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MOTHER TERESA’S FALSE HOPE (Friday Church News Notes, September 7, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The August 23, 2007 issue of Time magazine featured a lengthy review of a new book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, documenting Mother Teresa’s long night of the soul. In March 1953 she wrote: “... there is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead. It has been like this more or less from the time I started ‘the work’ [Missionaries of Charity]” Over the years she had many confessors, and she continually referred to her spiritual condition as “my darkness” and to Jesus as “the Absent One.” In 1979 she wrote: “The silence and the emptiness is so great -- that I look and do not see, -- Listen and do not hear.” Her private statements continued in this vein until her death in 1997. Many comments have been about this revelation, but the matter is not that complicated. Mother Teresa’s error was putting her faith in a false christ and a false gospel. We have documented this in articles since the 1980s, proving that Mother Teresa was a faithful daughter of Rome, that her Jesus was the wafer of the Catholic Mass, that her protector was Mary, and that her gospel was universalism. In her speech at the Worldwide Retreat for Priests in Rome, October 1984, Mother Teresa said: “At the word of a priest, THAT LITTLE PIECE OF BREAD BECOMES THE BODY OF CHRIST, the Bread of Life. ... ONLY WHEN THE PRIEST IS THERE CAN WE HAVE OUR ALTAR AND OUR TABERNACLE AND OUR JESUS. ONLY THE PRIEST CAN PUT JESUS THERE FOR US” (Mother Teresa, cited in Be Holy: God’s First Call to Priests Today, edited by Tom Forrest, 1987, pp. 108, 111). In the same speech she said, “So let us ask the help of our Lady! She is a Mother full of grace ... Let us ask her to be our Mother, guiding us and protecting us” (Be Holy, p. 75). In her speech before the United Nations in October 1985, she said, “No color, no religion, no nationality should come between us--we are all children of God. ... When we destroy an unborn child, we destroy God” (Christian News, Nov. 11, 1985, p. 17). In the biography Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work, she is quoted by Desmond Doig as saying, “What God is in your mind you must accept.” Her longtime friend and biographer Naveen Chawla said that he once asked her bluntly, “Do you convert?” She replied, “Of course I convert. I convert you to be a better Hindu or a better Muslim or a better Protestant. Once you’ve found God, it’s up to you to decide how to worship him” (“Mother Teresa Touched other Faiths,” Associated Press, Sept. 7, 1997). In 1984 my wife and I conducted a taped interview with Sister Ann of the Missionaries of Charity in Kathmandu. She told us that they teach Hindus to trust in their own gods. The interview can be found in the article “Was Mother Teresa a True Christian” at the Way of Life web site (http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/motherteresa.html/). Jesus said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). But the Catholic Church says, “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will load you down with religious burdens so that you will never find rest and I will put priests and sacraments between you and Christ so that you will never reach him.” This is the hopeless maze through which Mother Teresa roamed.

SOUTHERN BAPTIST PREACHERS CAN’T PULL THE TRIGGER AGAINST ROMANISM (Friday Church News Notes, September 7, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - We have warned many times that the very best preachers within the Southern Baptist Convention are New Evangelicals. New Evangelicalism was founded in the late 1940s by men aligned with Billy Graham who rejected fundamentalist separatism, and it has since spread throughout evangelicalism. The SBC, whose greatest hero is Graham, is permeated with it. Al Mohler, head of the SBC’s flagship seminary, is one of the strongest voices in the Convention, yet he is clearly New Evangelical in his approach, which is to avoid separatism and to keep one’s message on a more positive keel and to avoid preaching against things that are controversial within one’s own context. Though he has no qualms in lifting his voice against such evils as homosexuality and abortion, only on exceedingly rare occasions does he reprove Roman Catholicism, yet Catholicism has destroyed more souls than any of the evils he does take on and more souls probably than all of them put together. A Southern Baptist preacher will preach against evils that it is acceptable to preach against in his circles, but he will not preach the whole counsel of God and warn of all errors, and he will not call for strict separation from error. It is still widely acceptable within the SBC to preach against homosexuality and abortion and radical liberalism of the Episcopalian variety, but it is not acceptable to preach against Roman Catholicism or Free Masonism or Rock & Roll or New Evangelicalism or Graham-style Ecumenical Evangelism or Public Schools or Contemporary Christian Music or Worldly Church Youth Groups or Psychology or Modern Textual Criticism or a slew of other things. If a Southern Baptist preacher even mentions these things, which is rare, he will step very softly and apologetically and will go out of his way to remind his audience that he is certainly not against any of THEM. An example of the New Evangelical approach is Mohler’s blog on Mother Teresa’s crisis of faith. Mohler titled his column “Trust Christ, Not Feelings” and stated that “the recent revelations of Mother Teresa’s spiritual struggle should remind all believing Christians that our faith is in Christ--not in our feelings.” The article missed the point entirely, which is whether or not Mother Teresa was a true Christian. There is not a hint in Mohler’s article about the fact that Mother Teresa’s church teaches a false gospel and has blasphemously inserted itself and its saints and sacraments between the individual and Christ, and that Mother Teresa BY HER OWN TESTIMONY was a faithful daughter of Rome. Mohler concluded with this: “I possess no ability to read Mother Teresa’s heart, but I do sincerely hope that her faith was in Christ, and not in her own faithfulness.” That is a ridiculous statement in light of Mother Teresa’s own published words. We don’t have to read her heart; she expressed it for us. She said her faith was in the wafer of the mass and in Mary and in the priests and in the universal fatherhood of God and in all sorts of things other than and in addition to Christ! It is simply not in a New Evangelical to preach the whole truth. His hatred of “separatism” and his commitment to positivism and his desire to be known as scholarly won’t allow it.

