Evangelistic / Apologetic Pamphlet for Buddhists on Buddhism
Since there are many Buddhists in the San Francisco Bay Area, and not a great deal of literature available to reach them with the gospel of Jesus Christ, I have written an evangelistic pamphlet for Buddhists. You can view it at the link below:
The Buddha and the Christ:
Their Teachings Compared
Because Buddhism does not consider the sovereign, Almighty God important for its religious system, the presentation of the gospel is designed to be especially God-centered, explaining the work of the Trinity to reconcile sinners. It also seeks to assume that someone has no preexisting knowledge of the BIble or of Christianity, as is the case with great numbers of Buddhists.
Both the persons of Buddha and of the Lord Jesus Christ and their respective teachings are compared. The evidence overwhelmingly favors Christ, to the detriment of Buddhism.
If your church does not already have something to evangelize Buddhists, let me encourage you to add it to the resources available on your tract or pamphlet rack. An easy link to keep in mind with many different resources for the various world religions and groups in Christianity is also available here.
Learn when Buddha lived; how much we know about what he did and taught; the evidence, or lack thereof, for the truth of Buddhist Scriptures; the preservation, or lack thereof, of Buddhist Scriptures; the evidence, or lack thereof, for the many teachings of Buddhism; and how these compare to the evidence for the Bible and for the Lord Jesus Christ as the crucified and risen Lord.
–TDR
Answers for Both the Rise and the Threat of Suicide
Between 1999 and 2019, suicide rose 35.2% in the United States. Also according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) WISQARS Leading Causes of Death Reports, in 2019:
- Suicide was the tenth leading cause of death overall in the U.S., claiming 47,500 lives.
- Suicide was the second leading cause of death for those age 10 to 34, and fourth for 35 to 44.
- Suicides (47,511) more than doubled homicides (19,141) in the U.S.
Apparently China has a much higher suicide rate, something like 22 out of 100,000 in China to 16 out of 100,000 in the U.S. The United States is climbing there. It was at 9 in 1999. China hired an evangelical pastor I know to provide a curriculum to prevent suicides. It didn’t have answers in its own worldview. China still won’t allow the Bible, but so helpless to stop the suicides in its young people, it permits a presentation that offers principles without the scripture references.
I talked to a believing Delta airline pilot. He faces great pressure to capitulate to woke philosophy with a threat of cancellation. Co-workers use the woke system to attempt to entrap the non-woke for firing. It reminded him of what occurred as an Air Force officer, when the leadership found itself facing multiplying suicides among officers and enlisted. The top men called bullying the cause and softness the remedy.
People hear more now with the internet, so they know more. They hear more about suicide and those threatening it. Statistics though show the percentages rising. This isn’t just greater information. It’s real. What is happening?
First, contentment and joy come from internal spiritual strength. God gives peace and satisfaction. Jesus said in John 14:27 and 16:33:
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
On the contrary, Isaiah wrote in 48:22 and 57:21:
There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked.
There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.
Likewise, he wrote in 59:8:
The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.
The things of the world and superficial pleasures will not fill inner longing. Only God will.
No one can put a bandaid over a spiritual problem and expect it to work. The world offers bandaids. A standing in God’s grace will ward off suicidal ideations. John describes this as overcoming the world. Satan and the world system tend toward death. God gives abundant life, which safeguards against this bad thinking.
With God as his highest value, a believer soaks in satisfaction. He does not look for or need the approval of social media. He finds pleasure in the will of God, not moved by worldly fads and popular notions.
Second, a death culture promulgates suicide. China is a death culture. The United States has become one. A death culture proceeds from at least two related causes. One, untethered from God it devalues His gift of life. The righteousness of God protects the right to live. Abortion manifests the divide from God. Two, taking life strikes at the image of God. A society that values God renders to Him the things that are His. A life is not man’s to take.
Third, the victim mentality justifies suicide. Eve was not a victim, but Satan got her thinking that way. This justified what she did. It brought forth death. God through Ezekiel denounces this mentality in Israel (Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32). The children said their teeth were set on edge because their fathers ate sour grapes.
A rudiment of wokeness is someone else made me a victim. Satan perpetuates this lie, because he wants people to kill themselves. His marks sink down into self-pity under false delusions. Instead of exposing this lie, other professing victims bolster it, reinforcing their victimhood. Among others, this lie feeds the popularity of the left in the United States. The left shrivels and disappears without victim mentality.
