JMP@VMS.BRIGHTON.AC.UK (John Pickett (pharmacy)) (02/09/90)
>Date: Thu, 8 Feb 90 06:39:00 EST >From: "The Golden Rule: He who has all the Gold makes the rules." < > PDBROYLES@EARN.OWUCOMCN> >Subject: Hinduism, here it goes again >> On the way home, I heard some interesting things on Hinduism. They believe in >> reincarnation, and you come back based on the life you lived before. >Does not Christianity teach that our next life will be based on the one we >live right now? Not exactly! Christianity teaches me that my next life depends on whether Jesus Christ died for me and whether my name is in the Lamb's Book of Life. "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never drive away... this is the will of Him Who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." (John 6:37-40) My life is the one Christ lived because all my righteous acts are as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). "It is by grace that (I) have been saved, through faith ... it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8) >creatures returning in a lower life form (a Christian example, if I killed >someone immediately after they accepted Christ, it wouldn't be all that >bad in most of your minds because that person is now going to heaven. But >if I killed the same person 2 minutes before he accepted Christ then it >would be on my head that he died unforgiven! Make sense?) No! It makes no sense at all! A person whose name is in the Lamb's Book of Life *will* come to Jesus in repentence and faith BEFORE he dies! I know what you're trying to say, but you used the word "if" and there are no ifs and buts with God. > Anyway, one doesn't choose not to be a dog, but rather earns the >right not to be a dog. One doesn't choose to be a human, but his Karma >determines whether or not he is a human. The logic presented by MAKS and >the 700 club goes against virtually everything *I* know and understand >about Hinduism. (If I beat a dog, it would be just like fate to make me >reincarnated in the form of a dog in my next lifetime and I Don't want to >risk that---Hindu logic not mine.) "not by works, so that no-one can boast" (Ephesians 2:9 "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing." (Galatians 2:20-21) >Again, I say that one doesn't choose his place but rather his actions in a >previous lifetime determine them. If a Hindu ignored the untouchables (an >outdate illegal custom by the way) it wasn't so that they wouldn't choose >to be an untouchable in their next lifetime, but rather because that >person had done something deserving such a punishment. It sounds kinda >harsh to us today, but Christians did the simular things (Jews, lepers, >AIDS victems...) It is also now an illegal practice, which can only be >found today in a few outlying villages where tradition is still very >strong. Jesus was a friend of tax-collectors and sinners. He touched lepers. He had great compassion on the multitudes and on individuals - He rejected no-one who came to Him! "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." (1 John 4:7-8) See what James has to say about the way we should treat the poor (James 2). Looks like the Hindus are way way out from the Way of God! >>and you have no sins to confess, no god to rely on for the forgiveness >> of sins and the like. >Sin in the Western understanding is a foreign term. Yes! Only real Christians understand that sin is rebellion against a Holy God. The idea of sin as an ugly cancer punishable by death is quite foreign to those, whether 'Western' or 'Eastern', who do not know the only true God and Jesus Christ Whom He has sent! (John 17:3) There are many Indians and people from almost every people group (culture, language, nation) in the world who have what you call a "Western understanding" of sin! By the time Jesus comes again *every* people group will be represented in Heaven. (Revelation 5:9; 7:9) Praise the Lord! >I really wish that people would research their >subject out before condemning something on blind faith. Like I implied above, real Christians don't have "blind" faith. One thing I know, that whereas I was born blind, now I see. God Himself has opened my eyes of faith and I know Whom I have believed (2 Timothy 1:12). I side with MAKS here. I know that he has seeing faith too. He knows the truth of the Christian Bible. Anything that opposes it must, per se, be wrong. We do not need to "research" other religions before we can pronounce them false if they are clearly contrary to the Word of God revealed unto us in the Christian Scriptures. And what's more - we have the witness of the Holy Spirit of God within us. That's why our faith is real and not blind! > S*M*I*L*E > PDB No, I cannot SMILE - your blindness makes me very, very sad, PDB! I believe you're so very much mixed up. I'm sure many on this list are praying for you - I am. And please believe me when I sign myself... With the love of Christ, John Pickett