NEW SURVEY IN ENGLAND SHOWS A NATION OF DOUBTERS (Friday Church News Notes, September 7, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - According to a new religious survey England is a nation of doubters. Only 28% of those polled said they believed in a personal God, and 42% said they believe that religion has a harmful effect. An amazing 74% of those polled said they pray never or hardly at all (“Religion causes harm, says poll,” Sunday Times, Sept. 2, 2007). The YouGov survey was commissioned by John Humphrys, a broadcaster and writer who describes himself as a “doubter” and who authored a sad new book “In God We Doubt.” The root problem in England is its apostate and deeply compromised churches. It is a nation of churches and once was a nation of church goers. Its sovereign takes an oath to “maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel.” The British Crown and Orb are surmounted by crosses, the one on the Orb representing the Sovereign’s role as Defender of the Christian Faith. At his or her ordination the British sovereign bears two sceptres signifying the rule of Christ in England, the Sceptre with the Cross in the right hand, and the Sceptre with the Dove (representing the Holy Spirit) in the left hand. The nation thus professes faith in Christ, but because its churches, as a rule, do not preach the new birth and the fear of God, the land has been taken over by the world, the flesh, and the devil. Self is its god; rock & roll is its religion; humanism is its faith; lady luck is its hope; new age is its spirituality; and political correctness is its conscience.

GAMING WIDOWS (Friday Church News Notes, September 7, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - We are living in a weird, weird age. Thousands of husbands and wives have been virtually abandoned for make-believe games played in cyberspace. A recent article on MSNBC.com was titled “Game Widows Grieve Lost Spouses.” Consider an excerpt: “Though their spouses and partners haven’t gone to the great beyond, these particular widows and widowers say their loved ones have gone someplace that’s almost as distant and unreachable. Some have left this world for the ‘World of Warcraft,’ others have forsaken this life for ‘Second Life’ and still others have been taken away by ‘EverQuest,’ ‘Final Fantasy XI’ and ‘Dark Age of Camelot.’ ...  As the ranks of those playing video games in general--and massively multiplayer online games in particular--continue to grow, so grow the ranks of those who refer to themselves as ‘game widows.’ They are the husbands, wives, girlfriends and boyfriends of gamers whose playing habits have consumed their lives. The bereaved say their mates have suffered a kind of digital death that has left only the shell of the person they loved behind. And like a real death, it has left the people who remain heartbroken, scared and angry.” The article listed the five most addictive games as World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Peggle, Doom, and Tetris. Three of these are multiplayer online role-playing games. World of Warcraft, which boasts nine million subscribers, allows players to be “mythical characters with incredible powers” and players band together to go on raids in large scale battles. Because of EverQuest’s addictive power it is known by its fans as “EverCrack” and “NeverRest.” I wouldn’t be surprised if some people are becoming demon possessed through these dark games. “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Eph. 5:11).

HINDU OFFERS PRAYERS IN U.S., CALIFORNIA, AND NEVADA STATE SENATES (Friday Church News Notes, September 7, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - 2007 is a sad milestone in U.S. history, for this was the year that a Hindu first offered prayers in the U.S. Senate as well as in the California and Nevada state Senates. Rajan Zed, who works at a Hindu temple in Reno, Nevada, offered the prayers on each occasion. At the Nevada State Senate on May 12 all of the senators stood to honor the Hindu scriptures, and ministers from various Presbyterian, Episcopal, United Methodist, and Seventh Day Adventist “attended the prayers as a gesture of support” (“Nevada State Senate Opens with Sanskrit Prayer,” Indolink News Bureau, Sept. 7, 2007). At the U.S. Senate on July 12, Zed’s prayer was interrupted by protests from Christians who shouted, “Lord Jesus, forgive us, Father, for allowing the prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight.” The Christians, who were simply exercising their first amendment right to the free exercise of their religion, were arrested and are facing criminal charges. At the California Senate on August 27 Zed prayed: “We meditate on the transcendental Glory of the Deity Supreme, who is inside the heart of the earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of the Heaven. ... Lead me from the unreal to the Real. Lead me from darkness to Light. Lead me from death to immortality” (“Hindu Leads Senate in Prayer,” WorldNetDaily, Aug. 29, 2007). According to the Bible, the sky has no life and heaven has no soul, and light and life are found ONLY in Jesus Christ. Further, the Bible says that God hates idolatry. In California, Zed sprinkled water from an Indian river on the podium before saying his prayer, which makes us wonder where the environmentalists were and why they didn’t require that the suspicious water be tested before it was poured out or even before it was brought into the country?

CONCLUSION: Friends in Christ, do not be discouraged by any of this. It is God’s will that we know the times (1 Ch. 12:32; Mat. 16:3) and that we be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. These things remind us that the hour is very late, and we need to be ready for the coming of the Lord. Are you sure that you are born again? Are you living for Christ day by day? “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Rom. 13:11-14).