As a follow-up to yesterday’s sermon of the week by John MacArthur on creation (which touched on environmentalism), here’s a twenty minute radio interview with Phil Johnson on Christians and the distraction of environmentalism simply entitled, Is God Green?
For more on this subject I encourage you to check out these previous DefCon posts:
Priorities Completely Out of Whack
Distractions, Distractions, Distractions
Two weeks ago we concluded our evolution / creation series by John MacArthur entitled The Battle for the Beginning. As a follow-up to that series I present this week’s sermon of the week by John MacArthur entitled A Theology of Creation.
This is a great message that covers the subject of creation, evangelicals who reject the first two chapters of Genesis for other theories about creation, and concludes with examining evangelicals who have bought the lie of radical environmentalism (who are “working for the Lord” by trying to preserve the very earth God cursed back in Genesis).
This will surely step on the worldview toes of many emergents, liberals, and post-moderns.
When we decry the current condition of the youth in our churches (and the church as a whole) we are usually met with angry resistance. Now the condition of the youth (and the church) has gotten so bad that even secular news outlets are sitting up and taking notice.
The Wall Street Journal has recently reported on the sad state of the youth in American churches in an article aptly titled The Perils of ‘Wannabe Cool’ Christianity.
Increasingly, the “plan” has taken the form of a total image overhaul, where efforts are made to rebrand Christianity as hip, countercultural, relevant. As a result, in the early 2000s, we got something called “the emerging church”—a sort of postmodern stab at an evangelical reform movement. Perhaps because it was too “let’s rethink everything” radical, it fizzled quickly. But the impulse behind it—to rehabilitate Christianity’s image and make it “cool”—remains.
And what does “cool” look like?
There are various ways that churches attempt to be cool. For some, it means trying to seem more culturally savvy. The pastor quotes Stephen Colbert or references Lady Gaga during his sermon, or a church sponsors a screening of the R-rated “No Country For Old Men.” For others, the emphasis is on looking cool, perhaps by giving the pastor a metrosexual makeover, with skinny jeans and an $80 haircut, or by insisting on trendy eco-friendly paper and helvetica-only fonts on all printed materials. Then there is the option of holding a worship service in a bar or nightclub (as is the case for L.A.’s Mosaic church, whose downtown location meets at a nightspot called Club Mayan).
And then the article asks the million dollar question.
But are these gimmicks really going to bring young people back to church? Is this what people really come to church for? Maybe sex sermons and indie-rock worship music do help in getting people in the door, and maybe even in winning new converts. But what sort of Christianity are they being converted to?
Another secular news source giving attention to this problem is CNN. In their article More Teens Becoming Fake Christians, it begins with the following:
If you’re the parent of a Christian teenager, Kenda Creasy Dean has this warning: Your child is following a “mutant” form of Christianity, and you may be responsible.
And then there’s this quote:
Dean, a United Methodist Church minister who says parents are the most important influence on their children’s faith, places the ultimate blame for teens’ religious apathy on adults. Some adults don’t expect much from youth pastors. They simply want them to keep their children off drugs and away from premarital sex.
And this one:
Churches, not just parents, share some of the blame for teens’ religious apathy as well, says Corrie, the Emory professor. She says pastors often preach a safe message that can bring in the largest number of congregants. The result: more people and yawning in the pews.
And what I think is the best quote from the article:
“We think that they want cake, but they actually want steak and potatoes, and we keep giving them cake,” Corrie says.
Finally, USA Today chimes in with the article ‘Forget the Pizza Parties’ Teens Tell Churches.
Only about one in four teens now participate in church youth groups, considered the hallmark of involvement; numbers have been flat since 1999. Other measures of religiosity — prayer, Bible reading and going to church — lag as well, according to Barna Group, a Ventura, Calif., evangelical research company. This all has churches canceling their summer teen camps and youth pastors looking worriedly toward the fall, when school-year youth groups kick in.
You can’t help but read these articles and feel the irony that this problem is being reported by the non-believing secular world. Sadly that’s because those from within Christianity who point this stuff out are summarily dismissed as “legalists” and “Pharisees.”
It’s time for fathers to take charge of your families once again and stop abdicating the responsibility of your children and their spiritual upbringing to strangers.
What are most youth groups like? You get a real personable young leader who’s usually not married and a lot of mousse in his hair. And then he gets a lot of young people around him, and what do they become? According to Proverbs they become companions of fools. When you put young people with young people in this atmosphere of adolescence you have no growth to adulthood, you have no maturity, no elders are involved, no parents are involved. It can’t work because it’s not Biblical. – Paul Washer
For those unaware of what these scathing indictments from secular news outlets are about, please review the following past DefCon posts for a sampling of the the train wreck known as “youth ministry.”
Peanut butter salvation and other stupid church tricks
Youth ministry: A “50-year failed experiment”
When the world’s your mistress
Who’s pastoring the youth pastors?
