Jesus

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Wake Up Church!

Have you been watching the news this week? If you have, like the rest of us, you are probably aghast at the sight of American embassies in the Middle East overrun by Muslims and our ambassadors being hurt or killed. And, like the rest of us, you may be wondering why on Earth our government isn’t doing something about it. You might be wondering how our government, or the media, or people in general, can be so blind to the fact that Islam is in fact a religion of subjugation and violence, and how they can pretend it is not what we see being played out in front of the cameras on the evening news. You might just see this as the reason you need to get far more politically involved than ever before, because, after all, if this administration cannot see the threat, then it is time for someone else to take the reigns, right? Yeah, I imagine a lot of people are thinking that right now.

But, if you are a Christian, I have to ask you a serious question, one that might make you a little uncomfortable. If you see Islam as a threat, if you see the danger that a satanic religion represents, if you see the harm it has caused to so many people, what are you doing about it? I’m not talking about taking up arms here. I’m not talking about some sort of militant activism either. And yes, I recognize there are hundreds, and thousands of muslims who have never so much as looked cross eyed at another person. I recognize there are many who would never even dream of committing acts of physical violence, so please do not misconstrue what I am saying here. I’m talking about what are you doing about the lost souls who bow to Mecca five times a day trying with all their might to please Allah. What are you doing to break them out of the works based, man centered religion that drives them to these acts. If you recognize that this religion, which is at the heart of so many problems in the Middle East, is truly a false and dangerous religion, what are you doing to change it?

Let me put it another way. When you go to church this week, why will you go? To be built up and strengthened so you may go forth and preach the gospel? Or will you go to be entertained and have your self esteem boosted? Will you walk out of church so in love with the Savior that you cannot help but to preach the gospel? Or will you walk out happy that God has made your life so comfortable? See, the point of church is not to make us feel better about ourselves and our lives. It is to make us love Jesus all the more and to drive us into the world, into spiritual battle, so that we might take the gospel to the ends of the earth. However, I fear that a great many people who attend church this Sunday might go there shaking their heads about the terrible things that have happened this week, but will come out feeling so nice and comfy about how much God has a wonderful plan for their lives. It will not even cross their minds that God has commanded them to preach the gospel, and that the answer to the violence in the Middle East is not in governments, political sanctions or military actions, it is in that very gospel they are commanded to preach!

The violence and tragedy in the Middle East this week needs to be a wake up call, not so much for the government, but for the church. For far too long, we have sat by and watched as church growth programs, self esteem seminars and entertainment industries have corrupted the church. We have been too satisfied to see the undershepherds who have been called to equip us for battle lay down that duty to entertain and amuse us. Yes, numbers in the churches grew, but those numbers represented nothing more than false converts because they never once heard the call to repent of their self centered sinfulness and cling to the cross seeking the mercy of the Savior. Church, we must repent of this! We have been commanded by our Savior to preach His gospel unto every nation! And can there be any further evidence that this world needs the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ than what we are seeing happen right now?

Those in the Middle East who have perpetrated these atrocities are sinners like you and me! They need Jesus Christ to wash away their sinfulness through His shed blood alone! They are trapped in a works righteous religion that calls them to appease their “god” through works, through man centered efforts, which will never atone for their sin. If we want see change in the Middle East, it can ONLY come through the gospel! It is the only thing which can change the heart of wicked and sinful man. No government plan, no sanction, no political overhaul can change man’s heart, only the power of the Holy Spirit can accomplish that. And God has ordained that it is through His gospel message that it will be accomplished.

Christians, wake up! When you go to church this Sunday, don’t be satisfied to sit back and be entertained. Weep over sin, starting first with your own. Glorify God that He sent His Son to die for sinners and to save them from the fires of Hell. And then be moved to preach the gospel in every way possible. Obviously, not all of us are called to be foreign missionaries, but maybe God has equipped you to support them. Maybe you can even start your own ministry here in America that will send missionaries over seas. You can even be a missionary here in your own hometown. Start preaching the gospel now, where you live. Share it with someone today. Let the turmoil in our world be the wake up call that makes you realize that God has called you to share the only thing that can change the hearts of men. The only thing that can bring them out of the treadmill of work righteousness. The only thing that can bring them from death to life. Preach the gospel today!

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Will You Support the Proclamation of the Gospel?

20120911-202149.jpg “Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.” (3 John 1:5-8 ESV)

Anyone who has read my articles knows that I consider the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ of paramount importance. In the American evangelical church, there are literally thousands of ideas that are promoted for church growth, very few of them are biblical. In fact, the one truly biblical church growth method – prayer, bible study, preaching the gospel and trusting solely in the work of the Holy Spirit – is often, if not almost exclusively, ignored in the modern church. We have covered a lot pragmatic, seeker sensitive, unbiblical efforts leveled at “church growth” here on Defending Contending, and why those efforts are not actual evangelism, so I will not belabor the point here. What I really want to talk about today are those dedicated evangelists here in America who are giving their all to preach the gospel to everyone they meet.

