Global Wizardry

Buy the book at www.truthxchange.com

It’s been far too long since my last post. Sorry. Over the next few days, I am going to update you guys on some great books that we have published or are publishing. This one is called Global Wizardry. Yup, that’s right, a title in English. This is in fact our first title ever in English. Global Wizardry is a compilation of essays given at the TruthXChange conference 2008. The book is edited by Peter Jones, with a foreward by John Frame. It examines “pagan spiritual techniques from Brazil, Canada, China, Africa, the US, as well as from the ancient Gnostics and Canaanites”. The net result of the books articles is that all of these diverse practices all amount to the same religion, what this book calls “One-ism”.

In our world where the line between creature and Creator has become blurred or non-existent, this book provides a clear and insightful analysis into the culture’s prevailing trends. The relevance of this book’s message is underscored by the level of acceptance which the spirituality reflected in movies like Avatar has enjoyed among Christians and non-Christians alike. All we hear about today is the danger that militant Islam poses to the West. And while we certainly have reason to be concerned about terrorism and militant Islam, the far more dangerous threat is a global secularism which encourages and defends a pagan spirituality while seeking to suppress the knowledge and worship of the God of Revelation. I highly recommend this book to every Christian in the English speaking world. Some of the authors include:

1. Peter Jones, PhD, Director of TruthXChange and Scholar in Residence and adjunct professor at Westminster Seminary California.

2. James Herrick, PhD, Guy Vander Jagt Professor of Communication at Hope College, Holland, MI.

3. Calvin Beisner, PhD, spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and author of numerous books on environmental responsibility.

4. Andrew Young, PhD, minister and professor of Practical Theology, as well as Associate Principle of Grace Theological College, Auckland, New Zeland.

5. Samuel Ling, PhD, professor of Systematic Theology at International Theological Seminary and director of China Horizon and president of Horizon Ministries Canada.

You can buy the book at http://www.truthxchange.com/store/on-global-wizardry-techniques-of-pagan-spirituality-and-a-christian-response/

The book sells on the TruthXChange website for $14.99.

Looking for a web designer

Hi Everyone,

We are in the process of reorganizing how we fund some of our projects. There are some projects that we would love to do, but they just aren’t in the budget. So, we are organizing a way to pay for these extra projects by taking pre-publication orders in order to fund the production of things such as children’s literature and other projects we have long wanted to do. In order to do that, we are looking to set up a solid, professional website. The only problem is that we don’t have the technical skill here to pull it off. We’ve got domain names, etc., but not the design skill. So, CALLING ALL WEB DESIGNERS! If you are a web designer or even studying in that field and wish to help CLIR with this project, please get in touch with us. You can call us, email or leave a comment here and we will get in touch with you. Thank you for considering this important need.

Nick

“Feel me!”

Have you ever known anyone who said, “I left that church because I just don’t the Holy Spirit there.” or “I don’t know (sigh!)… I just don’t feel God here.” How remarkable that we base so many of our decisions an beliefs on our feelings. How could King David, being driven away by his own son, fleeing for his life, have sung, “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth… Oh magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together” (Ps. 34:1,3)? So many times in distress and affliction, David commands his soul to bless the Lord. Where does that come from? I don’t think it actually comes from a deep well of warm feelings. When the “chords of death encompassed” him, when the “torrents of destruction assailed” him, when “Sheol entangled” him (Ps. 18), from his distress he called to the Lord (18:6). Psalm 88 is the perfect example of someone who calls upon the Lord although he does not feel the Lord near. It is the darkest psalm in the Bible, in which there is no hope, no light. It is a psalm of Heman the Ezrahite, a song of the sons of Korah, and we may be grateful to God for its inclusion the psalter. Heman says, “my life draws near to Sheol. I am counted among those who go down to the pit… like those among whom you (God) remember no more” (88:4-5). He also says, “Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves” (88:7). He asks God why He casts his souls away from Him and why He hides His face from Him (88:14). Unlike all the other Psalms of lament, here there is no answer from God, because sometimes God just doesn’t seem answer us. And yet, Heman starts his Psalm in this way: “Oh Lord, God of my salvation”. Now how can a man who cannot feel God speak those words and mean them? I can’t think of a better example of someone who couldn’t “feel” God’s favorable presence than Jesus Christ on the cross, who cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). And yet, when he dies he cries out to his Father, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46).

