A church social club in Berlin, Germany has decided that the truth is irrelevant. However, I have to assume that it is a sign of the times. If you have no desire to draw anything but goats to a service, then you have to use what goats like. After all, using the unadulterated truth of the Scriptures just doesn’t draw crowds these days.
Two quotes in the article stood out to me. The first from one of the pastors hirelings. “They trust us to make them part of the church service without making it too Christian or too Star Wars, but to find a good compromise.” (emphasis is mine)
The second from an attender.
Scott McGuire, sporting a Chewbacca costume, said he planned to see the movie later. “I think the whole question of God is very interesting, but getting up early on a Sunday is one of those things. But for something like this, I’ll go,” he said.
However, is it really any different than Hillsong Church that decided to produce the blasphemous 1920 flapper style version of “Silent Night”?
WARNING — This version of Silent Night from Hillsong may require much eyewash, but the damage to your eyesight and brain may be permanent.
What a tragedy that more than 1 billion of the world’s population follow the accursed traditions of a man who is just as totally depraved as his followers.
The link to the article Pope Says Can Absolve Sins from Fox News indicates that this is a special year of Jubilee, and in his own power has granted ALL priests the ability to “absolve faithful of the sin of abortion.” This has been perfectly timed by the Vatican with all the world’s attention being focused on the horrors of what has taken place with Planned Parenthood. History speaks for itself of the debauchery of the Catholic system that has produced many illegitimate babies and many abortions induced in order to cover up the wickedness and vulgarity of her priests.
How convenient that the declaration from the Vatican does not speak of just those women who have had an abortion! It covers the faithful of the sin of abortion. This means if you are a faithful Catholic priest, you can absolve yourself of demanding a woman get an abortion to protect what you have done in the dark. If you are a faithful Catholic doctor who murders infants, then this coming Jubilee year, you can be absolved of ALL your wicked murders. If you are a faithful Catholic man who has encouraged his wife, lover, or girlfriend to get a baby aborted, then you also can sleep easier tonight knowing your guilt will be gone as soon as you do your penance and offer your coins to the blood-bathed coffers of the Vatican.
The word absolve means set or declare (someone) free from blame, guilt, or responsibility. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word to mean, “to set free from an obligation or the consequences of guilt.”
This is heresy of the highest order. It is blasphemy to think that a sinful man can remove the guilt of sin and the stain that envelops the heart of every man, woman, and child, and that separates them from the holiness of God. Neither the pope, nor any of his cardinals, bishops, or priests have the ability to free anybody from any guilt or responsibility for their sins. This declaration, while only for those faithfully following the pope are included, means the pope has again tried to take away from God what rightfully belongs to God alone.
My friend, if you are reading this and you are a Roman Catholic follower, please know that we share with you in love that believing a mere mortal can free you from the consequences of your sin or your guilt will only damn your soul to an eternal torment in the lake of fire when you die.
Not one pope since the first pope, Constantine, died for your sins. Not one pope can free you from the wrath of God that is to come. Not one pope can absolve you of any sin, whether it is the sin of adultery, abortion, cheating, lies, homosexuality, lesbianism, hatred, murder, or even taking the name of the Lord in vain.
There is only one who can forgive sins and even the religious leaders of Jesus’ day knew this. Mark 2:7 and Luke 5:21 note that the scribes and Pharisees both asked aloud, “Who is this that is speaking blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?”
We, who know the Lord Jesus Christ, know that Jesus Christ is God and thus had the ability, the right, and the privilege of being able to forgive the sins of any and all who come to Him by grace through faith alone. Sadly, many who have hidden their guilt and sin of murdering the infant in their womb will go to a priest, seek to do some penance, say a few prayers in vainless repetition, and walk away with their conscience being seared a little more into thinking they have been made right with God.
This past weekend, since it was the closest weekend to the Fourth of July holiday that we observe today, churches all across America resounded with patriotic songs. Although the wisdom of singing patriotic songs in church is itself a debatable proposition, there should be no debate in any church about uttering words of blasphemy, whether spoken or sung. Yet, the patriotic song that is perhaps the one most frequently sung in the churches of America — for the Fourth of July or otherwise — is the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” But this so-called hymn is no Christian hymn at all — it is blasphemy in song.
