Blogging

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A quiz for Arminians.

I found the following quiz for Arminians at Chosen by Grace Alone via Bob Hanks’ blog.

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Eph. 1:11 …[W]ho [God] worketh all things after the counsel of His will.

Q. If God works all things after the counsel of His will, how much does He work to the will of you, me, Satan, etc.?

A. None.
B. 20%
C. 50%
D. 85%

Is. 14:24 Jehovah of hosts hath sworn, saying , Surely, as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.

Q. How much of what He wants to come to pass, doesn’t?

A. All of His thoughts will come to pass
B. Some of His thoughts will not come to pass
C. A few of His thoughts will not come to pass
D. A lot of His thoughts will not come to pass

Rom. 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also foreordained to be conformed to to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many bretheren: and whom He foreordained, them He also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified.

Q. How many do you think have been called, justified, or glorified that He did not first foreknow or foreordain?

A. Write in your answer: ___________________

John 10:14 I am the good shepherd; and I know my own, and mine own know me, even as the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.

Q. Where does this scripture say that Jesus laid down his life for the sheep and the goats

A. It doesn’t
B. It doesn’t, but I just know He meant the goats, too

John 6:65 No man can come unto me, except it be given unto him of the Father.

Q. How many come to Jesus that were not first given to him by the Father?

A. 0
B. 5,000
C. 5,000,000
D. 10,000,000

John 6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come unto me

Q. How many that the Father gave Him will not come to Him?

A. Two
B. A couple of thousand
C. A couple of million
D. Trick question, it says they will all come unto him

John 10:28 I [Jesus] give unto them the (true followers, or ‘sheep’) eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who hath given them unto me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

Q. How many sheep do you think have been snatched from either God’s or Jesus’ hands?

A. None
B. 50,000
C. 500,000
D. 1,000,000

Rev. 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Rev. 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Q. Considering this, and other related scripture, God having to blot out a name from the book of life would mean:

A. God makes mistakes.
B. Some have been snatched from Jesus’ hands?
C. God didn’t know that some of His sheep were really goats.
D. None of the above.

Q. Could a person whose name was written in the book of life from the foundation of the world not have become a Christian (or have saving faith in God if born before Jesus)?

A. No
B. Yes
C. This confuses me, but I’m going to believe the Bible.
D. This confuses me, and I’m going to pretend this isn’t in the Bible (be honest).

Matt. 13 10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? 11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

Q. Jesus himself declared that one of the reasons why He spoke in parables was that the truth might be concealed from whom it was not intended. Is this fair?

A. No.
B. Yes.
C. Who are we to question God?
D. I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that verse.

Rom. 8:28 To them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to His purpose.

Q. How many things do not work for the good of those who love God?

A. 10% of all things
B. 40% of all things
C. 85% of all things
D. Trick question, the Bible says all things work for the good of those who love Him

Mark 14:30 And Jesus said unto him (Peter), Verily I say unto thee, that thou, today, even this night before the cock crow twice shall deny me thrice.

Questions:

A. Could Peter not have denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed twice?
Answer here: ____________________________
B. Did Jesus make Peter deny him, or did Peter do it of his own free will?
Answer here: ____________________________

Exodus 4:11 [God Himself asks the rhetorical question] Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or dumb? Who gives him his sight or makes him blind? Is it not I the Lord?

Q. Is this fair?

A. Yes.
B. No.
C. Who are we to question God?
D. I’m going to pretend this isn’t in the Bible.

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Mitt Romney, Brigham Young, and the historic racism of Mormonism.

While some professing Christians are busy blurring the lines between Christianity and Mormonism (see here and here for example), at least the secular media isn’t being hoodwinked by Mormonism’s slick PR campaign.

Case in point: The following video that aired on MSNBC. I do not know who Lawrence O’Donnell is, but hats off to him for his courage to peel back the facade of Mormonism on national television.

