I was about 18 years old the first time I saw a dead person. My grandmother had unexpectedly suffered a massive heart attack and died just a few days earlier, and now the family was given the opportunity to say "goodbye" to her before the funeral. We were ushered into a room in the funeral home, and there, across the room, she lay in an elegant coffin. I took a deep breath and walked over to where she lay.

Grammy didn't look a whole lot different than she had when she was alive. She lay peacefully and could almost have been asleep. Almost. As children we used to pretend to be dead sometimes, but we weren't capable of acting it out very well. But Grammy wasn't acting. Her chest was not rising and falling as her lungs filled with air and her eyes were not fluttering as they do when people sleep. Grammy could snore with the best of them - I remember as a child giggling at the racket she made when she slept as I passed by her bedroom - but this time she made no noise as she slept. There was no doubt about it - my grandmother was dead. Death pervaded her entire being. It wasn't just that one part of her had stopped working - all that she was; her entire body, mind and soul had ceased functioning.

I was taken aback by the finality of death. Grammy could only act out her state of being. She was dead and had no choice but to act dead. Nothing I could do, nothing the doctors could do, could ever make her act alive again. Her body was an empty, decaying shell that had served its purpose and was already beginning to return to the dust from which it had come.

As I looked down at her pallid face, how I wished that she would open her eyes just one more time, take my hand and tell me that she loved me. And how I wished I could spend just a few minutes to tell her about my plans for the future; if she couldn't be there to witness them at least I could tell her that in just a few months I was planning on asking Aileen to marry me and tell her some of the goals I had set for my life. But it was too late for that. Had I spoken to her, the words would just have been spoken into a void.

It was irrational of me to hope against hope that she might just give me one more chance to tell her how much I was going to miss her and just once chance to make sure she really knew about Jesus.

If you have ever taken the time to read through the Bible, or even a portion of it, you'll know that it devotes great attention to life and death. The words "dead" and "death" appear hundreds, even thousands of times within the pages of God's Word. Why the great emphasis? The answer is evident when you look at the world. Take a look around in your school, your office and maybe even your home and your church and you will see dead men walking all around you. These people may still have a heartbeat and may still be able to hear and speak, but spiritually they are dead. The Bible is devoted to explaining the cause of and solution to death.

I want to take you to just a couple of verses in that book, verses that most people read and just pass on by without ever reflecting on them. It is a pity to pass them by for they contain something that is too important to miss. Genesis is the first book in the Bible and we are going to look at the fifth chapter which speaks about the first man who ever walked this earth - a man who was created perfect in a perfect world. It was a world that knew no evil, no sin, no death. Verses one through three read "This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created. And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth."

You may be wondering what possible importance I could attach to verses that seem only to list some genealogical details. But look closer. The first verse says "He [God] made him [Adam] in the likeness of God." So God created a man who was in His own image. That means man was perfect, holy and spiritually alive. Man had perfect, unbroken communion with His Creator. Now look to verse three. "Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image." Do you see what has happened here? Somewhere between Adam and his son, a change took place. Where Adam was created in God's likeness and in God's image, Adam's son was created in Adam's likeness and in Adam's image!

The key to understanding this transformation is contained in another book of the Bible - one written two thousand years after the first. In Romans 5 verse 12 we read "…through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned…Death reigned from Adam…" We are all familiar with the story of how Adam and his wife Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden. While the act of eating a piece of fruit God had forbidden them to touch seemed quite harmless, it was an act of willful rebellion against the Creator on the part of human beings. Through that act of rebellion and disobedience, sin entered the world. Having entered, it has multiplied, increasing to the point that it has extended to every being in the world. And that includes you and me.

Death reigns in this world, doesn't it? They say that the only inevitabilities in life are death and taxes. You can cheat the government and avoid taxes, but I've yet to meet anyone who can cheat death. It's a fact. You and I and everyone you know are going to die some day. We don't know when, where or how, but we do know it is coming.

Did you notice that the Bible chooses not to speak about sickness reigning from Adam? It never says that illness and discomfort entered the world through one man, does it? It speaks of death. Finality. Decisiveness.

