for Unconditional Election, and I, for Irresistible Grace. If God foreknew the believer from eternity past and has predestined you to conform unto the likeness of his Son, then he also knew that he will not resist his grace. As Jesus himself said,
Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. John 6:65.
And also:
No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up on the last day. John 6:44. And,
All that the Father gives to me shall come to me; and he who comes to me I will in no wise cast out. John 6:37.
Therefore the P in Perseverance can only make sense if we are to believe that God the Father has given you to his beloved Son as a gift, and God does not makes mistakes! Especially if God knew that the believer was chosen right up until the believer falls away and loses his salvation. Some "gift" for his Son!
So then, what about Free will, human choice? Does the Bible teach it? Yes, it does. Does it contradict Divine Sovereignty? Yes, apparently it does!
Look at John chapter 1. in verse 9 John wrote that the Light of Christ shines into the soul of every man born into the world, and the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him, should not perish, but have eternal life."
Jesus also said, He who heareth my word, and believes on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. John 5:24.
Later, Jesus called out to the crowds, If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink. John 7:37.
He also said, Except that you believe that I am he, you shall die in your sins. John 8:24.
Paul also said,
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth that all men everywhere should repent. Acts 17:30.
And also Peter stated:
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise...but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that anyone should perish, but all should come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9.
Do these verses indicate free will and human choice? Yes they do.
So here is the apparent contradiction between God's Sovereignty and free will. Both are true.
So what do we do? Accept them both equally. The Bible is God's Word to mankind. How one becomes a believer through hearing the Word preached was the result of God's Sovereign choice and at the same time a choice the person himself had made, cannot be explained. But it is taught. Rather than fight it about in a debate lasting centuries, why not just accept what the Bible says?
And it says that Christ died to reconcile us to God.

So in this final part I wish to discuss why believing in Once Saved Always Saved is the key to Holiness.
It is the assurance we need when the chips are down, when feeling lonely, a loser, struggling with a problem or as in the the days the New Testament was written, under intense persecution. Back then every Roman citizen must confess by law that Caesar is Lord. They must accept that the Emperor was divine. To say Jesus Christ is Lord instead of Caesar added up to treason, and the offender was imprisoned or executed. That is why Paul writes to the church in Rome that no one can confess that Jesus Christ is Lord except by the Holy Spirit in him. In other words, confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord is of God's grace, not human merit. The same applies to perseverance. It is a grace from God, not a human strength. Many times in his letters Paul admonish his readers to "stand firm in the faith". That is to allow God's power to work unrestrained in the midst of tribulation without allowing the human weakness of fear and doubt get in the way.
It has nothing to do with loss of salvation.
To all those who trusts in Jesus Christ to save them:
God is a happy God. You are a gift to the Son for dying for your sins.
He had chosen you from eternity past, to enjoy the privilege of holiness.
Would he let you go? I can't see the sense in that.

Once Saved Always Saved - Part 1 - How did this Originate?

It was the first week of Spring Harvest, 1994. The main evening meeting was at the theatre, at the Butlins Holiday Camp at Minehead, Somerset. The Big Top, the largest meeting venue in the camp, stood empty, since still being school term, there was a considerable lack of campers during that week.
After the worship music died down, the evening speaker, David Pawson, stood up and began to admonish the audience - "You believe in Once Saved Always Saved? Then forget it! That is a false teaching..."

Then he began to preach on the text of the evening, a verse in Paul's letter to the church in Philippi, Work out your salvation with fear and trembling...
He went on about only overcomers will receive eternal life, and pointed out that he is aware that many in the audience are actually adulterers, living with a divorced partner, and therefore cannot go to Heaven after death.

The result of that sermon would have been a riot in the auditorium, if fellow pastor and a personal friend of Pawson, Roger Forset, had not stepped in to quell the uprising. After dismissal, hundreds in that audience sought counselling, which Pawson called "repenting" but more likely to have their fears calmed.

