True Discernment

2007-06-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

We're Moving

Its been nice here at Blogger.com but its time for a makeover and Wordpress enables us to have more flexibility in the format of the website so without further adeu: please update your boomarks.

The New Website is located at: http://truediscernment.com

2007-06-06T07:45:00.000-07:00

When To Leave a Church: A Biblical Approach

Quoting Robert Reymond . . .

If a Christian's church is faithfully proclaiming the Word of God, administers [the Lord's Supper and Baptism] according to the institution of Christ, and faithfully exercises discipline, his church is a true church of God, and a repudiation of it is wicked and a denial of God and of Christ, even though it may have some error in it. But the Bible recognizes that there are some circumstances that may arise in a church which will compel the Christian to separate himself from his church. The Greek New Testament employs two nouns in the main to describe dreadfully sinful situations in the church: apostasy (gr: apostasia) and heresy (gr: hairesis) :

2 Thessalonians 2:3: "Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion [gr: apostasia] occurs."

1 Timothy 4:1: "The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon [gr: apostesontai] the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons."

2 Peter 2:1: "[False teachers] will secretly introduce destructive heresies [gr: haireseis]." (see also 1 Cor. 11:19; Gal. 5:20; and Titus 3:10)

In general usage "apostasy" has come to refer to total renunciation of the Christian faith, with "heresy" being viewed more atomistically as any subversive doctrine professing to be Christian (of course, "systemic" heresy is hardly distinguishable from apostasy).

The New Testament lays down the following principles to protect the church in such a situation and to maintain its doctrinal purity:

Elders are charged to guard the church by guarding the truth (Acts 20:28-30; Tit. 1:9; see 1 John 4:2-3). The New Testament is realistic about the problems the church will have with false teachers. The passages cited presuppose that the Christian faith has a definite content, and that there are certain pivotal truths which are absolutely necessary to it.

Apostates and heretics ought to leave the church (1 John 2:18-19). It is not schismatic, indeed, it is quite appropriate, for antichrists to separate themselves from the Christian church. But more often than not, they set themselves up in the church. What is to be done with them then?

Unrepentant heretics who do not leave the church should be disciplined (Rom. 16:17; Tit. 3:10; 2 Pet. 2:1-3; 2 John 10-11; Rev. 2:2, 14-15, 20). As there were false prophets in Israel, so there are and will be false teachers in the church. As the former were subject to discipline, so the latter should be as well, mutatis mutandis, that is, by excommunication rather than execution.

Separation from one's local church or denomination is appropriate if it will not discipline heretics (2 Cor. 6:14-18). If a church rejects discipline for theological errors that subvert the foundation of the gospel and becomes theologically pluralistic in practice (even though it may retain an orthodox confession by which it promises to be guided), that church has become "heretical" in that it no longer stands under the authority of God, and the orthodox are compelled to separate from it to bear witness to the marks of the church.

Error in the church should always be of concern to the Christian, and he should charitably labor to rid the church of error. But a Christian should not lightly repudiate his church even when there is perceived error in it. Differences of opinion over [light causes] should not be made the basis for division in a local congregation or denomination. Such division for light causes is "schismatic," schism being understood here as formal and unjustified separation from the church. Paul speaks against such unjustified separation in 1 Corinthians 1:10: "I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions [gr: schismata] among you" (see also 1 Cor. 11:18; 12:25).

From:
A New Systematic Theology Of The Christian Faith

2007-06-04T18:41:00.000-07:00

JESUS IS NOT THE FATHER
So how can he be God ?

The church and more importantly the Bible recognizes the deity of the Son. Most cults strip him of this making the Son only a man, an angel or at best a secondary divine being created by the Father. They ignore the fact that the son is called God just as the Father is. If one says the Son or Spirit are not called God then they would have to be consistent and say the Father is not either.The reason the Father is explicitly called God by Jesus is because he is honoring another instead of himself. Each person in the godhead does this, yet we find their is a hierachial structure (a successive order not in time but of position).

Jesus is called the Son over 200 times throughout the N.T. The Father is referred to as distinct from the Son over 200 times. Over 50 times Jesus the Son and the Father are mentioned in the same verse. Yet we find Paul’s greeting as grace and peace from both God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus identifies himself as the Son of God all throughout the Bible. He is always put on equal status with the Father being able to bestow grace to the believer. The only time he is not equal is by position, never in nature.

John 20:31 ...That Jesus is the Christ the Son of God." Jn.16:3 "And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor me." Here he is distinguishing himself as another from the Father. Jesus separates himself from the Father in person but not in nature.

Jn.10:30: " I and my father are one" this is not a numerical one, Jesus is not saying he is the father. they are not one person but in nature they are a united one. It actually reads we are one in Greek the first person plural esmen . Examining his claim further "I and my Father are one." The Jews pick up stones because they understood this as blasphemy in vs. 36 Jesus interprets what he meant by saying because I said, "I am the Son of God." There is a very good reason for this because…. Contrary to those who claim the Son of God means less than God it actually affirmed his deity.

In Jn.20:17 Jesus said "I am ascending to my Father and your Father to my God and your God." Anti-Trinitarians claim since Jesus had a God over him he could not also be God. What we are not saying is that he is the Father or the Spirit. Coming in the servant role and as a man he was submissive to the Father as a Son. Notice he makes a distinction from "my Father and your Father" not saying our Father. The same is applied to " my God and your God." As a man he acknowledged the Father as "my God" .We are unable to say this in the same manner as he did. God is his Father from eternity past, he being the Son of eternal generation. Thomas bowed before Jesus saying, he is his God and his Lord, Jesus could not say the Father was his Lord in the way man does.

Jn.11:41-43 Jesus lifts his eyes toward heaven and prays, " I thank you that you heard me, and I know that you always hear me." We see consistently he is praying toward heaven just like all the saints in the O.T.. So why pray if your God. Because he is dependent on God in his lowered state and he is giving us the perfect example of our having a relationship with the Father. The Son was instructed by the Father as his God, since he decided not to use his position independently. Jesus never referred to his Father as "our Father" in prayer together with others. Father was a term for the Jews who were in covenant with God . Jesus who being God in nature was divine and equal in all respects to God could not call God his Father as we do, being adopted children. God was his Father in a different sense than ours, in that they were united together from eternity. So he makes a distinction of "my" and "our". " "When Christ prayed to the Father, you have the Son on earth the Father in heaven. this is not separation but divine disposition. now we know that God is within the depth's and exists everywhere, but in might and power, the Son being, indivisible from the Father is everywhere with him, yet in the economy, the Father willed that the Son should be found on the Earth, himself ( the Father ) in heaven." (Tetullian.) What he is explaining is that the omni-presence of God is everywhere yet the location of his persons are in different areas. ( Jn.11:41-42,12:28, 17:1-26)

Mt. 26:39-42 In Gethsamane he prays three times to the Father in doing his will. Why does he ask for the Father to let this cup pass if he is God, Isn’t this like asking himself? Jesus' ( 2nd person of God ) was God communing with God the Father (1st person of God ). Jesus is struggling over the soon and coming separation he will experience with the Father. He is asking if there be another way so he will not experience this. Otherwise he has his own human will that is not submitted to God and he is sinning. The concept the scriptures portray of the crucifixion is not that God died but that he was separated spiritually and died in the flesh . In Gethsamane it was the cup that Jesus asked to be removed. If he was praying that he would not have to experience physical death he would be rejecting the very reason he came. His obedience is shown as in Phil.2 says even to the death on the cross. He would not be praying for the very purpose of his coming to be removed.

This is why the cults deny the deity of Christ because they recognize that these are two different persons. It is because of their preconceived ideas and training that God is strictly singular. In their attempt to uphold Monotheism they cannot receive the teaching of his nature being triune, they then lose the Son of God as a distinct person.

http://www.letusreason.org/Trin6.htm

2007-05-31T07:14:00.000-07:00

This Contraption Called Relevance
May 29th, 2007

Our contemporary religious contraptions are as much a ramshackle as a 19th century hair styling machine. They are every bit as dangerous, producing results every bit as ugly, and are destined for the scrap yard as time ushers in obsolescence. Such is the destiny of invention. It is both a milestone and a tombstone of time. The book, “Prophetic Untimeliness ” by Os Guinness, addresses one of our religious contraptions, called “relevance”, and persuasively argues the point that “relevance” is a cultural cage of the present. It divorces us from the past where the faith was once for all delivered (to be passed from generation to generation), and it obfuscates the path to our future.

A mere 111 pages, the book can be read in a Saturday afternoon. But I have read it over and over for two weeks now, and passages of Scripture continue to flood to my mind. Passages, for example, where Jesus says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away” (Luke 21:33), and where He warns us that various men will say, “‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or ‘There He is’” while instructing, “Do not believe him” (Matt. 24:23.) Other passages like, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Cor. 2:9) and “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9.)

Guinness makes this point in his introduction: “After two hundred years of earnest dedication to reinventing the faith and the church and to being more relevant in the world, we are confronted by an embarrassing fact: Never have Christians pursued relevance more strenuously; never have Christians been more irrelevant.”

He continues on, “Relevance is not the problem…the good news of Jesus Christ is utterly relevant or it is not the good news it claims to be.”

Indeed, if that is true (I believe it is), then why for heavens sake do we worry ourselves to death about relevance? The reason must be an ignorance (and resultant distrust) of the inspired Word of God, and the Gospel it contains. Guinness establishes that we are in a losing race against time where what is relevant is always becoming irrelevant. The only mitigating agent to anything so bounded by the clock, can only be that which is not bounded by the clock (hence, the recollection of Luke 21:23.)

Man tries to compensate for this losing race against time through a tactic called “relevance”. That tactic, according to Guinness, is idolatrous.

Consider the blogged brouhaha about movies a couple of weeks ago. I believe that incorporating movies into the illustrative teaching of the church is wrong, essentially because God did not ordain the pagan mouth to declare the Truth of the gospel. The distinction about the source of Truth is paramount to discernment: Jesus said, “If anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or ‘There He is”, we must cognitively respond, “No, He is not.” To be more plainspoken, the claim that Hollywood’s Superman points to “the real Superman, Jesus Christ”, is the idolatry of relevance that Oz Guinness writes about. Christ’s repetitive warnings in Matthew 24 inform the Christian, “No, Christ is not found there”. The model of Christ is not in Superman anymore than he who poses as an angel of light is a model of the Son of God, compelling as it may be (Matt. 24:24.) On that basis, at least, the preacher is not at liberty to declare pagan works as a preachable source from which we can derive vital Truth.

Our problem is that we have become “put-a-coin-in-the-slot-and-pull-the-lever Christians”. We are not really sowing, but we are teaching that God is reaping: and that is a violently dangerous position to take according to Matthew 25:26-30. Relevance is the first cousin to impatience, and impatience is the reason for developing appealing methodologies. It is a whole lot more fun to “worship” under the bright lights of a production, or to “develop a relationship” at Starbucks, than it is to simply sit in our neighbor’s kitchen and talk to them about the peril of our sin.

For example, do you remember Campus Crusade’s “Here’s Life America” campaign in 1976? Based on the marketing methods of Coca Cola (“Coke Adds Life”), Campus Crusade devised a “relevant” message designed to appeal to culture’s quest for a fulfilling life. That campaign, if you read about it today, was an utter failure when compared to the number of people reached and the money spent to do it. At the time, the campaign allegedly amassed some 300,000 Christians to promote “I Found It!” buttons, bumper stickers, and billboards. It was reported by TIME Magazine that over 60 million homes were exposed to the campaign. I remember the TV ads here in Dayton where local church members sat on stools and told the viewers they had found “it” and gave the toll-free “I Found It!” phone number where the “Four Spiritual Laws” would be offered to the caller. But the public became rapidly aware of the slick marketing method to shove religion down their throats, and the campaign’s effectiveness declined as commercial and billboard contracts expired. The whole process proved that Romans 3:11, written around 56 A.D., was as relevant in 1976 as was the original utterance of that verse in Psalm 53:1-3 some nine hundred years before Christ. In other words, there is no substitute for the effectiveness of an individual Christian witnessing in earnest to an unbeliever, giving them the full gospel from God’s Word every day, wherever we are. The flash-in-the-pan method is not nearly effective as the daily, consistent witness of a Christian whose mouth is bold to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Consider: if only 50% of those 300,000 people were to witness personally to only one person a day, only 270 work-days per year since 1976, they would have witnessed to over 1-1/4 billion people by now. And if only one person per witness became a Christian ten years later, and that new Christian only witnessed to one person per month for the next 21 years, there would be another 38 million people truly reached through personal evangelism by now. Such a simple method, which is repeatedly demonstrated in the Bible, depends on a genuine concern for souls. It is, after all, the second commandment: loving your neighbor as yourself.

But Matthew 7:21-23 tells about people who are consumed with doing something utterly contrary to God’s will. Obviously, their goals are flat wrong, and they were deceived by their own methods. In the Laodicean sense, they appear to be good for nothing (Rev. 9:16) and care only for themselves (v. 17.)

As Matthew 7:21-23 and Revelation 3:14-22 make clear, methodologists are simply not performing the ultimate commission of preaching the gospel to lost souls, despite their lip service to the contrary. We know of a man who was not really concerned about souls, and brazenly rejected God’s plain instruction to reach them. That man was initially good for nothing, bringing about havoc in his dereliction, and was eventually spit out of the mouth of a fish. Can the symbolism with Laodicea be any more clear? As a result of his disobedience to his commission, Jonah was swallowed by a great fish. I find it compelling that the fish spit Jonah out after his prayer of repentance. I do not believe that Jesus enjoys coercing His blood-purchased servants into action, anymore than God was pleased to coerce Jonah; nor do I believe that Jesus is pleased with my pseudo-repentant whining every time I ask Him to withhold discipline for my willful disobedience. We are all legends in our own minds, inventing evangelistic contraptions in the name of Christ. But neither the Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit are amused by our contrivances or our disingenuous lip-service. It is God who has bought us; it is God whom we serve! Has that even sunk into our heads, yet, that we might glorify Him in our bodies?

Given today’s “relevant church”, with its budgets, methods, and schemes, I cannot help but believe that we are setting ourselves up for a Jonah-like coercion toward repentance, and a cataclysmic vomiting. God wants this world properly evangelized before His great day of wrath, just as he wanted Nineveh reached.

So let’s just boil this down. We’ve got our relevant methods: Christian radio, Christian TV, Christian phone books, Christian coffee houses, Christian Schools, Christian News, and Christian Talk Shows. Many churches now rival professionally-staged productions, while others have adopted as much of the culturally-conforming presentation as their riches can afford. Even to all of that plausibly-permissible environment and technology, we add the dung of Hollywood to our preaching and call it “being relevant”; we add the psychology of Carl Jung to the evaluation of a man’s fitness for church-planting; and we evaluate the effectiveness of church growth based on statistical models. Seeing as how we’ve defined our own criteria for miracles and provision, one wonders what the Holy Spirit is doing?

Meanwhile, a large percentage of Christians saturated in the above methods are dedicating their personal time to the electronic coliseum called “reality entertainment”. We know the stats of NASCAR drivers, the rules of our favorite sports, the debauchery of the latest entertainer, the grossest antic of the current Survivor, who the next American Idol is, but we can’t explain the gospel on demand. We will erupt passionately over the War in Iraq, our political views, or the unfair nature of jobs being sent overseas — but we won’t dare to confront anyone on the state of their soul unless we spend the next year ostensibly “developing a relationship” or at least “earning the right” to speak with them.

Do we really believe that the Creator of mankind Himself is capable of communicating through the mouths of His people, or not? Evidently we do not. God communicated to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and others without any help from man’s novel methods, thank you very much. And here we in these latter times have the most miraculous communication from God ever dropped into the lap of man called the Bible. Indeed, we have the whole Bible. One wonders why we cannot be content with nothing but the Bible. It is a fair question, which goes straight to the heart of whether we really want to be genuinely relevant.

http://blog.breformed.com/?p=8

2007-05-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

Too Much Originality

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called. (1 Timothy 6:20)

Some preachers have such a phobia for repetition and such an unnatural fear of the familiar that they are forever straining after the odd and the startling. The church page of the newspaper almost any Saturday will be sure to announce at least one or two sermon topics so far astray as to be positively grotesque; only by the most daring flight of uncontrolled imagination can any relation be established between the topic and the religion of Christ. We dare not impugn the honesty or the sincerity of the men who thus flap their short wings so rapidly in an effort to take off into the wild blue yonder, but we do deplore their attitudes. No one should try to be more original than an apostle. GTMan144.

"Give me a word from heaven, Father, that will fly without my weak efforts at cute originality! Amen."

(A.W. Tozer, Tozer on Christian Leadership, May 29)

2007-05-24T11:50:00.000-07:00

What’s Inside the Trojan Horse?
By John MacArthur

By God’s grace, I have been the pastor of the same church now for nearly forty years. From that vantage point, I have witnessed the birth and growth of menacing trends within the church, several of which have converged under what I would call evangelical pragmatism — an approach to ministry that is endemic in contemporary Christianity.

What is pragmatism? Basically it is a philosophy that says that results determine meaning, truth, and value — what will work becomes a more important question than what is true. As Christians, we are called to trust what the Lord says, preach that message to others, and leave the results to Him. But many have set that aside. Seeking relevancy and success, they have welcomed the pragmatic approach and have received the proverbial Trojan horse.

Let me take a few minutes to explain a little of the history leading up to the current entrenchment of the pragmatic approach in the evangelical church and to show you why it isn’t as innocent as it looks.

Recent History

The 1970s, for the most part, were years of spiritual revival in America. The spread of the gospel through the campuses of many colleges and universities marked a fresh, energetic movement of the Holy Spirit to draw people to salvation in Christ. Mass baptisms were conducted in rivers, lakes, and the ocean, several new versions of the English Bible were released, and Christian publishing and broadcasting experienced remarkable growth.

Sadly, the fervent evangelical revival slowed and was overshadowed by the greed and debauchery of the eighties and nineties. The surrounding culture rejected biblical standards of morality, and the church, rather than assert its distinctiveness and call the world to repentance, softened its stance on holiness. The failure to maintain a distinctively biblical identity was profound — it led to general spiritual apathy and a marked decline in church attendance.

Church leaders reacted to the world’s indifference, not by a return to strong biblical preaching that emphasized sin and repentance, but by a pragmatic approach to “doing” church — an approach driven more by marketing, methodology, and perceived results than by biblical doctrine. The new model of ministry revolved around making sinners feel comfortable and at ease in the church, then selling them on the benefits of becoming a Christian. Earlier silence has given way to cultural appeasement and conformity.

Even the church’s ministry to its own has changed. Entertainment has hijacked many pulpits across the country; contemporary approaches cater to the ever-changing whims of professing believers; and many local churches have become little more than social clubs and community centers where the focus is on the individual’s felt needs. Even on Christian radio, phone-in talk shows, music, and live psychotherapy are starting to replace Bible teaching as the staple. “Whatever works,” the mantra of pragmatism, has become the new banner of evangelicalism.

The Down-Grade Controversy

You may be surprised to learn that what we are now seeing is not new. England’s most famous preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, dealt with a similar situation more than 100 years ago. Among churches that were once solid, Spurgeon and other faithful pastors noticed a conciliatory attitude toward and overt cooperation with the modernist movement. And what motivated the compromise? They sought to find acceptance by adopting the “sophisticated” trends of the culture. Does that sound familiar to you?

One article, published anonymously in Spurgeon’s monthly magazine The Sword and the Trowel, noted that every revival of true evangelical faith had been followed within a generation or two by a drift away from sound doctrine, ultimately leading to wholesale apostasy. The author likened this drifting from truth to a downhill slope, and thus labeled it “the down grade.” The inroads of modernism into the church killed ninety percent of the mainline denominations within a generation of Spurgeon’s death. Spurgeon himself, once the celebrated and adored herald of the Baptist Union, was marginalized by the society and he eventually withdrew his membership.

The Effects of Pragmatism

Many of today’s church leaders have bought into the subtlety of pragmatism without recognizing the dangers it poses. Instead of attacking orthodoxy head on, evangelical pragmatism gives lip service to the truth while quietly undermining the foundations of doctrine. Instead of exalting God, it effectively denigrates the things that are precious to Him.

First, there is in vogue today a trend to make the basis of faith something other than God’s Word. Experience, emotion, fashion, and popular opinion are often more authoritative than the Bible in determining what many Christians believe. From private, individual revelation to the blending of secular psychology with biblical “principles,” Christians are listening to the voice of the serpent that once told Eve, “God’s Word doesn’t have all the answers.” Christian counseling reflects that drift, frequently offering no more than experimental and unscriptural self-help therapy instead of solid answers from the Bible.

Christian missionary work is often riddled with pragmatism and compromise, because too many in missions have evidently concluded that what gets results is more important than what God says. That’s true among local churches as well. It has become fashionable to forgo the proclamation and teaching of God’s Word in worship services. Instead, churches serve up a paltry diet of drama, music, and other forms of entertainment.

Second, evangelical pragmatism tends to move the focus of faith away from God’s Son. You’ve seen that repeatedly if you watch much religious television. The health-wealth-and-prosperity gospel advocated by so many televangelists is the ultimate example of this kind of fantasy faith. This false gospel appeals unabashedly to the flesh, corrupting all the promises of Scripture and encouraging greed. It makes material blessing, not Jesus Christ, the object of the Christian’s desires.

Easy-believism handles the message differently, but the effect is the same. It is the promise of forgiveness minus the gospel’s hard demands, the perfect message for pragmatists. It has done much to popularize “believing” but little to provoke sincere faith.

Christ is no longer the focus of the message. While His name is mentioned from time to time, the real focus is inward, not upward. People are urged to look within; to try to understand themselves; to come to grips with their problems, their hurts, their disappointments; to have their needs met, their desires granted, their wants fulfilled. Nearly all the popular versions of the message encourage and legitimize a self-centered perspective.

Third, today’s Christianity is infected with a tendency to view the result of faith as something less than God’s standard of holy living. By downplaying the importance of holy living–both by precept and by example–the biblical doctrine of conversion is undermined. Think about it: What more could Satan do to try to destroy the church than undermining God’s Word, shifting the focus off Christ, and minimizing holy living?

All those things are happening slowly, steadily within the church right now. Tragically, most Christians seem oblivious to the problems, satisfied with a Christianity that is fashionable and highly visible. But the true church must not ignore those threats. If we fight to maintain doctrinal purity with an emphasis on biblical preaching and biblical ministry, we can conquer external attacks. But if error is allowed into the church, many more churches will slide down the grade to suffer the same fate as the denominations that listened to, yet ignored, Spurgeon’s impassioned appeal.

Make it your habitual prayer request that the Lord would elevate the authority of His Word, the glory of His Son, and the purity of His people in the evangelical church. May the Lord revive us and keep us far from the slippery slope of pragmatism.

http://www.gty.org/resources.php?section=articles&aid=44

2007-05-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

The Old Cross And The New
By A.W. Tozer

ALL UNANNOUNCED AND MOSTLY UNDETECTED there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, fundamental.

From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life, and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique-a new type of meeting and a new kind of preaching. This new evangelism employs the same language as the old, but its content is not the same and its emphasis not as before.

The old cross would have no truck with the world. For Adam's proud flesh it meant the end of the journey. It carried into effect the sentence imposed by the law of Sinai. The new cross is not opposed to the human race; rather, it is a friendly pal and, if understood aright, it is the source of oceans of good clean fun and innocent enjoyment. It lets Adam live without interference. His life motivation is unchanged; he still lives for his own pleasure, only now he takes delight in singing choruses and watching religious movies instead of singing bawdy songs and drinking hard liquor. The accent is still on enjoyment, though the fun is now on a higher plane morally if not intellectually.

The new cross encourages a new and entirely different evangelistic approach. The evangelist does not demand abnegation of the old life before a new life can be received. He preaches not contrasts but similarities. He seeks to key into public interest by showing that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level. Whatever the sin-mad world happens to be clamoring after at the moment is cleverly shown to be the very thing the gospel offers, only the religious product is better.

The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect. To the self-assertive it says, "Come and assert yourself for Christ." To the egotist it says, "Come and do your boasting in the Lord." To the thrill seeker it says, "Come and enjoy the thrill of Christian fellowship." The Christian message is slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to make it acceptable to the public.

The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be sincere but its sincerity does not save it from being false. It is false because it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross.

The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-by to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all of the man, completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more.

The race of Adam is under death sentence. There is no commutation and no escape. God cannot approve any of the fruits of sin, however innocent they may appear or beautiful to the eyes of men. God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life.

That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways of God and the ways of men is false to the Bible and cruel to the souls of its hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallel the world, it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die.

We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.

God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It stands always on the far side of the cross. Whoever would possess it must pass under the rod. He must repudiate himself and concur in God's just sentence against him.

What does this mean to the individual, the condemned man who would find life in Christ Jesus? How can this theology be translated into life? Simply, he must repent and believe. He must forsake his sins and then go on to forsake himself. Let him cover nothing, defend nothing, excuse nothing. Let him not seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God's stern displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die.

Having done this let him gaze with simple trust upon the risen Saviour, and from Him will come life and rebirth and cleansing and power. The cross that ended the earthly life of Jesus now puts an end to the sinner; and the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ.

To any who may object to this or count it merely a narrow and private view of truth, let me say God has set His hallmark of approval upon this message from Paul's day to the present. Whether stated in these exact words or not, this has been the content of all preaching that has brought life and power to the world through the centuries. The mystics, the reformers, the revivalists have put their emphasis here, and signs and wonders and mighty operations of the Holy Ghost gave witness to God's approval.

Dare we, the heirs of such a legacy of power, tamper with the truth? Dare we with our stubby pencils erase the lines of the blueprint or alter the pattern shown us in the Mount? May God forbid. Let us preach the old cross and we will know the old power.

(A. W. Tozer, Man, the Dwelling Place of God, 1966)

2007-05-22T07:46:00.000-07:00

"And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as Doctrine, the Commandments of Men"

"Hostility toward unbending Biblical Christianity is rising fast, exposing today’s double-minded guides who bend the truth to please people and broaden their influence. Ponder these statements by three trusted models of Christian leadership. Are they teaching God’s Truth — or promoting a more popular postmodern distortion?"

The above statement is very Prophetic, even Churches which believe they are not part of this growing trend are part of it by allowing through "the back door" teaching that goes beyond the Truth of God's word and add to it a private interpretation which plays into the hands of Satan. Relativism has permeated the minds of the vast majority of churches and their leadership in Western Christianity, a tough thing to say but unfortunately true. When you allow a Church Leadership to go beyond what the Bible says you are in effect saying that their words carry the same weight as the words of the Prophets of the Old Testament, of Jesus and the Apostles words in the New Testament.

As Peter said in 2 Peter 1:19-21:

"And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit."

The Prophets of the Old Testament did not speak of their own words but were given the words by the Holy Spirit to speak, and therefore we include their words as part of the infallible word of God, or the Canon of Scripture (The Bible). So any Prophetic word given today or any teaching given today must line up with their words and the words of Christ and the Apostles in the New Testament and cannot add to them, take away from them or depart from their explicit meaning. It was fitting that Jesus spoke to John the Revelator in Revelations 22:18-19 the following words:

"For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."

Jesus also spoke the following words in Matthew 11:13-14: "For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive [it], this is Elias, which was for to come."

In other words the Law and the Prophets in the Old Testament and John the Baptist pointed to Jesus. All Prophecy has to point towards Jesus, no prophecy or teaching of today that is valid can point away from Jesus or de-emphasize him in any way.

This is the slippery slope where Tradition came in to the Catholic Church, was raised up to have the same binding affect as Scripture on those who are of the Catholic Faith, and hence where the Catholic Church departed from the truth. It is the same slippery slope that the Ancient Israelites went down, and by the time of Jesus day they had departed from the truth. "And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as Doctrine, the Commandments of Men" Matthew 15:9

Once you decided to cast yourself adrift and add to, take away or attempt to re-interpret Scripture especially from sources that are known have walked away from truth and become blind to it, you have lost all ability to claim to know truth and to stand in truth. And further the discernment to know truth which comes from Holy Spirit will depart from you. You will then become ready prey for the false spirit of this age, which is unity over truth.

Watch the leadership of your church, the Teachers, the Pastors, are they going too far into intellectualism and attempting to stretch the word beyond what it says in the Bible? Are they leaning too far into fallen interpretations and commentaries? Such as Jewish Rabbinical teachings, or de-emphasizing the Trinity and Jesus as a co-equal PERSON in the Trinity, to re-interpret the word which diminishes who Jesus is? Do they give accomodation to religious traditions that have departed from truth or do they give positive words or refuse to admonish those who are well known and speak words that do not line up with the word of God?

If they are doing this they are playing into the hands of Satan and the Spirit of the Age, which is to latch on to AND emphasize ANY teaching that diminishes who Jesus is for the sake of unity, again, emphasizing UNITY over stressing who Jesus is. We are quickly losing the truth that the Gospel is meant to cause offense to many. It was never meant to unify ALL people. The very concept of exclusive truth pre-ordains that it will cause offense to many. Oh brothers and sisters the days are dark and the deceit is growing, pray that God will give you insight and whatever it takes to keep you in truth.

I strongly recommend the article lnked below.

God Bless and Stand Fast in the Faith which was first delivered unto you!