Ever since Adam, death is our natural state of being. When you look around you, you see dead men acting out death. A dead man can not act alive. My grandmother, when she lay in that casket, had no choice to act alive, did she? Death ruled over her, forcing her to act out her state of being.

In the same way, people who are spiritually dead have no option but to act out death. They may have the vague appearance of life, but the fact is they are dead. They have no ability to change their state of being.

But take heart! There is good news amidst the bad. If you have read this far I encourage you to read the second part of this article which I am going to post soon. Where today I wrote about acting out death, in the near future I am going to write about how you and I can act out life!

There has been some controvery in the Forum since I posted my article about How To Hear God’s Voice. Perhaps controvery is overstating it, but people have been asking what I mean by “God’s voice.” This gives me the opportunity to write about something I’ve been meaning to say for a while now.

Two Christians may experience the exact same thing, yet relate it to others in a completely different way. I grew up in the Reformed churches and never once heard anyone use the expressions “God told me” or “I told God” or anything like that. I know that these people were equally in tune with God as the evangelical crowd I spent the next years of my life with, but they simply did not express themselves that way. When faced with major decisions in life they would seek God’s counsel and very often would find it and respond appropriately. When asked about the difficult time they may have faced leading up to a decision they would be very “I-centered.” They would say that “I prayed about it and then I decided to go ahead with it…” What they meant was that they asked God’s will and found peace that moving forward would be within His plan.

Evangelicals might relate the same experience in different words. I think of a man I heard speak in a church some time ago who related how he had faced the difficult decision about whether or not to take a new opportunity with his company which would require moving to a new town. He said things like “…and God said to me, ‘do you have faith that I will lead you?’” or “I said ‘God, do you really want me to pack my family in a van and move to a whole new city?’” He related the whole experience as if it was an ongoing conversation between himself and his Maker. I asked him about it later and he told me that God had never really spoken to him - it was merely his way of expressing what he felt, what he thought and what he read in the Bible.

I do not believe that God speaks to us audibly anymore, for He has no need; He has given His perfect, complete revelation in the Scripture. However, He does whisper to us through His Word and through the Spirit who indwells us. I believe both these men had very similar experiences. They had an inkling that they were supposed to do something. It may not have been something they wanted to do but was something they felt they were supposed to do. So they turned to God in prayer and devoted themselves to reading His Word and soon both found comfort that they knew His will in how to respond. Later on they expressed what had happened in vastly different terms, but I think the actually processes they went through were similar. They expressed themselves in the words they were familiar with from the church tradition they were part of.

Ultimately, I believe we have all we need in order to make decisions and have assurance that we are moving forward within God’s will. So long as we ensure that what we intend to do does not contradict the Bible and we bring it before God in prayer, I believe we have the freedom to move forward with security that God is with us. The seven pointers my pastor provided fit within this framework. They merely give us some pointers we can use to determine if something we feel we are supposed to do is God’s will and not just our own (or Satan’s).

A few weeks ago I posted a little article about my dad I entitled Working Man Hands. It was dad’s birthday yesterday and in honor of the occasion (the family is celebrating tomorrow) I have touched the story up and am going to post it again. I’m sorry I can’t be there to help celebrate (I live just about 1000 miles away from the rest of the family) but instead will send this along.

Dad, this is for you.

Like most boys I idolized my father when I was a child. You would have had a difficult time convincing me that there was anyone smarter, faster or stronger than my dad. I really did believe it when I told my friends that "my dad can beat up your dad!" And it may well have been true. You see, dad was a landscaper, and for eight months of every year he spent just about every waking hour hauling loads of soil from his truck to the gardens and manipulating enormous rocks to make sure they looked just right. Though this took a physical toll on him, it left him stronger than an ox. When he and I used to wrestle, I could make absolutely no headway against him. I would run at him and hit him with all that I had, but even with a full head of steam I could not knock him off-balance. He would just grab me with his rough, leathery hands and toss me aside like I was barely even there.