Most Americans are familiar with the words of this “hymn”:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
Chorus
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
Chorus
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.”
Chorus
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
Chorus
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
Chorus
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is wisdom to the mighty, He is succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.
Chorus
The chorus is, of course, as follows:
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
Although most Americans who are familiar with this “patriotic anthem” rightly connect it with the so-called Civil War, many probably don’t know who wrote it, and even fewer know anything about how it came about.
The author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was the abolitionist and social activist, Julia Ward Howe (1819—1910). The song first appeared, minus the last verse, on the front cover of The Atlantic Monthly for February 1862. That it originally had six verses can be seen by looking at her first draft, which was written on a scrap of Sanitary Commission paper. Christian hymnbooks that contain this song only include verses one, two, four, and five. The words as it was first published are slightly different than her original draft, which is transcribed here.
The tune is from a camp-meeting song with a “Glory Hallelujah” refrain by William Steffe, written about 1856. This tune was in turn used for what became the Union marching song, “John Brown’s Body,” the first verse of which begins by repeating three times: “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,” and ends with: “His soul goes marching on!” Other lines read: “They will hang Jeff. Davis to a sour apple tree!” and “Now, three rousing cheers for the Union.”
This is the human genome in book form. If you were to print all of your DNA in only one cell of your body, it would fill all of these books in this bookcase. It’s estimated that the human body has 50 to 75 trillion of these bookcases.
These two videos hit the proverbial nail on the head on every over-used cliche and every platitude I’ve hear ad nauseum in my time in charismatic circles. (You’ll have to watch each video over at YouTube since embedding has been enabled.)
You look at a beautiful painting and you say to yourself, “There must have been a painter.”
You look at a motor vehicle of great workmanship and you say to yourself, “There must have been a manufacturer.”
You look at a meticulously detailed statue and you say to yourself, “There must have been a sculptor.”
You look at a massive bridge spanning a large body of water and you say to yourself, “There must have been an engineer.”
You look at a tall building and you say to yourself, “There must have been a builder.”
You look at a complex computer program and you say to yourself, “There must have been a programmer.“
You look at a well-written best-selling novel and you say to yourself, “There must have been an author.”
You look at the human body and say to yourself, “This must have been the product of an accident.A long time ago absolutely nothing from absolutely nowhere exploded and not only created absolutely everything, but also created order and it all occurred as a random accident.“
If this is you, then these are for you:
– The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God” (Psalm 14:1).
– Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words (Proverbs 23:9).
– A scoffer seeks wisdom and finds none, but knowledge is easy to one who has understanding (Proverbs 14:6).
– The way of a fool is right in his own eyes (Proverbs 12:15).
– The foolishness of God is wiser than men (1 Corinthians 1:25).
– God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27).
– The wisdom of this world is foolishness before God (1 Corinthians 3:19).
– A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them (1 Corinthians 2:14).
– The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18).
Part 1 of a new series, going through the Scriptures and showing that Jesus is not waiting for us to call Him Lord–“HE ALREADY IS!!”
Over the last few years, a growing heresy has crept into the church. It is the belief that you can get saved today, call upon Jesus as your Savior, and then, when you feel up to it, sometime down the road, you can give Him the privilege of confessing Him as Lord. Or not—it doesn’t matter! Whatever you want—it’s all about you! You may hear, in many churches, an appeal for the people to “Make Jesus Lord today!” That is about as heretical a statement as you will ever hear.
The people who teach this atrocious doctrine accuse us of linking salvation with works—as if confessing Jesus as Lord is a “work.” Whenever I hear these accusations I often wonder—“Why would they want to deny Jesus His rightful glory as Lord? Do they not want people to think that He is Lord?” What I hope you will take away from this series is the fact that if you want to be saved, you MUST confess that Jesus is Lord.
The overarching Scripture for this series is Romans 10:9 (ESV)—IF you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. What is the opposite of this statement? That if you don’t confess that Jesus is Lord, you will not be saved. It’s really that simple. Remember, these are not my words—this is what is clear from the Scriptures (unless you don’t want to believe the Scriptures).
The best place to start is in the Gospels themselves. We’re going to see that in the gospels that Jesus is declared to be Lord. In fact, Jesus is called “Lord” 124 times in the gospels alone. Granted, many of these are simply repeated in more than one gospel. But since it is the Holy Spirit who spoke to the writers, don’t you think that maybe God thinks this is a wee bit important?
