Veronica, (a member of Jim McGhee’s Catholic church), talks to Trish about what she “feels,” “hopes,” “thinks,” and “believes.” Veronica may sleep well at night having convinced herself of her version of “truth” derived from her opinions (but definitely not Scripture), but she will one day face a righteous, just, and holy God who will not simply overlook sin or anyone’s willful ignorance of His revealed triuth.
It is for the profound biblical ignorance displayed in this video that this blog is in existence.
I recently finished reading a fantastic book on family worship entitled The Family Worship Book by Terry L. Johnson. It was a great help in providing the reasons and resources to begin a daily family worship time (including creeds, catechisms, psalms, hymns, etc.). And although I highly recommend it, even after reading this book I still felt at a loss as to how to incorporate this into our home.
My family has recently begun practicing a family worship time but I still have a gnawing feeling that we’re just winging it. A typical evening devotion with the family goes like this:
Reading a few pages from a Bible-based childrens book like this childrens book on Noah’s Ark and this childrens book on Pilgrim’s progress.
Then singing a hymn.
Reading from Foxe’s Book of the Martyrs
Then reading a chapter of the Bible.
Then prayer.
I have recently discovered that I am not alone in this quizzical inability to properly facilitate a family devotion time. So it is my intention with this post to ask for suggestions, tips, and pointers from DefCon readers who do family devotions. I hope that the comments on this thread can benefit you and your family as well as me and my family.
We may depend upon it, men will never come to Jesus, and stay with Jesus, and live for Jesus, unless they really know why they are to come, and what is their need. Those whom the Spirit draws to Jesus are those whom the Spirit has convinced of sin. Without thorough conviction of sin, men may seem to come to Jesus and follow Him for a season, but they will soon fall away and return to the world.
I recently completed The Family Worship Book by Terry L. Johnson. I found it to be a fantastic help in providing the reasons and resources to commit to a daily family devotion time (this, of course, is not at the exclusion of living every aspect of our lives as Believers not just during Sunday mornings and family devotion time).
This book (from a Reformed slant) has many resources contained within so these numerous reference sources are at your fingertips. Some of the things it contains are the Psalter, hymns, creeds, the children’s catechism, the shorter catechism, and a yearly Bible reading plan.
The chapters of this (almost 200 page) book include:
– Introduction to Family Worship
– Making the Commitment to Family Worship
– Outline for Family Worship
– Order for Family Worship
– A Sample of Family Worship
– Family Resources
– Historical Resources
– Family Psalter/Hymnal
I really enjoyed this book and found it to be a wealth of solid resources for family worship time. I highly recommend it for those who are seeking to begin (or improve) their family devotion time.
Why is Joel Osteen so popular? Is he a faithful representative of the Christian faith, or is his message more about self-help and personal motivation? On this edition of the White Horse Inn, the hosts will examine the theology of this bestselling author as they continue their series “Christless Christianity.”
If I had my way, I would declare a moratorium on public preaching of “the plan of salvation” in America for one to two years. Then I would call on everyone who has use of the airways and the pulpits to preach the holiness of God, the righteousness of God and the law of God, until sinners would cry out, “What must we do to be saved?” Then I would take them off in a corner and whisper the gospel to them. Such drastic action is needed because we have gospel-hardened a generation of sinners by telling them how to be saved before they have any understanding why they need to be saved.
Russ Sukhia delivers another convicting sermon entitled: Hated by the World? Here’s a brief description of this message:
‘I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.’ ‘Excuse me, did I hear you say something about Christians being hated by the world? I don’t remember reading that in your promotional literature. I remember the part about the joys of heaven and sins forgiven, love, joy, peace, etc. But I don’t recall anyone telling me I would be hated by the world?’ What did Jesus mean by ‘the world’ (kosmos)?What was there about Jesus that the world could hate? What is there about Christians that the world can hate? Jesus was hated because He rebuked the world for sin, because He was different from others, and because of the exclusiveness of His claims. With references to modern persecution, this message points out how Christians are hated for the same reasons.
Were it in anywise possible for something to occur apart from either the direct agency or permission of God, then that something would be independent of Him, and He would at once cease to be supreme.
This is a great children’s book that seeks to accurately portray the truth about the great flood and Noah’s Ark. It is just over 70 pages and each page contains the beautiful illustrations of Bill Looney. The book, entitled The True Story of Noah’s Ark makes you feel like you were really there. The book also comes with an audio book CD and is recommended by Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis.
In this 14 minute audio clip from Way of the Master Radio (WOTMR), Todd Friel plays an audio clip of Ray Comfort witnessing to a Jehovah’s Witness who came to his door. This was not a dramatization nor a reenactment, but the actual conversation recorded as it happened.
It was a great discourse and the gospel was shared so simply yet profoundly that this same approach could be applied to anyone else in any other false religion. I strongly encourage you to listen to this short clip.
Modern man unconsciously holds highest the humanistic ideals of happiness, freedom, and economic, cultural, and social progress for all mankind. This secular view says there is no God, heaven or Hell; there is just one chance at life, so do what makes you most happy. It also teaches that “since all men are brothers,” we should work for that which contributes toward the welfare of all men. This teaching–so attractive on the surface–has entered our churches in many ways, creating a man-centered and man-made gospel based on changing the outside and social status of man by meeting his physical needs. The cost is his eternal soul.
Men will allow God to be everywhere except on His throne. They will allow Him to be in His workshop to fashion worlds and make stars. They will allow Him to be in His almonry to dispense His alms and bestow His bounties. They will allow Him to sustainthe earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps or Heaven, or rule the waves of the evermoving ocean; but when He ascends His throne, His creatures then gnash their teeth, and we proclaim an enthroned God, and His right to do as He wills with His own, to dispose of His creatures as he thinks well, without consulting them in the matter; then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on His throne is not the God they love.