How can the Son of God, while suffering the wrath of God, entrust himself to God? How can David or Heman or Paul (who said: “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” 2 Cor. 6:10) bless the Lord and rejoice in the Lord when they don’t “feel” the Lord? I think the answer is simple. GOD NEVER COMMANDED US TO FEEL HIM. Search the Bible for even one place where God tells us to feel him. He never says, “Feel me!” He does say “Obey me” (Gen. 22:18, 26:5; Ex. 19:5; Dt. 11:27, Jn. 3:36; Acts 5:29, 32; 1 Jn. 5:2; etc.). He says “Trust me” (1 Kg. 18:5; Ps. 4:5, 9:10, 20:7, 37:3; Is. 26:4, 30:15; Jer. 17:5, 7; among many others). He says “Believe me” (Gen. 15:6; Mk. 5:36, 9:23-24; Lk. 1:45; Jn. 1:12, 3:36, 5:24, 11:40, 20:31; Acts 16:31; Rom. 10:4; 1 Jn. 5:13; and so many more). We are commanded to trust, believe, know, obey, walk, live, hope, come, taste, see, but never feel. Why?

The fact is, and you and I know it well, our feelings change with the wind. One minute I feel fine, the next a little depressed. I’m not always happy, even when everything is going well. I don’t always feel like God is near. But My feelings are not a good measure for what is true. God’s promises are. God has made promises and told me to believe them and live by them. God cannot lie, but my feelings can. God will not be unfaithful, but I can’t always trust what I feel. God does not change, but my moods do. I must believe the promises of God. That is faith.

So, the next time someone says, “I just don’t feel God here”, maybe that person needs to be told to stop trying to “feel” him and start believing him.

6 Myths of the Watchtower

Hey everyone!

I thought I’d write about a new project that I am working on. Last week the JWs passed by our place and left one of the Watchtower magazines with my wife. As is my usual custom, I sat down to read it. Usually I can’t take too much of it, but this one was different. This particular issue was entitled: “6 Myths About Christianity”. It “exposed” various “myths” that most Christians believe are found in the Bible, like the immortality of the soul, the Trinity, the doctrine of hell and eternal punishment, and that pesky, recurring little idea that Jesus is God. So what? The Jehovah’s Witnesses are always pushing their literature and it’s always the same thing, more or less. The JWs themselves report a global membership of over 7 million people actively involved in evangelism and preaching. They also still (this according to http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/statistics.php) have a growth rate of between 1-2% per annum. While this growth rate is down significantly from three decades ago, the point is that they are still growing and retaining about 90% of their converts (U.S. Religious Landscape Survey Religious Affiliation: Diverse and Dynamic. Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. February 2008. pp. 9, 30.). It is reported that a Jehovah’s Witness will spend between 70 and 120 hours every month evangelizing. In Costa Rica they are highly active. In fact, our church sits roughly 400 meters from a Kingdom Hall and they are regularly evangelizing the neighborhood. The thing is, while many people just slam the door in their faces or turn off the lights and hide under the carpet, there are plenty of people who continue to open the doors to them: the disillusioned, disenfranchised, elderly, shut-ins, single mothers, people who are disenchanted with the current state of the evangelical or catholic churches. My point is that as a church we must reach out to evangelize, not only Jehovah’s Witnesses, but also those who are evangelized by them. It is a sad state of affairs, but true, that many people who consider themselves to be Christians cannot defend the most basic doctrines of the faith against a well-indoctrinated JW.

What are we doing about it? After reading this last edition of the Watchtower magazine (6 Myths About Christianity), I decided to write a series of six tracts (trifold brochures) entitled: “Six Myths of the Watchtower”. The idea will be to write and print these tracts, then bundle them together. What we will do is divide our neighborhoods into sections and take the tracts house by house, leaving them with people to read and letting them know that we will be back to follow-up and if they would like to talk about them, we want to make ourselves available. This serves a number of purposes. First, we get literature about the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ key doctrines into the hands of people who may be or have been evangelized by them. Second, our church becomes a recognized source of good information and they learn who we are. Lastly, we may, in the Lord’s providence, be able to speak to some about the gospel. If people will open their doors to the JWs, why should we believe that they will close them on us?

The “six myths” of the Watchtower that we are going to hit in these tracts are (in their words):

1. When you die, you cease to exist.

2. God will not punish people in hell.

3. The majority of good people will live forever on the earth, not in heaven.

4. The doctrine of the Trinity was invented in the latter part of the fourth century.

5. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but not God Almighty.

6. The Holy Spirit is the active force of God, not a person.

The first of these tracts was finished today and is being edited. It has already been typeset and laid out for print. Pray for this work and the success of these tracts. If the Lord does not build the house, those who labor, labor in vain.

¿What is CLIR?

For those of you who have heard about CLIR for the first time on this blog, I wanted to take the time to explain what it is that CLIR stands for, what we do and why you should be interested. Briefly, let me just take you on a little tour south of the border…

Our Identity.

CLIR stands for La Confraternidad Latinoamericana de Iglesias Reformadas, or for those who are Spanish-challenged, The Latinamerican Fellowship of Reformed Churches (See the header above!!). While we are headquartered in Costa Rica, CLIR’s reach is Latin America-wide. Now you know the name, but who are we?