And in the event that the inevitable Mormon apologist comes along and attempts to obfuscate Mormonism’s long history of racism with that was just Brigham Young’s opinion, or the LDS church never taught that, or this was an isolated remark taken out of context, or the myriad of other lies used to hide Mormonism’s history, I simply direct your attention to this post where many more racist quotes from Mormon leaders can be read.

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Mormonism isn’t Christianity, even if the president of Fuller Theological Seminary says otherwise.

Richard J. Mouw wrote an astounding article for CNN in which he used the subject of presidential candidate Mitt Romney in an attempt to legitimize Mormonism.

Mouw, the president of Fuller Theological Seminary who claims to “know cults” and has “studied them and taught about them for a long time,” for some reason seems utterly incapable of spotting one right in front of him.

God gave us a means by which to identify a false prophet, false teacher, or cult. Through the pen of Paul He told us in Galatians 1:6-9 to watch out for anyone (even an angel from Heaven) that preaches “another gospel.” If anyone (which includes religious organizations) preaches “another gospel,” they are anathema! Mr. Mouw, however, is actively directing us away from Scripture and toward human reasoning by advancing his own means of how to identify those that are accursed. From Mouw’s article:

“[A cult’s] adherents are taught to think that they are the only ones who benefit from divine approval. They don’t like to engage in serious, respectful give-and-take dialogue with people with whom they disagree. Nor do they promote the kind of scholarship that works alongside others in pursuing the truth. Jehovah’s Witnesses, for instance, haven’t established a university. They don’t sponsor a law school or offer graduate-level courses in world religions. The same goes for Christian Science. If you want to call those groups cults I will not argue with you. But Brigham Young University is a world-class educational institution, with professors who’ve earned doctorates from some of the best universities in the world. Several of the top leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have PhDs from Ivy League schools.”

You read that right (I actually had to read it twice). The Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Science are cults because they have not established a university, sponsored a law school, or offered graduate-level courses in world religions, but Mormonism is not a cult because they founded Brigham Young University and several of their top leaders have earned degrees from Ivy League schools.

Is the Watchtower organization taking notes?

So, according to Mr. Mouw, is there anything else that differentiates a cult from biblical Christianity besides whether or not they’ve established colleges? How about the person and work of Christ?

Nope.

“Cults do not engage in . . .  self-examining conversations. If they do, they do not remain cults.”

Really?

Well, what about the presence of a works righteousness theology being the hallmark of a cult? Surely that is something Mr. Mouw would recognize as error, right?

“These [Mormon] folks talk admiringly of the evangelical Billy Graham and the Catholic Mother Teresa, and they enjoy reading the evangelical C.S. Lewis and Father Henri Nouwen, a Catholic. That is not the kind of thing you run into in anti-Christian cults.”

So, an apostate organization only needs to pay lip service to Graham, Lewis, Teresa, and Nouwen to no longer bear the status of a cult?

Mormons have been very successful at disguising their true beliefs by adopting Christian terminology with radically different definitions (it has obviously worked to pull the wool over Mouw’s eyes), but now they’re taking the deception a step further. By appealing to two prominent Protestant icons (both with arguably suspect theology) and two Romanist icons, they have now been able to convince Mouw that they are no longer a cult and that their false gospel is somehow no longer a threat to a man’s soul. (Whatever happened to discernment?) 

Continue reading →

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In a nutshell.

A good read from the blog A Nut’s Notes:

Got up this morning.
Watched the morning news.
Read my favorite blogs.
Listened to songs.
Checked my email.

In a nutshell this is what I read and heard….

Celebrating 16 years of life,
university bomb scares, city budgets in crisis,
failure to launch missile,
inconceivableness of God,
political verbal clean-up, journaling, abuse survival,
fire drill notice, relay for life tonight, raising money at NPR,
new student, shopping carts and life,
life jackets for the spiritually needy, crisis web site listings,
pets and hairless rats, foster pets, donkeys in need,
hunger, football coach in trouble, racism, shootings, hate
the love of God, living life after Easter, debt,
pictures from vacation, train trip with sons,
science and God, adults who cut, majestic mountains, art,
and loneliness.