Dad had working man hands. I'll never forget those hands, for they were hard as rock. Holding dad's hand was like holding a sanding block and just about as uncomfortable. As he labored day-in and day-out, his hands built up so many rough calluses that they soon became as hard as dried leather. They were scarred with the evidence of so many bumps and bruises inflicted on job sites. I saw in his hands an ideal, for to me they represented a hard-working man who labored diligently to support his family. I felt pride when I compared his hands to those of men who spent their lives at desks - there really was no comparison - and looked forward to the day when my hands would be hard and callused like dads'. I believe there is something inside each of us that really wants nothing more than to carry out God's original command to humans which was to till the soil and to care for the earth. Dad had the privilege of doing that every day and the even greater privilege of loving nothing more.

Yet behind his love for working with plants and rocks and soil, dad always felt a twinge of shame. He grew up in an affluent family, one which had a history of politicians and lawyers. My grandfather was a Supreme Court judge, and dad's uncles were members of parliament. Surely, dad felt deep inside, landscaping was not a profession suitable for a man from such lineage. Finally succumbing to the pressure he created in himself, he returned to school, upgrading his two Bachelor's degrees to a Master's. For several years he worked diligently, studying languages, history and theology. A strange thing happened. As the months turned into years I noticed that his hands no longer felt like leather. The longer he worked in school, the softer his hands became. Before long his hands were much like mine - soft and free from calluses.

Dad graduated with a Master's degree and tried so hard to be happy in an office job. He tried his hand at a few things and it wasn't so much that he wasn't good at them as that he just did not enjoy them. He found himself thinking nostalgically of burying his hands in fresh topsoil and sculpting beautiful gardens where there had been nothing but weeds and chaos. Finally it became too much and one day dad went and bought himself a great, big pickup truck. He returned to tilling the soil he had left behind.

Now whenever I see dad he has dirt under his fingernails. His hands are once again as hard as dried leather and I can't imagine my son feels any more comfortable holding his hand than I did so many years ago. As he returns shamelessly to the task for which God created Him, his hands again bear evidence of his labor.

It occurs to me as I write this that one day we are all going to stand before God and he is going to reach down to each of us and feel our hands. He has assigned to all of His children the same task, and it is a difficult one. We need to take His message into all the world, diligently and shamelessly proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ. If our hands are not as rough as sandpaper and do not feel like old leather, perhaps we are not being diligent in that labor. If our hands bear no scars, perhaps we have not received the cuts and bruises that are bound to come to those who go forth on His behalf. One day God is going to reward those who labored diligently for Him and all the evidence He is going to need will be written on our hands. God will reward those who, like dad, have working man hands.

There are only a couple of weeks remaining before the US Open takes the spotlight in the world of golf. One of just four major tournaments in the year, it is almost always an exciting one to watch. And as usual, the golf world is already buzzing about Tiger Woods. It seems he has been in a slump of late and the debate rages about whether or not this will be the weekend he breaks out of it.

I am proud to say that my affection for professional golf predates Tiger. When he blew onto the scene he brought with him millions of fans, many of whom had absolutely no knowledge of the game. It did not take long before almost everyone knew at least the basic golf terminology and the whole world was talking about Tiger. For several years he was absolutely dominant, winning title after title. His effect on the game is immeasurable.

Perhaps Tiger’s greatest effect on the game is that he has impacted each and every other player on the tour. When he came along and became so dominant, every other golfer on the tour had to raise his game just to keep up. Remember what Phil Mickelson was like before the Tiger years? He was overweight and pretty dumpy-looking! Fast forward a few years and you can see an amazing difference in the guy. Or David Duval - he went from just having an average build to being sculpted and muscular. Why? Because to keep up with Tiger he needed to improve his game! He needed to be able to hit harder and driver further just to stand a chance. We can safely say about Tiger that he has impacted every other player around him, for if they haven’t made a dedicated effort to get better, they have been left behind in his dust.

I think the greatest compliment you can give a guy like Tiger is just that - that he raises the game of those around him.

I guess Tiger is slumping a little bit lately, but you know what? He is playing a whole different field of golfers than he did three or four years ago. They have all raised their game and are now giving him a better challenge than they did in the past.