So often, we get so tied up in identifying the false teachers and heretical teachings that we can sometimes feel like Elijah, thinking that we are the only ones left who truly worship God. Then God reveals that he has a remnant of brethren who have not bowed the knee at the altar of the modern evangelical gospel. And when He has done so, I believe it is a good thing for us to dwell on what God has accomplished through these brethren, to be encouraged by the work they have done and to partner with them in the proclamation of the gospel.

Most often when we think of partnering and support those preaching in the field, we think of foreign missions. And trust me when I say those those ministries sorely need the financial assistance and prayers that Christians regularly provide. But there are also missionaries in our own backyards. Brethren who have committed the entirety of their lives to the daily preaching of the gospel here on the streets of America. They have left the American dream of making their livelihood and wealth in the daily grind of business and entrusted the entirety of their existence to God through His provision so that they might daily preach the gospel any and everywhere they go. And these are not brethren who are out in the field, “Lone Ranger” style, who are accountable only to themselves. I am speaking of committed brethren who are under the authority of their local churches, ready and willing to be held accountable for all they say and do in the name of the Lord. It is my hope and desire that by highlighting just a few of these ministries that the readers of this blog might considering partnering with them, just as John spoke of in the passage above.

Tony Miano is a committed evangelist, a mentor and a dear friend. Some might think I am playing favorites by mentioning him in this article, but trust me I am not. I truly believe that his daily efforts to preach the gospel in California are a direct result of his deep commitment to the Lord and his intense desire to see the lost come to repentance and faith. From 2008 to mid-2012, Tony served as Living Waters’ Director of the Ambassadors’Alliance, as well as the Director of Conferences and Special Projects. Tony’s service with Living Waters included the supervision of 20 Ambassador’s Academies (the ministry’s 3 1/2-day evangelism training program), conferences, State Representative system, and large-scale evangelism projects. Tony also wrote and co-hosted almost 400 episodes of Living Waters’ live, web-based program, “On the Box, with Ray Comfort.” Tony is the author of the book, “Take Up The Shield” (Genesis Publishing Group, 2005). Further information on him can be found at www.tmiano.com.

Bobby McCreery is a fellow graduate of the Living Waters based training program, the Ambassadors Academy. Around October 2008, Bobby was going through the motions of “church” when God shocked him by calling to go on a mission trip to Bolivia. He wondered why God would send him anywhere for His name when he was living the life of a hypocrite. By God’s providence, the mission team leader used a training method for the team that was not endorsed by the church. The Way of the Master training and teachings such as “True and False Conversion” were used by God to reveal to Bobby that he was unrepentant and hell bound, living in a perpetual state of sin. In January 2009, just days before leaving for Bolivia, God granted him the gift of repentance and faith in Christ alone. Bobby is also grateful to God for the mentoring he has received from experienced evangelists in the Atlanta area. Bobby is the veteran of three Super Bowl Outreaches, including two as a team leader and speaker. He is the founder of To the End of the Earth ministries and left his secular job to respond to the Lord’s call to full-time evangelism in January 2011. Further information on Bobby and his ministry can be found at www.totheendoftheearth.org.

Mike Stockwell and Robert Gray are full time evangelists and the founders of Cross Country Evangelism. Mike originally began the ministry after he felt the call of God to begin preaching the gospel full time. He literally packed his belongings in a car and drove from one state to the next, assisted by fellow evangelists who opened their home to him. Today, Mike and Robert are committed to sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with people throughout America, Europe, Jamaica and wherever the Lord leads. Open air preaching and one to one conversations are the means by which Mike and Robert proclaim and explain salvation through Christ. Their ministry efforts can located at www.crosscountryevangelism.com.

These are but a few ministries manned by committed brethren who desire nothing more than to preach the gospel to the lost and to bring glory to their Lord and Savior. All I ask is that our readers look into these ministries and prayerfully consider if, and how, they might partner with them. Please understand, none of these ministries has asked Defending Contending for help. This is not an article written at their request. This is a plea from one meager blogger and evangelist to my readers to consider how they might help local ministries preach the gospel to the lost in our own nation. I am not asking you to give out of what you do not have, nor am I asking you to “sow a seed in faith.” I am only asking you as John did to his readers, to see how God might use you with these ministries to further the proclamation of the gospel. Thanks much for your time and patience with me in reading this. May God bless you and may His gospel continued to be preached till He returns.

