Unbelievable news coming out of Texas.
“You don’t spank children today,” said Judge Jose Longoria. “In the old days, maybe we got spanked, but there was a different quarrel. You don’t spank children.”
Rosalina Gonzales had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of injury to a child for what prosecutors had described as a “pretty simple, straightforward spanking case.” They noted she didn’t use a belt or leave any bruises, just some red marks.
Read the article here.
Vacation Bible School sounds innocent enough, it started with good intentions: Christians wanting to reach children with the good news of Jesus.
Christianity Astray reports:
Unofficially, it’s possible to trace the roots of VBS as far back as the 1870s, when the Methodist Episcopal Church offered summer Sunday school institutes to the general public near Lake Chautauqua, New York. In 1873, Bishop John H. Vincent proposed the movement should include educational and cultural programs, and soon other Christian groups across the country followed suit with their own summer retreats, many of them offering services for children.
Vacation Bible school as we know it today got its start more than 20 years later on New York City’s East Side. Mrs. Walker Aylette Hawes of the Epiphany Baptist Church noted a rapid increase in the number of immigrant children in the slums. In July 1898 she rented the only place available—a saloon—to run a Bible school for six weeks during the summer. Hawes structured her program around worship music, Bible stories and Scripture memorization, games, crafts, drawing, cooking, etc. The school caught on: Hawes was presiding over seven separate schools by the time she retired from her work in 1901.
Note – no effort to involve or reach out to the parents of these street urchins. A culturally relevant program that would be attractive to young children who were dead in their sins. (This remains the foundation of many church-based youth programs, a century later.) This approach not only extends the recent invention of adolescence, it encourages adults to behave as if they were small children. This year’s promotional materials from Lifeway are a prime example:
How did parents and the church train children before such hip, cool, fun, and unbiblical programs were developed? I’m glad you asked. Here’s a sample of one tool that was used from the 17th century and is still in use in some churches; it’s an extract of the Shorter Baptist Catechism:
Q. 43. What is the preface to the ten commandments?
A. The preface to the ten commandments is in these words, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.Q. 44. What does the preface to the ten commandments teach us?
A. The preface to the ten commandments teaches us that because God is the Lord, and our God, and redeemer, therefore we are bound to keep all his commandments.Q. 45. Which is the first commandment?
A. The first commandment is, You shall have no other gods before me.Q. 46. What is required in the first commandment?
A. The first commandment requires us to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God, and our God; and to worship and glorify him accordingly.Q. 47. What is forbidden in the first commandment?
A. The first commandment forbids the denying, or not worshiping and glorifying the true God as God, and our God; and the giving of that worship and glory to any other, which is due to him alone.Q. 48. What are we specially taught by these words before me in the first commandment?
A. These words before me in the first commandment teach us that God, who sees all things, takes notice of, and is much displeased with, the sin of having any other god.
I ask you – which method of instructing children is God honoring?
Sometimes a parody can say so much more than a million serious blog posts.
Your sermon of the week is The Grim Reality of the Last Days by John MacArthur. This is not a topic Joel Osteen would dare touch, and it’s definitely not a message for the faint-hearted.
Mike Ratliff had this to say about this sermon:
John MacArthur preached something I had never heard before, which compared the eschatology of Islam with that of the Book of Revelation from our Bible. The main character in Islam’s eschatology is called the Mahdi. Also, according [to] their eschatology, Allah sends Jesus back to Earth to serve as the Mahdi’s greatest servant to convert the world to Islam. John MacArthur shows in his sermon how all of this lines up with the Antichrist and the False Prophet. Toward the end of their reign on earth, a false prophet comes to earth who opposes them and there is a great war. In Muslim eschatology, they win and this false prophet is overthrown, but as we know in the book of Revelation, This “false prophet” is the real Jesus Christ who will win that war. My summary pales in comparison to Dr. MacArthur’s fine sermon. I suggest you listen to it.