There is a spiritual parallel here, isn’t there? God doesn’t call us to be dumpy, overweight Christians who bring only 80% to Him. We are called to bring him our best - to bring our “A” game every day. I am fortunate to have known several people in my life who raise the “games” of everyone else around them. They are so dedicated to God and so in-touch with Him that others just can’t help but be impacted. The more others see those people and experience their excitement and their spiritual insight, the more they want to grab ahold of it themselves. Other people just can’t help but see the Spirit working in these people, for He shines right through them.

That is exactly how I want to be - completely sold out for God. I want my light to shine so brightly that I get lost in the glare and people see only God in and through me. I hope and pray that some day I can be the type of person that helps other people raise their game for Him. Soli deo gloria!

A few days ago I posted a link to the story about the Duggar Family who is celebrating the arrival of their fifteenth child. Though it did not generate much buzz here, in other places across the Net the story became a hot topic as people debated the appropriateness of having fifteen children. The most common argument against having such a quantity of children is that parents could not possibly properly care for such a number. Of course there is any number of other arguments.

When I showed the story to my wife her first reaction was "that's just wrong!" She couldn't believe that having fifteen children could ever be right and good. Now as someone who was raised in our society that is no great surprise. As we talked, though, we had a more difficult time accepting that it is necessarily wrong to have that many children. Here is my logic.

1. Be fruitful and multiply - God created us and as one of our primary roles told us to "be fruitful and multiply." He gave no conditions. He did not say "multiply up to and including eight children at which point you must stop." At the same time He did not say "be fruitful and multiply until you have exceeded five children." So there seem to be no hard and fast rules about how many children are appropriate in God's eyes. Presumably, then, we are able to decide ourselves how many we would like to have. We can assume we should have at least one, but beyond that the Bible is silent. We hear hints that God approves of large families. For example, Psalm 127 says "Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them." However, it is probably safe to assume that within the bounds of Christian freedom we are allowed to decide how many children we would like to have.
2. Do not deny each other - God tells us not to withhold from having sex with our spouse. Paul says that we are able to do so for a short time if it becomes necessary, but as a rule, abstinence within marriage is wrong. Therefore, it is God's plan that there is always the possibility that a woman may become pregnant as long as she is physically able to bear children.
3. No God-given birth control - God has not given humans the innate ability to enjoy sexual relations while absolutely avoiding pregnancy. In other words, when a man and woman have sex there is always the possibility of a pregnancy unless they use some "artificial" method of birth control or one of them is infertile or beyond childbearing years.
4. No command to use birth control - Nowhere in the Bible does God command that a couple must use birth control at any stage in their marriage. Though I do not believe using birth control is wrong, I do not find that the Bible ever commands it.
5. God opens the womb - God is absolutely sovereign. He has foreordained every pregnancy that has ever happened and that will ever happen. Whether a woman has one children or fifteen, God has decreed the beginning and end of each pregnancy.
6. God will provide - God tells us time and again throughout Scripture that He will provide for us. When we faithfully follow Him, He promises that He will provide for all our needs. We are to have confidence that no matter how impossible our needs may seem, He will provide.

Based on this logic, I do find that Christians can rationally say that having fifteen children is wrong. For us to say that it is inherently wrong to have a certain number of children we would also have to say that God commands us to use birth control at some point in our marriages. I simply do not find that is the case.

Now this is an argument that presents some difficulties. For example, what are we to do about women who have just given birth? We know that there may be serious health problems if a woman becomes pregnant immediately after having another child, especially if this happens repeatedly. It would seem to be a safe assumption that using birth control for the first months or years after a pregnancy is a wise decision. But is it wrong not to?

I would be interested in hearing some other people's thoughts on this matter.

I found the following list on Shane’s Site and thought it was really well done. It is a list of questions the author recommends one asks when searching for a new church home. As I read it a lightbulb went on in my mind. Far too often I think we are a bit embarrassed to ask these sorts of questions. Certainly we would ask tougher questions than these if we were going to entrust our children to someone else’s care, yet when it comes to spiritual oversight we back down. Perhaps it is just that we think we will be labelled as potential troublemakers by the staff of the new church if we ask questions like these.

I would like to think that if I was a pastor I would be thrilled to have someone ask me these questions, knowing that the person was serious about finding a church home where he would fit theologically. It would show that he was committed to purity of doctrine.

