It wasn’t long ago that a gruff and tattooed charlatan sprung onto the world stage offering healings like a snake oil salseman. His followers defended him no matter what lies, deception, and heresy spewed from his forked tongue, even as he tried to get people to “believe in the angel.”
Then, faster than you can say, “Sheek A Boom Bah,” this once idol of Charismatics simply vanished off the face of the earth without a trace (infidelity scandals have a tendency to do that).
And the only thing more shocking than the absence of this “anointed prophet of God” is the absence of all of his defenders and supporters who ridiculed, attacked, and defamed all those who dared to examine and question Todd Bentley’s theology and practices.
The silence is deafening as the experience chasers sit quietly in the shadows waiting for their next big thing. I bet it’s going to be a doosey!
Thanks to Adrian and Social Hazard for making this post possible with photshop.Once again you’ve come through, Berry. Thanks a million.
Your sermon of the week is Brian Borgman’s message The Gospel of Justifying Grace (Part 3). This is part three of three on justifying grace and is a source of encouragement for believers in the assurance of salvation and the doctrine of justification. You can find part one here and part two here.
Your sermon of the week is part seven of a fantastic thirteen-part series on the doctrines of grace. Sola Fide – The Supremacy of God in Salvation by Brian Borgman is from his series Introduction to the Reformed Faith.
Evangelism was the one biblically mandated function in which believers engaged outside of the assembled church. They did not invite friends to the church gatherings to win them to Christ. The church services were not geared for the unbelievers but for the saints.
From the same country plunged into spiritual darkness that brought you the heart-wrenching sad stories of The Witch Children of Africa, now Nigeria has a goat held in custody for car theft.
Why?
Because they believe the goat is a man who–by the power of witchcraft–transformed himself into the goat to avoid capture.
“I am opposed to abortion and to government funding of abortions. We should not spend state funds on abortions because so many people believe abortion is wrong.”
“There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of [a] higher order than the right to life … that was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside your right to be concerned.
What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind-set with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth.”
“While the deep concern of a woman bearing an unwanted child merits consideration and sympathy, it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life. Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized — the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grown old.
I share the confidence of those who feel that America is working to care for its unwanted as well as wanted children, protecting particularly those who cannot protect themselves. I also share the opinions of those who do not accept abortion as a response to our society’s problems — an inadequate welfare system, unsatisfactory job training programs, and insufficient financial support for all its citizens.
When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception.”
Click on “Continue Reading” below for the answers:
Grace is a provision for men who are so fallen that they cannot lift the axe of justice, so corrupt that they cannot change their own natures, so averse to God that they cannot turn to Him, so blind that they cannot see Him, so deaf that they cannot hear Him, and so dead that He Himself must open their graves and lift them into resurrection.
Now that Rick Warren’s inauguration prayer has been examined and exposed by discerning Christians as nothing more than honoring God with his lips, and that same prayer has also angered the unbelieving left, where does he go from here? His prayer was a watershed event that has brought him to a fork in his broad road.
The man who has contributed more to the mile-wide, inch-deep church than anyone else alive today by compromising Biblical truths and blurring the lines between things of God and things of this world has a big decision ahead of him. If human nature and history are any barometer of what’s to come, then we should expect to see Mr. Warren continue to drift leftward ever so swiftly.
“Rick Warren is faced with the fact that he is either going to have to state that all paths lead to God or confirm, unequivocally, that Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father. If he explicitly states that Christ is the only way, he will no longer be welcomed in the halls of political power, and he can forget any further snugglefests at the White House, the Council on Foreign Relations, the UN, and Davos.
As it stands now, he really pleases nobody. Straddling a fence gets really uncomfortable after a time. I predict that Warren is going to make a sharp move left theologically very shortly for this very reason. The Purpose-Driven machine has gone about as far as it’s going to go with his present approach. Just as Warren was willing to remove negative statements about homosexuality and church membership at the Saddleback site, he is, without doubt, going to have to delete even more material to move ahead to the rest of his spiritual program for the world.”
Sex expert Pastor Mark Driscoll took time out from his bedroom advice blog to praise Rick Warren for his prayer blessing for Barack Obama. With Driscoll’s promotion of sites like ChristianNymphos.org and its advice on things like how to be a Christian dominatrix, the public thank-you may be a mixed blessing for the Purpose-Driven author who really doesn’t need any more controversy right now. That Mark Driscoll couldn’t discern the problem with praying God’s blessing on our death-promoting President should not register as a surprise. Driscoll also can’t discern the problem with playing a pastoral Dr. Ruth for his sex-addled followers.
To use Scriptural precedent for publicly praying God’s blessing on a leader who is an enemy of God is an abomination. Rick Warren’s prayer was the equivalent of standing up before Pol Pot, Idi Amin or Joseph Stalin and asking God to bless them. Yes, yes. We must pray for our leaders that they will have wisdom as they murder millions of innocent people. We’re simply fulfilling Scripture’s requirements, you know. We pray that Mr. Hitler will serve with excellence and distinction. We ask that Pol Pot would do well in his killing fields and that Idi Amin would be strengthened in his task of raping and torturing innocent women. There is no difference in Mr. Warren’s prayer for Obama unless Mr. Driscoll does not recognize the humanity of the children who have been killed already under Roe and who will be murdered with the Freedom of Choice Act Obama has promised to sign into law within days.