Today’s families are suffering because the concepts of biblical family government–unknown to many in these last generations–have been replaced by humanistic and so-called “modern” ideas about child rearing that have produced anarchy in the home. Home has become simply a “crash pad”–a place to make a quick stop for food, clothes, and sleep. Each family member’s energies are focused on relationships and activities outside the home; there is little life within the family circle. The wisdom of past generations is disregarded; hence, grandma and grandpa find it best to live far away. Fathers focus all their attention on their work outside the home to supply the material needs of the crash pad and the family’s ever-increasing lust for entertainment. Mothers seek outside responsibilities in response to their discontent with life at home. Children put their trust in the wisdom of the group and seek security in peers, demanding more and more entertainment outside of the home.
– William & Colleen Dedrick
From: The Little Book of Christian Character & Manners
“It is in the gymnasium of affliction that men are modeled and fashioned in the beauty of holiness, and all their spiritual powers are trained for harmonious action. It was meet also that they should suffer, in order to complete their service. Like their Lord, they had to be made perfect through suffering; and if they had not suffered they had not finished the work which he had given them to do. They needed tribulation, moreover, that they might be made like their Savior; for a saint untroubled, how can he be like the man who wore the thorn crown? Never smitten, never slandered, never despised, never mocked at, never crucified, then how could we be like our Head? Shall the servant be above his Master, or the disciple above his Lord?”
From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled “What And Whence Are These?,” delivered February 25, 1872.
– C. H. Spurgeon
1834 – 1892
For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Romans 10:2-4
They just don’t get it.
The false religions and cults simply cannot grasp the simplicity of the gospel message. This is evidenced anytime you have a conversation with one of them about sin, grace, faith, and justification.
You can go round and round in debate with a member of one of these organizations and you often walk away with a headache because they can’t see the forest for the trees.
They have been so indoctrinated to believe their respective organization’s interpretations of biblical texts that when someone presents them with the proper interpretation of biblical texts (using Scripture to interpret Scripture) they simply reject it.
It is so sad to watch the deceived continue in their deception, especially when they are leading others down the same broad path.
It’s like trying to convince a fish that it’s wet; the fish has known nothing but wet, so it cannot even fathom what dry is.
Recently the Jehovah’s Witnesses stopped by my home and dropped off an advertisement with my wife for an upcoming event. They won’t stay to talk (our house has been flagged for almost five years now) but they will occasionally still drop off literature . . . and run.
In their latest dump-and-run literature drop they gave my wife a flier for their upcoming commemoration of the anniversary of Jesus’ death. Here’s the opening line from that advertisement:
“John the Baptizer stated that Jesus ‘takes away the sin of the world.’ (John 1:29) This drew attention to Jesus’ role in saving obedient mankind.”
Jesus saved the obedient?
See how subtle their deception is?
The obedient don’t need a Savior. Jesus Himself said He came for the sinner, not the righteous (Matthew 9:13, Mark 2:17).
This declaration by the Jehovah’s Witnesses is predicated on the erroneous assumption that our obedience is a prerequisite for Christ to be able save us. This is classic Watchtower Organization rhetoric and is essentially the doctrine of all cults and false religions: Believing you must do your part and cooperate with God to help Him or enable Him to save you.
They just don’t get it.
If the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe obedience is required as a means or requirement of salvation (which anyone who knows Watchtower doctrine can attest that this is indeed their position) then they better be obedient to all the Law without ever sinning once from cradle to grave, otherwise they will be found guilty of breaking all the Law (James 2:10):
For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.
But what’s even more damning to those seeking salvation via the conduit of obedience is the fact that they are under a curse for doing the very thing they think will save them (Galatians 3:10):
For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM THEM.”
What Jehovah’s Witnesses (and Mormons, and Roman Catholics, and Muslims, etc.) fail to understand is that regeneration comes before obedience, not the other way around. Romans 8:6-8 makes our inability very clear:
For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
It’s a classic case of putting of the cart before the horse.
They just don’t get it.