John Baker

Trading Truth for Solidarity - Part 1
From Pentecost to Pluralism

http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/007/pluralism.htm

2007-05-17T08:02:00.000-07:00

We are in a Famine: The Poverty Business

some extracts from the article:

"Inside U.S. companies' audacious drive to extract more profits from the nation's working poor . . . ."

"But this remaking of the marketplace for low-income consumers has a dark side: Innovative and zealous firms have lured unsophisticated shoppers by the hundreds of thousands into a thicket of debt from which many never emerge. . . . . "

"Federal Reserve data show that in relative terms, that debt is getting more expensive. In 1989 households earning $30,000 or less a year paid an average annual interest rate on auto loans that was 16.8% higher than what households earning more than $90,000 a year paid. By 2004 the discrepancy had soared to 56.1%. Roughly the same thing happened with mortgage loans: a leap from a 6.4% gap to one of 25.5%. "It's not only that the poor are paying more; the poor are paying a lot more," says Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. . . . "

"Why bother grabbing for the few dollars in a broke man's pocket? Now there's a reason. . . . "

"In some instances, marketers essentially use products as the bait to hook less-well-off shoppers on expensive loans. "It's the finance business," explains Russ Darrow Jr., a Byrider franchisee in Milwaukee. "Cars happen to be the commodity that we sell." In another variation, tax-preparation services offer instant refunds, skimming off hefty fees. . . . "

"The only feasible way to run a capitalist society is to allow companies to maximize their profits," says Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "That will sometimes include allowing them to sell things to people that will sometimes make them worse off. . . . "

"Now, he says, a growing number of sizable corporations are realizing that viewed in the aggregate, the working poor are a choice target. Income for the 40 million U.S. households earning $30,000 or less totaled $650 billion in 2004, according to Federal Reserve data. . . . "

"Thomas finances much of what she buys, but admits she usually doesn't understand the terms. "What do you call it—interest?" she asks, sounding confused. Two years ago she borrowed $400 for rent and food from Advance America Cash Advance Centers Inc. (AEA), a payday chain. She renewed the loan every two weeks until last November, paying more than $2,500 in fees. . . . "

"A public housing administrator who reviews tenants' tax returns pointed out to Thomas that Jackson Hewitt had pared $453, or 10.4%, in tax-prep fees and interest from Thomas' anticipated refund. . . . "

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_21/b4035001.htm

Our country is lving out Amos 8:

“The end has come upon my people Israel; I will not pass by them anymore. And the songs of the temple shall be wailing in that day,” Says the Lord GOD— “Many dead bodies everywhere, they shall be thrown out in silence.” Hear this, you who swallow up the needy, And make the poor of the land fail, Saying:

“When will the New Moon be past that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may trade wheat? Making the ephah small and the shekel large, Falsifying the scales by deceit, that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals— Even sell the bad wheat?” The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:

“Surely I will never forget any of their works. Shall the land not tremble for this, And everyone mourn who dwells in it? All of it shall swell like the River, Heave and subside Like the River of Egypt. “And it shall come to pass in that day,” says the Lord GOD, “That I will make the sun go down at noon, And I will darken the earth in broad daylight; I will turn your feasts into mourning, And all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist, And baldness on every head;

I will make it like mourning for an only son,And its end like a bitter day. “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord GOD, “That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, And from north to east; They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD, But shall not find it.“In that day the fair virgins And strong young men Shall faint from thirst. Those who swear by the sin of Samaria, Who say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan!’ And, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives!’ They shall fall and never rise again.”

2007-05-16T15:24:00.000-07:00

VOM News and Prayer Update: May 15, 2007

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:Fear God and keep His commandments,For this is man's all.For God will bring every work into judgment,Including every secret thing,Whether good or evil."(Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)

CUBA UPDATE: Pastor Summoned to Court – VOM SourcesPastor Carlos Lamelas has been summoned to appear in court on Tuesday, May 15, 2007. Even though he does not know why, he thinks it is because he needs to be given his "innocent verdict" in person. At the same time, he feels this could be the Cuban communist government's ploy to send him back to prison. Pray God will intervene in this situation. Ask him to encourage Pastor Lamelas and his family. Pray Christians in Cuba remain steadfast in their faith in Jesus. Psalm 51:10, Isaiah 26:3-4

CHINA UPDATE: House Church Leader and Mother Still in Prison – China Aid AssociationPastor Hua Huiqi and his elderly mother Shuang Shuying are still in prison. According to China Aid Association (CAA), Pastor Hua's trial will likely open in two weeks and his mother Shuang Shuying is being held in a medical center. "She is seriously sick and has been treated in that medical center since her sentencing. She is held in the kitchen hall in a one bedroom apartment-like prison cell with two other female prisoners. There are two PSB female police officers observing her 24/7. The doctor said she is too weak to be put in a formal prison because of her heart problem, diabetes and other medical problems," CAA said. Pray for healing for Shuang Shuying. Ask God to encourage Pastor Hua and his family as he prepares to go to trial. 2 Corinthians 1:3-7

PAKISTAN Muslim Radicals Introduce Anti-Christian Law; Christians Receive Threatening Letters – VOM Sources

The Voice of the Martyrs sources in Pakistan report that Muslim radicals have introduced a law in Parliament that any Muslim who converts to Christianity should be killed. Although the details are sketchy, intercede for this situation and ask God to move so this law does not go into effect. Pray God encourages Christians in Pakistan to be a witness for Him in spite of persecution.

CHARSADDA – On May 7, 2007, Christians in the Charsadda District received letters warning them to shut their churches and convert to Islam. The letter that set a 10-day deadline said, "All Christians should convert to Islam within 10 days or leave Charsadda. We will execute all of you if you don't convert to Islam." Copies of the handwritten letter were delivered to two churches and several Christian homes in Charsadda. Even though the police have been alerted, Christians in the area are concerned for their safety. A similar letter was delivered to believers in Mardan district. Pray God gives Christians in Charsadda courage to stand for Him. Ask for protection and peace to surround them during these uncertain times.
Deuteronomy 31:6

INDIA UPDATE: Pastor Released After One Year in Prison – VOM SourcesIn Orissa state on May 2, 2007, Pastor Jeremiah Mahji was released after spending a year in prison. The Voice of the Martyrs contacts report that since Pastor Jeremiah's release, there have been repeated phone calls threatening that his son, Pastor Nehusena, will be killed. Thank God for the release of Pastor Jeremiah. Pray God protects their family and believers in India. Ask that their testimony will bring others into the knowledge of God. Romans 15:1-6

TURKMENISTAN Pastor Jailed in Labor Camp for Three Years – Forum 18 NewsOn May 14, 2007, Baptist preacher Vyacheslav Kalataevsky was jailed for three years in a labor camp for illegally crossing the border in 2001, establishing a prayer house and organizing meetings for Christian Baptists. According to Forum 18 News, his family insists the sentence was imposed to punish him for his activity with the unregistered Baptist congregation in the city. Vyacheslav told the court today in his closing statement that officials have a hostile attitude to him because of his faith. "This is backed up by the fact that as soon as he was arrested in March, the questions were all about his religious activity, not about crossing the border," the family told Forum News. Pray for this pastor and his family. Pray his testimony will draw non-believers into the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Psalm 10:17, 2 Corinthians 7:4

http://www.persecution.com/emailUpdate/PrinterPrayers.htm

2007-05-16T13:38:00.000-07:00

Rick Warren's Pal's at Council on Foreign Relations Call for End To National Currencies:

Rick Warren claims to be a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, A Washington Think Tank made up of International Intellectuals, Ex-Presidents, Ex-Government Officials, and Ex-Military Leaders. The CFR's main goal is the removal of all National Borders to end what they call Nationalism induced war and suffering.

Quote from the article:

"But the world can do better. Since economic development outside the process of globalization is no longer possible, countries should abandon monetary nationalism. Governments should replace national currencies with the dollar or the euro or, in the case of Asia, collaborate to produce a new multinational currency over a comparably large and economically diversified area.

Europeans used to say that being a country required having a national airline, a stock exchange, and a currency. Today, no European country is any worse off without them. Even grumpy Italy has benefited enormously from the lower interest rates and permanent end to lira speculation that accompanied its adoption of the euro. A future pan-Asian currency, managed according to the same principle of targeting low and stable inflation, would represent the most promising way for China to fully liberalize its financial and capital markets without fear of damaging renminbi speculation (the Chinese economy is only the size of California's and Florida's combined). Most of the world's smaller and poorer countries would clearly be best off unilaterally adopting the dollar or the euro, which would enable their safe and rapid integration into global financial markets. Latin American countries should dollarize; eastern European countries and Turkey, euroize. Broadly speaking, this prescription follows from relative trade flows, but there are exceptions; Argentina, for example, does more eurozone than U.S. trade, but Argentines think and save in dollars.

Of course, dollarizing countries must give up independent monetary policy as a tool of government macroeconomic management. But since the Holy Grail of monetary policy is to get interest rates down to the lowest level consistent with low and stable inflation, an argument against dollarization on this ground is, for most of the world, frivolous. How many Latin American countries can cut interest rates below those in the United States? The average inflation-adjusted lending rate in Latin America is about 20 percent. One must therefore ask what possible boon to the national economy developing-country central banks can hope to achieve from the ability to guide nominal local rates up and down on a discretionary basis. It is like choosing a Hyundai with manual transmission over a Lexus with automatic: the former gives the driver more control but at the cost of inferior performance under any condition. . . . . . . . ."

The End of National Currency is the most astonishing thing that I have read since Zbigniew Brzezinski’s appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this year.

Foreign Affairs is the most important and influential journal of International Relations in the world. It is the mechanism by which the Council on Foreign Relations disseminates the game plan to people in polite circles. CFR’s positions on core issues represent the raw building blocks for most of the gibberish spewed by corporate television, radio & newspaper media.

Publications like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are dumbed down versions of Foreign Affairs that are published daily. Television news is the same thing, but dumbed down again. Foreign Affairs is also where politicians from several countries look to determine what’s safe to say, which policies are doable and what needs to be done. A degree in International Relations is largely a certification of a student’s ability to internalize CFR jargon and concepts.

Got the picture?

Now, what did the most important and influential journal of International Relations in the world just say about the U.S. Dollar and the global economy?

In summary: The U.S. dollar is an “absurdity” and the only way to stave off a global disaster is for most countries to join one of three global currencies, based loosely on: the dollar, the euro and a pan Asian currency.

I encourage everyone to read The End of National Currency in its entirety, but I’ll quote some more from this article below:

The dollar’s privileged status as today’s global money is not heaven-bestowed. The dollar is ultimately just another money supported only by faith that others will willingly accept it in the future in return for the same sort of valuable things it bought in the past. This puts a great burden on the institutions of the U.S. government to validate that faith. And those institutions, unfortunately, are failing to shoulder that burden. Reckless U.S. fiscal policy is undermining the dollar’s position even as the currency’s role as a global money is expanding.

Four decades ago, the renowned French economist Jacques Rueff, writing just a few years before the collapse of the Bretton Woods dollar-based gold-exchange standard, argued that the system “attains such a degree of absurdity that no human brain having the power to reason can defend it.” The precariousness of the dollar’s position today is similar. The United States can run a chronic balance-of-payments deficit and never feel the effects. Dollars sent abroad immediately come home in the form of loans, as dollars are of no use abroad. “If I had an agreement with my tailor that whatever money I pay him he returns to me the very same day as a loan,” Rueff explained by way of analogy, “I would have no objection at all to ordering more suits from him.”

With the U.S. current account deficit running at an enormous 6.6 percent of GDP (about $2 billion a day must be imported to sustain it), the United States is in the fortunate position of the suit buyer with a Chinese tailor who instantaneously returns his payments in the form of loans — generally, in the U.S. case, as purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds. The current account deficit is partially fueled by the budget deficit (a dollar more of the latter yields about 20-50 cents more of the former), which will soar in the next decade in the absence of reforms to curtail federal “entitlement” spending on medical care and retirement benefits for a longer-living population. The United States — and, indeed, its Chinese tailor — must therefore be concerned with the sustainability of what Rueff called an “absurdity.” In the absence of long-term fiscal prudence, the United States risks undermining the faith foreigners have placed in its management of the dollar — that is, their belief that the U.S. government can continue to sustain low inflation without having to resort to growth-crushing interest-rate hikes as a means of ensuring continued high capital inflows
…
At the turn of the twentieth century — the height of the gold standard — Simmel commented, “Although money with no intrinsic value would be the best means of exchange in an ideal social order, until that point is reached the most satisfactory form of money may be that which is bound to a material substance.” Today, with money no longer bound to any material substance, it is worth asking whether the world even approximates the “ideal social order” that could sustain a fiat dollar as the foundation of the global financial system. There is no way effectively to insure against the unwinding of global imbalances should China, with over a trillion dollars of reserves, and other countries with dollar-rich central banks come to fear the unbearable lightness of their holdings.

2007-05-13T19:43:00.000-07:00

An Ape is just an Ape After All!

Well according to this article, evolutionists have lost a prized find in their battle to prove the theory-tale of evolution. "Lucy" appears to be just another type of gorilla-like ape:

Israeli researchers: 'Lucy' is not direct ancestor of humans

Tel Aviv University anthropologists say they have disproven the theory that "Lucy" - the world-famous 3.2-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis skeleton found in Ethiopia 33 years ago - is the last ancestor common to humans and another branch of the great apes family known as the "Robust hominids."

The specific structure found in Lucy also appears in a species called Australopithecus robustus. Prof. Yoel Rak and colleagues at the Sackler School of Medicine's department of anatomy and anthropology wrote, "The presence of the morphology in both the latter and Australopithecus afarensis and its absence in modern humans cast doubt on the role of [Lucy] as a common ancestor."

The robust hominids were discovered in southern Africa 69 years ago and are believed to have lived between 2 million and 1.2 million years ago. Their jaws and jaw muscles were adapted to the dry environment in which they lived.

Rak and colleagues studied 146 mature primate bone specimens, including those from modern humans, gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans and found that the "ramus element" of the mandible connecting the lower jaw to the skull is like that of the robust forms, therefore eliminating the possibility that Lucy and her kind are Man's direct ancestors. They should therefore, the Israeli researchers said, "be placed as the beginning of the branch that evolved in parallel to ours."

Their research has just been published in the on-line edition of PNAS, the Proceedings of the [US] National Academy of Sciences.

Lucy, which means "you are wonderful" in Amharic, was discovered (40 percent of its skeleton) by the International Afar Research Expedition in Ethiopia's Awash Valley. Fitting the bones together, they said it was an upright walking hominid (Homo sapiens, which comprises modern Man and extinct manlike species). They later found its jaws and additional bones.

Further analysis led the Afar researchers to believe it was of a female, and the skeleton listed as AL 288-1 was nicknamed Lucy because the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" was often played at the camp.

The specimen was only 1.1 meters tall, estimated to weigh 29 kilograms and look somewhat like a common chimpanzee. Although it had a small brain, the pelvis and leg bones were almost identical in function with those of modern humans, proving that these hominids had walked erect.

Although fossils closer to chimpanzees have been found since then, Lucy - which is housed in the national museum in Addis Ababa - is prized by anthropologists who study Man's origin.
Rak and his colleagues also wrote that the structure of Lucy's mandibular ramus closely matches that of gorillas, which was "unexpected" because chimpanzees are the closest living relatives of humans, and not gorillas.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1176152801536&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

2007-05-11T10:32:00.000-07:00

You Won’t Reach It on Tiptoe

"Add to your brotherliness . . . love." (2 Peter 1:7)

Love is indefinite to most of us, we do not know what we mean when we talk about love. Love is the sovereign preference of one person for another, and spiritually Jesus demands that that preference be for Himself (cf. Luke 14:26). When the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ is easily first; then we must practise the working out of these things mentioned by Peter.

The first thing God does is to knock pretence and the pious pose right out of me. The Holy Spirit reveals that God loved me not because I was lovable, but because it was His nature to do so. Now, He says to me, show the same love to others - "Love as I have loved you." "I will bring any number of people about you whom you cannot respect, and you must exhibit My love to them as I have exhibited it to you." You won’t reach it on tiptoe. Some of us have tried to, but we were soon tired.

"The Lord suffereth long. . . ." Let me look within and see His dealings with me. The knowledge that God has loved me to the uttermost, to the end of all my sin and meanness and selfishness and wrong, will send me forth into the world to love in the same way. God’s love to me is inexhaustible, and I must love others from the bedrock of God’s love to me. Growth in grace stops the moment I get huffed. I get huffed because I have a peculiar person to live with. Just think how disagreeable I have been to God! Am I prepared to be so identified with the Lord Jesus that His life and His sweetness are being poured out all the time? Neither natural love nor Divine love will remain unless it is cultivated. Love is spontaneous, but it has to be maintained by discipline.

(Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, 95)

2007-05-10T10:50:00.000-07:00

How to Know if You Are a Real Christian

...my response to Frank Beckwith's defection to Romanism (Steve Camp: CAMPONTHIS)

Romanism is a false religion, that constitutes a false church, led by a false pastor, that preaches a false gospel. It is the best that Satan has to offer of man-made and man-centered religion that sees salvation by joining grace plus merit, faith plus works, and Christ plus Pope. The theological term is called semi-Pelagianism. This is works righteousness at its finest. This is another gospel (Gal. 1:6-9) which is no gospel at all.

Tridentine Roman Catholicism is a faith centered in prayers to the dead, the centrality of the Latin Mass, confessionals, and the specter of purgatorial suffering. It is a firm belief in the Immaculate Conception, the Bodily Assumption of Mary, and the "5th Marian Dogma" - the idea that Mary is co-redemptrix, co-mediatrix, and advocate for the people of God.

Indeed, consider for just a moment the wording of the petition that has been submitted to the Pope, signed by more than six million Roman Catholics worldwide, that expresses this view:

"With filial love, we the faithful wish to humbly petition you, the Vicar of Christ, to solemnly define as Christian dogma the Church's constant teaching on Mary's co-redemptive role with Christ the Redeemer of humanity. It is our belief that such a definition will bring to light the whole truth about Mary, Daughter of the Father, Mother of the Son, Spouse of the Spirit, and Mother of the Church. Therefore, it is our prayer that the Holy Spirit will guide you, Holy Father, to define and proclaim the Blessed Virgin Mary as Coredemptrix, Mediatrix of all graces and Advocate for the people of God."
Indeed, one could also go into his belief in indulgences, the treasury of merit, and so many other things. But, let's get to the heart of the matter.

The issue of peace is truly the major difference between the biblical gospel and that promulgated by Rome. Rome's teachings on key issues are so far removed from their biblical definitions that the resultant gospel becomes one that is based upon human performance rather than the finished work of Christ (Romans 3-4; Hebrews 9:14ff). Romans 5:1 is key: "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,"

Question: How can a Roman Catholic have true peace, true shalom with God? In Dr. Beckwith's renewed Romanism, justification is not the divine, forensic declaration that a sinner is right in God's sight based upon faith alone in the work of Christ alone, including the imputed righteousness of Christ which provides us with a perfect standing before God. Instead, justification and sanctification are made the same thing, so that one is justified by baptism initially, causing one to enter "the state of grace." You can do good works in the state of grace that are meritorious before God, but, the commission of a mortal sin destroys that state, and makes you an enemy of God once again. You can become re-justified through the sacrament of penance, though the temporal punishment of sins remains. Anyone should inquire of Dr. Beckwith, "upon what basis he could have peace with God when he could go to sleep that night as God's enemy? How is that true peace, true shalom?"

Romanism believes that the Mass is still a bloody, propitiatory sacrifice.

TWENTY-SECOND SESSION, CANONS ON THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS: "If anyone says that the sacrifice of the mass is one only of praise and thanksgiving; or that it is a mere commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross but not a propitiatory one; or that it profits him only who receives, and ought not to be offered for the living and the dead, for sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other necessities, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA" (Canons on the Sacrifice of the Mass, Canon 3).

It is unfathomable to believe that this is now what Dr. Beckwith, by confession to Rome, must affirm.

Biblical Christianity clearly teaches that the sacrifice of Christ was a once for all sacrifice, never to be repeated, and is sufficient for the redemption of all the elect. Consider the following verses:

Heb. 7:27 who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.

Heb. 9:12 and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

Heb. 9:26 Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

Heb. 10:10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Salvation, beloved, is found by grace alone, through faith alone, in the Lord Jesus Christ alone and His once for all propitiatory sacrifice on the cross - plus or minus nothing. He was then raised bodily from the dead "for our justification" (Romans 4:25).

The point here is simple and tragic: a man of Dr. Beckwith's learning has abandoned historic, biblical Christianity to embrace a false religious system that cannot save, but can only damn.

In a recent article, Dr. Beckwith, commenting on his defection from Protestantism and his return to Romanism says the following:

"I became convinced that the Early Church is more [Roman] Catholic than Protestant and that the [Roman] Catholic view of justification, correctly understood, is biblically and historically defensible. Even though I also believe that the Reformed view is biblically and historically defensible,..."

Those statements, beloved, are in direct conflict with one another. It is impossible to affirm that Romanism and the Reformed view BOTH represent what is "biblically and historically defensible." That is like trying to pick up a tub while standing in it--you can't do it. This kind of reasoning is nothing short of spiritual schizophrenia. To paraphrase Tertullian, "what does Rome have in common with Wittenberg?"

All to say, may I encourage you to pray for this dear man--for only the Lord knows the state of his soul; only the Lord sees the future clearly as to what this will mean for him; only the Lord can turn his heart toward the truth and the genuine gospel once again. This is not casual fodder for the blogosphere -- nor is this about winning some theological discussion surrounding his departure from biblical Christianity. This is about the gospel and the nature of saving faith.

From whatever Protestant church Dr. Beckwith hailed from, they should consider beginning church discipline immediately due to his heterodox actions.

In light of this very sad spiritual treason by Dr. Beckwith and embracing of doctrines of demons in Romanism, the following article by Jonathan Edwards is a must read. I would encourage you to email this to your pastors and friends as well. And especially to those you might know who are still burdened under the heavy yoke of Romanism. May the Lord Jesus Christ grant them saving faith to leave the wayward bride of Benedict XVI and embrace biblical Christianity, the true gospel of Jesus Christ, His Word, and repent of their sins.

Sola Fide, Steve Galatians 1:6-9

by Jonathan Edwards "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder."? -James 2:19

How do you know if you belong to God? We see in these words what some people depend on as an evidence of their acceptance with God. Some people think that they are all right before God if they are not as bad as some evil person. Other people point to their family history or church membership to show that God approves of them. There is an evangelism programme in common use that asks people certain questions. One of the questions is, "Suppose you were to die today. Why should God let you into his heaven?" A very common response is, "I believe in God." Apparently the apostle James knew people who said the same thing: I know I am in God's favor, because I know these religious doctrines.

Of course James admits that this knowledge is good. Not only is it good, but it is also necessary. Nobody can be a Christian who doesn't believe in God; and more than that, the One True God. This is particularly true for those who had the great advantage of actually knowing the apostle, someone who could tell them of his first-hand experience with Jesus, the Son of God. Imagine the great sin of a person, who knew James, and then refused to believe in God! Certainly this would make their damnation greater. Of course, all Christians know that this belief in the One God is only the start of good things because "anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." (Heb. 11:6.)

However, James is clear that although this belief a good thing, it is definitely not proof that a person is saved. What he means is this: "You say you are a Christian and you are in God's favor. You think God will let you into heaven, and the proof of it is, you believe in God. But that is no evidence at all, because the demons also believe, and they are sure to be punished in hell." The demons believe in God, you can be sure of that! They not only believe that He exists, but they believe that God is a holy God, a sin-hating God, a God of truth, who has promised judgments, and who will carry out his vengeance upon them. This is the reason the demons "shudder" or tremble— they know God more clearly than most human beings do, and they are afraid. Nevertheless, nothing in the mind of man, that devils may experience as well, is any sure sign of God's grace in our hearts.

This reasoning may be easily turned around. Suppose demons could have, or find within themselves, something of God's saving grace—proof they would go to heaven. This would prove James wrong. But how absurd! The Bible makes it clear that demons have no hope of salvation, and their believing in God does not take away their future punishment. Therefore believing in God is not proof of salvation for demons, and it is safe to say, not for people, either.

This is seen even more clearly when we think about what demons are like. They are unholy: anything that they experience, cannot be a holy experience. The devil is perfectly wicked.

"You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies." (John 8:44)

"He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning." (1 John 3:8 )

Therefore the demons are called evil spirits, unclean spirits, powers of darkness, and so on.

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Eph 6:12)

So it is plain that anything in the minds of demons cannot be holy, or lead to true holiness by itself. The demons clearly know many things about God and religion, but they do not have a holy knowledge. The things they know in their minds may make impressions in their hearts— indeed we do see that the demons have very strong feelings about God; so strong, in fact, that they "shudder." But they are not holy feelings because they have nothing to do with the work of the Holy Spirit. If this is true of the experience of demons, it is also true of the experience of men.

Notice this, that it does not matter how genuine, sincere, and powerful these thoughts and feelings are. Demons, being spiritual creatures, know God in a way that men on earth cannot. Their knowledge of God's existence is more concrete than any man's knowledge could be. Because they are locked in battle with the forces of good, they have a sincerity of knowledge as well. On one occasion Jesus cast out some demons. "What do you want with us, Son of God?" they shouted. "Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?" (Mat 8:29) What could possibly be a more clear-cut experience than this? However, while their thoughts and feelings are genuine and powerful, they are not holy.

Also we can see that the holy objects of their thoughts doesn't make their thoughts and feelings holy. The demons know God exists! Matthew 8:29 shows they know more about Jesus than many people do! They are thoroughly that Jesus will judge them some day, because He is holy. But it is clear that genuine, sincere, and powerful thoughts and feelings about holy, spiritual things, is no proof of God's grace in the heart. Demons have these things, and look forward to eternal punishment in hell. If men have no more than what the demons have, they will suffer in the same way.

We may make several conclusions based on these truths. First, that no matter how much people may know about God and the Bible, it is no sure sign of salvation. The devil before his fall, was one of the bright and morning stars, a flame of fire, one excelling in strength and wisdom. (Isa. 14:12, Ezek. 28:12-19) Apparently, as one of the chief angels, Satan knew much about God. Now that he is fallen, his sin has not destroyed his memories from before. Sin does destroy the spiritual nature, but not the natural abilities, such as memory. That the fallen angels do have many natural abilities may be seen from many Bible verses, for example Eph 6:12 "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." In the same way, the Bible says that Satan is "more crafty" than other created beings. (Gen 3:1, also 2 Cor. 11:3, Acts 13:10) Therefore we can see that the Devil has always had great mental ability and is able to know much about God, the visible and invisible world, and many other things. Since his job in the beginning was to be a chief angel before God, it is only natural that understanding these things has always been of first importance to him, and that all his activities have to do with these areas of thoughts, feelings, and knowledge.

Because it was his original employment to be one of the angels before the very face of God, and sin does not destroy the memory, it is clear that Satan knows more about God than just about any other created being. After the fall, we can see from his activities as a tempter, etc., (Matt 4:3) that he has been spending his time increasing his knowledge and its practical applications. That his knowledge is great can be seen in how tricky he is when tempting people. The craftiness of his lies shows how clever he is. Surely he could not manage his deceit so well without an actual and true knowledge of the facts.

This knowledge of God and his works is from the very beginning. Satan was there from the Creation, as Job 38:4 7 shows: "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. . .while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?" So he must know much about the way God created the world, and how He governs all the events in the universe. Furthermore, Satan has seen how God has worked his plan of redemption in the world; and not as an innocent bystander, but as an active enemy of God's grace. He saw God work in the lives of Adam and Eve, in Noah, Abraham, and David. He must have taken a special interest in the life of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of men, the Word of God incarnate. How closely did he watch Christ? How carefully did he observe his miracles and listen to His words? This is because Satan has set himself against Christ's work, and it is to his torment and anguish that Satan has watched Christ's work unfold successfully.

Satan, then, knows much about God and God's work. He knows heaven first-hand. He knows hell also, with personal knowledge as its first resident, and has experienced its torments for all these thousands of years. He must have a great knowledge of the Bible: at the least, we can see he knew enough to try tempting our Saviour. Furthermore, he has had years of studying of the hearts of men, his battlefield where he fights against our Redeemer. What labours, exertions, and cares the Devil has used over the centuries as he has deceived men. Only a being with his knowledge and experience of God's working, and the human heart, could so imitate true religion and transform himself into an angel of light. (2 Cor 11:14)

Therefore we can see that there is no amount of knowledge of God and religion that could prove a person has been saved from their sin. A man may talk about the Bible, God, and the Trinity. He may be able to preach a sermon about Jesus Christ and everything He has done. Imagine, somebody might be able to speak about the way of salvation and the work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of sinners, perhaps even enough to show others how to become Christians. All these things might build up the church and enlighten the world, yet it is not a sure proof of the saving grace of God in a person's heart.

It also may be seen that for people to merely agree with the Bible is no sure sign of salvation. James 2:19 shows that the demons really, truly, believe the truth. Just as they believe there is one God, they agree with all the truth of the Bible. The devil is not a heretic: all the articles of his faith are firmly established in the truth.