God save us from this kind of evil, aided and abetted by the counterfeit shepherds in this land. The prophets and priests are profane. They run to and fro on the face of the earth, saying, “God said so,” when God did not say so. See Jeremiah 23 for a full description of what we have in our plexiglass pulpits today.
Today marks the 36th anniversary when this nation declared that the right to life of the most innocent and defenseless in our country takes a backseat to the “convenience” of another. To mark this day of infamy in our nation’s history, DefCon has decided to link to some its past posts on the issue of abortion.
President Obama had not even finished his inaugural address today before his agenda was posted on the WhiteHouse website, where he promised to “overturn” the Supreme Court’s precedents on discrimination claims and to demand new laws requiring employers to provide special protections for homosexuals and others with “gender” issues.
Second on the list of priorities is Obama’s demand for federal “hate crimes” laws, which opponents fear could be used to make basic Christian beliefs subject to federal penalties and prohibitions as already has happened in other nations.
It is not enough that we pray as private individuals in our closets; we are required to honor God in our families as well. At least twice each day, in the morning and in the evening the whole household should be gathered together to bow before the Lord parents and children, master and servant to confess their sins, to give thanks for God’s mercies, to seek His help and blessing. Nothing must be allowed to interfere with this duty: all other domestic arrangements are to bend to it. The head of the house is the one to lead the devotions . . . . Under no circumstances should family worship be omitted. If we would enjoy the blessing of God upon our family, then let its members gather together daily for praise and prayer.
Your sermon of the week is Brian Borgman’s message The Gospel of Justifying Grace (Part 2). This is part two of three on justifying grace and is a source of encouragement for believers in the assurance of salvation and the doctrine of justification. You can find part one here.
Just two days before the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, this country welcomes its most pro-abortion president to the White House; one who supports the murder of children even outside of the womb. With help from those who profess to be Christians, we have received the king that we’ve demanded; a king this nation deserves; a king whose coronation will be celebrated by a massive planned homosexual orgy in our nation’s capital and a $170 million dollar inauguration (while the rest of the country suffers from unemployment and recession). Four legs good, two legs bad.
People, your king has arrived; may God have mercy on His own.
While Americans celebrate Martin Luther King Junior Day and reflect upon his famous “I have a dream” speech, let us not forget another “dream”: The dream of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger who called blacks “human weeds, reckless breeders” and “human beings who never should have been born.“More of this woman’s “progressive” and “tolerant” remarks can be found here.
Find out much more about this racist female Hitler who started Planned Parenthood by checking out the blog The Truth About Margaret Sanger.
“I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan…I saw through the door dim figures parading with banners and illuminated crosses…I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak…In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered.” Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography, P.366
When I first started witnessing I assumed that when I ran into Christians, they would cheerfully offer their encouragement and prayers. That hasn’t turned out to be the case, and I’ve come to dread running into Christians, because most say I don’t witness properly. It’s almost certain that they’ll say the Bible doesn’t even tell us to witness. They say we should live a good Christian life, and people will be drawn to that, and ask us what makes us tick. That’s called lifestyle evangelism, and it seems to be very popular.
Here is a Youtube video by an author who wrote a book on evangelism. He explains why we shouldn’t witness the way we always have (and the way Jesus and the apostles did). I wouldn’t recommend watching it unless you really want to, but he says that his interpretation of the Great Commission shows that Christians shouldn’t witness, and his interpretation has never been refuted. I have little interest in reading the book. I don’t know what his arguments are, but here is my argument why Jesus taught us to go preach the gospel.
The Great Commission appears in Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Jesus said to make disciples. Many Christians say that preaching the gospel isn’t making disciples; making disciples is a long process of teaching people how to behave as Christians. While learning to follow Christ will take the rest of our lives, this process will never start without salvation. People are either born-again, or dead in their sins. They’re either disciples of Jesus or they’re not. Making disciples is a synonym for making converts.
How do we make disciples or converts? Only through the preaching of the gospel will anyone ever be able to call on the Savior (Romans 10:14). When the Lord makes someone born again, He will follow through on the good work He has begun in him or her (Philippians 1:6). He doesn’t need our help in discipling people, though often we have the privilege of helping Him.
The whole concept in modern Christianity of discipling a new believer, while it is well-intentioned, is a misnomer. We’re all disciples of Jesus, not of other believers. If I were to disciple someone, they’re my disciple. That’s not what I want. It is indeed clear from the Great Commission that we are to teach others to observe all that He has commanded us. Much of what might incorrectly be called making a disciple should actually be called teaching someone who is already born again.
That leads us to the other objection I’ve heard to the Great Commission. People say Jesus was speaking only to those within earshot, the 11 remaining disciples, and we aren’t included in the command to make disciples. But Jesus commanded them to make disciples, and teach the new disciples to do what He’s commanded, which would include making disciples. All Christians should obey Christ’s command to make disciples.
This makes lifestyle evangelism a logical impossibility. Living a good Christian lifestyle involves being obedient to Christ. This would preclude picking and choosing to which commands we’re to be obedient. Among the commands Jesus gave is preaching the gospel. It’s impossible to lead a Christian lifestyle without opening our mouths and spreading the gospel.
Can I be a good lifestyle evangelist if I never show up to work on time? Can I be a good lifestyle evangelist if I treat my family poorly? Can I be a good lifestyle evangelist while being disobedient to Christ’s command to preach the gospel? My answer to all of these is: definitely not.
We’re all responsible to God for our obedience to the Great Commission. If you want a good dose of conviction that will hopefully motivate you, watch this.