Searching for the Truth in the King James Bible;
Finding it, and passing it on to you.
EDITOR:
Steve
Van Nattan
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ATTENDING
FUNERALS This article is based on a letter from a Bible believer in Ireland.
The Letter Dear Steve I
would appreciate your view on attending Roman Catholic Funerals! So if one of the family died before me what would I do? Sincerely Joseph L_____
My Answer: Go to the funeral and do not participate in the genuflecting and formalities-- do not go to eat the sacred biscuit. This may help:
Read the whole chapter to get the context. I went to a Jewish funeral for a lady who was devilish-- a Kabalist and worshipped in a Satanic ritual that terrified her husband. But, she was in a political club we attended for a while. I knew she would have very few people at her funeral, so my wife and I decided I should go to be considerate. When I got there, the Rabbi came up to me and said that he did not have enough pall bearers, would I help? I told him I would be happy to. He handed me gloves and a yarmulke which the Jews wear on their heads especially at religious events. I put them on knowing they meant nothing to me, and I helped. It was exceedingly sad. There was almost no one there, and the Rabbi, being Liberal, could give no hope for anything in the afterlife. I was glad I went for the family's sake. To be there and to be considerate is grace, to participate in the blasphemies is heresy. Simply ask our Father in heaven to give you a sweet spirit. If the priest speaks to you, thank him for being thoughtful, and leave it at that. Perhaps you could tell the priest that your hope was refreshed as you realized that the hope of the Christian is only in Jesus Christ. What can he say? That is the official line, though the priest contradicts it with ceremony and false teaching. God bless as you stay on the narrow way. In
Christ PS Take a Gospel tract and leave it in the book rack :-) ______________________________ We have a friend who asked to drop Christmas in her home. Her unsaved husband refused, but he was happy to drop the religious aspects so that his wife could leave Jesus out of the pagan day. My wife counseled her to submit to her husband and have a Christmas holiday without mixing Jesus up in it. The matter is only a thing of custom and vanity, and the lady was not blaspheming Christ in it. In the Bible text above, Naaman did not need the Hebrew dirt to kneel on to please Jehovah. Daniel, many years later, was heard by God, though he did not have Hebrew dirt to kneel on. Also, Naaman was not seen as an idol worshipper because he held the arm of the aging king of Syria when the king did his devotions in the pagan temple. A friend of my mother in law had to take her Catholic mother to Catholic Mass every Sunday. She was burdened that the Lord might be angry with her. My mother in law correctly showed her the experience of Naaman above. One more verse comes to mind where Paul had instructed the saints at Corinth to not be affected by the world in their personal lives. They had, it seems, gone to an extreme in obeying his teaching, and the Holy Ghost used that to give us help in how to deal with the walk of the saint IN the world while not being OF the world:
Eating with, and walking in the market place of work place, with sinners to be a caution, but "not altogether" avoiding these people, for then we have no witness to them of Jesus Christ. Holding the arm of the king in the house of Rimmon is not evil if I am not worshipping Rimmon, but eating and drinking with an alleged saint who is in fornication is OUT. I would rather sit and visit with a dead beat Freemason with a beer in his hand than to join Jack Hyles at a preacher's conference in Hawaii to which he went without his wife, but WITH his personal secretary. There is a special issue-- If some sinner has been a notable blasphemer and openly wicked, or if someone who claimed to be born again later became openly wicked, you MAY NOT attend their funeral:
Preachers are famous for doing funerals of any jerk drunk or Atheist God hater in town. Why? Cash. The family will pay an honorarium to the preacher. And, the more wicked the deceased, the more they will pay in the hope that somehow the honorarium will make up for the wickedness of the dead brat. This brings into doubt the salvation of a preacher who would go to try to comfort the mob that gathers around a dead hell raiser. Another issue is Christmas. If I believe it is pagan, and if I believe Jesus was born on about September 6, AND if the New Testament nowhere tells us to remember the birth of Jesus, then I would be compromising and helping the blasphemy if I participated in any way in a Christmas event in a local church. Whereas, I went to the private office party of an unsaved doctor friend whom I was seeking for Christ. If you do this, go early, and leave soon so you are not there to watch the others get soused.
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