Apologetics

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Sermon of the week: “Hell” by Don Kistler.

Similar to the impact of Tim Conway’s message on Hell (found on this post), your sermon of the week is another sobering one. Hell by Pastor Don Kistler is one of those sermons that everyone should hear if they take God and His wrath seriously–but prepare to be very uncomfortable.

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Why evangelism is so difficult in the United States.

Anyone who has spent any time doing street evangelism knows how discouraging it can be at times. A book I’m reading by Ken Ham and Brit Beemer entitled Already Gone: Why Your Kids Will Quit Church And What You Can Do To Stop It helps us to better understand just why evangelism in America is like pushing water up a hill.

For this book 1,000 people in their twenties who used to regularly attend church–as kids and teens (including Sunday school and youth groups) but who no longer darken the door of a church–were polled on the various reasons they no longer attend. Those polled were asked 78 questions in all but one of the more revealing responses came from this question:

Do you believe you are saved and will go to heaven upon death?

Of the group who never attends church: 58.7% said yes.

Of the group who attends church on Christmas and Easter only: 72.2% said yes.

Perhaps this sheds a little light on why it is so difficult to reach the “churched” and “unchurched” with the true gospel of Jesus Christ. You can’t convince a sick man to have an operation if he fails to recognize his illness.


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Quotes (675)

voddie-baucham It is not the job of the youth pastor to evangelize my child—that’s my job. It is not the youth pastor’s job to equip (disciple) my child—it’s mine. And it is not the youth pastor’s job to send my child out to engage the world; you guessed it—that’s my job too.

– Voddie Baucham

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Time-wasters by Richard Baxter.

I found the following at Berean Wife.

Thief I: One of the greatest time-wasting sins consists of idleness or sloth.

Thief II: The next thief or time-waster is excess of sleep.

Thief III: The next thief or time-waster is an inordinate adorning of the body.

Thief IV: Another time-wasting thief is unnecessary pomp and curiosity in retinue, attendance, house furniture, provision and entertainments, together with excess of compliment and ceremony, and servitude to the humors and expectations of time-wasters.

Thief V: Another time-wasting sin is needless and tedious feastings, gluttony, and tippling. (Tippling – drinking)

Thief VI: Another time-waster is idle talk.

Thief VII: Another thief which by the aforesaid means would steal your time, is vain and sinful company.

Thief VIII: Another notorious time-wasting thief, is needless, inordinate sports and games, which are stigmatized by the offenders themselves, with the infamous name of pastimes, and masked with deceitful title of recreations;

Thief IX: Another time-wasting thief is excess of worldly cares and business.

Thief X: Another time-waster is vain ungoverned and sinful thoughts.

Thief XI: Another dangerous time-waster sin is the reading of vain books, play-books, romances, and feigned histories; and also unprofitable studies, undertaken but for vain-glory, or the pleasing of a carnal or curious mind.

Thief XII: But the master-thief that robs men of their time is an unsancitified, ungodly heart; for this loseth time whatever men are doing; because they never intend the glory of God.

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Quotes (673)

thomas-watson In the creation, man was made in God’s image; in the incarnation God was made in man’s image. . . . He took our flesh that He might take our sins, and so appease God’s wrath. . . . Christ’s taking our flesh was one of the lowest steps of His humiliation. For Christ to be made flesh was more humility than for the angels to be made worms. . . . He stripped Himself of the robes of His glory, and covered Himself with the rags of our humanity.

– Thomas Watson

1620 – 1686

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Sin: The reason for the season.

I recently heard Don Kistler make the statement that “sin is the reason for the season” and he is absolutely right. Christ coming to earth as a human wasn’t for . . .

Your self-esteem . . .

Your personal finances . . .

Your financial success . . .

Your gift exchange party . . .

Your social status . . .

Your temporal happiness . . .

Nope, Jesus came because of your sin and mine. He was the perfect substitution for the object of God’s righteous wrath that we so justly deserve. So this holiday, remember sin is the real reason for the season!

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. Mark 10:45

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21

Merry Christmas!

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Christmas Perspectives.

Similar to the previous post Thanksgiving Perspectives, I wanted to take the opportunity to recommend that you keep the Christmas holiday in perspective. I offer the following two things I believe will help you to do this: Download and listen to this sobering message by Bill Wilson and view the video on this post.