The problem with youth ministry today
Another church sanctuary turned into a stage for a worldly dance exhibition
A story of injured clowns and evil chickens
While many in this country with a left-leaning political slant bemoan the security threats to this nation–placing unwarranted suspicion at the feet of Evangelical Christians, home educators, talk radio, gun owners, war vets, etc.–they remain strangely (and suspiciously) silent regarding the only real threat–the same threat that keeps spewing its venomous hate speech day after day, week after week, year after year: Islam.
While this nation slumbers, those who seek it’s demise are wide awake and ever planning . . . planning on murdering you, your children, your family, and friends. Yet half of our nation will continue to see threats where they don’t exist while ignoring the real threat breathing down our necks, and the other half of our nation is simply too busy to care–continuing to entertain themselves into a coma.
Everyone needs to watch this video clip to understand what’s coming from the “Religion of Peace.” This is especially enlightening when you consider that this video was made long before the Quran-burning controversy arose.
While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. – 1 Thessalonians 5:3
(Journal of Discourses, volume 3, page 247)
For more reading on the subject, check out the online book Mountain Meadows Massacre.
For more on the Mormon doctrine of Blood Atonement see:
The Mormon doctrine of Blood Atonement as taught by Brigham Young.
The doctrine of Blood Atonement as taught by the Mormon organization.
Also check out additional LDS quotes and information on Blood Atonement here, here, and here.
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See also What do Mormons think about Islam?
With all the drama over the Quran-burning controversy, I thought the following news article from 2007 was a little ironic:
Christians in Gaza Fear For Their Lives as Muslims Burn Bibles and Destroy Crosses
Although the religious group in this article is erroneously identified as “Christian,” the example of the hypocrisy is still very telling.
Consider, is it not better to remember your sins on earth, than in Hell? Before your Physician, than before your Judge? . . . O wretch, that I am! Where was my understanding, when played so boldly with the flames of hell, the wrath of God, the poison of sin! When God stood by, and yet I sinned! When conscience rebuked me, and yet I sinned! When heaven or hell were close at hand, and yet I sinned! When, to please my God and save my soul, I would not hold back a filthy lust, or forbidden vanity of no worth! When I would not be persuaded to a holy, Heavenly, watchful life though all my hopes of Heaven depended on it! I am ashamed of myself; I am confounded in the remembrance of my willful, self-destroying folly! I loathe myself for all my abominations! O that I had lived in poverty and rags when I lived in sin! And O that I had lived with God in a prison, or in a wilderness, when I refused a holy, heavenly life, for the love of a deceitful world!
– Richard Baxter
1615 – 1691
Your sermon of the week is the final installment from John MacArthur’s series The Battle for the Beginning, entitled The Implications of Evolution. We’ve been featuring this series every other week since May and you can find the whole series on MacArthur’s website here.
We will be featuring one more sermon from MacArthur on the subject of creation (unrelated to this particular series) in two weeks.
Our primary mission field today is within the church. The latest survey reveals that 86% of Americans say they believe in Jesus. Yet, a much smaller percentage of people say they are born-again Christians. How can so many people be deceived or deluded? Many of them have been told by misguided pastors or evangelists that repeating a prayer, signing a card, being baptized, joining a church or coming forward in an alter call has made them a Christian. Others have been asked to “accept” a Jesus they don’t even know. It is no wonder the Apostle Paul exhorted his readers to “examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith” (2 Cor. 13:5). We are to test ourselves and encourage others to do the same. The test: have we believed the true Jesus as he is revealed in the Scriptures or a “Jesus” who has been created by the imagination of men?
– Mike Gendron
Paris Reidhead (1919-1992):
The following quote comes from a great article by Randy Lovegreen regarding a recent episode of Glenn Beck’s T.V. program in which Beck brazenly advanced a Mormon fallacy:
Beck is using his show to break the ice for Mormon theology, and promoting a worldview that supports the beliefs of his church. His hour long infomercial for Mormon history only makes it easier for those well groomed young men on bicycles to strike up a conversation, and lead folks astray. . . . As Christians, we must constantly be on guard against anything which may seek to corrupt our faith. This includes charming conservative talk show hosts, even if they are on Fox News.
Read the whole article, Glenn Beck’s Mormon Infomercial, here.
A Mormon named Chris left the following comment, on a previous DefCon post:
Regardless of how it is interpreted, I have NEVER in 40 years of being a Mormon, met another Mormon who believes we can “earn” our way into Heaven. For you and others to continue to portray us in that light is dishonest. Dishonesty is NOT a Christian attribute.
Apparently Chris never met this Mormon:
This young girl has a better grasp of Mormon theology in regards to their view of justification and salvation than most Mormons I speak with.
I guess, according to Chris, this Mormon girl is just being “dishonest,” but I think she’s been reading her 1997 edition of the LDS published Gospel Principles (pages 303-304). It’s so refreshing to find a Mormon willing to be honest about what Mormonism teaches.
Below is a fantastic article by Brannon Howse on Glenn Beck’s upcoming “Divine Destiny” gathering. This article is definitely a must-read, especially for those Christians who still mix politics (the affairs of this world) with the church (the affairs of God).