It’s only after we’ve been saved, regenerated, made alive in Christ, been born again, that our works and obedience are pleasing and acceptable to God
Our obedience is borne out of a love and desire to please the One who purchased us with His own blood, not out of us trying to appease Him and merit His favor like the pagans try do for their idols.
Our obedience, and the good works we do after being saved, come from God and are prepared beforehand for us to walk in (Ephesians 2:10). This is why our behavior should reflect our conversion (Matthew 3:8, Luke 3:8, Acts 26:20, Ephesians 4:1) and why the absence of which should cause us to question whether or not we’ve been genuinely converted.
Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you– unless indeed you fail the test? 2 Corinthians 13:5
Simply put, regeneration precedes obedience (John 14:15, John 14:21-24, 1 John 3:24).
What obedience did Abraham offer to become righteous before God (Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3)? What obedience did John the Baptist declare to those coming to be baptized (Matthew 3:2)? What obedience did Christ declare upon the start of His earthly ministry (Matthew 4:17) or later in His ministry (Luke 13:5)? What obedience did the thief on the cross exhibit to be with Jesus that very day in paradise (Luke 23:39-43)? What obedience did Paul tell the Philippian jailer he needed to perform to be saved (Acts 16:30-31)?
The false faiths that dot the landscape of Christianity like pock marks all invalidate the word of God for the sake of their traditions (Matthew 15:6), and their works-righteousness gospel is in complete contradiction to Jesus’ teaching of the means of the free gift of God’s grace and mercy as cited in His example of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18:9-14. You cannot read those words of our Lord and still believe that your obedience (or anything for that matter) merits you any favor in God’s eyes. If you still believe otherwise, then you make Christ’s brutal, bloody, and barbaric sacrifice null and void because it was all done in vain.
I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly. Galatians 2:21
See also: Why Don’t They Get it?
According to a reliable source, the Dalai Lama is claiming to be a Marxist. The reliable source is the Dalai Lama himself.
Read the USA Today article here.
Every child of God ought to know what his Father desires for him. I seem to find three basic questions people ponder that leaves me with the impression that many who claim Christ struggle with the very idea of determining God’s will for their lives.
1.) How do you determine the will of God for your life? First – make sure you know and obey the revealed will of God, those things He has made clear for each of us. For example: 1 Thessalonians 4:3 – 7, 1 Thessalonians 5:16 – 22, and 1 Peter 2:13 – 17. His first priority for each of His children is to conform us to His Son (Romans 8:28 – 30).
Beyond God’s revealed will, theologians categorize the will of God as providential – pleasing to Him because it aligns with His revealed will. How does one determine God’s providential will? First, study, know, and obey God’s revealed will, paying attention to principles found in Scripture on the topic at hand. Secondly, ask the Lord for wisdom – for He loves to give such to His children, and He is wiser than we. Thirdly, get godly counsel. Fourthly – decide. If we live believing God’s will for our mate, job, vacation, car, or dinner is a unique choice that He has hidden from us, we will be frustrated. Knowing His character and living in humble obedience to Him – as we study His revealed will – will equip us to make choices that please Him, as we exercise His providential will.
When we make what seem to us as stupid choices – we should review how we made the decision. If we were aligned with the Lord, we can be assured it was right and we now face decisions on how to respond. If you marry “the wrong woman”, know and obey God’s revealed will for how to live with your wife.
2.) Can anyone have assurance of salvation? Before having assurance of salvation, a man should make sure he is redeemed. Scripture tells us we can know we are in Christ (1 John 5:13). and Scripture also tells us how to know: we keep His commands – 1 John 2:3 – 6; love the brotherhood – 1 John 2:9 – 11, 1 John 3:10, and 1 John 5:1 – 3; love not worldly things – 1 John 2:15 – 17; believe in the Lord Jesus – 1 John 5:10 – 12; confess Him as Savior – 1 John 4:13 – 15; love God – 1 John 4:16; keep ourselves from wickedness – 1 John 5:18 – 21. We cannot do these things to be saved – we diagnose our spiritual condition by examining if and how we do them.
