Reformed Blogging

As a former Roman Catholic, some of my former church mates in a Jesuit parish or university schoolmates in a Roman Catholic university where I used to attend tell me, "You're just misinformed by those crazy born again Christians!" or "How could you exchange God for Martin Luther?" Those were just a few stuff I remember that I was declaring myself a born again Christian. They tell me that I'm just misinformed. The more I read the Bible and compare it to the teachings of Roman Catholicism, the more I'm convinced that my conversion by the grace of God wasn't about being misinformed. The whole system of Roman Catholicism is nothing more than putting tradition above God's Word. Ironic that some Catholic Faith Defenders are already using Mark 7:8-9 to defend their error! Since when did the Bible even teach Mary was sinless or that Peter had absolute power over the whole Christian church?! Their favorite appeal are Evangelicals who have become

Do you believe in Sola Scriptura or Scripture alone? Many people misunderstand what Sola Scriptura means. Some Roman Catholic apologists say they reject it because the Bible doesn't contain everything they need to know. Now I agree we need more than the Bible to get information but Sola Scriptura is not the same as Solo Scriptura. Sola Scriptura is the principle that every practice and doctrine is to be weighed in accordance to the Word of God. Solo Scriptura is the extreme of reading no other book but the Bible. Why do so many hate Sola Scriptura? Mark 7:8-13 makes it clear that people reject the authority of God's Word in order to keep their own tradition. Isaiah 29:11-13 makes it clear how the Scriptures are sealed away from the public so the tradition of men can prevail. What's strange is that Roman Catholic apologists as far as I've observed anyway tend to first quote the Scriptures but when it's not enough, they go to Canon Law. It's a very dirty tac

Here's a quote by Dr. John F. MacArthur with the quote, "I don't live tin this world to give my opinion. I'm here to represent the Word of God." Many preachers today are just either opinion-driven and not representing God's Word. They care too much what the world has to say instead of what God has to say. They're not real shepherds or men of God but instead, they're pastors who deserve the curse for leading the sheep astray. Want a good pastor? Make sure he represents the Word of God with proper interpretation. One of the best reasons why I love expository preaching because it takes all verses in context. I don't deny there are mistakes made even by the best pastors. I'd dare to really say that I'm still proud of my King James Only stand. Even if a pastor is a non-Calvinist but if he shows signs of being genuinely converted I definitely can embrace that person. When people are focused on God's Word verse by verse then the whole i

Although some of my favorite preachers like John F. MacArthur, Paul David Washer, Robert C. Sproul, Tim Conway and James White aren't King James only-ists but I still feel like I'm a King James only-ist. Back when I converted from Roman Catholicism to born again Christianity, I still read from the New International Version . It wasn't long until I heard a Baptist KJV-only preaching showing what's utterly wrong. Many times, the word "Lord" is removed which attacks the Lordship of Christ, there are missing verses (and yes, that's something not good), even many important words like Jehovah are removed.  After embracing Reformed Theology and seeing that the translators of the King James were Calvinist scholars, I felt like, "It's time those who say they're Calvinists should go back to using only the King James!" I know many modern versions are easier to understand and some sound doctrine books quote from them but I stand firm on King

Yesterday, I decided I'd probably slam my head on the desk because a facepalm isn't enough to handle Joseph Prince saying you won't find anything in Scripture that the Holy Spirit doesn't convict sin. It's just like those who believe in conditional security or the Christian can be perpetually barren challenge me to find verses to prove that salvation can't be lost or that true salvation always results to change.  Giving room for thought on their challenge, I still remembered the quote by Martin Luther saying, "Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason - I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other - my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen." I guess Luther was challenged by the Roman Catholic hierarchy the same way anybody gets challenged to search Scriptures by those who

If listening to proponents of conditional security is already THAT ANNOYING then I don't consider it any more or less annoying to listen to "Easy Christianity" preachers. Just looking at the quote of Prince saying, "The Holy Spirit never convicts you of your sins. I challenge you to find a Scripture in the Bible that tells you that the Holy Spirit has come to convict you of your sins. You won't find any!" I really want to imagine this maybe his Bible has a LOT more missing verses than most modern day translations of the Bible. Or two, this guy just cherry picks or three, the fact he even dares people to search the Scriptures is really that funny. Consider the reality that many out of context preachers even dare to say, "You can't show me in Scriptures!" Sorry Prince, John 16:7-8 just proves you wrong!

