Author: Pilgrim

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Quotes (121)

washerpic.jpg Not enough is preached about separation, not enough is preached against the world and the things of the world and its pleasures and its trinkets . . . . How can you love the very things for which Christ was crucified? Can you love the nails? Can you bless the hammer? Would you kiss the hands that crushed His head with a crown of thorns? Because when you say you know Christ and you are a disciple of Christ and yet you love the world, you do that very thing. Oh my friend, there is a great divide; a great separation. The Scripture warns us that those who are not separate now will be separated on that Great Day from the sheep and they will be labeled goats and they will find their place in Hell.

– Paul Washer

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Sola Scriptura (34)

bible-page.jpg “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord GOD, “when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of the Lord. People will stagger from sea to sea and from the north even to the east; they will go to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.”
– The Prophet Amos
Amos 8:11-12
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Book review: Holiness by J.C. Ryle.

holiness-jc-ryle.jpg I recently completed reading this powerhouse book Holiness by John Charles Ryle. This is one of those books that every Christian should have on their bookshelf next to their Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress.

This book is a collection of Ryle’s sermons and he conveys his messages clearly and bluntly. He’s very direct and pulls no punches when it comes to sound doctrine and defending the faith (many times from the heretical errors and influences of the Roman Catholic Church). Ryle’s contention throughout the book is that holiness should be one of the major components of a Christian’s life.

It’s very hard to find a good, biblically sound book that was written within the last century. They are out there, but are not so common (error and compromise is pervasive in our time). Many of you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you want good, solid teaching you have to read books from the 19th century or earlier. This book is one of those shining examples that lends support to my theory.

I firmly believe that if more Christians read books like this instead of the junk they read today (and the copious amounts of television to boot) they’d experience a greater growth in their walk. And if more pastors preached like this, their church numbers might become smaller in number, but they would be making an actual impact on the world.

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Unlike peanutbutter and chocolate, some things were never meant to be together.

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Introducing Ultimate Christian Wrestling.

Those over at Wrestling for Jesus put on a blasphemous wrestling show featuring Jesus as a wrestler fighting evil. All of this, of course, is done to reach those who wouldn’t go to church anyway . . . right?

I wish more Christians would understand that those in the world are not dumb. They understand when they’re being pandered to. It’s this kind of stuff that only reinforces people’s aversion to “church.”

What you draw them with is what you draw them to.

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Quotes (120)

john-macarthur.jpg If the unchurched multitudes don’t want biblical preaching, we are told, we must give them what they want. . . . Subtly the overriding goal is becoming church attendance and worldly acceptability rather than a transformed life. Preaching the Word and boldly confronting sin are seen as archaic, ineffectual means of winning the world. . . . Why not entice people into the fold by offering what they want, creating a friendly, comfortable environment, and catering to the very desires that constitute their strongest urges? As if we might get them to accept Jesus by somehow making Him more likable or making His message more less offensive.

– John MacArthur

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The Saint Galvao Prayer Pills. What will the Catholic Church think of next?

Is there anything that the Catholic Church won’t put on the table that devout Catholics won’t eat up?

Introducing the St. Galvao Prayer Pill for the Catholic who still believes that praying to God through Christ alone just isn’t good enough (in spite of the Bible’s clear teaching that Jesus is the ONLY mediator between God and man).

I wonder how the Mary worshipers devotees will take this since they still cling to the heretical couplet that “Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is the gateway of God“.

Seriously, these “prayer pills” sound like something that TBN would be selling. I thought the RCC had a little more respectability than to do something like this . . . yes, I know, there was that Indulgences thing. But to quote a famous Mormon defense, “That was in the past, we don’t teach that anymore.” No siree. Now we have prayer pills!

I wait with anticipation for the next gimmick the Catholic Church will send down the pike.