3.) Is every Christian supposed to witness? Many people look to Ephesians 4:11 and think only those called to be an evangelist are required to witness, to proclaim the gospel. What does Scripture say? As we saw from 1 John 4:13 – 15, one mark of a Christian is that he testifies (V 14) and confesses (v 15) Christ to be the Son of God. To testify means “to bear record of”, “to give witness of”; to confess, in this context, means “something said, a reasoned statement, an account or communication, preaching”. In John 10:22 – 25, Jesus told the Jews that His works bore witness of Him. Since we are the workmanship of Christ, we ought to willingly be witnesses of Him. We see Peter and John, in Acts 4, unable to keep from telling people of Jesus, even in the face of threats from the government (Acts 4:19 – 20). We need to keep in mind that it’s not our job to convince people to save themselves – which we can’t do and neither can they. Salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit and since He abides in every Christian, He will do His work when we are witnesses of Jesus. Every Christian can do this work and every Christian should do this work. In the Great Commission, the Lord first tells us to “Go and teach all nations”. The only rational conclusion is that those to be taught must first be witnessed to and redeemed before they can be taught. So don’t think this commission doesn’t apply to you if you aren’t a teacher. Finally, look to the reward we gain by being faithful in this ministry – Revelation 12:11 shows martyrs recognized by God for their testimonies of Him. It’s always good for the Lord of Creation to approve your work – even if it’s as simple as telling people about Jesus.
4.) A bonus question, as follow-up. What is “the Gospel”, beyond simply being “good news”? Paul tells us (Romans 1:16) “it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” In 1 Corinthians 1:17 – 18, we see that the Gospel is about the cross: “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. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” Further in this passage, we see that it’s also foolishness and a stumbling block to men – so no man can win a soul to Christ by force of intellect or smooth speech. We find in 1 Corinthians 15 what is perhaps the best summary of the Gospel of Jesus: “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;
By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once.”
The Gospel declares that Christ died as prophesied and required by the law as punishment for our sins. Man is wicked and sinful and in desperate need of a savior – Christ is the One. He was buried and raised from dead – as foretold in Scripture – though man tried everything to obscure the Truth of the resurrection. And Christ was seen by hundreds of people who were still alive when Paul wrote this, meaning they could have called him a liar to his face – if the Gospel was false. Your personal testimony is good news, but it’s not the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it won’t save anyone. Your walk of obedience is pleasing to the Lord, but your lifestyle is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it won’t save anyone. Trust God when he says “the Gospel of Jesus is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes.”
Have you asked Jesus to leave you alone yet? Maybe you are like me and you were called by Jesus as a young adult. Or maybe you have known of Jesus your entire life. Maybe your earliest memories of childhood include Sunday school songs about Jesus and memory verses at church. So, why would you ever ask Jesus to leave you alone? It is an absurd thought, isn’t it? After all this time, you have Jesus! Don’t you want him to stay? I propose that if you don’t ask Jesus to depart from you, then you may not know him at all. Follow me to the shores of Gennesaret (Lake Galilee) more than 2000 years ago as told by Luke.
Luke 5:1-3:
1On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, 2 and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
Jesus was on the scene and being pressed by the large crowd following him and listening to him teach, he ran out of dry ground and was basically forced to climb into a boat. Jesus climbed into Simon’s (Peter) boat. Do you think this boat choice was a random selection? No, it wasn’t random. Before time began the Father set an appointment with the Messiah in Peter’s life to have this discussion. Jesus showed up on time, as he always does.
The topic of whether or not Christians should vote recently came up in the comment thread of this post that originally asked the question of whether or not Christians should vote for a Mormon (i.e. Mitt Romney). However, the predominant question that emerged from the comment thread was: Should a Christian vote for the lesser of two evils?
Now, if a truly blood-bought, born-again, child of God was running for political office, the debate would be moot. But let’s face it, we will probably never be given that option (at least not on the presidential ticket). Any genuine Christian with presidential aspirations would be facing an insurmountable obstacle of opposition because the world would hate him because it hated Christ first (and no pupil or Christian presidential candidate is above His master).