It must be understood, that when the Bible talks about believing that Jesus is the Son of God, as a proof of God's grace in the heart, the Bible means not a mere agreement with the truth, but another kind of believing. "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." (1 John 5:1) This other kind of believing is called "the faith of God's elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness." (Titus 1:1) There is a spiritual holding to the truth, which will be explained later on. Some people have strong religious experiences, and think of them as proof of God's working in their hearts.

Often these experiences give people a sense of the importance of the spiritual world, and the reality of divine things. However, these, too, are no sure proof of salvation. Demons and damned human beings have many spiritual experiences which have a great effect on their heart attitudes. They live in the spiritual world and see first-hand what it is like. Their sufferings show them the worth of salvation and the worth of a human soul in the most powerful way imaginable. The parable in Luke chapter 16 teaches this clearly, as the suffering man asks that Lazarus might be sent to tell his brothers to avoid this place of torment. No doubt people in hell now have a distinct idea of the vastness of eternity, and of the shortness of life. They are completely convinced that all the things of this life are unimportant when compared to the experiences of the eternal world. People now in hell have a great sense of the preciousness of time, and of the wonderful opportunities people have, who have the privilege of hearing the Gospel. They are completely aware of the foolishness of their sin, of neglecting opportunities, and ignoring the warnings of God. When sinners find out by personal experience the final result of their sin there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matt 13:42) So even the most powerful religious experiences are not a sure sign of God's grace in the heart.

Demons and damned people also have a strong sense of God's majesty and power. God's power is most clearly displayed in his execution of divine vengeance upon his enemies.

"What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?" (Rom 9:22)

Shuddering, the devils await their final punishment, under the strongest sense of God's majesty. They feel it now, of course, but in the future it will show to the greatest degree, when the Lord Jesus "is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels." (2 Thess 2:7) On that day, they will desire to be run away, to be hidden from the presence of God. "Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him." (Rev 1:7) So everyone will see him in the glory of His Father. But, obviously, not all who see him will be saved.

Now it is possible that some people might object to all this, saying that ungodly men in this world are quite different from demons. They are under different circumstances and are different kind of beings.

An objector might say,
"Those things that are visible and present to demons are invisible and future to men. Besides, people have the disadvantage of having bodies, which restrain the soul, and keep people from seeing these spiritual things first-hand. Therefore, even if demons do have a great knowledge and personal experience of the things of God, and have no grace, the conclusion does not apply to me."

Or, put another way: if people have these things in this life, it may very well be a sure sign of God's grace in their hearts.

In reply, it is agreed that no man in this life has ever had the degree of these things as the demons have them. No person has ever shuddered, with the same amount of fear that the demons shudder with. No man, in this life, can ever have the same kind of knowledge that the Devil has. It is clear that demons and damned men understand the vastness of eternity, and the importance of the other world, more than any living person, and so they crave salvation all the more.

But we can see that men in this world can have experiences of the same kind as those of demons and damned people. They have the same mental outlook, the same opinions and emotions, and the same kind of impressions on the mind and heart. Notice, that for the apostle James it is a convincing argument. He claims that if people think believing in one God is proof of God's grace, it is not proof, because demons believe the same. James is not referring to the act of believing only, but also to the emotions and actions that go along with their belief. Shuddering is an example of emotions from the heart. This shows that if people have the same kind of mental outlook, and respond from the heart in the same way, it is no sure sign of grace.

The Bible does not state how much people in this world may see God's glory, and not have God's grace in their hearts. We are not told exactly to what degree God reveals himself to certain people, and how much they will respond in their hearts. It is very tempting to say that if a person has a certain amount of religious experience, or a certain amount of truth, they must be saved. Perhaps it is even possible for some unsaved people to have greater experiences than some of those who have grace in their hearts! So it is wrong to look at experience or knowledge in terms of amount. Men who have a genuine work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts have experiences and knowledge of a different kind.

At this point, someone might answer these thoughts by saying, "I agree with you. I see that believing in God, seeing His majesty and holiness, and knowing that Jesus died for sinners is not proof of grace in my heart. I agree that demons can know these things as well. But I have some things they don't have. I have joy, peace, and love. Demons can't have them, so that must show that I am saved."

Yes, it is true that you have something more than a demon can have, but it is nothing better than a demon could have. A person's experience of love, joy, etc., may not be because they have any cause in them different from a demon, but just different circumstances. The causes, or origins, of their feelings are the same. This is why these experiences are no better than those of demons.

To explain further:
All the things that were discussed before about demons and damned people, arise from two main causes, natural understanding and self-love. When they think about themselves, these two things are what determine their feelings and response. Natural understanding shows them that God is holy, while they are wicked. God is infinite, but they are limited. God is powerful, and they are weak. Self-love gives them a sense of the importance of religion, the eternal world, and a longing after salvation. When these two causes work together, demons and damned men become aware of the awesome majesty of God, whom they know will be their Judge. They know that God's judgment will be perfect and their punishment will be forever. Therefore, these two causes together with their senses will bring about their anguish on that judgment day, when they see the outward glory of Christ and His saints.

The reason many people feel joy, peace, and love today, while demons do not, may be more due to their circumstances, rather than any difference in their hearts. The causes in their hearts are the same. For example, the Holy Spirit is now at work in the world keeping all of mankind from being as wicked as they could be (2 Thess 2:17). This is in contrast to demons, who are just as wicked as they can be all the time. Furthermore, God in his mercy gives gifts to all people, such as the rain for crops (Matt 5:45), heat from the sun, etc. Not only that, but often people receive many things in life to bring them happiness, such as personal relationships, pleasures, music, good health, and so on. Most important of all, many people have heard news of hope: God has sent a Saviour, Jesus Christ, who died to save sinners. In these circumstances, the natural understanding of people can cause them to feel things that demons never can.

Self-love is a powerful force in the hearts of men, strong enough without grace to cause people to love those who love them,

"But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them." (Luke 6:32) It is a natural thing for a person who sees God being merciful, and who knows that they are not as bad as they could be, to therefore be sure of God's love for them. If your love for God comes only from your feelings that God loves you, or because you have heard that Christ died for you, or something similar, the source of your love to God is only self-love. This reigns in the hearts of demons as well.

Imagine the situation of the demons. They know they are unrestrained in their wickedness. They know God is their enemy and always will be. Although they are without any hope, still they are active and fighting. Just think, what if they had some of the hope that people have? What if demons, with their knowledge of God, had their wickedness restrained? Imagine if a demon, after all his fears about God's judgment, was suddenly led to imagine that God might be his Friend? That God might forgive him and let him, sin and all, into heaven? Oh the joy, the wonder, the gratitude we would see! Would not this demon be a great lover of God, since, after all everybody loves people who help them? What else could cause feelings so powerful and sincere? Is it any wonder, that so many people are deceived this way? Especially since people have the demons to promote this delusion. They have been promoting it now for many centuries, and alas they are very good at it.

Now we come to the question, if all these various experiences and feelings come from nothing more than demons are capable of, what are the kinds of experiences that are truly spiritual and holy? What do I have to find in my own heart, as a sure sign of God's grace there? What are the differences that show them to be from the Holy Spirit?

This is the answer:
those feelings and experiences which are good signs of God's grace in the heart differ from the experience of demons in their source and in their results.

Their source is the sense of the overwhelming holy beauty and loveliness of the things of God. When a person grasps in his mind, or better yet, when he feels his own heart held captive by the attractiveness of the Divine, this is an unmistakable sign of God's working.

The demons and damned in hell do not now, and never will experience even the tiniest bit of this. Before their fall, the demons did have this sense of God. But in their fall, they lost it, the only thing they could lose of their knowledge of God. We have seen how the demons have very clear ideas about how powerful God is, his justice, holiness, and so on. They know a lot of facts about God. But now they haven't a clue about what God is like. They cannot know what God is like any more than a blind man can know about colors! Demons can have a strong sense God's awesome majesty, but they don't see his loveliness. They have observed His work among the human race for these thousands of years, indeed with the closest attention; but they never see a glimmer of His beauty. No matter how much they know about God (and we have seen that they know very much indeed) the knowledge they have will never bring them to this higher, spiritual knowing what God is like. On the contrary, the more they know about God, the more they hate Him. The beauty of God consists primarily in this holiness, or moral excellence, and this is what they hate the most. It is because God is holy that the demons hate Him. One could suppose that if God were to be less holy, the demons would hate Him less. No doubt demons would hate any holy Being, no matter what He was like otherwise. But surely they hate this Being all the more, for being infinitely holy, infinitely wise, and infinitely powerful!

Wicked people, including those alive today, will on the day of judgment see all there is to see of Jesus Christ, except His beauty and loveliness. There is not one thing about Christ that we can think of, that will not be set before them in the strongest light on that brilliant day. The wicked will see Jesus "coming in clouds with great power and glory." (Mark 13:26) They will see his outward glory, which is far, far greater than we can possibly imagine now. You know the wicked will be thoroughly convinced of all who Christ is. They will be convinced about His omniscience, as they see all their sins replayed and evaluated. They will know first-hand Christ's justice, as their sentences are announced. His authority will be made utterly convincing when every knee will bow, and every tongue confess Jesus as Lord. (Phil 2:10,11) The divine majesty will be impressed upon them in quite an effective way, as the wicked are poured into hell itself, and enter into their final state of suffering and death (Rev 20:14,15) When that happens, all their knowledge of God, as true and as powerful as it may be, will be worth nothing, and less than nothing, because they will not see Christ's beauty.

Therefore, it is this seeing the loveliness of Christ that makes the difference between the saving grace of the Holy Spirit, and the experiences of demons.

This sight or sense is what makes true Christian experience different from everything else. The faith of God's elect people is based on this. When a person sees the excellence of the gospel, he senses the beauty and loveliness of the divine scheme of salvation. His mind is convinced that it is of God, and he believes it with all his heart. As the apostle Paul says in 2 Cor 4:3 4, "even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." That is to say, as was explained before, unbelievers can see that there is a gospel, and understand the facts about it, but they do not see its light. The light of the gospel is the glory of Christ, his holiness and beauty. Right after this we read, 2 Cor 4:6 "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." Clearly, it is this divine light, shining into our hearts, that enables us to see the beauty of the gospel and have a saving belief in Christ. This supernatural light shows us the superlative beauty and loveliness of Jesus, and convinces us of His sufficiency as our Saviour. Only such a glorious, majestic Saviour can be our Mediator, standing between guilty, hell-deserving sinners such as ourselves, and an infinitely holy God. This supernatural light gives us a sense of Christ that convinces us in a way nothing else ever could.

When a most wicked sinner is caused to see Christ's divine loveliness, he no longer speculates why God should be interested in him, to save him.

Before, he could not understand how the blood of Christ could pay the penalty for sins. But now he can see the preciousness of Christ's blood, and how it is worthy to be accepted as the ransom for the worst of sins. Now the soul can recognize that he is accepted by God, not because of who he is, but because of the value God puts on the blood, obedience, and intercession of Christ. Seeing this value and worth gives the poor guilty soul rest which cannot be found in any sermon or booklet.

When a person comes to see the proper foundation of faith and trust with his own eyes, this is saving faith. "For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life." (John 6:40) "I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me." (John 17:6-8)

It is this sight of the divine beauty of Christ that captivates the wills and draws the hearts of men. A sight of the outward greatness of God in His glory may overwhelm men, and be more than they can endure. This will be seen on the day of judgment, when the wicked will be brought before God. They will be overwhelmed, yes, but the hostility of the heart will remain in full strength and the opposition of the will continue. But on the other hand, a single ray of the moral and spiritual glory of God and of the supreme loveliness of Christ shone into the heart overcomes all hostility. The soul is inclined to love God as if by an omnipotent power, so that now not only the understanding, but the whole being receives and embraces the loving Saviour.

This sense of the beauty of Christ is the beginning of true saving faith in the life of a true convert.

This is quite different from any vague feeling that Christ loves him or died for him. These sort of fuzzy feelings can cause a sort of love and joy, because the person feels a gratitude for escaping the punishment of their sin. In actual fact, these feelings are based on self-love, and not on a love for Christ at all. It is a sad thing that so many people are deluded by this false faith. On the other hand, a glimpse of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ causes in the heart a supreme genuine love for God. This is because the divine light shows the excellent loveliness of God's nature. A love based on this is far, far above anything coming from self-love, which demons can have as well as men. The true love of God which comes from this sight of His beauty causes a spiritual and holy joy in the soul; a joy in God, and exulting in Him. There is no rejoicing in ourselves, but rather in God alone.

The sight of the beauty of divine things will cause true desires after the things of God. These desires are different from the longings of demons, which happen because the demons know their doom awaits them, and they wish it could somehow be otherwise. The desires that come from this sight of Christ's beauty are natural free desires, like a baby desiring milk. Because these desires are so different from their counterfeits, they help to distinguish genuine experiences of God's grace from the false.

False spiritual experiences have a tendency to cause pride, which is the devil's special sin. "He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil." (1 Tim 3:6) Pride is the inevitable result of false spiritual experiences, even though they are often covered with a disguise of great humility. False experience is enamored with self and grows on self. It lives by showing itself in one way or another. A person can have great love for God, and be proud of the greatness of his love. He can be very humble, and very proud indeed of his humility. But the emotions and experiences that come from God's grace are exactly opposite. God's true working in the heart causes humility. They do not cause any kind of showiness or self-exaltation. That sense of the awesome, holy, glorious beauty of Christ kills pride and humbles the soul. The light of God's loveliness, and that alone, shows the soul its own ugliness. When a person really grasps this, he inevitably begins a process of making God bigger and bigger, and himself smaller and smaller.

Another result of God's grace working in the heart is that the person will hate every evil and respond to God with a holy heart and life.

False experiences may cause a certain amount of zeal, and even a great deal of what is commonly called religion. However it is not a zeal for good works. Their religion is not a service of God, but rather a service of self. This is how the apostle James puts it himself in this very context, "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless ?" (James 2:19 20) In other words, deeds, or good works, are evidence of a genuine experience of God's grace in the heart. "We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him." (1 John 2:3 4) When the heart has been ravished by the beauty of Christ, how else can it respond?

How excellent is that inner goodness and true religion that comes from this sight of the beauty of Christ! Here you have the most wonderful experiences of saints and angels in heaven. Here you have the best experience of Jesus Christ Himself. Even though we are mere creatures, it is a sort of participation in God's own beauty. "Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature." (2 Pet 1:4) "God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness." (Heb 12:10) Because of the power of this divine working, there is a mutual indwelling of God and His people. "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him." (1 John 4:16)

This special relationship has to make the person involved as happy and as blessed as any creature in existence. This is a special gift of God, which he gives only to his special favorites. Gold, silver, diamonds, and earthly kingdoms are given by God to people who the Bible calls dogs and pigs. But this great gift of beholding Christ's beauty, is the special blessing of God to His dearest children. Flesh and blood cannot give this gift: only God can bestow it. This was the special gift which Christ died to obtain for his elect. It is the highest token of his everlasting love, the best fruit of his labours, and the most precious purchase of his blood.

By this gift, more than anything else, the saints shine as lights in the world. This gift, more than anything else, is their comfort. It is impossible that the soul who possesses this gift should ever perish. This is the gift of eternal life. It is eternal life begun: those who have it can never die. It is the dawning of the light of glory. It comes from heaven, it has a heavenly quality, and it will take its bearer to heaven. Those who have this gift may wander in the wilderness or be tossed by waves on the ocean, but they will arrive in heaven at last. There the heavenly spark will be made perfect and increased. In heaven the souls of the saints will be transformed into a bright and pure flame, and they will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

Amen.

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2007-05-09T08:31:00.000-07:00

Grasp Without Reach

"Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint." Proverbs 29:18 (R.V.)

There is a difference between an ideal and a vision. An ideal has no moral inspiration; a vision has. The people who give themselves over to ideals rarely do anything. A man’s conception of Deity may be used to justify his deliberate neglect of his duty. Jonah argued that because God was a God of justice and of mercy, therefore everything would be all right. I may have a right conception of God, and that may be the very reason why I do not do my duty. But wherever there is vision, there is also a life of rectitude because the vision imparts moral incentive.
Ideals may lull to ruin. Take stock of yourself spiritually and see whether you have ideals only or if you have vision.

"Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?"

"Where there is no vision. . . ." When once we lose sight of God, we begin to be reckless, we cast off certain restraints, we cast off praying, we cast off the vision of God in little things, and begin to act on our own initiative. If we are eating what we have out of our own hand, doing things on our own initiative without expecting God to come in, we are on the downward path, we have lost the vision. Is our attitude to-day an attitude that springs from our vision of God? Are we expecting God to do greater things than He has ever done? Is there a freshness and vigour in our spiritual out look?

(Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, 93,94)

2007-05-07T09:28:00.000-07:00

Having lived in England for half my adult life I can attest to this story. The Sun Newspaper in England is famous for its “Page Three Girl” (Page three of this daily tabloid newspaper has a topless model). the Sun is one of the largest circulation newspapers in the U.K., and now the sun has created a pornographic web site dedicated to its “Page Three Girls” and who is the publisher and owner of the Sun Newspaper and Web Site? None other than Rupert Murdoch who also owns the Fox Network, Fox News and Zondervan Publishing, and is also a member of Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, hard to believe isn’t it? A Pornographer owns the largest publisher of Christian books and Bibles in the World!

The question is? Why isnt Rick Warren as Rupert Murdoch's pastor condeming this? Oh I forgot, Rupert Murdoch owned Zondervan is the Publisher of Rick Warren's books: The Purpose Driven Life, and The Purpose Driven Church. Wouldnt want to upset the man with the purse would he?

A Graphic Example of Purpose-Driven Pornography.

A Little Leaven has just published a GRAPHIC example of the type of pornography that Rupert Murdoch is producing in Europe.

An Infamous Porn Site Owned by a Man Who Is A Born-Again Christian and Pastored by Rick Warren.

Click here to read this disturbing article: http://www.alittleleaven.com/2007/05/owned_by_a_born.html

2007-05-07T09:25:00.000-07:00

Building for Eternity

"For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?" (Luke 14:28)

Our Lord refers not to a cost we have to count, but to a cost which He has counted. The cost was those thirty years in Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal and hatred, the deep unfathomable agony in Gethsemane, and the onslaught at Calvary - the pivot upon which the whole of Time and Eternity turns. Jesus Christ has counted the cost. Men are not going to laugh at Him at last and say - "This man began to build, and was not able to finish."

The conditions of discipleship laid down by Our Lord in vv. 26, 27 and 33 mean that the men and women He is going to use in His mighty building enterprises are those in whom He has done everything. "If any man come to Me, and hate not . . . he cannot be My disciple." Our Lord implies that the only men and women He will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately and devotedly beyond any of the closest ties on earth. The conditions are stern, but they are glorious.

All that we build is going to be inspected by God. Is God going to detect in His searching fire that we have built on the foundation of Jesus some enterprise of our own? These are days of tremendous enterprises, days when we are trying to work for God, and therein is the snare. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus takes us over for His enterprises, His building schemes entirely, and no soul has any right to claim where he shall be put.

(Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, 92)

2007-05-04T07:57:00.000-07:00

A Genuine Gift

So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. (1 Thessalonians 2:8)

Let me shock you at this point. A naturally bright person can carry on religious activity without a special gift from God.

Filling church pulpits every week are some who are using only natural abilities and special training. Some are known as Bible expositors, for it is possible to read and study commentaries and then repeat what has been learned about the Scriptures. Yes, it may shock you, but it is true that anyone able to talk fluently can learn to use religious phrases and can become recognized as a preacher.

But if any person is determined to preach so that his work and ministry will abide in the day of the judgment fire, then he must preach, teach and exhort with the kind of love and concern that comes only through a genuine gift of the Holy Spirit–something beyond his own capabilities. TRA021-022.

"Lord, grant me that gift as I wait before You again this morning. I certainly want to preach with eternal benefit, and recognize that only in the power–and love–of the Holy Spirit will that happen. Amen."

(A.W. Tozer. Tozer on Christian Leadership, May 4)

2007-05-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

What's Right With The World?-Ishmael and Isaac

I am interrupting my posts on Roman Catholicism and its doctrines, to let off some steam. I will not, however, apologize for the rant. (In actuality this will deal a bit with some roman doctrine.) I had been wanting to post on this subject matter for quite awhile, but kept it on the back-burner.This seems to be the appointed time for this.

Genesis 17:15

And God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her." 17Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, "Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?" 18And Abraham said to God, "Oh that Ishmael might live before you!" 19God said, "No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. 20As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation. 21But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year."

Matthew 16:13

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" 14And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 16Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 17And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 20Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. 21From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you." 23But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man."

John 3:6

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' 8The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

A recent post at the shadow blog, CRN-(non)Info compels me to post this. Of course I expect that they will all get a good laugh out of it, (the intended irony of this will become apparent).

It has been my observation for some time that the church at large whether it calls itself emerging; emergent; evangelical; charismatic/pentecostal/fundamentalist; or ????Has long been operating in the realm of the ”good idea”. The church has been caught up in the realm of dispensationalist dogma for so long that it is missing the point entirely.

The story of Ishmael and Isaac is not the story of Islam vs. the Judeo-Christian world.

The confession of Peter, followed by his receiving a most severe rebuke from Jesus, is not the story of the “first pope”, or the story of good old “bumbling Peter”.

Jesus’ words to Nicodemus are not a “formula” for salvation.

All of these are speaking of the battle between man’ ideas and methods and God’s, specific and pre-established plans, which are his ways and thoughts.

Peter confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. In the next breath, he was denying the work and purpose of that very Christ.Let’s look at this.

The revelation that Peter spoke was given to Him by God the Father. Peter could take no credit for this knowledge, as he never possessed it. 1 Cor 2: 6-16

This alone refutes the roman claim that Peter is the rock the church is built upon.Why build your church on a “man”, when it is built upon the new man who is the Christ the Son of the living God? 1 Cor 3:9-17; 1 Peter 2:4-8; Eph 2:19-21

Therefore the confession that Jesus is the Christ, is the cornerstone we are built upon. The confession is the essence of who He is. The Word (confession) became flesh.

The knowledge given to Peter from above, and the professing of that knowledge into the earth, are the revelation of the plan and method of God.When Jesus begins to explain what that revelation really means, Peter slips into “man-mode” and rebukes Jesus, “far be it from you Lord!” to which Jesus rebukes Peter, “get behind me Satan”. We are all so relieved that the Lord said it to Peter, and not to us. We are Peter! The Lord is saying this to us, constantly.

Let’s look at Nicodemus:

Jesus said a man must be born again, i.e. born anew, from above (in the Greek)Nicodemus asked how a man could enter the womb again and be physically reborn. Of course we know that Jesus did not mean that. He was speaking of a new creation. The old man has died, and we are reborn in Him; baptism being the testimony of this fact, and not the required method of salvation. That is another subject, for another time.

Jesus answer is interesting. “That which is born of flesh is flesh”. This refers to the physical process of childbirth. “That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit”. In other words, “born again” has nothing to do with the natural man. No one knows where the wind comes from or where it goes, but they know it is there. So it is with all things spiritual. No one discerns the origin or destination of the Spirit, but the Spirit. (back to 1 Cor 2:6-16 see above)

Nicodemus was thinking as men think. He could not discern the mind of the Spirit. The Lord once again reveals His will and agenda, when he desires, and to whom He desires.
Now onto Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael, and my point.

God gave a covenant-promise to Abraham, which Abraham believed by faith, in Genesis 12:1-3 and Genesis 15:1-6; (See also Romans 4:1-5)

When Abram and Sarai came to the decision to have Abram conceive a child with Sarai’s handmaid, Hagar, they acted in good faith.

“Abram believed God” is what the Scripture says. However neither he, nor Sarai, had any understanding of how God intended to accomplish this.In Genesis 16 we have Abram conceiving a child with Hagar; Sarai having a change of heart, and causing Hagar to flee from her; and God promising Hagar that He would BLESS her son and give him many descendants, which is in keeping with His original promise to Abram.( What a faithful and glorious God. He keeps all His Word.) The one caveat being that Ishmael would be wild and contentious towards his brothers.

In the beginning of chapter 17 God repeats the covenant to Abram, and reveals more of its detail. He also changes Abram’s name to Abraham, and Sarai’s to Sarah.

He then reveals His will and ways completely to Abraham. You will have son with Sarah. At this Abraham laughs, as he is now 99 years old.

Abraham cries out “oh that Ishmael (now 13 years of age) might live before you.”

Abraham still does not see it. God is merciful and blesses Ishmael for Abraham’s sake, but he proclaims that only through Sarah, and in Isaac (laughter) will He accomplish His purposes of salvation and blessing for all the earth.Ishmael and Isaac, and the contention between them is commonly taught to represent, as I said, the current state of the middle east.

The Scriptures do not support this:Galatians 4:

21Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 22For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. 27For it is written, "Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!For the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband." 28Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. 30But what does the Scripture say? "Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman." 31So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

Paul is saying Ishmael represents all who are born into the bondage of the Law, and Isaac represents all who are “born again” into the promise, as Isaac is the fruit of two “dead bodies” miraculously producing life. Life out of death, what a novel concept.

Paul quotes Isaiah 54. The “desolate one” typifies all of those who are not Israel, and “the one who has a husband” is the nation Israel. Romans 10:18-21

Paul then concludes with this thought, which has its’ full revelation in the letter to the church in Rome;

We who have died with Christ, to the flesh, are now born again on the Spirit, and therefore children of the promise.

The Law, through the flesh, contends with those who are of the Spirit and are free. (Romans 5-6-7-8)

The name Ishmael means “God has heard my cry” this symbolizes the state of the slave crying out for freedom. The name Isaac, meaning laughter symbolizes the state of the free man, i.e. “the joy of the Lord is our strength.”

Isaac is God’s revealed will,and Ishmael is man’s good idea; man’s attempt to save himself and accomplish the will of God. The Law saves no one, unless one can actually keep it.

So in the church today we have Peter’s rebuke to Jesus. Nicodemus’ non-comprehension, and Abram’s and Sarai’s good faith attempt to accomplish God’s will for Him.

Let no one believe for a moment, that God’s allowing Ishmael to be conceived, birthed, and even blessed, for a time, is a sign that anything we say, or do, is Isaac. Our efforts are allowed only as a contrast to the times when God does move in power and authority.

God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and referred to him as Abraham’s ONLY son. Genesis 22

In the flesh this was not true, as Abraham had several sons, but what is born of the Spirit, is Spirit. Isaac is born of the Spirit, and the Lord only accepts what comes from Him as acceptable worship. Romans 12:1-2

We prove daily what works are Ishmael, and what are Isaac. What comes from ourselves, innovative as it may seem, and what is Christ. The Father accepts only that which is offered to Him through the finished work of His only begotten Son. That finished work and will is this:
“21From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

Is the foundation we are laying, and our building upon that foundation, in line with the Lord’s mind revealed in this scripture, or are we saying” far be it from you Lord” we don’t care for that way at all?

When it comes to Rick Warren, or Brian McClaren , or Rob Bell, or the folks at CRN(non)Info, this is the only standard that applies. The appearance of success or blessing is no proof that their work is not of their own invention.

Jesus’ admonition to judge with right judgment is not only applicable to healing a man on the Sabbath, it is applicable to everything and anything that the “church” says and does in the name of the Lord, and His Kingdom. John 7:23-24

The only standard of discernment is the WORD, i.e. Jesus, revealed through His Word, the Scripture. Nothing will be judged by mere appearances. Righteous and just judgment is God’s will. Deut 16:18-20

Isaiah 55:8For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. 9For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

God does not hide His will for us, from us. May the Isaac of God be birthed in His church, and may true biblical discernment be manifest.

Deut 29:2929"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

For His Glory Alone,

Chris P.

http://jeremiahsquestion.blogspot.com/2007/05/whats-right-with-world-ishmael-and.html

2007-05-03T09:14:00.000-07:00

Vital Intercession

"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit." (Ephesians 6:18

As we go on in intercession we may find that our obedience to God is going to cost other people more than we thought. The danger then is to begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting to a totally different sphere in answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from identification with God’s interest in others into sympathy with them, the vital connection with God has gone, we have put our sympathy, our consideration for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.

It is impossible to intercede vitally unless we are perfectly sure of God, and the greatest dissipator of our relationship to God is personal sympathy and personal prejudice. Identification is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with God, it is by sympathy, not by sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our relationship to God, but sympathy will, sympathy with ourselves or with others which makes us say - "I will not allow that thing to happen." Instantly we are out of vital connection with God.

Intercession leaves you neither time nor inclination to pray for your own "sad sweet self." The thought of yourself is not kept out, because it is not there to keep out; you are completely and entirely identified with God’s interests in other lives.

Discernment is God’s call to intercession, never to fault finding.

(Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, 89-90)

2007-05-01T11:21:00.000-07:00

Kill Joys

You people are such a bunch of kill-joys! When I wrote the initial post on the preach-off poll, I was looking forward to writing a bang-up sermon, presenting it and letting you see just how good a preacher I am. And at first the polls supported me. Then as more of you began to vote, the trend completely reversed and you were saying “no,” don’t do the preach-off. Worst than that, most of your reasons for not doing the preach-off were irritatingly insightful. This completely ruined my opportunity to wallow around in the flesh and make me look good.