Short of suicide, people look for solace in drugs, alcohol, and worldly lust. Not everyone kills themselves, but they still live in a sad, dark existence, attempting to keep their head above water. Solomon said this world is vanity and vexation of spirit, so that the answer is not below the sun, but above it. Find peace in God, His truth and goodness.
I hope for less suicide and the threat of it. Under the temptation, God provides the way of escape. The answer is in Him. Everything else is a placebo for temporal inoculation, but it will not stop the spread of suicide.
Thomas Cranmer and the Lord’s Table: How Is the Presence of Christ There?
Since Christ, an important part of the history of true Christianity proceeded from and among the English speaking people. Whatever good came from the English, which affected the whole world, related to a populist association with the Bible. The populist movement against Roman Catholicism in sixteenth century England corresponded to respect for the Word of God. Two main figures served as a conduit for the fulfillment of the English Reformation: King Henry VIII and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. The former clashed with the pope for personal reasons and the latter for doctrinal ones.
Henry VIII served like a wrecking ball, while Cranmer worked more behind the scenes, picking his opportunities to exact systemic changes to the entire nation. These positive words do not serve as an endorsement of the Church of England. They explain an important departure from Catholic authority over the nation, opening the door for further deference to scripture. True New Testament churches benefitted from this work.
A direction toward freedom of conscience and soul liberty traces from King Alfred’s ninth century translation and circulation of the ten commandments, the psalms, and the four gospels in Old English. In the late fourteenth century John Wycliffe produced a hand written translation of the entire Bible into the vernacular. His followers, the Lollards, were persecuted by authority, but populist seed was scattered. William Tyndale brought about the first printed edition of the New Testament into English in 1525. Shortly thereafter, Miles Coverdale finished Tyndale’s work with an entire English Bible in 1535.
Three major events in Cranmer’s life shaped his biblical influence on England. First, Cranmer’s work as a scholar at Cambridge drew the attention of Cardinal Wolsey for the justification of the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catharine of Aragon. Wolsey took Cranmer’s suggestion to canvass European theologians for their opinion rather than the Pope. Second, when Cranmer became ambassador to the Holy Roman Emperor, he intersected with influential reformers, who opposed Roman Catholicism. Third, he married Margarete, niece of Andreas Osiander’s wife, leader of reform in Nuremberg. To keep peace with the Catholic Church in England, the pope allowed for Cranmer’s appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533. Henry was far less the Protestant, but his annulment and then marriage to Anne Boleyn, aligned him with Cranmer. He became sympathetic with separation from Rome.
Jumping past Henry’s death in 1547, Cranmer had exerted great influence in the upbringing and training of Henry’s only son, Edward VI. At Edward’s coronation, Cranmer called Edward a second Josiah and encouraged him to continue reformation of the Church of England. Edward trusted Cranmer more than anyone. Cranmer saw the pope and the Mass as enemies of true Christianity and especially in the Mass. For him, the Mass was false doctrine that resulted in the condemnation of men. In 1550, Cranmer published a paper, “A Defense of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Savior Christ.” Cranmer rejected the Roman Catholic theology of the Mass or its version of the Lord’s Table.
Thomas Cranmer saw the reform of the Eucharist, the Catholic term for the Lord’s Table, as a return to biblical Christianity. He also thought that the false teaching kept its adherents from the true salvation of their souls. Cranmer believed the corruption sprang from the popish doctrine of transubstantiation or the physical presence of the real flesh and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ in the elements. However, Cranmer did believe that Christ was present spiritually at the Table. Cranmer wrote that the eating and drinking of Christ is the faith of the believer, that those who have believed in Jesus Christ have in them His spiritual presence at the Table through justification by faith. He said that the presence of Christ was not in the elements.
Cranmer rejected and repudiated the continued sacrifice of Christ at the Mass. It detracted from the finished work of Christ, His substitutionary, sacrificial death one time on the cross. He argued that salvation could come only through Christ’s death. Even though Cranmer believed that the celebration of the Lord’s Table may be a good work, it did not win the favor of God or put away evil. He also taught that it was a memorial of Christ and spiritual nourishment to the godly. On the other hand, the belief and practice of the Roman Catholic Church led men into idolatry and endangered their souls, the doctrine of Antichrist.