In a nutshell……what I need now………………”Be still and know that I AM GOD.”

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Joel Osteen and (Mormon) Mitt Romney believe in the same Jesus?

Toward the end of this video Joel Osteen says that he’s heard that Mormon presidential candidate Mitt Romney “believes in Jesus as his savior just like I do.”

This is inevitable result of having absolutely no doctrinal foundation other than “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.”

When you place so little value on understanding doctrine (the very thing that defines who Jesus is) and instead spend so much time trying to live your best life now and becoming a better you, the line between truth and error become so blurred that black and white becomes gray, and countless souls perish because of it.

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Book recommendation: “Primetime Propaganda” by Ben Shapiro.

I grew up on a steady diet of TV and have fond memories of such shows as CHiPs, the A-Team, Miami Vice, Facts of Life, Dukes of Hazzard, Diff’rent Strokes, Family Ties, Silver Spoons, Punky Brewster, Alf, the Cosby Show, BJ and the Bear, and Sheriff Lobo.

As I grew older my TV watching waned considerably, but it wasn’t until 2007 that my family and I completely cut TV out of our life and I haven’t regretted it one iota.

So since my TV watching days were long over, I would never have expected to be interested in or actually read a book about television, let alone one that was over 300 pages in length. But when Ben Shapiro’s book Primetime Propaganda was on sale at last year’s Border’s going out of business sale for a ridiculously low price, I couldn’t pass it up.

I must say that I was pleasantly surprised at what an engaging and thoroughly researched book it turned out to be. Shaprio has written a definitive work on the history, politics, and propaganda of television. He meticulously examples how so much of what has been broadcast on television leans left–far left–and how that came to be.

Here is Amazon.com’s description of the book:

The inside story of how the most powerful medium of mass communication in human history has become a propaganda tool for the Left

Primetime Propaganda is the story—told in their own words—of how television has been used over the past sixty years by Hollywood writers, producers, actors, and executives to promote their liberal ideals, to push the envelope on social and political issues, and to shape America in their own leftist image.

In this thoroughly researched and detailed history of the television industry, conservative columnist and author Ben Shapiro argues that left-leaning entertainment kingpins in Los Angeles and New York have leveraged—and continue to use—their positions and power to push liberal messages and promote the Democratic Party while actively discriminating against their opponents on the right. According to Shapiro, television isn’t just about entertainment—it’s an attempt to convince Americans that the social, economic, and foreign policy shaped by leftism is morally righteous.

But don’t take his word for it. Shapiro interviewed more than one hundred of the industry’s biggest players, including Larry Gelbart (M*A*S*H), Fred Silverman (former president of ABC Entertainment, NBC, and vice president of programming at CBS), Marta Kauffman (Friends), David Shore (House), and Mark Burnett (Survivor). Many of these insiders boast that not only is Hollywood biased against conservatives, but that many of the shows being broadcast have secret political messages. With this groundbreaking exposÉ, readers will never watch television the same way again.

Reading this book solidified for me what I already knew: That programs on television are intentionally liberal with the purpose of changing the hearts and minds of its viewers.

This book also furthered my bewilderment regarding Christians who use this medium as a form of entertainment. It simply boggles my mind at just how many Christians will not only willingly digest the steady stream of messages from television that are deliberately antithetical and hostile to their faith (and allow their children to do so as well), but also how so many Christians will defend and justify their consumption of this trash.

It’s amazing to me that they wouldn’t dare step foot in (and take their kids to) many places in this world because of the sin present there, yet they’re perfectly fine with allowing just about anything and everything the world has to offer to be piped into their home via a television set. What they shun in real life is happily digested as “entertainment” in the comfort of their living room.

I cannot recommend this book enough to those Christians who see little to no problem with regularly setting the images, messages, and “wisdom” of the world before their eyes, ears, heart, and soul through the medium of television. And the author of this book simply can’t be dismissed as a Legalist because he has no affiliation with the Christian faith and did not write the book from a theological point of view.

