Your sermon of the week is the second installment of Phil Johnson’s series, A Survey of Heresies. These are the five major heresies that have plagued the Church and that are still around today. Two weeks ago Phil Johnson taught on the heresy of the Judiazers (found here), and this week his message is on The Gnostics. Join us in two more weeks when Phil Johnson lectures on the next major heresy, The Arians.
death
Quotes (819)
It is impossible to measure the harm done to the Protestant cause through the retention of paedobaptism. The Reformed churches profess to be governed solely by Scripture, but so long as they continue baptizing babies, so long will they be taunted by Roman Catholics (and others) for their manifest inconsistency. . . . . Baby baptism is ruinous to the souls of thousands. Strictly speaking, it is not baby baptism but mistaken views regarding its efficacy and significance which leads multitudes down the broad way to destruction.
– T.E. Watson
Sermon of the week: “The Judiazers” by Phil Johnson.
Your sermon of the week is the first in a five-part series entitled A Survey of Heresies. Every two weeks DefCon will be bringing you the next installment in this series from Phil Johnson on the top five major heresies that have plagued the church since its inception, and continues to rear its ugly head in the form of the cults and false Christian religions of today.
We begin this series with The Judiazers.
Quotes (815)
Modern Roman Catholicism is the monstrous tree that sprang from the acorn of the Judiazers.
– Phil Johnson
Are you a Roman Catholic or a Christian?
Are you a Roman Catholic or a Christian?
Grab pen and paper and take the following ten-question quiz (formulated by Dr. J. Ronald Blue of Dallas Theological Seminary). How you do will determine whether you’re a Roman Catholic or a Christian.
Choose the position which is most true:
1:
A). God gives a man right standing with Himself by mercifully accounting him righteous.
B). God gives a man right standing with Himself by actually making him into a righteous person.
2:
A). God gives a man right standing with Himself by placing Christ’s goodness and virtue to his credit.
B). God gives a man right standing with Himself by putting Christ’s goodness and virtue into his heart.
3:
A). God accepts the believer because of the moral excellence found in Christ.
B). God makes a believer acceptable by infusing Christ’s moral excellence into his life.
4:
A). If a man becomes born again, he will achieve right standing with God.
B). If a sinner receives right standing with God, he will then experience a transformation of character and life.
5:
A). We receive right standing with God through faith alone.
B). We receive right standing with God by faith and love.
6:
A). We achieve right standing with God by having Christ live out His life of obedience in us.
B). We achieve right standing with God by receiving the truth that he obeyed the Law of God perfectly for us.
7:
A). We achieve right standing with God by following Christ’s example by the help of enabling grace.
B). We follow Christ’s example because His life has given us right standing with God.
8:
A). God first declares us good, and then His Spirit begins making us good.
B). God sends His Spirit to make us good, and then He will declare that we are good.
9:
A). Christ’s finished work on the cross and intercession at God’s right hand gives us favor in God’s sight.
B). It is the indwelling Christ that gives us favor in God’s sight.
10:
A). Only by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness can we fully satisfy the claims of the Ten Commandments.
B). By the power of the Holy Spirit living in us we can fully satisfy the claims of the Ten Commandments.
Bonus Question 1:
You get to Heaven by works: True or False
Bonus Question 2:
Our faith is the ground of our salvation: True or False
Answers . . .
Praying for Rose Marie.
I first met Rose Marie a few years ago. She is a 20-something nun who works a booth at the local fair. Since she travels around selling Rome’s idolatrous wares and trinkets, I hadn’t seen her since that first meeting. However, she was back in town and I saw her yesterday at this year’s fair. When I approached her she immediately recognized me.
Rose Marie, or as I’m sure she prefers to be called, Sister Rose Marie, is still relying on her own efforts to save her from the coming wrath of God.
I only had a chance to chat with her for about a minute or two this time, but I am researching a way to correspond with her like a pen-pal. If this does not materialize, then I’ll have to wait another year to have an opportunity to speak with her.