I suspect that few people bring such a list of questions with them when they approach a new church. Perhaps one of the pastors who read this site can give some insight (Jollyblogger - I know you’re there)!

Looking For A Church Home? - Donald S. Whitney

If you are looking for a church home, the answers you receive to questions like these may help you determine whether a particular church is the one where God wants you.

Tips for using these questions:

Ask wisely. Talk to the pastor, if at all possible. If not, then ask another staff member of the church.

Ask personally. Visit or call him. Do not mail or fax these and ask for a written reply.

Ask courteously. Do not “grill” the pastor or ask aggressively.

Ask selectively. Do not ask all these questions at one time. The more serious you become about membership, the more appropriate it becomes to ask additional questions later.

These questions are not necessarily listed in the order of significance. Some of them may not be important to you. You may want to add others.

Realize that you may not be able to find a church near you which can answer all your questions satisfactorily. However, the Lord does want you to find a church home where you can be involved.

• How is a person made right with God?
• What is your position on the inerrancy of Scripture?
• Do you believe Genesis 1-11 is factual or symbolic?
• Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to Heaven?
• What is your position on the Lordship Salvation issue, i.e., can a person take Jesus as Savior without taking him as Lord?
• Do you believe that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin?
• Do you believe in the bodily return of Jesus Christ?
• Do you believe in a literal Hell?
• What is your position on the ordination of women for positions of church leadership?
• How do you deal with a young child who says he or she wants to be saved?
• How do you combat easy-believism?
• What are your views regarding divorce and remarriage?
• What is your position on the charismatic movement?
• How would you/the church handle a case of scandal or immorality by a church member?
• What is your position on church debt and is the church in debt?
• Have there been any splits in the church and have any pastors been asked to leave?
• What have been the high points (or the “best thing”) in this church in the last five years? In the last six months?
• What are the greatest strengths of this church? Weaknesses?
• How do you foster the spiritual growth of individuals in your church?
• What are your goals for the church?
• Would you mind telling me about your devotional life?
• Who are your favorite authors?
• What is the doctrinal statement of the church, and may I have a copy? (Note: Be cautious if the church has no doctrinal statement or cannot find a copy.)
• Does the church follow it’s constitution and by-laws, and may I have a copy?
• Does a large percentage of the church differ with your position on any of these issues?
• You may also want to know if there is any antagonism by the pastor or the church toward any ministries that are important to you.

In our home church (ie. Bible study) we have been studying evangelism over the past four weeks. One thing we seem to keep coming back to is the difference between what our work is and what God's work is. I guess we often get confused between the parts of the process that God holds us responsible for and the parts that we have to just leave in His hands.

My son provided me a great metaphor for this on the weekend. We got some new bunk beds (new to us, anyways - they were actually hand-me-downs from some friends) and they came to us in many pieces. I got tasked with putting them together. My son, of course, wanted to help out as any four-year old boy who wears Bob the Builder underpants would want to. After I had lugged the frames, the supports and the mattresses upstairs, I gathered a selection of tools from my rather paltry selection and headed to the kid's bedroom. My son, following behind me, went to his toy shelf and selected his own little tool case. When we got upstairs we both cracked open our tool chests. I selected a screwdriver and a wrench and got to work bolting the frames to the supports. My son pulled out an oversize plastic screwdriver and a plastic wrench. The tip on his screwdriver must have been a quarter of an inch wide and certainly could not be of any use. The wrench obviously could not turn a metal bolt. Yet he did not seem to care at all. As I worked away with my real tools, he worked beside me, somehow expecting in his little-boy mind that his toy tools were doing just as much work as mine.

I chuckled as I saw him trying to screw in a bolt with his enormous plastic wrench. He just didn't realize that his tools were completely inappropriate for the task at hand. He did not have what he needed to do the job. Eventually he realized the futility of his tools. He looked at me, looked at my toolbox and selected a real screwdriver. Taking that to the screw he immediately began to make a little bit of progress, one tiny twist at a time.