Shapiro reveals the covert and overt liberal, socialist messages in everything from All in the Family to Sesame Street and will cause you to never watch television the same way again.

See also:

The Stranger

The Stranger (Sermon)

The Marketing of Evil

Family Worship and the Use of TV (Sermon)

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The first vision.

Two brief videos on Joseph Smith’s varied first vision accounts by LDSvideo.org.

See also:

The various first visions of Joseph Smith

and

Dear Mormon: Which version of the first vision do you believe?

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It’s NOT official!

Too true . . . too funny. A classic.

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Your podcast is not your pastor.

DefCon has been pleased to provide our readers with our sermon of the week for several years now (over 300 available in our sermons category). But we know that this comes with a caution. 

With the advent of the internet, there’s a propensity for some to withdraw from fellowship with other believers and to rely on internet sermons as their sole source of preaching.

The following article from Trevin Wax serves as a healthy reminder to not let our blessing of the availability of internet sermons become a hindrance or a curse.

“There’s been a lot of talk in the blogosphere this year about the rise of ‘celebrity pastors’ with ‘rock-star status’ and the larger-than-life influence of popular conference speakers whose sermons are downloaded by the thousands. Some have openly decried this development; others are glad that at least pastors are being celebrated. Most of us are somewhere in the middle.”

Continue reading here.

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The Great Exchange.

Life is filled with unanswered questions. The most troubling of which are questions surrounding the afterlife. For example: What happens to us after we die? Who will find themselves in Hell? How does someone get to Heaven?

We hear many opinions about these mysteries from family, friends, co-workers, churches, religious leaders, psychics, and even television talk show hosts. But the one issue that needs to be dealt with before we die is the one problem that people rarely—if ever—mention. It’s the dilemma they cannot account for, remedy or fix, yet it is the one thing that will determine where each and every one of us will spend eternity. This problem that I am speaking of is sin.

We all do it.

Every person who has ever lived or is living now has sinned (Romans 3:9, 3:23), and as long as we live we continue to indulge in sin (Genesis 6:5). None of us are free of sin (1 John 1:8), and God will judge us for every one of our sins, including the secret ones we thought were hidden (1 Samuel 16:7, Ecclesiastes 12:14, Romans 2:16, Romans 8:27).

Sin results in two deaths.

The sin that we inherited from Adam and the sin we willingly commit every day will result in our physical death (Romans 5:12-17, 6:23), but of greater peril than our physical death is that our sin will result in what’s called the “second death” (Revelation 21:8). This “second death” is better known as Hell, a very real and horrifying place consisting of eternal punishment, darkness, weeping, gnashing of teeth, and an unquenchable fire (Matthew 8:12, Luke 3:17, Jude 7).

Our common denial.

We are all guilty before God, condemned by a lifetime of accumulated sin, but some people aren’t convinced that they’re sinners until they face these four questions:

– 1) Have you ever told a lie, even a little white lie? (Proverbs 6:16-17, Revelation 21:8)

– 2) Have you ever taken something that did not belong to you? (Leviticus 19:11)

– 3) Have you ever lusted after someone? (Matthew 5:27-28)

– 4) Have you ever used God’s name in vain? (Exodus 20:7)

If you answered “Yes” to these four questions then you’ve admitted to being a lying, thieving, adulterous blasphemer. On the great and dreadful day of God’s final judgment, will you be found guilty or innocent? Based on God’s standards (not ours), the answer is obvious: you, like the rest of mankind, will stand condemned.

We’re already under God’s judgment.

Contrary to popular opinion, we do not have to wait until the day of God’s judgment to find out whether or not we’re in right standing with God. It’s not a question of if upon your death you’ll be condemned to God’s eternal, fierce, and terrifying judgment; it’s already your current condition. Because we’ve all sinned, we are already under His judgment and consigned to His wrath (John 3:18, 3:36).

Our obedience and good works are useless.