The upside though, is the fact that the whole adventure got shut down well before I bought my purple suit with the black stripes and light purple lapels, to go along with the purple shirt with a black collar (edged in gold). The whole outfit, including the white shoes was going to set me back about $950. So I guess I saved a couple of bucks in the whole thing anyway.

But more than that, I believe we stumbled onto something of an illustration for an argument against tithing. Yes, that’s right - against tithing.

Let’s suppose that instead of preaching a sermon, I, as the pastor of a church, went to the congregation and told them that I wanted to do a certain thing, say – build a day care facility (The Melvinite Center of Magnificent Childhood Development and Equipping to Take Over the World). I further explained that we needed some money to do that, so I am going to use the church funds (which are quite plentiful since almost all of the congregants have been convinced through dubious exegesis that they must tithe or suffer the curses of God on them and their children) and borrow some more money from the bank. Most of the congregants don’t agree with the idea but hey, I’m the pastor and it’s not their concern what I do with the money since it is God’s tithe and not theirs. Because I am in no way held accountable, I go running down a road that neither God nor the congregants are particularly eager to have me go.
Rewind.

This time I’m the pastor and people give only as God moves on their hearts to give. And I expect them to give only as God would have them give. I never quote Malachi, chapter 3, I never tell them they are robbing God, and I never promise them supernatural blessings if they give sacrificially.

Instead, I explain to them what I believe God would have us do. If they agree with it, they can give. If they disagree with it, they can refuse to give.

Now their giving is very similar to the poll we just completed. But in this case a “yes” translates to contributions and a “no” is the same as keeping your purse shut.

Guess what? If God moves on their hearts to not give (Ezra 1:1, 5) and they are obedient to God (as I, as a good pastor have consistently encouraged them to be), then the church doesn’t go hiking down that day care road. Instead, we are kept on track. Either way, I’m going to be really careful about what I take to the congregation, ‘cause these jokers just might turn me down! Instead, I will actually pray to God about things, sincerely, and make sure I’m reading Him right. After all, if He wants it, he can and will move on the hearts of the families with no problem.
True, we might never move out of the dance room at the YWCA. And we may never get to be any larger than twenty families. And we may never have anything that resembles a big bookstore selling my books alongside T. Dexter’s books. And worse than that, I may never be able to quit my job and “do ministry” full time (Sigh. And no SR22 either. Not even a Liberty XL2 which is one fourth the cost of the SR22). But I digress.

When we walk by faith and give in faith, we are dependent on and obedient to the Spirit of God. When we tithe, we are dependent on our check book balancing and budgeting skills. When we give in faith, the elders are dependent on God. When we tithe, the elders are dependent on a bank to secure a loan for the rest of the money.

Tithing makes giving nothing more than paying a bill (phone bill - $78, electric bill - $159, car payment - $234, tithes and offerings - $120). Giving as God would lead becomes an exercise, a daily exercise, in walking in faith. Which one do you think generates more growth in the individual? Which approach honestly allows you to give cheerfully?

http://www.pulpit-pimps.org/archives/2007/04/30/kill-joys

2007-05-01T06:36:00.000-07:00

Insight Not Emotion

“I have to lead my life in faith, without seeing Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:7 [MOFFATT])

For a time we are conscious of God’s attentions, then, when God begins to use us in His enterprises, we take on a pathetic look and talk of the trials and the difficulties, and all the time God is trying to make us do our duty as obscure people. None of us would be obscure spiritually if we could help it. Can we do our duty when God has shut up heaven? Some of us always want to be illuminated saints with golden babes and the flush of inspiration, and to have the saints of God dealing with us all the time. A gilt-edged saint is no good, he is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and altogether unlike God. We are here as men and women, not as half-fledged angels, to do the work of the world, and to do it with an infinitely greater power to stand the turmoil because we have been born from above.

If we try to re-introduce the rare moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not God we want. We are making a fetish of the moments when God did come and speak, and insisting that He must do it again; whereas what God wants us to do is to “walk by faith.” How many of us have laid ourselves by, as it were, and said - “I cannot do any more until God appears to me.” He never will, and without any inspiration, without any sudden touch of God, we will have to get up. Then comes the surprise - “Why, He was there all the time, and I never knew it!” Never live for the rare moments, they are surprises. God will give us touches of inspiration when He sees we are not in danger of being led away by them. We must never make our moments of inspiration our standard; our standard is our duty.

(Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, 88)

2007-04-30T14:22:00.000-07:00

The heart is deceitful . . .

“The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?”

Jeremiah 17:9

Persecution is coming folks, no I’m not talking about China, Africa or even India. I am talking about right here in the United States.

This past week the Democrat controlled House refused all amendments intended to take the teeth out of House Resolution 1592 a bill that will make it a federal crime to use words that “insight hatred” against a person or group of persons. The bill is vague enough to allow it to be used against Christians who quote certain passages from the Bible.

In other words it would make it a crime to call sin for what it is: SIN.

Have you heard a peep out our nations church pulpit’s about this bill? No?

Some people may shake their head and wonder how did we get to this point as a so called “Christian” country? I say, we got there as a direct result of an American Church that has walked away from living and preaching the truth of God’s word. As a direct result of a national church leadership that has not stood up for the truth no matter the cost. A direct result of a church leadership who coveted their position more than the truth and therefore rationalized it and remained silent when past indiscretions and troubling theologies were first becoming popularized, because these “new” troubling theologies were what was accepted and popular, and to go against it was to go against the tide, to go against “Prime Time Christianity” and hence lose one’s status or position.

Our church leadership has been raised up on “Pop Culture Christianity”, that uses the same methods created by Atheistic Evolutionary Psychologists to first titillate people’s emotions and felt needs to get them to purchase things they didn’t need in the first place and then seeing how successful it was and having enslaved them to their emotions, using that same avenue to control the population by playing on their deftly directed aroused emotions. Modern Christianity has become a poor sad parody of secular corporate marketing.

The church has been poisoned by allowing its success criteria to be defined by the very things it was supposed to be preaching against!

Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their own craftiness”; and again, “The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” Therefore let no one boast in men.

1 Corinthians 3:18-21

So since the church has let that poison in the door, and achieved what it considers “success”: a Mega-Church, with a multi-million dollar building program debt, a multi-million dollar fixed cost overhead budget, and a congregation who will only remain as long as their emotional stimulation continues. Is it any further surprise that they would then use Pop Culture Self-Esteem Psychology to continue the emotional stimulation to pay the bloated bills of a Corporatized Prime Time false Christian beast, where the most important element is the church’s cash flow position?!?!

Add to this sad mess a Satanic Anti-Christ Religion: Islam that has declared a war to the death against the west and its pork barrel prosperity Ideology, no not the one the media tries to pawn off on us i.e. a fundamentalist radical minority of an otherwise “peaceful” religion.

When the actual truth is the entire theology of Islam is evil. I do not say that without knowledge, having studied the religion and its revered book: the Qur’an for over three years. Islam’s fundamental aim is to either force you and I by whatever means necessary to convert to Islam or make us virtual slaves subservient to it and governed by its Sharia Law. Because you see Islam says we are all being held under subjection, either by an illegitimate government (one not ruled by Islamic Clerics, getting their marching orders straight from Allah and one whose laws are not Islamic Sharia Law). Or we are held in subjection to our own selfish desires and hence in rebellion against Allah.

The other parts of Christianity that have not went the way of Pop-Culture Psychology are either busy dismantling the deity of Christ, or are dismantling the requirements that Christians actually need a Savior to atone for their sins or they deny that sin exists at all, because after all God loves us just the way we are, and he understands we are all really deep down inside just good hearted people with some emotional baggage.

This new pending hate crimes bill when signed into law will only hasten the apostasy that has already strangling the life out of western Christianity. How many of the western “milk” Christians do you think are prepared to be persecuted for their faith? How many who have been fed a diet of positive self-esteem messages, who need to be stroked every Sunday, who have been told that God wants them perpetually happy and prosperous via their own “felt needs”, will deny their faith when persecution hits because they will not perceive it as persecution for being a Christian but will only see it as being “out of alignment”, not keeping a “positive frame of mind”, not maintaining a “positive self image” or not doing enough to name it and claim it” or not having “sewed” enough into brother so and so’s ministry so as to get that “hundred fold return”.

I say that they will turn away from persecution in mass as they have never been taught that to stand on truth means you may have to accept persecution, deprivation or even death!

You are already full! You are already rich! You have reigned as kings without us—and indeed I could wish you did reign, that we also might reign with you! For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are distinguished, but we are dishonored! To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless. And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now.

1 Corinthians 4:8-13

And once they have completely walked away from Truth they will willingly, gladly and actually believe they are doing as they have been taught and find it easy to say the words that make you a good Muslim: “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet” and no Muslim will ever have to put a gun to their head to force them to say it.

Or how many of the Christ deniers who say that Jesus was not really divine or the one’s who say we don’t need a savior to atone for our sins, because God loves us just the way we are will quickly become a Muslim because after all Islam denies the divinity of Jesus too! And considers it a sentence of death to say otherwise? When you delve into the Theology of Islam you quickly find it is actually very accomodating to those who deny the dvinity of Christ, the existence of the trinity, and the need for an atonement. All it requires is a ruthless obedience to a deity who is unreachable, unknowable, who can have no human attributes, who is pure will and nothing else, and teaches that the only ones who go straight to heaven are those who kill for Allah, all the rest go straight to hell to pay pennance for their sins here on earth, no matter if they have been born a Muslim or become one in later life.

Then there are those who do see the persecution but have begun to close ranks with those who seem on the surface to have a similar moral stance becoming co-belligerents with them, and just as they are starting to do now look longingly at the Harlot of Rome and her foul offspring because they have found a few scraps of the Bible underneath all of her millennia of encrusted Pagan tradition but in reacing out to the Harlo they choose to ignore the pesky problem of all that encrusted Pagan tradition having made those few scraps of the Bible of none affect! And hence those who hold to truth will be further reduced.

Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?” He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:

This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.

Mark 7:5-8

For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.

1 Corinthians 1:17

What we are seeing come to pass and emerge are all the ingredients for the making of the “Perfect Storm! Where all of these events coalesce to bring about the larget mass falling away from True Christian faith in the last two thousand years.Or what is described in the Bible as "The Great Apostasy":

Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

2nd Thessalonians 2 :3-4

What is so sadly ironic is this was all foretold within the Bible that they ignore so much:

I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.

John 5:43

"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from truth, and be turned aside to fables."

2 Timothy 4:3-4

And its in the same Bible that you and I read, that these “Christians” read, but in today’s Psychology polluted Church there is no room for word’s that may “cause injury” to “fragile self-esteem’s” or don’t emphasize the current culturally accepted version of God as a sometimes slow on the uptake sugar-daddy Grandfather, who loves you and accepts you just as you are, and wants you to have whatever your heart desires.

But what did Jeremiah 17:9 say again:

“The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?”

2007-04-25T07:53:00.000-07:00

Coming to a School near You the Homosexual Agenda, As a Christian what should you do?

To be clear the article below should not generate hate for Homosexuals and Lesbians, if you have hate in your heart for them then you need to talk to God about purging it from your heart and ask him instead to make you into an intercessor to stand in the gap to pray for them that God can reach them.

This war to remove this perverse corruption of our children will not be won by man made means, it will be won when those who call themselves Christians get down on their knee's in mass and ask God to first forgive us and then ask God to forgive these people who are pushing this agenda "for they know not what they do"

Just as Stephen was when he was being stoned by the Pharisee’s:

When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Acts 7: 54-60

Because as Christians we:

do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Ephesians 6:12

So the weapons of our warfare must be spiritual weapons:

Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ Says the LORD of hosts.

Zechariah 4:6

And how do we ensure our spiritual weapons are sharp:

Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;

Ephesians 6:14-17

When we do this we will become like our High Priest: Jesus Christ who died for us. Who lived a perfect and Righteous life, and being righteous he died for the unrighteous.

So also we have to be righteous and become intercessors able to stand in the gap and pray to God in heaven to forgive our sins, and then to forgive the sins of these people. This is how we have to be. Far too many Christians today are “Vampire Christians” They are constantly in need. They go to Church on Sunday to get an emotional fill up and then during the week they struggle. They struggle because they do not know how to or do not want to know how to sharpen their spiritual weapons. They remain forever “Vampire Christians” needing to constantly be fed.

Whatever happened to Christians wanting to drink of the water that makes them never thirst again?

Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

John 4:1-42

To say that we are a Christian is supposed to mean that we HAVE drunk of this water and we therefore thirst no more. It means that we too are to be like the apostles after Jesus’ Resurrection and the day of Pentecost. We are to have such a close spiritual walk with Christ that we are more than willing to become an intercessor for the lost, and if needs be gladly lay down our life not just for Truth but for the unsaved. Not that we can atone for their sins like Jesus, but that we might be like Jesus. This is what Christ asks of each one of us.

The next time you see a headline like this, instead of allowing your flesh to rise up, decide to become an intercessor, to pray, to stand in the gap: to be more like Jesus. Who knows, if enough of us do this:

if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place.

2nd Chronicles 7:14-15

John Baker

MUST SEE VIDEO - Homosexual Propaganda Fed to Elementary School Children

"It's so heartbreaking to see little kids brainwashed", says former homosexual Stephen Bennett

By John-Henry Westen NEW YORK,
April 24, 2007

(LifeSiteNews.com) - In a press release this morning, Stephen Bennett, a man who once lived the "gay" lifestyle and has since founded a ministry to assist people to leave the destructive lifestyle, alerted the media to a video clip demonstrating what he calls first-hand homosexual activist "brainwashing" of elementary school children. The video available on the Internet on Youtube.com follows a Massachusetts school's fourth annual gay and lesbian pride day activities.

The video contains actual classroom footage showing teachers imposing pro-homosexual propaganda on children as young as six. Beyond that the video captures a pre-gay pride day staff meeting where one teacher, an African American, asks if teachers are to tell children whose parents oppose homosexuality that they should nonetheless accept it as a good, to which an affirmative answer is given.

A transcript of that portion of the video follows:Unidentified African American female teacher:

"I don't know what to do about this but, as a school are we saying that kids have to support this? I guess that's what it sounds like to me that we're saying. If a child comes from a background that says homosexuality is not correct, are we telling that child that they're supposed to, this is what you are supposed to do?"Unidentified Caucasian female teacher, "I think that we are asking kids to believe this is right. Not as a matter of moral principal, but as a matter of, we're educating them and this is part of what we consider to be a healthy education."Stephen Bennett told

LifeSiteNews.com in an interview that he was "horrified" and "had tears in my eyes" after seeing the video. "It's so heartbreaking to see little kids brainwashed," he said.Stressing that the video must been seen by all concerned parents, Bennett said, "this is what is happening to America's children -- without many parents even knowing a thing.

This is a crime against our children. Let the children be children!"Amazingly, the video, while newly posted on the internet, is a clip from a 1996 pro-homosexual film called "It's elementary". While the first segment of the YouTube clip of the film covers Cambridge Friends School (CFS) in Massachusetts, a second clip covers New York City Public School 87 where similar propagandizing occurs.In the 1996 video, then CFS Principal Thomas Price notes that it is the school's fourth annual celebration of gay pride day.

Homosexual activists have reacted quickly to the publicity of their agenda and have discussed demanding YouTube to remove the videos. The videos seem to have been posted to the internet by a racist and Bennett in his release stressed that the tag on the video reading "faggots" is something he opposes and should be removed. Homosexual activists have themselves acknowledged however the veracity of the video clips as segments of the film 'It's elementary'.

See the Youtube video clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mil2ohzJ6gs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spz5yN5I2wU&mode=related&...

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/apr/07042407.html

2007-04-24T19:03:00.000-07:00

Evangelicals Reject God’s Holiness

From "No Place for Truth: Or whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology" (Eerdmans, 1993), p. 300.
By Dr. David F. Wells

"...the shallowness of modern life derives not from its banality but from its having lost its moral bearings. ... Christ seems to offer little of what this world is asking for. It wants whatever is new; it looks for the next step in the journey of the human spirit...."

"It is this holiness of God, then, without which the Cross of Christ is incomprehensible, that provides the light that exposes modernity's darkness for what it is....

Evangelicals turned from focusing on God's transcendence to focusing on his immanence [pervading all creation] -- and then they took the further step of interpreting his immanence as friendliness with modernity....

"The loss of the traditional vision of God as holy is now manifested everywhere in the evangelical world. It is the key to understanding why sin and grace have become such empty terms.... Divorced from the holiness of God -

sin is merely self-defeating behavior or a breach in etiquette...

grace is merely empty rhetoric, pious window dressing for the modern technique by which sinners work out their own salvation....

our gospel becomes indistinguishable from any of a host of alternative self-help doctrines....
our public morality is reduced to little more than an accumulation of trade-offs between competing private interests.

our worship becomes mere entertainment.

"The holiness of God is the very cornerstone of Christian faith, for it is the foundation of reality....

"...this God, majestic and holy in his being... has disappeared from the modern evangelical world. He has been replaced in many quarters by a God... whose Word is a plaything for those who wish merely to listen to themselves, whose Church is a mall in which the religious, their pockets filled with the coin of need, do their business. We seek happiness, not righteousness."

http://www.apuritansmind.com/PuritanWorship/DavidWells%20Holiness.htm

2007-04-23T08:56:00.000-07:00

Saul: The Medium and The Lying Spirit vs. TD Jakes: Yoga and Meditation.

1 Samuel 28:7-14

Then Saul said to his servants, “Find me a woman who is a medium that I may go to her and inquire of her.” And his servants said to him, “In fact, there is a woman who is a medium at En Dor.” So Saul disguised himself and put on other clothes, and he went, and two men with him; and they came to the woman by night. And he said, “Please conduct a séance for me, and bring up for me the one I shall name to you.” Then the woman said to him, “Look, you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the spiritists from the land. Why then do you lay a snare for my life, to cause me to die?” And Saul swore to her by the LORD, saying, “As the LORD lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing.” Then the woman said, “Whom shall I bring up for you?” And he said, “Bring up Samuel for me.” When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. And the woman spoke to Saul, saying, “Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul!” And the king said to her, “Do not be afraid. What did you see?” And the woman said to Saul, “I saw a spirit ascending out of the earth.” So he said to her, “What is his form?” And she said, “An old man is coming up, and he is covered with a mantle.” And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground and bowed down.

The key phrase in this passage is: Saul perceived that it was Samuel. However it was not Samuel it was a lying spirit. Saul had violated a specific commandment from God not to seek out and inquire of Mediums because Mediums were not of God and could only call up lying spirits:

Leviticus 19:31

Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.

Leviticus 20:6

And the person who turns to mediums and familiar spirits, to prostitute himself with them, I will set My face against that person and cut him off from his people.

1 Chronicles 10:13

So Saul died for his unfaithfulness which he had committed against the LORD, because he did not keep the word of the LORD, and also because he consulted a medium for guidance.

God has given specific instructions on how to seek him out, also nowhere in Scripture does it say that those who have died can be contacted by the living. The commandment from God also more importantly points out that God has specific methods for seeking him, and there are methods that are not to be used:

Deuteronomy 12:29-32

“When the LORD your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.’ You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way; for every abomination to the LORD which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.

The use of mediums was part of the idolatry that was practiced by those people in Canaan that the Children of Israel were not to copy.

TD Jakes in a Washington Post Article says its ok to do Yoga and Meditation if the intent is correct, in other words If you are a Christian and have no intent of doing it to follow a Hindu belief system. Does TD Jakes in saying this show both his ignorance and blindness to God's Word?

As TD Jakes view violates not only God's Commandments in Leviticus but also the teaching of Paul in 1 Corinthians Chapter 8:4-13:

Therefore concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live. However, there is not in everyone that knowledge; for some, with consciousness of the idol, until now eat it as a thing offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. But food does not commend us to God; for neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we do not eat are we the worse. But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols? And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? But when you thus sin against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.

TD Jakes as a supposed knowledgeable man of God should know not to place a stumbling block via his words or actions in front of weak Christians. The sad fact is that a large portion of Christians in our morally bankrupt America of today are constantly seeking after “Signs and Wonders” without living in obedience to God’s word, and they would jump at the chance to hear from a “familiar spirit" while utilizing Yoga & Meditation to their own detriment, fall and destruction.

Practicing Yoga and Meditation goes far beyond eating foods offered to Idols. Because Yoga is part of the Theology of Hinduism, it is used to prepare the person for meditation which then opens the person up to make contact with the "Higher Self" or the "Universal Consciousness" as Hinduism teaches that all of creation is one single integrated consciousness or being. There are hundreds of New Age books that have been written by people who have went into transcendental mediation and supposedly been contacted by spirits who gave them messages. Meditation has also been used to "Channel Spirit Guides" that use the person meditating to give "messages" to other people or mankind as a whole.

The Book: "A Course in Miracles" by an atheistic psychologist from Columbia University named: Helen Schucman who began to channel messages from a spirit she thought to be “Jesus”. She ultimately produced, or she says this “Jesus” revealed to her, over a thousand pages of revelation over a period of seven years. This "Spirit Jesus" supposedly told Schucman that who he was and what his purpose was had been misunderstood and that he was actually a "spiritual big brother" to everyone and that his real purpose was to show everyone how they could find their own "inner spiritual guide" to help them learn that they too could be a Jesus just like him and be part of the "sonship" the same as him. Chapter three of "A Course in Miracles" even denies that Jesus crucifixion established the atonement for our sins!

So the question has to be asked, is TD Jakes truly ignorant of all of this? I would tend to say no he is not, after all he holds to the heretical "Oneness" Theology which teaches that there is no Trinity, and that God actually operates in different modes all on his own. When he needs to be Jesus the Son, he becomes Jesus the Son, when he needs to become God the Father, He becomes God the Father, when he needs to be the Holy Spirit he becomes the Holy Spirit. But there are not three persons: God the Father, God the Son, & God the Holy Spirit in the Godhead. Which if you think about it, is a ridiculous concept, as when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan by John the Baptist (Matthew 17:5), God the Father spoke from heaven and said “This is my son in whom I am well pleased” So if God operates in different modes and at that time he was in the Mode of God the Son (Jesus), was God the Son doing a slight of hand? Throwing his voice? The very idea of “Oneness” Theology throws the whole of Scripture into total nonsense!

If a person already holds to a major Heretical anti-Biblical Theological position such as “Oneness Theology” Then they have opened the gateway to acceptance and incorporation of other heretical anti-Biblical positions and beliefs

TD Jakes “Oneness” Theology, his approval of Yoga & Meditation also falls in line with him stumbling on the question of whether Jesus is the only way to Heaven, on a Radio program in Seattle Washington just as Joel Osteen did on Larry King Live when asked by a caller who happened to be a Hindu, whether Jesus was truly the only way to heaven, Jakes told the caller that only God knew who was going to Heaven, now to show that he wasn’t just trying to avoid the question by using a political answer, Jakes went further to misuse the words of Jesus in John 10:16 where Jesus says “And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.” to say that there would be people who did not believe in Jesus who would go to heaven. But there is a major problem here. Jesus was speaking to a group of Jews, and Jesus was referring to the Gentiles who would come to believe in him and be saved though the missionary work of his disciples and others, beginning in Acts chapter 10 with Peter going to the house of Cornelius the Roman Centurion.

John 14:6:

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me

I wonder why there are no well known "Televangelists" practicing the role of the Watchman and calling out TD Jakes on his major departures from Biblical Truth? Where is Kim Clement "The Prophet", to be a "troubler" to those who do not speak Biblical Truth? Oh I forgot he is out promising more abundance to those who already have far too much abundance! Could it be that none of them want to lose their position on the National and International Podium of Power and Fame?

None of them wanting to be booted off of the trough of Total Biblical Nonsense that is TBN? It should be a warning to all Christians that something stinks in the World of Televangelism!

John Baker

2007-04-18T11:21:00.000-07:00

THE DR. RUTH OF CHRISTIANDOM?!!!

Any Fans Of Juanita Bynum And Bishop Thomas Weeks Out There?

(Caution although the video in the link below is supposed to be a Christian Video it may offend some!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frFXQlvrBgg

A Late edition:

Bishop Weeks, Juanita Bynum-Weeks husband approving of Sodomy, Oral Sex, Public Sex, and exploring things that "you havent tried" but may like!

(Caution this Video clip is much worse than the first one):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ7LFb7lhaQ

Let’s be clear on something! Only carnal Godless men constantly think about Sex. Godly men do not constantly think about sex. These videos are a disgusting example of how the modern false prophets are mangling the word of God. And to be clear the way in which the true church should be teaching couples on how to love each other is through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life. If we use Godly Biblical Wisdom to teach couples how to love each other then God sanctifies that teaching and therefore there is never a need for false teachers to “teach” in such a disgusting and carnal manner.

The main problem today is that the Holy Spirit has been pushed so far out of the teaching in our churches, that what is left is fallen carnal humanistic teaching. When the Teacher does not have the true indwelling of the person of the Holy Spirit then discernment and Godly wisdom will not be there. And this video is a classic example of that.

We have allowed far too much carnality into the church and given way to far too much carnality in the life of individual Christians that your average Christian has no understanding of what the Holy Spirit can do in their individual lives, in their marriages, and in their relationships with others.

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a fundamental requirement for a Christian to be the salt and light. Jesus before ascending into Heaven told his disciples:

Luk 24:49

And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.

The Power from on high came on the day of Pentecost when the Disciples were in the upper room:

Acts 2:1-4

When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

This same indwelling power of the Holy Spirit is still available to those Christians whose hearts are fully turned towards God to do his will. but because most Christians want to be like Simon the Sorcerer:

Acts 8:18-23

And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying, “Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” But Peter said to him, “Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money! You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.”

They think the Holy Spirit is for their own carnal desires, and this is why they never receive the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, God knows their heart, they continue to be bound to their carnal desires and lacking any discernment fall to the words of false Prophets and Seducing Spirits:

2 Timothy 4:3-4

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

Revelation 2:18-23

‘These things says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet like fine brass: “I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience; and as for your works, the last are more than the first. Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent. Indeed I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds. I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of you according to your works.

John Baker

2007-04-18T05:58:00.000-07:00

University convocation told of Allah, not Jesus
Speakers also invoke Buddha, Dalai Lama

Speakers at the Virginia Tech convocation yesterday called on Allah and Buddha in their efforts to minister to the survivors, family and friends of victims of the shooting massacre at the school – but Jesus wasn't mentioned by name.

President Bush did offer a biblical message of hope, when he suggested the school community that lost 32 members to the shootings by an out-of-control resident alien student find "comfort in the grace and guidance of a loving God."

But even he didn't bring Jesus, the only hope of comfort and future life for Christians, into the memorials.

"I'm sitting here watching the convocation service at VT," wrote a WND reader who was given anonymity. "Five minutes ago they had four representatives from the local 'religious community.'

The Muslim specifically invoked Allah's blessings… and he didn't shy away from saying the name of Allah. The Jewish rep asked for God's blessings. Buddha was represented. The only name that [was] omitted, of course, Jesus Christ."

And another WND reader cited the speakers, in order:

"1st Speaker: A Muslim cleric invoking the name of Allah and quoting the Quran."

"2nd Speaker: A Buddhist Community Leader preaching that mankind is basically 'good.'"

"3rd Speaker: A Female speaker from the Jewish Community quoting Ecclesiastes: 'There is a time for everything.'"

"4th Speaker: A Liberal Lutheran Minister talking about 'healing,' etc. and how everyone needs to come together (blah, blah, blah…)."

"BUT NOT ONE EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN PASTOR/PREACHER. NO INVOCATION OF THE NAME OF CHRIST JESUS," the reader said.

"The only thing that surprised me, though, is that they didn't have a rep from the Universal Life 'church' or the 'Church of Satan.' Go figure," said the first reader.

Yet another reader wondered why a Muslim cleric was the first member of the clergy to deliver remarks.

"By the prominence of the Muslim speaker in the service are we to assume that Virginia Tech is mainly a Muslim student body? ... How are we to know this wasn't a signal to a sleeper cell? ... I pray the students and staff find tangible comfort from the God who freely gave us the Lord Jesus to show us how to live."

It was up to the president to deliver references to Christianity.

"People who have never met you are praying for you," Bush said. "They're praying for your friends who have fallen and who are injured. There's a power in these prayers, a real power. In times like this, we can find comfort in the grace and the guidance of a loving God."

Most of the other official statements of condolence released also ignored the savior of the Christian faith.

"Today is a day to reflect on our many blessings of family, neighbors, and our Blacksburg community, which includes the students of Virginia Tech," said a statement from the town of Blacksburg, where Virginia Tech is located.

"I urge Virginians to keep these victims and their families in their thoughts and prayers," said Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, who recounted some of the Old Testament Book of Job in his remarks.

"In time, Americans will learn more about the circumstances of this senseless tragedy. For now and forever after, our hearts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the other students, faculty and staff of Virginia Tech, and their families," said Sen. John Warner, a Republican.

"My heart goes out to the parents and families of the victims of this senseless act," said Sen. Jim Webb, a Democrat.

The school has announced a candlelight vigil to honor the victims of the mass killing Monday.

The campus also was ordered closed through this week, and counseling services were being made available to students, faculty and staff.

"We come to express our sympathy in this time of anguish. I hope you know that people all over this country are thinking about you and asking God to provide comfort for all who have been affected," the president told the community assembly.