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Straw men should not play with fire.

There’s a new purveyor of false doctrine in town, and they’re using the same argument often used by Atheists to deny God’s justice and punishment of the wicked. The New Covenant Group argues against Hell using a famous but woefully ignorant line of argumentation commonly employed by those who deny God’s existence. Before I address this and show you not only the absurdity of the argument but how to easily dismantle it, I want you to watch the following video from NCG to better understand the problem:

I originally found the above video on The Museum of Idolatry and the following was Chris Rosebrough’s commentary:

Here’s a nifty trick used by almost ALL false teachers. Ignore the clear teaching of the Bible and build a straw man argument based upon a distorted view of the evidence (in this case via suppression of clear Biblical data). Then beat up on the straw man that you’ve constructed (that shouldn’t be because hard [sic] straw men don’t fight back).  Once the straw man is good and dead then assert your own position as if it were the truth.

That’s precisely what’s happening in this video put out by the “New Covenant Group” that claims there is no hell.  Pay REAL CLOSE attention to the fact that NONE of the passages where Jesus teaches the doctrines of God’s wrath and eternal punishment are discussed. Instead, there is only an appeal to an artificially constructed Jesus that was built using only partial data and warped human reasoning.

Chris certainly hit the nail on the head and now  I would like to explore this straw man that the thespian and his pastor in the above video concocted.

First of all I want to make it clear that the sovereign, glorious, majestic, holy God of all creation isn’t a grovelling middle-aged, balding man like the theatrical blasphemer in the above video. Secondly, God begs and grovels for no man! Until you begin to understand the infinite holiness and unparalleled awesomeness of God you won’t begin to understand the fallacy of their argument.

The proposition that God wants us to love Him but if we don’t He will then send us to Hell for all eternity is a misrepresentation of the Gospel and is the product of this very poorly constructed straw man.

It’s not a matter of if we don’t love Him then He’ll cast us into Hell, mankind is already going there. There is no neutrality in the issue of man standing before God. God is not wringing His hands hoping someone, somewhere, will love Him. We are born into iniquity, there is no good in us, we are always doing evil, and we do not seek after God (Ecclesiastes 7:20, Romans 3:11, 23).

Secondly, we are already in judgment. The Bible is clear that the wrath of God already abides on sinners (John 3:36) and that those who do not believe in the Son of God are already judged (John 3:18). We are not floating around this life in a state of neutrality and after our death we’ll then find out if we are going to receive Heaven or Hell.  No, we are drudging around this life with the fetters of sin constantly about us. We are tethered to the abyss of Hell from birth because we are born unregenerate and hostile to God; it is our very nature.

Thirdly, their argument is absolutely fallacious because God knows that unless He calls us, we aren’t going to love Him anyway (John 6:44, John 17:2). And every one of us who are His elect, His chosen, His children were on that same road. It wasn’t until God in His infinite grace, mercy, and love toward us (while we were yet still sinners) rescued us from our rebellious and hostile stance against Him.

The concept that God wants us to love Him or He’ll throw us into Hell is a concept absolutely foreign to Scripture and any serious Bible student should know that. This warped depiction of the holy Triune God of all creation by these mockers in the above video is based solely on their blatant misrepresentation of Scripture (or more specifically a total absence of Scripture). And the furtherance of their lie is wholly dependent upon the biblical illiteracy of their church members.

We are not saved by our act of choosing to love God, and conversely we don’t have to refuse to love God to be found guilty and thus be cast into Hell. Without Christ we already stand condemned!

But the good news is that God loved us so much that He offered His only Son as a propitiation for our sins. Jesus Christ took on human form and willingly gave up His life as a perfect substitute to save us from the wrath of God and from the Hell that we so justly deserve. The condition of escaping Hell is not based on our loving God, it is based on the finished work of Christ at Calvary.