Right away I realized there was a metaphor there that applied to me! I thought of how often I find myself trying to do jobs that only God can do. How often do I try to do the job of the Holy Spirit and convict other people of their sinfulness? Do I have the ability to change lives and regenerate hearts? Absolutely not! So why is it that I approach people with the goal of making them see their own depravity? Why do I want to convict them of sin? No wonder I often feel discouraged when my own efforts fall flat. So often I try to do things my way, using my own "plastic tools."

I allowed myself some time to reminisce this afternoon. I found myself doing nothing important (just driving to my computer supplier) and soon was drifting off into my memories. I began to think about my high school days and one memory in particular brought a smile to my face.

I attended Guido de Bres High School from grades 9 to 11. It was a small, Christian school with which I had a real love-hate relationship. As I began to reach the end of my high school years I realized that it did not offer the kind of courses I wanted to study in grade 12, so I elected to go to the local public school to finish up my high school education. Going from a small, ingrown school of 400 to the massive mayhem of Ancaster High was something of a shock, but having moved many times in my youth I was used to change and really did not let it bother me. Sure I was a bit intimidated by the numbers of people and the general hubbub inherent with 1400 bodies pressed into a few narrow halls, but with so many faces I knew I was little more than a face in the crowd. And frankly that is exactly what I like to be, for I'm really not the type to draw attention to myself.

My first class was computers. We did the standard "meet the teacher" type of exercises and introduced ourselves to our classmates. I don't recall speaking to anyone in that class. As a matter of fact, I'm quite sure I didn't.

My next class was history with Ms. Rowe. Woe be he who called her Mrs. Rowe! I walked into the room looking for a place on the side or in the back where I could park myself and be out of the way. I did a quick survey of the room to see if I knew anyone (I didn't), but spied a seat near the back corner. I headed to it and took a seat. A few seconds later I heard a voice say, "Hey, are you Mark Van Dooren's friend?" I turned around and speaking to me was a pretty little brunette girl. I replied, "Yeah, Mark's a friend of mine." Her next words were just a bit shocking. In a voice that was both urgent and a little embarrassed and just loud enough for only me to hear she said "If you ever tell anyone, I swear I'll kill you! Do you hear me? I'll KILL you!" I swallowed hard, having absolutely no idea what she was going on about. After a few seconds of pondering this it finally dawned on me just who she was and why she was so distraught. It had nothing to do with the fact that I knew Mark, but unfortunately I will have to leave it at that, for long ago I swore never to reveal the cause of her embarrassment.

After promising not to give away her terrible secret, we found ourselves becoming pretty good friends. Through that semester we sat near each other and even worked on some projects together. I even went to the local pool one time to watch her swim in a swim meet (hey, I was a teenager, you'll have to cut me some slack)!

The second semester we shared no classes and I rarely saw her. She began to fade from my memory.

I'll make a long story short. About a year after we had parted ways in Ms. Rowe's class she phoned me out of the blue and asked me to accompany her to a murder mystery party. Apparently she had been cleaning off the list of names by her phone, and noticing mine, decided to see what I was up to. I refused her invitation. She persisted. She eventually won.

It was just about four years after that phone call that I married that pretty little brunette girl. In the six years of our marriage the temper that brought about our first words has been - and you'll have to forgive me here - tempered, you might say. But the spark that caused her to flare up like that is still burning bright. God has taught her how to turn that spark into passion - passion for Him, for her responsibilities, and probably primarily for her family.

I still laugh when I think of the first words we shared. I wish I could say that I had experienced love at first sight, but that would be a lie.

For me it was love at first fight.

I found an interesting list of quotes from some of the great Reformers and spiritual giants of the past concerning the Roman Catholic Church. I will post them below for your reading [dis]pleasure. As you read, remember that we may have lost site of the meaning of what the word “antichrist” means. We most often think of the prefix “anti-” as meaning “against,” but in context of antichrist it actually means “in place of.” So these men were not looking for someone or something that sought to destroy Christ but sought to set itself up in place of Christ. This is the true sense of what the word means.

