Many Christians believe the best thing they can do for their family is provide them with more stuff. So we continue to accumulate as though accumulation is the answer. All the while our children are screaming at us from beneath the piles of untouched toys and unworn clothes begging for a few minutes of our time. Time we simply don’t have because we are too busy trying to find that one thing we can add to the pile that will make the screaming stop.
– Voddie Baucham
The page for this audio debate has moved.
You can now find the MP3 debate here:
http://defendingcontending.com/2011/12/11/debate-walter-martin-vs-madalyn-murray-ohair-2/
We wrap up our December series on the deity of Jesus Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity with Don Green’s sermon The Trinity and the Old Testament. For those who have been listening to this series since December 3rd, I hope it’s been a blessing to you all. For those who have missed out on one or more of the sermons on this topic, you can check out those posts below:
But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.
1 Timothy 1:8-11
People fall into serious error and sin when they exalt their own authority over God’s authority or when they suppress the truth of God’s Word to promote their own self-serving agendas. The Roman Catholic religion has done this by establishing its traditions and teachings to be equal in authority with Scripture (Catechism of the Catholic Church par. 82).
– Mike Gendron
You’ve seen the two young girls performing a Spice Girls song in church in this post, and the youth dancing to Michael Jackson in church in this post. Now here’s more teen girls dancing to N’Sync beneath an illuminated cross in yet another church.
Ichabod!
I found the following piece from Ingrid Schlueter over at Slice of Laodicea. I’ve reprinted it below in it’s entirety.
Franklin Graham finds it “ludicrous” that any Christian could object to Rick Warren invoking God’s blessing on Barack Obama and his administration. Frankly, I find it ludicrous that any Christian would even consider asking for God to bless a man who has sworn to defend child-killing and homosexual rights. As Joseph Farah put it, God isn’t going to bless that no matter what Warren intones at the inauguration.
The Graham family has made a practice of speaking smooth, silky, easy messages to U.S. Presidents. There is no John Knox blood running in the Graham veins. There is no John the Baptist precedent from that quarter. When a President campaigns on a platform built on the bones of the preborn, it is the moral obligation of all Christians to cry out. Someone who claims to be a minister of the Gospel has an even greater responsibility to confront evil and to defend the helpless. The Grahams have refused to do that and the bloodshed continues.
It would have been a horrendous thing to have a Christian believer pray an invocation for Hitler and his murderous leaders who killed 6 million Jews. It is equally monstrous to think that a Christian minister today would pray an invocation for the murderous leaders who have overseen the butchery of 50 million American babies. Franklin Graham, we’re not going to remain silent in the face of Warren’s treachery, now or ever.
If [the local church was] to draw the masses, like the televangelist did, it apparently could best be done by wrapping the faith in the package of entertainment—for the people, having now been trained to be consumers, have also been taught that the ultimate sin is to be bored. Hence the birth of the market-driven church that caters to the insatiable appetite for amusement in society in general.
– Gary Gilley
WorldNetDaily is reporting that:
Seven Christian students in Quebec have been handed suspensions in the last few days – and could face expulsions – for refusing to participate in a new mandatory Ethics and Religious Culture course that, according to a critic, is a “superficial mishmash of trendy theoretical platitudes” with the goal of convincing children that “all religions – including pagan animism and cults – are equally ‘true.'”
Read the entire article here.
The doctrine of justification itself, as preached by an Arminian, is nothing but the doctrine of salvation by works.
– C.H. Spurgeon
1834 – 1892
The Duggar’s have just welcomed their 18th child. If you do not know who the Duggar family is, I encourage you to check out their website. They are an encouragement to all Christian households and an example of God’s plan and design for the Christian family.
And for those of you Christians who look down on large families with contempt, I highly recommend that you first listen to Voddie Baucham’s sermon The Centrality of the Home before leaving any disparaging and discouraging comments on this post.
DefCon has chronicled Ravi Zacharias’ downfall beginning with his first public compromise when he accepted an invitation to speak at the LDS temple in Salt Lake City but failed to make any distinction between the true Jesus Christ of the Bible and the demonically inspired false Christ of Mormonism. See Ravi Zacharias fails to preach the Gospel to the Mormons.
We then examined his further compromise in Ravi’s Descent where he accepted the condition to not pray in Jesus’ name at the National Day of Prayer coordinated by NDP chairwoman Shirley Dobson, wife of James Dobson of Focus on the Family which recently promoted the cult of Mormonism. Beginning to see the big picture yet?
Then we examined Ravi’s Crash and Burn as he not only accepted an invitation to speak at rank heretic Robert Schuller’s New Age ReThink conference, but that Ravi Zacharias also spoke favorably of Roman Catholic mystic Henri Nouwen, calling him “one of the greatest saints in recent memory.”