So let’s begin, and see who it is that calls Jesus “Lord.”
Matthew 12:8, Mark 2:28, Luke 6:5—“For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
Matthew 21:2-3, Mark 11:3, Luke 19:30-31—“Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her…And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them…”
John 13:13—“You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for I am.”
And still, man, in the wickedness of his heart, is so depraved that he has the audacity to shake his fist at the sky and proclaim God doesn’t exist . . . or he goes to church and lives his life like God doesn’t exist.
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 Ithelps 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.
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:
Ioriginally 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.
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.
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.
This is the third of a series of four videos on Jesse Duplantis’ utterly heretical teachings that we’re featuring here on DefCon so you can better understand just how sinister the Charismatic Word of Faith movement really is (see parts one here and two here).
In the following video watch how this great deceiver twists yet more Scripture and subtly manipulates his undiscerning followers to believe his Satanically inspired closing point that “there’s nothing man can’t do.”
Come Judgment Day I am certain he will be singing a different tune, but for his biblically illiterate followers it will be too late.
If only his blind followers read the Scriptures for themselves they’d know they were being lied to.
The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men HAD BUILT.
Genesis 11:5
So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they STOPPED BUILDING the city.
This is a continuation from this previous post on Jesse Duplantis. This video shows Duplantis’ continued twisting of Scripture . . . twisting that would make Chubby Checker envious.
Well, if you have heard of NewSpring church (A group led by master goatherder Perry Noble himself), this won’t surprise you. If you were wondering when they would finally hit that ramp and fly face-first into full-fledged apostasy–then wait no longer! They have officially joined light with darkness, righteousness with lawlessness, and have made an accord between Christ and Belial and an agreement between the temple of God and idols (see 2nd Corinthians 6:14-18). According to Newspring’s official website, their Easter sermon will be opened by playing a song.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME!! Just when you thought Perry (Ig)Noble couldn’t slide any further into the depths of satanic bile, he manages to touch toes on the very bottom of Lucifer’s muck pit. His own words–
We are opening our Easter services with an AC/DC song…about a highway to a place that is really hot! I’m asking every NewSpringer to GO ALL OUT to get your friends and family members who don’t know Christ here on Easter weekend…I promise they will hear (and see) the Gospel in a way that they will understand.
And they will hear it in a way that will not make one lick of difference in their lives. They will hear a watered-down Christ that will sound so ear-tickling good to their ears, they will just lap up His sugary goodness and go on about their lives, rocking-and-rolling with AC/DC all the way down the Highway to…you know where.
Just get a load of these God-honoring lyrics:
Living easy, living free
Season ticket on a one-way ride
Asking nothing, leave me be
Taking everything in my stride
Dont need reason, dont need rhyme
Aint nothing I would rather do Going down, party time
My friends are gonna be there too
No stop signs, speed limit
Nobodys gonna slow me down
Like a wheel, gonna spin it
Nobodys gonna mess me round Hey Satan, payed my dues
Playing in a rocking band
Hey momma, look at me
Im on my way to the promised land
My heart goes out to the children of the man (Stacy Denboer) in the following videos. I do not even need to provide commentary as to why, I think for most of us it will be self-explanatory.
What this man is doing to his own children will break your heart. And hopefully you will get a better understanding of why we do what we do here on DefCon.
I’ve included Mr. Denboer’s own introduction preceding each of the videos below that he’s posted on YouTube.
“Here is me and my daughter getting loaded up on the drunken Glory… We are taking hits off Jesus!!”
“My daughter and I are getting loaded up on the presence of God as we toke our baby Jesus in faith… My daughter speaks under the influence of the Sprit..(I didn’t tell her what to say) she is a prophetess…”
“Here is my son and I all wacked in the Sprit… I have been drinking from this new CD by Benjamin Dunn called Toking The Ghost… yes.. i know my sons drueling was self induced… he is still feeling pretty good…”
“I love taking Glory Hits off Baby Jesus Music from John Crowders latest CD Toking the Ghost”
Two quotes in the article stood out to me. The first from one of the 
The author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was the abolitionist and social activist, 
Christ Alone Wyoming 