"May God bless you and keep you and keep the souls of the lost and may his love touch all of those who suffer and grieve," he concluded.

He earlier had ordered U.S. flags to be flown at half staff at the White House, federal buildings and grounds, naval craft and military posts through Sunday.

"Our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech. We hold the victims in our hearts. We lift them up in our prayers, and we ask a loving God to comfort those who are suffering," Bush said in the flag proclamation.

Authorities have identified the shooter as Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a senior English major at the school whose class writings were so disturbing he previously had been referred for counseling.

http://wnd.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55252

2007-04-17T07:51:00.000-07:00

Virginia Tech students gather in front of the War Memorial to mourn their fellow students on Monday after the shooting rampage.

It Sets Our Childrens Teeth on Edge

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast.And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the Lord.In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge.But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.

Jeremiah 31: 27-30 (KJV)

Oh that our country would fall on its knee’s in repentance and pray:

Come Lord Jesus, Forgive us for walking away from you, be our Lord, and watch over us, build up and plant within us all a new heart. And let no more that our children’s teeth be set on edge in fear.

John Baker

Authorities ID gunman in Va. Tech rampage
College president says gunman was a student; 33 killed, 26 wounded

BLACKSBURG, Va. - A Virginia Tech student was behind the massacre of at least 30 people locked inside a campus building in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, the university said Tuesday.

The Virginia Tech Police Department identified him as Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a senior in the English department.

The bloodbath ended with the gunman’s suicide, bringing the death toll from two separate shootings — first at a dorm, then in a classroom building — to 33 and stamping the campus in the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains with unspeakable tragedy.

Ballistics tests showed one of the guns found was used in both shootings, at the doom and the classroom building, Virginia State Police said.

A federal law enforcement official said Tuesday he had been told by other federal law enforcement officials that the two guns recovered in the shooting had had their serial numbers scraped off. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced, said Cho was carrying a backpack that contained receipts for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol.

At least 26 people were taken to hospitals after the second attack, some seriously injured. Victims were reported early Tuesday to be in stable condition at two area hospitals.

Community struggles to cope

President Bush planned to attend a memorial service Tuesday afternoon at the university, the White House said, and Gov. Tim Kaine was flying back to Virginia from Tokyo for the 2 p.m. convocation.

Local authorities have scheduled a media briefing for 9 a.m. Tuesday.

The people of Blacksburg struggled to find order in the wake of the shooting at Virginia Tech university.

“For all the children in our community who are afraid,” one woman pleaded in a church service held for those seeking solace.

Another added: “For parents near and far who wonder at a time like this, ‘Is my child safe?”’
Investigators gave no motive for the attack. The gunman’s name has not been released.

“Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions,” Steger said. “The university is shocked and indeed horrified.”

Difficult questionsBut he was also faced with difficult questions about the university’s handling of the emergency and whether it did enough to warn students and protect them after the first burst of gunfire. Some students bitterly complained they got no warning from the university until an e-mail that arrived more than two hours after the first shots rang out.

Wielding two handguns and carrying multiple clips of ammunition, the killer opened fire about 7:15 a.m. on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston, a high-rise coed dormitory, then stormed Norris Hall, a classroom building a half-mile away on the other side of the 2,600-acre campus. Some of the doors at Norris Hall were found chained from the inside, apparently by the gunman.
Two people died in a dorm room, and 31 others were killed in Norris Hall, including the gunman, who put a bullet in his head.

Students jumped from windows in panic.

Alec Calhoun, a 20-year-old junior, said he was in a 9:05 a.m. mechanics class when he and classmates heard a thunderous sound from the classroom next door — “what sounded like an enormous hammer.”

Screams followed an instant later, and the banging continued. When students realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, he started flipping over desks for hiding places. Others dashed to the windows of the second-floor classroom, kicking out the screens and jumping from the ledge of Room 204, he said.

“I must’ve been the eighth or ninth person who jumped, and I think I was the last,” said Calhoun, of Waynesboro, Va. He landed in a bush and ran.

Calhoun said that the two students behind him were shot, but that he believed they survived. Just before he climbed out the window, Calhoun said, he turned to look at the professor, who had stayed behind, perhaps to block the door.

The instructor was killed, he said.

‘Very calm look on his face’Young people and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances to arrive. Many found themselves trapped behind chained and padlocked doors. SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. A student used his cell-phone camera to record the sound of bullets echoing through a stone building.

Trey Perkins, who was sitting in a German class in Norris Hall, told The Washington Post that the gunman barged into the room at about 9:50 a.m. and opened fire for about a minute and a half, squeezing off about 30 shots.

The gunman first shot the professor in the head and then fired on the students, Perkins said. The gunman was about 19 years old and had a “very serious but very calm look on his face,” he said.

“Everyone hit the floor at that moment,” said Perkins, 20, of Yorktown, Va., a sophomore studying mechanical engineering. “And the shots seemed like it lasted forever.”

Erin Sheehan, who was also in the German class, told the student newspaper, the Collegiate Times, that she was one of only four of about two dozen people in the class to walk out of the room. The rest were dead or wounded, she said.

She said the gunman “had on a Boy Scout-type outfit. He wore a tan button-up vest, and this black vest, maybe it was for ammo or something.”

Students angry at university's responseStudents said that there were no public-address announcements after the first shots. Many said they learned of the first shooting in an e-mail that arrived shortly before the gunman struck again.

“I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action after the first incident,” said Billy Bason, 18, who lives on the seventh floor of the dorm.

Steger defended the university’s conduct, saying authorities believed that the shooting at the dorm was a domestic dispute and mistakenly thought the gunman had fled the campus.

“We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur,” he said.

University President Charles Steger emphasized that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack and decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means to spread the word, but said that with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out.

He said that before the e-mail went out, the university began telephoning resident advisers in the dorms and sent people to knock on doors. Students were warned to stay inside and away from the windows.

“We can only make decisions based on the information you had at the time. You don’t have hours to reflect on it,” Steger said.

Some students and Laura Wedin, a student programs manager at Virginia Tech, said their first notification came in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., more than two hours after the first shooting.

The e-mail had few details. It read: “A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating.” The message warned students to be cautious and contact police about anything suspicious.

Edmund Henneke, associate dean of engineering, said that he was in the classroom building and that he and colleagues had just read the e-mail advisory and were discussing it when he heard gunfire. He said that moments later SWAT team members rushed them downstairs, but that the doors were chained and padlocked from the inside. They left the building through an unlocked construction area.

Previous rampagesUntil Monday, the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby’s Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.

The massacre Monday took place almost eight years to the day after the Columbine High bloodbath near Littleton, Colo. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.

Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire. He killed 16 people before police shot him to death.

Founded in 1872, Virginia Tech is about 160 miles west of Richmond. With more than 25,000 full-time students, it has the state’s largest full-time student population. It is best known for its engineering school and its powerhouse Hokies football team.

The campus is centered on the Drill Field, a grassy field where military cadets practice. The dorm and the classroom building are on opposites sides of the Drill Field.

After the shootings, all campus entrances were closed, and classes were canceled through Tuesday. The university set up a spot for families to reunite with their children. It also made counselors available and planned an assembly Tuesday.

Police said there had been bomb threats on campus over the past two weeks but said they had not determined a link to the shootings.

Second shooting in less than a yearIt was second time in less than a year that the campus was closed because of a shooting.

In August, the opening day of classes was canceled when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the Tech area. A sheriff’s deputy was killed just off campus. The accused gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.

At a hastily arranged service Monday night at Blacksburg Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Susan Verbrugge gazed out at about 150 bowed heads.

“Death has come trundling into our life, a sudden and savage entity laying waste to our hearts and making desolate our minds,” Verbrugge said during a prayer. “We need now the consolation only you can give.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18148802/?GT1=9246

2007-04-10T10:48:00.000-07:00

El Shaddai and His Suzerainty Treaty

Genesis 17 is a crucial chapter for our understanding of what's happening in the Bible. But this is a chapter which raises all kinds of issues. In fact, even many Bible believing Christians disagree on many of the issues raised in this chapter. I believe God has some wonderful truths to reveal in this chapter. Let's read the text...

Read: Genesis Chapter 17

We are not going to deal with the whole chapter. We will leave the subject of circumcision for another time. But, apart from the significance of that sign, there are at least two powerful lessons for us to learn from this chapter...

I. God Sets The Terms of His Covenant.

We live in a day in which most "everything is negotiable". If you don't like something, just hold out for a better deal! Because that is such a widespread reality, we sometimes have difficulty understanding the nature of God's Covenant. As God presents His covenant, it is not like a labor contract, where everyone sits down at the negotiating table and works out an arrangement which is acceptable to all.

Instead, God's Covenant is more like an ancient suzerainty treaty

That is a treaty made by a big, powerful king with his weak, little neighbor. In such a treaty the strong king offers his protection, imposes his governing, and demands whatever he pleases (normally obedience and taxes) from the weak king. Of course the weak king has a choice:
He can surrender to the control of the strong king and enjoy his protection, Or, he can refuse and suffer the consequences. What he cannot do is renegotiate the terms of the treaty or covenant.

Now, that's how God deals with Abram in this chapter. In verse 1, God just appears and lays out the term of Abram's relationship to Him. "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless!"

The Lord claims total sovereignty, and expects Abram to relinquish his control of his life and do what God says! In fact, in those first eight verses, God says, "I will..." no less than seven times:

I will confirm my covenant...
I will greatly increase your numbers...
I will make you very fruitful...
I will make nations of you...
I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant...
I will give as [you] an everlasting possession ...
I will be God [to your descendants] ...

And then in verse 9, God begins to say, "you must..." But, when we look for what exactly Abram must do, we find that his obedience is to be unconditional!

Christian Author Derek Kidner notes:

"The striking feature of the stipulations is their lack of detail. To be committed was all... The implications could be left unwritten (until Sinai), for [Abram] was pledged to a Master, only secondarily to a way of life."

Certainly, God promises some wonderful blessings here, but make no mistake... God set the terms of His covenant! That's one of the differences between chapter 15 and chapter 17.
In chapter 15, God privately enters into covenant with Abram and makes it very clear that His covenant is all of grace. Remember, God taking the covenant making walk down the corridor between the dismembered sacrifices – all alone, while Abram was helpless. Pure grace!

But here in chapter 17, God publicly confirms that covenant that he has made, giving a covenant sign, and now, the emphasis is not primarily on His grace, but on His sovereignty. God alone sets the terms of His covenant. Now, the truth is, we want a God of grace who will have mercy on us in the face of our failures. Abraham undoubtedly did too, for he had miserably failed the Lord in the affair with Hagar, right after God made such a wonderful covenant with him. But, most of us do not want a God who claims complete control over us.

Dr. Iain Duguid says it so clearly:

"Many people think they can decide what God will be like. They want to pick and choose what they will believe and what they will do – and they certainly don't want a God who makes too many demands on them. "My God isn't like that,' they sill tell you. In other words, they don't want a God who is God.

"The real question, however is not what you would like God to be like, but what he is really like. And he has revealed himself as the God who has made a covenant with his people. When the great king comes and offers to establish a covenant with you, you really have only two choices: you can accept the covenant relationship on his terms and receive its benefits, or you can refuse it and face the consequences."

But, God sets the terms of His covenant. Oh, I do not want to minimize God's grace in any way.
God's covenant is all of grace, or we have nothing, for none of us could stand on our own holiness. But the God of all grace, does claim absolute sovereignty over his people. When he says "I will be your God and you will be my people," He means it! He intends to be in the driver's seat – to be God to us! And that means we had better expect some changes! Think of the changes God immediately brought to Abram and Sarai. He changed their names.

Someone has said that a person's own name is the sweetest word in the world to their ears. Nothing is more personal, and strikes at our very identity, than our name! And God changed them! Changed Abram to Abraham and changed Sarai to Sarah.

Now, in the case of Abraham, though it seems like a minor addition, it was not small thing.
The name Abram meant "father of many." We can only imagine how many times someone asked Abram, "Oh, how many?" And for years he had to say, "none." Now, fortunately, at least he had Ishmael! But God says, "No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham..."

Abraham means "Father of a multitude!" Can you just imagine when Abraham announced this to his family? "Hey, I'm changing my name." "It's about time," some of his friends may have thought. "Enough of this Father of many. The guy is 99 years old, already!'

"So, Abram, what's the new name?" "From now on, you can call me, Father of a multitude!" Can you hear the laughter?! But you see, no matter how ridiculous it might have seemed to others, God sets the terms of His Covenant! I challenge you with this, for so often we are willing to have God's grace to bring us forgiveness, but we do not want him messing with our life! But, there is no such place to stand!

Our only hope is God's Covenant of Grace which He has brought to fulfillment in Jesus. But, he sets the terms of that covenant, And the terms are real simple: Hand over the reins of your life to the Savior! But that's not the only change God brought to Abraham. He also commanded him to be circumcised. Now, we are not going to get into circumcision now, except to make this point. If you think your name is personal, and changing it would be painful, think of this!

Iain Duguid again:

"This was faith that penetrated even to the most personal areas of Abraham's life in a most painful way."

How deeply does your faith penetrate your life? For so many, it only affects Sunday mornings. Few even worship on Sunday evening. Fewer still are known for their faithfulness to Christ at work. And even among those who everyone knows to be exemplary Christians ...

There are private relationships, evil thoughts, sinful motives, secret sins that are off limits even to the Lord Himself! No, nothing is off limits. He intends to change us profoundly, from the inside out! That's the great mandate of Romans 12: “Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God And be not conformed to this world, But be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

There is no limit to that transformation which God has in mind. For this He sent His Son: to make you holy, through and through! Or, as He said to Abraham: "Walk before me and be blameless!" and, Abram fell face down in humility before the Lord! God sovereignly has set the terms of covenant faithfulness! Oh, but there is another great truth here – as encouraging as this one is penetrating...

II. God Is Able To Do What He Promised.

As we get older and wiser, we tend to lower our expectations. It's easy to begin to "flatten" God's promises – to take the supernatural, outrageous, radical element out, and "tame" them down to expectations we can understand, or even guarantee with the resources at hand.
But, here, we learn that God's ways are greater than our ways – His plans are beyond even our wildest dreams. ...at least they were for Abraham! Here we are reminded that God is able to do what He says! This truth first confronts us in the very first verse:

"The LORD appeared to him and said, 'I am God Almighty..."

The name God calls himself is actually "El Shaddai" – here translated "God Almighty" This is the very first time this name for God is used in the Bible. Why? What does it add to this discussion?

Well, this name of God speaks of His Might, over against the frailty of man. It has been literally translated, "God who is sufficient!" – El Shaddai

The great O.T. scholar Franz Delitzsch claims that El Shaddai designates...

"the God who compels nature to do what is contrary to itself and subdues it to bow and minister to grace."

In the very name by which God introduces Himself to Abraham, even before He says anything else God makes the point that He is able to do what He says! Now, this is important for throughout this passage, God intends to promise the impossible! For example: Years ago, God had promised Abram land and descendants – that's old news. But now, God promises, "I will make nations of you and kings will come from you" (vs. 6) Sarah "will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her." (Vs 16) And for how long? "I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant..."

And this wasn't just about Abraham's direct descendants, according to vs. 12,13, God intended to include every servant born in his house, everyone bought from a foreigner, even "those who are not your offspring." In other words, this blessing on the nations was intended to include the Gentiles from the very beginning! This was more than just a family thing! Furthermore, God was not satisfied with just using natural processes. You see, Abraham was perfectly happy with his son Ishmael, now thirteen years old. Surely God had given him this son through Hagar now, he had an heir and he was content. But God said, no, I will indeed bless Ishmael...

But my promises will be supernaturally carried out through the son which will be born to Sarah! Born to Sarah when she is ninety, and Abraham is 100! For, the covenant cannot be by Ishmael, for then it would have depended on man, working out God's promises. But God's covenant is not dependant on man's ingenuity or clever maneuvering. God is able to accomplish what He promised! Natural processes are not an obstacle to Him; He created them! His covenant is all His way, and all His power. What God made clear to Abraham concerning His Mighty Power – the power of El Shaddai, God Almighty – applies to us as well. I remind you of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. "It is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes."

Now, that's important, for too often the promise of the gospel has been "flattened". Its promise has been distorted and reduced down to something more manageable. But, God has not just promised that he would make us feel better about ourselves. A hot shower will do that! Nor has God just promised to make us nice, middleclass families. A good income and decent education might do that. Nor has God just promised to make us more prosperous than those who are not His people. It's just not true! Jesus wasn't rich and you probably won't be either.

No, what God has promised is infinitely greater – greater than anything you or I could pull off by our own power and scheming. God has promised to remove the guilt of our sin for ever! – not just our guilt feelings, but the actual condemnation! God has promised to give us a new, spiritual life – reborn inside – a brand new creature in Christ Jesus. God has promised that He Himself, in the person of His Holy Spirit, will come and dwell within us all our days. God has promised that He will join us to His other new creatures, in a family relationship richer and stronger than blood ties! God has promised that death itself can no longer defeat His people, for we will live forever with Him. Death will be swallowed up by life.

Indeed, this is not just a spiritual thing, our physical bodies will rise from the dead to live forever in a new heaven and new earth. And God has promised that all the things he brings into our lives right now are working toward that goal – the day we will stand before him perfectly conformed to Jesus Christ. Now, you can manufacture a lot of religion – a lot of good Christian religion. But you cannot any more begin to do even one of those things, than Abraham and Sarah could have a baby when they were 100 years old! Oh, but the LORD – El Shaddai, God Almighty – is able to do everything He promised! He has proved it by the incarnation, death and resurrection of our Savior Jesus.

So, how should we respond? Well, according to vs. 17, when Abraham heard such impossible things, he fell facedown and laughed! But O, this was not laughter of scorn and derision... This was the sheer delight of faith – overwhelmed with joy, knowing and believing, that God was able to do everything He said. We know this was laughter of faith, for the New Testament tells us so.

Listen to the Holy Spirit's commentary in Romans 4:

18 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead – since he was about a hundred years old – and that Sarah's womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised."

And God said, "By the way, call that child of promise Isaac," which means "Laughter!"
I don't know what promise of God looks so impossible to you today, but the Lord has not changed. He is still El Shaddai! And He is still able to do what he promised!

Conclusion

we have been confronted with the covenant of which circumcision was a sign. This passage doesn't tell us everything about the covenant... That is the unfolding story of the whole Bible.
But this chapter does make a couple of things clear – things which do not change!

1. God sets the terms of His Covenant It is not ours to negotiate. Like Abraham, we must fall on our face in devotion and unquestioning obedience.

2. God is able to do what He promises. He has often told us things which are beyond our comprehension We need not feel any compulsion to reinterpret them – to tame them.

We just need to trust Him – laughing with joy if necessary!

adpated from: http://www.wiserlakechapel.org/17part1.htm

2007-04-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

I have had a problem with the widely accepted Dispensational Interpretation of Ezekiel 38 since the time I discovered that the name Rus from where we get the modern name Russia did not come into existence until the 11th century AD. As the author of the piece below explains, far too often people have tried to take place names form today and make the Biblical place names in Ezekiel 38 fit the modern names.

When you read the Bible in literal terms and not try to make it fit a preconceived idea or interpretation, the Bible begins to open its wisdom and reveals a natural and unforced interpretation. What is amazing about the article below and the natural interpretation where it lets the Bible speak for itself is it points very naturally to what we are seeing occur in Islam today, i.e. the battle between the Shia Muslim Countries, and the Sunni Muslim countries. The Iranian (Persian) led Shiite countries are lining up against the Sunni Arab countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Lebanon. As Iran (Persia) sees these countries as false states created by Western Imperialism.

I previously sent out an article about how Libya is declaring itself part of the Shia Revival and identifying with its aims. Libya (Put) is one of the countries listed in Ezekiel 38, as well as Ethiopia. But the Ethiopia in Ezekiel 38 is not the Ethiopia we know today. It is the Sudan, and what is happening in the Sudan? It is being taken over by radical Islamic groups who also identify with the Shia Revival and the aims of Iran (Persia), Al Qaeda is very active in the Sudan as well.

Turkey which is also listed in Ezekiel 38 was once a very western oriented country. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who founded Turkey wanted the country to be like the Western countries and not like the "backward" Middle Eastern Arabic Islamic Countries. However Turkey recently applied for membership in the European Union and has been turned down by most of the Western European countries out of a fear of Europe being over-run with Muslims from Turkey if Turkey was allowed to join the E.U. This has not been taken very well in Turkey and now that country has elected a more radical Islamic Government and is heading towards being a Radical Islamic State like Iran.

All of the former Soviet Central Asian Republics are Islamic States. And some are listed in Ezekiel 38 as being part of the confederation that attacks Israel. Russia on the other hand like the west fears Islamic Fundamentalism, It would never lead a confederation of radical Islamic States against Israel. And neither would the Radical Islamic States allow Russia to lead them in a confederacy. This all fits with what we see developing in International Geo-Politics today.

John Baker

The Nations of Ezekiel 38 – 39 Who Will Participate in the Battle?

PURPOSE OF PAPER

The purpose of this paper is to identify the nations who will be participants in the end-time battle described in Ezekiel 38. The terms which will be considered are Gog, Magog, Rosh, Meshech, Tubal, Persia, Ethiopia, Libya, Gomer and Togarmah (KJV). A discussion of the time of this battle does not fall within the scope of this paper; however, it will be easily seen that the position taken in this regard is that the battle will be right before the tribulation.

INTRODUCTION

When interpreting Ezekiel 38 it has become popular to identify Gomer as Germany and the terms Rosh, Gog, Magog, Meshech, and Tubal as being Russia. Among dispensational authors there is almost complete unanimity on this point. This paper will analyze the arguments used in support of this position and attempt to demonstrate that these terms refer instead to a near-eastern coalition of nations which will seek to destroy Israel.

PRESUPPOSITIONS AND PRELIMINARY REMARKS

Linguistics and Interpretation

The interpretation of these place names in Ezekiel 38 must be based upon sound historical research and methodology and that in keeping with the established laws of historical and comparative linguistics. Reading modern English place names into the original Semitic terminology, for example, must be avoided. The similarity in sound of an ancient Hebrew word with a modern English word is more than likely only superficial. The Hebrew prophets were not writing to an English audience, and their terminology should not be interpreted as such but rather from their own historical standpoint.

One linguistic principle to bear in mind is that as a language evolves out of another or as a word migrates from one language to another, the vowels may all change, but the consonants will generally remain the same. A Biblical example of this is found in Nehemiah chapter 6. Verse 1 mentions a man named Gesham the Arabian; verse 6 names him Gashmu. Notice that the vowels all change, but the consonants remain the same: GŠM. The difference here in Nehemiah may have been caused by a translation from two different languages in the two verses. The point is that it is the consonants which are important.

Closely associated with this is the fact that the consonants remain in the same order, as in the example cited above. To reverse the order of the letters (consonants) in order to arrive at a desired conclusion is merely presumptuous. A consonant may change to another consonant with similar sound, but their order and place in the word remain.Method of Interpretation Care must also be taken to avoid personal and/or political bias. It is natural to seek to discover any great modern power or nation somewhere within the pages of Biblical prophecy. An example of this is seen in the desire to find the United States, China, or Japan in the prophetic Word. This temptation is only heightened when the nation or power in question is also an evil empire, as with the Soviet Union. Unger makes this mistake when he says "It is unthinkable that this vast God-defying power [USSR] would not be included in the scope of things to come as set forth in the Bible." Walvoord does virtually the same when he says "The godlessness of the invading army attacking Israel also points the finger to the nation Russia."

The weakness of this type of argument is obvious: that a political regime is evil and powerful today is no indication that it will be a part of international crises tomorrow. When interpreting Scripture, personal and political bias must be set aside. The priority of the written Word demands that Scripture be allowed to speak for itself and interpreted by itself.Imminence and InterpretationAnother observation worthy of mention involves a popular teaching of the imminent return of Christ. Those who emphasize the teaching that Christ may return at any moment often fall into error by assuming that His return must therefore be soon. However, the hidden time-table of Christ's second coming necessarily assumes that His return may not be soon at all. No one can say whether He will come sooner or later, however current events may seem to coincide with prophetic events. This should evoke considerable pause on the part of the interpreter before he becomes willing to specifically identify any nation as a part of Biblical prophecy unless there is clear, specified warrant to do so. This mistake has been made over and again in church history only to see Christ's delayed return disprove the interpretation. With the elapsed time the identified powers have waned.

The bearing this has upon this present study is clear. For example, if the Lord were to return today it is difficult to imagine how Russia (or the U.S.A.!) could not be somehow involved in the end-time battles. But this does not mean that Christ's return is very near, and it does not require that Russia be a part of the prophecy. That a nation is likely to be involved if events were to occur soon is not proof that the nation is specified in the original prophecy. Seventy years ago the possibility of Russia's being an end-time power was almost unthinkable. Should the Lord tarry another seventy years the same may be true of Russia then; no one can say.
Walvoord falls prey to this error when he says,

"Today, to the north of the nation Israel is the armed might of Russia. Never before has it seemed more likely that the prediction will be fulfilled given by Ezekiel (chapter 38-39) of an invasion from the north. To the east is the rising might of Red China, with the growing force of nationalism in India as well as the revival of Japan. Never before has it seemed more likely that there should be a tremendous military host coming from Asia, crossing the Euphrates river, and moving down on the scene of battle in the Middle East as predicted in Revelation 9:16."

Notice that the time-table of prophetic Scripture is interpreted by current events rather than allowing Scripture to speak for itself. Neither Russia, China, India, or Japan are mentioned in Scripture, but they are assumed to be a part of the prophetic Word because they are, today, the powers that be.

It is interesting that Berkhof, an avowed Amillennialist, made this same mistake of judging Scripture by the modern political scene when, while arguing against premillennialism in 1938, he asserted that the thought of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon again rising to power is nothing short of an "absurdity." Needless to say, the thought is none too absurd today, a mere five decades later.

These two examples, from opposing standpoints, demonstrate the importance of specifically identifying nations only when there is ample Scriptural warrant to do so.

Hermeneutical Guidelines

Two principles of hermeneutics have direct bearing upon this study. First is the importance of literalism. It is a bit ironic that this should need to be asserted in argument against dispensational authors, but, as it will be shown, the need is real. Terms must be interpreted in their primary, ordinary, usual meaning. The temptation to apply them to something far removed from the author, without explicit exegetical warrant, must be carefully resisted.
This leads to the second principle to be emphasized: historical interpretation. This simply means that the passage must be considered within the frame of reference of the author and recipients of the writing. To carry it beyond requires, again, explicit warrant.

AN EXAMINATION OF EZEKIEL'S TERMINOLOGY

The terms found in Ezekiel 38 that must be considered are (as in KJV) Gog, Magog, Rosh, Meshech, Tubal (verse 1), Persia, Ethiopia, Libya (verse 5), Gomer, and Togarmah (verse 6). Of these, some are easily identifiable. The more obvious nations will be treated first then proceeding to the more difficult.Libya, Persia, Ethiopia, Libya (Put) remains today, bearing the same name, lying just west of Egypt. Persia, also remaining to the present, is now known as Iran. Biblical Ethiopia (Cush, KŠ) is not the Ethiopia of today but rather the land just to the south of Egypt, Northern Sudan.

Togarmah

Togarmah (TGRM) presents only a little more difficulty. Togarmah was a descendant of Noah through Japheth then Gomer (Gen.10:1-3). He is know to Assyrian records as Tilgarimmu (TLGRM). The inserted "L" is not uncommon and, more than likely, was silent. Tilgarimmu was a city state in Eastern Anatolia (Asia Minor, modern Turkey), more specifically, as Ryrie states, "the southeastern part of Turkey near the Syrian border." This identification is generally acknowledged by all.

Gomer

Gomer (GMR) has often been mistaken to refer to Germany because of a supposed similarity of linguistic construction. This position has two serious errors. One is that the "R" and "M" are reversed. Ezekiel wrote of GMR not GRM. The reversal is unwarranted linguistically. Furthermore, this similarity and inversion is based upon a comparison of Ezekiel's GMR with a modern English (from Latin) designation for Deutschland. Clearly, the similarity is only superficial. These two errors rule out, absolutely, any possible identification of Gomer with Germany.

However, GMR is well known to the ancient world as Gimarrai (GMR) of north central Asia Minor (Cappadocia). These people are also known as the Cimmerians (KMR, note the change in gutturals from "G" to "C"). This seems to be the simplest, most obvious interpretation.RoshThe identification of Rosh (RŠ) presents some difficulty. Some understand it to be a proper noun referring to Russia rather than as a simple noun or adjective, "head" or "chief" (KJV), which is its normal meaning.

Although this interpretation may be allowable on grammatical grounds, it suffers from several problems. The first is that there is absolutely no place on earth known by this name, Rosh. Of all the occurrences of Meshech and Tubal (MŠK and TBL) in Biblical and non-Biblical writings, they are never associated with a place called Rosh, as the translation "prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal" would suggest.

There are linguistic problems here as well. As Unger admits, "Linguistic evidence for the equation [of Rosh with Russia] is confessedly only presumptive." The first problem is that the similarity is in sound only, not in consonantal configuration. Notice it is Rosh (RŠ) not Rus (RS). Furthermore, the problem encountered earlier, the supposed similarity is based on a comparison with a much more modern word. The term "Russia" comes from a late eleventh-century A.D. Viking word "Rus" (RS; again notice the difference in consonants). Reading modern words and spellings into ancient Semitic terminology is to ignore all known linguistic norms.

