The idea that the Christian message should be kept pliable and ambiguous seems especially attractive to young people who are in tune with the culture and in love with the spirit of the age and can’t stand to have authoritative biblical truth applied with precision as a corrective to worldly lifestyles, unholy minds, and ungodly behavior. And the poison of this perspective is being increasingly injected into the evangelical church body.
– John MacArthur
John MacArthur and Phil Johnson interview in regards to the damning trend found within evangelicalism today. Instead of supporting and endorsing people like Mark Driscoll, we are glad that there are a few who still stand for the truth of God’s Word. There are still a few who do not believe they have to climb into the filth-laden sewer of the world in order to reach the lost for Christ.
Shame on those who claim to be ministers who seek to justify their filthy mouths which comes from a filthy heart and mind. Shame on those who support those ministers who do such things.
Here is a link to the interview between John and Phil.
Your sermon of the week is Separating From Unbelievers by John MacArthur. And yes, in spite of what you see in the lifestyle of the average professing Christian (and even the average pastor), there actually is a biblical mandate for believers to separate from unbelievers.
And for those who will have the typical knee-jerk reaction (who won’t listen to the messages but simply assume what MacArthur is saying), he is not advocating a monastic lifestyle. He simply expounds on the biblical doctrine of separating ourselves from unbelievers including what it is and what it is not.
This is a great refresher about a doctrine that was commonly practiced by the church until recently.
Separating From Unbelievers (Part 1)
Separating From Unbelievers (Part 2)
There are few left who continue to be a voice in the wilderness. It seems that warning the flock and taking a stand against the relentless tide of apostasy, heresy, lukewarmness, easy-believeism, and countless other cancers that are plaguing the Body is often met with resistance by the mass lemmings of lukewarm professing Christians and false converts alike.
So when someone takes a stand against this deluge I would like to honor their effort and support their courageous stance–letting them know that, as the great delusion continues its march through Christendom, they are not alone; there are still a few out there who have not bowed the knee to Baal.
I wish to take a moment to recognize a couple examples of those who still have integrity and strive to live holy lives while the rest of the church is living like God gave us no Law or commands.
One example is Southern Baptist Pastor Channing Kilgore who is urging Lifeway Christian Bookstores to remove the heretical books from their shelves. Of course I seriously doubt his request will be heeded. After all, most Christian bookstores are in it for the money, otherwise they wouldn’t be selling such doctrines of demons as The Shack!
You can read more about Pastor Kilgore’s brave stance in this article from One News Now, and read more about “Christian” bookstores here and here.
HT: Rock Springs
Another example is Dick Bott of the Bott Radio Network. According to the Baptist Press, on May 18, 2009, an interview with Mark Driscoll was . . .
. . . halted in mid-broadcast after Bott Network founder Dick Bott learned Driscoll was the guest. Bott then cancelled another scheduled interview and ordered all Bott stations not to carry any programs featuring Driscoll.
Dick Bott has taken a stand against the potty-mouthed pastor while the rest of the world seems to be falling at Driscoll’s feet, stumbling over one another just to touch the hem of his garment, including Pilgrim Radio who–until until recently–I used to endorse on this very blog.
The Baptist Press article continues:
Bott said he made the decision because of what he saw as Driscoll’s penchant for using vulgarity in his sermons, especially his questionable interpretation of the Song of Solomon in a Nov. 18, 2007, sermon preached in Edinburgh, Scotland, and subsequently in a multi-part series entitled “The Peasant Princess.” “I’ve seen a lot [about Driscoll] that’s on the Internet and that only makes the whole thing worse,” Bott said. “I’ve seen what he said at that church in Scotland and as far as I know he’s never addressed it in any repentant way or apologetically tried to explain why on earth he got so far off the reservation as to think that that’s the way to address people.”
That is all I will quote from the article as they give examples of Driscoll’s sermons which are unfit to print here (much less should be preached from a pulpit).