Having been a proponent of exegesis and expository verse by verse preaching for years, it's really that annoying. Expository preachers take the Bible verse by verse and study it into context. Others just love taking things out of context. It's just like reading the flyers from Catholic apologists or Iglesia Ni Cristo missionaries, I can't help but get dizzy at how the Scriptures are taken out of context. The same goes for proponents of salvation of faith plus works or conditional security or those who support the doctrine of Antinomianism.  What's more annoying is that by the time I or just anyone will start citing verses in context, they say that the other verses really means something else. So they say that I'm taking things out of context based on their wrong grammar, wrong analysis, lets their emotions get the best of them and their arrogant attitude causes them to take Scriptures out of context. One can easily observe that stupid people tend to think the

While I've been enjoying Robert Charles Sproul's "Renewing Your Mind" which does a Monday to Saturday lecture, I really thought of Ray Comfort's apologetics. Comfort himself has provided some really useful resources such as "Hell's Best Kept Secret" and "True and False Conversion". The "Way of the Master" program offers scholarly, well-balanced way of delivering the offensive truth without being purposely offensive and cheesy. I thought about a few of Comfort's programs in "Way of the Master" have tackled many important issues such as Christianity's harmony with science, atheism's self-contradictory nature, false religions and watered down evangelism. For years, I really thought he was teaching salvation by works and conditional security until I started checking his stuff up. It wasn't until I looked up at just everything that he really believes in the eternal security of the believer as he says this

I have many false accusers and many of them always seek to hurt me. Part of me says to get even but whenever I ask advice about my false accusers, I really can only remember this advice: FORGIVE. Matthew 5:43-48 and Luke 6:27-35 gives the advice that I must love my enemies. I really want to say, "WHAT?!" Then I remember this truth that I don't deserve forgiveness at all. I only deserve Hell. Forgiveness and salvation has been all about life-changing mercy and not one's effort to earn it. Now what does it mean to forgive people even those who are not sorry for their actions? Well it doesn't mean I condone to their sins. It means I don't hold grudges. It means I leave it to God and instead of wanting Him to avenge me, I would be praying, "As we forgive those who sin against me as you forgive me for sinning against You." It's difficult to forgive but God's grace makes it easy. Many times, it's easier said than done but by God's grac

People tell me that I'm "outdated" and worse, some of them even tell me that the Vatican II Council already condemned the death penalty. Sorry but I'm not the Pope's lapdog or papal bootlicker. I'm a born again Christian saved by God's grace from my sins. I don't care what the Pope or the Council of Trent declares because they're  not  the final authority. I believe that the Vatican just wants everyone to forget the atrocities of the Inquisition and the Crusades so they go against death penalty. Many people have their objections that it's barbaric and cruel. So are they saying God who ORDAINED the death penalty is barbaric and cruel? Many say yes God is cruel never mind that many of them HATE holiness. Many of them think that there's no such thing as good or evil and it's relative while they hypocritically cry foul when they're victims of sin. But the reality is death penalty is actually self-defense for the society, not reveng

It's a real shame how people are allowing homosexuals to enter the comfort rooms not assigned to their biological gender . I don't care if they had a surgery to make them look like their opposite sex but their DNA is still the same. It's time to really have make a stand against such idiocy because it's hurting everyone. I don't care if homosexuals say, "Hey, as long as you're not affected then it's okay." No, it's NOT okay especially for them. Homosexual activities are dangerous especially to them. They do all their dirty sexual activities, they're destroying themselves. They'll die from one horrible death after another. It's out of love for them that they're warned.

The whole idea of Calvinism seems repugnant. I remembered years ago, I admired the Protestant Reformation, I saw some useful insights from John Calvin but I felt like the whole idea of Unconditional Election was really "unjust". Years later, I dropped the Independent Fundamental Baptist theology in favor of Reformed Theology. What also got me to think more about Calvinism was that many heroes of the Baptist faith were Calvinists. Preachers like Charles Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards and John Gill were Calvinistic Baptists. The writers of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith were Calvinists. While not every great preacher was a Calvinist and I still respect non-Calvinist Christians as part of the family in Christ.  I'll admit there's still a lot of my list of verses that really try to convince me of being chosen instead of me choosing God. The more I read through the King James Bible (which was also translated by Calvinist scholars) as a follower of the principle o

