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.
Your sermon of the week is A Passion for God’s Glory by Phil Johnson.
The following is food for thought from a post on Pyromaniacs by Phil Johnson:
. . . in which I (kind of) disagree with Tim Challies
by Phil Johnson
“They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his evil” (Jeremiah 23:14).
was writing something to agree with and embellish a comment left by Gilbert under Frank’s post yesterday, but it got long, and I decided to make this a full post. I’ve got to say this, and I don’t want it buried at the end of a 120+ comment-thread.
First, some background: The venerable Tim Challies set our little corner of the blogosphere abuzz earlier this week with a post on the dangers of “watchblogs.” There’s quite a lot to applaud in what Tim said, but I don’t think he said everything about the subject that needed to be said. As a result, I thought his post was (quite uncharacteristically for Challies, of all people) lacking in balance.
One of the unintended side effects of Tim’s post has been a widespread and sometimes lively discussion about whether PyroManiacs qualifies as a “watchblog” or not. In the midst of one of these conversations, Gilbert (a long-time reader and commenter here, and a skilled meteorologist to boot) came very close to identifying what I see as the key difference between healthy discernment and the obsessive/compulsive peevishness some of our fellow critics seem to think is the mark of real orthodoxy. Gilbert said:
Gilbert: “Without putting words into [Phil Johnson’s] mouth, he’d rather spend his time building up believers and himself in the Word rather than calling people out for damnable heresies that are causing people to drift away from the true faith and send[ing] them to hell.”
Quite right. But let me add this: It needs to be said that “calling people out for damnable heresies that are causing people to drift away from the true faith” is a shepherd’s duty, not an option—and it can be quite edifying if done well.
Your sermon of the week is a three-part series on the controversial issue of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. If you have ever wondered what it is or if you’ve committed it, then this series is for you.
Part 1: The Unpardonable Sin
Part 2: The Blasphemy Against the Spirit
Part 3: A Plea to the Halfhearted
Over the past couple years DefCon has compiled a large cache of sermons available for free to download, and every Thursday we feature a new message for our Sermon of the week. So our repository of over 160 sermons continues to grow. Because of this DefCon now features a Sermons Page at the top of this blog for an easy way to get to the many sermons DefCon features.
Phil Johnson carefully handles the issue of lying in the sermon No Lie is of the Truth. He even tackles the much debated lie of Rahab. This is a good sermon to digest on the whole issue of lying and deception.
Your sermon of the week is Why Do We Believe in God? by Don Green. This is a good message for both Believers and non-believers on the reasons Christians believe in God.
This is a two-part sermon examining the five compelling reasons why we should believe and why no one will have an excuse on the final day of judgment.
Creation
Conscience
Canon
Christ
Conversion
Download both part one and part two below:
Your sermon of the week is Cheap Imitations of Love by Phil Johnson.
Some say lust is “love.” Some say pre-marital fornication is “love.” Still others say not warning people of God’s coming judgment but letting people live however they want–live and let live–is “love.” In this world where everything is subjective and “love” is whatever you want it to be, we must ask, what does the Bible say “love” is?
Phil Johnson takes on this topic and surprisingly delves into the whole perversity of the pulpit problem–that so many pastors today seem to think is acceptable–almost a full year before he delivered this scathing sermon taking on Mark Driscoll and the likes.
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.
Your sermon of the week is Jesus’ Call to Silence by Don Green. This is one of those very important sermons especially for those in apologetics who contend for the faith. Don Green really lays it down as he explains when enough is enough and when we should stop casting our pearls before swine. A must-hear for readers of this blog.
DefCon interrupts our normally scheduled Saturday sermon series Studies in Ephesians to bring you this very important message from Phil Johnson Politically Incorrect: How to Shepherd Your Congregation in an Election. The elections are just a month away and this message should be heard by all Christians.
Phil Johnson hits so many nails on the head in regards to the Christian’s role in the political process that if I didn’t know better I’d think he’d been listening to my conversations over the past year when he prepared this sermon.
This was a message delivered earlier this year to pastors at the 2008 Shepherd’s Conference but every Christian (in leadership or layperson) should hear this message as well.
I’m grateful that Phil Johnson addressed this issue. It’s refreshing to hear someone else saying the same thing I’ve been saying for over a year now. Something that has sadly fallen on so many deaf ears.
Christ Alone Wyoming 