Martin Luther (1483-1546) (Lutheran): “Luther … proved, by the revelations of Daniel and St. John, by the epistles of St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. Jude, that the reign of Antichrist, predicted and described in the Bible, was the Papacy … And all the people did say, Amen! A holy terror siezed their souls. It was Antichrist whom they beheld seated on the pontifical throne. This new idea, which derived greater strength from the prophetic descriptions launched forth by Luther into the midst of his contemporaries, inflicted the most terrible blow on Rome.” Taken from J. H. Merle D’aubigne’s History of the Reformation of the Sixteen Century, book vi, chapter xii, p. 215.

Based on prophetic studies, Martin Luther finally declared, “We here are of the conviction that the papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist.” (Aug. 18, 1520). Taken from The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, by LeRoy Froom. Vol. 2., pg. 121.

John Calvin (1509-1564) (Presbyterian): “Some persons think us too severe and censorious when we call the Roman pontiff Antichrist. But those who are of this opinion do not consider that they bring the same charge of presumption against Paul himself, after whom we speak and whose language we adopt… I shall briefly show that (Paul’s words in II Thess. 2) are not capable of any other interpretation than that which applies them to the Papacy.” Taken from Institutes of the Christian Religion, by John Calvin.

John Knox (1505-1572) (Scotch Presbyterian): John Knox sought to counteract “that tyranny which the pope himself has for so many ages exercised over the church.” As with Luther, he finally concluded that the Papacy was “the very antichrist, and son of perdition, of whom Paul speaks.” The Zurich Letters, by John Knox, pg. 199.

Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556) (Anglican): “Whereof it followeth Rome to be the seat of antichrist, and the pope to be very antichrist himself. I could prove the same by many other scriptures, old writers, and strong reasons.” (Referring to prophecies in Revelation and Daniel.) Works by Cranmer, Vol. 1, pp. 6-7.

Roger Williams (1603-1683) (First Baptist Pastor in America): Pastor Williams spoke of the Pope as “the pretended Vicar of Christ on earth, who sits as God over the Temple of God, exalting himself not only above all that is called God, but over the souls and consciences of all his vassals, yea over the Spirit of Christ, over the Holy Spirit, yea, and God himself…speaking against the God of heaven, thinking to change times and laws; but he is the son of perdition (II Thess. 2).” The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, by Froom, Vol. 3, pg. 52.

The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647): “There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition that exalteth himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God.” Taken from Philip Schaff’s, The Creeds of Christendom, With a History and Critical Notes, III, p. 658, 659, ch. 25, sec. 6.

Cotton Mather (1663-1728) (Congregational Theologian): “The oracles of God foretold the rising of an Antichrist in the Christian Church: and in the Pope of Rome, all the characteristics of that Antichrist are so marvelously answered that if any who read the Scriptures do not see it, there is a marvelous blindness upon them.” Taken from The Fall of Babylon by Cotton Mather in Froom’s book, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Vol. 3, pg. 113.

John Wesley (1703-1791) (Methodist): Speaking of the Papacy, John Wesley wrote, “He is in an emphatical sense, the Man of Sin, as he increases all manner of sin above measure. And he is, too, properly styled the Son of Perdition, as he has caused the death of numberless multitudes, both of his opposers and followers… He it is…that exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped…claiming the highest power, and highest honour…claiming the prerogatives which belong to God alone.” Antichrist and His Ten Kingdoms, by John Wesley, pg. 110.

Charles Spurgeon: “It is the bounden duty of every Christian to pray against Antichrist, and as to what Antichrist is no sane man ought to raise a question. If it be not the popery in the Church of Rome there is nothing in the world that can be called by that name. If there were to be issued a hue and cry for Antichrist, we should certainly take up this church on suspicion, and it would certainly not be let loose again, for it so exactly answers the description.”

“Popery is contrary to Christ's Gospel, and is the Antichrist, and we ought to pray against it. It should be the daily prayer of every believer that Antichrist might be hurled like a millstone into the flood and for Christ, because it wounds Christ, because it robs Christ of His glory, because it puts sacramental efficacy in the place of His atonement, and lifts a piece of bread into the place of the Saviour, and a few drops of water into the place of the Holy Ghost, and puts a mere fallible man like ourselves up as the vicar of Christ on earth; if we pray against it, because it is against Him, we shall love the persons though we hate their errors: we shall love their souls though we loath and detest their dogmas, and so the breath of our prayers will be sweetened, because we turn our faces towards Christ when we pray.”