If you try to pay your sin-debt to God and earn His favor by being a good person and following the Law, then you must follow all of God’s Laws perfectly your entire life without ever failing in one area or you’ll be charged with breaking all of His Laws (Galatians 3:10, James 2:10). If you’ve already sinned in your life—even once—then perfect obedience to the Law for salvation is not even an option for you.

Not only are you under a curse if you sin in just one area of the Law, but you’re incapable of completely obeying the Law even if you wanted to (Romans 8:6-8). And—as if it couldn’t get any worse—the Bible tells us that those who try to earn their salvation by following the Law have fallen from grace and are cut off from Christ (Galatians 5:4).

God expects absolute moral perfection.

Not only does God require us to be holy (Leviticus 11:44, 1 Peter 1:16), but Jesus said that our righteousness must surpasses that of the Pharisees (Matthew 5:20) and we must be perfect just as God is perfect (Matthew 5:48).

God cannot forgive you and still remain holy.

God cannot simply forgive us of our sin without becoming an abomination unto Himself (Proverbs 17:15, 18:5, 24:24). It would be unjust and corrupt of Him to merely overlook our sin-debt just as it would be for an earthly judge to overlook the transgressions of a criminal in his courtroom. We shouldn’t expect God to forgive our offense to Him any more than we should expect an earthly judge to simply forgive the man who was guilty of murder. If the court judge let the criminal go free because he’s a tolerant, forgiving, and loving judge, then that judge would be as wicked as the murderer who committed the crime. Such a pardon would be the epitome of corruption and injustice, yet this is exactly what most people expect God will do for them when they stand before Him on Judgment Day.

God cannot simply ignore your sin and still remain a righteous and just Judge because justice demands that punishment be carried out. Based on the moral standard required of our holy, perfect, and righteous final Judge, you and I must be eternally punished under God’s relentless, unmitigated wrath because we have sinned against an eternal and infinitely holy God.

What hope is there?

So, what hope is there? How can we be forgiven for our multitude of sins that require punishment? How can God justify the sinner and still remain just (Romans 3:26)?

But God . . .

But God, our Judge, being merciful and because of His great love toward us (even while we were still sinners and dead in our transgressions), provided the means of salvation by brutally sacrificing His own Son so that we may be forgiven and reconciled to Him (Romans 5:8, Ephesians 2:4).

Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins (Leviticus 17:11, Hebrews 9:22). The only way for us to be forgiven of our transgressions is for someone to die in our place (a propitiatory substitute) in order to bear the wrath of God that our sins justly deserve. Only a sinless sacrifice could redeem us and bridge the gap between a holy and righteous God and a depraved and sinful people. The sacrifice had to be fully human and fully God in order to qualify to be an adequate mediator to reconcile us to God.

God crushed His own Son (Isaiah 53:10) as He placed our sins upon Him (Isaiah 53:6). Jesus bore our sins on the cross (Psalm 22:16, Isaiah 53:12, 1 Peter 2:24), and He redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us (Galatians 3:13).The Father placed the wretched, filthy, and vile sins of His people upon His beloved, sinless Son so that Jesus would become sin on our behalf (our substitute) while simultaneously giving (imputing) Christ’s righteousness to us (Romans 4:22-24, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Philippians 3:9). Jesus Christ not only paid our insurmountable debt of sin with His own life (a debt we could never pay), but He also credited His own perfect righteousness to our account—the very righteousness that God requires of us but that we could never obtain on our own. This judicial transfer or great exchange meets the requirements of God’s Law and satisfies the demands of God’s justice.

Jesus Christ is the one and only means God provided to reconcile us to Himself. The Son is the only way to the Father (John 14:6), and salvation is found in no one but Jesus (Acts 4:12). No matter how “good” we think we are or how hard we strive to follow God’s Laws, no one (not even you or me) is justified by the Law (Galatians 2:16, 3:11) but by faith in Christ alone because, if righteousness could be obtained by following the Law, then Jesus Christ died needlessly (Galatians 2:21).

Once upon a cross . . .

