church

by

Quotes (499)

ryle.jpg To say that reunion with Rome would be an insult to our martyred Reformers is a very light thing; it is far more than this: it would be sin and an offense against God!

– J.C. Ryle

1816 – 1900

by

Sermon of the week: “Programs, Get Your Programs: Exposing the Flaws of the Fad-Driven Church” by Phil Johnson.

Your Wednesday sermon of the week is Programs, Get Your Programs: Exposing the Flaws of the Fad-Driven Church, by Phil Johnson. This is a great follow-up to last Wednesday’s sermon of the week (found here).

Those who hold dear to such fads as The Prayer of Jabez, the WWJD junk, the Left Behind craze, and those who adore the likes of Christianity Today, TBN, Jan Crouch, JI Packer, Tony Campolo, Brian McLaren, TD Jakes, George Barna, Ted Haggard, Joyce Meyer, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, James Dobson, and the can’t-do-no-wrong, practically-walks-on-water evangelical favorite Billy Graham, may take issue with this message. But for the rest of us, it’s a breath of freash air to finally hear someone call a spade a spade.

by

The Hell-bound false prophetess Helen Ukpabio of Liberty Gospel Church in Nigeria.

So who is this Helen Ukpabio and why has she rightly reserved her spot in Hell lest she repent? She’s a self-proclaimed “prophetess” who is becoming rich on the abandonment, abuse, and murder of innocent children. She runs Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries and is responsible for much of the false teaching in Nigeria.

helen-ukpabio

You can learn much more about her from the documentary exposing the wickedness that she’s up to her neck in. If you haven’t seen it, you can check out the fruit of Helen Ukpabio’s false, Hell-spawned “gospel” in the six-part video on the post Charismania Unrestrained: Africa’s Witch Children. You cannot remain unchanged or at least unaffected after viewing it.

The secular organization Stepping Stones is one of the very few in Nigeria trying to help the victims of the millstone-wearing Ukpabio. On their website they write:

Stepping Stones Nigeria does not wish to denounce any faith organisation. However the role of the church, especially some of the new Pentecostals, in spreading the belief in child witches cannot be underestimated. There are numerous so-called pastors in the region who are wrongly branding children as ‘witches’ mainly for economic self gain and personal recognition.

Ukpabio, who claims to be anointed to cast out witches, is making her living on preaching a false gospel. Below is one of the propaganda videos she produced to indoctrinate the naive into believing that their own children are witches, thus leading to their abandonment and even murder. Viewer discretion is advised.


You can sign a petition to stop this madness by clicking here.

by

Raise your hand.

raise-your-right-hand

Ingrid Schlueter has given three cheers to the Catholics for their valiant fight against the billion dollar baby butcher business (while evangelicals are becoming increasingly silent on the issue of abortion).

I too would like to chime in on this issue: I wholeheartedly disagree with the soul-damning false gospel of the Roman Catholic institution, but I have to ask why they continue to fight for the unborn while evangelicals have fallen silent? I believe part of it is that Roman Catholicism is a works-based false religion and thus, its adherents must strive to win God’s favor by their works and what’s more “favorable” to God than protecting the unborn? I believe that the problem on the other side of the coin is that many evangelicals have become so relevant and accommodating to the world that they’ve absorbed the world’s standards, morals, wisdom, and ways and can no longer be distinguished from the world.

As the Catholics continue to take a stand against this murderous rampage perpetrated upon the most defenseless class in our society, many evangelicals have begun to support the shedding of innocent blood by their collective silence and some even voted for our current pro-abortion commander in chief. By abandoning the fight for life, evangelicals actually lend support to the heinous act of abortion.

The church that remains silent on the issue is no better than those whose murderous ways are furthered by such silence.



by

Quotes (498)

voddie-baucham Modern American dating is no more than glorified divorce practice. Young people are learning how to give themselves away in exclusive, romantic, highly committed (at times sexual) relationships, only to break up and do it all over again. God never intended for His kids to live like this. And instead of stepping in and doing something, many Christian parents simply view these types of relationships as a normal and necessary part of growing up. Unless your child is wiser than Solomon, stronger than Samson, and more godly than David (all of whom sinned sexually), they are susceptible to sexual sin, and these premature relationships serve as open invitations. . . . Being involved in such exclusive relationships before you are ready to be married is like shopping without any money; either you will leave frustrated, or you will take something that doesn’t belong to you.

– Voddie Baucham

by

Quotes (496)

Our holy Lord requires absolute submission and obedience in all things, both in the inward life and the outward, even to “bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Alas that this is so little insisted upon in a day when the high claims of the Savior are whittled down in an attempt to render His Gospel more acceptable to the unregenerate.

– Matthew Henry

1662 – 1714

by

Update on the post: “Proof That There’s a Hell and a Loving God Will Send The Wicked There.”

belkis-gonzalesThis is the face of a cold-blooded murderer of innocent, defenseless children.

DefCon first reported on this horrendous story here. Now, not only do we have a picture of this evil monster who has the blood of the innocent on her hands, but we also have an update on the story.

Belkis Gonzalez was finally arrested in relation to the murder of a child in 2006 after the baby–intended to be murdered in the womb legally–was born alive and was then murdered outside the womb illegally (if that makes any sense).

