If you wanted a great example of the genesis for all the errors that we have presently slithering around under the umbrella of Christianity claiming to be truth, look no further than this video from a Bible society. This is heresy at it’s finest: Did God really say . . . ?
You can almost hear the hiss as this woman speaks.
So why do Catholics think we are bashing them when we are demonstrating a compelling love to show them how to escape the eternal lake of fire? It appears to be a pathetically weak defensive ploy to hide their lack of biblical understanding. By calling someone a name, they are released from any obligation to consider Scripture and evaluate truth. In this way, they can proudly dismiss any further confrontation or correction.
– Mike Gendron
We read not that Christ ever exercised force but once, and that was to drive profane ones out of His temple, and not to force them in.
– John Milton
1608 – 1674
As a follow-up to The Brewing Storm and the Coming Demise of DefCon, and Another Clap of Thunder on the Horizon, here’s yet another sign of the times:
See also: It’s a Free Country.
In our preparation of people for the Gospel, we must bring them to the point where they realize they can do nothing. But even when people do understand their inability to do anything, many evangelists, missionaries, and preachers tell enquirers things such as, “Now, you must give your heart to Jesus.” Having told them they are unable to do anything, they then tell them what they must do. The result? Confusion about the Gospel.
– Trevor Mcllwain
As a part-two to last week’s sermon, this week John MacArthur follows-up with the Four Marks of a Hell-Bound Man.
The “religion of peace” has struck again in Pakistan.
Witnesses claim the owner and 14 of his employees beat Ishtiaq with stones, iron rods and clubs, and stabbed him multiple times with kitchen knives as Ishtiaq pleaded for mercy.
Ishtiaq had not noticed the warning sign before ordering his tea, as he ordered with a group of his fellow passengers.
When Ishtiaq went to pay for his tea, the owner noticed that he was wearing a necklace with a cross and grabbed him, calling for his employees to bring anything available to beat him for violating a sign posted on the stall warning non-Muslims to declare their religion before being served.
Read more from Asian News and from Worthy News.
We must be holy, because this is the only sound evidence that we have a saving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
– J.C. Ryle
1816 – 1900
There’s an interesting story coming out of California in which a student’s freedom of speech was obstructed by the public school she attends. Apparently she wore a pro-life t-shirt to school and was forced to remove it. The “offensive” shirt contained two pictures of a baby growing in the womb but this is apparently too much for the public school to handle. The picture heading this post was what was on the girl’s shirt.
Ironically, these same images are found in the school’s textbooks and are acceptable in that context, however, when they’re displayed on a shirt accompanied with a pro-life message, then the images magically become offensive.
One of the girl’s lawyers, Mark A. Thiel, said that the images on her shirt of a fetus in the womb were same as those in her science textbooks. He said no student had complained about the shirt, and he said the girl’s parents were not called when the incident took place.
So was it really the images that the school found so offensive, or was it the message, and the images were only the excuse? I think the answer is obvious.
What’s equally amazing to me is that the author, Maxim Lott, in this news piece had this to say:
The shirt the girl was wearing displays two graphic pictures of a fetus growing in the womb.
Oh, how far we have fallen in our “enlightened” society when gratuitous sex and violence are portrayed on a daily basis (in music, movies, television, books, video games, and even t-shirts) and is considered acceptable, but the beautiful pictures of the miracle of life as it grows in the womb is now referred to as “graphic pictures.”
Woe unto us, woe unto us indeed.
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes And clever in their own sight!
– Isaiah 5:20-21
The following is a good article from Life Way asking ten simple questions of the so-called “seeker.”
Written by Scott Pruett
There is much talk about the proverbial “spiritual seeker,” which many religions zealously court and who is alleged to be on a journey toward truth. But who are these seekers? What are they looking for and what are they willing to accept as truth? And what roadmap are they willing to use to guide their paths? Here are some questions designed to stir the mind of the seeker, and to give touchstones for dialog to Christians seeking to reach them.
© 2008 LifeWay Christian Resources
Here’s a great question from Jessica over at I Love Mormons:
I have a hypothetical scenario I want to run by you. What would happen if a 14-yr-old LDS kid from Mississippi suddenly showed up on the scene claiming he had received personal revelation from God that the LDS church became apostate after the death of Joseph Smith? This young boy (we’ll call him Joe) claims God revealed to him that the King Follett Discourse never happened the way the history books have it. Rather, after the death of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and others changed many historical documents to try to make it appear like Joseph Smith taught polygamy and polytheism. Joe says Joseph Smith never believed in a plurality of gods; rather, he believed in and taught the Trinity as evidenced by the Book of Mormon. Joe claims Brigham Young edited the D&C and PofGP to add the teachings on polygamy and plurality of gods. Joe starts admonishing LDS that God views the current teachings of the modern-day LDS church as an abomination.