Now Slice of Laodicea and Apprising Ministries are reporting that not only will Ravi Zacharias not apologize or even back away from his endorsement of Henri Nouwen, but his ministry is defending his position. You can read the following letter from Ravi Zacharias Ministries in defense of Ravi’s endorsement of Nouwen by clicking here (PDF).
One of the most shocking parts of this letter written by Margaret Manning was her justification of Ravi’s compromise via the following statement:
“ . . . if it weren’t for the Catholic church you and I would not be here–nor would Christianity.”
Ravi Zacharias has become one of a long line of “public figure” Christians to compromise a little here and a little there until full blown apostasy is reached. What next Ravi, what next?
“Today I personally believe that while Jesus came to open the door to God’s house, all human beings can walk through that door, whether they know about Jesus or not. Today I see it as my call to help every person claim his or her own way to God.”
Roman Catholic mystic Henri Nouwen
Sabbatical Journey
Page 51, 1998 Hardcover Edition
Some professing Christians in Kansas City have discovered what the greatest problem facing the world is today, and what the most menacing threat to Christianity is.
Apparently the folks at Praise Chapel have identified the problem as retailers and shoppers not acknowledging Christ in Christmas enough. Wouldn’t this simply be a case of worldly unregenerate people acting like worldly unregenerate people?
They consider what they’re doing as being “bold” and “radical.” But how does getting people to say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays” do anything for their eternal soul? Will people be cast into a Christless eternity in Hell because they said “Season’s Greetings” or because they were not born again of God and made new creatures?
Although I completely disagree with their mockery-style tactic lacking all reverence for the Holy Son of God, I’d be more impressed by their efforts if they tried being “bold” and “radical” by taking their stunt to the places where Christ is truly being left out . . . the churches across America!
See the fox news article here.
HT: Sola Dei Gloria
Right views concerning Christ are indispensable to a right faith, and a right faith is indispensable to salvation. To stumble at the foundation, is, concerning faith, to make shipwreck altogether; for as Immanuel, God with us, is the grand Object of faith, to err in views of His eternal Deity, or to err in views of His sacred humanity, is alike destructive. There are points of truth which are not fundamental, though erroneous views on any one point must lead to God-dishonoring consequences in strict proportion to its importance and magnitude; but there are certain foundation truths to err concerning which is to insure for the erroneous and the unbelieving, the blackness of darkness forever.
– J.C. Philpot
1802 – 1869
All of us at DefCon wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas.
We’ve been going through Don Green’s five-part series on Christ’s deity and the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. This week is part four and it’s entitled An Introduction to the Trinity.
If you haven’t already listened to parts one through three, check them out below:
John 1:1 and the Jehovah’s Witnesses
Don Green has done an outstanding job through this series of defending the faith against those who would deny the deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity.
You will see in this video numerous false converts made right before your very eyes. False converts that will grow up with an aversion to the true Gospel at best, and a hostility to the true Gospel at worst. This is what American Christianity has become.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
Matthew 23:15
HT: Perilous Times
Guts Church (yes, that’s their real name) put on a Christmas play called Hip Hopera that can only be described as a confusing, convoluted, discombobulated adventure in narcissism, worldly values, and the culture of self-adoration. I kept watching this train wreck expecting it to make sense at some point but it never did.
This self-absorbed Christmas play of worldliness was supposed to convey a message that there’s more to Christmas than getting stuff. However, after watching this display I went away feeling that the Lord Jesus was not only not honored, but He was strangely absent; upstaged by the “relevant” performance.
See you if agree: You can check out their Hip Hopera video on their website by clicking here.
And I’m still scratching my head as to why they portrayed a prepubescent boy oogling the prepubescent girl who walked across the stage (heed Jesus’ warning in Matthew 5:27-28). Perhaps someone can explain that one to me.
If you want to see more of what this “church” is all about, check out this short promotional video in which they boast that at one of their October events called The Nightmare they “scare the hell out of people” (for the sake of the Gospel of course) and that after going through The Nightmare 12,000 people prayed the “prayer of salvation.”
Welcome to Christmas in Laodicea.
I’m not trying to say that it is necessarily wrong for children to play organized sports . . . . [but] being a member of an organized traveling baseball squad at age ten doesn’t add a single day to one’s life. In fact, many of these activities get in the way of much loftier pursuits. People turned boys into men and girls into women for most of recorded history without dragging them around town with their tongues hanging out in an effort to keep up with their overachieving, undereducated, theologically illiterate peers as they try to win trophies that will eventually gather dust in a basement somewhere. If I teach my son to keep his eye on the ball but fail to teach him to keep his eyes on Christ, I have failed as a father.
– Voddie Baucham
Christ Alone Wyoming 