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Burning Man Reminds Us to Preach the Gospel

This week marks the pagan festival held in northern Nevada known as “Burning Man.” For those who may not be familiar with this local event, literally thousands of people from all around the country will descend upon the Black Rock Desert a couple hours north of Reno. They will camp out in RV’s and tents, they will bring assorted foods, music and the like. But this is no ordinary camp out. It is a festival in which every individual’s personal belief system is put on full display. Literally, from the most basic camp out to full on pagan worship, a small society of ultra post-modernity sets itself up for a full week of personal celebration and worship of whatever you choose. The event culminates in the burning of a wooden statue where everybody congregates and celebrates this most sacred event.

However, it is not the debauched, pagan style celebratory worship that drives me to write this article, well, not entirely anyway. As I said, the Burning Man festival is literally the hallmark event of post modernism. Virtually every lifestyle choice and belief system is represented at this gathering. And were you to ask those attending how they felt about the competing beliefs being in all in the same place, they would tell you how wonderful it is to have such a non-judgmental environment where everyone could live as they chose without fear of being told they were wrong. In other words, Burning Man is the utopia of post-modernism. And post-modernism IS the religion of the United States. Those who promote this religion would be overjoyed to see the Burning Man mentality exist in every corner of our society.

My motivation here is not to bemoan the leftist, elitist mindset that drives post-modernism. Rather it is to challenge every single Christian with this thought: how did Burning Man become the Mecca of American “religion” while the Church is viewed as its “anti-christ?” The answer is, I believe, is this, we have faltered in Christ’s command to go forth and preach the gospel to every creature. Remember when we first understood that we were vile wretches that were at war with God through our wicked works. How we realized that in His just punishment, God would rightly send us to Hell. Yet God, in His mercy, pulled us from the fire and punished His Son Jesus Christ at the cross in our place! His shed blood covered our sins and His resurrection paved the path to Heaven for us. Through repentance and faith alone, both merciful gifts from our gracious Father, we received the amazing salvation that promises us eternity with Him! And then Christ commanded us to take the story of that salvation and to preach it to everyone we came in contact with. And what a blessing it would be to share it! To lead the lost, blind and dying to the very salvation they didn’t even know they needed!

Somewhere along the way, we stopped obeying that command. Where we once would not have thought twice about sharing this glorious message with anyone, we reigned back, we slowed down and we gave in. We stopped preaching the hard truth that the law brings condemnation, that it reveals we are not good people and that we deserve Hell. We started saying “God has a wonderful plan for your life,” or we decided we would just allow people to “see Jesus in us.” In doing so, we have exchanged the amazing gospel of Christ, a gospel that should cost us everything to follow, for cheap grace and easy believism! We have become content that evangelism is a spiritual gift for only some and not a command for all. As a result, the culture has plunged head long into the morass of sin and debauchery, into false “religiosity” and personal fulfillment. All the while, we have stood by with the very words of life that can rescue these perishing masses, yet failed to heed the call of our Captain into action.

It is altogether possible that, as you are reading this, you have dismissed my conclusion. If so, consider this, statistics tell us that merely 1% to 2% of professing Christians go out of their way to deliberately share the gospel with someone. That is a very telling number, even if one were to believe the polls which report the high percentages of “Christians” in the United States. In truth, it is likely many of those polled are more cultural Christians than truly bathed in the blood of Christ, born again of the Spirit believers. So that 1% to 2% gets even smaller, which means that a very scant number of truly born again Christian are out there carrying the weight of the command that the entire church is responsible to obey. With these small numbers acting as the evangelistic force for the church, is it that hard to imagine why the church holds so little influence in our culture today?

Yet, there are Christians who would insist that they are very evangelistic. They would point the numbers of people they have invited to church regularly to hear the preaching of the gospel by their pastor. While it is good to bring unsaved friends and loved ones to church, we must understand, this is not evangelism. It is the abdicating of one’s personal responsibility to seek out the lost and share the life giving elixir that is the gospel. Local churches are the place where the saved come together in corporate worship. They are led by the pastor in prayer and praise. They are edified and equipped under his teaching so that they may go out and do spiritual warfare in the world. To leave our responsibility to be proclaimers of the gospel solely to the pastor changes the very nature of the church gathering from corporate worship and edification to seeker friendlyism which sacrifices the content of the word for entertainment to keep the unsaved coming.