Upon focusing upon this distinction of Cranmer from the transubstantiation of Roman Catholicism, I ask you reading if the presence of Christ is a factor in the observance of the Lord’s Table? Roman Catholicism says Christ’s physical presence is in the elements, transubstantiation. Later leader of the Oxford movement within the Church of England in the early 19th century, Edward Pusey, revived the doctrine of consubstantiation, the real, spiritual presence of Christ in the elements. This apparently was also Luther’s teaching, rejected by Cranmer. Cranmer taught not the “real presence” of Christ in the elements, but the “real absence” of Christ in them. Instead, the presence of Christ is in the converted soul of the believer as he partakes of those elements.
As I grew up in church, I heard three titles: the Lord’s Table, the Lord’s Supper, and communion. Very often, I refer to the ordinance taught in Matthew 26 and 1 Corinthians 11 as communion. When I call it, when anyone calls it, “communion,” what do they mean? I don’t think I understood that as I grew up in church, but later as I studied 1 Corinthians 10 especially, I did understand. At the Lord’s Table, God intends for not only communion with the other members of the church by partaking of the one bread, but also communion with Jesus Christ spiritually. That seems to me like the Cranmer view of the presence of Christ at the Lord’s Table in the believing person who partakes of the elements.
The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:15-22:
15 I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.
16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
17 For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.
18 Behold Israel after the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?
19 What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing?
20 But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.
21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils.
22 Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?
This is where the terminology “communion” comes, referring to the Lord’s Table. In chapter 10, Paul argues against eating meat offered unto idols because there is the presence of demons with the physical meat. He says that eating is fellowship with or communion with devils. Paul uses the Lord’s Table as part of his argument. He is writing that when someone eats the bread and drinks of the cup, he communes with or fellowship with (same Greek word) Christ. Those eating things of the Gentile sacrifice commune with devils.
Earlier Paul said the idol was nothing (1 Corinthians 8:10). It’s not the hunk of wood or stone that is something, but what is behind the idol that is something, which is, as Paul later shows in 1 Corinthians 10, a devil or a demon. This same teaching goes back to Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Moses writes that they sacrificed unto devils (Leviticus 17:17, Deuteronomy 32:17). Something spiritually is happening with the offering of the meat to the idol. Someone comes into communion with a devil or devils just like at the Lord’s Table someone comes into communion with Jesus Christ spiritually. It is not just a physical act, the Lord’s Table, but a spiritual one.
The same point could be made from the beginning of 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, when Paul says that the passing through the Red Sea for the children of Israel was a spiritual experience. I believe that Paul makes the same point in 1 Corinthians 12:13. A spiritual communion exists with the ordinances. It is more than just a physical act. God is present and with true believers communion with Him occurs. The basis for communion with each other is the communion that regenerated, immersed church members have with God. When believers call it “communion,” we mean “communion” with other believers, but also “communion” with God spiritually. Hence, God’s spiritual presence is there at the Lord’s Table.
“I’m sorry” vs. “I repent”
We often hear someone say, “I’m sorry,” after doing something wrong, or something that the person does not think is wrong but the person he is speaking to thinks is wrong.” When one man says “I’m sorry” to another, the response can cover the range from “I’m sorry that I sinned against God and against you, because this is a godly sorrow, it will lead me to repent,” to “I’m sorry that you feel the way you do right now,” to “I’m sorry I got caught sinning,” to “I’m sorry that you are bothering me with your ridiculous complaint, and I wish you would go away and leave me alone–I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’m sorry.”
That range can be seen in the texts that contain the word “sorry” in Scripture.
For example, Saul wants people to feel sorry for him when he is plotting evil, pursuing innocent David, and killing other righteous people right and left:
1Sam. 22:8 That all of you have conspired against me, and there is none that sheweth me that my son hath made a league with the son of Jesse, and there is none of you that is sorry for me, or sheweth unto me that my son hath stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait, as at this day?
King Herod was sorry when he was asked to behead John the Baptist:
Matt. 14:9 And the king was sorry: nevertheless for the oath’s sake, and them which sat with him at meat, he commanded it to be given her.
In fact, Herod was not just a little bit sorry. He was really sorry:
Mark 6:26 And the king was exceeding sorry; yet for his oath’s sake, and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her.
Herod was “sorry.” Really sorry. He could have said to John, “I’m sorry about this,” and then gone ahead and ordered the guard to chop off the Baptist’s head. He was “sorry,” but he certainly did not “repent.” Being even “exceeding sorry” is not the same thing as being repentant. Being “sorry” is simply saying that you have “sorrow” over something–whether that thing is your sin, or whether you are sorry that you didn’t get away with your sin, or whether you are sorry you can’t sin even more, is not expressed.