I ask that the readers of DefCon please keep this precious young lady (who has devoted her life to a dead religion of works in hopes to find favor with God) in your prayers. To read a brief post on my first encounter with Rose Marie from 2007, check out: A conversation with a nun in the most unlikeliest of places.
Goodbye grandpa.
On August 03, 2010, while lying in bed nursing a 102 degree fever, I received a call that my grandfather (who was in the hospital recovering from a minor operation) had stopped breathing on two separate occasions but they were able to resuscitate him both times.
When I arrived at the hospital he was on a ventilator (tube down his throat feeding him oxygen) in addition to a myriad of other tubes and wires, and loaded with a plethora of medications—all of which were keeping him alive.
The following day tests confirmed that his condition was only growing worse and that his organs were beginning to shut down. It was unanimous: his wife and family decided that there was no need to artificially prolong the inevitable.
The day I’ve always dreaded arrived on the evening of August 04, 2010. With his family by his side, my grandfather slipped into a Christless eternity, ending his life of eighty-three years on earth.
Jonah: The Father’s sovereignty and the Son’s deity.
I was recently reading Jonah when I discovered something throughout the book: The thread of the Father’s sovereignty which leads to the Son’s deity.
You can see God’s sovereignty throughout Jonah in the following verses where He displays His majestic control over His creation.
God is sovereign over . . .
1:7 – The lots. (You didn’t really think it was coincidence it revealed Jonah, did you? See Proverbs 16:33.)
1:14, 1:15, 4:8 – The storms and the wind.
1:17, 2:10 – The fish of the sea. (Even the really, really big ones. Who did you think directed the animals onto Noah’s Ark, and who did you think directed the ravens to bring Elijah food in 1 Kings 17:6?)
2:6 – Jonah’s very life.
3:5 – The salvation of an entire city of over 120,000. (This is also known as election.)
3:9, 4:2 – His own anger.
3:10, 4:2 – Calamity. (Yes, even in places like Haiti.)
4:6 – The plants.
4:7 – The insects. (Remember that little plague of insects the Egyptians had to endure prior to the Exodus?)
In the midst of all this, two things stand out to me in these verses that should not be missed.
1). Only God can forgive sins (Psalm 79:9, Isaiah 55:7).
2). Man can’t even control the wind (Ecclesiastes 8:8) but God controls the storms (Psalm 65:7, 89:9, 107:29, 135:7).
When one compares these truths of God the Father with that of His Son we plainly see that the only person to walk this earth that not only controlled storms (Matthew 8:26-27 and Luke 8:24-25) but could forgive sins (Matthew 9:2, Mark 2:5-6, and Luke 5:20-21) was none other than the glorious Mediator between man and God, the perfect spotless Lamb of God, the eternal Son, Emmanuel, Yeshua Ha’Mashiach, God in the flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ.
A Catholic Funeral – The Dead Burying the Dead
Yesterday, I attended the funeral of an Aunt who died this past week. And, as is true for any funeral, it was a sad time as yet another life has come to an abrupt end. Never again will her voice be heard or will she be able to interact with the sons of men for the time granted unto her by God to live on this earth has expired. And as such there will be no returning to life for the grave will surrender none of its victims to family or friend no matter how many tears they shed or prayers they pray. It will only be on the Last Day when Christ Jesus, he who has the keys of the grave and death, will call forth to all the dead to come forth even as he did unto Lazarus, some unto the resurrection of life, and some unto the resurrection of damnation (cf. Joh 5:28-29). My Aunt, as I am nearly certain (barring a last minute conversion), will be called unto the resurrection of damnation.
I make this last statement because my Aunt was, as is the case for the majority of my family, Roman Catholic. A Roman Catholic who had religion, but not Jesus Christ. A woman who was baptised with water, but not with the Holy Spirit. A woman who ate the Eucharist, but did not eat of Jesus’ flesh or drink of his blood. A woman who had good works, but never recognized that they were as filthy rags. A woman who though appearing alive was in fact dead; dead in trespasses and sins as all are who are not born of the Spirit of God per his will.
