The Daily Telegraph 5 January 2005 SYDNEY SERVICE FOR TSUNAMI VICTIMS (Edited by DCB) "AN inter-faith service is to be held in Sydney…to show solidarity through prayer for the tsunami victims. Organised by the NSW Ecumenical Council, the gathering will include Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Christian representatives."

Editor’s Comment: This is just the beginning of all religions getting together for a "cause". Brethren heed 2 Corinthians 6: 14, 15 "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

Agape Press 5 January 2005 "Christian pollster George Barna has released his annual review of significant religious events over the past year -- and one of the more startling findings has to do with Mel Gibson's hit film." The "…Passion of the Christ movie…had been billed by many pastors as potentially being one of the greatest evangelistic tools ever." Barna says "His numbers showed that few people accepted Christ as a result of watching the movie, and only a few said it changed their religious views of practices. As an example, less than one-half of one percent of the audience said the movie motivated them to be more active in evangelism."

Editor’s Comment: Romans 10:17 "…faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." and not by seeing a movie. Promotion of Gibson’s film is another indication of our being in the latter days.

NewsMax.com January. 11, 2005 MEL GIBSON'S SECRET MEETING WITH FATIMA VISIONARY (Edited by DCB) "Actor Mel Gibson held a secret meeting with one of the famous visionaries of Fatima, Sister Lucia of Portugal. Sister Lucia, now 98 years of age, is a cloistered nun who as a child saw and spoke with the Virgin Mary in Fatima, Portugal in 1917. Her visions and those of her two childhood friends, both since passed away, were both prophetic and apocalyptic. The Catholic Church accepted the visions as authentic." It was revealed that Gibson "flew to Coimbra, Portugal to personally introduce the film to Lucia and her Sisters."

Editor’s Comment: Rome has not changed and those who promoted Gibson’s film assisted many to hell. Spurgeon said "...in truth the troublers of our Israel are those who have introduced strange doctrines among us." Sword and Trowel April 1888.

The Ithaca Journal (New York state, USA) 21 December 2004 LANSING DROPS SEX-ED CLASS - PARENTS RILED BY PRESENTATION WITH ABSTINENCE-ONLY THEME (Edited by DCB) "LANSING -- Prompted by intense parental scrutiny, the Lansing Board of Education has barred an abstinence-only presentation from its middle school, at least for this semester. Opponents of the program…argued that a focus on marriage could upset children from nontraditional families and that the organization's Christian affiliation was inappropriate for a public school."

"What upset many parents, though, was the way that message was wrapped around the…basic tenet of waiting for marriage. ‘It should be taught as a health choice, not a moral choice’ in the public school" said one mother.

Editor’s Comment: Hebrews 13:4 "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." Morality is always healthy!

Episcopal News Service 10 December 2004 'UNDOCUMENTED VIRGIN': GUADALUPE NARRATIVE CROSSES BORDERS FOR NEW UNDERSTANDING (Edited by DCB) "Both the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times have in recent years interviewed Lydia Lopez, an Episcopal lay leader from Pasadena, California, about why Christians of many denominations are increasingly finding meaning in the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe -- whose traditional feast day is December 12. Indeed, artistic renderings of ‘La Morenita,’ as the Virgin is also known, are displayed in a growing number of churches, Episcopal included." The Virgin of Guadalupe is "a symbol of cultural and religious significance that reaches beyond Roman Catholic origins, says Lopez, who is communications associate in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and an honorary canon of the Cathedral Center of St. Paul. To draw meaning from the story of the Virgin is not to worry whether it is fact or legend, says Lopez."

It was "In the 16th century, while Indians were demoralized by the routing of their gods, and millions of Indians were dying from the plague of Europe, the Virgin Mary appeared, pacing on a hillside, to an Indian named Juan Diego - his Christian name. He spoke no Spanish; she spoke to him in Nahuatl because she was a very smart virgin. He hears beautiful music. It was December 1531." "The sight of that image is said to have motivated the conversion of 8 million Indians."