Since there is no place named Rosh associated with Meshech or Tubal, and since the attempted equation of it with modern Russia is obviously fallacious, it is easiest to understand both "chief" (rosh) and "prince" as related appositionally and used in reference to Meshech and Tubal: "chief prince of Meshech and Tubal" (KJV). This is also the reading of the Targum, Aquila, and the Vulgate.

Meshech

Meshech (MŠK) is often mistaken for the Modern Russian city of Moscow, capitol and largest city of the Soviet Union. Again, this identification, as even Ryrie admits, is unfounded also. The problems are similar to those associated with the identification of Gomer with Germany. First of all, the Š is changed to S. This again is unwarranted linguistically. Furthermore, the similarity is based upon a comparison of MŠK with the English designation Moscow; the Russian word is Moskva (MSKV) and is less similar still.

However, Mushki (MŠK) of central and western Asia Minor, known in the classics (Homer, etc.) as Phrygia, fits very well. These people were well known to Ezekiel, and this seems clearly the easier interpretation.

Tubal

Tubal (TBL) is commonly identified with the Russian city of Tobol'sk. Although this is allowable linguistically, it is not the best hermeneutically. Ezekiel knew nothing of Tobol'sk (or Moscow or Germany, for that matter); it did not exist. He was, however, well acquainted with Tabal (TBL) of Eastern Asia Minor (and Gimarrai and Mushki) of central and western Asia Minor). Granted, God could have revealed Tobol'sk (and Moscow and Germany) to the ancient prophet, but to assume so when Tabal was well known to him is unjustified apart from Biblical warrant. If a man in New York, for example, speaks of Manhattan, he would not want anyone to assume that he is speaking of a Manhattan, Kansas; much less would he want anyone to interpret his words as referring to a Manhattan somewhere else in the world of which he is unaware! Similarly, to assume a place unknown to the prophet (Tobol'sk) when clear options are available is both hermeneutically and exegetically untenable. Tabal is clearly to be preferred.

Gog

Gog is extremely difficult to identify. Some have identified him with Gyges (seventh century B.C.), king of Lydia (extreme western Asia Minor), who is called Gugu in the Ashurbanipal texts. Some have suggested the place name Gagai, referred to in the Tell el Amarna letters as a land of Barbarians. A god named Gaga found in the Ras Shamra writings; Gagu, a ruler of the land of Sakhi, North of Assyria; and Gaga, a mountainous region north of Meletene, have all been offered as alternatives. Some have understood Gog to be a historical figure such as Alexander the Great. One plausible explanation is that Gog is merely an official title or general designation for any enemy of God's people. This interpretation is based on the Septuagint rendering of several Kingly names in the Old Testament. Perhaps Gog is only a derivative of the related word Magog. None of the above suggestions has sufficient evidence for certain identification. It is most probable that Gog is a person, but geographical identification is not given.

Magog

Magog, a descendant of Noah through Japheth (Gen. 10:1-2), presents the most difficulty. Those who see it as Russia appeal to Josephus who said "Magog founded those that from him were named Magogites, but who are by the Greeks called Scythians," who lived north and northeast of the Black Sea. The fact of the matter, however, is that nothing is known about Magog--nothing. Josephus' guess may be as good as any, but the place is as yet unidentified. The appeal to Gesenius is impressive, but it must be remembered that Gesenius was a great lexicographer and grammarian, not an authority on ancient history. His statement was but a guess also; in fact, it is highly probable that Josephus was Gesenius' source for this information. Furthermore, though the Scythians are of the Japhetic line, they are believed by historians to be descendants of Gomer through Ashkenas; this is not true of Magog. To identify Magog as the Scythians is without support from historical anthropology.

Although Magog cannot be identified specifically, it seems that Scripture does give a clue at least to its general vicinity. First, "Gog" is known to be an Anatolian name. Further, if Meshech and Tubal have been identified correctly and are in Asia Minor, Magog must be a part of Asia minor as well since "they [Meshech and Tubal] lived in the neighborhood of Magog." Ezekiel 38:2 states that Gog, who is the "chief prince of Meshech and Tubal," is "of the land of Magog." If Gog is prince of Meshech and Tubal and lives in the land of Magog, it seems reasonable that Magog is in close proximity.

In summary, the Scythians were a people other than Magogites, and Magog is not able to be specifically identified, unless it is a general reference to the land of Asia Minor.

"North Parts"

Another argument for seeing Russia in this prophecy of Ezekiel remains, namely, Ezekiel's statement that Gog will descend "from the north parts" (38:15). The word indicates "uttermost parts of the north" or "farthest north." This, it is assumed, points directly to Russia. The major objection to this is again based upon a commitment to consistent historical interpretation. Scriptural terminology must not be forced into a twentieth-century A.D. map. To Ezekiel the "farthest north" was Asia Minor (from there you jump off the edge!). To extend Ezekiel's frame of reference any further, without exegetical warrant, cannot be right.

Moreover, if Asia Minor is not the "farthest north," then why stop with Russia? Why not go on to the north pole? If this seems ridiculous, then why not Finland? Norway? Sweden? These all extend directly above Moscow. If these interpreters will not interpret within Ezekiel's geographical frame of reference, demanding a "more literal" understanding of "farthest north," then their own hermeneutic demands they go farther north than Moscow. Their own argument falls.

One more fact is worthy of observation here. In verse 6 this same geographical description ("farthest north") is also given of Togarmah, yet virtually all agree that this is eastern Asia Minor! If Asia Minor was far north enough for Togarmah, why not for Gog? The problem is obvious.

SUMMARY

It has been shown on the basis of exegesis, hermeneutics, linguistics, and historical anthropology that, 1) Gomer cannot be Germany but rather Gimarrai, 2) Meshech cannot be Moscow but Mushki, 3) Tubal is not Tobol'sk but Tabal, 4) Gog is probably a personage, 5) Magog is unidentifiable except as a general reference ("land of Gog") to Asia Minor, 6) rosh is not a reference to a place but is to be translated "chief" or "head," and 7) the terms "north parts" and "north quarters" cannot mean Russia but, within Ezekiel's frame of reference, refer to modern Turkey.

What Ezekiel prophesied, then, is an end-time battle involving the following nations coming against Israel: 1) Turkey (Meshech, Tubal, Magog[?], Gomer, Togarmah; 2) Iran (Persia), 3) Sudan (Ethiopia or Cush), and 4) Libya.

FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS

Concerning Turkey

Precisely why Turkey (Anatolia, Asia Minor) is set forth in Ezekiel's prophecy under four names (Meshech, Tubal, Gomer and Togarmah) cannot be determined.

Perhaps it points to some future political break-up of that area. Perhaps it is simply to clearly specify that the entire nation or land will be involved: west (Meshech), Central (Gomer), and east (Tubal and Togarmah).Concerning the Nations Involved--And Those Who are Not
With Turkey, Iran, Libya and Sudan, Gog leads an Islamic coalition of nations against Israel: Turkey from the north, Iran from the east, Libya from the west and Sudan from the south.

Note also the nations who are (surprisingly!) absent: Egypt and Syria. Why?

The only plausible answer is that they both have somehow been relegated to an inferior position militarily. This fits nicely into Daniel chapter 11 with both the King of the North (Syria) and the King of the South (Egypt) being destroyed by Antichrist.

http://www.biblicalstudies.com/bstudy/eschatology/ezekiel.htm

2007-04-04T13:26:00.000-07:00

The Old Rugged Cross

On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,The emblem of suffering and shame;And I love that old cross where the dearest and bestFor a world of lost sinners was slain.

"...the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are saved it is the power of God." 1 Corinthians 1:18

“O most merciful Christ,” wrote the faithful reformer John Hus as he waited for his execution in 1415 AD, “give us a courageous spirit, so that it may be ready. And if the flesh is weak, may your grace go before it, for without you we can do nothing.”

In the eyes of the church establishment, Hus had committed heresy. He believed that everyone should be allowed to read the Bible in their own language -- an unthinkable notion in a culture that reserved God's Word for elite students of Latin. He also opposed the pope's money-raising efforts to sell indulgences (the false assurance that people could buy or earn pardon for sin instead of trusting in Christ's redemption through the cross).

Hus was "tried" and found guilty. When asked to recant, he refused. Instead he knelt and prayed that God would forgive his accusers. Mocked and humiliated, he was led naked to the stake, where executioners covered him with wood and straw for the torturous fire.

Given a last chance to recant, he answered, "In the truth of the Gospel which I have written, taught, and preached I will die today with gladness." Then the fire was lit using pages from the forbidden Bible printed by John Wycliffe as kindling. Enveloped in flames, Hus kept singing an old hymn, "Christ, thou Son of the living God, have mercy upon me." He died praising the Lord He loved!

O that old rugged cross, so despised by the world,Has a wondrous attraction for me;For the dear Lamb of God left His glory aboveTo bear it to dark Calvary.

Despising the Cross

To a world bent on social unity and moral laxity, the cross stands as a divisive and humiliating obstacle. Attempts to minimize its offense through laws and intimidation have bullied both secular and church leaders into continual compromise. Public crosses are demolished or hidden; Bibles are forbidden in schools, the traditional days for celebrating the resurrection have been renamed "spring break;" and countless corporations and government agencies ban cross-shaped pins or jewelry. Even Jesus Himself has become a popular target for media mockery and ridicule!

Results-driven churches and Christian colleges are marketing a new, more inclusive form of Christianity. Afraid to offend unbelievers, they present a watered-down version of the gospel that veils the significance of the cross. Trained to pursue self-esteem rather than self-surrender, few share Paul's delight in the source of our salvation:

"God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." Galatians 6:14

Back in 1963, that Bible verse was the focus of a series of sermons preached by Martyn LLoyd-Jones, then pastor of London's Westminster Chapel. Reminding us that human nature hasn't changed in the last forty years, he asked some probing questions:

"There are contradictory voices going out in the name of the Christian church.... So the first thing we have to do is to discover which is the true message.... What is the Christian gospel? What does it proclaim? What [must I do] which --

will render me immune to what may happen round and about me...

would enable me to smile in the face of death...

assures me that I have nothing to fear when I come to the judgment of God...

guarantees me everlasting and eternal bliss in the glory indescribable? ...

"The central thing, the thing that matters above everything else... is the cross -- the death on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.... This is what they preached.... The preaching of the cross has never been popular...."

It's true. That's why Jesus warned us long ago that "they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold." Matthew 24:9-12

The heart of the Gospel

Some years ago, Graham and Gladys Staines left the comforts of Australia to serve poor lepers in India. Because of their loving encouragement, many Hindus believed in Jesus and burned their idols. One day, Graham and their two young sons traveled to a distant church to share God's encouraging message. While they slept in their car, a crowd of angry Hindus armed with bows and arrows surrounded the car, doused it with gasoline and set it aflame. Imprisoned inside, the father and two children were burned alive. At their memorial service, the grieving mother and daughter (who would stay in India and continue their ministry) sang these words:

Because he lives, I can face tomorrow,Because he lives, all fear is gone,Because I know he holds the future,And life is worth the living just because he lives.

Why is this wonderful old Gospel so offensive to the world? Why does it stir such murderous responses? Or more important, what is it? The apostle Paul summarized it for us almost 2000 years ago:

"I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you -- unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day.... He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once...." 1 Corinthians 15:1-10

In short, the gospel is the "good news" of the historical event of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection -- all for our salvation. But in today's market-driven churches, this gospel is overshadowed by an enticing counterfeit gospel. In the place of the cross, many of today's most popular churches are celebrating their visible "good deeds" -- the kind of "works" and ethical living that draw man's applause, not God's approval. [Galatians 1:10] As in the days of John Hus, people are fooled into thinking they can earn their pardon from sin and their place in heaven. Rick Warren summarized it well:

"The first Reformation was about belief; this one's going to be about behavior.... The first one was about creeds; this one's going to be about our deeds. The first one divided the church; this time it will unify the church."

This new "reformation" focuses on human goodness and ignores human depravity. It leads to pride and blindness, not humility and repentance. It assures sinners that their good deeds merit God's approving smile, while it hides their actual need for the cross.

Such self-justification sounds good to the masses. When led by our human nature, we all would "desire to make a good showing in the flesh," not "suffer persecution for the cross of Christ." [Galatians 6:14] So, to maintain a Christian identity while avoiding "the offence of the cross," many adapt their message to politically correct standards for tolerance. Thus they please the world, but not God.

None of the Bible's ethical lessons can make us holy or acceptable to Him. Neither the Ten Commandments nor the Sermon on the Mount can save us from our sin and prepare us to follow our Lord. They were given to show us God's high and holy standard (a criterion we can't possibly reach by human will or strength) and then to draw us to the cross.

I'm not saying God doesn't value "good works." But until He changes our hearts, our deeds are worthless as a means to salvation.

However, when we are "born again" everything changes. The result of the cross in our lives will be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness... -- manifestations of the good "fruit" of His Spirit at work in our hearts. (Galatians 5:22) But such "good works" can neither replace nor precede the cross. His fruit can only come after our hearts are rooted in Christ.

In other words, our primary need is for a new life through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Having "put to death" our old sinful nature on the cross, Christ fills us with His own victorious Life! "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." 2 Corinthians 5:21

This wonderful "exchanged life" was prophesied and promised centuries before the cross became a physical reality:

"He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows... He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed." Isaiah 53:4-6

When we, by His grace, truly believe what Christ accomplished for us through the cross, we may share in His death and resurrection on our behalf. Filled with His Spirit, we are enabled "to work out" the salvation we have in Christ through the cross. For "it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." [Philippians 2:12-13]

All is from Him, through the cross, and by His Spirit: our salvation, our new Life, our changed hearts, and our Spirit-led service and sharing. And all bear witness to His sovereign love and grace.

Spiritual battles ahead

But such a distinctly Christian witness may soon be banned. Spirit-led kindness and service will continue to offend the world as long as we keep sharing the cross of Christ. Since the world's religious leaders have little appreciation for that divisive message, they have been negotiating an "international code of conduct" with regard to conversions -- a code that would place the world's authorities above God's commands.

Back in 2000 AD, the United Nations provided a platform where religious leaders from around the world could express their intolerance for cross-centered missions. Meeting in the UN General Assembly Hall, the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders discussed the problem of unwanted conversions. In his article, "U.N. religious summit speakers decry efforts at conversion," Tom Strode explained that the Peace Summit --

"...evidenced widespread opposition to efforts at religious conversion....

"...pronouncements were voiced by speakers from different religious traditions against attempts to convert people to other religions, and they met with strong affirmation.... Evangelicals especially would be targets for such sentiments....

"On numerous occasions, there were 'very negative comments regarding proselytization'.... Such declarations were met by 'vigorous applause,' said Richard Cizik. ...the representatives of Christianity were joining that same call to denounce proselytizing...."

Last year, the World Council of Churches joined hands with the Vatican "to seek a common code for religious conversions" and "explore 'the dos and don'ts' of trying to spread Christianity among other faiths." Notice their hostility toward Biblical evangelism:

"Religious freedom and missionary outreach by Christian groups have become increasingly sensitive topics as many Muslims perceive their faith as under threat by the West and nations such as China struggle to maintain state controls on churches.

"'How can we - anxious to maintain, develop and nurture good relations with people of other faiths - deal with this highly complex issue that sometimes threatens the fiber of living together?' said the Rev. Hans Ucko, head of the interreligious relations office for the World Council of Churches....
"The biggest challenges to the project will be highlighted by who will be absent: Pentecostal and evangelical-style congregations that often lead the drive for conversions."

Since "living together" has become a common purpose, this conversion code implies that mission groups from America will be welcomed as humanitarian servers, but despised as God's ambassadors.

Lutheran bishop Mark Hanson exemplified this attitude at an interfaith meeting in Indonesia. He "assured the Muslim participants that the Lutheran World Federation did not try to convert disaster victims from Islam to Christianity in exchange for its help."

Actually, if he had tried to convert, he would have violated UNESCO's Declaration on Tolerance. This "soft" international law tells us that

"Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures... It is not only a moral duty, it is also a political and legal requirement."

"Tolerance involves the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism...." [especially Biblical truth]

"Tolerance... means that one's views are not to be imposed on others." [Especially religious views]
"Intolerance... is a global threat."

But Jesus told His followers that "repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name 'to all nations'" (Luke 24:47) Are we ready to "obey God rather than man"? Acts 5:29

Only because He took my sins to the cross and joined me to Himself could I ever be such a witness. Only because my life is forever "hidden in Him" can I face each future challenge with confidence in His triumph! For -

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Galatians 2:20

To the old rugged cross I will ever be true;Its shame and reproach gladly bear;Then He’ll call me some day to my home far away,Where His glory forever I’ll share.

So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,Till my trophies at last I lay down;I will cling to the old rugged cross,And exchange it some day for a crown.

http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/007/cross.htm

2007-03-20T12:22:00.000-07:00

What My Obedience to God Costs Other people
by Oswald Chambers

“They laid hold upon one Simon…and on him they laid the cross.” (Luke 23:26)

If we obey God it is going to cost other people more than it costs us, and that is where the sting comes in. If we are in love with our Lord, obedience does not cost us anything, it is a delight, but it costs those who do not love Him a good deal. If we obey God it will mean that other people’s plans are upset, and they will gibe us with it–”You call this Christianity?” We can prevent the suffering; but if we are going to obey God, we must not prevent it, we must let the cost be paid.

Our human pride entrenches itself on this point, and we say–I will never accept anything from anyone. We shall have to, or disobey God. We have no right to expect to be in any other relation than our Lord Himself was in (see Luke 8:2-3).

Stagnation in spiritual life comes when we say we will bear the whole thing ourselves. We cannot. We are so involved in the universal purposes of God that immediately we obey God, others are affected. Are we going to remain loyal in our obedience to God and go through the humiliation of refusing to be independent, or are we going to take the other line and say–I will not cost other people suffering? We can disobey God if we choose, and it will bring immediate relief to the situation, but we shall be a grief to our Lord. Whereas if we obey God, He will look after those who have been pressed into the consequences of our obedience. We have simply to obey and to leave all consequences with Him.

Beware of the inclination to dictate to God as to what you will allow to happen if you obey Him.

2007-03-09T08:34:00.000-08:00

All Scripture is God Breathed

I have been studying Galatians as this letter seems so appropriate to what is going on in the American Church today. Let me quote from Galatians 5:1-6

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love."

Paul was writing to the churches in Galatia because certain men had come in after him who were convincing those Churches that they need to be circumcised and follow the Jewish Law. Paul was deeply concerned about this and wrote the letter to admonish the Churches in Galatia to stand fast to the Gospel he had first delivered to them and not for them to be swayed by the arguments of these “Judaisers”

The word of God is timeless and is applicable for all men in all times. Part of the current apostasy in the American Church is the attempt to make the New Testament seem to have two levels of authority. The new “Judaisers” want to keep only the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke & John as the infallible word of God, and to make the rest of the New Testament not infallible and therefore not as authorative as the four Gospels. This allows them to reinterpret the New Testament to what they want it to mean.

The above passage from Galatians proves how wrong these new “Judaisers” are about all of the New Testament not being all equally God Breathed and authoritive. What Paul was speaking about above is just as applicable today as it was in his day and what is so amazing is it points straight to the new “Judaisers” You may ask who are these new Judaisers? Well let’s dive into the meaning of the above passage.

What Paul is saying about the Law above is a Law of “Dead Works”. The Judaisers were wanting the Christians to take on a yoke of works. Or in other words, rituals based on outward acts that required no inward holiness.

If you have followed the emails I send out on the “Emerging” Church which is growing like a plague and infecting even Pentecostal Churches I hope you picked up on what the Emergent movements aim is: To change the gospel from salvation in the cross and inward holiness and obedience; to a Social Gospel based on Dead Works with no salvation through the cross and no inward holiness. Or in other words to place a yoke of bondage on Christians. And why are so many “Christians” flocking to this new Social Gospel? Because it allows them to remain in their sin, to relieve them of having to “crucify the flesh”, to die to self. It relieves them of having to be persecuted for their faith in Christ Jesus but at the same time deceive them into thinking they are a Christian.

As Paul says in Phillipians 3:18:

“For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ.”

Paul is saying here that there are many who think themselves Christians but who are actually enemies of Christianity. And he weeps for them, because their end is not what they think it will be, they are headed for the second death and do not even realize it.

God Bless and Stand fast in that faith that was first delivered to you!

John Baker

2007-02-27T11:51:00.000-08:00

The Secret
Christianity or New Age
By Lynn Stuter
February 2007

A “phenomenon” is sweeping America; according to the purveyors, everyone should have it — it’s The Secret.

“The Secret is a feature length, historic and factually based account of an age old secret, said to be 4,000 years in the making, and known to a fortunate few, as told by some of the greatest leaders of our time. The Secret reveals this great knowledge to the world—The Secret to wealth, health, love, happiness, relationships. . .The Secret to life itself.”

The secret of the universe revealed at last! Shouldn’t we all rush to the call! Aren’t we all just thrilled?

The above is from the press kit issued for The Secret. In the background of that press kit is a circular logo. Around the edge of that logo are the words “as above so below”—as in heaven so on earth. This is a New Age precept that defies true biblical teaching, for heaven is nothing like the world around us. As God warned His wayward people long ago,
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

The idea of heaven on earth defies the Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost; that Christ died on the cross for the sins of man; that
“whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting (eternal) life” (John 3:15).
When the mortal perishes—the body—the soul of they who believe in Him will live in eternity with God. At the same time, Jesus said,
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6)
And God said to believers,
“For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26-28)
New Agers believe there is no eternity, there is only the here and now; heaven on earth; as above so below.

On Friday, February 16, 2007, two of the promoters of The Secret appeared for the second time on the Oprah show. For the discerning, what spewed from the mouths of these two men, Michael Beckwith and James Ray, was New Age. One lady, identifying herself as a Christian, spoke about her unease with the seeming focus of The Secret. She was quickly shot down by Beckwith and Ray and by Oprah Winfrey, claiming that she, too, was a Christian. After all, if Oprah Winfrey is a Christian and supports The Secret, isn’t that endorsement enough for all Christians?

“For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.” (2 Corinthians 11:13-14)

Let us be reminded that Oprah Winfrey had Marianne Williamson, New Age leader and guru, on her show back in 1992; that it was Winfrey’s endorsement of Williamson that skyrocketed Williamson to fame along with her book expounding the virtues of the New Age “Bible”: A Course in Miracles. (Source: http://www.reinventingjesuschrist.com) Williamson now appears on Oprah and Friends XM Satellite Radio as a “friend and contributor.”

Within seconds of the lady proclaiming her unease with the focus of The Secret, Michael Beckwith announced to all that “God is within.” This is another New Age precept—God dwells within all people, man is divine, self-divination. God and humanity are one! This again defies the true biblical teaching of The Trinity and of God as the ultimate Higher Authority.

The natural outcome is evident throughout the New Age ideology: Man-centered “affirmations”—statements of positive attributes and desires, repeated often enough, will come true: believe and receive, my will be done. If I want a red Lamborghini, and I believe it will come to me, I will receive it. This is not what the Bible teaches; the Bible teaches that it is God’s will that shall be done.

“Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done…” (Matthew 6:9-13, the Lord’s Prayer)
God does not say to us, “wish for what material things you want, they shall be yours at your request.” He says, “I am the ultimate Authority, My will be done.”

And above all else, what became very apparent, as the show moved along, was the true focus of The Secret: money -- the more the merrier, and the more money in the pockets of the promoters, the better. Go back and read the press kit trailer quoted above. What is the first thing revealed by The Secret? “The Secret to wealth….” If you go on the website of The Secret, there you will see, front and center, “The Secret -- The Science of Getting Rich.” The promoters of The Secret are not nearly as interested in doing good as they are in increasing their net worth.

Is wealth the measure of our obedience to God? Of course not. Is wealth the measure of whether we will be with God in eternity? Of course not. Is wealth the measure of grace? Of course not.

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 3:15)

“Lay not up for yourselves treasurers upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasurers in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. … No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other: or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:19-21, 6:24)

Also evident in the press kit trailer is the promotion of The Secret by Jack Canfield, New Age guru of long standing; disciple of the likes of theosophist Alice Bailey; promoter of confluent education—of placing children in altered states of consciousness known to many as guided fantasy/guided visualization for the purpose of meeting spirit guides.

As Warren Smith and Brian Flynn—both former New Agers, one a former “medium”—have confirmed, spirit guides are not of God! They are of Satan; they are demons. Coincidentally, or maybe not, on Thursday, February 15, 2007, the Oprah show had John Edward, psychic medium, as a guest. On the Oprah.com website was posted a survey asking participants:

1. Do you believe in the supernatural?
2. Do you believe that sixth-sense abilities are real?
3. Do you believe human spirits can survive after death?
4. Do you believe it is possible for psychic mediums to see, hear and talk to the dead?
5. After watching this episode of the The Oprah Winfrey Show, did your opinions on this subject matter change?
6. If you have ever visited a psychic medium to try to communicate with a dead relative, was it a successful experience?

I answered “yes” to questions 1 and 2; and “no” to questions 3 through 5; I didn’t answer question 6 as I don’t consort with psychic mediums. I hit “submit” and the results of survey came up, preceded by “…You might be featured in an upcoming show!” WOW! I might be on the Oprah show, coming into the presence of her eminence, the queen of television! How exciting!

Under the results of question number 4 was a link asking the participant to Tell us why you believe or why you do not believe it possible for psychic mediums to see, hear and talk to the dead. I responded, stating that psychic mediums were not communicating with the dead, they were communicating with demons whose soul purpose it is to lead people away from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I suggested Brian Flynn as a future guest on the Oprah show.
“Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:31)

You just can’t imagine how disappointed I was to receive a response from the Oprah show as follows:

“Thank you for your e-mail! Your message is important to us. Unfortunately, due to the volume of e-mail messages we receive every day, we cannot guarantee that you'll receive a personal response. Feel free to check out our Frequently Asked Questions for additional help.

http://www.oprah.com/tows/program/tows_prog_main.jhtml”

What? No offer to appear on the Oprah show? How devastating! Think maybe that had anything to do with the fact that I exposed John Edward as someone who communicates with demons? And imagine my surprise when, during her interview with John Edward, when John Edward made the mistake of referring to his “guides”, Oprah Winfrey did not ask him to explain but moved the interview right along!

“And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward. And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.” (Isaiah 8:19-22)

So, okay, what these people, Oprah Winfrey included, are pushing is the New Age world view, philosophy, religion. Don’t these people have a right to their beliefs? Oh, very much so.
So, if you don’t participate, why should you be concerned?

For one very simple reason: the New Age religious world view is the “spiritual dimension” that is inextricably engrained in the transformation of America from a constitutional republic to a participatory democracy. In short, it is the intent, the agenda of these people that they will usher in a one-world religion based solely on the New Age world view! You see, while you might be willing to allow them their religious beliefs, they are not willing to allow you yours. In fact, in the unpublished papers of one world futurist (fancy name for New Age theosophist), she states emphatically (sic) we are all atoms in a molecule (representing the one-world system concept); radical atoms (dissenters) must be exterminated in the greater good of the collective whole. Do I need to paint a picture?

The New Age world view, along with its near cousin, humanism, permeates government-run public schools, the work place in the name of Total Quality Management, and is rapidly infiltrating churches in the name of “the church growth movement” while pastors are being emasculated by the promise of overflowing pews.

Has Rick Warren and his “Purpose Driven” agenda been brought in and accepted by your church? Is your pastor aware of the connection between Rick Warren and such New Age gurus as Neale Donald Walsch, Robert Schuller, Bernie Siegel and Marianne Williamson? Why would a church, supposedly Christian in foundation, agree to teach New Age principles and precepts to its congregation?

In the words of Marilyn Ferguson in The Aquarian Conspiracy,
“You can only have a new society, the visionaries have said, if you change the education of the younger generation.” (1987; page 280)

Is your pastor telling you that contemplative prayer is okay or sanctioning it by saying nothing? Are you aware that contemplative prayer is nothing more than transcendental meditation (TM) or yoga; that it is grounded in Eastern mysticism and is totally antithetical to the teachings of the true Bible? Transcendental meditation and yoga both utilize altered states of consciousness, the state in which children in public schools, taken on guided fantasies and guided visualizations to meet spirit guides (demons) are being placed by teachers who are being taught the methodology by the likes of Jack Canfield, New Age guru.

In an article published in New Age magazine in 1978, Canfield instructs …

“If you're teaching in a public school, don't call it meditation, call it ‘centering.’ Every school wants children to be relaxed, attentive, and creative, and that's what they will get.”
In a sidebar to this article, it is acknowledged that …

“Many of the new methods and approaches we have written about in this article are beginning to be adopted by more and more teachers in pilot programs.”

The Bible does not teach that we need to be in an altered state of consciousness to pray. But children, subjected to this in the government-run public schools are being introduced to New Age practices from an early age. When ministers fail, from the pulpit, to expose contemplative prayer for what it truly is, young people are given the message that contemplative prayer is just okay, and in so doing, ministers are encouraging children to participate in self-destructive behavior in defiance of God’s word.