Ingrid Schlueter (of Slice of Laodicea and Hope in Laodicea) and her guest Brannon Howse (of Worldview Weekend) discuss the call for a boycott of Barnes & Nobles after several disturbing incidents occurred recently across the nation. Listen to this shocking podcast here and read what happened when Brannon Howse took his eleven year-old son into his local B&N on June 5th here.
I found the following piece by Ingrid Schlueter over at Slice of Laodicea and felt it was so important to pass on to the readers of DefCon that I’ve posted the entire article below, complete and unedited:
There’s lots of dialogue going on this days. Evangelical leaders met with Barack Obama this week to dialogue some more. They haven’t figured out what aborted babies in America already know—that Obama supports the right to slaughter preborn babies in the womb and those out of the womb who manage to survive a induced labor abortion. Obama twice voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in the state of Illinois. This bill was supposed to allow babies to live who managed to survive an abortion procedure, and it was introduced after nurses like Jill Stanek protested having to watch little babies die on dirty laundry carts after failed hospital abortions. Jill recalls holding one such down’s syndrome baby for 45 minutes because nobody else would hold him while he died. They had put the infant on a cart in a laundry room to die. This, Barack Obama supports and it’s on the record in the state of Illinois. So extreme are his views on abortion that the Washington Post carried a piece on just how extreme he is. Michelle Obama drafted a fundraising letter for his Senate campaign that warned about how zealots wanted to stop partial birth abortion and that her husband would keep it safe for all women. The Obamas support partial birth abortion where the baby’s head is born, skull punctured with scissors, the brains sucked out and the baby then delivered and hurled into a bucket. That’s real hope and opportunity for all, Mr. Obama. What a hero.
These evangelical leaders like T.D. Jakes, who said he had goosebumps when Obama got the nomination, should be forced to watch what Jill Stanek did, holding a baby that had been murdered at his mother’s request, all because he had down’s syndrome. They should have to watch the movie Hard Truth and see what America’s idolatry of choice has brought us. 50 million dead human beings and counting. The irony is, rather than stand up for human life in this election, many evangelicals (a predicted 40%) will help facilitate the election of one who has a track record on child killing that is so extreme the Washington Post even comments on it.
The worshippers of Molech used to toss their infants into the fire as a sacrifice to their god. The Lord despised these pagan practices and the murder of innocents. Today’s Americans sacrifice their children on the altar to the god of convenience. It isn’t done in public places on high altars. It is done in clinics, as a medical “procedure”, far away from the public view. The bodies of these babies are incinerated and the smoke goes up from the chimneys of these death camps daily in our country. God sees the smoke and ashes of these human sacrifices that ascends before Him and He is judging it. The blood of these babies cries out, and God hears it.
Here is the video that these pastors need to watch. Please read the lyrics of the song being sung if you choose to watch this. This is a video that shows the reality of the broken bodies of abortion victims. This is what Barack Obama defends and why America is in peril. We had 100 pastors watch this in Milwaukee and they sat in the dark afterwards weeping over it. Eight weeks later, 10,000 Christians gathered together at a local arena to repent over apathy over child-killing. Within another few months, the entire thing was forgotten.
**Warning: Graphic Images of Abortion victims**
Malediction
Lyrics: Kemper Crabb
Music: Kemper Crabb & Frank Hart
The judges sat outside the Law
And in their pride no evil saw
In setting teeth to Satan’s jaw
And feeding him our children.
When viewed in terms of cost and ease
An unborn child is a disease
A holocaust seen fit to please
Our own convience.
A curse A curse the Law it cries.
A curse a curse on mankind’s pride.
A curse on him who would deny
God’s image in mankind.
Torn from out their mother’s womb
Denied the sky – denied a tomb
Conceived in lust to their own ruin
A sacrifice to pleasure.
The doctors with their blood red hands
Who love their money more than man,
With greed their god they lay their plans
The butchers of mankind.
A curse a curse the blood cries out
A curse a curse the heavens shout
A curse a curse on he who flouts
God’s image in mankind.
O rid us of this evil, Lord
And turn our hearts by cross or Sword.
Our nation cannot long afford
To live beneath your judgements.
A curse a curse upon their heads
O save them Lord or slay them dead
And fill our country with your Dread
And turn away Your anger.
Oh young person, you want to wear the Christian T-shirts, and sing the Christian music, and hang around with Christian friends, but how many of you will wear out a Bible and say “I must know this, else I die?”
Men imagine the Most High is moved by sentiment, rather than by principle. They suppose His omnipotency is such an idle fiction that Satan can thwart His designs on every side. They think that if He has formed any plan or purpose at all, then it must be like theirs, constantly subject to change. They openly declare that whatever power He possesses must be restricted, lest He invade the citadel of man’s free will and reduce him to a machine. They lower the all-efficacious atonement, which redeems everyone for whom it was made, to a mere remedy, which sin-sick souls may use if they feel so disposed. They lessen the strength of the invincible work of the Holy Spirit to an offer of the Gospel which sinners may accept or reject as they please.
If I had my way, I would declare a moratorium on public preaching of “the plan of salvation” in America for one to two years. Then I would call on everyone who has use of the airways and the pulpits to preach the holiness of God, the righteousness of God and the law of God, until sinners would cry out, “What must we do to be saved?” Then I would take them off in a corner and whisper the gospel to them. Such drastic action is needed because we have gospel-hardened a generation of sinners by telling them how to be saved before they have any understanding why they need to be saved.
Oh young person, you want to wear the 
Christ Alone Wyoming 