“I repent.”
Scripture does not say that if one sins against a Christian brother, he is supposed to say, “I’m sorry.” It does not say that when a child sins against another child, the sinning child should be made to say “I’m sorry.” Scripture says that when one sins against another, the sinning party is to say, “I repent.”
Luke 17:4 And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.
This is not the place to do a comprehensive study of the Biblical doctrine of repentance, but the evidence provided here and in many other places indicates that genuine repentance always results in a change. If I sin against you and say, “I repent,” I am telling you that what I did was sinful, and by God’s grace I will not do it any more. I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.
If I say “I’m sorry,” I may mean the same thing as “I repent.” On occasion being “sorry” is associated with repentance:
Psa. 38:18 For I will declare mine iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin.
2Cor. 7:9 Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing.
The sorrow of the Corinthians did lead to their repentance–that was good. But note that Paul specifically states that he was not glad that they had been made “sorry.” He was only glad that they had repented as a result of that sorrow. So even here, where sorrow and repentance are associated, they are still distinct.
Have I ever said “I’m sorry” when I meant “I repent”? Yes, I certainly have. Do I condemn parents who tell their children, when the children sin against another, “Say you are sorry!” No, I do not condemn such parents. If someone sins against me and then says, “I’m sorry,” must I think the best (1 Corinthians 13) and assume he means “I repent,” and therefore forgive him, as commanded in Luke 17:4? Yes, I certainly must forgive him, even though he did not say what Christ told him to say: “I repent.”
However, maybe we all ought to reevaluate our use of language in the light of Scripture, and start saying “I repent” instead of “I’m sorry” when we sin against another person (and also use this language when we confess our sins to the Lord). Saying “I’m sorry” is easier than saying “I repent.” There is a lot more wiggle room in “I’m sorry.” Maybe we should start telling our children to say “I repent” instead of “I’m sorry.” This is the pattern in Scripture, and it is always good to stick as closely to Scripture as possible.
–TDR
The Prime Directive Isn’t a Biblical Directive
The Star Trek series began in 1966, when I was four years old. In my home in a small town in Indiana, I grew up watching our black and white tube television set. I became a “trekkie” with Captain Kirk, Spock, Scottie, and McCoy. If someone held up his hand with only his middle fingers separated, I knew that meant, “Live long and prosper.” It isn’t unusual in this country. Many watch and read fantasy and science fiction.
I’m not endorsing Star Trek or even the genre of science fiction. I lay down a full disclaimer. I would argue for disinterest as the superior position.
Star Trek shows a naturalistic world view. It imagines that everything came about by accident and evolved, producing whole other galaxies full of living creatures and intelligence. Having progressed in technology to the extent that people can travel at light speed to get to those galaxies, the science fiction of Star Trek says this is how good things should be. None of this mirrors a Christian worldview, which is the only true one.
Christianity, of course, reveals the best possible outcome for people. God wants people to have it and it could not be better.
In the Star Trek imagination, the future sees very evolved, sophisticated people visit less evolved ones. They study them like scientists, almost like humans watching an ant farm. The speculation is that this is bound to happen. All these different creatures evolved in their separate locations.
When the main Star Trek characters visit, they cannot interfere with development or evolution. Some of you reading know the law. They call it the “prime directive,” which “prohibits Starfleet personnel and spacecraft from interfering in the normal development of any society, and mandates that any Starfleet vessel or crew member is expendable to prevent violation of this rule.”
While traveling, my wife and I used a laundromat (also called a launderette some places). At one location, while I went to get cash for change, she started into evangelism with a woman, who was a secular humanist. I didn’t hear the first half of the conversation, but the woman was arguing against Christianity interfering with indigenous people. Why should Christians see their point of view superior to tribes with subsistence living and their accompanying religions?
I had walked in to hear the woman say this to my wife. I smiled to myself, because it sounded like the prime directive. Just leave people alone. Just because they’re different doesn’t mean they’re inferior. I also recognize this as multi-culturalism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says:
While the term has come to encompass a variety of normative claims and goals, it is fair to say that proponents of multiculturalism find common ground in rejecting the ideal of the “melting pot” in which members of minority groups are expected to assimilate into the dominant culture. Instead, proponents of multiculturalism endorse an ideal in which members of minority groups can maintain their distinctive collective identities and practices.