CLIR is

1. A “fellowship” of Reformed and Presbyterian churches all over Latin America. CLIR strives to be a medium whereby different Reformed and Presbyterian denominations in different countries all over Latin America can come together to collaborate in the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ to preach the gospel, baptize and make disciples of the nations. While we are many churches with different local traditions and cultures, what unites us is a common faith. To be a member of CLIR, a church or denomination must subscribe to the historic Christian faith as summarized in one of the historic Reformed confessions of faith, such as the Belgic Confession or the Westminster Confession of Faith. The goal of CLIR is to work together, projecting to the world our unity in our one Lord Jesus Christ. We do this is the following ways:

1. International Conferences (the last one was in Bolivia earlier this year)
2. Seminary exchanges, in which seminaries swap professors for conferences and courses.
3. The mutual support of church planting and evangelism in Latin American countries that do not have a Reformed gospel witness. For example, CLIR is a vehicle through which both the Brazilians and the Mexicans are working together to plant churches in Panama, which to date and to the best of our knowledge has no Reformed or Presbyterian witness.

2. CLIR sponsors a publishing house, Editorial CLIR, through which we publish solid gospel-centered literature in Spanish. The goal of this aspect of CLIR is to provide for the churches of Latin America a strong and deep pool of resources in order to equip the churches in their task. Many of our books are translations from English, but a growing number of them are written by Reformed scholars and pastors right here in Latin America. We publish many books which are written as theological course material for MINTS (Miami International Seminary), the most recent of which is a study on the book of Nehemiah. This is the area of CLIR that I (Nick) am most involved in, and the aspect of the work which I will often blog about. These are just some of our recent and upcoming titles, either published this year or slated for publication early next year (titles are translations to the English):

1. “Predestination and Providence” by John Calvin (2009)
2. The Westminster Shorter Catechism (2009)
3. The Heidelberg Catechism (2009)
4. “When Good Things Happen to Bad People” by Stevan Henning (2009) [also available in English]
5. “Red Alert!: False Prophets Ahead” ed. Bill Green. (2009) [this is a compilation of 10 years worth of articles about the radical pentecostal, health and wealth movement here in Costa Rica and in Latin America. This year we have done two printings of this.]
6. “Spiritual Conflict” by Julio César Benítez (2009) [a book on spiritual warfare. Prof. Benítez is the director of the Fundación Instituto Bíblico Reformado and is the author of two other books.]
7. The Westminster Standards with full text footnotes (2010). This title will include the Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms with full text biblical references in the footnotes. It is an enormous undertaking which has lasted for the better part of the last year and has required the efforts of multiple editors, revisers and translators.
8. “Elders and Deacons” by Dr. Alonzo Ramirez. (2010)  [This is a training manual for elders and deacons.]
9. “Lectures on Calvinism” by Abraham Kuyper (2010)
10. “Preaching and Biblical Theology” by Edmond Clowney (2010)

These are just some of the titles that we have or are working on. Check out all of our titles (in Spanish) at www.clir.net.  In addition to these books, we print a theological journal twice a year. The journal started out 10 years ago with a distribution of 300 copies and has grown to a present-day distribution of 4,000 copies twice a year. That is 8,000 theological journals a year and we continue to grow. For some pastors in some countries, our theological journal is the only solid biblical literature that they recieve.

3. CLIR also exists to facilitate the training of future leaders. CLIR sponsors an acreditation program for seminaries in Latin America. We also work closely with MINTS, as I mentioned before. In Costa Rica, we have a seminary to train pastors for service here in the country. Right now, I am finishing giving the first class of two in Beginners New Testament Greek. We have eight students, but only a few of them desire to be ministers. The rest come form different churches in the central valley by San Jose and are studying Greek in order to better understand the New Testament and to better serve their local congregations.

This is really a thumbnail sketch of what CLIR does. I should say that CLIR’s whole existence is the service of the churches, since CLIR is in fact an international community of community of churches. CLIR is not an organization which exists for itself or to propagate itself. For example, the board members are representatives form various Reformed or Presbyterian denominations in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, and Bolivia. The makeup of the board represents the vision and character of CLIR. Please remember CLIR and its various ministries, its board members and particularly the churches that are represented by it.

I hope that this brief overview has helped you understand just a little better what it is that we are doing.

¡CLIR has a blog!

Hello everyone!

CLIR finally has a blog. It’s still under development, so please be patient with us. The idea behind the blog is to promote better communication with the churches, to keep everyone informed about what the Lord is doing in Costa Rica and beyond through CLIR. Right now there are a lot of exciting things going on in Costa Rica that we will be blogging about. So please, subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss anything and let your friends and churches know about it. Also, please, please, please comment. That lets us know that you’re out there and it is a great encouragement to us. God bless you all and may the Lord bless the work of the gospel in Costa Rica.

Nick