But one may point to something that is overtly evangelistic, such as their involvement in the large christian outreaches that gather untold thousands of lost and unregenerate people in one place to hear the gospel. While it is wonderful to see the efforts of so many people to brig the gospel to the world, in many cases, it is simply a repeat of bringing someone to church. Rather than going out into the world preaching the gospel, Christians invite the lost into one place where they will hear preaching by a few, or maybe even just one preacher. The energy and effort put into this gathering is all about getting the people there to hear someone else preach the message. I’m not discounting the genuine desire, and even countless hours of prayer, that Christians pour into this. But in the end, we abdicate the responsibility to someone else. And in truth, many of these events become big seeker friendly attractions where big bands, light shows and celebrity Christians attempt to woo the unsaved to making a “decision for Christ.” But when we look at the statistics, most of those people who make professions of faith never get plugged into a local church. They run around with a “Christian-buzz” for a while, but before long, they prove themselves to be rocky ground with no depth, or a plant choked out by the weeds. In other words, a false convert. One who left us, because he or she never really was of us.

Or maybe those in the church really do desire to get out on the streets to interact with people. So they set up food drives, or head out to feed and clothe the homeless. They hope to show those who are in desperate situations that they are loved by the Church. A noble effort to be sure, but more often than not, it is devoid of the preaching of the gospel. Those they help may be aware of a physical, temporal love in the here and now, but they are rarely, if ever, told that they more desperately need peace with God through Jesus Christ, because their sinful deeds are causing them to be at war with Him.

That’s how post modernism and events like Burning Man are the hallmark of excellence in our society, because Christians have faltered in preaching that amazing grace that saved us from the depths of Hell. I say this because if we remembered that beautiful gospel daily, how could we not go running into the streets to preach it to everyone? How could we ever claim evangelism is not our “gift” when it is a command from our Savior? How could abdicate our responsibility to preach the entirety of the gospel and give a wishy-washy “God has a wonderful plan for your life” message? I can say we have faltered because the fruit of it is as apparent as the false worshippers running to the desert grounds of northern Nevada to worship as they please with no fear of ever being told they are wrong!

I am not saying that the efforts I described above should never, ever happen. If even one soul is saved because they were invited to church or an evangelistic out reach, praise God. If one person comes to Christ because he or she understood that the love of Christ compelled a Christian to reach out and help them, His name is glorified! What I am saying is that by and large, most Christians are either not engaging in the command to evangelize, or are trusting in efforts solely like these to abdicate their responsibility to do so. And because of this, more and more souls are being lost to the culture’s tolerant, post-modern ideas.

Christians, we need to wake up and realize our Captain is commanding us to action! We need to repent of our sin of failing to preach the gospel and seek His forgiveness. We must equip ourselves with the word of God and bend our knees in prayer. We must go out into the highways and byways preaching the truth that salvation is in Christ alone, through repentance and faith alone! We must do so at all costs, even if it means losing relationships, positions at work, or even one day, our freedom. For lives are lost everyday to the pits of Hell! Let us be about our Father’s business, let us preach the truth and let us point people not to a “Burning Man” made of wood, but to the God Man who was and is and is to come! Let us call them to Christ alone!

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Old Mormon vs New Mormon.

I created these videos and posted them on DefCon back in September of 2010. Since then, we’ve received many new readers to the blog that may have missed them. So I’ve decided to dust them off and re-post them here so that our new readers can see what happens when a 19th century Mormon meets a 21st century Mormon.

Enjoy!

Celestial Marriage

The Missouri Prophecies

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Free cult flyer and gospel tract download.

Back in 2008, I made a cult flyer/gospel tract combo available to the readers of this blog to download for free. Since then, this flyer/tract combo has undergone refinement and is now in its fifth printing.

This flyer/tract combo was drafted as a way to inform the public about the truths of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons, and to provide them with the true gospel of Jesus Christ. It was originally designed to hang on doorknobs in the area where I live and was in response to the constant canvasing of neighborhoods by these two cults. But since its inception, this flyer/tract combo has also found its way into the hands of numerous people throughout America and has even found its way to the shores of Africa (with another box full currently en route to Liberia as I write this).

The cult flyer is a single tri-fold (printed on the front and back). The tract comes three to a page (printed on the front and back). Each tract fits nicely inside the cult flyer as an insert.

Please feel free to download, print, and make as many copies of each of these items as you wish to distribute as you see fit. You can even put your church name, website, or other personal information on them to help in your evangelistic contacts if you so desire.

The Great Exchange

Who’s Really Knocking at Your Door?

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Losing a child (at any age) is never easy.

The following excerpt is from a blog called 1st Timothy 4:12.

I sincerely hope it is a help and an encouragement to those who have gone (or are currently going) through such a loss.

