The following five questions for Jehovah’s Witnesses, from a tract sold by Personal Freedom Outreach, is a perfect companion to Paul Washer’s witnessing technique to Jehovah’s Witnesses (found here).
Jesus
Edging even closer to Revelation 13.
My Amillennial friends may not be interested in this, but for the rest of you I thought you’d like to see how much closer we’ve come to Revelation 13.
In his article, Cashless Society: India Implements First Biometric ID Program for all of its 1.2 Billion Residents, Alex Jones writes:
“Over the past few months, I have written several articles dealing with the coming cashless society and the developing technological control grid. I also have written about the surge of government attempts to gain access to and force the use of biometric data for the purposes of identification, tracking, tracing, and surveillance. Unfortunately, the reactions I receive from the general public are almost always the same. While some recognize the danger, most simply deny that governments have the capability or even the desire to create a system in which the population is constantly monitored by virtue of their most private and even biological information. Others, either gripped by apathy or ignorance, cannot believe that the gadgets given to them from the massive tech corporations are designed for anything other than their entertainment and enjoyment.”
Continue reading Jones’ article here.
“And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.”
– Revelation 13:16-18
Walter Martin vs Van Hale debate: “Is Mormonism Christian?”
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Christian apologist Walter Martin takes on Mormon apologist Van Hale in a debate entitled Is Mormonism Christian? It is another fine job by Walter Martin in defending the faith from those who would seek to pervert it.
Years after this debate, Van Hale publicly announced (in 2005) that he cannot accept the Book of Mormon as real history about real people (see here). I’m not sure if his debate with Dr. Martin helped bring him to that point, but it is an interesting piece of history.
You can download all three parts of this debate here:
Is Mormonism Christian? (Part One)
Is Mormonism Christian? (Part Two)
Is Mormonism Christian? (Part Three)
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Check out another great debate between Walter Martin and anti-theist Madalyn Murray O’Hair here.
Atheist hypocrisy (Part 1)
I often hear the lament from anti-theists about Christian hypocrisy as the impetus behind their rejection of God, but rarely is atheist hypocrisy ever mentioned. So let’s look at two glaring hypocrisies of atheism, part one today, and part two coming soon.
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I recall a time a few years ago when I posted a gospel tract on the community bulletin board of a local coffee shop.
Shortly thereafter, as I sat sipping my hot beverage, a woman in her thirties entered the shop and made her way over to the bulletin board. Upon seeing the tract, she quickly removed it and promptly found a table where she sat and thumbed through the little booklet. Her behavior led me to speculate that she was familiar with what she held in her hands, and I watched from a distance.
Then this woman took out a pen and began to write on the tract (both the front and rear covers). This greatly piqued my interest of course, and I continued to observe.
A short while later another woman entered the establishment and approached the table where the first woman sat. The second woman greeted the first and the first woman gleefully showed the second woman the cover of the tract. The second woman gave a smirk while the first had a grin ear to ear. She then promptly returned the tract to the bulletin board.
My party and I left at the same time as the two women did but my curiosity got the best of me so I returned to the bulletin board inside the business and retrieved the tract. And there I read what the woman in all her giddy-like-a-school-girl excitement had written on the tract.
On the front:
“There is no God!”
On the back:
“Shame on God!”
There you have it . . . classic anti-theist hypocrisy: “Shame on the very thing I believe doesn’t exist.”
How can someone say on one hand, “There is no God!” then on the other hand say, “Shame on God!”? That is either blatant hypocrisy or a mild case of schizophrenia.
You can’t claim that someone or something doesn’t exist, then offer an opinion on that someone or something. Let me offer an example.
If I said that the Loch Ness Monster does not exist, but then warned you that you should be careful while swimming in Loch Ness because the Monster might get you, would you not be justified in questioning the truthfulness of my original claim that Nessie doesn’t exist?
So I came to the realization that most self-proclaimed atheists aren’t atheists because they disbelieve the existence of God, but it’s simply because they hate Him. They don’t want to be limited or prohibited in their lifestyle choices, nor be confronted with their sin, so they self-inflict a seared conscience upon themselves.
I would prefer if these professing atheists would be upfront and honest about their beliefs and come to terms with the fact that they simply hate God and His laws, instead of hiding behind a pretentious facade of pseudo-intellectualism in their declaration that the very thing they hate does not exist.
A little honesty and candor is all I’m seeking. Is that too much to ask for?
Sermon of the week: “Audacious Grace” by Akash Sant Singh.
Does God’s lavish, unexplainable grace offend you? Does it bother you that His grace can be extended to a wretch such as a serial killer, or is it only good for you?
I am happy to present another powerful and convicting message by Akash Sant Singh as your sermon of the week: God’s Audacious Grace.
Sermon of the week: “Payday Someday” by R.G. Lee.
Your sermon of the week is an old-fashioned, southern-style preaching experience by R.G. Lee (1886-1978) entitled, Payday Someday.