A Great Cloud of Witnesses: “Wycliffe, Tyndale, Luther, Calvin, Cranmer; in the seventeenth century, Bunyan, the translators of the King James Bible and the men who published the Westminster and Baptist confessions of Faith; Sir Isaac Newton, Wesley, Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards; and more recently Spurgeon, Bishop J.C. Ryle and Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones; these men among countless others, all saw the office of the Papacy as the antichrist.” Taken from All Roads Lead to Rome, by Michael de Semlyen. Dorchestor House Publications, p. 205. 1991.

Why is it that today we are so eager to embrace Rome? Were these men wrong, or has the church of today lost sight of something? Or has the Catholic Church changed? Though my heart rebels at what these men taught, I do find it presumptuous to think that little ol’ me knows better than all of these giants of the faith.

Like most boys my father was my hero when I was a child. You would have had a difficult time convincing me that there was anyone smarter, faster or stronger than my dad. I really did believe it when I told my friends that "my dad can beat up your dad!" And it may well have been true. You see, my father was a landscaper, and for 8 months of the year he spent almost every waking hour hauling loads of soil from his truck to the gardens and maneuvering enormous rocks to make sure they looked just right. Though this took a physical toll on him, it left him stronger than an ox. When he and I used to wrestle, I could make absolutely no headway against him. I would run at him and even with a full head of steam could not knock him off-balance. He would just grab me with his rough, leathery hands and toss me aside like I was barely even there.

Dad had working man hands. I'll never forget those hands, for they were hard as rock. Holding dad's hand was like holding a sanding block and just about as uncomfortable. As he labored day-in and day-out, his hands built up so many rough calluses that they soon became as hard as dried leather. They were scarred with the evidence of many bumps and bruises on the job site. I saw in his hands an ideal, for to me they represented a hard-working man who labored diligently to support his family. I believe there is something inside each of us that really wants nothing more than to carry out God's original command to humans which was to till the soil and to care for the earth. Dad had the privilege of doing that every day and the even greater privilege of loving nothing more.

Yet behind his love for working with plants and rocks and soil, dad always felt a twinge of shame. He grew up in an affluent family, one which had a history of politicians and lawyers. My grandfather was a Supreme Court judge, and his uncles were members of parliament. Surely, dad felt deep inside, landscaping was not a profession suitable for a man from such lineage. Finally succumbing to the pressure he created in himself, he returned to school, upgrading his two Bachelor's degrees to a Master's. For several years he worked diligently, studying languages, history and theology. A strange thing happened. As the months turned into years I noticed that his hands no longer felt like leather. The longer he worked in school, the softer his hands became. Before long his hands were much like mine - soft and free from calluses.

Dad graduated with a Master's degree and tried so hard to be happy in an office job. He tried his hand at a few things and it wasn't so much that he wasn't good at them as that he just did not enjoy them. He found himself thinking nostalgically of burying his hands in fresh topsoil and sculpting beautiful gardens where there had been nothing but weeds. Finally it became too much and one day dad went and bought himself a great, big pickup truck. He returned to tilling the soil he had left behind.

Now whenever I see dad he has dirt under his fingernails. His hands are once again as hard as dried leather and I can't imagine my son feels any more comfortable holding his hand than I did so many years ago. As he returns shamelessly to the task for which God created Him, his hands again bear evidence of his labor.

It occurs to me as I write this that one day we are all going to stand before God and he is going to reach down to each of us and feel our hands. He has assigned to all of His children the same task, and it is a difficult one. We need to take His message into all the world, diligently and shamelessly proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ. If our hands are not as rough as sandpaper and do not feel like old leather, perhaps we are not being diligent in that labor. If our hands bear no scars, perhaps we have not received the cuts and bruises that are bound to come to those who go forth on His behalf. One day God is going to reward those who labored diligently for Him and all the evidence He is going to need will be written on our hands. God will reward those who have working man hands.