Pawson's cassette recording of the sermon was sold with a warning from Spring Harvest that the Committee does not necessarily agree with the contents of the sermon. Pawson himself was asked to leave that week, his career at Spring Harvest ended. Following this incident, Pawson wrote Once Saved Always Saved? a rebuke to R. T. Kendall's book with the same title, but without the question mark. Once Saved Always Saved? was one of many books Pawson had authored, including On the Road to Hell where he says that there are many saints (Christian believers) now suffering in Hell, and Leadership is Male with which on the cover of the 1990 copyright there was an illustration of a collar and tie.

So this was a highlight of an an ongoing debate which began in the 1500s, and there is absolutely no sign of the debate petering out. For this, just type in Calvinism or Arminianism on your browser and see how many page titles are listed on your screen. Or likewise, go to YouTube, and using the same titles, scores of videos will appear, from a 90 second musical clip to an hour long presentation.
In this blog I would like to present the history of this debate, and how it split the Christian Church right down the middle, and to see whether one or the other is a "false gospel" or not. But for the unchurched reader, I shall keep this article as simple as possible, and try to avoid jargon words which most likely be unfamiliar to them.

After Jesus Christ and his Apostles founded the churches in the early first Century, by AD 313 Roman Emperor Constantine, also then as today's Pope, known as Pontus Maximus, united the Church with the State, making it the only permitted religion in the Empire. Thus from this merger of Church and State, gave the rise of the Roman Catholic Church, headquartered at the Vatican, in Rome.

St. Peters Basilica, Vatican

During the years which followed the merger of Church and State by Constantine, new ideas and teachings began to develop within the Church. Many of these new teachings were the result of pagan customs brought in by the people. One example of this was the rise of the Virgin Mary to deification (become like a goddess) and was born without sin, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which became a binding doctrine all Catholics must believe to be saved, from December 1854, by Pope Pius IX. But adoration of the Virgin Mary goes right back into Roman times, when the goddess Diana was worshipped with her child son Horus.

Other changes since AD 313 include:

The doctrine of Transubstantiation, which means that the bread and the wine taken at Communion, becomes the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ, instead of just the symbols of his body and blood, as taught for centuries before. This teaching became legal during the Council of Lateran, 1215.
Then the teaching of Salvation by works, which basically mean that once one has receive grace from God, it's up to the believer to keep himself within the grace of God by a myriad of works. These works include confession to a priest, penance - which is a set of prayers and good works imposed to the penitent by the priest, and taking of the Sacraments, chief being the Eucharist, or Holy Communion, which is the taking the body and blood of Christ, in a form of a small disc known as the Host.

On top of this, if one commits a small sin, if it remains unconfessed and the believer dies, he'll go to a temporary hell known as Purgatory, where he stays to suffer intense torment until the sin is cleansed away. But a series of prayers with a Rosary (a string of beads) and good works would earn him an indulgence, a kind of free pass out of Purgatory and entry into Heaven.
A big or serious sin is known as a mortal sin, and one must carry out his penance or face eternity in Hell, having lost his grace from God completely.

Two main consequences arises here. First, there is absolutely no assurance of salvation for the Catholic believer. To get saved is purely upon the free choice of the believer, and he must work hard with the co-operation of God's grace. Which leads to the second consequence, that is the death of Jesus Christ on the cross has little or no saving power. The denial of the power of the Crucifixion is admitted by the Vatican itself, which explains the need for Mary, Infant Baptism, the Mass (Holy Eucharist), the Rosary, the need for Purgatory, Indulgences, Penance, Prayers for the Dead and regular confessions to a priest.

Then in 1517 a young Catholic monk named Martin Luther came across a verse in Paul's letter to the Romans. This verse read:

The just shall live by FAITH

which means believing alone was required for salvation, without working for it. Those few words absolutely changed him like a bright light from Heaven! Soon, Luther was approached by indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel. From his new-found revelation, he nailed to his church door the 97 Articles of Faith which launched the Protestant revolution.

Soon after, in 1536 Protestant reformer John Calvin wrote, Institutes of the Christian Religion which emphasised that salvation is a gift of God's grace, without human effort, that the Crucifixion of Christ completely cleanses the believer from all sin forever, and the believer, foreknown by God from eternity past, and predestined to be saved into the Kingdom of his Son, and therefore, if God foreknew from eternity past, it would be a silly idea had he fallen away and lose his salvation. Hence, Perseverance of the Saints, which itself is a grace of God and not a human virtue, or, as we would call it today, Once Saved Always Saved became modern Calvinist terminology.