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Quotes (119)

yahannan.jpg Is missions an option–especially for superwealthy countries like America? The biblical answer is clear. Every Christian in America has some minimal responsibility to get involved in helping the poor brethren in the Church in other countries. God has not given this superabundance of blessings to American and Canadian Christians so we can sit back and enjoy the luxuries of this society–or even in spiritual terms, so we can gorge ourselves on books, teachings cassettes and deeper-life conferences. . . . God is calling us as Christians to alter our lifestyles, to give up the nonessentials of our lives so we can better invest our wealth in the kingdom of God.

– K.P. Yohannan

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Quotes (118)

ryle.jpg Do nothing that you would not like God to see. Say nothing that you would not like God to hear. Write nothing that you would not like God to read. Go no place where you would not like God to find you. Read no book of which you would not like God to say, “Show it to Me.” Never spend your time in such a way that you would not like to have God say, “What are you doing?”

-J.C. Ryle

1816 – 1900

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When is an “everlasting covenant” not an “everlasting covenant?” When polygamy becomes unpopular.

When is an “everlasting covenant” not an “everlasting covenant?” When it’s politically expedient for Utah to be recognized as a State; also known as “because we said so.”

Besides using your common sense, (and your common knowledge of the meaning of the word everlasting), Dictionary.com defines the word everlasting as “lasting forever; eternal.”

Even the 1997 edition of the LDS published book Gospel Principles says, “The fulness [sic] of the gospel is called the new and everlasting covenant. . . . The Lord calls it ‘everlasting’ because it is ordained by an everlasting God and because the covenant will never be changed.“

Yet, this very concept does not apply to the “new and everlasting covenant” of polygamy. And why not? Because the “new and everlasting covenant” of polygamy isn’t popular anymore in Mormonism.

In 1843, Mormon prophet Joseph Smith received the following from “God” on the new (and everlasting) doctrine of polygamy:

For behold, I reveal unto you a new and everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory. For all who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which was appointed . . . before the foundation of the world. And as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fulness [sic] of my glory; and he that receiveth a fulness [sic] thereof must and shall be damned, saith the Lord God. Doctrine & Covenants, 132:4-6, July 12, 1843

This is further advanced by Mormonism’s second prophet Brigham Young when he said in the Deseret News on November 14, 1855:

 

“Now if any of you will deny the plurality of wives and continue to do so, I promise that you will be damned . . .“

Joseph F. Smith in the Journal of Discourses, volume 20, page 31 said:

 

“I understand the law of celestial marriage to mean that every man in this Church, who has the ability to obey and practice it in righteousness and will not, shall be damned, I say I understand it to mean this and nothing less, and I testify in the name of Jesus that it does mean that.”

Although polygamy is not an issue for fundamentalist Mormons who continue to practice the teachings of Joseph Smith, it is a huge problem for mainstream Mormons who try to separate themselves from polygamy. The mainstream Mormon has to come to one of the following conclusions:

1. The Mormon god is incapable of foreseeing that his own “everlasting covenant” wouldn’t be everlasting.

2. The Mormon god is not the same yesterday, today, and forever and is subject to change on a whim, (or when it’s advantageous for Utah to become a state). In that case it just further proves the god of Mormonism is not the God of Christians. And besides, who wants to follow a god who changes from day to day? One who says one thing one day, then something else the next?

3. The fundamentalist Mormons who still practice the “everlasting covenant” of polygamy (and who would be damned if they didn’t) are true Mormons and the mainstream Mormons are apostate.

4. Joseph Smith wasn’t a true prophet.

So to my mainstream Mormon readers, which is it?

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Quotes (117)

john-macarthur.jpg In the past half decade, some of America’s largest evangelical churches have employed worldly gimmicks like slapstick, vaudeville, wrestling exhibitions, and even mock striptease to spice up their Sunday meetings. No brand of horseplay, it seems, is too outrageous to be brought into the sanctuary. Burlesque is fast becoming the liturgy of the pragmatic church.

– John MacArthur