The prime directive says “don’t assimilate” the minority culture. This philosophy further associates with “cultural relativism.” Foundational to this thinking is the absence of objective truth, goodness, and beauty. With cultural relativism, one people cannot say that they are better than some other people in their beliefs, practices, and aesthetics.
If there is objective truth, goodness, and beauty, which there is, you help a culture when you intervene with the truth, goodness, and beauty. There is one God, no other. He is also the judge of the world. Every person, whatever culture he’s in, will face the same God.
The Bible teaches the polar opposite of the prime directive. Something is better than something else. One culture is superior to another.
Multiculturalism, the prime directive, or cultural relativism reject the truth. Satan wants men going down the broad way unaware that it sends them to eternal death. They think they’re fine, because no one can say with certainty what the truth is.
Cultures are different dependent upon their relationship to the truth. The closer to the truth, the better they are. If they aren’t following the truth, someone can help them by preaching the truth to them. God requires the violation of the prime directive.
Not Knowing What You With Certainty Can Know Is True and Knowing What You Can’t Know Is True
What you can know with certainty is anything that God says. You know the Bible is true. God said it. It’s true and you can know it with certainty. More than ever, what God says, people don’t know. They treat what God said like they can’t know it.
Scripture talks about treating what you can know like you can’t know it. It’s not about knowing. It’s about wanting. Someone doesn’t want to do it, so he eliminates it by not knowing it. He can know it and he does know it. He says he doesn’t know it.
What I’m writing about is like a little child who “forgets.” A parent asks if the child knows. The child nods, “No,” shaking his head back and forth, when the child knows. Not knowing is an excuse for not doing. He does know. With a very large sample size, I can say that children know more than what they act like they do.
Very often, for what people can know, they stay ignorant. They could know, but they don’t want to know. They like what they’re doing. If they don’t try to find out, then they won’t know. If they don’t know, they won’t have to do.
Knowing what you can know with certainty very often isn’t popular. It’s easier just to say that you don’t know.
On the other hand, people treat the Bible like it can’t be known. It’s just opinion. It is a story book of preferences. If it makes you feel good, sure, go ahead with it, but don’t treat it like something you can know.
An example of not knowing what you can know occurred recently in the Senate hearings for confirming the Supreme Court justice, when a Senator asked her to define a woman. She said she didn’t know that. She could know, but wasn’t willing to know.
Very often what the world knows is that it can’t know. It knows with certainty that it can’t know. The unknowability provides freedom. You’re not to judge what you can’t know, so you must not know. That way no one can judge. Then you get to live like you want.
Unwillingness to know becomes a basis of toleration. You’re in trouble if you judge something wrong, because you’re saying you can know, when you can’t. You’re left with tolerating wrong things. It’s required. The judgment itself becomes what’s wrong. An irony is that you can know when someone else can’t know.
I’m not saying, however, that people don’t say they know things. They know what’s wrong with their meal at a restaurant. These people write a bad review with complete conviction of their own knowledge. They know if they got bad service from someone. They know when someone offends them because it’s what they feel.
People know evolution is true. Evolution is still a theory. That status hasn’t changed, but men now know men evolved. This theory promotes naturalism. Knowing it frees men from their accountability to God, when they don’t know it. It’s a theory. It’s a theory that we actually know is not true.
Critical theory poses as knowledge. People know your motives. They know you’re racist. Climate science says it knows the world will end by global warming. Man causes the end of the world through natural means. God tells man how the world will end. That we know.
Churches are more and more worldly because of more and more preference, a lack of knowledge about scriptural things that were once known. They are still known, but treated like they are not. What distinguishes the roles of men and women, what were once known, now not known. The psychology behind overturning scripture, creating victims, who are not victims, this is now known. People are sure of this.
What I’m describing is leaning on man’s understanding and not on God’s. God is always right. Man is rarely to never. Living by faith, which pleases God, is living by what man can and should know, not by what he knows, but that he really cannot.
How should someone treat willful not knowing or rebellious knowing? He should tell the truth. He should embrace knowing what he can and should know. As the psalmist wrote in Psalm 118:6, “The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?” He should also stand against what he knows men cannot know.
Eastern / Buddhist Meditation Harms You, Psychologists Agree
In our world today people often assume that meditation, as practiced by Buddhists or other advocates of Eastern religion, is healthy and beneficial. Areas of society where Christian religion are excluded are often open to Eastern meditation, although it is just as religious–albeit a different (and false) religion.