I've noticed every time homosexuals are told the truth even as lovingly as possible that many of them love to play the victim. They'll go out and cry, "Stinking straight!", "HOMOPHOBIA!" all based on a long line or series of nom sequitur assumptions that if somebody's against homosexuality then it automatically means that the person must also hate homosexuals. I remembered the time those homosexuals told me something like, "You hate homosexuals! Get out you Taliban-minded, fanatic bigot!" Sure they can go ahead and accuse Christians of "hating" homosexuals all they want. What they haven't realized is that they haven't faced how Muslims deal with homosexuality. Christians are warning them about sin and judgment, that God hates homosexuality but has provided a way out for homosexuals (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). What about the Muslim way of dealing with homosexuals? They better go to the Middle East especially in the ISIS

I remembered years ago, I really dared to update on some atheist blogger who really keeps claiming Christians are stupid, atheists are smart and that God is just a fantasy. He says that Christians are just living in a fantasy world, that even with the evidence of designs in machines is not substantial evidence that God exists. But in most of his posts, most of what he writes about is how unjust God is and that's coming from a person who says there's no right, no wrong and nothing but pitiless indifference. Reading through atheist arguments or listening to them speak about their "truth" is a series of contradictions. At one point they say that sin is just a fantasy word until something bad happens to them or their loved ones. If sin was just a fantasy word then no one has the right to complain if something happened to them. In another point while they say that sin is just a fantasy word they say that Christians are dishonest losers. If there's no sin and no

Isaiah 32:5 says, "The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful." How true indeed. I always hear these unsaved idiots say they're tolerate, they're not judgmental based on religion, race, politics and whatever. When I tell them about my views on Jesus Christ, the Gospel and sin they get all touchy, annoying and they inadvertently show just how stupid they really are. Stupid because they willfully accept anything but the Lord Jesus Christ. Stupid because they're wise in their own eyes. The more stupid a person is the wiser they think they are. Just watching this video makes me wants to throw stones or even fire bullets at those "liberals" who attacked Pastor Douglas Wilson. If you take a look at the video, you can see the baseless accusations done by the students. They really call Wilson's speech as "hate speech", they accuse him of this and that and where's their evidence? That's why

Back when I was newly saved, people really complained that I'm a Bible thumper, when the pastor tells me I should read the Bible more, somebody says that I use the Bible in debating with others. I really can't forget how I thought getting engaged in arguing for Jesus in debates was the only way to go. It's really a sad thing any Christian can get severely misled into believing that the only way to reach the lost is to be as cheesy and offensive as possible. No wonder some Christians are so engaged in conspiracy theories to the point they can be ineffective witnesses of the Gospel. What has debating against the followers of false religion done for the lost? It hasn't shown any love but only an argumentative and an angry spirit towards them. 2 Timothy 2:16 says, "But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness." This is all about foolish discussions with willfully stupid people. It's pretty certain that if you're

As a former Roman Catholic, I remembered the time that I was so sensitive with treating the images used for worship. After I got saved, I realized those things needed to be thrown out. The picture above has a person foolishly saying to people, "Translation: Mary is in a sorry state here. PLEASE DON'T SCROLL DOWN WITHOUT TYPING "AMEN". To all who love Mother Mary please SHARE this too. I hope that person's conscience will bother him or her for doing this to her." This situation is no different than the situation in Judges 6:28-31 when the people were mad that Gideon got rid of the image of Baal. The statement that Gideon's father whose name is Joash said is true saying which I'll quote from the Good News Version for Roman Catholics, "But Joash said to all those who confronted him, Are you arguing for Baal? Are you defending him? Anyone who argues for him will be killed before morning. If Baal is a god, let him defend himself. It is his alt

One illogical argument can be the fallacy of false dilemma where one immediately assumes that A results to B without analyzing the context. It can also be considered as the argument of nom sequitur because it immediately assumes the conclusion before taking things int context. It's like saying that just because a person goes against what you do that the person immediately wants to kill you. Even when things are clearly spelled out in simple words and in black and white, you still have these illogical people miss the point of what's going on. Many lost sinners today love to play the victim whenever they're told the truth. People can accuse me of being unloving and non-Christlike. Do they even know Jesus well? They only have "another Jesus" who is not the Jesus of the Bible (2 Corinthians 11:4). Their Jesus isn't the one to confront sin. The more I read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John the more I really see the reality that Jesus wasn't "nice"

