Did You Know
Did you know that devout (but pagan) Buddhists pray before a
statue for hours with a rosary? Did you know that relics of
bones, teeth and hair are enshrined in Buddhist temples and
worshiped?
Buddists also keep guardian statues and images for protection and
to repel evil spirits. Did you Know that a Buddist priest has his
own parish? Sweeping the Pagoda is concidered to be an "act
of merit" and a Buddist's favorite object of prayer is his
Kuan Yin, a female goddess.
Did you Know that in the pagan Taoist religion, a priest burns
incense and asks "patron saints" to bless deceased
family members?
Did you know that in Confucianism, they have a burning ceremony
to release a soul from purgatory?
Did you know that Islam worshippers make pilgrimages to touch and
kiss sacred objects? They also self-inflict wounds upon
themselves. They build ornate mosques for the bodies of Moslem
saints, and pilgrims come to pray at these tombs.
Did you know that heathen Hindus ring temple bells as a
devotional act? That Hindus pray for the dead?
That the Brahmin prays before images while kissing a string of
beads?
Do these pagan religious customs sound familiar?
The question we must ask is, "would a true, born-again
Christian do such things? Based on such scriptures as John 14:26,
16:13, I Cor. 12-14, the answer must be, "no!"
More specifically we ask, "Would a bonafied Christian enter
a "temple" and participate in a service where a
"priest" makes a sacrifice for sin? Again basing our
answers on such passages as Heb. 9:14, 10:10-14, 12:2, I John
1:7, Rev. 1:5, 5:9, Heb. 6:4-6, II Peter 2:20-22, we must reply
that a true born-again Christian would not.
~By Victor Bryditzki