Eastern meditation is diametrically opposed to the godly and Biblical practice of meditation. Eastern meditation involves emptying the mind, while Biblical meditation, commanded in Joshua 1:8, Psalm 1, and many other texts, is a crucial part of the Christian life that involves carefully and actively employing the mind to carefully ponder God and His Word for the purpose of living for God’s glory. Eastern meditation, evaluated by Scripture, opens one up to the influence of demons.
Scripture is sufficient to teach that Eastern meditation is evil and harmful. However, even secular psychologists are now issuing many warnings, warnings that do not get sufficient public notice. Modern psychology itself is unbiblical, dangerous, and has way too much pseudoscience, but it is nevertheless interesting that, for example, Cheetah House, which is affiliated with organizations such as Harvard Medical School, Brown University’s Mindfulness Center, Tufts University, the UK’s National Health Service, has published a list of 59 health dangers from practicing Eastern meditation, as well as compiling an extensive bibliography of peer-reviewed studies discussing the dangers of Eastern meditative techniques. To quote from my pamphlet “The Buddha and the Christ: Their Teachings Compared:
[A] shockingly high percentage of “regular meditators experience negative effects,” and among people who meditated only one time nearly 10% “experienced impaired functioning,” while “nearly 60%” of those who “experienced negative effects … were meditation teachers. Some even required inpatient hospitalization. … People’s demons come out and play[.]” (Christ Lyford, “Is Meditation as Safe as We Think? The Risks We Don’t Talk About.” Psychotherapy Networker 46:1 [January/February 2022] 11-13.)
Many people become Buddhists because of the alleged benefits of Buddhist meditation, rather than because careful study indicates that what Buddha said is actually true. The reality is that what the Buddha taught is not true, and Eastern meditation is harmful, as proven by Scripture and validated by science.
–TDR
The Bible Teaches Premillennialism, But Premillennialism Also Fits What We See Happening In The World
If you read a word like premillennialism and you just stop reading, I understand. Why does anyone need to use a word like that to explain or represent the Bible? I didn’t come up with the words amillennialism, postmillennialism, and premillennialism, but they are historic words that stand for particular representations, explanations, or systems of interpretation of the Bible.
As a system, the first of the three above words, amillennialism was the first to appear, even though it wasn’t coined until the 1930s. Every one of the previously stated terms have “millennialism” in them. This means that each of them pivot on the meaning of “the kingdom,” because the millennium refers to the kingdom in the Bible.
Amillennialism says “a” or “no” millennium. Instead of saying that Revelation 20 is a literal 1,000 year reign of Jesus Christ on earth, amillennialism spiritualizes 1,000, doesn’t take it literally. In that way, it says there is no millennial reign of Jesus Christ. Amillennialism itself is an explanation of scripture that relies on spiritualization of the text, a highly subjective approach to the Bible.
If someone can read into the words of scripture by spiritualizing them, he can become the authority for scripture. He can make it mean what he wants it to mean. The system of ahmillennialism began with Catholicism or Roman Catholicism, that latter the terminology for the former that arose during the Protestant Reformation. Catholicism said the church is the kingdom of God and the true nation of Israel. It reached that conclusion through allegorical interpretation, which arose from Catholic theologians.
Both amillennialism and postmillennialism say that the kingdom of Christ is the church and a true Israel. However, postmillennialism claims the added feature of an optimistic view of the success of the church in bringing in the return of Christ to earth. Amillennialism arose out of a Catholic church that ruled like a kingdom on the earth, a point of view very pragmatic and appropriate for that day. Theologians systematized that into amillennialism, then postmillennialism.
Premillennialism as an approach takes the Bible literally, that is, grammatically and historically. It takes an Old Testament priority, believing that plain meaning of the text understands scripture as those first hearing it in that day. Anyone who takes the Bible literally will also be a premillennialist. Premillennialism asks how people understood the Bible that were hearing it in the day it was written. It is called premillennialism because Jesus comes back before He sets up a thousand year kingdom on the earth, a literal reading of Revelation 19-20.
What I see happening through history and in the world today matches up with a premillennial approach or explanation. So much we read in the news fits right with the Bible. The application of scripture with a literal interpretation easily corresponds with contemporary events.
Are Worldly Pleasures A Necessary Sacrifice For or Unto Salvation?