Ever wondered why teachers in your local government-run public school cannot speak of God, Jesus, our Lord, our Savior, and even having a Bible on school grounds could be cause for disciplinary action, but the same prohibition on “religion” does not exist for Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism?

children study the spirituality of the Native American Indians, their spiritual wheels and animal spirits, shamans, dream catchers and the like are okay topics and art projects for the classroom but speaking of God or coloring a picture of Christ is taboo?

children cannot wear clothing proclaiming their belief in God to school, but clothing depicting Satan, the peace symbol, the yin/yang do not receive the same censorship?

children cannot pray to God in the classroom, but they can go on guided fantasies and guided visualizations to meet spirit guides (demons) in the classroom?

Do you get the impression that the only discrimination going on, in the realm of religion in the government-run public schools is against Christianity? If you do, you are absolutely correct.
Why is that? Very simple, systems theory—that which provides the foundation upon which the transformation of America from a constitutional republic to a participatory democracy is built—cannot tolerate the individual and true Christianity teaches that we are all individuals.
Enter the New Age movement, one of the precepts of which is that we are one with one another: one with God: in communion with God 24/7: as above so below.

Enter Karl Marx who was not shy in proclaiming that Christianity, because of its teaching that we are all individuals, should be stamped out in pursuit of “Oneness of Mind”—the Hegelian Dialectic of thesis, antithesis and synthesis with synthesis becoming the new thesis, ever evolving to a higher plane of reality. If you think that sounds like something right out of the New Age Movement, remember that the religions of New Age and humanism are close cousins, the difference between the two being nothing more than the spiritual dimension of the New Age world view.

New Age Religion:
One with another and with God
Believe and receive; my will be done
Gaia Hypothesis
Human potential
Create the Future

Humanist Religion:
Oneness of Mind
No deity will save us; we must save ourselves
General Systems Theory
Self-actualization
Create the Future

And lest we forget, Karl Marx is considered the “father of communism”.

The Hegelian Dialectic is familiar to most under the name of “consensus building” and “facilitation.” The teacher will become the “facilitator of learning”; not the “sage on the stage” but the “guide on the side” — all terms that those familiar with education transformation, better known as performance-based education, outcome-based education, standards-based education, competency-based education. The Hegelian Dialectic is also the basis of such concepts as higher order thinking skills, critical thinking, peer mediation, peer tutoring, team building—the purpose of each and all is to move the child away from individuality and to the concept that they are but one atom in a molecule; Oneness of Mind.

The government-run public schools are preparing children to be willing participants in the new world of tomorrow; a world in which true Christianity has no place, but the false teachings of the New Age religion are considered to be Christianity. In short, Christianity is being hi-jacked and too many churches are willing participants in what is becoming known as the emerging church or church growth movement.

In the work place, people are coming face to face with the transformation of the work environment to the “total quality” environment, sometimes known as continuous quality improvement, the high performance work organization, or the learning organization.

No better evidence exists of what the total quality environment is about then The Fifth Discipline; the art and practice of the learning organization by Peter Senge. In his book, Peter Senge states that he came up with the idea for the book during his morning meditation—our first clue that what Senge espouses has nothing to do with the true teachings of God.

Senge further states that people committed to one of the key precepts of the learning organization—personal mastery—practice some form of meditation which he defines as including contemplative prayer. (1990, page 164) Senge identifies systems thinking as the fifth discipline—the focus of the book—as it is the “conceptual cornerstone” of not only itself but the other four disciplines: personal mastery (New Age world view), mental models, building shared vision and team learning (1990, p 69, pps 6-10) tying his New Age world view to systems thinking, making it very apparent the two are inextricably connected. Senge makes the case for teaching these precepts early, “…experiments with young children show that they learn systems thinking very quickly.” (1990, page 7)

Senge also makes it very apparent in his book that those committed to the learning organization are also committed to truth, further claiming, “The power of truth was no less central to early Christian thinking, although it has lost its place in Christian practice over the last two thousand years.” (1990, page 161) In other words, if the Christian refuses to participate in “personal mastery” ie, meditation, viewing such (as many Christians do) as against the teachings of God, it is because the Christian denies truth as, according to Senge, Christianity has denied truth for the last two thousand years.

This, of course, then becomes a matter of job performance with the ability to apply coercion in the name of continuing to receive a paycheck. The Christian will either conform to the new “Christianity” or be forced out of the workplace.

If you, the reader, are not beginning to feel uneasy, you should. It is not my purpose here to put anyone’s mind at ease; what I write here is a dire warning to every American who does not understand what is happening as we watch the transformation of our nation into something we no longer recognize. New Age thought and practice, principles, precepts, are being inculcated in children in the government-run public schools; in the churches where pastors are being courted and deceived by the prospect of overflowing pews; in the work place in the name of total quality. I will return you to the words of Dr Shirley McCune, raving New Ager, author is The Light Shall Set You Free; made in 1989 at the Governor’s Conference on Education held in Witchita, Kansas:

"It seems to me that far too much of our efforts have been focused on the issue of let's find a short term fix... rather than... understanding that what we are about is total restructuring of our society. What's happening in America today... is not simply a chance situation in the usual winds of change. What it amounts to is a total transformation of our society. We have moved into a new era... But what I'm not sure we have really begun to comprehend and act on sufficiently is the incredible amount of organizational restructuring and human resource development restructuring.”

As a Christian you may tolerate New Agers, but New Agers have no intention of tolerating you. And what is at stake here is not of this earth, but our obedience to the true word of God,
Jesus said … “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)

“You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20:3; 1st Commandment of God to Moses)
God also commands us ...

"Occupy until I come (Luke 19:13) ... of which you shall know neither the day nor the hour (Matthew 25:13)."

Sources:
Ferguson, Marilyn; The Aquarian Conspiracy; Personal and Social Transformation in Our Time; 1987; J.P. Putnam’s Sons; New York.

Senge, Peter M; The Fifth Discipline; the Art & Practice of the Learning Organization; 1990; Currency Doubleday; New York.

Flynn, Brian; Running Against the Wind; 2005; Lighthouse Trails Publishing; Oregon.
Smith, Warren; Deceived on Purpose; 2004; Mountain Stream Press; California.
All biblical references come from the King James Version or New King James Version.

Recommended reading:
The four books listed as sources above.

Also:
Eidsmoe, John; Basic Principles of New Age Thought.
Kjos, Berit; Your Child & the New Age .
Kjos, Berit; Brave New Schools .
Kjos, Berit; Under the Spell of Mother Earth.
Michaelsen, Johanna; The Beautiful Side of Evil.
Smith, Warren; Reinventing Jesus Christ. This can be purchased in book form with updates or can be accessed on line at http://www.reinventingjesuschrist.com/
Smith, Warren; The Light that Was Dark; A Spiritual Journey.
Recommended websites:
LEARN-USA
Reinventing Jesus Christ
Discernment Ministries

http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/007/stuter/secret-new-age.htm

2007-02-23T10:19:00.000-08:00

The Sacrilege of T.D. Jakes.

by Independent Conservative

It’s time for me to upset some of you folks who feel T.D. Jakes is the best pastor since the apostles themselves. In fact, I’m going to upset some of you who feel T.D. Jakes is a pastor of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, because the doctrine of this nondenominational individual has strayed far from the truth. I just wanted to be sure I had enough firm examples to show you before giving him a full post of his very own.

First, Jakes does not believe in the Holy Trinity. He believes in something that is totally obscure to me and not supported by scripture. Jesus made it clear God is triune when he said himself:

Matthew 28:18-20 (New King James Version)

18) And Jesus came 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 of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

20) teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

(There are tons of other scripture that verify the Trinity, that is just one example.)

No he did not say just in his name, he said 3. This is what the most basic Christian doctrine teaches is the Holy Trinity. The God head and full nature of our Lord. Jakes has something else in mind, known as a form of “Oneness” doctrine. Melvin has it detailed and actual audio from Jakes in this post on his Pulpit Pimps blog.

Then there is the fact that Jakes preaches the Prosperity Gospel and is very close with others like Eddie Long, who preach this same twisted heresy. I used to see Jakes all the time when caught up at Eddie Long’s church. And where you find the Prosperity Gospel, you always find the Word-Faith heresy. That link has plenty on Jakes and others. I usually only mention the Prosperity Gospel when speaking of the heresies preached by folks like Jakes, because the Word-Faith aspect always goes hand in hand with that. People who want to name and claim more for themselves. Keep in mind, that a “Bishop” is not supposed to be a man who is greedy for money.

I first became turned off with Jakes when I noticed that like other preachers including Eddie Long, they have fee based events where they preach to the people who pay the fee for entry. I NEVER paid a fee to see any of these men preach, because the Gospel should be freely given. Donations to the church are what should cover any expenses, otherwise don’t have the event. I always asked people who would consider attending those paid events, how much did Jesus charge for the sermon on the mount?

Now some good folks have highlighted an NPR interview T.D. Jakes did back in May of last year. Melvin has a new post about it on his blog and this was also highlighted by the blog Doctrine Matters. It is important that these issues in Jakes’ doctrine be raised, because given his massive following he could lead many people from the truth.

At that NPR interview, Jakes was promoting his book Mama Made the Difference. You can hear the full audio of the NPR interview here.

A Muslim woman basically asked Jakes if he feels Christians and not Muslims will go to Heaven. Jakes, instead of standing on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and against the cult of Muhammad, took a more ecumenical route. Here’s what the blog The Heresy Hunter transcribed of the exchange.

ANNETTE: I’m a Muslim here in Portland. I’m part of a Shiite community. And we had a wonderful interface dialogue last weekend with a local Unitarian church. And I’d like to ask you please to speak about concrete experiences you’ve had as far as interfaith dialogue goes. And also would like to ask you, do you feel that only Christians could hope to enter Heaven?

Pastor JAKES: Very great question. When it comes to interfaith experiences, I’m currently serving by the appointment of former President Bush and President Clinton, as co-chair of an interfaith advisory committee to help people get back up on their feet.

And we do have on the board Muslims, Catholics, a Jewish Rabbi, Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals across the board. And we’re working together very effectively because we all care about common goals. We have our distinct theologies and our own ideologies but there are common grounds that we can work together very effectively in many, many cases.

When it comes to Heaven, I try to leave that up to God. I certainly believe that Christianity is right, but when it comes down to the final test–who goes and who doesn’t go–Jesus said, Other sheep have I who are not of this fold. Them also must I bring. I’ll let Him identify who those sheep are and I stay out of the conversation.

Jakes speaks pure blasphemy. Knowing the doctrine of the Muslims, plus the Biblical history, for him to hedge on the question is totally against Christian doctrine. But he can’t say Islam is a cult, that denies Jesus as Lord and leads to hell. That would keep him off those neat “interfaith” organizations, that are supposed to offer politicians faith-based guidance.

Also, for Jakes to infer that Jesus speaking of “other sheep” possibly including people who fail to accept Jesus (like Muslims) is ludicrous. You read the full passage of scripture and it’s clear that Jesus shows he is THE ONLY WAY.

John 10:1-18 (New King James Version)

1) “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.

2) But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

3) To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

4) And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

5) Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”

6) Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them.

7) Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

8) All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.

9) I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.

10) The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

11) “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.

12) But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them.

13) The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.

14) I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own.

15) As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.

16) And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.

17) “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again.

18) No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”

Jesus was speaking to Jews and simply was saying that people other than Jews would be able to follow him and be saved. For Jakes to obscure the issue with a Muslim is just wrong. He should have informed the Muslim that Jesus is the way to salvation and that the teachings of Muhammad are incorrect. Oh, but then he’d have to offend somebody and might sell less books!

When it comes to the books, Jakes wants you to know he’s not just a pastor.

I’m a clergyman, I’m a preacher by calling, but when it comes to vocation I’m also an author. I like to write and I’m here as a guest of Penguin Putnam and when I write a book they treat me like anybody else who wrote a book. There’s no difference there at all.

Wouldn’t want to say anything that might upset that big book deal, by telling a Muslim Jesus is the only way to Heaven. Jesus made it clear he is the true way and people like Muhammad are false and a robber, but you won’t hear Jakes tell that full portion of scripture.

After not giving proper guidance to the Muslim woman, the NPR commentator attempted to pin Jakes down. To see if he would say that somebody is going to hell. The commentator brought up homosexuals and once again, Jakes put on his dancing shoes instead of giving a direct answer.

(my transcription of the exchange is below)

Commentator: You don’t stay out of the conversation necessarily when homosexuals are the issue.

Jakes: Uh, what makes you say that?

Commentator: Well uh, I’ve read that you consider homosexuality is a sin. So if you’re practicing ah homosexual you’re not going to heaven.

Jakes: You know something, I don’t know anybody of any faith who can say that they have no sin in their lives. Whether it’s homosexuality or lying on your income tax or speaking rudely to somebody at a window. What we call sin may differ from person to person, but who amongst us can say that they have no sin? Jesus said that. And he said he that is without fault among you let him cast the first stone. I’m certainly not casting any particular stones at any particular group of people. All of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God, but the question was about hell. And when it comes down to hell, that’s an issue that I believe in a way of salvation. I believe that Jesus is the way the truth and the life. That no man comes unto the Father saved but by him. But I’m not so dogmatic in my views, that I’m willing to condemn anybody and send them to hell, I leave that up to God.

Nobody asked him to toss a stone at anyone. Just say what he believes. Jesus is not “a way”, he is THE WAY.

I sure wish the apostle Paul were doing that interview, because he’s given a more honest answer.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (New King James Version)

9) Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,

10) nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

Yes we all have sinned and continue to battle with that. I emphasize he word BATTLE regarding sin, because that is the core issue here. Jakes was asked about someone being gay and getting into Heaven. Paul has made it clear, that someone who continues to live in homosexuality or other sins will not inherit the kingdom of Heaven. We all have sins, but we must fight those sins and if someone does not desire to fight against sin, including homosexual behavior, they are not following Christ and won’t make it into Heaven. I have fully explained this and the various temptations we all have to sin in a previous post. No we can’t say that someone who desires to remain living in any sin will make it to Heaven and Jakes should have been clear. People who are fighting against the sinful nature of their flesh will fair far better. The ambiguous answers given by T.D. Jakes leave people who refuse Jesus and people who endorse sinful behavior with the view that they might get into Heaven. Of course it’s God’s call who will get into Heaven, but we must be clear about what we believe. Because God has already made the criteria for entry to Heaven clear. At best, Jakes’ statements leave people thinking they can accept Jesus and continue to be at peace with sinful behavior. It treats sin as if it is just a word and if you’re doing sin it’s OK so long as you claim Jesus while doing it. The way to Heaven involves accepting Jesus and turning from sin. This is something Jakes should not hedge over.

Later in the interview, Jakes babbled about his church’s charitable works. It is best for Christians to remain quiet about charitable deeds.

Matthew 6:2-4 (New King James Version)

2) Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.

3) But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,

4) that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.

When asked about Democrats and Republicans Jakes said.

We survive by the balance of the two extremities.

Tell that to the millions of babies who die via abortion. I’m not saying all that Republicans or Democrats advocate is good, however I don’t see God’s will at their center either! And I can’t use the word “survive” when babies are allowed to be killed in that balance. Democrats and Republicans are both the political embodiment of various special interest groups and nothing more. Given the issues caused by illegal immigration, plus terrorists entering with them, that neither party will adequately address, survival is very much a relative term.

Jakes’ answers are so open ended and his doctrine so out of step with true Christian teaching, that I worry what he really thinks regarding faith in private. And I must be honest, it’s very annoying listening to him with that terrible lisp. For someone who speaks as much in public as he does, to still hold a lisp is just troublesome to me.

2007-02-13T10:21:00.000-08:00

Go and Sin Some More: A Meditation on the Life and Death of Anna Nicole Smith
“Go and sin no some more.”

Those were the words that continued to ring through my head as I listened over and over again to all the news reports on the life and death of Anna Nicole Smith.

It was in 1983 when she quit high school at the age of 16 to work as a waitress and a cook. Shortly thereafter she married Billy Wayne Smith, another fry cook, and together they had a son, Daniel Smith VIII. The marriage lasted less than a year, and Anna Nicole, then known as Vickie Lynn Hogan, moved back to Houston to work at Wal-Mart, a restaurant, and a topless strip club as a dancer. It was there at a strip club in 1992 where she would meet her second husband, billionaire oil-tycoon, J. Howard Marshall II. In less than 10 years, she when from a high school drop-out and hometown waitress to the verge of marrying into billions (even though he was old enough to be her grandfather).

But the prospect of billions was not enough. A year later she made it on the cover of Playboy magazine, and Hugh Hefner made the public statement that Anna Nicole would be the next Marilyn Monroe. It is reported that throughout her life, indeed, she considered it her ambition to be just like Monroe, and tragically, her short-lived life ended in a very similar fashion.

The last chapter of her life began with a reality show (”The Anna Nicole Smith Show”) where cameras followed her life story. In between reality shows and bankruptcy, Anna Nicole’s life was constantly in the courts, trying to get the millions from the Marshall family after the death of her husband. And just last year, with the birth of a baby girl, her son overdoses and dies there in her hospital room. Mourning after the death of her son who apparently was the love of her life, she became more and more depressed and found new court battles to face, in particular over who was the father of her newborn baby. And just five days ago, Anna Nicole collapses and dies in her hotel room at the age of 39.

This is a brief summary of a woman who, for 39 years, heard the words “Go and sin some more.” She had everything this world could possibly offer: beauty, riches, sex, fame, etc. Coming from a small town in Texas a high school drop-out, this looks like the American dream. After all, what was it that America could offer that she did not receive?

Yet over the past week, I heard testimony after testimony from her friends, family, and associates about how lonely, depressed, and empty Anna Nicole was her entire life. One of her closest companions shared that Anna Nicole felt no one loved her and that no man cared enough to pursue her, so much that her last husband, her lawyer, came by default since he was her closest friend. This woman, having walked the red carpet, lived in mansions, and posed before thousands of cameras couldn’t look at herself in the face and accept who she was.

I hearkened back to Scripture and more specifically to the life of Jesus Christ to think about a couple of Anna Nicole’s in Jesus’ day. I recall a woman of Samaria who had many men in her life (John 4:1-42), a woman of the city who was characteristically known as “a sinner” (Luke 7:36-50), and a woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11). Like the Samaritan woman, Anna Nicole had experienced many men in her life. Like the woman of the city, she prostituted herself for riches. Like the woman caught in adultery, she knew what it was like to be in a courtroom, being judged by others. Jesus was no stranger to the Anna Nicole’s of his day.

But Anna Nicole was a stranger to Jesus Christ. She had not met the man who “told me all that I ever did” (John 4:29). She did not hear the question, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” (Luke 7:49). She did not hear the words “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11). No, she heard the opposite from the world around her. At every point in her life, whether as a stripper, a Playboy Playmate, an unfaithful wife, or wrapped up in drugs, sex, and fame, she heard the words, “Go and sin some more.” And ultimately, such wages of sin lead to her death (Rom. 6:23).

Everything that she wanted she had, and everything that she had led to her death. Such is the story of a life wasted by the world, ruined by its supposed benefits, duped by its fleeting promises. What did Anna Nicole need?

She needed the gospel. She needed forgiveness of sins. She needed a man who could tell her all that she ever did. She needed to hear the words, “Go and sin NO more.” She needed Jesus.
The money, the sex, the riches and the fame, were all broken cisterns which could hold no water (Jer. 2:13), leaving a thirsty soul parched, barren, and empty. She drank of the water which made her thirsty again and again, but she never drank of the water that would be a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:14). She knew many men in life, but she didn’t know the Son of Man who died so that we might live. Until her dying day, Anna Nicole fought up to the U.S. Supreme Court for $474 million only to find that riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death (Prov. 11:4). Having succumbed to death, an even higher court she must face as she stands before the Judge of the earth on that day of wrath where the wealth of the world cannot vouch for a bankrupt soul.

Turning to myself, I have to ask, “Who are the Anna Nicole’s in my life?” No, I am not talking about strippers or playmates or Hollywood superstars with millions to spare. I am talking about those who, like Anna Nicole, have never come to treasure Jesus Christ as the all-satisfying Savior and Lord of their life. Have I so presented Jesus to them that they would be lead to reply, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water” (John 4:15)? Or have I become a modern-day Pharisee who would tell Jesus, “If you were a prophet, you would have known what sort of woman this is who is touching you” (Luke 7:39)? Do I find my hands filled with stones or does my life reflect that I am a debtor to sovereign mercy?

The fact is that I am not better than Anna Nicole or the men who she stripped for, save the grace of God. What I most desperately needed was forgiveness of sin, for I am all the more a worm, wretched and blind, rotten and wicked. Yet, having become a debtor to mercy and a child of God, it is my privilege to go to the Anna Nicole’s with the love of Christ and say, “Go and sin no more.” It is my lifelong calling to call sinners to repentance who long to be like the Marilyn Monroe’s to long to be like Christ. It is my earnest prayer that, whether in life or in death, Jesus Christ would be on display, that words would be spoken of Him and His great salvation, and that all would be gain because I have treasured Him.

I tremble to think that my world might hear the words, “Go and sin some more” with the way I live my life. I shutter to think that the Anna Nicole’s in my world would find a Pharisee in me, questioning the worth of their alabaster box rather than kissing the feet of my Savior. May God spare me the horror of such disgrace and use these recent events in the death of Anna Nicole Smith to awaken me to the tragedy of a wasted life and the glories of treasuring the excellencies of Jesus Christ.

It may be that you may be reading this, and you can relate to Anna Nicole. You have tasted the bitter water of this world and find that it does not satisfy. You have bought into the bad deal of goods this world has to offer, only to find yourself restless all the more. To those weary, restless, and thirsty, come to Jesus and be satisfied in Him alone. Turn from your wretched ways and trust in Jesus to save you, and His promise is true and faithful, that He will accept you no matter where you are or what you have done. The only hope of God being satisfied with us is in the perfect life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the death he died was once and for all for sinners like you and me, so that we might be accepted in heaven because of His sacrifice and taking our place on the cross. The message the world tells you is to go and sin some more. Yet such sinful living has an eternal price tag to pay, and that is everlasting separation and punishment in hell. Jesus tells you to go and sin no more because He came that we might be forgiven of our sin through His victory over it on the cross. Flee to Him today, and treasure Him for a lifetime, yea for eternity.

http://timmybrister.com/2007/02/12/go-and-sin-some-more-a-meditation-on-the-life-and-death-of-anna-nicole-smith/

2007-02-13T08:00:00.000-08:00

Berit Kjos has written an important new article in which she examines the tolerance of teachers such as Brian McLaren. Is this the “secret” of success in the Emergent agenda?

In his popular book, The Secret Message of Jesus, Pastor Brian McLaren writes:

“…to be truly inclusive the kingdom must exclude exclusive people, to be truly reconciling, the kingdom must not reconcile with those who refuse reconciliation…the kingdom of God is
open to all, except those who want to ruin it by dividing it against itself.” [emphasis added]

Much insight is gained from Berit’s new article, Tolerance as a Tool for Transformation,
exposing an emergent, cerebral “tolerance” without the Law rising among American
“Christians” with the upsurge of socialist thinking to “redefine” the American judicial
system for “a new kind of tolerance” in our land:

Tolerance as a Tool for Transformation
Intimidating the masses into socialist consensus
By Berit Kjos, January 29, 2007

"...the objective of tolerance would call for intolerance toward prevailing policies, attitudes, opinions and the extension of tolerance to policies, attitudes, and opinions which are... suppressed.”[1] 1965, Herbert Marcuse, an influential Marxist.

"The techniques of brainwashing developed in totalitarian countries are routinely used in psychological conditioning programs imposed on American school children. These include emotional shock and desensitization... stripping away defenses... and inducing acceptance of alternative values...."[2] Thomas Sowell

"I cannot stand narrow minded idiots like yourselves. You are seriously sick." A visitor to our website

Throughout history, "tolerance" has meant different things to different people. A century ago,
most Americans would have defined it as civility toward disagreeable persons, not as acceptance of contrary views. In contrast, today's "tolerance" demands acceptance of politically correct views
but intolerance toward those who cling to "traditional" values. While media leaders feel free to mock Christians, believers are losing their freedom to state their convictions. After all, they
might hurt someone's feelings.

This transformation didn't "just happen." During the 20th century, socialist visionaries redefined tolerance and began using it as an effective weapon against Biblical values. Trained facilitators
(in schools, government, corporations and churches) began turning cultural norms upside
down -- then held the masses accountable to the new cultural guidelines. NEA leader, Professor Raymond Houghton, summarized the deception in 1970,

"...absolute behavior control is imminent.... The critical point of behavior control, in effect, is sneaking up on mankind without his self-conscious realization that a crisis is at hand. Man will... never self-consciously know that it has happened."[3]

Former Carnegie strategist Marc Tucker, a friend of Hillary Clinton and the master-mind behind America's "School-to-Work" agenda, shared that vision: "[Our objective] will require a change in the prevailing culture -- the attitudes, values, norms and accepted ways of doing things."[4]

Tucker had followed the footsteps of mind-changing behavioral "scientists" such as Herbert Marcuse, a transformational Marxist trained in the "inner circle" at the revolutionary Frankfurt Institute for Social Research in pre-war Germany. With Hitler's rise to power, that "inner circle"
fled to America. In 1934, Marcuse, called "the father of political correctness," joined other
socialist change agents at Columbia University, where they built on the liberal foundation laid by John Dewey. Years later, Marcuse wrote the report, Repressive Tolerance, which exposed his oppressive Communist goals:

"The uncertainty of chance... necessitates tolerance. However, this tolerance cannot be indiscriminate and equal... it cannot protect false words and wrong deeds which demonstrate that they contradict and counteract the' possibilities of liberation.... Such indiscriminate tolerance is justified in harmless debates.... But society cannot be indiscriminate... where freedom and happiness themselves are at stake: here, certain things cannot be said, certain ideas cannot be expressed, certain policies cannot be proposed, certain behavior cannot be permitted without making tolerance an instrument for the continuation of servitude."[1]

Marcuse became a hero to the revolutionary student movements during the chaotic sixties. Now, forty years later, we see the fruit of his labor: moral corruption and intolerance toward traditional values. Facing these painful consequences, Kevin, a young Christian, sent us this note:

"On my school bus kids would like to sing rap songs that includes a lot of profanity and perversion.... Liberals, gays and others say we Christians are intolerant when they are intolerant themselves. One time my seventh grade teacher said those who say God forbids or hates homosexuality are racists!"

Few of today's results-driven churches will take their stand with believers like Kevin. Inspired by "successful" leaders like Rick Warren, churches -- like the corporate world -- now wield their "tolerance" like a whip with which to intimidate resisters who still cling to Biblical certainties and intolerant-sounding truths. After all, such "lone rangers" hinder today's collective march toward the envisioned earthly kingdom of universal peace and solidarity.

In his popular book, The Secret Message of Jesus, Pastor Brian McLaren seems to echo Marcuse:

"...to be truly inclusive, the kingdom must exclude exclusive people, to be truly reconciling, the kingdom must not reconcile with those who refuse reconciliation.... [T]he kingdom of God is open to all, except those who want to ruin it by dividing it against itself." [5]
The changeable nature of Tolerance

Tolerance is never neutral. Its boundaries keep changing, often through self-serving governments that mandate public values through state-controlled religious hierarchies. Using various forms of propaganda and discipline, powerful establishments have turned public intolerance against foes of the planned solidarity.

Take the British monarchy during the 16th and 17th centuries. The shameless Henry VIII replaced Catholicism with the Church of England (Anglican) when the Pope refused to approve his first divorce (Henry beheaded three of his six wives). After his death and the short reign of his sickly son, the throne went to his Catholic daughter (Bloody) Mary I. She restored the Papal hierarchy
and showed her intolerance for dissenters by burning them on the stake. When she died in 1558, her Anglican sister, Elizabeth I, became queen.

While Mary had persecuted Protestants, Elizabeth persecuted those who refused to conform to
the Church of England. After her death in 1603, King James I (already the reigning King of Scotland) gained the British throne and joined the two nations. James formalized the rituals of the Church of England and had no tolerance for protestant Separatists who sought a simpler form of worship. Seeking religious freedom, these Puritans fled to Holland. Pursued even there, they boarded the Mayflower for America in 1620.

King Charles I, son of James I, was executed for treason in 1649, and the throne stood empty for almost three decades. In 1662, the British Parliament passed the Act of Uniformity, mandating religious conformity with the ritual practices of the Church of England. Baptists, Presbyterians,
and Puritans (like John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress) who followed their Bible-trained conscience, were labeled "non-conformists." Non-conforming pastors who continued preaching faced persecution.

In 1677, James' grandson, Charles II, was crowned king. The persecution of dissenters quickly intensified. Among those who faced torture and "death by hanging" was a young maidservant, Marion Harvie. As she prepared to climb the scaffold, her final words showed her faith in Jesus, her Lord:

"Because He lives, I shall live also.... How I bless Him that thoughts of death are not terrible to
me. He hath made me as willing to lay down my life for Him as ever I was willing to live in this world.... Seek Him and ye shall find Him. I sought Him and found Him; I held Him and would not let Him go."[6]

Relief came in 1689 when the British Parliament passed The Act of Toleration, granting limited freedom to dissenters.