Question: How would you decide whether the 14-yr-old was trustworthy and believable?
Compare yourselves with the Word. See how the Scriptures and your hearts agree, how your dial responds to the sun. Are your hearts, as it were, a transcript of Scripture? Is the Word copied out in your hearts? The Word calls for humility; are you not only humbled, but humble? The Word calls for regeneration; have you the signature and engraving of the Holy Ghost upon you? Have you a change of heart? Not only a partial and moral change, but a spiritual? Is there such a change wrought in you as if another soul did live in the same body?
– Thomas Watson
1620 – 1686
Your sermon of the week is Four Marks of the Man of God by John MacArthur. MacArthur explains that a man of God is identified by the following four attributes:
What he flees from.
What he follows after.
What he fights for.
What he’s faithful to.
If you are in a church that has resisted the temptation to professionalize worship, you are blessed. If not, my heart goes out to you. In any event, family worship will deepen your appreciation for biblical worship and make the corporate experience that much richer. However, I must caution you—family worship also has a tendency to open your eyes to the shallow, mundane, worldly aspects of the modern “worship” scene.
– Voddie Baucham
Neither Paul nor any other legitimate church leader in 2000 years has ever found it necessary (or even helpful) to use streetwise sex education—not as an evangelistic strategy, and certainly not as a means to sanctification for people already overwhelmed with sex-talk from a corrupt culture. Adopting the world’s obsession with sex and filthy talk cannot possibly have a sanctifying effect, because the strategy itself is unholy.
The notion that degenerate subcultures and sexually-addicted people cannot be reached without “learning to speak their language” is an absolute fallacy. Grace Church is seven miles from Hollywood, in the heart of Southern California, in a carnal, pleasure-mad culture well-known worldwide for everything but healthy spiritual values. No city in America is more “unchurched” than our valley, which houses more than three million people. The people of Grace church are reaching friends and neighbors in every imaginable subculture—from ex-cons to ex-Catholics to people in the entertainment industry. We baptize new believers virtually every Sunday night. It is neither necessary nor helpful to inject explicit sexual references into the conversation in order to reach people from such a culture. God draws them to Christ through the gospel.
– John MacArthur
The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. – Luke 6:45
In the past DefCon has taken issue with Mark Driscoll on several concerns including his gutter mouth, lack of reverence for God, and even his mocking of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Most of the time I’ve played a less-than-active role in these matters as other contributors have mainly been on the front lines. Well today I’m getting in the trenches because I’m furious at Mark Driscoll and Pilgrim Radio for what transpired yesterday. Here’s the story:
My wife told me about a sermon Pilgrim Radio was playing on the radio as she was returning home from the grocery store with our young children in the car. She said that the man preaching (she had no clue who he was so there were no preconceived notions or expectations) was talking about “prostitutes,” “whores,” and “lesbians” and that he kept using these expressions as if trying to be shocking.
My wife who knows very little—if anything—about Mark Driscoll hit the nail on the head in her evaluation of him.
She then told me that this same man began talking about wives in submission to their husbands and how oftentimes men abuse this. Instead of using an innocuous example to make his point he chose to expound on such abuse by illustrating an example in which men misuse their wives’ submission by making them watch porn!
Seriously? Are you kidding me? That’s the best example he could come up with? For crying out loud, my kids were in the car and heard this trash before their mother turned it off. Does this guy’s mind ever come up out of the gutter for air?
Consider, if you will, all the images that were conjured in the minds of those who heard this man go on about porn yet again (he was talking about porn in another sermon just a few weeks ago on Pilgrim Radio). Does he not care about all those who are struggling with pornography who listened to this pastor expecting to hear the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ preached in reverence, only to their minds drawn back to the gutter? How many men and women at that moment had impure thoughts rush into the battlefields of their minds because of Mark Driscoll’s seemingly insatiable appetite for discussing all things sexual in a public forum?
How dare he stand in a pulpit spewing such juvenile, perverse, and debase ideas under the guise of preaching? And how dare Pilgrim Radio air such filth from the ever-flowing open sewer of the mouth of Mark Driscoll?
When my wife described this to me I immediately knew who she was referring to because during the same hour of the morning that this sermon was oozing across the airwaves, I also had turned on Pilgrim Radio and heard Mark Driscoll talking about men liking noisy power tools because it drowns out the constant yapping of the wives they hate. Are you kidding me? This was coming from the pulpit and Pilgrim Radio thought this was acceptable? What an obnoxious thing to say!