“No matter whether you have known about the baby only for a day, or if he or she has been born and is a beautiful, mischievous toddler or even older, losing a child is one of the hardest and most heartbreaking experiences for someone to go through. It is one of the experiences that feels most fundamentally unfair in this world. It is like having a piece of your heart ripped out, leaving a hole that will never be filled. For a woman to find out she is pregnant, whether the baby is “wanted” or not, is a huge emotional roller coaster. To suddenly have that taken away, to have only that emptiness where a child once lived, is something no woman can ever forget. You might say ‘who are you to say what it feels like to lose a child? What could you possibly know?’ I don’t pretend to know what it feels like to lose a newborn, a toddler or a teen. I don’t even say I know what it feels like to lose a baby later on in pregnancy. But I do know what it feels like to see those two little pink lines on a pregnancy test, then to see them disappear and soon later to know without a shadow of a doubt that the baby no longer lives.”

You can read the entire article here here.

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Tony Miano’s “Cross Encounters” is now on Blog Talk Radio

The confused looking man in the picture is your’s truly as I maintained the call screen switchboard for Tony Miano’s new Internet radio program, “Cross Encounters.” We have written about Mr. Miano, who authors a blog by the same “Cross Encounters” name, previously on this site, and I must say it is an honor and a privilege to work with him on this new endeavor.

I met Tony three years ago via Living Waters evangelism training program. We had previously talked online due to my seeking him out because of our mutual backgrounds and my desire to learn a truly biblical presentation of the gospel. Tony was instrumental in bringing me to the Ambassadors’ Academy, a three day intensive training program for street evangelists. And while that program is no longer in operation, many street evangelists can thank Tony Miano directly for his passion, his determination and his devotion to biblical evangelism which he has passed on to them. I count myself blessed to consider him a mentor and friend.

Recently, due to the poor economic times, Living Waters had to lay off several employees and Tony was one of those among them. While this was truly sad for all involved, Tony has not ceased his efforts to continue preaching the gospel and encouraging others to do the same. By God’s grace, Tony was able to be part of an evangelism effort in London during the Olympic Games, from which he just recently returned. Additionally, he has started an internet radio program called “Cross Encounters,” of which he says, “Cross Encounters Radio will air every Sunday evening, 6-8 PM (PST). The show will focus on the glorification of Christ and the proclamation of His gospel. We will tackle current events and ongoing social issues through the lens of a Christian worldview. We will have guests on the program: authors, bloggers, apologists, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and whoever else we think would help Christians to grow in their love for Christ and the knowledge of His Word. We won’t shy away from hot-button topics, whether they are social or theological. And false teachers will not find our program a safe place to hide. We won’t allow any elephants in the room.”

I was humbled and blessed, and a bit shocked, when Tony extended an invite (more like a very less than subtle hint) for me to join him as the official “sidekick” on this program. After about 5 seconds of thought (can you tell this was a difficult decision) I enthusiastically accepted. As I was not near my house when this happened, there was a bit of logistics involved (part of which involved borrowing my dad’s office for two hours). Additionally, I had to learn the switchboard so I could screen calls and monitor the chat room. Thankfully, Blog Talk Radio makes these fairly user friendly!

During our first program, Tony and fellow evangelist, Bobby McCreery, discussed the recent Olympics outreach, they played audio clips in which they talked with YWAM members in London who were not preaching a true gospel message, as well as one of Tony’s open air messages, and took calls from listeners. We had over two hundred listeners for our first program and are thrilled at some of the responses. I encourage you to listen in live, or even download the weekly podcasts to listen to and share. Please help us to make this program a blessing to the Lord and to reach people with the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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How to stagnate the church: A dictator’s manual.

Dear atheistic, communistic dictator: Having trouble with that dastardly underground church spreading like wild fire?

No matter how much you seize, imprison, torture, and execute those Christians, the church still keeps flourishing?

Christians getting in the way of your nation’s “progressive” progress?

Looking for a way to stamp out the spread of Christianity in your Orwellian utopia?

Well look no further than this blog post. That’s right. In this post I will show you in just two easy steps how to limit the spread of the church in your country in one generation so you can continue to build your effervescent dystopian society unhindered.

But, dear dictator, it is essential that you first understand two things before we proceed: 

Firstly, up to this point you’ve been doing it all wrong.  The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church and history has proven that persecution only grows the church. 

Secondly, God’s ultimate sovereign will and His predetermined plans will never be thwarted by any man, including you . . . with all due respect of course, dearest comrade.

If you can resign yourself to the fact that your current approach has been ineffective, and that you will never completely stamp out Christianity, then you’re ready to follow the two easy steps outlined below to begin stagnating the spread of the church in your country.

Let’s begin.

STEP ONE:

You must legalize freedom of religion. I know, I know, this sounds counter intuitive, but trust me on this.