The Christians who fled to America during this time had seen the dangers of government-controlled religion. A century later, the religious freedom they sought became a legal promise through the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

But that freedom is fading fast. Once again, the tool of "tolerance" and government mandates threaten our freedom. But today's leaders are far more subtle and sophisticated than British
rulers were centuries ago. Armed with the latest psycho-social strategies, postmodern revolutionaries are facilitating a mass consensus aimed at silencing all opposition.

Today's public values show the results. Since I write reviews of popular entertainment (usually in response to questions from concerned parents), I get lots of angry letters. It matters little that I
have tried to be kind and factual in my reviews -- or that I criticize the message rather than a person -- zealous defenders of popular entertainment have little tolerance for contrary views. Notice the emphasis on feelings rather than facts in the following comments:

· Unfortunately people like you guys actually do exist... While reading one of your many articles on Harry Potter for a class on censorship, I came to realize that religious fundamentalism is dangerous and maniacal no matter what religion it is. You guys are on par with muslims....
· Hate and fear peddlers is all you are. You're no worse than the KKK.
· You are intolerant bumbling fools.... There is nothing wrong with pokemon.... Live a nice life and die.
· ...your opinions are every bit as dangerous as those expressed by so-called "hate" groups....
Star Wars is just a movie, Pokemon is just a card game, and Christianity is just a belief. ... The most disturbing part about your articles is the vast number of "weak minded" individuals who blindly follow your beliefs, accepting your irrational way of thinking.
· I can't believe there are actually idiots like you on this planet! You people REALLY scare me....

I often ask such visitors if they would want to outlaw websites like ours. Many answer "Yes." They don't believe we have the right to share our offensive views on a public website. Instead, they
claim the right not to be offended by inconvenient facts or logic.

Our response to an intolerant world

If we can't stop the transformation, how should we relate to this strange, new world? How can we love those who hate our beliefs?

There's a clue in Proverbs 15:1. It reminds us that "a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." It's true! When I replied with kindness, many would send back grateful -- even repentant -- responses. The subsequent correspondence didn't include Hegelian Dialogue as a means to consensus. Instead, the angry expressions became opportunities to show God's love -- without compromise!

America's "traditional" values may be vanishing, but some things never change: human nature, God's timeless Truth, and His all-sufficient strength. Human nature may be driving this social and spiritual transformation. But God and His Word enable us to stand firm in the midst of the raging battle.

"Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord...." 1 Corinthians 15:56

1. Herbert Marcuse, Repressive Tolerance, 1965 at http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/60spubs/65
repressivetolerance.htm
2. Thomas Sowell, Ph.D., "Indoctrinating the Children," Forbes, February 1, 1993), 65.
3. Raymond Houghton, To Nurture Humaneness, ASCD (curriculum arm of the NEA), 1970
4. Marc Tucker, "How We Plan to Do It," Proposal to the New American School Development Corporation: National Center for Education and the Economy, July 9, 1992. See Tucker Plan Includes Cradle Control
5.Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth that Could Change Everything (Nashville: Thomas Nelson's W Publishing Group, 2006), pages 169-170. See also Who defines the Kingdom of God?
6. Michael and Sharon Rustin, The One Year Book of Christian History
(Tyndale House Publishers, 2003), page 52-53.

http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/007/tolerance.htm

2007-01-30T08:08:00.000-08:00

Boson Bozos

Scientists seeking ultimate answers to the origin, nature, and future of the cosmos have pursued a long series of mutually exclusive, speculative theories. Liberals embrace these speculations as scientific truth, even though they have less basis in verifiable fact than 5,000 years of faith in God recorded in the Bible.

Every attempt to date to unify cosmological and nuclear particle theories has foundered on newly observed, unreconcilable, opposing sets of facts. Seeking to bridge these gaps, cosmologists, nuclear particle physicists, and mathematicians have drifted far into the realm of abstract speculation.

Science at the outer limits of knowledge, both at the cosmological and sub-atomic levels, has come increasingly to resemble the speculations of medieval scholastic philosophers dealing in doctrinal abstractions.

Subatomic particles, found and unfound, and cosmological theories with strange names abound: bubble universe, worm holes, cold dark matter, big bang theory, string theory, superstrings, domain walls, great attractors, mini-black holes, Higgs fields, inflationary universe theory, leptons, bosons, muons, neutrinos, quarks, supergravity, tauons, supersymetry, etc.

Existence of some of these is verifiable. In other cases they are abstract theoretical concepts that attempt to explain inconsistencies in other theories, concepts that cannot be verified in the world we inhabit because the accelerators needed to produce sufficient energy would be larger than the earth, or because the predicted phenomena have never been found.

In their own fields scientists see no contradiction between such speculation and the supposedly fact-based, empirical, inductive, scientific methodology that they project to taxpayers who fund their research. Nor do they recognize the hypocrisy in championing these contradictions while denouncing 5,000 years of documented historical experience that supports the existence of God and the human soul.

There is nothing wrong with speculative thinking in science. But let’s be consistent. Stop dismissing as ignorant superstition God and the verifiable difference that religious faith makes in people’s lives. Both science and religion are efforts of human intuition and Divine revelation to understand as much as possible of the reality underlying the material phenomena perceptible by the limited range of human senses.

Science, since Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum (1620), has aimed at what used to be called “conquering nature” via the scientific, inductive method of experimentation. A large part of scientific research since the mid-18th century has been energized by the conviction that all phenomena can be explained by natural processes. Implicit is the rejection of God and the presumption that the cosmos is entirely controlled by mechanical, materialistic forces.
Humans have an instinct to believe that they have created and can control anything that they can describe and name. Humans aspire to becoming God by acquiring knowledge.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ “

“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 1:1-5)

Many scientists believe that they can penetrate the Mind of God and thereby become immensely powerful, or that there is no God. Christopher Marlowe’s Tragical History of Doctor Faustus exemplifies the former in the character of the man who sells his soul to the Devil for power and knowledge. The French philosophers of the Revolution exemplify the latter.
Among other things, the vast multiplicity of cosmological and nuclear particle theories violates the principle of Ocham’s razor: the simplest explanation in a welter of possibilities is the preferred one. The simplest answer to what has stumped the best physics, mathematical, and cosmological minds is God. The universe was designed and created by God, a Being outside of and predating the universe, a Being whose nature is so multi-dimensional as to be utterly beyond the comprehension of human minds.

Darwin’s evolutionary biology depicts the world as an amoral domain governed by material influences that are without design or purpose, a world in which all life forms are the cumulative products of chance. Cosmologists and physicists, at the same time, take the opposite view, that the origin and ultimate end of the universe is the product of design inherent in mathematics and the laws of physics and chemistry, a universe therefore that had a precise, identifiable beginning and a foreseeable end.

Liberals, priding themselves on their tough-minded rationality, have no trouble in swallowing whole both of these mutually exclusive world views. It seems to be necessary only to label something scientific for their uncritical acceptance.

Liberals readily accept the intuitively impossible quantum phenomenon of photons, at a distance from each other, responding to impulses on only one of the photons. But, because their professors told them that religion is ignorance, they are unwilling to consider the truth recounted by eye witnesses to Jesus Christ’s miracles, people who willingly died excruciating deaths to attest to those miracles.

Ironically, mathematical and theoretical abstraction is leading theoreticians in the physical sciences into a realm of impenetrable complexity, ever closer to the religious and philosophical realm in which the Bible is the paramount authority, a realm in which one cannot escape a world of Divine intelligent design.

http://www.thomasbrewton.com/index.php/weblog/boson_bozos/

2007-01-26T07:51:00.000-08:00

You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet

Any Fifth Street Promenade tarot card reader would be thrilled to nail a prediction as accurately as William Booth did one hundred years ago. “I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”

Was the founder of the Salvation Army accurate?

>Is there religion without the Holy Ghost? With a red face I confess that we conservatives have veered from the zany antics of televangelism into a ditch with little recognition of the active work of the Holy Spirit.

>Is there Christianity without Christ? Have you been to an Episcopal church lately?
>Is there forgiveness without turning from sin? Ask Dallas Theological Seminary.
>Is there salvation without regeneration? Google “Carnal Christianity.”
>Is there politics without God? www.ACLU.com
>Is there heaven without hell? Paging Rob Bell.

How was General Booth able to make such an accurate prediction? He surveyed the doctrines that were under assault, and then forecasted where that errant theology would take us. What deficient theology did he see? He witnessed a forsaking of the preaching of the Law. While he did not know what the result would be named, he knew that anti-nomianism (no law, lots of grace) had to lead to what turned out to be watered down mainline Protestantism and the seeker sensitive movement.

Now that General Booth’s predictions have been fulfilled, we would do well to survey the latest threat. “Isn’t the seeker sensitive movement the latest threat?” you ask. I would suggest it is not.

The seeker sensitive movement is the result of the squishy, anti-nomianism that General Booth witnessed; it is not a new threat. Seeker Sensitive is the manifestation of bad theology. Seeker sensitive is merely a fad (a bad fad, but a fad, nonetheless), and it won’t be long before it is replaced by another fad that is the result of new bad theology. What is the bad theology of our day?

Redefined justification.

Nearly 500 years ago, God used Martin Luther to recapture the foundational doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone. Every puritan who followed in his wake recognized that justification is the core doctrine of Protestantism.

How did they define it? Man=sin. God=holiness. Consequence=hell. But God chose to demonstrate His kindness by taking the punishment we deserve by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to live a sinless life and die on a cross, rise from the dead and defeat death. Therefore, if people will repent and trust the Savior, the righteousness of Jesus will be imputed (credited to our account) that we might be made the righteousness of God (see II Cor.5:21) so that God can be glorified for His kindness. That is justification.

But alas, today’s “progressive” theologians have decided we need to take a fresh, new look at our cherished corner stone. Emergent leader, Brian McLaren says he simply wants to have a conversation and re-think long-held evangelical assumptions. While he acts like he is taking us on a journey whose destination is unknown, Mr. McLaren seems to know exactly where this conversation is headed: a new definition of justification. From the article “Interview with Brian McLaren about ‘A Letter to Friends f Emergent.’”

o Interviewer: I think with all the other change going on, one thing we’ve got to hold firm on is the Gospel.

McLaren: What do you mean when you say “the Gospel?

Interviewer: You know, justification by grace through faith in the finished atoning work of Christ on the cross.

McLaren: Are you sure that’s the Gospel?

Interviewer: Of course. Aren’t you?

McLaren: I’m sure that’s a facet of the Gospel, and it’s the facet that modern evangelical Protestants have assumed is the whole Gospel, the heart of the Gospel. But what’s the point of that Gospel?

Is it beneficial to question whether Christians should have Christmas trees? Sure. Is it necessary to question whether Christmas trees are green? The doctrine of justification has been long settled. To open up the doctrine for the sake of conversation screams of a hidden agenda.

While Mr. McLaren’s framing of the issue is under the guise of, “Let’s just open up the issue for discussion,” does Mr. McLaren know where he wants this conversation to go? It sure seems like it. He just seems to recognize that if he does not take a slow, meandering, deconstructionist path, he might be labeled for what he is.

“Is getting individual souls into heaven the focal point of the Gospel? I’d have to say, ‘No,’” states Mr. McLaren. Sure seems like the conversation is closed.

Mr. McLaren considers the classic understanding of penal substitution as “cosmic child abuse.” Is it any wonder that Brian thought the manager in Hotel Rwanda was a better example of love than Jesus in The Passion of the Christ?

The new bad theology is mangled justification. That means we have no further need for the Bible, Jesus or the cross. Christianity will be nothing more than a work righteous religion on the same level of Islam or Buddhism.

Christianity will no longer be about forgiveness of sins for the glory of God. The cross is no longer about satisfying the wrath of God. Faith is no longer about being in a right relationship with the Creator and inheriting eternal life.

Now, let’s put on our General Booth goggles and take a look into the future of Christianity. What will be the result of this bad theology?

Universalism.

If the emergents have their way, Jesus Christ will no longer be the exclusive way to everlasting life, nobody will go to hell and everyone will go to Heaven.

Brian McLaren offers this oxymoronic defense. “I am not embracing a traditional universalist position, but I am trying to raise the question, ‘When God created the universe, did he have two purposes in mind—one being to create some people who would forever enjoy blessing and mercy, and another to create a group who would forever suffer torment, torture, and punishment? What is our view of God? A God who plans torture? A God who has an essential, eternal quality of hatred? Is God love, or is God love and hate?’”

Straw man aside, that is like stating, “I am not saying I think everyone is going to go to heaven, I’m just saying that God is so loving He won’t send anyone to hell.”

In 1759, William Romaine presented, “The Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness Defended.” This was an effort to fend off the advances of the Catholic merit system (infused righteousness) into Protestant circles. The doctrine of justification that Luther had rescued was under assault. Here is what William Romaine begged. I have taken the liberty of replacing “Catholicism” with “Emergent”.

“A sinner made righteous by the righteousness of Christ is the doctrine upon which a church stands or falls. Upon it our church was established, and has long stood; but do we stand upon it now? Are we all champions for the protestant doctrine, or are we in general departed from it? Alas! Our enemies can tell, with triumph they tell of the increase of the emergent interest among us. And why does it increase? Whence is it that they make so many converts? Is it not because our people are not well established in the protestant doctrine? If it was taught and preached more, our churches would not be so empty as they are, nor the emergent houses so full. Many of our people know not what it is to be a protestant, and therefore they become an easy prey to the emergents, who are so busy and successful in making converts.”

Our new bad theology is redefined justification. The result can only lead to universalism. Mr. McLaren might try to obfuscate his position by saying he does not believe in “traditional universalism”, but universalism by any name (or with any adjective) is heresy. Heresy means people will go to hell. Listen to William Romaine. “I fear this may be true; but is it not alarming, and ought it not to stir up the clergy, to try to put a stop to the spreading of the emergents? May the Lord raise up faithful and able men to defend His righteousness against them who have established a meritorious righteousness of their own, and will not submit to the righteousness of God.”

If you choke on the squishy gospel of the seeker sensitive movement, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

http://galatiansc4v16.wordpress.com/2007/01/25/brian-mclaren-questions-the-gospel/

2006-12-19T09:06:00.000-08:00

Biblical Unity

Isn’t it strange that when the world claims to desire unity that its emphasis is rapidly becoming diversity? This is because the world cannot solve the problem of disunity, it cannot stop wars, and it cannot bring peace. Only Christ can change a heart and cause a person to esteem others more highly than himself. Only Christ is the answer. Obviously then, the world’s approach of tolerance will not work. Tolerance emphasizes differences rather than commonalities. In a sense, this is the best that the world can do given that the only thing it has in common is error, sin, and a fallen heart. But tolerance is not the answer. Tolerance merely accepts the reality that differences, conflicts, disagreements, and contradictions are here to stay. It thus tells people that there is no right or wrong position, belief, or behavior, but that all people are just different. When tolerance becomes the rule, true unity becomes impossible because truth is cast aside. Tolerance stops pursuing truth, opting in exchange for acceptance of all ideas and practices.

Those who believe that there is a truth out there are called intolerant if they say that others’ beliefs are untrue or if they try to convince others to believe the truth. Tolerance wants to have multiple truths. How can unity ever be achieved when we all think we are right and disagree at the same time? If there is no truth outside of society, “truth” will be what society imposes upon its people. The best our society can come up with is tolerance, and it is wrestling with how forceful it should be in imposing it. Needless to say, there is a great division in the world and in our nation in particular between those who believe in absolute truth and those who believe in truth-annihilating tolerance. The bitter irony of the tolerance and diversity agenda is that it cannot tolerate or embrace as equally valid those who hold to universal truth or who believe in an exclusively right religion.

Tolerance emphasizes differences, while the Bible emphasizes unity. Tolerance says that it accepts all things and people, but it is unable to truly love others. It merely tolerates them. Christianity, on the other hand, says that, though you are different and perhaps even wrong, you are still loved. Tolerance doesn’t love a person enough to tell them that they are wrong, unless of course they are being “intolerant.” The bottom line is that if tolerance is practiced in the church, then truth will be minimized, love will be exchanged for acceptance, and true Biblical unity will be forfeited.

John 17:21-23 says,

“That they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”

This passage leaves no doubt that true unity comes by people being in Christ as they repent of their sin and put their faith in Him. Christ prays for His disciples and for all who would come after them (the church) that they would be unified. This unity can only happen if we are grafted into Christ by faith. Unity thus requires an adherence to truth, which is personified by Christ Himself, Who is the truth (John 14:6). True unity is that we be one as Jesus and the Father are one. Jesus and the Father are literally one God, believing the same things, thinking the same things, doing the same things, and so on. There is nothing that is more indicative of oneness, not even Christian marriage, than the example of Jesus and the Father. Jesus said that those who have seen Him have seen the Father (John 14:9). True unity then, as Jesus prays, is that we join their unity, being in Them. It is Jesus in us, the Father in Jesus, and, by implication, us in the Father and in Jesus. We are made part of Christ’s body, spiritually speaking. True unity requires that we receive Christ as our Savior and Lord and let Him indwell us.

If we, as God’s people, want to be unified, we must become more and more like Christ. We do this as we apply His Word and understand it. John 17:17, just a few verses earlier, is a lead-in to Christ’s prayer for unity. He gives us, in essence, the key to pursuing this unity among brothers and sisters in Christ. He prays to the Father, “Sanctify them in the word; Your word is truth.” True unity will increase as we are conformed to the Word of God in belief and obedience. It is through right understanding of the Scripture that true unity takes place.

Some Christians erroneously think that there must always be issues that Christians will disagree upon. They hope to still have true unity even though they accept/tolerate a diversity of views and doctrines. Not being conformed to the truth, the church of plurality becomes a church of tolerance. We just agree to disagree. This is the world coming into the church. The fact is that somebody is right and somebody is wrong. Some denominations are right on some things, and others are right on other things. The very meaning of the word “denomination” implies inherent division and disagreement. The problem with this is that Christ’s prayer is not speaking of merely the invisible unity that the body of Christ possesses but a visible unity that the world can see, perceive, and through which it can be impacted. The goal of Christ’s prayer is that the world would know and believe that the Father sent the Son and that the Son loved His people. If the church is not unified visibly, then the progress of the gospel is obstructed. Yet the only way that true visible unity will happen is if true invisible unity occurs first. This can only happen, not if we learn to just accept different traditions as all valid and equal versions, but if we pursue the truth according to the infallible Word of God.

This is not mere rhetoric or wishful thinking. Christ prayed for it, and we should too. The fact of the matter is that the Spirit’s job is to lead believers into all truth, not just some truth or the truth that pertains merely to the basics of Christian belief (John 16:13). His purpose and mission is to draw us into Christ and God according to the word of the Father. If we are to be one as God and Christ are one, the Spirit must apply the Word of God to our hearts. We must yield ourselves humbly to finding out what Scripture says. Theology books may say one thing, seminaries and their doctrinal systems another, and denominational leaders yet another, but the Bible says the truth. If true unity is ever to be manifested on earth, it will only be in the church of Jesus Christ and only as it conforms to the truth of God’s Word.

The world’s attempts at unity are feeble and false at best. Only Christ can bring true, full, and lasting unity. But unity can only exist as we seek to know His Word and are found in Him as mature disciples. Ephesians 4:11-12 speaks of God gifting pastors, teachers, and evangelists for the purpose of building up the church and edifying it. Verse 13 explains what the outcome of sound Biblical teaching and preaching is, saying, “Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” If we want true unity, it will be by faith in Christ as we grow in Him according to the truth of the Bible. Perfected unity won’t happen until we are glorified, but in the meantime, let us seek Biblical unity by faith in Christ by pursuing a growing understanding of the Bible and by humbly yielding to the Spirit within us as He guides us into all truth.

2006-11-29T08:00:00.000-08:00

Pragmatism Goes to Church
by A.W. Tozer,
"God Tells The Man Who Cares"

It is not by accident that the philosophy of pragmatism around the turn of the century achieved such wide popularity in the United States. The American temperament was perfect for it, and still is.

Pragmatism has a number of facets and can mean various things to various people, but basically it is the doctrine of the utility of truth. For the pragmatist there are no absolutes; nothing is absolutely good or absolutely true. Truth and morality float on a sea of human experience. If an exhausted swimmer can lay hold of a belief or an ethic, well and good; it may keep him afloat till he can get to shore; then it only encumbers him, so he tosses it away. He feels no responsibility to cherish truth for its own sake. It is there to serve him; he has no obligation to serve it.

Truth is to use. Whatever is useful is true for the user, though for someone else it may not be useful, so not true. The truth of any idea is its ability to produce desirable results. If it can show no such results it is false. That is pragmatism stripped of its jargon.

Now, since practicality is a marked characteristic of the American people they naturally lean strongly toward the philosophy of utility. Whatever will get things done immediately with a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of undesirable side effects must be good. The proof is that it succeeds; no one wants to argue with success.

It is useless to plead for the human soul, to insist that what a man can do is less important than what he is. When there are wars to be won, forests to be cleared, rivers to be harnessed, factories to be built, planets to be visited, the quieter claims of the human spirit are likely to go unregarded. The spectacular drama of successful deeds leaves the beholder breathless. Deeds you can see. Factories, cities, highways, rockets are there in plain sight, and they got there by the practical application of means to ends. So who cares about ideals and character and morals? These things are for poets, nice old ladies and philosophers. Let's get on with the job.

Now all this has been said, and said better, a few dozen times before, and I would not waste space on it here except that this philosophy of pragmatism has had and is having a powerful influence upon Christianity in the middle years of this century. And whatever touches the faith of Christ immediately becomes a matter of interest to me and, I hope, to my readers also.

The nervous compulsion to get things done is found everywhere among us. We are affected by a kind of religious tic, a deep inner necessity to accomplish something that can be seen and photographed and evaluated in terms of size, numbers, speed and distance.

We travel a prodigious number of miles, talk to unbelievably large crowds, publish an astonishing amount of religious literature, collect huge sums of money, build vast numbers of churches and amass staggering debts for our children to pay. Christian leaders compete with each other in the field of impressive statistics, and in so doing often acquire peptic ulcers, have nervous breaks or die of heart attacks while still relatively young.

Right here is where the pragmatic philosophy comes into its own. It asks no embarrassing questions about the wisdom of what we are doing or even about the morality of it. it accepts our chosen ends as right and good and casts about for efficient means and ways to get them accomplished. When it discovers something that works it soon finds a text to justify it, "consecrates" it to the Lord and plunges ahead. Next a magazine article is written about it, then a book, and finally the inventor is granted an honorary degree. After that any question about the scripturalness of things or even the moral validity of them is completely swept away. You cannot argue with success. The method works; ergo, it must be good.

The weakness of all this is its tragic shortsightedness. It never takes the long view of religious activity, indeed it dare not do so, but goes cheerfully on believing that because it works it is both good and true. It is satisfied with present success and shakes off any suggestion that its works may go up in smoke in the day of Christ.

As one fairly familiar with the contemporary religious scene, I say without hesitation that a part, a very large part, of the activities carried on today in evangelical circles are not only influenced by pragmatism but almost completely controlled by it. Religious methodology is geared to it; it appears large in our youth meetings; magazines and books constantly glorify it; conventions are dominated by it; and the whole religious atmosphere is alive with it.

What shall we do to break its power over us? The answer is simple. We must acknowledge the right of Jesus Christ to control the activities of His church. The New Testament contains full instructions, not only about what we are to believe but what we are to do and how we are to go about doing it. Any deviation from those instructions is a denial of the Lordship of Christ.

I say the answer is simple, but it is not easy for it requires that we obey God rather than man, and that always brings down the wrath of the religious majority. It is not a question of knowing what to do; we can easily learn that from the Scriptures. It is a question of whether or not we have the courage to do it.

2006-11-16T12:23:00.000-08:00

I have been covering Rick Warren’s long slide into self-absorbed deception for quite a while, and I have not been as hesitant as Joseph Farah at WND has been about stating what is wrong with Rick Warren’s Theology. Rev. Warren’s latest escapade in Syria and his statements while in Syria should leave no doubt what Rick Warren’s beliefs are and where he wants to take his “Purpose Driven movement”

I urge everyone to contact their church leadership and request that ALL Rick Warren material be removed from your Church. Rick Warren has been a Pied Piper leading many millions down a path to the false church. Its time to Stand Up! And say no more!

As for me and my house, we will be Spirit Led and Not “Purpose Driven”

God Bless,

John Baker

The purpose-driven lie
Posted: November 16, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern

Rick Warren wrote to me this morning to protest this column. He claims he didn't say anything he was actually quoted as saying by the official press in Syria. I urge you, however, to watch him with your own eyes on this short video clip in which he says Syria "does not allow extremism of any kind." In fact, Syria is, in many ways, the No. 1 sponsor of terrorism in the world.

For a long time I've held off criticizing mega-church leader Rick Warren, author of the best-selling "The Purpose Driven Life," even though I have been sorely tempted.

When he joined up with now-disgraced National Association of Evangelicals leader Ted Haggard to suggest man-induced global warming represented an impending calamity, I didn't say too much. I questioned it, but I let it go.

When he joined Haggard again in writing an open letter to President Bush urging government action to fight global poverty, I didn't say a word – even though I thought it ironic. After all, it is the church's responsibility to help the poor. It is not government's responsibility.

But now that Rick Warren has traveled to and provided legitimacy to a hostile foreign government, presided over by a brutal fascist dictator who hates Jews, threatens Israel, subverts neighboring Lebanon, imprisons and terrorizes its own citizens and even kills them in massive numbers when they stand up in revolt – now I have to denounce this impostor in the strongest terms possible.

It is my biblical mandate to do so.

Other Christians may be holding back, waiting to hear Rick Warren's explanation for his behavior in Syria. Some are cautiously suggesting that accounts of his activities there may have been distorted by the controlled press. Some want to give him the benefit of any doubt.

I'm going to give it to you straight: Rick Warren had no business traveling to Syria and being used for propaganda purposes by Bashar Assad, the terrorist-supporting president. There are only two possibilities to explain what happened:

He made the outrageous statements attributed to him by the Syrians, for which he should be ostracized – maybe even tried for treason, in my opinion.

He didn't make the statements, or was misquoted – in which case he has placed himself in the predictable position of being a "useful idiot" for the Islamofascist regime in Damascus.
Take your pick. Neither option is very attractive.

Here's what we know now.

The official press in the Syrian police state is suggesting Warren is taking sides with Syria against his own country with regard to issues in the Middle East. The reports indicate we can soon expect Warren, upon his return to the U.S., to lecture Americans about our abusive role in the region.

The Syrian newspaper Umar Jaftali quotes Warren as saying: "Washington is wrong not to hold dialogue with Syria, which wants peace. I call on the Americans to visit Syria and meet its beautiful people. I will tell the Americans that their idea about Syria does not reflect the truth."

Here's what the Syrian Arab News Agency reported:

"[The] American delegation stressed that the American administration is mistaken not to hold dialogue with Syria."

"Pastor Warren hailed the religious coexistence, tolerance and stability that the Syrian society is enjoying due to the wise leadership of President al-Assad, asserting that he will convey the true image about Syria to the American people."

Warren gave Assad a "memorial drawing" to "thank the Syrian people for their ... efforts exerted for maintaining peace and harmony."

Warren was quoted as saying: "Syria wants peace, and Muslims and Christians live in this country jointly and peacefully since more than a thousand years, and this is not new for Syria."

He would, in the words of the official news agency, "tell the Americans that the ideas which had been shaped about [Syria] didn't reflect the truth and they have to come to Syria and see by themselves and realize her nice people and visit her wonderful and historical ruins."

It was reported he told Syria's Islamic grand mufti that there could be no peace in the region without Syria and that 80 percent of Americans rejects what the U.S. administration is doing in Iraq.

He praised Islamic-Christian co-existence in Syria.

If I were a betting man, I would wager that Warren will come home and allege he was widely misquoted. He probably was. I HOPE he was. But here's the problem: When you place yourself in the position of being used – and you ARE used – whose fault is it?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52969

2006-11-15T09:47:00.000-08:00

Happy Feet The Childrens Movie:
Pushing an Anti-Religion Message
http://www2.warnerbros.com/happyfeet/

Today I read a review of Happy Feet, the new singing penguin movie that opens Friday.Maybe you've seen the trailers and thought, as I did, "How could they possibly make a 90 minute movie out of this?" I mean, it's just penguins. Singing. For 90 minutes right?

But it appears there's more to this film than just singing penguins. To quote, "Happy Feet is a film about the dangers and evils of religion in the face of open-minded liberal thought."Wait a second...What?

Turns out, the plot involves one penguin who dances, while all the others sing, so as a result, "said penguin is kicked out of the community by the town elder for Heresy against the Great Penguin in the Sky."

Basically, the penguins all blame the lone dancer for God taking away all the fish in their ocean. When he proves that this is really due to human fishing in the area, "A revolution breaks out as the elders scream about heresy against the Great Penguin in the Sky while the youth begin to dance and sing."

The most interesting thing is that the reviewer sees all of this in the film and is disturbed. He says, "You see, I respect anyone who takes the time to educate their children in what they believe the ways of the world are. But this film wasn’t designed, nor advertised, to have parents make that decision for themselves...I do not, do not, DO NOT, agree that it is in any way a good idea to discuss such radical ideas in an animated film and then sell that film simply as a harmless, singing and dancing Penguin extravaganza."