I would be remiss if I did not mention John MacArthur and Phil Johnson who have also challenged the current lowbrow trend of ‘pornificating’ the pulpit. In MacArthur’s missives found here and here, and Johnson’s sermon found here, they both not only address the problem of smut-peddling pastors, but they both address Driscoll specifically. Thank you to John MacArthur, Phil Johnson and Dick Bott for taking a stand against the onslaught of perversity that has cloaked itself under the guise of “Christianity.”
A woman who focuses on worshiping God will consider carefully how she is dressed, because her heart will dictate her wardrobe and appearance.
– John MacArthur
As a part-two to last week’s sermon, this week John MacArthur follows-up with the Four Marks of a Hell-Bound Man.
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.
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
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
Your sermon of the week is Exposing the Idolatry of Mary Worship: Catholic Dogma by John MacArthur. This is a great examination of the unholy worship of a false goddess advanced by the Romish religious system. You can download both parts below.
Exposing the Idolatry of Mary Worship (Part One)
Exposing the Idolatry of Mary Worship (Part Two)
If you want more information, I recommend listening to anohter of John MacArthur’s sermons on Roman Catholicism found on this post. I also suggest checking out the post It’s All About Mary where I answer the fifteen most commonly heard justifications for the veneration (worship) or Mary.
For stronger reasons than simple modesty, certain acts involving fornication, autoeroticism, and other things people commonly “do in secret” are shameful to talk about in any public context (Ephesians 5:12), much less a church service. They may be suitable subjects for a private counseling session, or the doctor’s office, or a college biology lecture, but they are not fitting topics for a worship service where God should be glorified, Christ should be uplifted, women should be shown respect, children’s innocence should be guarded, and single people’s prurient curiosities should not unnecessarily be enflamed.
When a speaker deliberately arouses lusts that cannot possibly be righteously fulfilled in unmarried college students, or when his personal illustrations fail to guard the privacy and honor of his own wife, that is far worse than merely inappropriate. When done repeatedly and with the demeanor of an immature bad-boy, such a practice reflects a major character defect that is spiritually disqualifying. Any man who makes such things the main trademark of his style is quite simply not above reproach.
– John MacArthur
John MacArthur completely obliterates the erroneous doctrine of infant baptism in this week’s sermon of the week: A Scriptural Critique of Infant Baptism. This can be considered a follow-up to Coram Deo’s original posting (the transcript of this sermon) found here.
If you are curious about the doctrine of infant baptism: why it’s practiced in so many churches (even in Reformed Churches), and why many others don’t practice it at all, then you must listen to this sermon.
The reason behind postmodernism’s contempt for propositional truth is not difficult to understand. A proposition is an idea framed as a logical statement that affirms or denies something, and it is expressed in such a way that it must be either true or false. There is no third option between true and false. (This is the “excluded middle” in logic.) The whole point of a proposition is to boil a truth-statement down to such a pristine clarity that it must either be affirmed or denied. In other words, propositions are the simplest expressions of truth value used to express the substance of what we believe. Postmodernism, frankly, cannot endure that kind of stark clarity.
– John MacArthur
Jude’s command “to contend earnestly for the faith” is not merely being neglected in the contemporary church; it is often greeted with outright scorn. These days anyone who calls for biblical discernment or speaks out plainly against a popular perversion of sound doctrine is as likely as the false teachers themselves to incur the disapproval of other Christians. That may even be an understatement. Saboteurs and truth vandals often seem to have an easier time doing their work than the conscientious believer who sincerely tries to exercise biblical discernment.
– John MacArthur
The heretical head of TBN, Paul Crouch, believes that John MacArthur is one of the finest preachers around, a “precious man of God,” and is “going to Heaven with all of us.” But check out what Crouch says is the only thing John MacArthur is missing:
God’s grace cannot be faithfully preached to unbelievers until the law is preached, and man’s corrupt nature is exposed. It is impossible for a person to fully realize his need for God’s grace until he sees how terribly he has failed the standards of God’s law.
– John MacArthur
Christ Alone Wyoming 