The unfortunate truth is, gaining the approval of the voting populace would require compromising one’s faith and morals in order to be accepted and in order to procure the votes needed to win. The Christian candidate would have no choice but to assimilate to the world in order to garner the approval of the world. (To see how successful that pragmatic approach is just look at the result of years of pastors pandering to the world while their sheep are dying of starvation. There’s a reason why God warned us not to mix light with darkness.)
Time and time again in America Christians are relegated to having to choose between the lesser of the two evils and it doesn’t appear that the upcoming presidential election will be any different.
So, with all that said, my current position is that true Christians should not have to vote if they first have to sit down and estimate which candidate is the lesser of two evils.
Although I cannot (and will not) dictate to others whether they should vote or not, my conscience tells me that voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil.
Now, I know that there are many who will respectfully disagree with my position, and even suggest that it’s our duty as Americans and our obligation as Christians to vote for someone . . . anyone! So, for the furtherance of this discussion, I present the following four questions for your consideration:
It’s pretty bad when a local news station has to get involved in a matter like this because the school won’t help to put a stop to the violence perpetrated against a four-year-old girl.
You can see the video and read the article here.
If this is the Lord of the Flies socialization I keep hearing that my home educated kids are missing out on, then I think they’ll be just fine.
Your sermon of the week is Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness by Phil Johnson. This is the next installment of Johnson’s series on the Ten Commandments that is being featured on DefCon every other week as your Sermon of the Week (on Thursdays).
Is Mormon presidential candidate Mitt Romney pro-life or pro-abortion? I often hear that Christians are willing to vote for him because he “shares their values,” and being pro-life is one of those values often cited. But is he really?
In the following video Mitt Romney makes his pro-abortion position very clear, so those expecting to vote for him because he’s pro-life may need to find another reason to do so.
And then there’s this whopper of a video in which for five minutes Romney defends his pro-abortion position, distancing himself from those nasty rumors that he might be pro-life.
At 4:22 seconds into the video Mitt Romney unequivocally decalres:
“I do not take the position of a pro-life candidate. I am in favor of preserving and protecting a woman’s right to choose”
But he’s changed, some may say. Has he? He’s now pro-life, some may say. Is he?
These final two videos reveal why it’s hard to determine Mitt Romney’s actual stance on the murder of unborn children because he flip-flops back and forth on the issue
I have to wonder if double-mindedness, pandering, and deception are just some of the character traits Christians voting for Romney consider to be their “shared values.”
Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to vote for the lesser of two evils.
The Bible records in Acts 17:11 that the Apostle Paul commended the Bereans for comparing what he taught and said to Scripture. Rather than taking offense at what others might consider to be “criticism,” Paul encouraged them to compare everything he was teaching to the Word of God. He did not regard those who sincerely measured what he said by Scripture as being “difficult,” or “divisive,” or having a “critical spirit.” He understood that for truth to prevail in the Church, everyone’s teachings–even his own–would have to be proven by the Word of God.
– Warren Smith
From Deceived on Purpose
I recently read a piece entitled A Vote For Romney is a Vote for the LDS Church written by Warren C. Smith (not to be confused with the Warren Smith who exposed Rick Warren’s New Age agenda and ties to Robert Schuller in his book Deceived on Purpose).
Here’s a quote from the thought-provoking article that–for the record–I completely agree with:
“To elect a Mormon President is to advance the cause of the Mormon Church. Non-Christians likely don’t care much about this point one way or the other. But for the Christian, this is a vital issue. . . . The validation of the false religion of Mormonism would almost certainly have the effect of leading many astray. Evangelical Christians should have no part of that effort. . . . A Romney presidency would have the effect of actively promoting a false religion in the world. If you have any regard for the Gospel of Christ, you should care. A false religion should not prosper with the support of Christians. The salvation of souls is at stake.”
Christ Alone Wyoming 