Text: "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful" (Psalm 1:1).

"...There is enough evidence to show that our founders were neither theological giants, nor very evangelical. While they believed in God and providence, theirs was a least-common-denominator religion..." --Gary DeMar in "Why The Religious Right is Right ...Almost" published in Biblical Worldview, Vol. 8, No. 11, Nov. 1992.

The above statement reveals the deplorable influence history heretics have had in modern education. The ignorance revealed by the statement is shameful, but when Christians prostrate themselves before the unholy and profane in order to be taught by them, it is to be expected.

Ben Hart is the son of Dartmouth professor and syndicated columnist, Jeffrey Hart. In his book, Faith and Freedom: The Christian Roots of American Liberty (Lewis and Stanley Publishers), Hart declares that at the end of the 18th century, America was overwhelmingly Protestant, and of the dissident variety."

In 1775, there were 668 Congregational Churches (This was the church of the Puritans in America); 558 Presbyterian Churches (This was the church of John Knox and John Calvin in the 1500’s and of Oliver Cromwell and the Covenanters in the 1600’s); 494 Baptist congregations (This was the church of John Bunyan and John Gill, of John Newton and William Cowper); 310 Quaker Meeting Houses (This was the church of William Penn and George Fox); 159 German Reformed congregations (These followed the Bible as taught by Ulrich Zwingli); 150 Lutheran Churches (These followed the Bible as taught by Martin Luther); 65 Methodist Churches (These followed the Bible as taught by John and Charles Wesley); and 495 Anglican congregations (This church in America became known as the Episcopal Church when the colonies broke with England during the War for Independence from England).

In his review of Hart’s book, John Chamberlain notes that only 1.4 percent of the population was Roman Catholic and 3/20 of 1 percent were Jewish. A few years ago, this editor had a heated argument with the editorial staff at the Augusta Chronicle, our local newspaper, over whether America was indeed a Christian nation. When a secretary argued, "What about the Muslims in America at the time? What about them?" "There weren’t any," I retorted.

John Chamberlain writes, "Fully 75 percent of all Americans at the time of the Revolution belonged to churches of Puritan extraction." The faith of Americans was rooted in the same faith as John Wycliffe and William Tyndale.

Ben Hart declares the idea of modern historians that the Social

Compact Theory was invented by John Locke in 1688 is false. Hart shows John Locke’s idea was not his at all, but was derived by Locke from the Bible which he learned while attending the Congregational Church.

The modern position assumed by Gary DeMar, and the historic position defended by Ben Hart cannot both be right. True, each may have elements of truth, but one position is more accurate, and more truthful. The position taken by Gary DeMar, that "our founders were neither theological giants, nor very evangelical.... Theirs was a least-common-denominator religion" --is disgusting because it is flagrantly erroneous. It is inexcusable, and should not be tolerated. Yet, Christian schools have adopted the same "heresy."

One hundred and six (106) of the first 108 schools established in America were founded on Biblical Christianity.

Eleven (11) of the 13 colonies required faith in Jesus Christ and in the Bible as the Word of God to qualify for public office. Article 22 of the Constitution of Delaware (1776) required office holders to declare, "I __ do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration." (This appears quite definitive and evangelical to this editor.)

On May 17, 1776, Congress appointed a day of fasting and prayer that the colonies might "by a sincere repentance and amendment of life, appease God’s righteous displeasures and through the merit and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain His pardon end forgiveness."

Since Hebrew was considered to be the mother of languages, there was an effort made to have Hebrew made the official language of the new nation. In fact, commencement addresses at both Harvard and Yale were delivered in Hebrew as late as 1817.

The editor believes there is no truth to the charge by Gary DeMar that "our founders were neither theological giants, nor very evangelical.... Theirs was a least-common denominator religion," It is more accurate to say this generation is bereft of theological giants, and that Christianity in our day is not very evangelical. And, it is this generation that has belittled their founders, and in their ignorance of history, this generation has dismissed the part Biblical religion played in American life during the birth of this nation.

Shame on Gary DeMar, and shame on all others who have espoused such revisionism.

Text: "Look unto me, and be ye save, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else" (Isaiah 45:22)

It is by God’s design that the possibility for success entails the possibility for failure. Remove the ability for failure, and there can be no possibility to succeed. In this way, God teaches men their dependence upon Him, and judges them when they rebel from Him, but since the days of Adam, men have chafed under divine government, and have sought ways to be free from the hand of God. If they can eliminate the possibility of failure, they can sin with impunity. Take, for example, the farmer.

The farmer is dependent upon God for this crop. Wind and flood, drought and cold, blight and vermin can force him into ruin. In this way, God instructs men about the frailty of life, the certainty of death, and how dependent upon Him man is. God can cause it to rain upon one city and not upon another (Amos 4:7). He can send blasting or mildew or insects to destroy man’s crops (Amos 4:9-19). All things are under His control.

Now, when genetic engineers take a gene from a tomato plant, artificially reproduce it in the laboratory, and place it backward into the tomato in order to make the vegetable resistant to cold, it is wicked and wrong. It is brash arrogance for men, thinking to improve upon God’s handiwork, to corrupt the food chain. In the same vain, it is an act of unmitigated rebellion for men to produce hybrid fruits, vegetables, and fish -none of which can reproduce. They are unnatural. The judgments God will bring upon men for such tampering of their food will only be known in time to come.

God made men free so the farmer could grow food year after year. But with hybrids, the farmer must run to man (to the seed store) for yearly crops. Farmers, indeed most people, are thus enslaved. Their food is controlled by man. The potential for tyranny is awesome. The possibility for international famine is made more certain.