And what so grieved my spirit and incensed me as I sat through the Mass (not participating in any way) and listened to the words of the priest was that from the moment he opened his mouth and spoke his first words until the time when he closed his mouth as her coffin lay over the grave, all he spoke were lies. Lies that for the one lying in the coffin were meaningless as she heard not a one of them, but for the living were deadly. Deadly because they acted as yet another hot iron further cauterizing their conscience to believe that as a baptized Roman Catholic they were in no peril, regardless of anything God’s word or one of his servants might say to the contrary.
This is the tragedy for never once were the people in the pews ever challenged to examine themselves to see whether they were in the faith (cf. II Cor 13:5). Of course this can not be so because Catholicism is not the faith of the Bible, but even beyond this, they were not challenged even to see if they were in the Catholic faith. This being all the things that Catholic apologists love to quote when you are debating with them about how they believe this and that, yet when the rubber hits the road and you hear the words from the priest at a funeral, it is all together another story. All that matters is that you are a baptized (technically sprinkled) “card-carrying” Catholic and if so, you will have a priest say your funeral who will tell all of your family and friends that you are now in heaven (even though Catholic doctrine says you are in the torments of purgatory).
So rest easy all ye Catholics and do not fret about any sins or repentance for what I have stated above will be true regardless of the life you have lived, the sins you have been in bondage to, the company you have kept, the drunkenness, the fornication, the lust, the pride, the hatred of all things righteous, the deception, the disdain for the Scriptures, and any other evidences of a tree bearing bad fruit (cf. Mat 7:13-27). Because as long as you were at one time sprinkled as a baby, worry not dear Catholic, for you need not be troubled about anything else and can live like the devil, because there will be a priest who will say Mass at your funeral and he will by the supposed powers vested in him transport you to the feet of Jesus in heavenly bliss. The same thing of course will be true for your family and friends, even if they never attend Mass, avoid Confession, or are the twice of year Catholics who only attend Mass on Christmas and Easter, for they too will be sent to heaven by your local Catholic priest. Just make sure you pay him for the Mass.
All of this is exactly what I witnessed at my Aunt’s funeral where according to this priest it was Catholic water baptism, the perennial Catholic ticket to heaven, that made her a child of God. And it was because of this baptism or infant sprinkling, and that she was deemed a “good” person (cf. Romans 3:12) who did “good” things in her life (cf. Isaiah 64:6) and loved those who loved her (cf. Matthew 5:46-47), that this priest in essence told one and all, rest easy and shed not a tear, for she is now in heaven. Words ironically coming from a man who never even met my Aunt once and only knew of her from the brief bio (all positive of course) presented to him by her daughter before the Mass. Amazing, simply amazing and oh how tragic indeed.
Much more was said by the priest that made a mockery of God’s word and what true salvation is but to the people sitting in the pews it was music unto their ears. Music because it sang sweet words of rest and ease unto them whereby they could continue their present course of life, regardless of how dark it might be, because in the end, it would all work out.
It also was music unto their ears because who among them was not likewise, according to their personal scales of justice, a good person, or who did not likewise do good things and love people around them. Possibly even trumping my Aunt in these areas as they all compare themselves among themselves (cf. II Cor 10:12). And so one and all left the funeral with a lift in their gait where possibly any twinges of conscience per the convicting of the Holy Spirit (cf. Joh 16:8) were quenched by the words of this one priest.
But this need not be for the Roman Catholic who believes that in spite of their religion, they are sick, for Jesus says, “They that are whole [healthy] have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Mar 2:17) Jesus is more than able to save to the uttermost those who come to the Father through him (cf. Heb 7:12) and this he will do unto you. Yet you must believe that you are sick and a sinner in need of repentance.
If this be you than my encouragement unto you would be for you to call out unto the Lord for him to save you, to forsake vain and dead religion, to repent from your sins, and believe on Jesus Christ alone for salvation. Because baptism will, in and of itself, bring none into the kingdom of God and those Catholics who are trusting in their baptism and church to save them will be sorely disappointed on that day. But for those who repudiate the false doctrine of Catholicism and place their hope solely in the finished work of Jesus Christ and not in infant baptism or their church, they will be wonderfully overjoyed on that day.