Combined with step two, legalizing freedom of religion will ensure that the tares will greatly increase among the wheat since there’s no longer a sacrifice associated with “becoming a Christian.” Once the tares begin to outnumber the wheat, you will know that success (achieved without a single shot fired) is just around the corner.

STEP TWO:

In conjunction with step one, open up Christian bookstores in every city and flood the market with two waves of books. In the first wave push books by the likes of Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, Robert Schuller, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, and Beth Moore to skew their concept of what Christianity is. Simultaneously make available to them such television channels as TBN to tell them that God’s greatest desire for them is to be healthy and wealthy and that anything less means they are lacking in faith.

After the masses have consumed and adapted to a positive, self-help version of the gospel, then hit them with the second wave of book by the likes of Rob Bell, Dallas Willard, Doug Pagitt, Jay Bakker, and similar Emergents to encourage them to doubt everything the Bible says (or at least doubt what the Bible says about the sins they like to continue engaging in).

Allow Christian radio stations to function uninhibited. Encourage stations to fill the airwaves with their sugary, Jesus-is-my-boyfriend, contemporary, Christian pop music along with all the “positive and encouraging” Bible verses to boot (avoiding verses like Psalm 5:5, Psalm 11:5, Matthew 7:21-23, and Hebrews 10:31), offering contests to win theme park tickets, movie theater tickets, concert tickets, backstage passes, autographed CDs, day spa visits, and cruises, cruises, cruises.

All of this will drive these Christians to seek after increased comfort and greater self-preservation over and above everything else. This “laying down of one’s cross” to seek after comfort, security, and prosperity, of course, is the very opposite of what the Christian should be doing and is the antithesis of a “revolutionary.” A revolutionary, need I remind you, is one who would be willing to sacrifice everything to overthrow an oppressive government such as yours. The less revolutionaries there are, the greater your chance of retaining your power becomes.

Remember, your goal is not to make these people irreligious, because that simply doesn’t work (which is, after all, why you’re reading this). No, your goal is to inoculate them to the true gospel of Jesus Christ, the only religious faith that truly poses an ideological threat to your fragile utopia.

If you properly followed the above steps, then your subjects will not only have moved from the true gospel to a false one, but they’ll even reject the true gospel and not even be able to recognize it when it’s presented to them. This biblical ignorance will certainly spread like a cancer and be passed on to the next generation, ensuring your safety and security from an uprising or revolution for many years to come. 

Left to human nature, men will inevitably take the path of least resistance. No dying to self and carrying a cross for them, only happiness, security, prosperity, and ease. And once on the hook, they will then follow whoever promises to continue to provide those comforts, even if they follow that leader to the gallows he has prepared for them.

Do you still doubt that my two-step plan will work? Do you still desire proof of its effectiveness? Then I need only to direct you to where this two-step process has been implemented already as proof that this works every time it’s tried: Look no further than the churches in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

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Help and encouragement for those with critical spirits.

Below are links to parts one and two of Teri Maxwell’s article on how we can so easily become negative and critical, the ramifications of being negative and critical, and how we can overcome being negative and critical.

I highly recommend these two articles, and especially part two for parents.

Part One: Are you normally a positive or negative person?

Part Two: How to overcome a critical spirit.

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Sermon of the Week: Retracted

In the desire to keep Christ the center of what we do here at DefCon, the Sermon of the week has been retracted by the Author due to concerns regarding the character of the man who preached it.

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James Boice on Election.

So many people think that election is useless and perhaps even pernicious. It is nothing of the sort. It is part of the Bible’s inspired teaching and is therefore “useful,” as Paul insisted all Scripture is (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Here’s a look at ways election impacts things like evangelism and worship:

1. Election is humbling. Those who do not understand election often suppose the opposite, and it is true that those who believe in election sometimes appear prideful or smug. But this is an aberration. God tells us that he has chosen some by grace entirely apart from merit or even an ability to receive grace, precisely so that pride will be eliminated: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–not by works, so that no one can boast”(Eph. 2:8-9).

2. Election encourages our love for God. If we have a part in salvation, however small, then our love for God is diminished by just that amount. If it is all of God, then our love for him must be boundless. Sadly, today’s church frequently takes the love of God for granted. “Of course, God loves me,” we say. “I love myself; why shouldn’t God love me too?” Consider the little girl who loved the Barney theme song from television (“I love you, you love me; we’re a happy family”). But she sang it this way: “I love me, you love me; we’re a happy family.” That is how we tend to think of God’s love. We think we deserve it. Understanding that we are elected by grace alone undermines our self-centered, self-satisfied way of thinking.