Following Glenn Beck’s Divine Destiny or God’s Word
By Brannon S. Howse
Would you approve or disapprove if some of America’s evangelical pastors and religious leaders announced they were going to show up at “Oprah’s Divine Destiny” meeting at the Kennedy Center for an evening that would include uplifting music and nationally-known religious figures from all faiths as they unite in prayer and recite historical speeches? Would it concern you if you knew that on her radio program Oprah has taught the book called A Course in Miracles written by Helen Schucman? This book and the workbook include such quotes as:
“A slain Christ has no meaning.”
“The recognition of God is the recognition of yourself.”
“Do not make the pathetic error of ‘clinging to the old rugged cross’.”
“My salvation comes from me.”
True Bible-believing Christians would not approve of evangelical pastors and leaders uniting with Oprah in a self-described, religious and spiritual meeting. Why? Because most Biblically thinking Christians do not agree with Oprah’s liberal politics and they know that the truth of God’s Word and Oprah’s pagan spirituality do not mix.
However, many of these same Christians will have no problem when some of America’s evangelical pastors join radio personality and television host Glenn Beck for a spiritual program, because unlike Oprah, they share Beck’s conservative, political views. To many it makes no matter that Beck is a self-described Mormon because his political views trump his religious views and for this reason many will justify taking part in “Glenn Becks Divine Destiny” program at the Kennedy Center on August 27th.
A Las Vegas man is suing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for medical expenses after he injured his back in 2007 performing baptisms for the dead.
In a civil suit filed in 3rd District Court on Wednesday, Daniel Dastrup claims he suffered a severe herniated disk in his lumbar spine after performing about 200 baptisms on Aug. 25, 2007. The then 25-year-old claims some of the young men and women he completely immersed in water in the name of the dead weighed as much as 250 pounds.
Read the entire article here.
Your sermon of the week is Evangelism by Kirk Cameron from the 2005 Resolved Conference.
Before the mountains were brought forth – or the earth and world were formed, from everlasting Jesus Christ was, like the Father, very God. From the beginning He was foreordained to be the Savior of sinners. He was always the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, without whose blood there could be no remission. The same Jesus, to whom alone we may look for salvation, that same Jesus was the only hope of Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham and all the patriarchs; what we are privileged to see distinctly they doubtless saw indistinctly – but the Savior both we and they rest upon is one. It was Christ Jesus who was foretold in all the prophets, and foreshadowed and represented in all the law – the daily sacrifice of the lamb, the cities of refuge, the brazen serpent, all these were so many emblems to Israel of that Redeemer who was yet to come, and without whom no man could be saved. There never was but one road to heaven: Jesus Christ was the way, the truth and the life yesterday as well as today.
– J. C. Ryle
1816 – 1900
Here’s the great fall out of the evangelical church: “People aren’t getting it [the gospel], let’s make it more understandable.”
“I know, let’s get a neat package we could sell at Life Way. We could call it the ABCs. Surely they could understand that.”
“I know, we’ll do a twelve step formula. Boy, if they get up to the twelfth step then they’ll get it.”
“I know, we’ll write it up in such a way, I know—we’ll sell it to the church—‘How to Share Your Faith Without Fear.’ And we’ll make it real easy where we don’t offend nobody, and it’s not hard for us, and everybody’d be happy, and we’ll all gather ‘round at the end of the service we’ll bow our head and close our eyes, nobody look around, everybody wave your hand, come to the front, pray this prayer, we’ll dunk you in the water, and we won’t see you again till we meet you in Hell.”
-Randall Easter
Your sermon of the week is Creation, Day 6 by John MacArthur (three parts) from his series The Battle for the Beginning. We’ve been featuring this series every other week. The next installment will be in two weeks.
Ever-reinventing and re-polishing themselves till they get it right, the LDS church is back at the drawing board once again. This news article from BNet highlights the latest product of the LDS propaganda machine: Pathetic pandering to the culture.
Notice how he claims the LDS church “teaches good principles?” Since when do “good principles” save a man? Did you also notice how he said the LDS church makes a bad person good and a good person better? This is just further proof that this organization doesn’t preach the Gospel, nor even remotely understands it. True Biblical Christianity does not make a bad person good and a good person better, it takes a dead man and makes him alive; it takes an enemy of God and makes him an heir.
But being a cult does have its benefits though, because since truth to a Mormon is subjective and ever-changing, what was “truth” yesterday, is now relegated to:
We have new revelation.
We don’t teach that anymore.
We don’t believe that anymore.
That was just that prophet’s personal opinion.
You’ve taken that LDS teaching out of context.
A new prophet supersedes anything a previous prophet says.
You misunderstood what the LDS church was trying to say back then.
Just try to nail us down on something, you’d have better results trying to nail Jello-O to the wall.
In other words, “forget what our history and our doctrine say, this is what we want you to think of us now.”
HT: UTLM.org via Facebook
“Do the people around you see you as an alien or stranger or do they see you just like them? Same affections, same lives, same movies, same dress, same-same?”
The above quote comes from your sermon of the week by Rick Holland entitled The War Against Your Soul.
Christ Alone Wyoming 