Finally, let it be clearly stated that the final arbiter of entrance into the kingdom of God is not a priest and his unoffending words of false hope, but rather the two-edged word of God. Because it will be by this word that all will be judged, not tradition, not smooth sounding words, but solely by the word of God. For the Lord spoke that, “…if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.” (Joh 12:47-48)
May all Catholics take these things I have written to heart and today, while you still have breath in your lungs and blood in your veins, seriously consider the words I have written. For today may in fact be your last day as I can assure you my Aunt but a week ago was in no way thinking that the following week she would be lying dead and lifeless in a casket. So too the same may be true for you whereby next week it will not be my Aunt lying in a coffin, but you the reader of this paper where then it will be too late.
Time-wasters by Richard Baxter.
I found the following at Berean Wife.
Thief I: One of the greatest time-wasting sins consists of idleness or sloth.
Thief II: The next thief or time-waster is excess of sleep.
Thief III: The next thief or time-waster is an inordinate adorning of the body.
Thief IV: Another time-wasting thief is unnecessary pomp and curiosity in retinue, attendance, house furniture, provision and entertainments, together with excess of compliment and ceremony, and servitude to the humors and expectations of time-wasters.
Thief V: Another time-wasting sin is needless and tedious feastings, gluttony, and tippling. (Tippling – drinking)
Thief VI: Another time-waster is idle talk.
Thief VII: Another thief which by the aforesaid means would steal your time, is vain and sinful company.
Thief VIII: Another notorious time-wasting thief, is needless, inordinate sports and games, which are stigmatized by the offenders themselves, with the infamous name of pastimes, and masked with deceitful title of recreations;
Thief IX: Another time-wasting thief is excess of worldly cares and business.
Thief X: Another time-waster is vain ungoverned and sinful thoughts.
Thief XI: Another dangerous time-waster sin is the reading of vain books, play-books, romances, and feigned histories; and also unprofitable studies, undertaken but for vain-glory, or the pleasing of a carnal or curious mind.
Thief XII: But the master-thief that robs men of their time is an unsancitified, ungodly heart; for this loseth time whatever men are doing; because they never intend the glory of God.
The testimony of a dying wife, mother, Christian.
You simply must download and listen to this speech, Death Is Not Dying, by Rachel Barkey. You will be encouraged, you will be moved, you will be challenged, you will need a tissue. I listened to it twice in two days and wanted to share it with the readers of DefCon.
Mrs. Barkey gave this speech in March 2009 to over 600 women after learning that she would be dead in a few short months; she died July 02, 2009. You can read more about her story here.
HT: Atlantic Baptist
One year ago today.
It was exactly one year ago today that my wife’s stepfather (a very high degree Mason) passed away after being diagnosed with cancer a month previous to that. She took care of him at his home and after his passing she penned her thoughts–only recently revealing them to me.
With her permission her letter is reprinted below for your edification.
I have just had my first real, up-close experience with death. There are a few things I observed that I would like to share:
I have known people that have passed on and you mourn a little and have the usual thoughts like, “Why them? It’s just not fair,” “But he was such a good man,” “She was just so young”, or, “Well, at least they are in a better place now.”
They’re right, life isn’t fair. Praise God that life isn’t always fair. If it was fair, there would be no hope whatsoever for me a wretched soul, or for you or for anyone. I deserve an eternity in hell and it is only by the grace of God and God alone, that if He so chooses I may escape the punishment I am deserving of and enter into an eternity with Him.
If only people knew and realized the truth that none of us are good, no not even one, then they would know better than to say “But he was such a good man.”
How can they say “They are in a better place now, at least they are out of pain.” Do they know this? Do they know that this person was a believer? If not, they must not know either, that there is much more pain in the Lake of Fire than there is here on earth.