I can’t think of a better way to begin 2012 than with this powerful sermon given many years ago, the likes of which are hard to find nowadays coming from pulpits across America.
DefCon reaches 2 million visits.
On December 31, 2011, at approximately 10:00 pm (EST), DefCon received its two-millionth hit.
In the four years and four months that this blog has been active, we’ve published 3,768 posts (counting this one) and accumulated 22,220 comments.
I wanted to thank our writers as well as our many loyal readers, some of whom have been with us for years and some of which are newcomers. I am truly grateful for all that the writers and commenters have contributed to this work, and I am thankful that God has allowed us to do this for so long.
Thank you all, and Happy New year.
– Pilgrim
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Many unbelievers have threatened or prophesied the destruction of the Bible. Few people know the names of the skeptics. Everyone knows the names of Moses and Isaiah and Luke and Paul.
–Will Houghton
1887 – 1947
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Does any Christian reader imagine for a moment that when he or she shall stand before their holy Lord, that they will regret having lived “too strictly” on earth? Is there the slightest danger of His reproving any of His own because they were “too extreme” in “abstaining from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11)? We may gain the good will and good works of worldly religionists today, by our compromising on “little points,” but shall we receive His smile and approval on that day? Oh to be more concerned about what He thinks, and less concerned about what perishing mortals think.
– A.W. Pink
1886 – 1952
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We speak with disdain of politicians not limiting their spending to available revenues. But our national debt is an extension of the same irresponsible mentality many of us demonstrate in our own lives. Home mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards all seem normal to us . . . . We drive our bank-financed cars, running on credit card gas, to open a department store charge account so we can fill our savings and loan-funded homes with installment-purchased furniture. We’re living a lie and hocking the future to finance it.
– Randy Alcorn
Saturday sermon series: “The Gospel Demands Radical Abandonment (C)” by David Platt.
We conclude our eight-week series on the radical demands of the gospel by David Platt with the final message, The Gospel Demands Radical Abandonment (C).
To obtain the entire series (or watch the videos of these sermons) visit Disciple Making International.
“The more I studied the more evidence of a cover-up I discovered.”
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post (found here), and as a testament to the legacy of Joseph Smith (who was born 206 years ago today), I wanted to direct your attention to the resignation letter of former LDS stake bishop, Steve Bloor.
Here is an excerpt:
“I didn’t realise for instance that Joseph Smith practised polygamy, and was married to 33 women, most under the age of 20, one as young as 14. That some of Joseph’s wives were already married to other men when he married them; a practice called polyandry. All of these facts can be confirmed by a simple look at the church’s own website, familysearch.org. . . . There are many other issues, like; there are several accounts of the First Vision and Joseph Smith’s initial personal journal entry about the First Vision didn’t include seeing God the Father and Jesus Christ, but an angel. Then over the years the story got embellished till it changed to what we have today. Yet I was told it was the most momentous event to occur in this dispensation. Why didn’t Joseph initially record it correctly? And there are so many other things that have just dissolved my faith to the point I can no longer bear a testimony of the truthfulness of this church or even God. Can you imagine how I now feel? It’s like my whole world is crumbling around me. I no longer know what I believe, or who I can trust. I don’t even know who I am, it is a most frightening experience. At the moment it feels like a death in the family. My death!”
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The Puritan/Presbyterian wing of the Reformation accomplished a purity in worship not seen since the apostolic church. This purity was attained by making the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments the only infallible standard and authority in determining worship ordinances. Any ordinances solely based on church tradition or man’s authority were discarded. However, this purity attained by our spiritual forefathers has, with the passage of time, been cast aside. Pragmatism, tradition and human opinion are exalted in determining how God’s people are to worship Him. The attitude among many in church leadership positions is to give the people what they want, rather than to submit to God’s divine revelation. . . . . God has set down in Scripture how He is to be worshiped. Man is not to add to or detract from what God says. . . . .
“If the [Mormon] church is not true would I want to know?”
Steve Bloor penned a letter to his congregation after resigning from his position as Bishop in his LDS stake.
What he did took much courage and I commend him for not only being willing to investigate his organization’s history, but also for acting upon what he discovered and not putting the problems of Mormonism on the proverbial Mormon shelf.
Here’s an excerpt from his letter:
I realise this will shock you. It has truly shocked me how quickly a testimony of the Church can unravel when Joseph Smith’s divine calling as God’s prophet is undermined by learning the truth about him.
I have come to believe over the last month that there are so many inconsistencies and problems with the historicity of the Book of Mormon, as well as the divinity of Joseph Smith’s calling as prophet, that I can no longer, in good faith, fulfill my calling as Bishop of Helston Ward.
You can read his entire letter here.
Sermon of the week: “How to Recognize True Repentance” by Don Green.
It has been awhile (too long) since DefCon last featured Don Green, but now we break that drought with today’s sermon of the week, How to Recognize True Repentance.
Here is an excerpt from this sermon:
“I fear that the strong opposition that you see in the Christian church sometimes to the opposition of society’s sins comes at the expense of real personal concern about our own sins, and that needs to be said. Jesus isn’t calling you to mourn over someone else’s sin, He’s calling you to mourn over your sin.”