The mother of the child was 23 weeks pregnant.

Unfortunately, Belkis Gonzalez is not being charged with murder, infanticide, child abuse, child neglect, or even battery. She’s only being charged with practicing medicine without a license and tampering with evidence. Why? Because:

Authorities were unable to definitively determine the cause of death — and Gonzalez’s role in it — preventing the State Attorney’s Office from charging her with murder or manslaughter, Griffith said.

I think there’s enough reasonable suspicion to charge her with murder based on this quote:

The teenage mother, Sycloria Williams, has filed a lawsuit alleging that Gonzalez knocked the infant off the chair where she had given birth, and then scooped the baby, placenta and afterbirth into a red plastic biohazard bag, and threw it out.

Read more of the update here.

by

National Youth Ministry Conference.

In contrast to the other videos out there produced by “churches” (like these and these) and especially those produced for youth “ministry,” the following videos are rather mild. However, Ingrid Schlueter really hits the nail on the head with the following quote on the state of perpetual adolescence in church leadership. It begs the question Who’s pastoring the youth pastors?

The problem with a lot of youth “ministry” today is that it is all youth and no ministry. With the collective emotional age of a lot of youth pastors not exceeding 12, it is difficult to know what these youth events accomplish aside from furthering the cause of permanent adolescence. Remember Scripture’s injunctions that the older teach the younger? What happens when there is no “older?” What happens when nobody matures mentally or emotionally past childhood? What happens when the supposed “men” are flabby, undisciplined kids who spend their time posting videos of themselves on YouTube? Here’s what happens.

The above video was produced for an announcement segment plugging the 2010 National Youth Ministry Conference in Chicago.

The following video (produced by the same folks) is definitely catering to the lowest common denominator. Violence, youth rebellion, disobedience to authority . . . all the elements you’d expect to see in a video for youth ministry in American Christianity. And by the way, (at the 39 second mark of this video) does the kid’s shirt on the left say what I think it does?

There’s a name for this type of behavior. It’s called Rejuvenile.

Additional worldly and childish “youth ministry” antics:

A story of injured clowns and evil chickens: When the gospel is so watered down that you get no gospel at all. But hey, the kids are entertained!

The problem with youth ministry today: God’s laxative? Because every Christian needs a spiritual bowel movement?

by

Quotes (494)

awpink.jpg We need to examine with double caution any religious views which deviate from the common teachings of the godly Reformers and Puritans. We need not be worshipers of antiquity as such, but we need to regard with suspicion those “broader” interpretations of God’s Word which have become in recent times.

– A.W. Pink

1886 – 1952

by

Quotes (493)

The Roman Catholic Church did not exist when the canon was closed in the first century. How do we know? You cannot find any of the following Catholic traditions in the church of the apostles: priests offering sacrifices for sin, purgatory, indulgences, infallible popes, Mary as a sinless mediatrix, etc.

– Mike Gendron

by

Sermon of the week: “Improving the Gospel – Exercises in Unbiblical Theology” by Mark Dever.

mark-dever Your sermon of the week is Improving the Gospel – Exercises in Unbiblical Theology by Mark Dever. When I heard this message I immediately pushed back all my other scheduled sermons for March to make room for this one; I simply couldn’t wait till April to make this available to the readers of DefCon.

Mark Dever–addressing pastors at the 2008 Together For the Gospel (T4G) conference–systematically explains the five major problems facing evangelism today and what we as Christians should be putting first and foremost in our message to the world. One of the problems Pastor Dever addresses in his message is one that I’ve touched on several times on this blog in such posts as:

Priorities Completely Out of Whack

Distractions, Distractions, Distractions

The New Evangelicals

Pastor Dever’s sermon is a must-hear.


by

Where have we seen this before?

The second video below looks strikingly similar to the second video in this post. I guess what works at one mile-wide, inch-deep, entertainment-driven “church” to herd goats, must work at another.


So what could be worse than kidnapping the Easter Bunny, physically battering him, and spitting in his face? Well, the “church” staff performing their own rap video in which they shake their rear-ends for the camera is a close second.

I have two observations:

1). Two thousand years ago a handful of men began to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ around the world. How did they possibly achieve this without employing such cool, hip, and relevant means as seen in these videos?

2). I can’t help but think of the man who was just diagnosed with terminal cancer and is about to leave behind a wife and children. He realizes that his life has been one of sin and an affront to a holy God. He thumbs through the yellow pages with a heavy heart as he tries to find a church. He knows that if he died he would go to Hell . . . this much he’s sure of.

He’s a dying man looking for answers. He stumbles across Ridge Stone “church” (the one who produced these videos) and attends the following Sunday. He seats himself at the front as a man desperate for answers with time against him. The lights dim. The video screen begins to light up. The above Christmas Eve promo video is shown with the “church” staff wiggling their butts for the camera and he inwardly asks himself, “Is this what Christianity is all about?” He leaves at the end of the “show” and this is the last “church” service he ever attends.

Now imagine if you will; what if you were that dying man?

This juvenile display of intimacy with the world and its culture is the fruit of an apostate false church, not the spotless, unblemished Bride of Christ. Make no mistake, this social-club masquerading as a church (and those like it) are an abomination unto a holy and righteous God.

Ichabod!