The next thing I realized was what a shame it is the way we spend so much of our lives. We work so hard at the trivial, materialistic things in life that I guarantee will someday not matter to you one bit! All of the “things you possess don’t matter one iota when you are stuck lying in a bed, immobile, facing what is to so many, too many – the unknown.
My stepfather was diagnosed with cancer on September 4th, 2008, just under 1 month after his 61st birthday. On September 5th we brought him home on hospice. He always loved working on his computer. He would spend hours in his back room playing on it.
While I was at his home caring for him, I would offer to set him up with my laptop so he could do what he enjoyed. He tried this a couple of times, but it just didn’t work like it used to. His mind wasn’t sharp and he didn’t have the energy or desire to do what he could once do so easily. He was just like one of my children to me. I wanted to give him anything I could to make him happy. I would sit and think “what could I bring him that he could enjoy.” I would bring sweets, watermelon, tacos, anything I thought would taste good to him, but he didn’t really care about food that much either. I would bring him better nightgowns, a new toothbrush, a good electric shaver…anything that I thought might bring him just a moment of pleasure. The problem is, that he had a whole life of sinful pleasure and now there was only one thing that he needed now, and that was to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. I tried a couple of pathetic attempts to talk to him, about his need for Christ. But, I still had time so I figured I would get to it at some point and besides I had sent my pastor to speak with him so I knew he had heard the Gospel from him, (a lousy excuse, I know.)
My stepfather often had visitors, which is more than many people have. So often people are left in institutions to die with no one by their side, no one to show them kindness in their final days, no one who can offer them the Gospel.
The only time they see their loved ones is when they are coming to claim what they feel rightfully belongs to them. Many people came to claim their part of my stepfather’s belongings. His brother came first, asking for his truck, my mother wanted to make sure she was on his life insurance policy and other possessions were passed out like candy.
My step-father had been getting along okay considering the circumstances. He was bedridden, but for the most part still had his wits about him. He was on heavy pain meds so he had good and bad moments.
On October 1st everything sort of fell apart. I will spare you unnecessary details, but the nurse had come out to bathe him that morning and another nurse had come to check on his vitals and such. He was in some pain after he had to move around in bed to be bathed so the nurse gave him some liquid morphine and from that moment on, he was no longer with us. The next day he slept almost the entire day. I had to call the CNA out to help me change his bedding and when we tried, he would scream and cry out in pain. It was so awful. I was fighting back tears as I watched this man wince with every slight movement or touch. It was so agonizing and excruciating for him just thinking of it brings me to tears. At one point I had to tell the nurse to stop, I could not bear to see him in this amount of pain. I can only imagine or liken this to what it must be like in hell. Unfortunately in hell, there is no one there to be your advocate, to stop the torture for you, to save you.
After we got through changing the bed he slept all the rest of the day. His mouth was so dry it was cracked and bleeding. I would try to moisten it with a wet sponge, but it did no good. It was this moment that made me think about the rich man who was begging for just one taste of water; the man who realized the mistake he had made and begged for someone to go and warn his family that they may be spared. This rich man was now my stepfather lying in that bed and it was now too late. Too late for me to share the Gospel with him, too late for me to warn him!
My sister called me the next day–he had passed away. I went to my mom’s and all the family was standing around mourning, waiting for the funeral home to come and get him and then it came. The usual utterances, “He’s in a better place now, he is out of pain.” And I wanted to scream! How can you say that? How do you know that?
How stupid I was! How foolish! Oh how my heart aches that I had not been courageous enough to share the GOOD NEWS with him, this dying man who needed hope, needed a Saviour.
How foolish we all are. Where do our treasures really lie? If we truly believe and realize what happens to a nonbeliever when they leave this world why then are we not willing to say anything? Why are we so ashamed to offer hope and knowledge of salvation to these people who are just like we once were? Or are we really so fooled by this twisted concept of Christianity that American churches serve to us on our silver platter that we don’t care!
I can only imagine my stepfather, as the rich king was pleading that someone go and warn his family. Only 7 months later, his brother passed away from the same illness and as far as I am aware, never came to a saving knowledge of our Lord.
Christ Alone Wyoming 