Back then, I remembered I believed a lot of biased accusations from certain Independent Fundamental Baptist groups towards John F. MacArthur that he taught salvation by works, that he doesn't believe in the necessity of the blood and many more stuff taken out of context from his preaching. I didn't even bother to investigate Grace To You especially on his posts on Lordship Salvation which I wasn't aware of what the whole controversy was about. After I started reading through "The Gospel According to Jesus" and "Fool's Gold" as well as listen to some of his sermons, I realized MacArthur and me may disagree with King James only-ism but after checking his several posts, I really find myself agreeing with him at a huge scale. The accusations hurled at MacArthur pretty much unfounded and I just bought them hook, line and sinker before. Does he really teach salvation by works and conditional security? What he emphasizes in his sermons is that if you

Is it me or does Steven Anderson really deserve to be made the poster boy for a poor state of born again Christian apologetics? While I've appreciated some of his sermons but the guy has already made headlines as not only has he launched a hate campaign against homosexuals (instead of preaching to those reprobates about Jesus Christ) but he's also preached one of the dumbest sermons of all time. The title is called "Pisseth Against the Wall" which really shows he's not taking things into context. Does he even know what the context of the words "to him that pisseth against the wall" is talking about as it's mentioned six times in the Bible? It's not about it that men should urinate standing up for the nation's judgment or that men should urinate against the wall. Every time the passage is mentioned, it's always talking about judgment to them that pisseth against the wall. The houses of wicked rulers were torn down, every person who &q

There's always several misrepresentations of eternal security whether it's by the Antinomians or the conditional security crowd. If it's wrong to preach that eternal security means one can be saved and sin all they want, there's also the problem of people who misrepresent eternal security as a license to sin insisting that works are needed to maintain salvation. There's always a big difference between why Christians do good works vs. why unsaved people try to do good works. One is an attitude of gratitude while the other tries to bribe God. Attacks against the doctrine of eternal security can be traced to a huge misunderstanding to what it really means as the Bible teaches it. I prefer to use the terms the perseverance of the saints or the preservation of the saints to describe the walk of the believer in Jesus Christ. Persevering is indeed one mark of a person who possesses true eternal security. Doing good works, hatred for sin and a love for God all characte

The term "Easy Christianity" is something I call for today's easy-easy believism. I don't just want to call it "easy believism" because in due fairness, some so-called "easy believists" still make some distinctions that really make them true converts. They still uphold the difference between true and false conversion. They believe that no Christian can live like the rest of the world because of God's grace. They refuse to believe in the nonsense of believing Christians can remain barren and never bear fruit, still live like devils and still be saved.  I find all of that frustrating because "Easy Christianity" is not even biblical. In whatever form it takes, "Easy Christianity" has turned the grace of God into a license to sin either directly or indirectly. To teach that a Christian may remain barren, never get out of their carnality or may become worse prior to conversion and never bear good fruit is really frustrating.

I remembered the time people say, "Don't judge me!" whenever I criticize their false religion. They say that I'm being "unloving" when in truth, it's all about loving them enough to tell them the truth and inform them they badly need repentance. An illustration of that is that you're telling the person to get out of the road because there's that speeding truck. The speeding truck represents God's wrath and judgment day, the lost person is about to be hit. You tell them "Get out of the road." but they'll only say, "Don't judge me." The feeling I get can be in this illustration of the man, the sheep and the wolf. The man warning the sheep is the born again Christian, the sheep are the followers of false religion and the wolf can either be their ministers, their false religion or Satan himself waiting to devour them. Try telling them about the dangers of their false religion with how it's in contrast t

One of the reasons why I love John F. MacArthur's hard preaching is that his no-nonsense message really strikes the sinner hard. Many people today are just fans of sissified preaching. Many people just want to feel good. When I realized that Trinity Broadcasting Network was full of "feel good" preaching, thank God I stopped watching it. Now here's a reflection on my part that why I get too easily offended. It's because I've had that elevated opinion of myself. Just because I've become a Christian and am no longer living the way I want and I can't do it doesn't mean that I've become sinless. Some past sins can come back and haunt me. Paul in Romans 7:14-25 struggled horribly with sin and wanted full deliverance. One of my greatest problems is that whether I'm aware of it or not is that I tend to have an elevated opinion of myself. I tend to have that ego problem. Even if I may not have Haman's "bow down to me or else" p