The Lord Jesus Christ told stories, called “parables.” In one of a later of those in Matthew 22, Jesus uses the story of a certain king and the marriage of his son. The “certain king” is God the Father and “his son” is God the Son, Jesus. The point of the story revolves around those who get into the wedding ceremony as a guest. Getting into the wedding ceremony is getting into the kingdom of heaven, which is the same thing as getting into heaven. Why don’t people get into heaven (compared to getting into a wedding as a guest)?
I think anyone reading here understands the concept of not getting into something you want. Something was sold out or a no vacancy. Nothing could be worse than not getting into heaven. It would be great to find out why you won’t get in. Not everyone will get into heaven. Jesus teaches this exclusivity. The Bible explains who gets into heaven and who doesn’t. In the parable of Matthew 22:1-14, Jesus tells a story that explains why people won’t get in.
Maybe you missed an event for some reason. Maybe for some reason you didn’t get a hotel you wanted on a particular night. Perhaps you tried out for a team and didn’t make it for some reason. You interviewed for a job, even your dream job, and you didn’t get it for some reason.
Jesus gives a few reasons for someone not getting into heaven. Jesus knows more than anyone about why people won’t get into heaven. Of all the reasons, His last reason is more important than any of the others. However, in the passage with the parable at least three verses explain one of the reasons people don’t get into heaven. That reason is worldly pleasures.
Someone who wants the kingdom of heaven, who wants Jesus Christ, can’t also want worldly pleasures. Verses 3-5 read:
3 And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come. 4 Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are] killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage. 5 But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise.
A parallel passage to Matthew 22:1-14 is Luke 14:1-24. Concerning the reason of worldly pleasures, Jesus says there in verses 17-20:
17 And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. 18 And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. 19 And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. 20 And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.
Jesus presents salvation as a choice for which someone cannot have it both ways. Jesus earlier in Matthew (6:24) said, “No man can serve two masters.” In the next chapter He says you either take the narrow road or the broad road. When someone chooses the narrow road, having counted the cost, he is not choosing the broad or wide road that leads to destruction. Some of those on the wide or easy road choose worldly pleasures over Jesus Christ. This is akin to choosing self over Jesus.
Worldly things that keep someone from the kingdom of heaven are their own ways, their farm, and their merchandise (Matthew 22:1-14). It’s also represented as a piece of property, five yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:1-24). These are all things, worldly things, pleasures or lusts, that someone puts ahead of the Lord and His kingdom. The passage is saying you’ve got to make a choice and choosing the narrow, instead of selfish pursuits, worldly ones, is part of that choice. You can’t serve God and mammon (Matthew 6:24).
An eternally fatal flaw of new evangelicalism is that you can take both the world and Jesus Christ. One does not need to give up one for the other. No. The Apostle John echoes what Jesus taught in this parable and others, when he wrote (1 John 2:15): “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” In His high priestly prayer in John 17, Jesus says believers will not be “of the world.” That’s what Matthew 22 is saying in addition to many other passages. Worldly pleasures can and will keep you out of heaven.
Piankhy (Piye) Victory Stele & Isaiah 18
The video below about the Piankhy (Piye) Stele, commented on by leading Egyptologist and evangelical scholar James Hoffmeier in situ at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt, forms the topic of this post. I have already posted Dr. Hoffmeier’s discussion of Darius I Hystaspes’ Suez Inscription and Hoffmeier’s discussion of the famous Mernephtah Stele.
The Piankhy (Piye) Victory Stele or Stela narrates Nubian King Piankhy’s victory over both Upper and Lower Egypt. It is the foremost historical inscription of the Egyptian Late Period. Some modern scholars have concluded that the king whose name was traditionally read as “Piankhy” was really “Pi” or “Piye.” It is possible that the Nubian form was “Pi” or “Piye” while the Egyptians understood it as “Piankhy.”
The Piankhy Victory Stele Validates Isaiah 18, which describes the actions of King Piankhy:
Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia: That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled! (Isaiah 18:1-2)
Watch the video on YouTube by clicking here. Watch on Rumble by clicking here.
I make further comments on the stele in my expanding “Evidence for the Bible from the Land of Egypt” post as well as in the Rumble and YouTube descriptions at the links above.
Lord willing, I will continue to post Dr. James Hoffmeier’s discussions relevant to validating the truth of the Bible from our fantastic trip to Egypt with Tuktu Tours.
–TDR
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