Editor’s Comment: Revelation 20:10 "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever."

The following was obtained from the Internet and are the FINAL THOUGHTS in a paper written by Dallas Seminary professor, Daniel Wallace describing some of his 2002 sabbatical.

WITTENBERG 2002 Daniel B. Wallace of Dallas Seminary FINAL THOUGHTS (Edited by DCB with emphasis added) "I’ve had a good amount of time to reflect on the significance of a single act that started the Protestant Reformation. Today’s world is quite different from Luther’s in many ways, and yet there remain the epistemological and practical questions regarding authority and truth. Nearly 500 years after Luther took his stand, Protestants and Catholics are beginning to wrestle with reconciliation. Gestures have been made on both sides. Language is toned down, and there is an increasing recognition that each branch of Christendom (including Orthodoxy) has a contribution to make—and even that no single branch has a corner on the whole truth. On the one hand, evangelical Christians have to ask themselves what ‘faith alone’—that great clarion call of the Reformation—really means. Is the doctrine of justification by faith alone a necessary doctrine for salvation, so that all those who do not embrace it explicitly are damned to hell? Or is it an important clarification of the gospel which is nevertheless not the core of the gospel? Our attitude toward one another within Christendom depends on how we answer this question. One of the interesting facets of this question has to do with the methodological battle cry of the Reformation, ad fontes. Indeed, when we go back to the scriptures, it does indeed seem clear that Paul has a doctrine of justification by faith alone. But that doctrine is not as easy to find in James, Peter, or Jude. Yet Paul seemed to accept these other apostles, along with their theological commitments, as genuine and true. But if they did not see things quite the same way as Paul did, who are we to insist on beliefs and formulations that just might exclude even some of the apostles?

In truth, Luther was a Paulinist. He held to a canon within the canon. Paul’s letters, especially Romans and Galatians, were the crown jewel of Luther’s theology. Is that altogether a bad approach? Is it possible to hold to a canon within the canon and yet to embrace a high view of scripture? And should Paul be considered the capstone of theological articulation? These are important questions that we must wrestle with. Further, by replacing tradition with revelation as the ultimate authority, Luther opened a Pandora’s Box whose implications he could hardly have anticipated. If revelation is the ultimate authority, then how should we interpret it? If we are to use reason—as Luther even hinted at the Diet of Worms in 1521—then does this not make reason a higher authority than revelation? And if reason has this kind of power, what does this say about total depravity and the noetic effects of sin? How can a Christian reconcile the use of reason to grasp the meaning of scripture with a mind that has been tainted by sin? Although the Catholicism of Luther’s day was terribly corrupt, the value it placed on tradition was not altogether a bad thing. Protestantism gave rise to liberalism when reason usurped the throne of revelation. During this time, Catholicism remained far more conservative. And today, evangelicals and Catholics generally have much more in common than either of them has with liberal Christianity. In the least, this complex tapestry of western Christianity is not yet finished. The Weaver has more to do. And we all must humbly bow before him as he does his work in our lives both individually and corporately."

Editor’s Comment: "New editions of the gospel are to be excogitated by the wisdom of men, and we are to follow in the wake of ‘thoughtful preachers,’ whose thoughts are not as God's thoughts." Spurgeon in the April 1888 Sword and Trowel

AgapePress Wednesday, January 12, 2005 The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America this week will release its three-year study on sexuality, including recommendations on whether the church should change its policies on the blessing of homosexual unions and ordination of homosexual ministers. Clergy and lay leaders of the five million-member denomination will act on the proposals at their Churchwide Assembly in August. The Evangelical Lutherans currently have no official policy on blessing same-sex relationships. The denomination allows members who identify themselves as homosexual to be ordained but expects them to remain celibate.

Editor’s Comment: Ichabod.

Yours against apostasy and for Biblical Truth,

David C. Bennett, Titus 2:13