I have really benefited from Don Green’s teaching over the years and am happy to feature him again.
Thabiti Anyabwile on multi-site churches.
Something for you to consider (and discuss) from the article, Multi-Site Churches Are from the Devil:
“. . . I think the kind of multi-site churches (realizing there are a few different approaches) that feature one pastor being beamed into several sites around a region—and in some cases around the country or world—is simply idolatry. It’s certainly cult of personality multiplied and digitized for a consumer audience. As a brilliant young man remarked to me this morning, ‘The pastor now becomes the new icon in the midst of the Protestant worship service.’ I think that’s well said. Video multi-site tends to idolatry, pride, and self-promotion—even where the ambition of spreading the gospel is genuine.”
Read the entire article from Thabiti Anyabwile here.
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. . . [W]e must restore to the family the responsibility of ministering to youth. In many churches–but by no means all–the purpose of the youth group is founded on premises that are an impediment to the training of godly children. Some of these false premises are: 1) That young people need a place where their problems are understood–where others of the same age share the same struggles; 2) that as it is often difficult for parents to communicate with and understand their teenagers, a youth leader who can identify with the young people is needed; 3) that it is important for young people to have fun and to see that “church people” have fun too; 4) that a youth group is needed to reach unsaved youth, and by getting them involved in fun activities, they will be more receptive to the presentation of the gospel.
Following the trends of secular culture, age-segregated groups have been established in church educational programs. Christopher Schlect, in his book Critique of Modern Youth Ministry, explains that the “divisions breed immaturity because they hinder younger people from associating with and learning from their elders.” The group can become the source of authority, thus diminishing the authority of the father and mother.
– William & Colleen Dedrick
From: The Little Book of Christian Character & Manners
Book recommendation: “The Giant Killer” by A.L.O.E.
I recently finished reading an intriguing story by ALOE (A Lady Of England) to my children entitled, The Giant Killer (1856).
This allegorical tale (told in a fashion similar to Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress) is about a noble knight named Fides who battles giant sins such as Giant Untruth, Giant Hate, and Giant Pride. Reading this to my children gave us much to talk about and helped them understand the battles with sin that we all face.
Lamplighter Publishing describes the book as follows:
The battle continues to rage, day by day and moment by moment. But must we meet the enemy blindfolded? In order to subdue, we must see the real foe; in order to conquer, we must face the true enemy. Through this allegorical tale, we will be better equipped to recognize, then to effectively slay, the many Giants who confront us. We will break through the web of Sloth, struggle out of the pit of Selfishness, choke up the fount of Anger, flee the secret lurking-place of Untruth, and triumph over our most malicious enemy—Pride. The Giant Killer is the tool to reach for if you or your loved ones need encouragement or confidence to enter into the battlefield once again. If you feel that you have nothing firm upon which to lay hold, this book will help you to grasp the strong cord of Love as your means of safety and deliverance.
And here is a reader’s review:
Another wonderful book from Lamplighter Publishing, The Giant Killer is an allegorical story of Christian warfare. Constantine and Adolphus, twin brothers, are sent to live with the Roby family to have Mr. Roby educate them. The spoiled 10-year-olds have much to learn about kindness, thankfulness, and manners. Mrs. Roby teaches these children and her own about godly character traits through stories about “The Giant Killer.” The Giant Killer must fight and conquer the Giants of Sloth, Selfishness, Untruth, Hate and Pride with the sword and armor given to him by his King. Your children will learn as these fictional children did to fight the enemies of the King that are in their own hearts.
Although this is not the best Lamplighter book I’ve ever read (The Basket of Flowers still holds the position of number one for me), it is still a good book that I recommend, and espeically for Christian parents to read to their children.
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. . . [M]any go away from the “altar [call],” told that they are now Christians, knowing that they are not changed one bit. As a result, their unbelief may harden into skepticism toward anything Christian.
R. L. Dabney notes:
“They feel that a cruel trick has been played upon their inexperience by the ministers and friends of Christianity in thus thrusting them, in the hour of their confusion, into false positions…. How natural to conclude that those [experiences of conversion] of all others are delusions also? They say: ‘The only difference between myself and these earnest Christians is that they have not yet detected the cheat as I have.'”
The extension of an appeal for public decision may result in a purely psychological response that provides a catharsis for the emotional pressure of the sermon. Such persons falsely assume that their action has made them right with God. In others, it may drive them further into skepticism and doubt about the reality of the conversion of anyone. Such dangers ought to alarm every person sincerely concerned about the salvation of lost souls.
Modern family.
A sobering examination into what the technology age has wrought on our families in this article from the New York Times.
Excerpt:
Sometimes they hold hands while looking at their screens. But failing that, the couple has developed a form of physical shorthand, an “ ‘I’m still here’ signal” in which “one of us will tap the other one a couple of times with an index finger.”
Christ Alone Wyoming 