Either Jesus paid for your sins and absorbed God’s wrath for you by His substitutionary death on the cross, and conversely His righteousness has been merited to you, or you will pay for your own sins and endure God’s unrelenting wrath for eternity in Hell. God declares that we should repent because He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world (Acts 17:30-31). It will be a terrifying­­­­ day for you (Proverbs 21:15, Hebrews 10:31) if you haven’t repented (Luke 13:3) and believed/trusted (Mark 1:15) in Christ alone as your perfect sacrificial substitute, Savior, and Lord.

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Quotes (931)

Mormons do not take criticism of their faith lightly; sadly, many [of them] have followed the path of our culture in assuming that disagreement is akin to bigotry.

– Bill McKeever

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What does the Bible say about OMG?

The following is from Growing 4 Life:

“I was sitting at a sporting event, when the lovely, Christian lady beside me shouted, “Oh, my God!” as her child made a mistake.  I cringed inside.  And then I wondered, “does she know?”  Does she know that the Bible tells us not to use God’s name in vain? And honestly, this is not unusual.  I hear Christians do this all of the time.  Many are wonderful people who obviously love the Lord.  Is it because we just don’t hear this called sin anymore?  Are we so hardened to the use of His name due to the company we keep and the entertainment that we fill our minds with, that we just didn’t notice when we started doing it, too?”

You can read the whole piece here.

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The noose tightens a little more.

While we’re all wrapped up in so many distractions, the noose around our necks has just tightened again.

Whether it’s the government raiding an Amish farm for selling raw milk, or the government inspecting lunches brought from the home of public school children to determine if the food is nutritional enough (and again), the government is slowly but consistently encroaching on how we live our lives.

But what about those who don’t drink raw milk or send their kids to government schools? Well, if you think the government’s desire to completely control its subjects (for our best interest of course) is limited to monitoring milk distribution and ensuring your children are eating nutritional lunches, then you are grossly ignorant of not only history, but what’s happening right now.

In Canada, the government is attempting to step inside the homes of its citizens who wish to educate their own children:

“Under Alberta’s new Education Act, homeschoolers and faith-based schools will not be permitted to teach that homosexual acts are sinful as part of their academic program, says the spokesperson for Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk.”

Read the sobering news article here.

One of the many reasons people choose to homeschool their children is to avoid the indoctrination of the Godless, socialist, behavioral engineering centers run by the government, but now the government has decided to take their forced indoctrination to the homeschoolers!

Little by little, step by step, the ominous dark clouds are forming. Anyone with even a cursory understanding of history recognizes where we’re headed. Are you prepared for the coming storm?

HT: Saved by Grace

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Planned Parenthood’s propaganda machine would make Goebbels jealous.

This very disturbing cartoon churned out by Planned Parenthood of San Francisco is the type of propaganda that’s reminiscent of Nazi Germany (not counting their similar goals of the mass killing of innocent, defenseless human beings).

Hitler would be so proud of what Planned Parenthood has accomplished, after all, they’ve picked up where he left off and they’ve exterminated more human beings (specifically minorities) than he ever could have ever dreamed of doing.


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Daddies and daughters.

Ingrid Schlueter has hit the nail on the head with her article Daddies and Daughters.

Her piece should serve as a reminder to all fathers that even success in something as important as ministry should not come at the expense of your children. What endeavor, career, or goal in life could be more important than capturing your daughter’s heart?

Here’s an excerpt from Ingrid’s article:

“Buried under the eye-liner, body-piercings, provocative clothing and exhibitionist behavior of so many girls today are sad hearts and souls, weeping for a daddy who never cared.”

You can read the entire article (which I highly encourage you to do) here.

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Quotes (928)

Who can observe the invitation system today and not see that many are in danger of confusing this practice with coming to faith in Christ? . . . While I was a pastor in New England, our church participated in two [Billy] Graham crusades. We received the names of ten converts from one crusade and six from the other. In our follow-up, not one was interested in church, the Bible, or even talking about his “new-found faith in Christ.” Other pastors reported the same results.

– Jim Ehrhard