Consider the banker. In the Middle Ages, bankers designed a new kind of loan. It was called the "Contractus Trinus," and it entailed a partnership in which one person bears all risk of failure, while the other party receives a guaranteed fixed rate of interest regardless whether the business is a success or a failure. This was the birth of the modern bank loan. Since the Fall in Eden, nothing on earth is certain to succeed. Therefore, to devise a scheme that guarantees a profit is to devise a scheme that is cruel and oppressive to men. If a group of men could guarantee success, they would become as God.

Take the AIDS patient. The disease was formerly called GRID, or Gay Related Immune Deficiency, but in an attempt to make the despicable disease socially acceptable, the name was changed to AIDS, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

God often uses "Failure" to punish men and nations who refuse to be governed by Him. Failure, therefore, may take the form of oppression, or sickness, or other kind of loss. This is the reason the AIDS virus was introduced to men and nations. AIDS is a homosexual disease. It is the disease brought about by sodomy.

Now, the history of mankind is the history of men seeking to become as God. This is the reason men strive to rid themselves of the possibility of failure. This is no where more clearly seen than in the AIDS epidemic, for instead of medical technicians teaching repentance from sodomy (like Semmelweis sought to teach hospital personnel to wash their hands between patients), instead of teaching people to cease to do evil, and to learn to do well, they seek to find a cure for the AIDS virus. In this way, men can sin without suffering for it, Such a cure would allow men to sin "greedily", "with both hands." This is rebellion.

Certainly, there is a percentage or two of AIDS patients who are "innocent" having acquired it through a blood transfusion, etc. And, certainly all decent men want to help these people. But the real zeal to find a cure for the AIDS virus is to nullify God’s judgment upon the wicked so that they may continue in their wickedness. This is to do the work of the Devil!

Instead of seeking to guide young people in the way that is right, it is a wicked society that hands out paraphernalia, and educates them in nastiness so that they can sin with earnestness.

It is the wicked who counsel that in the event a girl should become pregnant, she can have an abortion. (Note the correct word is "aborticide" because it is the deliberate taking of life. An "abortion" is the natural expulsion of a child). By taking the life of the child, society seeks to take away the guilt and shame (the failure to sin and to get away with it). This is rebellion.

Take education" when educators dispense with academics and with grades because they do not want to embarrass low achievers, they will, in effect, eliminate failure, but they will also eliminate the ability to achieve.

It is rebellion in the heart that causes men to "kick against the pricks" and to buck the government of God. It is by the ordination of God that men are subject to failure, and it is only by obedience to God that men can be assured of success.

Text: "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ" (Col. 2:8).

Serious overtures are being made by Rome and her stepchildren.

Leaders in various Protestant and Baptist denominations are both giving and receiving signs from Rome. For the first time in more than 950 years, the Latin Pope is wooing the Greek Catholic, and other Orthodox, churches. In 1054, the Pope’s legate marched into the Church of St, Sophia in Constantinople, and laid a papal bull on the altar excommunicating Michael Cerularius, the Patriarch. The Pope has declared the schism should be healed as the new millennium approaches.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has revealed a secret passion to unite with Rome the Church of England, i.e. the Anglican and the Episcopal church.

Meanwhile, Pope John Paul II, the current Pope, has apologized to Protestants for Rome’s outrages in former days, including those committed against Reformed, or Calvinistic, brethren. Certainly, born-again Christians never expected to hear such an apology from a pope who-cannot err in such matters.

Jack Van Impe, an independent Baptist evangelist, whose imagination has run wild in his prophetic pronouncements, has been mesmerized by the current Pope.

Richard Land, who is the current head of the Christian Life Department (?) of the Southern Baptist Convention, along with James I. Packer, a formerly respected Reformed theologian, Charles Colson, and others who think themselves to be somewhat, have signed what amounts to a "treaty" agreeing not to evangelize Roman Catholics. While it is true they have since agreed to take their names off the blasphemous document, they have only agreed to do so since there has been a great public outcry. They are still in agreement with the terms of the document.

Most shocking is the sympathy expressed by J. I. Packer. It seems he has suffered doctrinal and historical amnesia. Although a professed evangelical who serves as professor at Regent College, he has stated that Christians should be open to "different interpretations of Genesis 1-11," and that they should have "mental elbow room in testing the historic creeds" (Christian News, 6-12-95). The historic creeds have already been tested. All that is necessary now is for each generation to affirm them. Jesus tells us, "He that endureth to the end shall be saved." Perseverance is an accurate test for saving faith.

Certainly, Bible believers have no wish for an open war with Rome. Neither should believers hold this Pope responsible for all past offences: each man is accountable for his own sins. But, what is going on here? Has the Roman Catholic Church changed? Has Rome come to acknowledge salvation "by grace through faith and not of ourselves?"

It is true that evangelical, blood-bought, born-again, fundamental Christians share some common convictions with Roman Catholics such as our opposition to aborticide. There are other issues that decent people acknowledge to be right. And, it is also true that they are brethren "after the flesh," i.e. Roman Catholics are men like fundamental, Bible-believing Baptists are men. BUT, THEY ARE NOT CHRISTIAN BRETHREN.

Until a person is arrested by the Spirit of God; convicted of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment; until God gives him repentance to "cease to do evil" and to "learn to do well"; until God gives him faith to believe in His only begotten Son –until such time, that person is not a true Christian, and is not a child of God. Such a person is not a candidate for Heaven. He must be born-again. "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

Rome teaches salvation comes by faith and works. Therefore, there can be no peace with Rome with regard to evangelization. There can be no fellowship as brethren until Rome undergoes a heart change. Not until then can there be Christian fellowship.