Needless to say I immediately turned off the radio. Little did I know, fifty miles away my wife and little children were about to have their minds polluted with the whimsical handling of the matters of “prostitutes,” “whores,” “lesbians,” and “porn.” These are not matters that my children should have to be exposed to in such a flippant manner, especially by one who claims to be a minister of the Gospel and on a radio station that claims to be Christian.
My wife had no idea who this profane man on the radio was but she had enough sense and discernment (which seems to be lacking in so many others) to reject him and change the radio station.
Now let me clarify something to avoid any confusion, I am not opposed to such words (and dealing with such subjects) as “prostitution” and “whores.” They are real sins, and they are addressed within Scripture. What I am opposed to is the use of these subject (ad nauseum I might add) by Driscoll (or anyone else for that matter) to make people laugh or to be shocking. There is a way to handle sensitive and weighty issues such as these without reverting to a juvenile mentality.
It’s the same as the expression “Oh my God.” The words themselves are not the problem, but the spirit behind them and how they’re being delivered. The way the Psalmist cries out “Oh my God” is completely different than the way a thirteen-year-old girl shrieks “Oh my God” when the boy she has a crush on invites her to prom. If you cannot see the difference, then I don’t expect you to understand the point of this post.
As a result of this, I have done the following three things:
1). I’ve removed Pilgrim Radio from this blog as they will no longer be endorsed by DefCon.
2). I wrote to the once trusted Pilgrim Radio a lengthy letter detailing my disappointment of them for allowing this type of material to be aired. Unfortunately their entire response was:
Thank you for your thoughtful remarks on Pilgrim Radio’s programming. We were, of course, sorry to learn that you no longer feel comfortable in endorsing our ministry which is aimed at a very broad segment of the Christian community. We do appreciate your enthusiastic past support. God bless you.
3). All the Driscollite defenders who patrol the internet and swarm blogs such as this to offer excuses for their Golden Calf will have to find another soundboard for their approval of and winking at sin as their comments will no longer be welcome here. I refuse to provide a platform for their calling evil good and good evil.
Our family strives to be holy in spite of being surrounded by the world, the culture–and now even the professing church which is indistinguishable from the world and culture–where holiness is a strange and foreign concept, and oftentimes openly mocked by those who should know better (those who claim to be Christians while still practicing lawlessness). So when the wickedness of the world sneaks in via a Christian radio station you can imagine my surprise, anger, and disgust. My kids should have never been subjected to this filth and as their father it’s my responsibility to protect them and keep them pure.
Shame on Mark Driscoll for using the pulpit to advance his agenda, and shame on Pilgrim Radio for giving this purveyor of perversity a platform to poison my precious children with his toxic, man-centered, flesh-pleasing oratory.
The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverted mouth, I hate. -Proverbs 8:13
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I do not stand alone in my concern of Driscoll’s pornification of the pulpit. See related:
Sound Doctrine; Sound Speech (A sermon by Phil Johnson delivered at the 2009 Shepherd’s Conference)
John MacArthur on Mark Driscoll (Part 1)
John MacArthur on Mark Driscoll (Part 2)
Finally, it seriously overstates the involvement of John Piper and C. J. Mahaney to say they are “discipling” Mark Driscoll. In the first place, the idea that a grown man already in public ministry and constantly in the national spotlight needs space to be “mentored” before it’s fair to subject his public actions to biblical scrutiny seems to put the whole process backward. These problems have been talked about in both public and private contexts for at least three or four years. At some point the plea that this is a maturity issue and Mark Driscoll just needs time to mature wears thin. In the meantime, the media is having a field day writing stories that suggest trashy talk is one of the hallmarks of the “New Calvinism;” and countless students whom I love and am personally acquainted with are being led into similar carnal behavior by imitating Mark Driscoll’s speech and lifestyle. Enough is enough.
– John MacArthur
Yet another fantastic sermon by Don Green. This week DefCon presents both parts of his two-part message on the narrow path spoken of by Jesus in Matthew 7:13-14. This is one of those texts that I never tire of hearing because it is such an essential truth of the Bible so often overlooked and ignored by much of professing Christendom today, but yet so very serious to a man’s soul.
You can download the audio version of this video by right-clicking here.
As reported at KSL News:
SOUTH JORDAN — There were some 6,000 to 8,000 lightning strikes in the Salt Lake Valley Saturday, and it appears one of them struck the new Oquirrh Mountain temple.
Witnesses say the lightning blackened the arm, trumpet and face of the Moroni statue that sits on top of the temple’s steeple.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not confirmed the lightning strike.
And if the LDS organization never confirms the lightning strike, then it never really happened.
In the realm of subjective confirmations, a lightning strike trumps a “burning in the bosom” any day.
HT: Christian Research Council
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See related: Let the idols hit the floor!
Christ Alone Wyoming 