Roman Catholics tend to tell born again Christians, "All you see is Semiramis! We don't worship Semiramis! She's Mary!" Well here's my response to them that although I do agree that they are NOT praying to Semiramis, they call her Mary but there's one huge problem with their claim. Even if they aren't praying or any pagan goddess but the way they treat Mary of the Bible is that she's treated like a pagan goddess. I agree that they're not praying to Semiramis or any pagan goddess but I can't agree with how they treat Mary as if she was a pagan goddess. I can agree with Roman Catholics that Mary the earthly mother of Jesus is not a pagan goddess but that doesn't mean she's right now the Queen Mother in Heaven nor does it justify praying to her or the Rosary. Praying to anyone but God is idolatry and I don't care to who you're praying to because if it's not God then it's idolatry. Nothing in Scriptures ever defend h

I remembered the times Manny Pacquiao won and lost a boxing match. During the time he lost against the fight with Juan Manuel Marquez a few years ago, it's expected to see some childish accusations from die hard Roman Catholics. Some even claim that a "vision from the Blessed Virgin" came in concerning Pacquiao losing his blessings which is also questionable. Some say it's because he abandoned the Rosary that's why he lost. Then how are they going to explain that after his loss against Marquez that he had victories again. This time round, he has another victory so how are Roman Catholics going to explain his current victory. Many Roman Catholic priests and their fellow apologists love the use of dirty tactics to demean the genuine born again Christians. Whether it'd be false converts going from Protestant to Catholic, the use of quack pastors in the fallacy of generalization - there's always been something up their sleeve. The whole notion that Pacq

When I was newly saved, I remembered how fascinated I was with conspiracy theories especially when it's about the Vatican's secret activities. As much as I believe that the Vatican indeed controls much of the world's affairs directly and indirectly, that the Jesuits are indeed influential, that the Vatican really had a huge slice of guilt from several wars across the world but there's really one huge problem. When one puts exposing the Vatican in front of the Bible or engaging in various conspiracy theories. The moment I just kept dabbling into conspiracy theories became that very moment when I was driven into paranoia and bitterness. I was more focused on the Devil's activities than the grace that drives out the Devil from people.  It's possible to go and speculate this and that were done by the Jesuits, Opus Dei, Illuminati or whatever secret power there's in. When you're beaten up by the border patrol, that person is not necessarily ordered by the

Many Roman Catholics tend to say, "You born again Christians really hit the high road to Hell. Your doctrine of eternal security teaches you that you can sin all you want." Then comes in the annoying part when they start misquoting Scriptures. I know it gets annoying but many of them actually chew themselves in their accusations. It's because many of them are living like they've got that license to sin. I remembered how incredibly hypocritical it gets when Roman Catholic parents complain that a Protestant or Baptist academies are "so strict". Their decisions is that they decide to move their children to the more lenient Roman Catholic academies. This also reminds me of how at one point they accuse born again Christians of being liberal sin all you want hippies but the next moment, they actually accuse born again Christians of being "legalistic Pharisees". It reminded me of an article by David W. Cloud on " Those Fundamentalist Pharisees

After a person gets saved, they're starting all over again. They're infants in spirituality. Back then after I got saved, I really couldn't agree with any more of the Roman Catholic programs. I wanted to feed on Christian programming without being aware what I got myself into. I once thought TBN and Joel Osteen were God's instruments. Some programs in TBN were pretty good like they attacked several issues about gambling, abortion and homosexuality. I used to think men like Joel Osteen were men of God when I was newly saved. A lot of stuff really started to change when I soon grew in the faith. One day, I started listening to hard Baptist preaching. The pastors weren't afraid to speak not only against the Vatican but also other deceptive teachings. I soon realized how the charismatic communities were not Christian, that they were not really speaking in tongues and that when a pastor starts speaking about health, wealth and prosperity that's not biblical. Nowhe

Many times today, I easily hear "Christianity Lite" which can exist in many forms which I thought didn't exist until I realized so many "Christians" today aren't Christians. When I was a new Christian, I really couldn't swallow for a moment that a Christian can be a Christian and still remain as is. I've heard of people say that there are "Christian homosexuals" which is totally contradictory to the Word of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). If people are truly saved then there ought to be changes in their life and they don't remain the same. I just finished reading "Hard to Believe" after reading a few years ago another beloved classic "The Gospel According to Jesus". Some time ago, I used to think MacArthur taught salvation by works and conditional security only because somebody misrepresented him. The more I started reading through and investigating MacArthur's site Grace To You, the more I realized what Lord