3. Election will enrich our worship. Who can admire a God who is frustrated by the rebellious will of human beings? Martin Luther wrote, “It is not irreligious, idle, or superfluous, but in the highest degree wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know whether or not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation…. For if I am ignorant of the nature, extent and limits of what I can and must do with reference to God, I shall be equally ignorant and uncertain of the nature, extent and limits of what God can and will do in me–though God, in fact, works all in all. Now, if I am ignorant of God’s works and power, I am ignorant of God himself; and if I do not know God, I cannot worship, praise, give thanks, or serve Him, for I do not know how much I should attribute to myself and how much to Him. We need, therefore, to have in mind a clear-cut distinction between God’s power and ours, and God’s work and ours, if we would live a godly life.”

4. Election encourages us in our evangelism. People suppose that if God is going to save certain individuals, then he will save them, and there is no point in our having anything to do with it. But it does not work that way. Election does not exclude the use of the means by which God works, and the proclamation of the gospel is one of those means (1 Cor. 1:21).

Moreover, it is only the truth of election that gives us any hope of success as we proclaim the gospel to unsaved men and women. If the heart of a sinner is as opposed to God as the Bible declares it to be, and if God does not elect people to salvation, then what hope of success could we possibly have in witnessing? If God does not call sinners to Christ effectively, it is certain that we cannot do so either. Even more, if the effective agent in salvation is not God’s choice and call–if the choice is up to the individual or to us, because of our powers to persuade others to accept Christ–how could we even dare to witness? For what if we make a mistake? What if we give a wrong answer? What if we are insensitive to the person’s real questions? In that case, people will fail to believe. They may eventually go to hell, and their eternal destiny will be partly our fault, and how could any thinking, feeling Christian live with that?

But on the other hand, if God has elected some to salvation and if he is calling those elected individuals to Christ, then we can go forth boldly, knowing that our witness does not have to be perfect, that God uses even weak and stuttering testimonies to his grace and, best of all, that all whom God has chosen for salvation will be saved. We can be fearless, knowing that all who are called by God will come to him.

HT: Old Truth
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Quotes (943)

There will be no deception at the last day. The unerring eye of God will discern who are His own people, and who are not. Nothing but true faith shall abide the fire of His judgment. All spurious Christianity shall be weighed in the balance and found lacking. None but true believers shall sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb. It shall avail the hypocrite nothing that he has been a loud talker about religion, and had the reputation of being an eminent Christian among men. His triumphing shall be but for a moment. He shall be stripped of all his borrowed plumage, and stand naked and shivering before the bar of God, speechless, self-condemned, hopeless, and helpless. He shall be cast into outer darkness with shame, and reap according as he has sown. 

– J. C. Ryle

1816 – 1900

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Quotes (942)

How is it that the Gospel can move one man to wade through an army of opposition to publicly identify with Christ in a deadly winter baptism, and yet in another man who confesses the same Gospel, it has no power to make even the most insignificant changes in his life? When will the church in the West regain the fundamental biblical truth that faith is evidenced by works; that a tree is known by its fruit; and that not everyone who confesses ‘Lord, Lord’ in the comfortable confines of Western evangelicalism will enter the kingdom of heaven?

– Paul Washer

HT: Saved by Grace

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Book recommendation: “Escape from the World Trade Center” by Leslie Haskin.

I fully understand that this will be a very controversial post (perhaps the most controversial post in DefCon’s history) and I’ve even been reluctant to post it (opting to leave it sitting in pending drafts for quite awhile). But even if it causes some to cease their readership of this blog, the truth needs to be told.

For almost a year now I’ve been revisiting the events of 9/11/01, without prejudice or preconceived notions, and I have come away shocked with what I have discovered. The more I look into the events of that day the more I am convinced that we have not been told everything about what occurred on that September morning almost eleven years ago.

So when this short book written by  professing Christian Leslie Haskin (detailing her escape from one of the three WTC towers that fell on September 11, 2001) became available for free on Kindle (from the longer book Between Heaven and Ground Zero), I download it. I was curious to read a survivor’s account of that day to see if it corroborated more with the government’s official version of the events of that day, or instead, with that of the mounting evidence pointing to a conspiracy of the magnitude never before seen in this country.

In this book, Haskin tells of her upbringing in a Christian home, her eventual turning from the faith, and how the events of September 11, 2001 brought her back to her faith in God. Haskin has written a few other books and she’s been a guest speaker around the country (and has even appeared on The 700 Club). But it was the details of her escape from WTC Tower One that I was most interested in and she did not fail to deliver. What I read in her account contradicts the official version of what happened on that day, and corroborates the evidence pointed to by conspiracy theorist’s (term not used pejoratively) to prove that not everything we’ve been told to believe about 9/11 is true.

