Author: beaconapologetics

Roman Catholic Bible: Did God Inspire It?

The RCC Old Testament has over 4000 verses from a group of writings known as the Apocrypha. Apocrypha means “Hidden” or “Hard to understand”. Although the Roman Catholic Church recognizes and declared that “God inspired 12 of the 15 writings of the said Apocrypha. These books are: Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch.

Plus five passages Bel and the Dragon, The Prayer of Azariah, Susanna, The Letter of Jeremiah and A 107 verse expansion of the Book of Esther.

These are NOT INSPIRED as according to the Roman Catholic Church claims!

For the following reasons:

  1. Jews of Palestine did not recognize the writing’s as part of Sacred Scripture.
  2. Jesus did not treat the Apocrypha as Sacred Scripture
  3. The early Church didn’t accept the writing’s as inspired
  4. The RCC didn’t even declare the scriptures to be inspired until the Council of Trent in the 16th Century!

The RCC wants you to also believe that they gave us the Bible! This is emphatically incorect!

Please pray that the Roman Catholic Follower comes to Christ!

God Bless

Brian Mason

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The Dangers and Errors of the Baha’i Faith: Part 2

Photo by ArtHouse Studio on Pexels.com

This article is a continuation of the Dangers of the Baha’i faith. Unlike the Christian Faith the followers of Baha’i have a different understanding of what happens after death. The Christian is appointed to die once and to be at home with the Lord.

2 Corinthians 5:8

8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. (NASB)

In a general sense the believers will go to Heaven and the unbelievers will go to Hell!

John 5:29

29 and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment. (NASB)

2 Thessalonians 1:9

9 These will pay the penalty of aeternal destruction, baway from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, (NASB)

The Baha’i’s position on what happens when one dies is as taken from the “Gleanings from the Writing’s Haha’u’llah p. 155:

And now concerning thy question regarding the soul of man and its survival after death. Know thou of a truth that the soul, after its separation from the body, will continue to progress until it attaineth the presence of God, in a state and condition which neither the revolution of ages and centuries, nor the changes and chances of this world, can alter. It will endure as long as the Kingdom of God, His sovereignty, His dominion and power will endure. It will manifest the signs of God and His attributes, and will reveal His loving kindness and bounty. –

The followers of Baha’i have a nebulous take on Hell. “We don’t worship God because we desire “Heaven” or we fear “hell”. (BAHAITEACHINGS.ORG)

“Worship thou God in such wise that if thy worship lead thee to the fire, no alteration in thine adoration would be produced, and so likewise if thy recompense should be paradise. Thus and thus alone should be the worship which befitteth the one True God. Shouldst thou worship Him because of fear, this would be unseemly in the sanctified Court of His presence, and could not be regarded as an act by thee dedicated to the Oneness of His Being. Or if thy gaze should be on paradise, and thou shouldst worship Him while cherishing such a hope, thou wouldst make God’s creation a partner with Him, notwithstanding the fact that paradise is desired by men. – Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 77-78.”

From this writing above, the Baha’i faith seems to deny the fact of Hell in so many words. Written is that the followers need not fear God, which is of course an anti-Christian perspective. We fear God as He is the almighty creator of the Universe and through disobeidience could snuff us out in a second. The fear of God is an uplifting fear!

Please pray for the followers of this cult of a faith!

God Bless,

Brian Mason

The Dangers and Errors of the Baha’i Faith Part One

There is a religion out there that is gaining popularity and I would like to write on the dangers and errors. Errors because I was told that it was only different to Christianity in a few ways; I will try to correct that opinion in a series of posts. First a quick history;  A Persian named, Baháʼu’lláh was the leader of the Baha’i religion, and died in May 1892.He started preaching that God would soon deliver a new prophet akin to Jesus or Muhammad. He later claimed that  “he” was indeed the prophet that he foretold would arrive, a so-called manifestation of God! That was very brief But I would encourage you to read more about his biography and the religion as it is fascinating how demonically influenced this truly is!

So with that brief opening I will start this series on the Baha’i Religion and it’s grave issues.

They believe that there is only one God and no Trinity. 

According to the Christian Faith God is a Trinity made up of three distinct persons: The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Although the Bible does not explicitly use the title “Trinity” it is evident throughout the teaching of the Bible. The Baha’i religion is following a basic pattern of most cults, and that is denying the Trinity. See Matthew 28: 18- 20 NASB

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Also read 2 Corinthians 13:14 NASB:

 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.

Notice just as the Muslims bemoan that there is no mention of the title “Trinity” so do the Baha’i followers, but that is a clear discount of biblical scripture.

I will continue this series and hope it will not misrepresent the Religion of Baha’i but expose it as a cult.

 

God Bless

Brian Mason

The Arguments for the Existence of God

I will start with the argument that I feel is the strongest argument for God;

 

  1. The Cosmological Argument: An argument for the existence of God based on the observation that, since every known thing in the universe has a cause, which can only be God.
  2. The Moral Argument: An argument for the existence of God which reasons that there must be a God who is the source of man’s sense of right and wrong.
  3. The Ontological Argument: An argument for the existence of God that begins with the idea of God as the greatest of beings that can be imagined. As such, the characteristic of existence must belong to such a being, since it is greater to exist than not to exist.
  4. Teleological Argument: An argument for the existence of God which reasons that, since the universe exhibits evidence of order and design, there must be an intelligent and purposeful God who created it to function in this way.

 

I hope that you find these argument useful?

 

God Bless

Brian Mason

Darwin’s “Tree of Life” Needs Pruning!

Darwin’s so-called “Tree of Life”shows how species are supposedly related through evolutionary history has some fundamental problems. His thesis is plagued by an outright lack of hard evidence. Scientists are so taken away with his conclusions that the science community observes almost all science through its dribble!

