Do you have a Bible question you don't know the answer to?
Ask Pastor Rick
I am very interested in your church. I'm not especially being spiritually fed at the Methodist Church. There is too much liberalism (homosexuality acceptance, etc..). Due to the fact that I have reactive airway disease, I don't think I could physically attend services so I appreciate the fact that you have sermons on the internet. I heard your ads on the radio while listening to conservative radio shows like Rush Limbaugh, which I enjoy. Pastor Rick I am so tired of Liberalism in the church. It is refreshing to see that it does not exist at your church.
Constance
Thank You for your email Constance. I am thankful that we are able to help meet a need in your life through our internet ministry.
I too am concerned about the Liberalism in the Church today. That is one of the reasons I am doing the current series on the book of 1 Timothy entitled: "A Biblical Charge for the Truth". I as a Pastor have no other responsibility that is greater than that of preaching the Truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth of the word of God. The truth is sometime offensive. Though I never want to be offensive in the way I communicate it, I do not apologize if the truth offends. Many ministers today out of a sincere love for people have chosen not to tell the total truth of the scriptures, others reject the authority of scriptures. Both are very wrong. If a Pastor rejects the authority of the scriptures he should find an honest way to make a living. If he sincerely loves people he must be honest with them. I heard someone say one time that if a person sees a building on fire and cares about the people who are inside he should warn them and help them get out, not tell them that the fire does not exist, or worse yet just not say anything. Please pray that God would give Pastors the courage they need to stand for truth.
True Liberals reject the authority of the Scriptures and need to be recognized and rejected. If you are a member of such a Church you should leave it and find a church that stands on the Authority of The Bible.
Constance thanks again for allowing us to minister to you.
Pastor Rick
I am 19 years old and I am Catholic. No one has ever answered my questions about God, Jesus or about where we go when we die. As a Catholic we are told that when we die some people go to a place called purgatory waiting to see which way we will go. After saying this to my aunt and uncle they said there is no such thing and that once you are saved you go to heaven, well it made me question my beliefs that I have been born to believe. Is it wrong to believe something that may or may not be in the bible and how can I be saved? I want to go to heaven and I want to be happy.
Nicole
Thanks for the question Nicole.
As for your question about Catholicism, let me give you an illustration. I was raised as a Baptist and I like you received a lot of good training about life. But being Catholic or Baptist or any other denomination cannot save you.
Salvation according to the bible begins when you realize that you are a sinner and the truth that your sin has separated you from a relationship with God and the ability to go to heaven. With this knowledge you make a decision to believe what the bible says about Jesus Christ.
The bible says that he loved us all so much that he came to Earth and died on a cross to take the punishment for our sin in order that we would not have to.
Salvation takes place when you believe you are a sinner, and you repent of (or turn from) your sin and you believe Christ gave his life in your place and you ask him to be your personal savior.
There is no place in the bible called Purgatory. According to the bible, when you die you either go to Heaven or Hell. You only get to go to heaven if you have been saved. Read John Chapter 3:1-18 for the story about Nicodemus. There you will see that he was a religious Jew but had not been "born again". Jesus told him that in order to see eternal life he needed to be "born again". In verse 16 he tells how someone is "born again". Here is a religious man who will not go to heaven because though religious he had not believed the gospel story. When we believe the gospel and call on the name of the Lord (Romans 8:9-10.) we are saved.
Happiness in life will come out of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If you try to find happiness in anything else it won't satisfy you. I don't want you to think that becoming a Christian will result in you never having any problems or never being sad. It won't, but you can have assurance that according to the bible you have a home in heaven and a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Pastor Rick
Please tell me how God as the Holy Spirit, could impregnate Mary? The virgin birth has me stumped.
Thank You,
Nicole
Nicole,
You are not the only person that the virgin birth has stumped. Many people reject Christianity for believing what they say is impossible. This gets at the heart of Christianity. According to the bible Jesus was born of a virgin. His mother was Mary and he had no human father. This makes Jesus distinct from all other men who have ever lived on the earth. That is a very important truth without which the claims of Christianity have no authority. Either Jesus was Virgin born or he was a fraud. Either the bible is true about this or it is not a good book but one to be totally rejected.
As for how it could happen the only answer is that God who created the body and the reproductive system and plan certainly would have the power to change the way it is accomplished. Some wrongly teach that the Holy Spirit had a sexual encounter with Mary and thus she was impregnated. But the scripture says in Luke 1:35 that "the power of the highest shall overshadow thee". This tells us that this in not an earthly event, not a normal human conception but that it was accomplished by the Power of God. Human conception itself is a miracle beyond our comprehension but this conception went beyond that.
Some years ago I was amazed when I heard about invitro-fertilization. In that process a women is impregnated without having sexual relations. I remember thinking man is getting more and more advanced yet he has never been able to accomplish what God did in the virgin birth. Christianity is a matter of faith. If you reject God's ability to accomplish the virgin birth then you will reject the rest of the gospel story but if you accept that God can accomplish that since he created man and women then you are ready to hear the rest of the story of Jesus.
Pastor Rick
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