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See also Denying Hell: The bandwagon is getting quite full and Hell is necessary




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Catholic Apologists and Excommunication

The deeper you dig into the mire of Catholicism the more gems you discover.  Here is one I would like to share with you about how all the “layman” Catholic apologists of YouTube fame, the Web and elsewhere should be “bound in the fetters of excommunication” as they are violating one of their papal decrees.  A decree that is still on the books that forbids public and private disputatations (i.e. debates) with heretics on the Catholic faith.  This law of the Catholic land being given by decree of Alexander IV (1254-1261) in “Sextus Decretalium”, Lib. V, c. ii.  We read:

We furthermore forbid any lay person to engage in dispute, either private or public, concerning the Catholic Faith. Whosoever shall act contrary to this decree, let him be bound in the fetters of excommunication. [Online source]

So, the next time you are earnestly contending for the faith once delivered unto the saints with a Roman Catholic, you might want to point this little tidbit out to them and see how they react. 

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Quotes (671)

O, the work that sin has done in the world! This is the enemy that has brought in death; that has robbed and enslaved man, that has turned the world upside down, and sown the dissensions between man and the creatures, between man and man, yea, between man and himself, setting the physical part against the rational, the will against the judgment, lust against conscience; yea, worst of all, between God and man, making the sinner both hateful to God and the hater of God. This is the traitor that thirsted for the blood of the Son of God, that sold Him, that mocked Him, that scourged Him, that spat in His face, that mangled His body . . . condemned Him, nailed Him, crucified Him. . . . This is the bloody executioner that has killed the prophets, burned the martyrs, murdered all the apostles, all the patriarchs, all the kings and potentates; that has destroyed cities, swallowed empires, and devoured whole nations. Whatever weapon it was done by, it was sin that caused the execution. Do you still think it is only a small thing? If Adam and all his children could be dug out of their graves, and their bodies piled up to heaven, and an inquest was made as to what matchless murderer was guilty of all this, it would be all found in sin.

– Joseph Alleine

1634 – 1668

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Second-grader sent home and ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation for drawing a crucifix.

After a class was instructed to sketch something that reminded them of the Christmas holiday, one student drew a crucifix. Apparently, however, according to the godless government-run public school, not only did Christ’s birth have nothing to do with His birth (like they know anything about theology anyway), but it also warranted this child’s removal from school and necessitated a psychological evaluation. Read more about this shocking story from Massachusetts.

Welcome to a brave new world.

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Sermon of the week: “Grace Conceived – Unconditional Election” by Brian Borgman.

Brian Borgman Your sermon of the week is Grace Conceived: Unconditional Election by Brian Borgman. This is a great message on the doctrine of Election. If you struggle with this doctrine or simply want to know more about it, you must listen to this sermon.

This is part five of a thirteen-part series entitled Introduction to the Reformed Faith that Pastor Borgman gave in 1998. Look for the each additional installment every couple weeks.

Listen to another great sermon on this subject by Russ Sukhia found on this previous post.

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NewSpring, Perry Noble, and Dr. James Duncan.

As a follow-up to Fourpointer’s post from two days ago, I want to direct your attention to a situation that has arisen between Perry Noble’s church and Dr. James Duncan, a vocal critic of Noble.

I will not attempt to rehash the ugly situation here, but will direct you to the following piece written by Dr. Duncan on the matter: Holy Rage at the Spring

I also highly recommend a fantastic two-part podcast from Pirate Christian Radio on this situation. In the first half of part one of this podcast Chris Rosebrough interviews Dr. Duncan regarding the character assassination and wholly unbiblical and non-Christian acts perpetrated against Dr. Duncan by staff of NewsSpring in retaliation to his vocal opposition to Noble. The second half of part one concludes with Rosebrough’s critique of a Perry Noble sermon. Part two of the podcast is Rosebrough’s continuation of this critique.

You can download the podcasts here:

Perry Noble’s employees assassinate the character of a critic: Part One

Perry Noble’s employees assassinate the character of a critic: Part Two

Frankly, I am not surprised that this whole awful situation has transpired. The current culture that’s being fostered in such churches as NewSpring is that the leader is not to be questioned. When the cults act this way it’s identified as a sign of conditioning and thought-control, but when mega-churches act this way we’re supposed to shut up because Noble’s god told him that those outside of his church who criticize him are jackasses and are to be ignored.

The intolerance and anger that comes from Noble is nothing that his critics should be surprised at. After all, this is the guy, if you’ll recall, who gave a tongue-lashing to his own congregation for expecting their pastor to . . . . well, be a pastor.

Welcome to Laodicea, where peace is defined as the absence of all opposition.