For instance take the fossil record. Darwin actually didn’t even support the idea of so-called “transitional fossils”, although at the time he was certain that science would one day come up with examples…the clock is still running as his publication, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life” (quite a racist title don’t you think?). That publication was dated 160 years ago and we are still waiting for an array of transitional fossils!

Enter the Cambrian Explosion. According to science, the Cambrian Explosion is like a Big Bang in evolution. There were new fully formed life-form without transitional fossils evident! The Cambrian Explosion according to science happened roughly (according to flawed carbon dating) 25 million Years ago. The life forms were determined by science to be classified as static (stasis), described as having no evolutionary change. They just arrived!

This is just another way to shut God out of the classroom. We have a wonderful creator who said “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness”! Darwin’s theory does not even come close to detailing the origin of the universe, or any other type of macroevolutionary science. Philosophical Naturalism is bad science. Good science will follow the facts to where they take you.

The only viable answer is a Creator God!

Psalm 148: 1-6

“Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; Praise Him in the heights! Praise Him, all His angels; Praise Him, all His hosts! Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all stars of light! Praise Him, highest heavens, And the waters that are above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the Lord, For He commanded and they were created. He has also established them forever and ever; He has made a decree which will not pass away” 

God Bless

Brian Mason

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Miracles in the Bible, are they “Unscientific”?

Without miracles in the bible, the Christian faith would not even be relevant, other than good lessons from a “good teacher” Jesus. In fact all of the Christian faith hinges on the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection (1 Corinthians 15). The resurrection is foundational to the Christian Faith.

Conventional scientific belief would state that the resurrection, let alone the other miracles found in the bible are indeed “unscientific” According to Wikipedia the scientific method is defines as: The process of the scientific method involves making conjectures (hypotheses), deriving predictions from them as logical consequences, and then carrying out experiments or empirical observations based on those predictions. A hypothesis is a conjecture, based on knowledge obtained while seeking answers to the question.  So according to that definition, miracles are not scientific.

One argument from science would  state that, “miracles are a violation of natural law”. Miracles are not a violation of natural law, as they are acts from a personal God Who cannot be predicted or explained away by processes or natural causes.

Yes, Miracles can be suppressed by people who have no desire to believe such miracles as Jesus changing the water to wine or healing lepers. One such passage of scripture is quite clear that some will not believe in any case:

Luke 16:31 NASB: “But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”

As we can see, miracles will not guarantee belief.

How the world operates is described by “natural law” but has no control over it. Natural processes are merely a pattern or template, and do not set anything in motion. It simply describes what happens when there is no agent interfering with casual order. When skeptics claim there is no God they are stating that miracles cannot exist! They put a philosophical roadblock in the way of open thinking.

I will end this with a tidbit of information. The first user and documentarian of the scientific method and set up inductive methods for scientific inquiry was a Christian named Sir Roger Bacon, (1561–1626).

No, the miracles of the bible are not scientific, they are from a loving creator.

 

God Bless,

Brian Mason

 

Does Atheism lacks the ability to account for our existence?

Yes it does. So where did the universe, and us, come from? Atheism can only offer an impersonal cause. But an impersonal cause that precedes the universe must have always possessed the necessary and sufficient conditions to bring the universe into existence. If this pre-existing cause always existed, then it always possessed these conditions. But this necessitates an automatic generation of the universe, because when the necessary sufficient conditions are there, the result is automatic. But this means the universe would have been created an infinitely long time ago. But the universe is not infinitely old, therefore the impersonal cause of the universe cannot be supported from the atheist perspective.
The universe exists. It is not infinitely old. If it were it would have run out of energy long ago. Therefore, it had a beginning. The universe did not bring itself into existence. Since it was brought into existence by something else, I assert that God is the one who created the universe.

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

God Bless

Brian Mason

Hell

Do you know the Jesus spoke more of Hell than Heaven in the scriptures? Hell is not an imaginary place place, it is not temporal, it is real! Make no bones about it, Jesus gives us ample warning:

Matthew 5, 29-30
Jesus said, “And if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out, and throw it from you; for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off, and throw it from you; for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to go into hell,”

Some misconceptions of Hell are being made such as:

God tortures people in hell; However hell has not been described as “torture” in the scriptures, but a place of “torment”.

Why would God His people to everlasting, eternal torment? God will punish the evildoer.

Isaiah 11: 13,
Then the jealousy of Ephraim will depart,
And those who harass Judah will be cut off;
Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah,
And Judah will not harass Ephraim.

Hell is an eternal separation from God.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that “There is no conscious eternal hell where the wicked are punished, (Let God be True, p. 79, 80). Instead, it is the grave where people who did not follow the Jehovah’s Witness teachings are annihilated and cease to have existence. “God’s Word says nothing about eternal torment of lost souls in a fiery hell as being the punishment for wickedness. Instead, it simply says: ‘The wages sin pays is death.’ ‘The soul that sinneth, it shall die.’ ‘All the wicked ones he will annihilate,’” (Watchtower, 3/1/1960, p. 134).
FALSE!
Matthew 5:22
“But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.

The LDS states: “Hell is outer darkness, a spirit prison, but is not forever. It is also sometimes said to be the lower levels of the heavens. Therefore, it would consist of the telestial and terrestrial kingdoms where progression to godhood is forbidden.”
FALSE!

Jude 6-7:
6 And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

Christ’s sacrifice would be entirely meaningless and cruel unless there is a place called hell!

Everyone who entered hell actually wanted to be there, as strange as that sounds people love their sin too much to give it up! Please pray for the salvation of those who scoff at the reality of hell. Salvation comes at a great price!

Matthew 16:24-27
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his [y]deeds.

God Bless

Brian Mason