John Calvin

Also at the time of John Calvin, a Spanish priest named Ignatus Loyola, who from 1523 received "mystic visions" one would ascribe to occultism, received a vision from the Virgin Mary to "fight the Babylonian hordes". At first Loyola thought she meant the Muslims, but it soon became clear that Mary was talking about the Protestants. Loyola hated the doctrines of God's grace with a passion. By August 1534 he founded the Jesuits or Society for Jesus, making himself a military General rather than a church abbot. By September 1540, Pope Paul III ordained the Jesuits to get out there and completely destroy (i.e. literally kill) everyone who holds the doctrines of grace, after receiving a specific command from the Virgin Mary in a vision. This included the slaughter of all men, women and children.

In 1560 A boy named James Arminius was born in Holland. Having lost both his parents at a young age, as a young man he was educated by one Calvinist, Professor Theodore Beza in Amsterdam, between the years 1575 to 1586. Beza became suspicious of Arminius apparent apathy over Divine grace, and begun to question the student on his leanings. Arminius lied and swore under oath that he was devoted to Calvinism, a move which allowed Beza to ordain him as a minister some years later.

James Arminius

But some years before his ordination, in 1586 he fled Amsterdam for a "holiday" in Rome instead of working to pay off his tuition fees. Arminius then became a private student of a Spanish monk and Jesuit - Luis de Molina.

Molina, as a devout Roman Catholic, had to swear allegiance to Thomas Aquinas and his teaching of Divine Sovereignty, but as a Jesuit, he wanted to defend the Papacy against Calvinism. Molina saw a willing student in Arminius, and he began to study Molina's solution to the problem of theological contradictions - Divine Sovereignty versus Free Will, salvation by grace against human effort. Molina came up with the halfway measure, a bit from both sides. First known as Molinism, this "Middle Knowledge" entails one being saved by divine grace, but this must be worked upon by the free will of the believer, or else the grace becomes ineffective. So therefore by Molina's reasoning, the atonement made for our forgiveness of sins by the death of Christ on the Cross loses its effect and becomes much weaker, leaving human effort to fill in the gap where the Crucifixion now falls short. Basically we have to "overcome" our own sinful nature and remain faithful in order to enter Heaven after death.

It was a major victory for the Vatican!

In 1588, James Arminius wrote his treatise: A Reconciliation of Free Choice With the Gift of Grace, Divine Foreknowledge, Providence and Reprobation, which changed Molinism to Arminianism.
This treatise became the norm for many Protestant churches, and it was embraced by John Wesley, founder of Methodism, a denomination from which David Pawson was brought up.

In 1610 the disciples of James Arminius signed a petition to the Government asking for protection of their Arminian views. This petition was known as the Remonstrance which pleased the likes of the Methodists, Pentecostals, Plymouth Bretheren, Assemblies of God and other well known groups.
So what have become of all this?

Namely it's a case of "another gospel" Paul the Apostle warns against in his letter to the churches in Galatia (Turkey today). What Paul was warning against were the teachings from the Jewish believers that circumcision was necessary for salvation for all non-Jews. In other words, human works added to faith to attain salvation was a false gospel.

There are many false gospel teaching going around today, some subtle enough to pass as Christian orthodoxy. One is, you need to be baptised to be saved, a teaching known as Baptismal Regeneration. It is taught by the Roman Catholic Church, along with Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Church of Christ and all groups with an Arminian leaning to Salvation.

We as Christians need to accept that we are saved by Divine grace, a free gift given by God to all true believers. God foreknew us from eternity past, he knew from before birth every work we would ever do, and therefore predestined us to be conformed to the likeness of his Son in character. Furthermore, every true believer is a gift of the Father to the Son for dying on the cross. We are his reward. Now if we can lose our salvation, as the Arminians teach, then we have to conclude that God is capable in making mistakes - God chose a "naff" gift that was of no use to the Son!

How God could make such a mistake and yet hold the Universe together is even a greater mystery than anyone can answer to.