As for the book itself, I found that the placement of Scripture throughout it seemed to be sporadic and random and it became somewhat distracting. Oftentimes the verses cited were completely out of context with the storyline. I also did not find the writing to be as polished as it could have been, as the jumping back and forth between 9/11 and other events in her past didn’t flow well to me and seemed somewhat disjointed. And the overuse of ellipses was very taxing, offering an unprofessional appearance and tone to her writing.

I also wouldn’t recommend this book on the grounds of theological meatiness as it is weak on doctrinal distinctions. I understand that this book is not meant to be a theological tome, but with the profuse employment of Scripture throughout it I would have hoped for a little more solidness in the biblical message she was trying to convey, instead of the man-centered, Hallmark card flavor it carried.

You can read more reviews of the book here where others had similar criticisms about the book.

But in spite of my above cited dissatisfaction, I still highly recommend this book because of the valuable information contained within it as the author details the things she saw, smelled, heard, and felt during her escape from the terror in her tower; things that should cause every American to ask questions without fear of being marginalized with ad hominen attacks pejorative labels like “crazy conspiracy theorists.”

So what is it in Haskin’s book that contradicts the official governmental 9/11 conspiracy theory and instead supports an alternative 9/11 conspiracy theory?

Continue reading →

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248 children found murdered.

I wonder if the murder of these 248 children will get as much attention (including around the clock news coverage) as the Colorado murders. Methinks the answer, sadly, is no.

Why? Because murdering 12 people in a movie theater is a crime, but murdering 248 children in their mothers’ womb is a “choice.”

It’s what happens when the culture of situational ethics and the culture of death collide.

From RT.com:

A fishing trip in Russia’s Urals ended with cries of horror as a man found canisters filled with human embryos, some already shaped to baby bodies.

­Lids on the bright blue containers apparently unlocked as the canisters hit the ground, and many embryos spilled out. The little bodies, no longer than 15 centimeters, shrank, turning into mummies.

“A friend of mine called at night and said he went fishing and wanted to get some wood for his fire. He found some abandoned water canisters and wanted to take them for his house. And when he came up, he saw… little baby bodies,” a local told Russia’s Channel 4.

Arriving Monday morning, police found 248 embryos aged 12-16 weeks in and around the four canisters. Labels attached to tiny hands and legs listed family names of assumed mothers and some digit codes, which may refer to the pregnancy period, date of abortion or the hospital where the body originated from.

The 50-liter canisters filled with formalin seem to have been thrown out of a vehicle not far from a road leading to Nevyansk, a town on the slopes of the Ural Mountains.

Nevyansk authorities immediately said the canisters could not have originated in their town.

“Our area is too small; we can’t have so many stillborns, miscarriages or artificial abortions,” they said.

Later it was revealed that the horrifying content was “biological waste” from at least three hospitals in Ekaterinburg, the region’s major city.

“It appears a waste disposal company has failed to carry out its duties properly,” remark local authorities as the investigation continues. The Ministry of Health has been requested to determine which companies provide embryo disposal services to Ekaterinburg hospitals.

In Russia, embryos are subject to immediate disposal as they are classified high hazard waste. Prior to disposal, they are to be kept in special packages, not in canisters with formalin. It is also out of practice to attach labels with any information, at least in Ekaterinburg hospitals.

But the bodies found near the Urals not only fall out of this description – the labels show they may have been stored for over ten years.

Some medical experts believe the embryos might have been meant for studies or other purposes, as they contain stem cells. The cells are widely used for immune illnesses treatment and in cosmetic procedures.

Prosecutors are talking tentatively of criminal charges, but most probably the guilty party will bear an administrative punishment.

See more here (with news video).

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The Fall of the United States of Rome. (Repost)

Martin Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) offers a sobering warning from the grave:

“If the West goes down and is defeated, it will be for one reason only: internal rot. . . . If we continue to spend our lives in jollification, doing less and less work, demanding more and more money, more and more pleasure and so-called happiness, more and more indulgence of the lusts of the flesh, with a refusal to accept our responsibilities, there is but one inevitable result—complete and abject failure. Why did the Goths and Vandals and other barbarians conquer the ancient Roman Empire? Was it by superior military power? Of course not! Historians know that there is only one answer: the fall of Rome came because of the spirit of indulgence that had invaded the Roman world—the games, the pleasures, the baths. The moral rot that had entered into the heart of the Roman Empire was the cause of Rome’s ‘decline and fall.’ It was not superior power from the outside, but internal rot that was Rome’s ruination. And the really alarming fact today is that we are witnessing a similar declension in this and most other Western countries. This slackness, this indiscipline, the whole outlook and spirit is characteristic of a period of decadence. The pleasure mania, the sports mania, the drink and drug mania have gripped the masses.”